Practice deeply with little fanfare

From: Pointing Out Instructions 9
Full transcript
Audioclip

In his commentary on Seven Points of Mind Training, Kongtrul said: Practice deeply with little fanfare. This is a very, very old tradition.

Some of you may have heard the story about Shantideva who was regarded by his fellow monks as a complete wastrel who ate, slept and shat. And did nothing else. Little did they know that he was practicing very deeply all the time. Only when they tried to make of fun him by asking him to deliver an annual lecture that they learned as they listened to him recite the Bodhicaryavatara which was his own composition, “Oh, he’s not who we thought he was.”

So there’s no need to make any kind of display or tell anybody. I mean the very worst kind of thing—and this is a dharma center disease—“I’m going to be so compassionate, I’m going to give you the opportunity of being patient first.”

How the meaning of a meditation instruction is revealed

From: Pointing Out Instructions 3
Full transcript
Audioclip

Ken: A lot of instruction in Buddhism is expressed in mythic language. I'll give you one example. It happens to be a mahamudra instruction--I thought I'd keep it on topic.  

Body like a mountain, Breath like the wind, Mind like the sky.

Now, I think this is quite a good example. If I say body like a mountain, what do most of you think of immediately?

Student: Rigid. 

Ken: Yeah. Okay, now what's it's like meditating like that?

Student: Tiring.

Ken: Does it work? No. So, is this what it means?

Student: No. 

Ken: No. So, what does it mean? Nick? 

Nick: You become very stable. 

Ken: How do you become very stable? Can you just say "I'm going to be stable."? Does that work? 

Nick: To relax your body. 

Ken: What does that have to do with a mountain? 

Nick: Mountains don't make any effort to sit there like that. 

Ken: Exactly. Say it again loudly. 

Nick: Sorry. I said mountains don't make any effort to sit like that.

Ken: Yeah. So this phrase body like a mountain means to sit without any effort whatsoever. And you come at this by actually just taking it in and letting it speak to you, not trying to analyse it and figure out exactly what it means, etc., etc. Okay.  

This is the language of poetry. And it's similar things with Breath like the wind, Mind like the sky. So, in what we work with in these days that we're here together let the instructions sit in you. Let them reveal their meaning. You'll know when they've revealed their meaning by what happens in your practice.

The princess and the pea

Princess and pea (from POI01: Pointing Out Instructions (retreat) 00:24:05.08 - 00:26:23.04)

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Now how many of you know the story of The Princess and the Pea? Okay. Anybody not familiar with that story? Well, it's a fairy tale, I can't remember all the details but the prince is looking for a princess to marry and he's told by a wise old woman that the only way to find out who a proper princess is, is to put a pea under a hundred mattresses. And so he invites one woman over after another and they sleep on this bed. Eventually one woman says, "I couldn't sleep at all last night. Just black and blue. That was the lumpiest bed I've ever had." So, this is the true princess because she can feel a pea under a hundred mattresses.

Now there are additional elements to that story but the main point here is that when you actually rest then you feel all the stuff that prevents you from resting more deeply. And it just brings you right into connection with it.

This is often not comfortable. You're like the princess, you get black and blue. But mahamudra practice and the direct awareness practice, in general, consists primarily of learning how to rest deeply at first with, and eventually in one's internal material. And this is found also in the Theravadan tradition in the four foundations of mindfulness and particularly in the Full Awareness of Breathing Sutra, in which the breath is used as a way of coming to that deep resting.