Before we dive into how shamatha (calming the mind) and vipassana (inquiring into the true nature of phenomena) complement one another, I would like to begin with a short teaching by the Buddha from the Anguttara Nikaya:

Two things will lead you to supreme understanding. What are these two? Tranquility and insight. If you develop tranquility, what benefit can you expect? Your mind will develop. And the benefit of a developed mind is that you are no longer bound to your impulses. If you develop insight, what benefit will it bring? You will find wisdom. And the point of developing wisdom is that it brings you freedom from the blindness of ignorance. A mind held bound by unconsidered impulse and ignorance can never develop true understanding. But by way of tranquillity and insight, the mind will find liberation. 

This practice is so rich because there can sometimes be a hierarchy in the practice, in which we think certain practices are baby practices and others are more advanced. In reality, we just need different practices at different times in our lives depending on the conditions that arise. Calmness and tranquility are a springboard out of which it is easier for wisdom to naturally emerge. For beginners in the practice, it is beneficial to begin by calming the mind, by harmonizing and unifying the body and the mind. This grounding of oneself serves as a foundation out of which everything else can emerge and develop. Out of tranquility, wisdom develops, and out of wisdom, a transformative understanding that brings about inner freedom emerges too. 

For experienced and seasoned practitioners, it can be helpful to encourage a deeper kind of calm. If you are inclined towards more traditional wisdom practices, it can help tremendously to back up at times and refocus on bringing in deeper calm. One can move in leaps and bounds in wisdom if there is a greater capacity for calm. When facing difficulty or challenges in life, find refuge in the calm. It is essential to remember that it is there to be found.

It’s also important to realize when one is not taking refuge in calm, but one is trying to escape into calm because it feels good and because of the meditative pleasure that arises when the mind is calmer. This is critical to take note of because practice is not an escape. The only way we can “escape” is via real wisdom. The only way to uproot the torments of the heart—greed, hatred, and delusion—is by facing ourselves, facing conditions, and facing life as it is.

When we notice ourselves using practice as an escape, this is when we need to summon up a kind of courage and dare ourselves to move toward the arena of wisdom. The only way wisdom can arise is by being with what is from moment to moment, whatever it is, undaunted by dukkha. I know that’s a big thing to say—undaunted by dukkha, by the fragility, difficulties, and unsatisfactoryness of conditions. Luckily, we don’t have to do it all at once. Step-by-step, we walk this path, with what is available to us—with our allies of lovingkindness and compassion, with the strength that calm offers. With shamatha, with calm, our hearts are strengthened. And then with this strength of heart, we can more easily bear the difficult and see things as they are, which is vipassana. 

Shamatha is translated as calmness or tranquility. Vipassana means to see into conditions as they are, not as they appear to be, how we would prefer them to be, or as we want them to be. Seeing things as they are means to see into the instability, the impermanence of all conditioned phenomena. Seeing things as they are means to see into the non-solidity, the substanceless nature, the not-self nature, of all conditions.

Seeing things as they are means seeing into the reality that all conditions—no matter how seemingly terrific or wonderful, and many conditions are wonderful, which is to be seen as well—are limited. We see into conditions as a bridge into the unconditioned, the deathless, our own buddhanature, and the buddhanature of every being in this world, despite how things appear to be. This is vipassana. 

The direction of this noble path is from impulse to aliveness and spontaneity. It is from ignorance to wisdom. The direction of this path is out of confusion and into clear-seeing, out of agitation and into tranquility. From tranquility to wisdom, and from wisdom into liberation of heart, inner liberation. So, as the Buddha says, tranquility (shamatha) and insight (vipassana) lead to inner liberation. Other translations include calmness and wisdom, peacefulness and transformative understanding, silence and illumination. 

Now, with calmness as our foundation, as the mental chatter begins to calm itself and cease, wisdom has a greater chance of emerging, of thriving, of growing. But I do want to make the point that the opposite is true as well. It is important to be aware whether our minds tend towards curiosity and interest rather than towards calmness and tranquility. For some of us to move towards wisdom, we can see that wisdom brings tranquility. The two play back and forth, they work with one another, they’re interwoven. When we see something more clearly as it is, a greater tranquility comes in. Greater peacefulness is possible in our lives, but we will need both shamatha and vipassana to access it. 

We need enough peace to look into our agitation. We need to develop enough of a sense of inner happiness to be able to look into our unhappiness. We need enough steadiness to bear looking into the fragility of all conditioned phenomena. Because in being curious and openhearted, we do want to encounter the pleasant as well as the unpleasant, the difficult as well as the easy, the terrors as well as the enormous beauties possible in this life and this path that we are on. We want to open our hearts to it all. Slowly, slowly, step-by-step. 

⧫

Excerpted from Narayan Helen Liebenson’s Dharma Talk, “The Principles and Practices of Shamatha Vipassana.”

The post Why We Need Both Shamatha and Vipassana appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

A thought arises and we grab hold of it. We generate another thought in response to that one, perhaps embellishing our thought in pursuit of something we desire, or perhaps changing the subject in an effort to push away an unwanted experience. 

And on and on and on it goes, one thought tumbling after another, all spurred on by “needs” of our afflictive emotions. We want to attract this thing we’re thinking of, and push away that other thing. All those internal conversations you have going on, oh, once in a while. The endless problem-solving, as you try to figure out how you can get that promotion, push that difficult person out of your way, make someone like you back, etc., etc., etc.—that’s not letting well enough alone. That’s not tranquil abiding, [how I translate shamatha meditation]. We sign up for samsara every moment, involved with the movie, jumping in and starring in it, trying to produce, direct, rescript, and recast it as it flows by. We could stop at any frame, but we don’t even notice that there are separate frames, or even that it’s a movie. 

Let’s look at this chain reaction in slow motion. You’re sitting there, meditating, breathing, and gazing peacefully. The thought of your manager at work pops up. Yesterday she told you she didn’t like your clever idea. You see her face in your mind’s eye. You hear her dismissive tone.  Now is the moment you could simply be aware of that thought and let it pass. But in a less-than-mindful moment, with frustration (the little brother of anger and aversion) in your heart, you jump to the next link in the chain reaction. You think of what you’d say back to her, trying different sentences and imagining how she might respond. Then you decide maybe it would be better to go over her head and talk to her manager or to get your fellow workers to join you in putting your idea forward. The more you spin these scenarios, the more agitated, and less peaceful, you feel. 

You see how this plays out: now you’ve got a whole movie going on, and you’re the star. And there is nothing tranquil or abiding about this production. 

And maybe, at some point in your revved-up agitation, you remember: “Oh, yeah, I was meditating.” 

The drama started not with the image and words of your manager, actually, but with your following after that thought. And in that moment you went from peace to samsara. This is how we sign up for samsara every minute, every day. 

We commonly say, “You made me mad.” Well, my lama, Gochen Tulku Sangak Rinpoche, was sent to prison by the Chinese at age 13 for being a religious leader. He probably felt like saying that to the guards when he first got to prison. But then he learned that, whatever the guards did or whatever situation he was in, his own reaction was quite another thing. This uncoupling of outer goings on from our reactions to them is key to our finding peace. If we’re dependent on everything being just right in our outer world, it’s going to be a long wait (and by long, I mean infinite), so we’ll never find happiness. Gaining the ability to respond as we wish is the only way I can imagine that we can be happy all the time. It’s also the way to true freedom. 

If we don’t have a personal stake in (or any ego about) what happens when faces or words pop up, then they very quickly vanish, without any drama. In Vajrayana we sometimes speak of a thief coming to an empty house. There’s no point in staying. So if we become a dispassionate observer—not numbed out but simply without indulging in that “personal stake”—these thoughts, appearances, even feelings can come and go in an endless flow, and we haven’t lost our seat. Under these circumstances, gradually the flow of thoughts will naturally slow down.

We can experience the true nature of our minds, see to the depths, only once the waters have been stilled.

Even in the early stages of shamatha practice, I could experience a bit of stillness in the pause between breaths. I found I would lengthen that pause a little, to savor that lovely stillness. You might try that yourself, without pushing or making a big effort out of it. Just a little pause.

In the gap between two thoughts,
Thought-free wakefulness manifests unceasingly.
—Milarepa

♦

Excerpted from Wisdom & Compassion: Starting with Yourself, part two of Lama Tsomo’s Ancient Wisdom for Our Times series. Both this new release, which came out September 13, 2021, and part one, Why Bother?, revisit Lama Tsomo’s first book, Why Is the Dalai Lama Always Smiling?, by turning the text into smaller workbooks that are easier for meditation practitioners to incorporate into their daily teaching and personal practices.

The post Samsara by the Nanosecond  appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Join Lama Aria Drolma, a Tibetan Buddhist nun, to learn—or revisit—four meditation practices that form the building blocks of practice for many Buddhist traditions. Lama Drolma will provide ways to nourish our focus and non-reactivity, mindfulness of bodily sensations, and lovingkindness and compassion.

Lama Aria Drolma led a live meditation session, dharma talk, and Q&A session on Tuesday, September 8. View the recording here.

Lama Aria Drolma has been studying and practicing in the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism for over a decade and completed a traditional three-year retreat at Palpung Thubten Choling monastery in Dutchess County, New York, where she has trained extensively in the Dharma Path Program of Mindfulness and Contemplation.

The post Building a Strong Foundation: Four Guided Meditations appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

When I started focusing on mindfulness, I realized that it was something I had already been practicing acutely for most of my life. 

Mindfulness has been so much a part of how I have survived as a Black queer man in this world. It is being aware of how people notice me in space, how I can become a suspect by walking into a store—and how I have no choice but to be mindful of the cashiers or plainclothes security. 

The practice, for me, continues to be one of surviving under precarious conditions, where my body becomes a canvas on which other people project a false, and often harmful, reality. To be present to this process is to resist this kind of violence.

Though I have no formal training in mindfulness practices taken directly from the sutras, I have been working with the Satipatthana (Four Foundations of Mindfulness) sutta in my personal practice. It has been a foundational text for me as I continue to understand meditation and what Michel Foucault called “technologies of the self”—the various means through which we can affect personal, mental, and physical changes and produce more happiness, contentment, and wisdom. 

Mindfulness must first emerge from my body as it is in the world, open and sensitive to the many ways it is interpreted by others. Sometimes it shows up in ways that are traumatizing and wounding, and sometimes in ways that celebrate my body.

Now, practicing each day, mindfulness has become a way of being in my body as it breathes, hurts, and rejoices. When I am with other bodies—sharing spaces, communing together, or making love together—mindfulness allows me to show up, fully.

As an authorized lama in the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism, I am trained in Mahamudra (Great Seal), a system of meditation and philosophy that is concerned with revealing the true nature of mind and phenomena. Mahamudra emphasizes shamatha (translated as calm abiding, peaceful abiding, or tranquility) and vipassana (insight) meditation. 

Shamatha is learning to allow the mind to be as thoughts, emotions, and perceptions flow in and out, while insight is the practice of discerning what the mind is by exploring and analyzing phenomena of mind. The initial stages of calm abiding is essentially mindfulness training. This practice provides the stability and concentration needed for insight meditation.

Shamatha is a doorway into noticing and learning to be in relationship to our bodies. We focus on the breath, using the physical sensation to anchor our attention. When I practice shamatha, I begin by simply noticing that I have a body. This is an important first step before I move on to noticing the sensations of my body. For anyone who manages any level of body trauma, acknowledging the body may be as close as they can get to noticing physical sensations. However, just knowing you have a body is still an important practice.  

How to Practice Shamatha Meditation

The purpose of shamatha meditation is to stabilize the mind by cultivating a steady awareness of the object of meditation. Shamatha is traditionally practiced using different kinds of supports or anchors, but eventually the practitioner lets go of those supports and begins meditating on emptiness itself with an open awareness. Here, the instructions will focus on the breath. 

Shamatha meditation allows us to experience our mind as it is. We learn to see that our mind is full of thoughts, some conducive to our happiness and further realization, and others not. It is important to understand that having so much happening in the mind is not extraordinary but natural. 

Over time, shamatha helps us calmly abide with our thoughts and emotions as they are. We experience tranquility of mind and our unhelpful thoughts decrease.

When we experience stable awareness, we are then ready to practice vipassana, in which we develop insight into what “mind” is. In the Vajrayana tradition of Buddhism, the goal is to practice calm abiding and insight in union and, ultimately, realize the true nature of mind.

The Seven-Point Posture

Shamatha instructions begins by looking at the physical body. The seven-point posture of Vairocana [the cosmic buddha] is an ancient set of posture points that are said to align the physical body with our energetic body. The posture has been practiced for thousands of years by Hindu and Buddhist yogis. The seven points are:

1. Sit cross-legged.
2. Hands in lap or on knees.
3. Have a straight back.
4. Widen the shoulders to open the heart center.
5. Lower the chin.
6. Open mouth slightly with the tongue resting on the roof of the mouth.
7. Eyes open, gazing about four finger widths past the tip of nose.

A Body-Sensitive Posture

We all have different bodies and capabilities. It is important to adjust this demanding traditional posture to meet the needs of our own bodies, and not struggle to adapt our bodies to the posture. What is most important in terms of body posture is keeping the back and spine as straight as possible and remaining comfortable. So the seven points of a more body-sensitive posture could be:

1. Sit on a cushion or a chair, stand, or lie down.
2. Arrange your hands in any way that is comfortable.
3. Hold your back as straight as possible.
4. Keep your shoulders relaxed and chest open.
5. Hold your head at whatever level is comfortable.
6. Keep your lower jaw slightly open.
7. Keep the eyes closed or open.

The Breath

There are many kinds of breath meditations. Some have been written down, while others have only been transmitted orally from teacher to student. The following is a basic breath meditation from the Vajrayana tradition:

After adjusting the body into a comfortable position, start becoming aware of your breath. Notice the inhalation and exhalation.

As you focus on the breath, let go of any thoughts that arise. Each time you are distracted by or start clinging to a thought, return to the breath. Continue doing this over and over again.

Eventually, as you exhale, start to become aware of your breath escaping and dissolving into space. Experience the same thing with the inhalation.

Slowing down, begin to allow your awareness to mix into open space with the breath on both the inhale and exhale.

To deepen the practice, inhale and hold the breath for a few seconds before exhaling. By doing this, you are splitting the breath into three parts: inhalation, holding, and exhalation. Keep doing this.

As you inhale, begin to chant om to yourself. As you hold, chant ah. As you exhale, chant hung. Chanting these sacred syllables helps to further support awareness and is believed to purify our minds.

As you continue with exhalation, relax more. Continue awareness practice, letting go of thoughts and returning to the breath, for as long as you can.

The post The Shamatha of Survival appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

It is very important that before meditating, we examine our motivation for engaging in practice. Sometimes we become so focused on the techniques of meditation that we lose the bigger picture—what kind of mental landscape we are creating for ourselves. We can also spend a lot of time worrying about whether or not we are correctly practicing a particular technique. But if we look carefully at the situation, the mental atmosphere we create—in other words, the basic attitude we bring to meditation—is more important than how accurately we perform some method of practice.

To illustrate this, we can look at a story from the biography of the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (1284–1339), who was famous as a great meditation master and had many students reputed to have been accomplished meditators. One day someone approached the Karmapa and asked, “I’ve heard that there is a spiritual instruction that allows you to achieve liberation without practicing meditation. lf such a thing exists, please give it to me.”

Rangjung Dorje replied, “Yes, such an instruction on nonmeditation exists, but if l were to give it to you, l am not sure it would help you, because l am not certain you would be able to understand and realize it. You might practice some contrived meditation rather than the true intent of the instruction. So even if l were to give it to you, l do not think this teaching would help you.” When it comes down to it, meditation techniques are not that important. The main point of meditation is learning how to relax the mind within itself. Learning how to simply let go is the essential point of meditation.

In the practice of shamatha, or calm-abiding meditation, the main instruction is to allow our mind to rest one-pointedly on an object of focus. We concentrate the energy of our mind and direct it in a focused way. An analogy for this is pouring water through a pipe. These days in our modern world, and especially in busy cities, people’s minds are constantly distracted by all the outer objects in the stimulating world of urban life—the constant display of material things and mundane concerns steal away our attention.

To counteract this, the practice of calm-abiding encourages us to draw our mind inward, rather than letting it be pulled outside. We learn to let our thinking mind be settled and at ease in a state of peace. In sum, we do need to bring a certain effort into the practice of one-pointedly focusing our mind, but we do so in a relaxed way. This one-pointed focus, as well as being relaxed, is very important for the practice of meditation in general.

Meditation usually involves an object of focus, which helps our mind become more settled and our attention more directed. The object can be external, like placing a physical object before our eyes and directing our complete attention to it, or the object can be an internal image created by our imagination, to which we direct our focused attention. Working with these different objects are all methods for settling our mind.

The practice of calm-abiding can also happen in relation to our breathing. Used as a focal object, the breath has special advantages. For example, since it is always present with us, we do not have to search for it somewhere else, but just direct our attention toward it. Relating to the breath gives a simple and convenient reference point for meditation.

To meditate in this way, we focus our attention one-pointedly on the breath, involving our minds 100 percent; you could also say that we have full appreciation of our breathing or that we taste our breath completely. We then abide in the continuum of this practice, placing our attention on the breath and trying to be as fully attentive to it as we can without any interruption, appreciating one breath after another. If we cannot focus like this continually, there is no need to worry; we can just relax. It is important to be at ease while focusing on the breath. Some people think that they have to make relaxation happen intentionally, but this is not really what is meant here. Rather, the real meaning of relaxing is not to make an effort, because if we do, then, of course, we are not relaxed.

In the manuals for meditating on Mahamudra (chagya chenpo, the Great Seal) and on Mahasandhi (Dzogchen, the Great Perfection), we read instructions that encourage us to rest our mind directly within the movement of the mind or directly within the thinking mind or directly within the perceiving mind. Instructions such as these are teaching us how to relax in meditation. It can happen that if we are unable to focus in the beginning on the object we have established as our reference point, we worry and wrestle with our mind to get it focused again.

However, the Mahamudra and Mahasandhi traditions instruct that if we cannot focus on our point of reference, we can simply rest our mind in that very state of not being able to focus. If we find that we can focus, then we rest our mind in that very state of being able to focus. What we do not do is worry when we cannot focus initially. There is no need to panic when we discover that our mind has slipped away. If we can be relaxed within our mind, even when different objects appear, we will be able to remain in a state of mindfulness, and our basic awareness and attentiveness will continue uninterrupted.

Another misunderstanding that we might have is treating our mind as if it were a heavy object which we are squarely placing on our breath to anchor it. But this is not a beneficial approach. Some people have told me that when they practice this meditation on the breath, it stops, and since this is very uncomfortable, they have to quit. It seems that they are taking too solid an approach and treating mind as if it were a heavy object that presses down on the breath.

That kind of practice will not help us. Rather, we should experience our mind as something fluid like flowing air that is moving together with the breath. When we are breathing out and air is moving through our nostrils, we simply think, “Ah, the breath is going out,” and we let our mind flow together with the breath. So the quality of our attention should be pliable—not tense but free of fixation and stiffness. We can let the mind be as light as air flowing gently along with the breath. In contrast, some people treat the mind in meditation as if it were a sniper staring through the sight of a gun, tight on the target. This constriction is not what we are looking for in meditation; rather, our minds should be light and fluid.

Furthermore, when we meditate, we breathe naturally as we usually do. There is no need to make a special effort and force our breath into a special pattern—we just breathe normally. Also, many meditate by counting the breaths, numbering the rounds of breathing or how many inhalations or exhalations they have. I think that for the time being, it would be better not to emphasize counting the breath and simply relax while keeping a gentle focus on the breath itself. This is because counting the breath in addition to maintaining a focus can make the practice a bit too complicated and busy. For now, it is better to relax and not count.

To set up periods of meditation, the common instruction states, “Do short sessions many times.” This is a good practice to adopt; however, the situation is not so simple if we really want to practice in a very complete way and accomplish the qualities of calm-abiding as explained in the traditional texts. These qualities cannot be achieved merely through a light or casual relation to meditation. Properly speaking, calm-abiding and its qualities are achieved through months of intensive practice in retreat.

If we do devote ourselves to months of shamatha and really delve into it, we can come to embody the qualities of a mind that abides in a state of peace. Apart from that, just doing a little bit of practice on a daily basis will not take us that far. Of course, it has the benefits of helping to calm our mind and increasing our ability to focus, but it will not bring us all the way to the state of calm-abiding as taught in the traditional texts. Furthermore, these days, even doing retreat is challenging. The texts say we should go to a secluded, remote place, but now cell phone connections reach even isolated areas.

Another key point is to do the meditation correctly from the very beginning of our practice. If we can put our energy into practicing properly from the start, there is a good chance that our meditation will progress well. But if we start out with bad habits, they will set up tendencies that will eventually interfere with our practice, and it will be difficult to remove them at a later time. One of the most challenging things about meditation is that it can be quite boring; it is not exciting in the way that we usually like to be entertained. Actually, our mind is like a child, needing excitement and constant distractions. A child can focus for a short time but then runs off quickly to something else.

We should be aware of this tendency and head it off by setting a clear intention to be patient and persevere through those stages that might be uneventful or boring. Sustaining our meditation in this way allows it to progress. However, if at the start, we fall into bad habits and give into our distractions and cravings, it will be hard to eliminate these negative habits later on, and they will inhibit our practice. Instead of dragging ourselves to the cushion, we could feel excited about our meditation; rather than wanting to be entertained and thrilled by something else, we can develop a full-hearted enthusiasm and delight for the practice.

♦

From Freedom through Meditation by The Seventeenth Gyalwang Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, translated by David Karma Choephel, Tyler Dewar, and Michele Martin (editor), published by KTD Publications 2018.

The post Meditation Beyond the Method appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Ven. Pannavati is leading weekly guided meditations for Meditation Month. Check back every Monday in March for a new video teaching on the blog.

Download the transcript of this retreat. It has been edited for clarity. 

Ven. Pannavati will respond to reader questions posted below.

Guided Meditation Week 2

Guided Meditation Week 3

Guided Meditation Week 4

The post Guided Meditation—Week 1 appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The experience of the sublime exceeds our capacity for representation. The world is excessive: every blade of grass, every ray of sun, every falling leaf is excessive. None of these things can be adequately captured in concepts, images, or words. They overreach us, spilling beyond the boundaries of thought. Their sublimity brings the thinking, calculating mind to a stop, leaving one speechless, overwhelmed with either wonder or terror. Yet for the human animal who delights and revels in her place, who craves security, certainty, and consolation, the sublime is banished and forgotten. As a result, life is rendered opaque and flat. Each day is reduced to the repetition of familiar actions and events, which are blandly comforting, but devoid of an intensity we both yearn for and fear. We crave stimulation, we long for a temporary derangement of the senses, we seek opportunities to lose ourselves in rapture or intoxication. Yet once we have tasted such ecstasies, we often sink back with a sigh of relief into the dullness of routine.

To experience the everyday sublime one needs to dismantle piece by piece the perceptual conditioning that insists on seeing oneself and the world as essentially comfortable, permanent, solid, and mine. It means to embrace suffering and conflict, rather than to shy away from them, to cultivate the radical attention (yonisomanasikara) that contemplates the tragic, changing, empty, and impersonal dimensions of life, rather than succumbing to fantasies of self-glorification or self-loathing. This takes time. It is a lifelong practice.

♦

From “The Everyday Sublime,” by Stephen Batchelor, published in After Mindfulness: New Perspectives on Psychology and Meditation, edited by Manu Bazzano © 2014 Palgrave Macmillan. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Stephen Batchelor is a teacher and writer known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism.

Related: The Atheist Pilgrim: An Interview with Stephen Batchelor

The post The Everyday Sublime appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

One of the best ways to prepare for death is to acknowledge that we really are going to die. We’re falling in the dark and have no idea when we’ll hit the ground. Buddhist scholar Anne Klein says, “Life is a party on death row. Recognizing mortality means we are willing to see what is true. Seeing what is true is grounding. It brings us into the present. . . .” We all know that we’re going to die, but we don’t know it in our guts. If we did, we would practice as if our hair were on fire. One way to swallow the bitter truth of mortality and impermanence—and get it into our guts—is to chew on the four reminders.

The four reminders, or the four thoughts that turn the mind, are an important preparation for death because they turn the mind from constantly looking outward to finally looking within. These reminders, also called the four reversals, were composed by Padmasambhava, the master who brought Buddhism from India to Tibet. They can be viewed as representing the trips Prince Siddhartha took outside his palace that eventually transformed him into the Buddha. During these trips, Siddhartha encountered old age, sickness, and death, and developed the renunciation that turned his mind away from the distractions and deceptions of the outer world and in toward silence and truth.

As a meditation instructor, I often prescribe the four reminders as the best remedy to get students who have stalled on the path back on track. As with mindfulness itself, the four reminders provide another way to work with distraction. They bring the key instruction from The Tibetan Book of the Dead—“do not be distracted”—to a more comprehensive level. The four reminders show us that it’s not just momentary distraction that’s problematic but distraction at the level of an entire life. If we’re not reminded, we can waste our whole life.

The Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche presented them this way:

FIRST Contemplate the preciousness of being so free and well favored. This is difficult to gain and easy to lose. Now I must do something meaningful.

SECOND The whole world and its inhabitants are impermanent. In particular, the life of beings is like a bubble. Death comes without warning; this body will be a corpse. At that time the dharma will be my only help. I must practice it with exertion.

THIRD When death comes, I will be helpless. Because I create karma, I must abandon evil deeds and always devote myself to virtuous actions. Thinking this, every day I will examine myself.

FOURTH The homes, friends, wealth, and comforts of samsara are the constant torment of the three sufferings, just like a feast before the executioner leads you to your death. I must cut desire and attachment, and attain enlightenment through exertion.

How long should we contemplate these reminders? Until our mind turns. Until we give up hope for samsara (the worldly cycle of birth and death), and realize the folly of finding happiness outside.

Most of us spend our lives looking out at the world, chasing after thoughts and things. We’re distracted by all kinds of objects and rarely look into the mind that is the ultimate source of these objects. If we turn our mind and look in the right direction, however, we will find our way to a good life—and a good death. Instead of being carried along with the external constructs of mind, we finally examine the internal blueprints of mind itself.

It’s often said that the preliminaries are more important than the main practice. The significance of these four reminders, as a preliminary practice, cannot be overstated. Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche said that if we could truly take them to heart, 50 percent of the path to enlightenment would be complete. These contemplations develop revulsion to conditioned appearances, point out their utter futility, and cause awareness to prefer itself rather than outwardly appearing objects. They turn the mind away from substitute gratifications and direct it toward authentic gratification—which can only be found within.

The four thoughts remind us of the preciousness of this human life; that we are going to die; that karma follows us everywhere; and that samsara is a waste of time that only perpetuates suffering. Memorize them. They will reframe your life, focus your mind, and advise you in everything you do. As Dr. Samuel Johnson, the author of the first English dictionary, said: “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

What would you do if you had six months to live? What would you cut out of your life? What would you do if you had one month, one week, one day? The Indian master Atisha said, “If you do not contemplate death in the morning, the morning is wasted. If you do not contemplate death in the afternoon, the afternoon is wasted. If you do not contemplate death in the evening, the evening is wasted.” The four reminders remove the waste.

We see others dying all around us but somehow feel entitled to an exemption. In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, the sage Yudhishthira is asked, “Of all things in life, what is the most amazing?” He answers, “That a man, seeing others die all around him, never thinks he will die.” If we acknowledge death and use it an advisor, however, it will prioritize our life, ignite our renunciation, and spur our meditation. The Buddha said: “Of all footprints, that of the elephant is the deepest and most supreme. Of all contemplations, that of impermanence is the deepest and most supreme.”

Bring these supreme reminders into your life and realize that life is like a candle flame in the wind. Visualize friends and family and think, “Uncle Joe is going to die, my sister Sarah is going to die, my friend Bill is going to die, I am going to die.” Put pictures of dead loved ones on your desk or shrine; put sticky notes with the word “death” or “I am going to die” inside drawers or cabinets to remind you; read an obituary every day; go to nursing homes, cemeteries, and funerals. The essence of spiritual practice is remembrance, whether it’s remembering to come back to the present moment or recalling the truth of impermanence. Do whatever it takes to realize that time is running out and you really could die today. You are literally one breath away from death. Breathe out, don’t breathe in, and you’re dead.

One of the marks of an advanced student is that he or she finally realizes that today could be the day. Realizing impermanence is what makes them advance. For most of us, however, as Paul Simon sang, “I’ll continue to continue to pretend / My life will never end. . . .” We essentially spend our lives moving deck chairs around on the Titanic. No matter how we position ourselves—no matter how comfortable we try to get—it’s all going down.

These teachings exhort us not to spend our lives, which most of us do—literally and figuratively. Reinvest. Take the precious opportunity that has been given to you, and do not waste your life. The four thoughts that turn the mind turn it from reckless spending to wise investing. We spend so much effort investing in our future. We invest in IRAs, 401(k)s, pension plans, and retirement portfolios. Spiritual advisors exhort us to invest in our much more important bardo (post-death) retirement plan. That’s our real future.

Don’t worry so much about social security. Finance your karmic security instead. Invest in your future lives now. Investing so much in this life is like checking into a hotel for a few days and redecorating the room: what’s the point? B. Alan Wallace says, “In light of death, our mundane desires are seen for what they are. If our desires for wealth, luxury, good food, praise, reputation, affection, and acceptance by other people, and so forth are worth nothing in the face of death, then that is precisely their ultimate value.”

On a personal note, understanding impermanence has been the greatest gift in my study and practice of the teachings on death. I’m thickheaded, but I finally get it: I am going to die—and it could be today. My life has been completely restructured because I now believe it. The rugged truth of impermanence has simplified my life, shown me what is important, and inspired me to really practice. Sogyal Rinpoche says in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:

Ask yourself these two questions: Do I remember at every moment that I am dying, and that everyone and everything else is, and so treat all beings at all times with compassion? Has my understanding of death and impermanence become so keen and so urgent that I am devoting every second to the pursuit of enlightenment? If you can answer “yes” to both of these, then you really understand impermanence.

These reminders may seem like a morbid preoccupation with death, but that is only because of our extreme aversion to dying. For most of us, death is the final defeat. As Jack LaLanne, the fitness and diet guru, once said, “I can’t afford to die. It would wreck my image.” We live in denial of death, and suffer in direct proportion to this denial when death occurs. The four reminders remind us of the uncompromising truth of reality, and prepare us to face it.

The four reminders, joined with mindfulness meditation, instill a strength of mind that benefits both self and other. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche says,

The strength of shamatha [mindfulness meditation] is that our mind is slow enough and stable enough to bring in the reality, to really see it. Then when someone we know is dying, we aren’t so shaken up. We may be sad, in the sense of feeling compassion, but we have thoroughly incorporated the notion of death to the point that it has profoundly affected our life. That is known as strength of mind.

That stability naturally radiates to stabilize the mind of the dying person, which helps them when everything is being blown away.

Dying people are sometimes jealous of those still alive. “Why do I have to die when everyone else keeps on living? It’s so unfair. Why me?” At that point they need to remember that those left behind are not returning to a party that lasts till infinity. Those left behind are returning to a challenging life that is filled with endless dissatisfaction and suffering. As you are dying, remember that it’s just a matter of time before everyone else joins you, just as you are about to join the billions of others who have already left this life for another one. Those left behind are a minority. No one is going to get out of this alive.

And he who dies with the most toys still dies.

♦

For more on this topic, Andrew Holecek teaches Living and Dying: Navigating the Bardos, an online course on living with joy through spiritual preparation for life transitions, death, and beyond. To learn more and sign up, visit learn.tricycle.org.

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If you wish to cultivate absolute stillness and clarity of mind, right here and now, sit down and imagine yourself on a peaceful shore or by a tranquil lake. If the mind is a snow globe whirling with thoughts, images, memories, and inchoate feelings, then the winds of internal energy and self-seeking—analyzing, evaluating, pushing and pulling, based on likes and dislikes—are what keep it stirred up and the snowstorm in motion, obscuring the inner landscape. Let the snow globe of your heart and mind settle by relaxing, breathing deeply a few times, and releasing all the tension, preoccupations, and concerns you’ve been carrying—at least for the moment. Let the gentle tide of breath carry it all away like the ocean’s waves, like a waterfall washing your heart, mind, and spirit clean, pure, and bright.

Now turn the spotlight, the searchlight, inward. Rest loosely and naturally in the innate state of ease and natural being. Notice the space between thoughts, beneath thoughts—the preconceptual—as everything settles and slows down, and inner clarity and peace emerge from within. Rest at the origin of all things, the dawn of creation, prior to, yet ready for, whatever wishes, wants, and needs spring into being. Suppressing nothing, indulging in nothing, free from being carried away by chains of discursive thinking. Rest in it, become it, be it. Nothing more is needed.

It may take a while for you to reach this inner place of utter calm and quietude, the still center of the turning wheel of your universe, but let me assure you it is right there, right here, now and always.

♦

From Buddha Standard Time: Awakening to the Infinite Possibilities of Now by Lama Surya Das © 2011. Reprinted with permission of HarperOne, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers.

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The difficulty most of us face is that we’re afraid of our humanity. We don’t know how to give our humanity space. We don’t know how to give it love. We don’t know how to offer our appreciation. We seize upon whatever difficult emotions or painful thoughts arise—in large part because we’ve been taught from a very young age that life is a serious business. We’re taught that we have to accomplish so many things and excel at so many things because we have to compete for a limited amount of resources. We develop such high expectations for ourselves and others, and we develop high expectations of life. Such a competitive, goal-oriented approach to life makes us very speedy inside. We become so tight physically, mentally, and emotionally as we rush through each day, each moment, that many of us forget—often quite literally—to breathe.

When we allow space into our meditation practice, however, something quite wonderful begins to happen. That solidity, that seriousness begins to break down. We begin to relax a bit more and experience some of the fluidity we enjoyed as very young children. We begin to dance with our experience: “Haaa … I’m so upset … I’m so good … I’m happy … I’m a human being … I might be upset, but I’m alive … If I were dead, I might not have emotion … but, wow, I’m alive.”

We also gradually cut through the habit of identifying with each emotional wave that passes through our awareness. We can be angry, jealous, or scared without having to act on those emotions or let them take over our lives. We can experience joy or love without becoming attached to the object that we think is the cause of our joy.

All too often, the emotions we experience, along with the thoughts and behaviors that accompany them, become part of our internal and social story lines. Anger, anxiety, jealousy, fear, and other emotions become part of who we believe we are, creating what I would call a “greasy” residue, like the oily stuff left on a plate after eating greasy food. If that residue is left on the plate, eventually everything served on that plate starts to taste alike; bits of food start to accumulate too, stuck to layers and layers of greasy residue. All in all, a very unhealthy situation!

When we allow space into our practice, though, we begin to see the impermanent nature of the thoughts and feelings that arise within our experience—as well as of the conditions, over many of which we have no control. That greasy residue doesn’t build up, because there’s no “plate” for it to cling to. If we can allow some space within our awareness and rest there, we can respect our troubling thoughts and emotions, allow them to come, and let them go. Our lives may be complicated on the outside, but we remain simple, easy, and open on the inside.

♦

From Solid Ground by Sylvia Boorstein, Norman Fischer, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche, © 2011. Reprinted with permission of Parallax Press.

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