Introduction to the Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness On-line Resource Package
By Lama Shenpen Hookham
The materials in this package have been put together by my student, Tara Dew, from recordings, transcripts of teachings and transmissions that I have given over the years. She also drew on materials put together by Katie Morrow when she ran an on-line course on Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness. Ideally students would attend retreats on the Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness so that they could receive live transmission and have personal interviews with a teacher as they work on the materials. There are many pitfalls to the study and practice of teachings on Emptiness. They are directed at our most profoundly held assumptions about the nature of reality. The more deeply held an assumption the more subtle and powerful it is and when those assumptions give way the effect on us is profound and can be quite overwhelming. That is why there are many warnings about not teaching Emptiness to students too soon, before they are prepared for the shock and have the faith and commitment to the path that will enable them to take the initial understanding further.
In the West we tend not to realise that there is a three-fold process involved in the development of insight. There is the initial moment of insight beginning to dawn as we let go of any kind of false assumption. There is a moment of doubt about the assumption that allows the truth to peep through and give us a kind of jolt. From this we develop an initial understanding. We tend to immediately try to understand it and create a kind of representation of it for ourselves for reference. We might use an image or a word, maybe we construct a model or simply try to remember the feeling of it. This is all on the level of a conceptual understanding. The conceptual understanding helps us to return to the initial insight in order to take it deeper. It helps us to drop assumptions that are clearly false in the light of that insight. However, very quickly we start to attach ourselves to the conceptual version of the insight and try to own it somehow. That is how the ego-mandala structure tries to incorporate the understanding into itself. In the case of an insight into Emptiness this is actually turning the insight into a kind of ally for the ego in order to disempower it. The ego-mandala very soon is treating the insight as insignificant or if it is significant it is significant because it has somehow enhanced the ego mandala. For example we might feel we are really quite clever people to have had such a marvellous insight. This kills the insight which is what the ego mandala wants. It doesn’t want the insight to fundamentally undermine its whole mechanism.
That is why we have to keep meditating on Emptiness over and over again until we learn to over-ride the ego-mandalas efforts to sabotage the whole process of liberating insight into Emptiness.
Eventually, the truth of Emptiness that we are beginning to understand breaks through strongly enough for a deeply transformative direct experience of it to break through. This might arise little by little as the months and years go by. However it might break through all at once straightaway so that we feel quite shocked and even frightened. It is like our whole world starting to fall apart. This is a ‘nyam’. ‘Nyam’s are useful reference points for us. It is good to remember them but not to try to recreate them. Trying to recreate a nyam simply leads to frustration and blocks any further deepening of the practice. If what we experienced in the nyam was Reality then it is always there and accessible. The fact that we don’t usually experience it clearly means that when it does break through we find it shocking or exciting. Actually it is very ordinary because it is real and always there. So we have to practice in order to drop all our false assumptions that make it feel special. This takes far longer than simply the initial flash of understanding. It takes years and years of persistent practice. Stability is hard won. It is important to remember the lives of the Buddhist practitioners who attained full Awakening. It didn’t happen over-night and without tremendous dedication and determination.
Nyams gradually give way to full realisation. Full realisation is preceded by dawning realisation and the Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness point to a series of dawning realisations that take the whole process deeper and deeper. It is not the case that the first level has to stop at a certain level of realisation. As we approach the Shravaka level of understanding of Emptiness we might find that it takes us immediately to a level of understanding that goes beyond the level described in the first chapter of Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness. That is why it is important to be in touch with a teacher as one goes through the stages.
You might wonder therefore what is the point of recommending to you to read the book Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. I find that for most people it is helpful to work through this book at your own pace a number of times and work on the meditations at the end of each chapter. This will help you arrive at an initial understanding and a general sense of direction in which the progressive stages are moving. You may or may not have any world shattering direct experiences (nyams) as you do this. Nonetheless, something will be happening that will be preparing the ground for the process of deepening insight to arise. The chances of it arising is enhanced by the way you have set up your practice mandala. You need to treat the whole exercise as a matter of life and death. If you want to escape the endless cycle of samsara and face death with confidence, it is important to make pranidhanas to that end and approach the meditation on Emptiness like a drowning person desperately trying to swim. Emptiness is like gulps of air that our life depends on.
Because it is so important to have prepared oneself before being introduced to Emptiness, I suggest that my students first finish the DHB and perhaps also the THB before moving on to Progressive Stages on Emptiness. However, many people are introduced to Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness without this kind of preparation and seem to gain some benefit from it so that seems to be a possible approach. It might be a good preparation for DHB and THB for some students. Another possibility for a student with sufficient time on their hands is to practice the Progressive Stages on Emptiness at the same time at DHB but this might just end up being confusing.
In general my advice is to finish DHB at least before moving on to looking at these materials. If possible I suggest students try to join in the next on-line course and/or on retreat on Progressive Stages. However, we can only run courses and retreats from time to time when there is someone to organise and teach them and enough students all willing to commit themselves at the same time in order to work through the materials together. We are putting the materials of this package together for students who are working on deepening the six areas in Living the Awakened Heart and need to work more on the second area on Insight into Emptiness. They may have done an on-line course or retreat on the Progressive Stages already and want to take their understanding deeper so these materials could help with that. The Progressive Stages will need to be visited and revisited again and again until their full significance dawns.
Other recommended materials can be found in the Living the Awakened Heart Booklet.
Finally a word about transmissions. Some of the transcripts and recordings are taken from transmissions. The point about a transmission as opposed to simply a teaching is that it requires a special kind of openness on the part of the student and the teacher. Something actually happens when the intention to open on the side of the teacher meets with the same intention on the side of the student. A living bond is forged and has tremendous power to draw the student in to the Mandala of Awakening. It is important to try to participate in transmission events so that you start to be drawn in in this way. The way this works is like igniting a fire. Sometimes a spark might fly off and set dry tinder alight without any formal process but usually the fuel has to be prepared carefully, it has to be dried out and arranged carefully and set alight with some skill. It is not a perfect example but I hope it will give you at least some sense of the importance of living transmission.
When I give transmission of the Progressive Stages I am meditating on them and linking into the lineage of my teachers as best I can so that their adhistana will pass through me to my students. I talk as insight arises in me in what one might call a guided meditation. The words of these transmissions have been recorded and form a useful support for students after the transmissions and for students coming along later who can use them to prepare themselves for transmission. Who knows how dry the tinder is and how small a spark is needed to start the fire of insight burning? For a long time I have been hesitant to make the transmission transcripts and recordings available for those not present at the transmission. I am beginning to develop the view that perhaps the benefits of allowing students to use them as preparation for transmission outweigh the possible disadvantages. The possible disadvantages are that students might not realise the importance of receiving transmission live and kind of get away with receiving the teachings on Emptiness without really opening to a living teacher in a genuine way. This allows the student to somehow avoid opening out fully and to fool themselves into thinking they understand more than they do. There are many, many dangers to trying to practice Dharma without relating to the teacher properly. However, if students have no taste of what the teachings and transmissions are about, then they may not ever find the motivation to seek a teacher to receive transmissions.
Teachers bringing the Dharma to the West these days are faced with many dilemmas of this kind and we are all looking for solutions that will help the people of our times. It is a time for experimentation and pioneering new approaches for people with a completely different cultural background to those in countries that have been Buddhist for centuries if not millennia.