What it means to do retreat

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Details on parts of the sadhana: visualization and single-pointed concentration

Within saying that you can stress one part of meditation over another part, there are certain parts of the meditation where it’s really designed for us to stop and do more meditation. One of those parts is right before you do the mantra. Let’s work with the front generation, because most people will be doing that one (page eight). There are different visualizations that you can do that are listed there. You can do one visualization, one session; another visualization, another session. (The visualizations are on page seven, eight and nine.) You can do many visualizations in one session. You can do one in one session, another in another session. You can do one visualization for the entire retreat. Again, this is an area where you can play with it. But before you do the visualization, you do the request (where it says on page seven, “Request visualization or mantra recitation”) You can make the request, then do the second one about breathing, so you feel purified and empty of all the negativities.

Then you might stop and just do some single-pointed concentration on Tara. Tara is your object of single-pointed concentration when you are doing the Tara sadhana. In this sadhana, she is in front of us. So you just have an image of Tara in front of you. All the teachings on how to develop serenity or shamatha that you find in a lamrim, you apply all those same teachings in this practice—using Tara as your object of meditation. When it talks about the five faults and the eight antidotes, you apply all those in developing concentration here. What you do is you just go over all the details of Tara, get a basic general image of her. Focus your mind on that. Whatever you get is good enough. Don’t worry if you don’t see all of her details completely: all of her jewels, and which way is her scarf wrapped around her arm. Don’t worry about it. Just get the general image; stay with that. If there’s one part of her body that is easier for you to focus on, then stay with that. But stay with the same object one session after the other. Don’t keep changing your object of meditation. You can develop your single pointedness on Tara as your object of meditation, and then just apply all those teachings that we have received. Or, if you haven’t received, you can read about it. Or I can also give some instructions on the Bodhisattva Breakfast Corner as we go on about how to do that.

Do the concentration like that in short spurts. They recommend that when you’re trying to develop single pointedness, you do it for about five minutes and then you let your mind rest. Then, you do it another five minutes, and then let your mind rest. You might do some of the concentration for a little bit, and then when your mind is tired, then do the mantra. The mantra is actually something to do when our mind is tired after having done some of the concentration. Don’t push the single pointedness so that your mind is exhausted. Do it for a little bit and then do the mantra.

If you are more attracted to the mantra, because the visualizations in the mantra are very helpful to you, then you don’t have to do as much single pointedness. Do a little bit and go onto the mantra. Do you see what I mean about flexing it, and being adaptable in that way? Sometimes, it seems like doing visualization and the mantra together at the same time is just too difficult (because you can’t do both of them). You’re sitting there squeezing yourself, trying to get both of them. Don’t squeeze yourself. If you need to, just put the mantra in the background and focus on the visualization. If even that is too distracting, then just stop the mantra and do the visualization, or visa versa. If you find that the sound of the mantra and reciting the mantra really is a good object of concentration for you, and you can really anchor your mind on the sound of the mantra, and doing the visualization is distracting for you, then either put the visualization in the background or you can just kind of leave it and focus only on the mantra sound.

Again, this is a kind of flexibility, trying different things, seeing what works for you. Don’t think you have to do everything, all at the same time, the first time you do it, perfectly. Remember, it’s called practice. So we need to practice.

Questions and answers

Maybe you have some questions or doubts still that I haven’t come to?

Audience: It’s more of a comment of how helpful something you’ve just said is about distraction …

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): That’s the thing. If you notice some kind of distraction coming, try and notice it soon. Don’t get stuck in the story. Just drop it and then move on. It’s very helpful to see the words in the practice as an anchor. When your mind is distracted, anchor your attention to what you’re supposed to be doing here. It’s very, very helpful even to have this image about bringing my mind back and then putting it here. It’s not going to 1975 when I was doing this and that, and who I remember from then, and all of that stuff.

Sometimes when you’re meditating memories will come up, things you haven’t thought about in years will come up. You just watch them. Come back to the sadhana. If they take over your mind, try and see what the affliction is that’s making it take over your mind. It’s not just the memory alone that takes over your mind, it’s an affliction. Very often, it’s attachment. You’re remembering something pleasant from the past, and this and that. Identify attachment as attachment. Meditate on impermanence and bring your focus back. Or, maybe some strong anger comes up. You remember something somebody did, or maybe something you did; so then to meditate on fortitude and calm your mind down.

Maybe you remember something really negative that you did, and you have all sorts of regret. Maybe your mind is very confused, like, “Why in the world did I do that? How could I have done it?” And you’re very confused about it. At that point, if the mind just won’t quiet down, then you stop, and you think about it, “Okay, what was my responsibility, what wasn’t my responsibility? What was my motivation? How did that motivation arise? What were the results of my action? How can I counteract whatever affliction was present while I was doing the action that motivated that action? What’s the meditation I do to do that?” One especially nice thing is, if you’re doing Tara practice, and something from the past comes up that you’re confused about or you have a lot of regret and emotion about, or you’re very pained about, or you remember something that was extremely painful, and that image of the situation is so clear (kind of, “Tara, where are you?”), then bring Tara and put her right in the image of that situation. She sits there and emanates green light that purifies absolutely everybody in that situation. With Tara there the whole situation gets transformed. You get purified, the other people were getting purified. If you were harming them, that gets purified. If they were harming you, that gets purified. If you were harming each other, the whole thing gets purified. It’s really very helpful I’ve found. Just bring Tara with you into that memory. Let her be there with her wisdom and compassion, and radiate light that fills you up and fills up everybody else. It’s very helpful if you’re having some kind of strong memory come up that’s disturbing you.

You don’t need to push the memory down. You don’t need to get lost in the story. But you bring your meditation, you bring Tara, into that. You bring Tara’s wisdom and compassion into that. Try and think, “What if I was Tara, when that situation happened? I was an ordinary sentient being. I was upset. I was mean. I was on both the giving end of the harm and receiving end of the harm. But that’s what it was when that situation happened. But now, what would happen if I could be Tara and be in that situation, and that person could say that or do that and it just wouldn’t affect me in the way that it did before? I have a new way. I can be more patient and calm about it. And from my side, I don’t feel like I have to retaliate, or I don’t feel like I have to cling onto the person with the attachment, or I don’t feel guilty for what I did. My mind just feels smooth.” You can also try being Tara in that situation that was very disturbing to you before.

I find this extremely beneficial for working with those memories and things that are so confusing that come up. But you have to work with it for a while. You have to play with things for a while. Remember, everything is not going to change just by doing something one time. We’re reconditioning the way our mind thinks. It’s going to involve repetition.

Some days you’re going to be very concentrated (not even some days, some sessions) and rejoice. Don’t try and recreate it. Some sessions your mind is going to be out to lunch. Don’t get alarmed, just keep going. Remember, we’re creating the causes for happiness. That’s our purpose: to create the causes of happiness. Just sitting in there, working with whatever comes up in our mind, that is practice. That is creating the causes of happiness. The purpose isn’t to have this far out meditation where you come out feeling like you are floating in the sky and Tara spoke to you. If that happens, great, fine, wonderful! But our purpose is to transform our mind and to work with what’s going on in our mind. This is a practice that will help us do that. Don’t judge your meditations as, “That was a good one,” and, “That one was a bad one.” Just create the cause of happiness and keep going. Then your mind starts to transform.

Audience: Is Tara a purification practice and, if so, should I be thinking about four opponent powers?

VTC: Yes, it is. We can use this as a purification practice. We can use it as so many different kinds of practices. If you look at your visualization (on page seven) when you are doing the breathing, that could be purifying. As you’re doing that, you can think of four opponent powers. Or, the next visualization (on page eight) where it says, “Visualize the streams of radiant and blissful green light from the TAM and mantra letters of Tara’s heart flow into you and to sentient beings around you,” that can also be a part of purification. If you find that it’s helpful to you, you can stop beforehand and explicitly do the four opponent powers, or you can do them while you’re doing the Tara mantra. We already have in this practice refuge and bodhicitta. If your mind is full of regret, you have that. You have a determination to not do it again. Then this visualization of the light coming from Tara into you is the actual remedial behavior, the fourth opponent power. You don’t have to stop everything to do the four opponent powers.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Is there anything to be aware of? Afflictions. Be aware of ignorance, anger and attachment. Be aware of the mind getting lazy and kind of drifting off into la-la land, or whatever. In dealing with all these afflictions, we have to be very skillful. You have to be skillful to know how to work with your mind. You can’t beat your mind and say, “Oh, no, I am spacing out. Mind get back here, concentrate!” That is not skillful; it’s not going to work. I had a friend who sometimes talked to her mind [very gently] like she did to her little toddler, “Okay, I know, you’re running all around today. There are so many interesting things to look at. But let’s come back here and sit down. We’re going to look at Tara, do Tara meditation.” You treat your mind with some kind of gentleness and bring it back.

Sometimes you need to be quite sharp with your mind. If your mind is really going into some crazy thing, just go, “Stop! I’ve got to stop it right now! This isn’t getting me anywhere.” This is the whole thing. You’ve got to know how to be a doctor to your own mind: when to be gentle, when to cut it immediately, very sharply. You learn this simply through practice and trying. You have to learn what the right antidotes are for the affliction. If your mind is feeling down and lacking energy, it’s not the time to meditate on death and impermanence. That’s the time to meditate on refuge and precious human life. If your mind is filled with attachment, and zooming around thinking of all the things you want to do after retreat, that’s when you want to meditate on death and impermanence. You have to know what to meditate on and when.

Another thing that’s quite important, read the Tara book. The book is called How to Free Your Mind. Read that one, because it’s going to explain a lot of these different things in the meditation. Also, there are parts in the Chenrezig book, Cultivating a Compassionate Heart, about how to handle distractions and different things. You can use that part in the Tara practice, when it talks about handing distractions. And for the people who are doing self-generation of Tara practice (who have the permission to do that), you can do the six deity self-generation practice (as taught in the Chenrezig sadhana). Just do everything with Tara and her seed syllable and her mantra, but to do that same six deity self-generation.

Audience: What is the object of meditation for shamatha in the self-generation practice?

VTC: It’s yourself as Tara. You’ve dissolved yourself into emptiness. You appear as Tara. You go over those features, and then holding the divine dignity of being Tara. Then yourself as Tara is your meditation object for developing shamatha.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: In front generation, when you meditate on emptiness, that is going to be on page ten. You generate the aspiration in the first paragraph. In the second paragraph, Tara is extremely pleased. She comes on top of your head, melts into you, dissolves into you. At that point you meditate on emptiness. Then, if you think, your body, speech, and mind become inseparable from Mother Tara’s holy body, speech, and mind, and you concentrate on that. What you can do at that point is think, “My body is empty, and my speech is empty, my mind is empty of inherent existence.” You can make that into a meditation on emptiness. Or, you can think, “My body, speech, and mind are Tara’s conventional excellent qualities.” You meditate that your mind has Tara’s realizations, let’s say for compassion, or bodhicitta, or renunciation, something like that. But this is the point where you can meditate on emptiness. When Tara dissolves into you in the sadhana, you’ve got to at that point let go of all kinds of this thing of, “I, this is me, and I am sitting here, and I am this and such kind of person.” But you really have to see, “No, that’s just a mental construct that I’ve created.” And you do the analysis, “Am I my body? Am I my mind? Where’s this ‘I’ that I think is like this?” When you can’t find it, then you stay in non-finding.

Each day before lunch I’ll just give a brief five- to ten-minute explanation and we’ll just go through the sadhana and talk about different things. Also, if you have different questions, and also the people doing the retreat from afar, write your questions down, send them in. I’ll also talk about those in a little talk each day. Those talks will get put on YouTube.