Geshe la's teaching on Sunday was unique in several ways because the philosophy he covered was designed to strengthen and clarify the meditation that he led. (More on that later.) The most important thing to remember as the teachings become more detailed and advanced, and as we occasionally lose the forest for the trees, is that every teaching, every philosophical point, every rebuttal is designed to dislodge two ideas that we hold on to very tightly: 1) the idea of a permanent, unitary self; 2) and the idea of permanent, eternally existing phenomena. In short, the teachings are meant to dislodge our notion of permanence and eternalism. Nothing more, nothing less. And as these notions begin to lose ground on the intellectual front, as we begin to see the logical problems with them, the meditation is designed to help us embody intuitively these new ideas of impermance, and ultimately, emptiness. At that point, we begin to live the ideas intuitively that we had once only believed. A progression, then, from the head, so to speak, to the heart, so to speak. And that particular progression, from head to heart, from philosophy to meditation, is very much the backbone of the Gelugpa tradition, and that is what Geshe la introduced us to on Sunday.
Geshe la reminded us again that of the five aggregates, the first one, or form, is the only one that doesn't survive our dying, and that the other four (emotion, perception, mental formations, and consciousness) are knit together tightly, both negatively and positively, and provide the karmic imprint
for our continual rebirth. Reminding us of this prepared us for the meditation that he led, a meditation in which we visualized our enemies, our friends, and our selves, and then tracked our responses to each of them: anger, love, neutrality, compassion, hatred, annoyance. Each of these, as we watched and interrogated them, we saw as attached to a permanent and inviolable sense of self--a self whose permanence naturally gives rise to anger (it that self is insulted), love (if that self is comforted or praised), neutrality (if that self is unthreatened), compassion (if that self is altruistic), hatred (if that self is abused), and annoyance (if that self is irritated). But most importantly, we saw that these emotions arise from a self that we have learned is impermanent and ultimately non-existent because this self is nothing more than the conglomeration of aggregates that register and transmit these emotions. The aggregates are so accomplished at what they do, they so effortlessly record our feelings about what happens to us and around us, and they do so with such authority, that we are seduced into believing that a single entity, an unchanging self, serves as a kind of central headquarters for all of these mental negotiations.
As we begin to learn that our emotions are generated from a volatile and unstable source--as we learn that the self does not ultimately exist--our negative emotions lose their authority, and we can begin to transform them, while our positive emotions and feelings can be expanded and developed. Impermanence then becomes not only our ally, but the essential ingredient that makes personal transformation possible. If hatred existed permanently and issued forth from an unchanging and solid self, then neither hatred nor its source within the self could be transformed in any way. Impermanence, therefore, is our greatest ally in the Buddhist project of self-transformation. It is the single factor that permits growth and development.
Speaking of transformation, Geshe la mentioned the word "habituation." It is an important word in Buddhism because it implicily recognizes that ignorance, the single force that propels us through numerous rebirths, is essentially an unbroken series of misconceptions about ourselves and the world. Because these misperceptions are habitual in nature, and not essential to our being, these perceptual habits can be gradually transformed, substituting valid perceptions for invalid ones. The kind of meditation that Geshe la led us through on Sunday is designed step-by-step to accomplish that transformation.
If we perform the meditation that Geshe la led us through and note the kinds of emotions that arose as we envisioned the range of people that he mentioned, we will see that many of those emotions fall into the category that Geshe la called The Eight Worldly Concerns:
1. Getting what you want, and avoiding getting what you do not want.
2. Wanting immediate happiness, and not wanting unhappiness.
3. Wanting respect or fame, and not wanting to be disrespected or unknown.
4. Wanting praise, and not wanting blame.
Anger. love, admiration, jealousy--most of these emotions that arise during the meditation fall into one of these eight categories, and as our meditations deepen so too will our understanding of just how far-reaching these eight concerns actually are, and just how impermanent they are as well. It takes practice--study accompanied by the appropriate meditations--to make progress toward this goal, and as the Dalai Lama himself reminds us, it's often a difficult path to walk: "Spiritual practice is difficult in the beginning. You wonder how on earth you can ever do it. But as you get used to it, the practice gradually becomes easier. Do not be too stubborn or push yourself too hard. If you practice in accord with your individual capacity, little by little you will find more pleasure and joy in it. As you gain inner strength, your positive actions will gain in profundity and scope."
Geshe la closed by reminding us that "wisdom is very important," and by wisdom he means not only the ideas that we carry around in our heads, the ones that he teaches us, but more importantly, wisdom refers to the way in which these ideas transforms our perceptions and thereby modify our behavior. To this end, our daily practice is built around being "mindful, alert, and cautious" because we are observing, regulating, and ultimately transforming these perceptual habits, and habits require attention and renovation.
Finally--the teaching was important because it was the first one he has given that demonstrated the way in which the philosophy that he teaches was demonstrated by the meditation that he led. That, in a sense, is the heart of the Gelugpa practice, philosophy and meditation, and their vital interaction, and now that we have been shown how it works, it is up to each of us to develop it for ourselves.
If you are interested in a wonderful how-to manual on these specific sorts of meditation, have a look at Geoffrey Hopkins's little book, Cultivating Compassion, which is listed on the main page under "What We're Reading . . . ." You can order it there by clicking on the book. It's a series of meditations very much like the one that Geshe la led us through, and if practiced gradually over a period of time, these meditations will affect real transformation. I recommend it whole-heartedly.
Sidney Burris, Tibetan Cultural Institute of Arkansas
