Unveiling Your Sacred Truth through the Kalachakra Path, Book One

The External Reality

Shar Khentrul Jamphel Lodrö

• Publisher: TIBETAN BUDDHIST RIME INSTITUTE INC.
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780994445360
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

The Kalachakra Path offers a profound method for actualising your greatest potential and contributing to greater peace and harmony within this world. For the first time ever, this extraordinary path is revealed in a step-by-step manner, allowing students to gradually approach this uniquely comprehensive system in a structured and methodical way.

Drawing on more than 30 years of intensive training with more than 25 different masters from each of the major Tibetan traditions, Khentrul Rinpoché offers an expansive understanding that transcends sectarian boundaries and cuts through to the essential meaning of the Buddha’s teachings.

In this first of three books, Rinpoché explores the external reality of the world that we encounter on a daily basis. Through a wealth of practical advice, he provides us with a variety of methods for working with the many ups and downs that we face. He then encourages us to probe deeper into the very nature of our experience in order to develop insight into what is truly important to us and how to make the most of the precious opportunities that this life has to offer.

PART ONE

Creating Space
for Reflection

CHAPTER ONE

Understanding the Mind

Think back to the start of your day, to the very first moment you can remember. Here you are sleeping, perhaps in the middle of a dream, and then suddenly you’re awake. Sometimes it’s very clear, with no doubt in your mind, you definitely know you’re awake. The sun is shining through your window and the dream world you were in just a few moments ago is no longer there. At other times though it can be a little confusing and you may not be sure of things, maybe you are still dreaming, maybe you’re awake; it’s not completely clear.

Either way, eventually the waking world wins out and you get out of bed and so your day begins. Most of us have some sort of morning routine, a series of actions that we do day in and day out. A habit we have formed over many years, it can sometimes feel like we’re on autopilot and we’re often not even consciously aware of what we are doing. There is an experience of having a shower. The sound of the taps turning, the water flowing, the pitter patter feeling of water droplets on the skin and the sight of steam fogging up the panes of glass. In each moment we are receiving a constant stream of information; sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and sensations all combining into a rich sensory experience.

But it’s not just the senses is it? While you lather the shampoo into your hair, thoughts of the day start popping up. Perhaps today is a particularly important day, like the start of a new job. You may be a little anxious, unsure about your new co-workers or your new boss. Maybe it’s excitement. You may think back to all the hard work that brought you to this point. All of these thoughts, feelings and memories form another level of how you experience your world.

In Buddhism, this constant flow of experience is known as “mind”. Like a mirror, the mind reflects whatever is presented to it. The mind is not the H₂O molecules of the water droplets, it is your subjective experience of those water droplets as they hit your skin. Likewise, it is not the waves of light travelling into your eyes, nor is it the energy pulses that travel down the optic nerve. It’s not even the network of neurons which activate in your visual cortex. What it is, is the experience of a hot, soapy shower, with the sun streaming in through the window.

Between the body and the mind, which do we tend to emphasise more in our lives? Which is more important: the objective physical world of things “out there” or the subjective experiential world of things “in here”? Just turn on the TV and look at what the ads focus on. For the most part, there seems to be an overwhelming belief in western society that the physical world is clearly the most important. There is this notion that all of our problems can be fixed if we just learn how to manipulate our physical world in just the right way.

If we stop and seriously analyse this idea we will discover many inconsistencies. There are many beautiful people out there who have everything they could ever want and yet they are completely miserable. They could be living in the most extravagant of homes and yet their experience is one of boredom and dissatisfaction. On the other hand, someone could be living in the most destitute of conditions and still be content and happy. They may not even own a single possession other than the clothes on their back, but they are still satisfied and filled with joy.

Given the choice, which would you prefer: a life filled with happiness or one filled with sorrow? I think we can all agree that we naturally prefer the former. No matter what the external conditions may be, if we can experience happiness, then that will always win out. By recognising that happiness occurs within the mind, then it should be clear that the mind is the most important phenomenon for us to understand.

It is therefore rather surprising how little our western culture actually knows about it. Fortunately, ancient wisdom traditions such as Buddhism have invested considerable time in developing a robust science of the mind. In this first chapter, we will look into the various characteristics of the mind as understood in Buddhist Psychology and how we can work with it in order to overcome the many problems that we face in our lives.

The Mind—What is it?

We will begin by first developing some sense of what the mind is. To do this, we will need to clear away a few common misconceptions that are very prevalent in our society. The biggest misconception is that the mind is the brain. There is this belief that the mind is essentially a physical entity and that our experiences are emergent properties of that entity. Based on this assumption, scientists sift through the various neurons and synapses of the brain, trying to understand how it is that our experiences arise from them. So far they have been unsuccessful.

What they have been able to identify is that there is a very close correlation between the electrical activity within the brain and corresponding experiences in the mind. This would suggest that there are two distinct types of phenomena that are capable of influencing each other. Different, and yet related.

The relationship between body and mind.

According to Buddhist psychology, the mind is non-physical in nature. This means that it is not made up of particles, nor does it exist within a specific location in space and time. Instead, it is characterised as being clear and knowing. The clarity here refers to the basic capacity for the mind to give rise to appearances, while the knowing is the mind’s capacity to be aware of those appearances.

While the activity within the brain does influence the appearances which arise in the mind, it cannot be said that the brain is the same as the mind. Likewise, the thoughts and ideas which arise in the mind, are able to influence electrical activity in the brain which can lead to the formation of new neural pathways or can trigger particular physical behaviours. It is a two-way street of mutual influence. To see this in action, let’s conduct a very simple experiment: stop reading this book for a second, raise your right arm and lower it again.

Let’s look at what was going on in this seemingly simple activity. Different wavelengths of light bouncing off the page of this book enter into your eyes and are converted into electrical pulses. These pulses travel into the brain activating various neurons and this brain activity causes the appearance of letters to arise in the mind. The awareness of these letters causes the appearance of their meaning to then take place. This awareness of meaning in turn causes a pattern of neurons to fire and the electrical pulse travels through the nervous system into the arm, causing the muscles to contract. The arm then rises. Then after a period of time passes, the memory of the meaning of what was read, triggers another chain reaction that results in the arm lowering. All of these little interactions between the body and mind are happening in an unbelievably short span of time, so fast that we perceive them to be happening almost instantaneously.

A simple illustration for how the body and mind influence each other.

Buddhists argue that while there is undoubtedly a strong relationship between the brain and the mind, that relationship represents only a small portion of the mind’s overall capacity. We can think of the mind like the entirety of space and the brain as a single solar system within that space. Contemplation of the solar system alone can lead us to feel astounded by its sheer size and form, we may even become curious about its origins. But in the greater scheme of things, it is, however, just one system, within one galaxy, within one universe. Whereas space on the other hand is ubiquitous in nature, defying any attempt to comprehend its sheer enormity. No matter what arises within this space, the space is never changed and yet, without the space, nothing could ever arise.

If we accept that the mind is non-physical, then we must accept that physical phenomena are unable to detect the mind. There is a common belief that everything which exists must be detectable through physical measurements. Until it is measured, it is believed that it does not exist. This however is a misconception. While our machines can detect fluctuations of subtle energy or shifts in quantum fields, they will never be able to detect the corresponding appearances that arise in the mind. What they can detect are the correlated influences that those non-physical phenomena have on the physical world. In the end, this leads us to the conclusion that the only thing that is capable of detecting a non-physical phenomenon is another non-physical phenomenon—in this case the mind itself.

Realising this, the great yogic meditators and philosophers such as Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha Shakyamuni) have made great efforts to develop a range of mental techniques for directly observing the mind with the mind. Through prolonged engagement with these techniques they learned that the mind could be trained and conditioned to manifest specific desirable qualities. In fact, through working with the mind, they were able to completely transform the way in which they related with their world.

If we consider scientific and technological advancement over the last century, it is easy to see that our knowledge of the world has experienced significant growth. This did not come about overnight. It required countless people dedicating their time and effort, to uncover the secrets of the physical universe. Likewise, the great meditators of the past devoted their lives to discovering the true nature of the mind. They gave up all worldly comforts and pleasures, as well as concern for name and fame, to discover this hidden nature and to understand all of the phenomena related to the mind. The following sections will now explore some of the discoveries these masters have made.

The Continuity of Mind

One of the first observations made by these masters is that something does not arise from nothing. Nor can something all of a sudden turn into nothing. Just like physical energy, there is a principle of conservation at work. Energy is never created nor is it destroyed, it is merely transformed and reconfigured. Likewise, the mind is a continuity, where each moment gives rise to the next, which gives rise to the next and so on and so forth.

In any given moment, there must have been a moment directly preceding it which acted as the basis for the next moment to arise. This means that we cannot find a beginning of mind. There was never any moment where nothing became something.

The fact that there is one moment presently arising is also the basis for the next moment to arise. Which experience arises will depend on the conditions in the present. While the next moment will not be exactly the same as the previous, it will still be mind and therefore we can never posit an end to mind either. There will never be a moment where something becomes nothing. In this way, we can say that the mind is a beginningless and endless process of transformation.

The endless continuum of momentary changes.

This process can be called the External Wheel of Time (Kalachakra). In this context, “wheel” refers to the endless process of moment to moment awareness; a cycle with no beginning, no middle and no end. While “time” refers to continual movement and change; the constantly shifting appearances in the mind, arising from the mutual influence between physical and non-physical phenomena.

Why is any of this important to us? It is important because this understanding can help us recognise the causal connection between our past, present and future experiences. We can easily see that some experiences are more preferable to us than others. The ones we like, we call happiness, while the ones that we do not like, can be called suffering. By analysing which conditions give rise to happiness and which give rise to suffering, we are able to modify our behaviour accordingly. What we call training the mind is simply the process of intentionally shaping how our mental continuum develops.

Stepping Back Through Time

• Sit quietly with your back straight, adopting a relaxed state of mind.
  
• Consider where you are right now. How did you get here? What events led up to this moment? As you identify different actions, consider the thoughts which motivated those actions. Step back slowly, reconstructing the causal chain of events from this moment all the way back to the moment that you woke up in the morning.
  
• Now consider the last week. Select a few moments that made a particular impression on you. Think of both the mental experiences and the physical actions that you engaged in. Keep going back, as though you were following a trail of breadcrumbs.
  
• Look back even further, considering the major events that have occurred over the course of the last year. Consider how each of these events has contributed to this present moment that you are now experiencing.
  
• Now look back through your life and identify different moments that you feel were significant to who you are as a person. Consider how these turning points influenced your subs...