American Dharma
By Michael Erlewine
Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche wrote:
“One might think that it is possible to practice only shamatha or practice vipashyana without doing any shamatha. But in fact whatever Buddhist practices one does, one must practice both shamatha and vipashyana meditation together. This is illustrated by the example of a butter lamp, which Tibetans used in the past to illuminate the darkness. A butter lamp’s light is very clear and bright. For a lamp to give light it must have the qualities of being steady and not blown around by the wind. If the flame is not bright or steady, one won’t see things in the dark. “
“In the same way, to see the true nature of phenomena, one has to have a clear understanding and be able to focus the mind on the object for as long as is necessary. If either one of these is missing, then the true nature of things cannot be perceived. One needs to have both shamatha (the unwavering light) and vipashyana (the bright flame). “
End of quote.
My way of speaking about these two, Shamata (Tranquility Meditation) and Vipassana (Insight Meditation) is that it is like the process of threading a very fine needle. Shamata allows us to hold the hand steady while Vipassana sees to it that we thread the needle.
In my own experience, these two, Shamata and Vipassana are two parts of a single mudra and not really separate. I had a lot of trouble learning Shamata, and spent 31 years trying to learn it, only to find out that I already had excellent Shamata due to my working with very detailed projects like programming and archiving. I was trying too hard. LOL.
In fact, when I finally broke through and managed Vipassana (Insight Meditation), Shamata arose with it, fully realized. We cannot have one without the other, and you can’t practice Mahamudra without the two of them acting as one.
Our growing up spiritually stops when we stop growing and lose track of our vertical component and just find ourselves spreading out horizontally like on a flat plain. In other words, the tip of the top is equal in all directions. Of course, it’s all in our mind. Where else would it be?
We have to feel all this out by ourselves. Our dharma teachers can point out what they can to us, yet we have to do the work and turn the wheel of our own dharma.
And the hard part to realize. IMO, is to become familiar enough with our own mind that we can actually use and work with it. That is the sine-qua-non of dharma training without which no realization can take place, familiarity with what we have always been familiar with already, but just lacked awareness of.
Of course, it’s a Catch-22 or whatever you want to call it, a koan or meditation prompt that if used recursively can force us out of our Samsaric groove.
And it’s embarrassingly simple, just too close to get a handle on. Remember that the great Mahasiddha Tilopa hit his student Naropa so hard between the eyes with his sandal that it knocked him out, which sounds oddly Zen like.
What worries me, worry wort that I am, is that in today’s world where both Zen and Vajrayana are increasingly fading from access, that some adventitious awareness will arise that facilitates this process of what in our Karma Kagyu tradition is called “Recognition” as to the nature of the mind.
It’s not that fire is not racing through the common mind like a lit fuse. It already is. Only how to fashion a vehicle to contain it like we are trying to contain fusion. The traditional pointing out instructions by a guru or an authentic practitioner may remain in place or perhaps will be imploded by these modern circumstances in favor of another approach. I’m sure I don’t know, but I can feel the pressure to bend or forge the will of past traditions into something new. It’s just beneath the surface.
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Remember how the dharma changed when it went from India into Tibet, a process said to take some 300 years. Well, the dharma is coming into America, so look for changes that are bound to be there.
Here in the U.S., as time passes, the chinks or gaps in the armor of dharma practice seem to be filling in themselves and moving not only ahead, but forging the diamond-vajra, the union of compassion and wisdom. It’s happening.
We may be both annealing and melding the heat of the interest in dharma in America, forging something new that will retain the traditional values of the dharma with the particular qualities innate in the nature of America’s roots. It is my impression that the growing heat of the need for realization is going to blow open some kind of avenue to what has been called “Recognition” as to the nature of the mind.
Of course, now it’s America’s turn.
[Midjourney graphic prompted by me.]
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As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.
