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Meditation Instructions, by H. H. The Dalai Lama
FIRST, LOOK TO your
posture: arrange the legs in the most comfortable position; set the
backbone as straight as an arrow. Place your hands in the position of
meditative equipoise, four finger widths below the navel, with the left
hand on the bottom, right hand on top, and your thumbs touching to form
a triangle. This placement of the hands has connection with the place
inside the body where inner heat is generated. Bending the neck down
slightly, allow the mouth and teeth to be as usual, with the top of the
tongue touching the roof of the mouth near the top teeth. Let the eyes
gaze downwards loosely—it is not necessary that they be directed to the
end of the nose; they can be pointed toward the floor in front of you
if this seems more natural. Do not open the eyes too wide nor
forcefully close them; leave them open a little. Sometimes they will
close of their own accord; that is all right. Even if your eyes are
open, when your mental consciousness becomes steady on its object,
these appearances to the eye consciousness will not disturb you.
For those of you who wear eyeglasses, have you noticed that when you
take off your glasses, because of the unclarity there is less danger
from the generation of excitement and more danger of laxity? Do you
find that there is a difference between facing and not facing the wall?
When you face the wall, you may find that there is less danger of
excitement or scattering. These kinds of things can be determined
through your own experience. . . .
TRY TO LEAVE YOUR mind vividly in a natural state, without thinking of
what happened in the past or of what you are planning for the future,
without generating any conceptuality. Where does it seem that your
consciousness is? Is it with the eyes or where is it? Most likely you
have a sense that it is associated with the eyes since we derive most
of our awareness of the world through vision. This is due to having
relied too much on our sense consciousness. However, the existence of a
separate mental consciousness can be ascertained; for example, when
attention is diverted by sound, that which appears to the eye
consciousness is not noticed. This indicates that a separate mental
consciousness is paying more attention to sound heard by the ear
consciousness than to the perceptions of the eye consciousness.
With persistent practice, consciousness may eventually be perceived or
felt as an entity of mere luminosity and knowing, to which anything is
capable of appearing and which, when appropriate conditions arise, can
be generated in the image of whatsoever object. As long as the mind
does not encounter the external circumstance of conceptuality, it will
abide empty without anything appearing in it, like clear water. Its
very entity is that of mere experience. Let the mind flow of its own
accord without conceptual overlay. Let the mind rest in its natural
state, and observe it. In the beginning, when you are not used to this
practice, it is quite difficult, but in time the mind appears like
clear water. Then, stay with this unfabricated mind without allowing
conceptions to be generated. In realizing this nature of the mind, we
have for the first time located the object of observation of this
internal type of meditation.
The best time for practicing this form of meditation is in the morning,
in a quiet place, when the mind is very clear and alert. It helps not
to have eaten too much the night before nor to sleep too much; this
makes the mind lighter and sharper the next morning. Gradually the mind
will become more and more stable; mindfulness and memory will become
clearer. (From Tricycle
magazine: Introduction
to Buddhism)
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