Teachings by Mingyur Rinpoche

Everything is interdependently arisen. Everything comes into being by depending on something else. For us as humans to experience goodness or benefit, we have to depend upon others to experience that goodness, benefit or happiness. Without depending on others, it is very difficult for anything good to happen to us.

Since we all live in a human society on one single planet, we have to depend upon each other. The best way to depend upon and communicate with each other is through having loving kindness and compassion. If we have these qualities, we will be able to relate with each other, we will have connections with each other, and we can depend upon each other. But if we don't have any loving kindness and compassion, the entire path of depending upon, communicating with and having connections with each other will become destroyed.

If we have loving kindness and compassion with an attitude that we are contributing to this interdependence of humans, things will come along well for ourselves, things will come along well for others and the whole world will benefit. When that happens we will not need armies or a lot of laws or police.

What is the essence of bodhichitta? The essence of bodhichitta is the heart that thinks, "I alone, personally, will establish all sentient beings in the state of complete enlightenment."

This is quite a great heart, isn't it? Whether we are or are not able to establish sentient beings in enlightenment in that way does not matter. It is first important to think that we are going to do it. By giving rise to this heart we reflect on the essence of sentient beings. If you give this an attractive name, you could call it "buddha nature." But you could also call it "sentient beings nature." It is the same thing. Sentient beings nature is buddha nature. It is free from confusion and impurities from the beginning. Buddha taught this as being primordially free from all suffering and endowed with all happiness. Isn't it true that we all want happiness and want to be free from suffering?

And, according to the Buddha, this desire that we have is itself a sign that our true nature is free from suffering and completely endowed with undefiled happiness, undefiled bliss. The Buddha taught that this desire that is present in all beings is a sign of what our true nature is. What we are doing when we have that desire to be happy and free from suffering is trying to rise to meet our true nature, to be one with our true nature.

Here we are relaxing in our body and mind while being aware that that is what we are doing. By being aware that we are relaxing when we are relaxing, we come to gain control over our mind. So that's easy, right? It is very easy. You do not need to do anything. You do not need to meditate. You do not need to create anything. You do not need to work hard. Therefore it is easier than sleeping! When we want to sleep, we need to make our bed and make sure there's a nice pillow and then finally we lay down and relax.

When we relax in this way what is our mind like? Our mind is relaxed and comfortable but still we cannot identify it; we can't point at our mind and say "this is my relaxed mind" or "this is my comfortable mind." This meditation technique that has just been described is called shamatha or calm abiding meditation without object.

Beginners probably would not experience that type of meditation for more than two, three or five seconds, but that's fine. We should practice in short segments many times. If we set out a very large container and put it in a place where it could catch drops of water, these single drops of water will cause the whole container to become full. In the same way, if we practice in short segments many times, our meditation will improve. We shouldn't think thoughts like "I need to sit for a long time," "I need to stop my thoughts," because thoughts will happen and we cannot stop them. We can't shoot our thoughts, we can't burn our thoughts, and even if we set off a bomb, that will not stop our thoughts. That is the nature of mind. We do not need to stop our thoughts. What do we need? We need mindfulness. The main point about shamatha meditation is mindfulness, or, in other words, awareness.

If you understand this meditation-without-object technique, you will attain Buddhahood very quickly. Maybe in two or three days [laughter]. It is a very profound meditation but there is nothing special about it.

Our biggest obstacle in meditation is the movement of thoughts - thoughts of desire, aggression, ignorance, jealousy and so on. There are all kinds of movement in our minds - we usually think of these thoughts as getting in the way of our meditation and harming or destroying our meditation.

But if we understand the key points of meditation, then those very thoughts actually will be support for our meditation and will not harm our meditation at all. It is the same as how forms become support for our meditation.

As we look at our thoughts in this way, even a hundred thousand thoughts, that means you have a hundred thousand supports for meditation. That is very good. The thoughts themselves become a support for holding our mind.

When it says rest in the Alaya then it means to just rest one's mind naturally without doing anything. How do we rest the mind? Like a person who has finished all of their work and they just rest. For example someone who works in a hotel who has finished all of their duties for the day so they can now relax. They are quite physically tired so first they take a bath in water that's not too hot or cold, just right. After their bath they go to the bedroom and just let out a sigh and relax. That's how we should relax. As if we have just completed a lot of hard work. Just let go and relax. We don't have to block the thoughts; in fact you can't block the thoughts. We can't shoot them with a gun. We can't blow them up with an atom bomb. We just rest naturally.

Together with this natural resting comes mindfulness or awareness. This mindfulness naturally arises. To say it in brief, we are not distracted. Not distracted, but not meditating. We are not meditating. We are just being relaxed, but we are not distracted.

Why are we not distracted? We are not meditating on something that we get distracted from and have to have mindfulness to return to. The mind itself recognises itself. Is it like this for you? You see wood; this table does not think does it? It doesn't understand anything. A stone doesn't understand anything. But it's not like this, mind naturally recognises itself. So when it says "Alaya" it means the natural awareness of the mind. Let us all for a minute or two rest and relax. Keep a straight back. (Short meditation)

Ok, so in the beginning it's good to have small periods of time repeated often. We can't sit like this for long before we are distracted. Just a few seconds at a time, repeated often. Then gradually over time it will become better and better.