This Shall Also Pass By | Atisha's 7-Point Mind Training

This meditation will help you see how the foundations will greatly help daily life. 4 Provisions which you can always carry with you as teaching to help in times of adversity, transform the adversity into an opportunity of awakening:

1. FOCUS: Keep your attention on what matters to you and cut the noise.
2. TRUST: Have trust in yourself, otherwise the world will infiltrate and rule you.
3. ACTION: Keep moving forward towards getting out of the adversity.
4. PERSPECTIVE: Never lose the birds-eye view that 'this shall also pass by'.

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Transcript

A very warm welcome to all of you in this morning meditation session with me,

The answer.

This happens live every day from 7 to 7.

30 am,

Central European Time.

Currently we are exploring the 7 points of mind training by Atisha.

Why mind training?

You may ask yourself that you have a wonderful mind.

Why do you need to train your mind?

Our body and our mind,

These are the wonderful gifts of nature for us to access this world,

For us to experience this world.

But slowly by and by what has happened is that we are not accessing the world,

The world is accessing us.

Our mind is not for us,

The interface,

To go out and be in the world,

But rather it has become a place where the world is accessing our mind.

If you have doubts,

Just take a look at your mind.

All the world is there in your mind right now,

All the thoughts from your work,

All what you have to do,

All the plans,

All your ideas,

All your one thousand things in the head.

These are not yours,

These were never yours.

These are all from the world which have now settled in your mind,

They have infiltrated your mind.

So you need to do something about this,

You need some sort of training to gain back the emptiness of the mind.

If you look at your heart,

How much love is left,

We need to train love and compassion which otherwise was in our nature.

By our nature we have love,

We have compassion and there was no need for these teachings.

But somehow we have reached to a place where love and compassion has to be taught.

This is the state of our mind,

This is the state of our being,

This is the state even of our spirit that we have to be reminded of our spirituality,

That we are so asleep about our spirit,

About our true nature that we have to be reminded of spirituality,

We have to be reminded of meditation.

So these 30 minutes today and every day are not only a reminder but are one step always in this direction towards waking up to our true nature,

Towards spirituality,

Towards putting the mind in its place,

Towards putting our heart in its place,

Towards putting our spirit again in its right place.

It's sorting us out in these sessions over the next weeks,

Months,

Years to come.

So please join whenever you can either live or practice afterwards to build a continuity for yourself.

We are at the point number 3 of Atisha's 7 point mind training.

This point number 3 is very much focused on taking the situation of adversity and transforming this as a chance of awakening.

What we are experiencing in the world right now is nothing less than adversity.

Every moment what we experience from what's happening outside,

If you look at it,

It is indeed a chance for us to rise up,

Indeed a chance for us to wake up to our true nature,

Wake up to the emptiness in our mind so that there is peace,

So that there is silence,

So that there is contentment and once again our love and compassion in our heart and the energy of the spirit that drives us in our entire life.

We are closing this point today by the last sutras of Atisha for converting adversity,

Transforming adversity into an opportunity of awakening.

Yesterday we spoke about the confusions they manifest themselves in our life and we can recognize them as four bodies,

As four kayas and today Atisha talks about the four provisions.

He says that you should always have these four provisions on your journey in life,

On your journey especially what you need in the times of adversity.

Just like you have somewhere a small bank balance in the time of adversity to help you out,

To go through the time of adversity,

The same Atisha is saying we have these four provisions for these times of adversity and then he is making one last point about this sutra which is not just valid for the times of adversity but otherwise as well.

He says connect everything to meditation.

So Atisha is saying without exception connect every aspect of your life to meditation.

What he is essentially saying is be aware of everything in your life,

Become aware of every little detail that is going on because this infiltration of your mind which has happened,

Of your heart which has happened,

Of your spirit which has happened,

You will only be able to see it,

Stop it,

Change it when you see it with the meditative eyes,

When you see it with the meditative state and you have that silence of meditation to act upon that.

So what are these four provisions?

When Atisha gave these four provisions to his monks,

These provisions are lifestyle dependent.

So what he talked about to his monks was something very specific to the monk life.

For us those provisions have lesser meaning.

For us the provisions of today's lifestyle,

Of the lifestyle that you and I are living are somewhat different.

The first is focus.

So these four provisions I have put them in very simple words for anyone to understand.

They don't even sound coming out of Tibetan Buddhism.

They are also general principles but if you bring these four principles consciously into your life,

These four provisions,

They will help you not only for your meditation but for whatever you are doing in life.

So the first one is focus.

This is such an obvious one if you look at your attention span,

What has happened to your attention span.

You cannot even focus for 30 seconds.

If you don't believe me,

Take a look at your watch and just follow the seconds hand and just follow it without getting distracted.

You will see you will not be able to follow this for 30 seconds and I would even dare to say even for 3 seconds.

So why are we so proud of our mind if we are not even in control of our mind to be able to focus for even 3 seconds?

Which clearly means the mind that is sitting on your head,

On my head,

On our heads is not ours anymore.

We need to take back control of this mind.

We need to master this mind.

First of all by building focus.

The second provision he says trust yourself.

This is something where everything that we are going through is breaking our trust in ourselves.

Everything is designed in a way that we doubt ourselves and we trust something else so that we give away the power position,

We give away the control,

We give away that faculty which allows us to function,

Which allows us to decide,

Which allows us to make the choices that are right for us.

So that trust has to be regained.

That trust has to be rebuilt in ourselves.

So do everything not just in meditation but everything around it in your life to gain back the trust in yourself.

To have this trust in yourself,

In your gut that what you are thinking,

What you are deciding is the right thing and not anybody else needs to decide for you.

Third,

Action.

Keep moving forward.

This is what we have heard in different contexts of motivation but this is so true that we need to keep moving forward.

No matter what you come across,

No matter where you are stuck,

If you are going through a phase of depression,

If you are going through a phase of difficulty,

You have to keep moving forward.

Which leads to the fourth provision which is perspective.

See things from a broader perspective.

See that in life,

This shall also pass by.

Whatever you are experiencing,

Whatever adversity you are going through,

This shall always pass by.

Just like everything else passes by,

Even if it is the brightest of things or the worst of things,

Everything passes by and things move on.

So you don't stop,

You keep moving,

You also keep this in your perspective that this shall pass by.

These are the four provisions.

Focus,

Trust,

Action,

Perspective.

These are helpful not just for your meditation but also for your life in general,

Especially for the times of adversity,

To come to pull yourself out of adversity and change that adversity into the opportunity of awakening,

Into the opportunity of transforming yourself towards more awareness,

More love,

More compassion,

More emptiness in your mind,

More peace.

With that,

Let us move into meditation.

In today's session,

I would like us to practice concentration,

Focus,

Trust.

A little bit of these four provisions that Aatisha is mentioning and bringing them into our meditation and taking these from our meditation back into our life.

So please close your eyes if you haven't already and take a posture which is comfortable for you with your back straight,

With your legs and hands in a posture that is comfortable,

That is easy.

For the focus.

For the focus,

We start off by bringing our awareness to our breath and then we will move on to different focal points to build concentration,

To build trust,

To build that sense of presence in these moments for us.

Start by bringing your awareness to your breath.

As your breath has settled,

Take this focus.

Focus to a point in between your eyebrows,

On your forehead known as third eye chakra.

Really shift the awareness to the region in between your eyebrows and allow your attention to settle there,

To train your focus.

This gives stability to your mind,

Drawing your attention and awareness away from thoughts,

From sensations to the middle of your forehead at your aagya chakra,

Third eye center.

Bless all your awersomeness,

Healthcare and pain,

Lift all yourSong summer's The focus has to be gentle,

Without stressing yourself,

Without forcing anything.

Without trying to change anything.

A gentle focus at your third eye center,

In between your eyebrows.

A gentle focus at your forehead.

A gentle focus at your forehead.

Shift your focus down to your heart region,

In the middle of your chest.

To your heart center,

Anahata chakra,

Which is to say,

In the middle of your chest.

Bring your awareness there,

And a sense of trust in yourself.

A gentle focus at your forehead.

Trust that it is the right thing to move towards awareness,

Towards silence.

To trust in yourself,

And have this along with the awareness at your heart center.

Shift your attention further down,

To the region above your navel,

The solar plexus,

The Manipura chakra.

The region above your navel,

A few inches above your navel.

Feel your attention there,

And feel the sensations,

The movements.

And awareness shifting further down,

Two inches below the navel,

To the area below the navel.

To Swadhisthana chakra.

To strengthen trust in yourself,

To gather the energy,

To center yourself.

Shift your attention two inches below your navel.

To the region above your navel,

A few inches below your navel.

And let go of all focus.

Allow your awareness to expand,

Wherever it goes.

You remain silent and aware.

You remain silent and aware.

You remain silent and aware.

Gently shift your awareness to what you see behind your closed eyes.

You remain silent and aware.

If you wish to stay longer in this silence,

In this awareness,

You may continue to do so.

Or very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes,

While maintaining this awareness,

This silence,

Which is prevailing inside you and outside you.

In this meditative awareness,

You are aware of both inside and outside at the same time.

This is how you connect the outside to your meditation.

So as you go through your day,

Remember this meditative awareness,

Which is connecting the outside to the inside.

And connect every situation,

Every little detail of your life to this awareness and see how the quality of your experience changes.

I'll see you tomorrow at 7 am Central European Time.

Namaste.

Reviews

This is my second time engaging this practice. A warm thank you for a thoughtful talk and mind training session 💙🙏💙

Very helpful, pertinent information. Beautiful, soothing voice! Namaste!