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not analyze. And do not develop any sensation, or whatever other experience
during Shi'nay. If you do, then your mind is not concentrating. Instead, your
mind is going after the sensation. In like manner, when your mind holds on to
the different concepts, you are in effect making your mind busy.
Shi'nay is training your mind, and the result depends on how much, and how
long you can keep at that level. Later, you will develop the habit of mind where
you can remain at one level. Shi'nay means maintaining peace. Shi' means
peace, where there are no thoughts. And nay means to maintain or to remain.
Therefore, Shi'nay means to remain in the peace, this is what you are training
yourself to do. You train your mind to be able to remain at one level without
thinking of anything else. Concepts, and sensations are all distractions. Every-
thing that you can think up, is a distraction during Shi'nay. This is very impor-
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tant for you to understand.
(Q): Do we breathe down until the navel, or until a place under the navel?
(A): You should not concentrate on the center of the navel. This is again, I
think, borrowed from the Vajrayogini practice, or Tummo practice. You
should not apply these kinds of visualizations here.
There is now so much confusion with respect to Dharma practice. As I said
earlier, by putting together everything you have heard or read, you will not be
successful. You have to go through a systematic program of practice.
Here, to press the breath down slightly is just a technique in order to keep
the right posture. You should neither visualize, nor concentrate on anything
in the area of the navel. You are not to do any yoga here.
(Q): I would like to do a retreat in the Bodhi Path center for one week.
What practice would you advise?
(A): For an individual retreat, you should follow a systematic program.
This means that as a beginner, you should do Shi'nay. You have to train your
mind, and Shi'nay is especially good for that.
As well, you do Prostrations to the 35 Buddhas. It is a very good practice to
do in the morning. For the rest of the day, you practice Shi'nay. It is still too
early yet to do the yidam practice of Chenrezig.
However, for your personal practice, you can do a Chenrezig-Guru Yoga
practice of Thangtong Gyalpo. It is a practice where you visualize Chenrezig
on top of your head and you supplicate him. After, you dissolve with him. If
you do a retreat, then you do this Chenrezig supplication practice in the after-
noon, or evening. In general, you can always carry on with this Chenrezig-
Guru Yoga, or Chenrezig-Lama Naljor of the lineage of Thangtong Gyalpo.
You supplicate Chenrezig to bless you. This is very good for you. The bless-
ing of Chenrezig will ripen your mind, and you need this blessing.
The Mahamudra practitioners in the Kagyu meditation centers in the Hima-
layas do the Ngöndro Prostrations many, many times. Not only one hundred
thousand times, but two hundred, three hundred, four hundred thousand
times. Some do a million times prostrations. They then become more success-
ful in meditation.
Many of you must have done Ngöndro in the past, which is good. By doing
the recitations and prostrations to the 35 Buddhas one hundred thousand
times, you will, in effect, be refilling whatever you had done before. The
practice will activate all your merits. Therefore, it is really worthwhile to do
them one hundred thousand times.
After that, you will do the Mandala to the 35 Buddhas.
Until you have achieved the results of Shi'nay, you have to carry on with it.
Without Shi'nay, you can never develop Lhakthong, or insight meditation.
Without Lhakthong, you will never attain enlightenment. Why? Lhakthong is
the laser that can ignite the ignorance. Laser power! (This is just a metaphor,
so please do not take the words literally.) Lhakthong meditation wakes up
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your mind from your ignorance. Without it, you can never attain enlightenment.
Lhakthong depends on Shi'nay, and enlightenment depends on Lhakthong.
Therefore, Shi'nay is very important.
******
Summary review of meditation posture and method
We will do some meditation now. The posture: The right hand is in the left
hand and rests on your left leg. Raise the shoulders a little, but not forward, a lit-
tle more towards the back. Keep the stomach in. Breathe into the stomach and
press it down. Keep it below the navel, in the abdomen. The spine should be kept
straight up. The neck is bent down a little. The eyes look to the ground along the
nose. The mouth and the tongue are kept normal. The mouth is closed but with-
out pressure. The advice is not to close the eyes when doing Shi'nay. Keep the
eyes normal as usual. Blinking is not a problem.
Then concentrate on your breath. Breathe out gently, visualize your breath as a
slightly curved beam of light, and it almost touches the ground. Then, it inde-
pendently comes back in. You inhale and it goes down almost touching your na-
vel. In, out, in, out. Concentrate and keep the awareness of whether the mind is
focused on the breathing and the beam of light, or not.
While you are meditating, don't be tense. But if you are too relaxed then you will
fall asleep. So by thinking, or by forcing your mind to be brighter, you energize
yourself.
Visualize your breath from the two nostrils, but as one beam of light, slightly
curved, and independent of you. It's tiny but very clear. Inhale and exhale. Do not
try to think that the light is really there. It is just a vision. It is like training a wild
horse. In the beginning, it is very uncomfortable for the horse to be controlled by
people. It's the same for the mind. At first, the mind doesn't want to agree with
you. But later, the mind will become naturally calm. Then, the mind will be very
comfortable.
Concentrate on one thing. Try not to think so much.
When you breathe out, the tip of the light beam nearly touches the ground, and
the other end of the beam is almost out just underneath the nose. Since the beam
is visualized, it does not have to exactly follow through the whole body.
When you are used to it then you can expand it. You could do it all the way to
the tip of the toe and so on. You will do that later. It will produce a good effect
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also. For now, visualize the light beam from the navel to the nose and out,
more in a curve.
For beginners, those of you who have never done any meditation, this is very
uncomfortable. The mind won't stay focused. You may feel that you can
never do it well. But do it. Quickly you will get used to it. You can do it.
Here is a repetition of the Shi nay points:
You can sit either in the cross-legged posture, or in the half-
crossed posture, or on a chair, or in the Zen meditation posture, any one of
them is fine.
In the cross-legged posture, then the right hand is in the left
hand, and they rest on the ankle of your left foot, which is facing up.
The back should be straight.
The shoulders are up.
The arms are slightly stretched.
The neck is bent down a little. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]