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The purpose of this meditation is to generate to overwhelming wish to attain Buddhahood so that we can fulfil our heart’s desire to free all living beings from their suffering, and then to meditate on this wish in light of equalising self and others.
I began with focusing on the breath and counting breaths up to 18. I imagined my attention being pinned underneath the numbers as they lowered before me, and then slowly receding into the distance until instead of numbers I could just see a tiny spot of light dropping into the centre of my ‘visual field’. Then this spot of light faded into emptiness and I was left with a good strong focus on spacelike emptiness, with no distractions.
After a while of enjoying this focused feeling, I moved on to my main meditation: the wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all.
I reviewed the Great Scope meditations. I have equanimity towards all other living beings, and great affection for them bearing in mind how kind they have been in the past and how kind they continue to be. I thought about how self-cherishing is like a wound in my mind, and how if I stop scratching it, it will heal naturally, and my mental continuum will become healthy. I can do this by cherishing others completely.
When I cherish others, I want them to be happy – their freedom and happiness are all-important to me. But what do I find when I look at their situation? They are suffering constantly, and they cannot find true happiness no matter how they try. I have imagined the ability to take away their suffering and felt how wonderful that is. I have imagined the ability to give pure happiness, and I have experienced how wonderful that is in meditation. Now I want to be able to actually do these things.
How do I do this? By relying upon my Spiritual Guide completely, and by practising the Six Perfections of Giving, Moral Discipline, Patience, Effort, Mental Stabilisation and Wisdom. An image came to mind of a climbing wall. The handholds had six different colours, one for each of the Six Perfections. The handholds were those plastic ones that stick out of artificial climbing walls. The handholds went up the sheer face of the wall, but they were all within easy reach of each other, and the colours repeated themselves all the way up. This indicated to me that I need all the Perfections to reach the top – there is no route possible to the top without using all the colours. I imagined climbing up to enlightenment using these handholds. I also had a safety rope around me, and at the top of the wall was my kind Spiritual Guide, pulling on the rope, making the climb easier for me and stopping me falling back down.
This image seemed perfect and I used it to review the various aspects of Bodhichitta until I had a lovely feeling of progress, wholesomeness and purpose. I focused on this feeling and I developed a very special feeling of Bodhichitta – the wish to become a Buddha for the benefit of all.
After a while I moved on to thinking about what this means in light of equalising self and others.
My dearest wish is to become a Buddha, but the reason I want to achieve this state is that I will be able to help all living beings attain the same state. It is the ultimate conclusion of the Great Scope journey and incorporates equalising self and others as an essential step. With this in mind, I returned to my feeling of climbing the wall to enlightenment using the handholds of the six perfections, with my Guru helping me and protecting me all the way. What a feeling!
Dedication
May all living beings see the truth of samsara, and develop the supreme wish to become enlightened beings for the benefit of all.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will build the six perfections into everything I do today. For example, by doing this blog I am giving love and dharma to the world, I am practising moral discipline because this blog is a virtuous activity, I am practising patience because I am not impatient for results or praise, I am practising joyful effort in writing this blog, I am practising concentration by focusing on my meditation and how to express how it felt, and I am practising wisdom because as I write this, I remember that, at the end of the day, I myself and this blog and all other appearances completely lack inherent existence.
I will try to carry out all my other activities today with the six perfections in mind.
The purpose of this mediation is to develop the belief that we can give pure happiness to others, and then to meditate on this giving in light of equalising self and others.
I began with breathing meditation, counting the breaths up to 18 and then starting again, and after a while my jumpy mind calmed down and focused. I actually came up with something new. I imagined the numbers (1,2 etc.) floating down in front of me and then being squashed flat by the next number, so the number 1 appeared first, and then the number two descended onto it and gently flattened it. Then the number 3 came down and squashed the 2. The thing that worked for me was that I imagined my mind was caught between the numbers 1 and 2, and could not move away from the number counting. It seemed to work quite well and I’ll keep using it to see if it continues to work. It seemed to prevent my mind wandering rather well.
I then moved on to the actual meditation. In my GP class this week I was teaching about giving, and how wonderful it is to have the feeling that you could literally give everything away – without a hint of miserliness – if the circumstances were right. I imagined everything I am and everything I call ‘mine’ manifesting in my heart as golden light. My body transformed into the nature of a wish fulfilling jewel and the golden light radiated out towards all other living beings. I imagined the light touching them and allowing them to experience complete inner peace.
I tried to picture their faces, and imagined a beautiful woman’s face – what kind of smile would she have it she were experiencing true inner peace? I imagined a broad joyful laughing smile, but this didn’t seem right – it was too excited. I toned it down to a more fitting grin, but this was still too animated: the feeling of true inner peace would elicit a tranquil relaxed expression with a subtle smile playing on the lips. Of course! It is the face of Buddha! Someone experiencing inner peace would have an expression like that of the most beautiful Buddha statue. I imagined this beautiful woman’s face with a completely relaxed expression, and the faintest of contented smiles. And as I imagined this smile, I felt that same feeling. I imagined this feeling was shared by all living beings – that I had given pure inner peace to all living beings. I stayed with that joyful tranquil feeling for a while, and then moved on.
The next stage was to see what this feeling meant in light of equalising self and others.
To equalise myself and others means to equalise my love for myself and my love for others. As I was thinking about giving love to others, it seemed very natural that this is an example of equalising. I imagined my own inner peace and through the golden light emanating from my heart, I imagined all other living beings experiencing inner peace too. I rested my mind on this inner peace and joy for the rest of the meditation.
Dedication
May all living beings develop true inner peace, and attain the actual power to give this inner peace to others.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will try to remember how beautiful it is to feel like (if the circumstances were right) that I could give away anything I call ‘mine’, and look for ways to practice the four givings of giving material help, fearlessness, dharma and love to everyone I meet.
The purpose of this meditation is to generate the strong wish for others to find true happiness, and then to meditate on this wish in light of equalising self and others.
I began the meditation by bringing my attention into my breath, and focusing on the slow ‘in’ and ‘out’ of my breathing. After a while I felt light and peaceful, and I moved on to my main meditation.
I began by thinking about all my friends and how they cannot find true happiness. They try and try to find happiness in normal things, but whenever they attain their goal, it leaves them feeling hollow. The things they see as the causes of happiness are really causes of pain: samsara’s pleasures are deceptive, give no contentment, only torment. Engaging in samsaric pleasures is like licking honey off a razor blade.
I settled my mind on this thought of my friends feeling pain just beneath the surface of the pleasure. I stayed with this image for a while and in time I naturally developed a wish that they could find true happiness rather than the false happiness of samsara. I wished with all my heart that they could find happiness, and I focused on that feeling of wishing them happiness. I remained on this feeling for a while.
I then moved on to think about what this means in terms of equalising self and others.
It seemed clear to me that wishing others to find true happiness is the same as my own inherent wish for myself to find true happiness too. By practising wishing love, I am equalising myself and others because I want them to be as happy as I want to be. With this feeling of equality in my mind, I returned to my wish that everyone could find true happiness.
Dedication
May all living beings develop wishing love, and in so doing find the path that leads to perfect enlightenment for the benefit of all.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will try to maintain my wish that everyone find true happiness, rather than the changing suffering of samsara.
The purpose of this meditation is to generate the feeling that everyone has had their suffering removed from them and we ourselves are freed from the cause of our own suffering. We then meditate on this feeling in the light of equalising self and others.
I began with some breathing meditation followed by moving on to the main topic.
I reminded myself of the compassionate wish I developed to free all living beings from their suffering. I then imagined that all the suffering of all living beings (including that of my mother) rose out of them like black smoke. As the smoke came away from them, they felt the removal of their suffering and felt happiness. As the smoke came towards me it gathered and condensed into my heart and destroyed my self-cherishing, which is the cause of all my suffering. As my self-cherishing vanished I too felt happiness and joy, and I meditated on this feeling for a while.
I then thought about what this means in light of equalising self and others. I thought that taking is a very equal feeling too – myself and all living beings are equal in being free from our suffering. I returned to my feeling of happiness and joy that we are all free from suffering.
Dedication
May all living beings be free from self-cherishing and in this way become complete Buddhas for the benefit of all.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will try to imagine taking the suffering of others onto myself, and take whatever practical steps I can to remove the suffering of others.
The purpose of this meditation is to develop compassion for others, and then to meditate on this compassion in light of equalising self and others.
I began by dissolving my Guru into my mind and staying with this feeling of stability and tranquillity for a while.
I then thought about how I cherish all other living beings, but when I think about how they live, I see that they are plagued with the same sufferings as I have, only generally much worse. I felt that I naturally wanted them to be free from their sufferings and I started to wish them to be free. I kept thinking how I wanted my mother to be free from her sufferings and by extension all living beings. I stayed with this feeling of wanting others to be free for the rest of the meditation.
I then thought about what this means in light of equalising self and others.
If I had equalised self and others, I would find the sufferings of others as difficult to bear as my own sufferings. Just as I want to be free from suffering, I would equally want others to be free from their suffering. And every time I experienced a problem or a physical pain, I would instantly recognise that others are feeling the same thing, and I would wish them to be free in the same way as I want to be free myself.
I thought about how wonderful it would be to equalise myself and others to such an extent that I would spontaneously want them to be free from their suffering. I felt a strong wish for them to be free, and stayed with this wish for the rest of the meditation.
Dedication
May all living beings develop the sincere wish for others to be free from their suffering, and with this Great Compassion be born a Buddha for the benefit of all.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will try to recognise my own suffering and my own wish to be free, and then remember the sufferings of others, and then wish for them to be free too.
The purpose of this meditation is to develop the wish to completely abandon self-cherishing and to only cherish others, and then to meditate on this wish in light of equalising self and others.
I began as usual with some breathing meditation and kept my jumpy mind in one place until it started behaving itself and I started to feel a very light and tranquil feeling.
I then moved on to the main meditation. I recalled my feeling of equanimity towards all living beings, and the fact that all living beings have been my kind mother in the past. I felt a deep affection for all living beings, and then I thought about the disadvantages of self-cherishing. It is like a running sore in my mind that I keep scratching and opening up again so it can never heal. I thought about how cherishing others will divert my attention away from this sore, and give it time to heal completely.
I focused on this idea that by keeping my attention on others, my self-cherishing will diminish and finally fade into the past. I developed the sincere wish for this to happen and I focused on it for the rest of this stage of the meditation.
I then thought about what this means in light of equalising self and others.
Equalising self and others is the half way stage to completing the achievement of exchanging self and others. I thought about how this stage informs and ‘fits into’ exchanging self and others and then returned to my focus on the wish to abandon self-cherishing and cherishing only others.
Dedication
May all living beings exchange self with others – may happiness and world peace spread throughout the world, and may everyone quickly attain attain pure inner peace for the benefit of all.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will cherish others and try to do everything for their sake.
The purpose of this meditation is to meditate on the advantages of cherishing others, and then to meditate on this in light of equalising self and others.
I began with some breathing meditation until my mind was nicely settled.
I then started thinking about how true happiness comes from cherishing others. It is not an obvious thing to think, but it is true. I remember when I was in school and our English teacher asked what is the difference between happiness and pleasure. I told him that I thought happiness is when you give something and pleasure is when you get something. He agreed and explained that pleasure was more of a passing thing whereas happiness is a more profound, deep seated emotion.
I thought about how all the happiness in the world comes from wishing others to be happy. I need to trust the Buddhas when they tell me this. Everything I believe instinctively tells me that happiness lies in looking after myself, but I know from my own experience that the few times I put others before myself I am at my happiest. I need to trust the Buddhas completely.
I focused on the need for me to trust Geshe-la and make the leap of faith that I now need to cherish only others. I felt like my cherishing was reaching out to others – cherishing only others.
After focusing on this for a while I moved on to think about what this means in light of equalising self and others.
It seemed to me that increasing my cherishing for others was part of equalising my cherishing of self and others – they fitted on inside the other. Once again I focused on the leap of faith I need to make – to overcome my self cherishing instincts and to cherish others.
Dedication
May all living beings make the leap of faith of cherishing others, and come to enjoy the perfect happiness of true inner peace.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will try to cherish only others, and make a special note of how it feels to hold others to be important, and to care deeply about their happiness and freedom.
The purpose of this meditation is to generate a strong wish to free our mind of self-cherishing by contemplating it’s disadvantages, and then to meditate on this in light of equalising self and others.
I began with a very long session of just breathing and letting my mind settle. I let my attention move from gross to subtle signs of breathing, and then to a space like emptiness centred in my heart. After a while of really enjoying this lovely sense of peace and tranquillity, I moved on to the main meditation.
I began by thinking about how my self-cherishing mind contaminates all my thoughts and actions. An image came to mind of a very bad sore, slowly dribbling out puss. This disgusting image seemed to sum it up pretty well. My mind is wounded by this sore of self-cherishing. The sore causes pain and, because it is tender, wants to protect itself from harm. This is like our self-cherishing mind which cares so deeply about itself that it cannot bear criticism or any kind of disadvantage.
I wished I could heal my mind – heal up this painful sore, and leave my mind healthy and strong again. I wished for this to happen, so that my mind could be healed and free from the pain self-cherishing causes myself and others. I let my attention focus on this thought and I stayed with it for a while.
I then thought about what this means in the light of equalising self and others. This practice involves equalising our love for ourself with our love for others. In light of this, contemplating the disadvantages of self-cherishing will make it easier to equalise myself and others, because I will reduce my self-cherishing and create space for cherishing others. With this in mind I returned to my wish to free my wounded mind of self-cherishing completely.
Dedication
May all living beings recognise the faults of self-cherishing and by resolving to heal their mental continuum, quickly attain enlightenment for the benefit of all.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will try to see the self-cherishing in my mind, and recognise the harm it is causing for me any those around me. In this way I will try to increase my wish to free myself from its hold.
Well who would have thought!
My little blog is one year old today! Inspired by Kadampa Life, the gentle Buddhist blog written by Luna Kadampa, I established Daily Lamrim and began posting on the 23rd May 2011.
Not only have I posted about my daily meditations every single day for a year (which I understand is known as a 365 project – who knew?!), I have also presented a number of special posts. These have covered topics such as The Benefits of a Daily Lamrim Practice, Advice for those thinking about starting a Daily Lamrim Practice, How to Practice Sadhanas and most recently, Remembering Dharma Lists. Also, last December we had the Daily Lamrim Meditation Challenge which many of you took part in. In addition to these posts, I wrote several entries about miscellaneous topics. One of the most popular of these has been ‘Why the New Kadampa Tradition is Like a Restaurant, and Should You Eat There?‘ (and the one that got the most comments too!)
For the record, there have been 431 posts in that time, with 25 categories and 469 tags. There have been 781 comments. The blog has had 42,140 views, with 110 views today. The busiest day was on April 14th 2012 with 324 views (which could have had something to do with the smouldering picture of Marlon Brando I used – phew)! The person who has left the most comments is Luna Kadampa, closely followed by Maria Tonella. I would like to say a big ‘Thank You’ to Luna, Maria and every single other person who has taken the time to comment on the blog. Your support has been wonderful. And I would like to also say a huge thank you to everyone who has ‘liked’ one of the posts, left a comment, subscribed or visited the blog. x
Modest though the numbers are compared with other more mainstream blogs, I am still very pleased with how popular Daily Lamrim is, given the rather narrow niche it is aimed at. But of course, I didn’t start this blog for the numbers. When I started, I was genuinely surprised when I noticed that anyone at all had visited! But even if no-one ever visited the blog, I would have still done it.
Daily Lamrim is first and foremost a spiritual endeavour. It has performed the functions I set out about a year ago, which are here:
- So I have a record of how my meditations are going
- So I have a driver to do one a day
- So I can compare old meditations
- So there is a place on the internet about actual meditations, rather than just talking about it
- So my children can see what their Dad thought was important
- So the people in the NKT can be seen as being ‘normal’ and ‘virtuous’
- So the NKT can increase its ‘space’ on the internet
- So that people can see that the NKT is not defined solely by the Dorje Shugden ‘Controversy’
- To show a good example to people who are trying to establish a daily meditation practice
- To provide a resource for other Kadampas who are looking for inspiration in their meditations
- To start a discussion about what it means to meditate, and how to do it
And most importantly I have learnt a great deal from my daily meditations. I have gained some pretty profound insights, and there are some meditations I can remember right now – they are still that vivid. On a practical note, I feel like I am really getting ‘under the skin’ the the Lamrim, and I find myself starting to behave in ways that accord with the meditations.
Most of all, I feel like I am making progress. I feel like I am doing something meaningful every single day. You could too.
The blog will stay live until this current round of looking at one Lamrim meditation object in the light of another is concluded – some time early next year. After that I’m not sure which direction the blog will take.
Until then, I think we all need to listen to the advice of Shantideva:
We need to put Buddha’s teachings, the Dharma, into practice
Because nothing can be accomplished just by reading words.
A sick man will never be cured of his illness
Through merely reading medical instructions!
So get meditating!
And finally, I pay homage to my kind root Guru, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, through whose kindness and immense effort I have had the opportunity to meet the Dharma, study it and try to understand it.
I pray that everyone who reads Daily Lamrim develops the wish to meditate on the Kadam Lamrim, experience deep inner peace and accomplish the real meaning of human life.
With love,
Vide x
The purpose of this meditation is to meditate on the entire Lamrim in light of equalising self and others.
I began with some breathing meditation, slowly letting my attention settle on the breath until is was calm and centred.
I then started to think about the Lamrim meditations. They are a cycle of meditations which contain the entire path to enlightenment. I imagined them like a glowing ring surrounding me. Each time I complete a cycle, they glow just a little bit brighter. I imagined them glowing brighter and brighter until my normal appearances and conceptions were completely lost in the light, and I felt completely mixed with the Lamrim and enlightenment.
I then thought about what this means in light of equalising self and others.
Equalising self and others is one of the Lamrim meditations, and a fundamental step on the path to enlightenment. Equalising self and others is a beautiful feeling – one of equality and shared love. How wonderful to be trying to build this into one’s mind and life!
I returned to the feeling of bright light surrounding and permeating me, and stayed with it for the rest of the meditation.
Dedication
May all the virtue I have accumulated here ripen upon all living beings, and may they quickly attain the supreme inner peace of full enlightenment.
Practice in the Meditation Break
I will remind myself of the special virtuous qualities of the Kadam Lamrim, and of how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to mix my mind with these meditation objects – what is more meaningful in this world?
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