The Six Perfections by Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Author:Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisdom Publications

CONCENTRATION ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH

Many traditions have a practice of concentration; it is not just a Buddhist teaching. For instance, the Hindu religion places great emphasis on samadhi meditations, and there are many practitioners who are able to gain the realization of samadhi through them. However, just having control of the mind — being able to focus on an object without sluggishness or distraction — is not the penetrative insight or vipashyana that realizes the true nature of things.

Concentration is not specifically a practice of a higher capable being. Even with the middle capable being, the three higher trainings needed to free ourselves from samsara are morality, concentration, and wisdom. In the lamrim texts such as Lamrim Chenmo, however, the six perfections, including concentration,86 come after bodhichitta. The perfection of concentration becomes the cause for enlightenment when we practice calm abiding using emptiness as the object and bodhichitta as the basis. It can never become the cause of suffering.

With just the three higher trainings we could enter the Hinayana path, the path of individual liberation, and achieve freedom from samsara for ourselves, without focusing our efforts on the well-being of all others. When that happens, our mind sort of dissolves, like becoming intoxicated, and it remains concentrated on that sphere of peace and happiness for an incredibly long period, for many eons.

Arhats who have attained this everlasting happiness of self-liberation do not have the same degree of compassion for all sentient beings that bodhisattvas do. They do not have the sense of responsibility to help all sentient beings be free from suffering, to take the entire responsibility on themselves. Instead, they stay in that incredibly blissful state for millions of eons, unable to benefit other beings, until a buddha finally awakens them by giving them special signs and calling them to follow the Mahayana path in order to attain full enlightenment. The main aim of Mahayana is not to attain enlightenment but to free all other beings from all suffering, which is why we need to be enlightened and to develop all the skills that are needed for that. That is why we need shamatha and an understanding of emptiness, and why concentration comes after bodhichitta in the lamrim texts.

To attain calm abiding, we need many other factors such as perseverance, the fourth perfection. The mind of calm abiding does not come from its own side; we need to do a lot of hard work to get there. Without renouncing attachment to this life, without bearing the hardships needed to develop on the path to enlightenment, how can we hope to attain perfect concentration? To put a lot of effort into developing concentration for a little while, stop, and then try again some time later will not work. Only through perseverance can we hope to attain our goal.

We also need morality. Until we have perfect morality there will be disturbances that will block perfect concentration. In his Middle Length Lamrim,87 Lama Tsongkhapa used the analogy of studying a beautiful drawing on a wall using a butter lamp.

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