The instructions for each of the stages of the path are divided into these two parts. The meditation session is the time we spend in formal meditation on Lamrim and the meditation break is all the rest of our time spent engaging in various activities. The instructions provide guidance for all times so that we can be putting them into practice every moment of our lives. Since most of our time is spent out of meditation it is important to put effort into training our mind while we are involved in work and other activities, just as we put effort into training our mind during our meditation sessions. If we practise continuously, transforming all that we do into the spiritual path, our meditations will become more successful and our whole life will become meaningful.
how to train the mind during the meditation session
All Lamrim meditations have three stages:
1 Preparing for meditation
2 The actual meditation
3 Concluding the meditation
The following sections will explain how to prepare for a meditation session, how to do an actual meditation and how to conclude the meditation session. This explanation will be given by taking as our example the actual meditation on relying upon a Spiritual Guide, the first Lamrim meditation. Since the first stage, preparing for meditation, and the third stage, concluding the meditation, are the same for all Lamrim meditation sessions, the explanation of these will be given only once. For subsequent meditations only the second stage, the actual meditation, will be explained.
preparing for meditation
The success of our meditation depends upon our making six preparations. Just as we need to prepare carefully for an examination or a dinner party if it is to be a success, so we need to prepare carefully for meditation if we are to experience good results. The six preparatory practices are:
1 Cleaning the meditation room and setting up a shrine with representations of Buddha’s body, speech and mind.
2 Arranging suitable offerings.
3 Sitting in the correct meditation posture, going for refuge, and generating and enhancing bodhichitta.
4 Visualizing the Field for Accumulating Merit.
5 Accumulating merit and purifying negativity by offering the practice of the seven limbs and the mandala.
6 Requesting the Field for Accumulating Merit in general and the Lamrim lineage Gurus in particular to bestow their blessings.
cleaning the meditation room and setting up a shrine with representations of buddha’s body, speech and mind
cleaning the meditation room
Usually when we clean our room or our house we do it to make ourself feel more cheerful and energetic, or we make a special effort to clean it because we are expecting important guests. However, when we clean our room before doing meditation we should do it with a motivation that brings the greatest merit. We clean our room in order to invite all the holy beings so that we can accumulate merit and purify negative karma by offering them the practice of the seven limbs and the mandala. It is far more appropriate and worthwhile to put effort into cleaning our room when enlightened beings are to be our guests!
Five good results come from cleaning our meditation room with this motivation:
(1) Our mind becomes clearer
(2) The minds of others who enter our room become clearer
(3) The Deities are delighted to enter our room
(4) We create the cause to be reborn with a beautiful form
(5) We create the cause to be reborn in a pure environment such as a Pure Land
While we are cleaning we should regard all the dust and dirt as the filth of our own non-virtuous actions and delusions, thinking ‘This is the dirt of my ignorance – I am removing it. These are the stains of my destructive deeds – I am eliminating them.’ If we have an especially strong emotional problem, such as strong desirous attachment, we can concentrate on it and clean vigorously, thinking ‘This is the grime of my attachment. I am extracting it from my mind.’
There was once a monk called Lam Chung who lived at the time of Buddha Shakyamuni. Before he became a monk he had already gained the reputation of being dull and unteachable. He was sent to school but soon expelled because the teachers said he was unable to remember any of his lessons. Later his parents sent him to a Brahmin to learn the Vedic scriptures. Again he was unable to remember or understand anything he was taught and was once again expelled.
Thinking that a monastic situation might be more to his liking, his parents sent Lam Chung to his elder brother, Arya Lam Chen, who ordained him as a monk. Lam Chen took responsibility for his younger brother’s education and began by teaching him one verse of Dharma. Lam Chung studied this verse for three months but never mastered it! If he memorized it in the morning he would forget it by the evening, and if he memorized it at night he would forget it by the following morning. He tried studying out of doors, hoping this would be helpful for his mind, but with no success. He recited the verse so often while he was in the hills that even the shepherds minding their flocks came to memorize and understand it, but poor Lam Chung still could not master it. The shepherds themselves tried teaching him, but still Lam Chung was unable to learn it. As a result of his repeated failure even his older brother Lam Chen was compelled to dismiss him.
Lam Chung felt utterly depressed and cried as he walked slowly along the road. He thought to himself ‘Now I am neither a monk nor a lay person. How miserable I am!’ Through the power of his clairvoyance Buddha saw all that had taken place with Lam Chung and went to meet him. He asked him why he was crying and Lam Chung replied ‘I am so stupid I cannot memorize even one verse of scripture. Now even my own brother has given up on me.’
Buddha told him not to worry. As a method to purify his mind of past negativities he taught Lam Chung just a few words of Dharma and appointed him as the sweeper at the temple. Lam Chung was very happy with his new position. He swept the temple with great dedication, reciting as he did so the few words that Buddha had taught him.
He swept and swept for a long time, but through the power of Buddha, whenever Lam Chung swept the right side of the temple more dust would appear on the left side, and whenever he swept the left side of the temple more dust would appear on the right side. Nevertheless he continued to sweep, and purify, just as Buddha had instructed. The situation remained like this for a long time until, all of a sudden, Lam Chung was struck by the realization that the dust he was constantly sweeping lacked true, independent existence. This was a profound realization and through it he gained a direct understanding of emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality. By meditating on this emptiness continuously he was soon able to attain complete liberation from suffering. He had become a glorious Foe Destroyer.
Buddha saw that the purification techniques he had given Lam Chung had been profoundly successful and decided to proclaim Lam Chung’s new qualities publicly. He directed his disciple Ananda to inform a certain community of nuns that from then on their new Spiritual Guide was to be Lam Chung. The nuns were very upset and felt, ‘How can we accept as our Abbot a monk who is so stupid that he could not even remember one verse of the teachings over months and months?’ They decided that if they exposed Lam Chung’s inadequacies in public they would not have to accept him as their Teacher. So they spread the word in a nearby town that a monk who was as wise as Buddha himself would be coming soon to give teachings, and that all those who attended would certainly attain great realizations. To increase his expected humiliation the nuns even erected a large, ostentatious throne without any steps leading up to its elevated seat.
When the day of the scheduled teachings arrived, Lam Chung made his way to the nuns’ community where over one hundred thousand people had gathered, some to listen and others to see him humiliated. When he saw the large throne without steps he realized that it had been constructed in this way to make him look foolish. Without hesitation he stretched out his hand so that it seemed like an enormous elephant’s trunk and with it he reduced the throne until it was just a small speck. Then he