technology // politics // economics // security//by julian leuthold
The wisdom arising from meditation is not only through investigation but from familiarization so that it is something living, it automatically develops, and that is the counterforce [to mental afflictions]. In order to achieve that, our mind must be controlled, not by force, but by mental effort, which only comes voluntarily, never through force. That single-pointed mind you call ‘shamatha’ is common in India for thousands of years in all traditions, a common practice. Sometimes I do feel that we Tibetans are a little bit negligent on that. We makes excuses, and that is a mistake. Now in terms of my own experience, I think I have some experience of shunyata as a result of almost 50 years of effort. Even before I left Tibet, I’d already developed genuine interest in that. After I came to India, I made regular effort to study, to think, to analyze. So now when I think of that view, or reality, there is some sort of feeling there. But due to a lack of single-pointed mind, it cannot go further. The Heart Sutra mentions, “gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate.” Unless you experience single-pointed meditation, the “gate, gate” is meaningless. So if you’re really serious about “gate, gate” (“go, go”), then you must start the practice of samadhi. This is very important—a single-pointed mind.
“Now the main method for single-pointed meditation is the cultivation of mindfulness and introspection. Here mindfulness means that the object on which your mind concentrates is thoroughly held. That means the image or picture of that must be held in mind. That means mindfulness. Then, not only that, but the mind must be very sharp, fully alert. If the object is a bit hazy and your mind is slack, that is a great danger for proper samadhi. The mind must not only hold the object of your meditation, your mind must be fully alert. You must have a very sharp mind. Whether such obstacles occur or not, you need introspection to monitor that. These two are the main instruments for developing a single-pointed mind. For that reason in our daily life, even in our dreams, some sort of mindfulness of what is right must be sustained. Then you watch whether your mental action, verbal action, physical action go in the wrong direction. Constantly watch. That is training in ethics, a constant watching to see whether your physical action goes the right direction or not. Constantly check. And likewise for speech, check whether it goes the right way or not. Among the three trainings, training in ethics is the basis. That develops these two: mindfulness and introspection. Then the second practice is single-pointed mind. Once we experience that, then no matter what we focus on—whether conventional things, or mind itself, or shunyata—wherever your mind is put, it remains there single-pointedly. That is immensely helpful for penetrating your object of meditation, in this case, shunyata. Those are the three trainings, the main method to achieve moksha, or liberation. That is the Theravada tradition and the Bodhisattva tradition—all the same. Without that, you cannot go further. You can train, you can study, you can develop altruism, but you cannot go on the actual path without samadhi, without wisdom. That is how to achieve liberation…
“When you stop memories about the past and don’t let in hopes and visions of the future, then in that moment you get the feeling of nothingness, empty. That is not emptiness. We are normally so caught up in feelings and images. While you prolong for a little while that sense of emptiness, then you get a sense of sheer luminosity. It mirrors appearances but is itself nothing. It is nothing in particular, but reflects everything. That is the conventional reality of the mind. It is neutral, just pure luminosity. Then concentrate on it as long as you can.
“Then once that becomes familiar, then take that as an object and further investigate the reality of that. The mind must be designated on the continuation of that experience…so what is the mind? Through further investigation, you can’t find it. Then you touch the ultimate reality of the mind.
“Then to practice something subtler than focusing on an external object but coarser than focusing on the mind as the object of meditation, it’s best to focus on the in- and out-breath. So single-pointedly concentrate on your breathing, just coming and going. You can count 20, 50, 100 breaths. This is one way of training the mind that is so scattered. This gives it some discipline…As you discipline the mind, you can begin with a coarser object like the breathing, and then go to subtler objects.
Wrote about this in tandem with India’s similar situation yesterday, here. The NYT article itself was more about graft, but the self-questioning is what caught my eye — the looking back after having grown so quickly, to consider where it’s leading.
This is an older report, but as an extension of what I was discussing in my previous post, it sheds light on what is going on inside the black box of China’s political and foreign policy apparatus. The report is built largely on interviews with Chinese politicians and insiders. It was an illuminating read for me to understand the two major visions of China’s future.
This thoughtful glimpse into what is going on in India and China right now underneath the surface was the principal reason why I went to go study in Delhi earlier this year. India is a country that is just beginning to articulate to itself exactly what kind of power it wants to be. The arguments and views that are most prominent now will likely last for a very long time in the country’s ascent to power. That process has been underway in China for a while, but it seems to be increasing and changing there as its presence carries more implications for the rest of the world.
The United States went through a similar period in the later decades of the 19th Century when it first became necessary to take diplomacy seriously (including the decision to finally appoint ambassadors) and consider the growth of our embassy network. It was also the time that our diplomatic style started to come into being, and our ideas on grand strategy began to take shape with Alfred Thayer Mahan single-handedly bringing back from obscurity the idea that a strong navy was essential for maintaining a lasting strategic advantage. These, and the ideas of William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and many of their other contemporaries, would set the intellectual groundwork for the first defining crises of the 20th Century, and which would be such an influence on the actions and thinking in that period. After all, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Henry Cabot Lodge simply couldn’t have behaved the way they did without a context. A similar context is being created, revived, and defined now in India, and will surely set in place the major arguments concerning the kind of power it wants to be — something it has resisted in its past, as evidenced by its pre-1991 economic isolation and its Non-Aligned Movement preference, all the way down to the popular Swadeshi ethic.
Though China and India are both ancient civilizations, their return to great power status (possibly even superpower status) is putting a kind of urgency on these discussions of who they want to be for the world. Their growth and strategic importance are forcing decisions, so it is not surprising to see articles like this.
China is probably further along in this process, as the articulation of guiding principles is historically based and a matter of party-driven ideology. India typically keeps its traditions closer to mind than its history.
Just watched The Neverending Story.
What immediately came to mind in watching that film is exactly how much Giorgio Moroder’s music shaped my early (and lasting) tastes in music. I can’t think of any other band or composer who had the same kind of influence on me, but Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, and New Order come close.
With all of these film reboots happening, I really wish that either Wolfgang Petersen or someone who is worthy could give that movie a respectful and inspired update.
