shamatha¶
picture someone eating a sandwich in the mountains, they hear a rockslide and quickly look up, observe boulders falling, they take a few steps and avoid the boulders and continue enjoying sandwich as if it never happened, that is shamatha
like most meditation you are not creating shamatha, you simply recognize it, it is a natural state of a mind that is liberated from laxity and excitation
after you achieve all 9 stages your mind can stay permanently calm despite your circumstances
russian doll analogy¶
Alan Wallace uses this analogy, if your mind were nested like Russian dolls you liberate the inner doll
- awarenss of the body is the outer doll
- awareness of space of the mind is next
- pristine awareness is the inner most doll
- free from the 8 extremes of conceptual elaborations
9 stages¶
isolation from the body¶
focusing on the sensations of the respiration throughout the entire body
on the sensations of the rise and fall of the abdomen with each in-breath and out breath
on the sensations of the breath at the nostrils
observe closesly but in a way separated detatched vs identified with the body
analogous to the Vajrayana practice known as "isolation from the body."
isolation from speech¶
Düdjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence
taking the impure mind as the path
settling the mind in its natural state
observing the movements of thoughts rather than identifying with them
analogous to the Vajrayana practice of isolation from the speech."
awareness of awareness¶
Natural Liberation: Padmasambhava's Teachings the Six Bardos
- gaze into the space in front of you
- concentrate your consciousness in the space in front of you
- relax
- What is that consciousness that is concentrating?
- in all your activities, rely upon unwavering mindfulness
- repeat alternating