Balancing the Mind: A Tibetan Buddhist Approach to Refining Attention by B. Alan Wallace

Author:B. Alan Wallace
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Snow Lion
Published: 2005-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

Moreover, in the cultivation of mere non-conceptual attention, without focusing on any other basis of meditation such as the form of a deity, resolve, "I shall settle the mind without thinking about any object." Then without letting the attention become scattered, avoid distraction. Non-distraction, too, is identical with mindfulness that does not forget the meditative object, so it consists of nothing more than the cultivation of mindfulness. Therefore, in such meditation, too, mindfulness is cultivated in which the potency of ascertaining consciousness emerges.

COMMENTARY: As Tsongkhapa now begins explaining specific methods for cultivating quiescence, he emphasizes the indispensable role of sustained attention. The approach that he endorses to accomplish such samadhi centers on the vigorous implementation of mindfulness and introspection. The emphasis here is on maintaining strict control over the attention by sustaining it rigorously with mindfulness and monitoring the attention with introspection. In short, in the early stages of this training lapses in the continuity of attention are curbed with the swift intervention of introspection, in accordance with the analogy of punitively jabbing a wild elephant with a sharp hook.

To bring forth powerful mindfulness and the potency of clarity, Tsongkhapa insists that the mind must firmly apprehend, or ascertain, its meditative object. Otherwise, there is the danger that as the attention is stabilized, the mind will become peacefully nebulous and stupefied due to the onset of laxity. However, in his closing comments in the above section, Tsongkhapa does allow for the possibility of developing quiescence through "the cultivation of mere non-conceptual attention, without focusing on any other basis of meditation." This technique, prominent in the meditative traditions of Mahamudra59 and Atiyoga,60 is described concisely by Panchen Lozang Chokyi Gyaltsen6' (1570-1662):

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