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In order to be able to generate inner spiritual forces which are strong enough to destroy the various mental distortions, one must engage a powerful method. | |||
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The more powerful the method, the stronger becomes one's application to the view of emptiness. When one's method is strong, one's meditations on emptiness become very powerful and one's ability to destroy mental and spiritual distortion is intensified. On the basis of the vastness of the methods used, the Buddha's teachings are divided into two main vehicles: the Bodhisattvayana and the Shravakayana, generally known as the Mahayana and Hinayana, respectively. In the Bodhisattvayana method one meditates that everything one does is for the benefit of living beings. Once it has been understood that all living beings, just like oneself, want happiness and dislike suffering, the attitude which asssumes responsibility for their well-being arises. This attitude is an amazing, wonderful and most courageous force, more precious than anything else in existence. When one uses it as a basis for one's meditation upon the ultimate mode of things, the forces that destroy delusion and distortion are easily cultivated.
What are the methods of meditating on this altruistic and compassionate aspiration to highest enlightenment in conjunction with meditation on emptiness as explained in the great Madhyamika works ? These are classified in accordance with the coarseness or subtlety of the level of consciousness performing the meditation. Factors such as the subtlety, the force and nature of one's mind, and so forth, strongly influence one's experience of the view of emptiness. How so ? The coarse levels of consciousness will not produce an experience of emptiness as quickly as will the subtle; and whether the coarse or subtle mind engaged in meditation is doing so on the basis of a union of method and wisdom also affects the impact of the practice. A meditation in which method and wisdom are not held in union will not produce tremendous results. When the mind is absorbed in method and wisdom conjoined, meditation on emptiness is most effective. According to the schools of Buddhist thought that accept six spheres of consciousness (the five sensory consciousness together with purely mental consciousness), there is both a coarse or ordinary level of consciousness that can perform meditation on emptiness on the basis of method and wisdom combined, and subtle level of consciousness able to perform this meditation. Once one has cultivated a subtle level of consciousness propelled by the vast aspiration to highest enlightenment and applies it to realization of emptiness, the meditation becomes extremely powerful and is able to instantly destroy the host of destructive mental traits.
by The 14th Dalai Lama - Tenzin
Gyatso | ||
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