Tantric Techniques (37 page)

concentration with repetition and the first two phases of the concentration without repetition) under the rubric of developing calm abiding and thereby points to an important process being accomplished during these phases, the impact is by no means limited to achieving calm abiding. Practitioners’ world-views are being challenged in such a way that internal potential for a new way of life is revealed, and groundwork is laid for greater comprehension of the ramifications of emptiness—the refutation of objects’ existing from their own side. The suggestion is that meditation on emptiness through reasonings such as the sevenfold reasoning is not sufficient; it is necessary to coax out its significance by disturbing basic patterns of perception. These techniques assist in the process of overcoming the sense that phenomena exist under their own pow-er and thereby shake up autonomous complexes, including even the appearance of self-subsisting phenomena such as one’s own body.

When the meditative stabilization of exalted speech is complete, practitioners proceed, still within the concentration without repetition, to cultivate the even more subtle meditative stabilization of exalted mind, called the concentration bestowing liberation at the end of sound. Prior to this point, namely, during the four-branched repetition and the concentrations of abiding in fire and in sound, the main style of meditation was stabilizing meditation, since a principal aim of those phases was to generate a mind of calm abiding—a one-pointed highly alert and joyous mind spontaneously remaining on its object. During that phase, analytical meditation employing analytical reasoning would have been counterproductive, since it would have interfered with developing one-pointedness of mind. However, now that calm abiding has been achieved, stabilizing meditation can be alternated with analytical meditation in such a way that the power of stability is brought to one’s analysis.
a

The object now is the emptiness of inherent existence. Even though realization of emptiness was cultivated earlier during the

a
Earlier there was alternation with a different type of analytical meditation, which at that time was to pay attention to details and so forth, in order to remove laxity.

154
Tantric Techniques

first step of self-generation, the ultimate deity, and even though it was involved in all subsequent steps in that the mind realizing emptiness was used (at least in pretend) as the basis of emanation of the various divine appearances, emptiness was not the
central
object of meditation. Now, during cultivation of the meditative stabilization of exalted mind, that is, the concentration bestowing liberation at the end of sound, it is the main focus. The aim is to develop a mind that is a union of calm abiding and special insight realizing emptiness.

Earlier, analysis would have caused the mind to become unstable, and now even though calm abiding has been achieved, too much analysis still tends to promote excitement and reduce the mind’s factor of stability, and thus analysis must be alternated with nonanalysis, setting the mind on its object—the emptiness of inherent existence—without analyzing. Again, when performing stabilization, too much stabilization will harm the factor of analysis, causing one not to want to analyze, and thus, when sufficiently stable, one alternates back to analytical meditation.

At this and preceding levels, stabilizing and analytical styles of meditation work against each other, the one undermining the oth-er. Calm abiding and analysis are like two ends of a scale, the one lowering in force when the other becomes higher. However, this incompatibility is viewed not as being due to the nature of stability and of analysis themselves but as being due to distortions in one’s own mind. The aim in alternating the two styles of meditation is to bring them to the point where they are in such great harmony that the one, far from harming the other, increases the other; analysis induces even more stability which, in turn, induces greater analytical ability, eventually without any need for alternation. In time, analysis itself induces levels of physical and mental pliancy even greater than those experienced during calm abiding. As the Dalai Lama says:
a

Gradually, the power of analysis itself is able to induce physical and mental pliancy similar to those explained earlier with respect to calm abiding, but to a greater de-gree. The generation of the bliss of physical and mental pliancy, induced through the power of analysis, marks the attainment of fully qualified special insight, and from this

a
The Dalai Lama at Harvard,
160.

Concentration Without Repetition
155

point on, one has a union of calm abiding and special insight. One now has powerful weapons for realizing the coarser and subtler levels of emptiness in order to overcome obstructions.

Special insight is defined as a wisdom of thorough discrimination of phenomena conjoined with special pliancy induced by the power of analysis.
a
Etymologically, special insight (
lhag mthong, vipa
ś
yan
ā
) is so called because it is sight (
mthong, pa
ś
ya
) that exceeds (
lhag, vi
) that of calm abiding in that analysis induces a clarity surpassing the clarity experienced during calm abiding.
b

The purpose of the concentration bestowing liberation at the end of sound is to generate such special insight realizing emptiness, which is subsequently brought to the level of direct perception so that obstructions preventing liberation from cyclic existence and preventing omniscience can be overcome. About the concentration bestowing liberation at the end of sound, the
Concentration Continuation Tantra
says:
c

A Conqueror knows the abandonment of [four] branches [or states]

Of the lords [that is, deities] of knowledge-mantra—

1. Dependent appearance with the limbs [of a deity], (2) the one called “sound” [whispered repetition],
   

(3) The mental one [mental repetition], and (4) what are pure of words [the concentrations of abiding in fire and in sound].

A “Conqueror,” a Buddha, “knows” the stage of liberation when emptiness is meditated after the gradual “abandonment of the branches”—that is to say, after gradually leaving four states of meditation, called “branches” (not to be confused with the four branches of repetition or any of the other meanings of “branches”). These are four states “of the lords of knowledge-mantra,” that is to say, of the deities of knowledge-mantra and of secret mantra who are being meditated. The four states of deities that are left or forsaken in the sense that they no longer are the focus of attention are:

a
Jam-yang-shay-pa’s
Great Exposition of the Concentrations and Formless Absorptions,

81b.3.

b
Ibid., 83b.7.

c
Stanza 24; P430, vol. 9, 53.4.4; cited in
Deity Yoga,
161.

156
Tantric Techniques

1. “appearance with the limbs” of a deity—that is to say, in a complete divine body—that appears “dependent” upon a style of meditation involving serially reviewing the various aspects of the divine body and adjusting color, shape, and so forth (this being called concentration) and a style of meditation in which one fixes on just one particular aspect of the divine body or just the general body (called meditative stabilization) and which involves binding the breath and stopping distraction
   

2. “sound,” which here specifically refers to whispered repetition of mantra
   

3. “the mental one,” that is, mental repetition of mantra
   

4. “what are pure of words,” these being the concentrations of abiding in fire and in sound in which, even though they involve concentration on mantra, the mind itself appears as the mantra as if recited by someone else or reverberating of its own accord, and thus the concentrations of abiding in fire and in sound are “pure of words,” or free from repetition in the aspect of one’s own words.
   

These four states are left in the sense that each of the steps is cultivated in meditation until it becomes firm, at which point the next, more subtle level is begun. Leaving or abandoning states, therefore, does not mean that these factors cease to appear; rather, the
focus
of attention shifts to a more subtle level. Due to having thoroughly trained in the lower levels to the point where their facets appear stably to the mind, it is possible to add something else to the meditation without the former factors disappearing.

What becomes the focus of attention here is the “end” or final nature of “sound,” its emptiness of inherent existence. “Sound” here refers to all four states listed above, since all four involve sound in important respects:

1. The first state, appearance in a divine body, is the place, or ba-sis of mantra sound since the practitioner who is appearing as a deity is the repeater of mantra.
   

2. The second state is itself “sound” or whispered repetition.
   

3. The third state, “the mental one,” is mental repetition of the sounds of mantra.
   

4. The fourth state, “what are pure of words,” these being the concentrations of abiding in fire and in sound which involve the appearance of the sounds of mantra, as if recited by