Okay, I’m back for part 2 of the Dalai Lama’s book Beyond Religion. As I covered in my last post, part 1 of this fascinating book offered a vision for “secular ethics for a whole world”, which I was inspired to read because this goal matches ProSocial World's purpose statement as well as my own views on evolutionary ethics and why evolutionary philosophy matters. Each of these sources speaks similarly about how empirical data gives us overwhelming evidence to appreciate our deep interdependence and therefore we need to be compassionate towards all beings as we try to survive and flourish together in this world. Let’s do that!
Now, in part 2 of the book, the Dalai Lama tells us how he personally strengthens his mind to work towards these goals in the face of all the obstacles that are sure to come. This mostly amounts to descriptions and tips for various methods of meditation, which is not something I know a ton about. But the evidence shows it is so beneficial, and these tips are coming from perhaps the world’s premiere expert, so I wanted to share them as succinctly as I could, with the hope that it will inspire you (and me!) to take up more of this mental training. As before, the quoted passages below all come from the 2012 UK Kindle version.
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World by His Holiness Dalai Lama
Part II — Educating the Heart Through Training the Mind
Introduction to Part II: Starting with Oneself
- (p. 101) How are we to become more compassionate, kinder, more forgiving, and more discerning in our behaviour?
- (p. 102) Educating the heart takes both time and sustained effort, though I have no doubt that with sincere motivation we can all learn kindheartedness, and we can all benefit from it.
We have so many options out there to improve our minds and bodies. Yet all of these are “slaves to our passions”. So, why don’t we spend more time working on our emotions?? This is deeply brilliant. I know Buddhists have practiced this for centuries, but I’m not sure it has been “sold” this way, or always focused towards the secular ethics that the Dalai Lama is now advocating for. Before we get to the actual training, some Buddhist context is helpful.
Chapter 8 — Ethical Mindfulness in Everyday Life
- (p. 103) even the most sophisticated ethical understanding, if it is not applied in daily life, is somewhat pointless.
- (p. 103) regarding the question of how to put ethics into practice in everyday life, it may be helpful to consider the process as having three aspects or levels
- (p. 103) As outlined in some classical Buddhist texts, these are as follows: an ethic of restraint — deliberately refraining from doing actual or potential harm to others; an ethic of virtue — actively cultivating and enhancing our positive behaviour and inner values; and an ethic of altruism — dedicating our lives, genuinely and selflessly, to the welfare of others.
- (p. 106) I personally find a list of six principles from a text by the second-century Indian thinker Nagarjuna to be helpful.
- (p. 106) Avoid excessive use of intoxicants. Uphold the principle of right livelihood. Ensure that one’s body, speech, and mind are nonviolent. Treat others with respect. Honour those worthy of esteem, such as parents, teachers, and those who are kind. Be kind to others.
- (p. 107) we require a basic toolkit to help us in our daily effort to live ethically. In Buddhist tradition this toolkit is described in terms of three interrelated factors known as heedfulness, mindfulness, and introspective awareness
- (p. 107) heedfulness, refers to adopting an overall stance of caution.
- (p. 109) mindfulness is the ability to gather oneself mentally and thereby recall one’s core values and motivation.
- (p. 109) Awareness…means paying attention to our own behaviour. It means honestly observing our behaviour as it is going on, and thereby bringing it under control.
I don’t see anything wrong with any of that. This is more evidence fitting with my belief that “Buddha Will Survive”, as I wrote during my series of essays on the survival of the fittest philosophers. Buddha came in at number 7 out of 60 on that list. The Dalai Lama might take Buddhism even higher now.
Next up, are two chapters about our emotions.
Chapter 9 — Dealing with Destructive Emotions
- (p. 113) the greatest impediments to our individual well-being and our ability to live a spiritually fulfilling life are our own persistent propensities toward destructive or afflictive emotions.
- (p. 115) in contemporary psychology the main distinction is often drawn between emotional states which, on the one hand, are pleasurable or joyful and are described as positive, and those which, on the other hand, are unpleasant or painful and are described as negative. In classical Buddhist psychology, however, the distinction is rather different. Instead, the primary distinction is not between those states which are pleasurable and those that are painful, but between those that are beneficial and those that are harmful.
- (p. 117) In the context of secular ethics, this distinction between those mental states which undermine well-being — our own and that of others — and those which promote survival and well-being can be very useful, since it is directly relevant to our pursuit of happiness and an ethically sound way of life.
- (p. 124) Our inner development with regard to regulating our destructive emotions calls for a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, we must seek to reduce the impact of the destructive potentials that are inherent within us; on the other, we must seek to enhance the positive qualities that also naturally exist within us. This two-pronged approach to mental training is what I consider to be the heart of genuine spiritual practice.
Chapter 10 — Cultivating Key Inner Values
- (p. 137) a few of the other key human values: patience or forbearance, contentment, self-discipline, and generosity.
- (p. 138) There are three aspects of patience, or forbearance, to consider: forbearance toward those who harm us, acceptance of suffering, and acceptance of reality.
I really appreciate the difference between contemporary psychology and classical Buddhist psychology. And the focus on enhancing well-being (“our own and that of others”) is brilliant to see. I would just add that the distinction between “beneficial” and “harmful” is often a difficult one because of the uncertainty over short-term and long-term consequences as well as the benefit accruing to yourself or others (which ultimately may or may not benefit you). So, it’s very hard to simply place an emotion into any one category. The ultimate judgment of each one will be very dependent on context — sometimes beneficial, sometimes harmful. Rather than looking forward into the mists of this murky future, I found it easier, and very useful, to look to the past for my own taxonomy by asking “what’s causing these emotions?” These are quibbles about how to categorize emotions, though. There doesn’t seem to be any conflict between the goals of my system and the Dalai Lama’s.
Finally, in the last chapter, we arrive at the Dalai Lama’s advice for how to work on all of this.
Chapter 11 — Meditation as Mental Cultivation
- (p. 155) I would like to say a few words about cultivating mental discipline. For myself, such cultivation is an indispensable part of daily life. On the one hand, it helps reinforce my determination always to act compassionately for the well-being of others. On the other, it helps me keep in check those afflictive thoughts and emotions by which we are all assailed from time to time, and to maintain a calm mind.
- (p. 155) the Sanskrit term bhavana … [and the] Tibetan equivalent gom [are] often translated into English as meditation, [but they] refer to a whole range of mental practices and not just, as many suppose, to simple methods of relaxation. The original terms imply a process of cultivating familiarity with something, whether it is a habit, a way of seeing, or a way of being.
- (p. 156) [There are] “three levels of understanding,” as found in the classical Buddhist theory of mental transformation. These levels are understanding derived through hearing (or learning), understanding derived through reflection, and understanding derived through contemplative experience.
- (p. 156) this progression — from first hearing or learning, to deepening one’s understanding through critical reflection, to conviction — is quite usual.
This is great! It really expanded my naïve understanding of “meditation”.
- (p. 158) I engage in two main types of mental cultivation practice — discursive or analytic meditation and absorptive meditation. The first is a kind of analytic process by means of which the meditator engages in a series of reflections, while the second involves concentrating on a specific object or objective and placing one’s mind upon it as if dwelling deeply on a conclusion. I find that combining the two techniques is most beneficial.
- (p. 159) The first of these two approaches corresponds to the development of mental states that are more cognitively oriented, such as understanding, while the second develops more affect-oriented mental states, such as compassion. We might refer to these two processes as “educating our mind” and “educating our heart.”
Fascinating. And I would say from personal experience that writing philosophy might qualify as an “education of the mind” exercise then. Before we get to the details of how else to do this, the Dalai Lama offers a few practical tips, which makes him seem just as human as the rest of us.
- (p. 159) Mental cultivation takes time and effort and involves hard work and sustained dedication.
- (p. 160) As to the specifics of practice, early morning is generally the best time of day. … you need to have had a good night’s sleep beforehand.
- (p. 161) the mind will tend to be sluggish if you have eaten a lot beforehand.
- (p. 161) in the early stages even ten to fifteen minutes per session is quite adequate.
- (p. 161) It is also helpful to plan to practice for a few minutes several times during the day in addition to the main session.
- (p. 162) sit where we will not be disturbed by noise.
- (p. 162) any position that is comfortable will do
Love it. Next up, the Dalai Lama gives us details of his different practices. He didn’t lay it out like a simple formula, but I see it starting by taking us progressively through these six steps: 1) Getting Settled; 2) Affirming the Practice; 3) Strengthening Your Focus; 4) Understanding What Focus Is; 5) Really Focusing on Emotions; and 6) Returning to Your Day.
So, let’s see these steps in action.
1) Getting Settled
- (p. 163) take one inhalation and one exhalation while silently counting from one to five or seven, and then repeat the process a few times. The advantage of this silent counting is that, in giving our mind a task to perform, it makes it less likely to be swept away by extraneous thoughts.
- (p. 163) it can be helpful to quietly say a few words over and over. A formula such as “I let go of my afflictive emotions”
- (p. 163) you may find that a whole session is taken up with exercises to calm or still the mind.
2) Affirming the Practice
- (p. 164) When you have succeeded in establishing a more settled state, perhaps a few minutes into your session, you can then begin the actual work of mental cultivation.
- (p. 165) One very useful exercise at the beginning of a session is to consider the benefits of practice. An immediate benefit is that practice gives us a brief respite from the often obsessive worrying, calculating, and fantasizing with which our minds are habitually occupied. This by itself is a great boon.
- (p. 165) One who never engages in this kind of work has very little chance of dealing effectively with the destructive thoughts and emotions which, when they take hold of us, destroy all hope of peace of mind.
- (p. 165) we should find that the benefits far outweigh any arguments in favour of not practicing. We then rest the mind on this conclusion for a short time before moving on to the next stage of the session.
3) Strengthening Your Focus
- (p. 165) A more formal meditation practice is the cultivation of sustained attention through single-pointed concentration.
- (p.166) Having relaxed and settled your mind, try to maintain your focus on the object. Visualize it about four feet in front of you and at the level of your eyebrows. Imagine the object to be approximately two inches in height and radiating light, so that the image is bright and clear. Also try to conceive of it as being heavy. This heaviness has the effect of preventing excitement, while the object’s brightness prevents the onset of laxity.
4) Understanding What Focus Is
- (p. 167) after many, many weeks or months of persistent practice — you now try to inspect the mind itself as it holds the object in view.
- (p. 167) you can start to familiarize yourself with the sort of focus that in ordinary life you may only experience when attempting to solve a particularly challenging mental problem.
5) Really Focusing on Emotions
- (p. 167) when you have learned to really focus the mind, then, … you can use the whole force of your mind to focus on qualities such as compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness.
6) Returning to Your Day
- (p. 168) Finally, when we wish to end our session, we can do some deep breathing exercises once again so that we finish in a relaxed state of mind.
After a lifetime of working on this, the Dalai Lama next offers several pieces of advice.
- (p. 168) Two qualities are essential in this kind of meditation: mental clarity and stability. Mental clarity assists you in maintaining your focus. Stability assists you in ensuring clarity by monitoring whether or not your attention remains vibrant.
- (p. 168) It is through constant application of these two faculties that you can gradually learn to train your focus so that you become capable of sustaining your attention for a prolonged period of time.
- (p. 168) set a forceful intention not to allow your mind to be swept away by thoughts of what might happen in the future or recollections of things that have happened in the past.
- (p. 170) every now and then you will come to experience short intervals of what feels like an absence or a vacuum, when your mind has no particular content. Your first successes in this will only be fleeting. But with persistence over a long period, what begins as a glimpse can gradually be extended, and you can start to understand that the mind is like a mirror, or clear water, in which images appear and disappear without affecting the medium in which they appear.
- (p. 170) Like a detached onlooker watching a spectacle, you will learn how to see your thoughts for what they are, namely constructs of your mind. So many of our problems arise because, in our naive untrained state, we confuse our thoughts with actual reality. We seize on the content of our thoughts as real and build our entire perception and response to reality on it.
As your practice gets more advanced, the Dalai Lama offers 4 more options for what you might work on. I see these as options for step 5 above, so I’ll label them that way. They are: 5a) Compassion and Loving-Kindness; 5b) Equanimity; 5c) More Equanimity; and 5d) Positive Imitation.
Again, let’s see these in action.
5a) Compassion and Loving-Kindness
- (p. 170) Another very beneficial class of practices involves cultivating positive mental qualities, such as compassion and loving-kindness.
- (p. 170) begin with a preliminary breathing exercise to relax and settle the mind.
- (p. 171) when you are struggling with your attitude or feelings toward a person with whom you have difficulty. First, bring that person into your mind, conjuring up a vivid image so that you almost feel his or her presence. Next, start to contemplate the fact that he or she also has hopes and dreams, feels joy when things go well and feels sadness when they do not.
- (p. 171) try to feel connected with the person and cultivate the wish that he or she achieve happiness.
- (p. 171) saying something like “May you be free of suffering and its causes. May you attain happiness and peace.” Then rest your mind in this state of compassion.
- (p. 171) this way of cultivating compassion primarily involves a discursive process, but every now and then it is also good to rest the mind in a state of absorption, somewhat in the fashion of bringing home a concluding point in the course of an argument.
5b) Equanimity
- (p. 171) equanimity is a state of mind where one relates to others in a way that is free of prejudice rooted in the afflictions of excessive attraction or aversion.
- (p. 172) begin by relaxing and settling the mind through a breathing exercise and then proceed as follows. Call up an image of a small group of people you like, such as some of your close friends and relatives. Establish this image in as much detail and with as much verisimilitude as you can. Then add an image next to it of a group of people toward whom you feel indifferent, such as people you see at work or out shopping but do not know well. Again, try to make this image as real and detailed as possible. Finally, call up a third image, this one of a group of people you dislike, or with whom you are in conflict, or whose views you strongly disagree with, and again establish it as clearly and in as much detail as you can. Having created images of these three groups of people in your mind, you then allow your normal reactions toward them to arise. Notice your thoughts and feelings toward each group in turn. You will find that your natural tendency is to feel attachment toward the first, indifference toward the second, and hostility toward the third. Recognizing this, you next turn to examining your own mind and considering how each of these three responses affects you. You will find that your feelings toward members of the first group are pleasurable, inspiring a certain confidence and strength coupled with a desire to alleviate or prevent their suffering. Toward the second group, you will notice that your feelings do not excite you or inspire any particular thoughts of concern at all. Toward the third group, however, the feelings you have will excite your mind in negative directions. The next step is to engage in contemplation, using your critical faculty. The people we consider our enemies today may not remain so, and this is also true of our friends. Furthermore, sometimes our feelings toward friends, such as attachment, can lead to problems for us, while sometimes our interactions with enemies can benefit us, perhaps by making us stronger and more alert. Contemplating such complexities can lead you to reflect on the futility of relating to others in an extreme manner
- (p. 174) Over time, the aim is to be able to relate to others, not as friends or foes according to your divisive classification of them, but as fellow human beings whose fundamental equality with yourself you recognize.
5c) More Equanimity
- (p. 174) for the second form of equanimity practice, … The key points are two simple truths: that just as I myself have an instinctive and legitimate desire to be happy and to avoid suffering, so do all other people; and that just as I have the right to fulfil these innate aspirations, so do they.
- (p. 174) over the course of weeks, months, and even years, we will gradually find that we are able to generate true inner equanimity based on a profound recognition of humanity’s shared, innate aspiration to happiness and dislike of suffering.
5d) Positive Imitation
- (p. 174) Another exercise which can be very helpful in cultivating beneficial states of mind is a discursive practice taking as its object the good example of a person we greatly admire.
- (p. 175) the idea is to train ourselves to act, in our daily lives, as the person we admire would act
- (p. 176) Having chosen which afflictive emotion or attitude you will address first, you begin as described earlier, relaxing the mind with a breathing exercise. Then you are ready to start the actual practice.
- (p. 176) First, reflect on the destructive effects of the mental state you have selected.
- (p. 176) This contemplation of the destructive nature of these mental states needs to be sufficiently deep that over time your basic stance toward such states becomes one of caution and vigilance.
- (p. 177) Once you are convinced of the destructive nature of these afflictions, you then move on to the next stage of meditation. This involves developing a greater awareness of the mental states themselves, particularly of their onset.
- (p. 177) The third stage of this mental cultivation practice for dealing with afflictive mental states is to apply the relevant antidotes to them: for example, forbearance to counter anger, loving-kindness to counter hatred, contemplation of an object’s imperfections to counter greed or craving for that object.
- (p. 177) In all three stages of this practice it is important, as suggested earlier, to combine discursive, analytic processes with resting your mind in single-pointed absorption on the concluding points. This combination allows the effects of your practice to seep deeply into your mind so that it begins to have a real impact in your everyday life.
After giving all of these options for a deeper meditation practice, the Dalai Lama offers some more advice about dealing with things you may also encounter there.
- (p. 178) there are two principal obstacles to good practice. One is distraction, while the other is laxity or what we can call “mental sinking.”
- (p. 178) Sometimes it will be enough to recollect our purpose in undertaking this mental cultivation. At other times, we may have to leave off whatever we are trying to practice and move on to some other exercise. Or we may do a short breathing exercise, or repeat a few words suitable to the occasion. This may be as simple as saying, “I let go of my distraction,” slowly and deliberately a few times. But sometimes we may need to break off the session and walk around the room for a few minutes.
- (p. 178) laxity or mental sinking, is what happens when the mind becomes too relaxed. We succeed in withdrawing from our habitual preoccupations and manage to free the mind from distractions, but then, because our energy is low or we are not alert enough, the mind sinks and we become, as it were, “spaced out.”
- (p. 179) A short, brisk walk may be an effective remedy, or a few moments spent visualizing a bright light. For those with religious inclinations, briefly considering the surpassing qualities of some figure in their religious tradition may help. Another remedy is to imagine our consciousness springing up into space.
To finish up, the Dalai Lama offered some brief reflections on the value of all of this.
- (p. 180) what we are talking about here is not suppressing negative thoughts and emotions. Instead, we must learn to recognize them for what they are and replace them with more positive states of mind. And we do this not only to achieve self-mastery but also because attaining this kind of control over our minds puts us in a much better position to compassionately benefit others.
- (p. 182) What we want is a moderate, steady light which enables us to see the objects around us clearly. Thus when we develop some degree of control over our minds we are more able to take events, whether they are positive or negative, in our stride.
- (p. 182) What good practice really requires is a constant stream of effort: a sustained, persistent approach based on long-term commitment. For this reason, practicing properly, even for a short period of time, is the best way.
Afterword
- (p. 185) when each of us learns to appreciate the critical importance of ethics and makes inner values like compassion and patience an integral part of our basic outlook on life, the effects will be far-reaching.
So, to recap, meditation is great! Of all the books, podcasts, apps, and seminars about meditation that I have been exposed to, this one was by far the most helpful and far-reaching. It is much more than just the emptying of the mind or the building of focus that I have mostly learned about before. Yet it is simple! In its explanation, anyway. I’m sure the experience and effort will be more difficult. But I plan to work on these steps over the years ahead. 10 to 15 minutes at a time.
1) Getting Settled
2) Affirming the Practice
3) Strengthening Your Focus
4) Understanding What Focus Is
5) Really Focusing on Emotions
5a) Compassion and Loving-Kindness
5b) Equanimity
5c) More Equanimity
5d) Positive Imitation
6) Returning to Your Day
I hope you found this as interesting as I did and are inspired to work on this too. My post here shared a lot of quotes to get you going, but you should really buy the book to capture the full depth of the Dalai Lama’s thoughts and emotions here. I’ll just finish with this quote from the man who caddied for the 13th incarnation of the Dalai Lama.
"Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.” |
Nice indeed. Maybe we can all hope for that with some effort. 😁