Three Basic Principles Of Discipline | Atisha's 7 Point Mind Training

You may not need discipline, but your mind does. In order to achieve anything, discipline is a must. The same applies to meditation. Atisha lays down the do's and don'ts of mind training where he says, the 3 basic principles are:

1. Regularity of Practice
2. The longing in your Heart
3. Patience

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Join me in a 30 min DAILY LIVE meditation session at 7 AM CET on my website.

Transcript

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily live meditation session with me the answer.

Meditation is a journey back home.

It is less significant when did we lose our way or why did we lose our way.

What is more important is when we realize that we have gone astray we take steps back towards home.

What is this home?

This is our being.

We are everywhere but not in our being.

We are living everything but not our being.

So join me in these daily meditations,

Daily spiritual contemplations which will take us one step closer to our being to ourselves.

Currently we are going through 7 points of mind training by Atisha and today we will begin point number 6 where Atisha is laying down the discipline of mind training.

See that you don't need training.

You don't need discipline.

What your mind does,

Your mind needs training.

Your mind needs discipline.

No matter what you think of yourself mind needs the discipline.

That is why Buddhism has a lot of rules of dos and don'ts of the discipline which monks train day in day out.

For us I understand that we are not living amongst life.

For us some of these rules don't apply.

But still let us go through what Atisha is proposing as a discipline for mind training.

The discipline which Atisha sets for mind training in the context of meditation he says Always abide by the 3 basic principles.

Change your attitude but remain natural.

Don't talk about injured limbs.

Don't ponder others.

Work with the greatest defilements first.

Abandon any hope of fruition.

Abandon poisonous food.

Don't be so predictable.

Don't malign others.

Don't wait in ambush.

Don't bring things to a painful point.

Don't transfer the ox's load to the cow.

Don't try to be the fastest.

Don't act with a twist.

Don't make gods into demons.

Don't seek others pain as the limbs of your own happiness.

Don't Soften self as full of regrets you felt.

You cannot be free from your gradmonds every time you Crkeley says in oneThose new AGs you're deep in a popcorn,

Is here is caught in the emerald of Dcel malaria or pneumonia.

This sounds like a maintaining a family,

Living in society,

But still for the practice of meditation,

For the practice of mind training,

What is relevant and what can be practiced,

What can be lived,

We'll go through them in the next sessions.

For today's session,

The first sutra always abide by the three basic principles.

What are the three basic principles of meditation?

The first principle is regularity.

No matter how we like it or not,

Meditation does require daily practice.

We have made convenient versions out of it,

Where we think we can practice once in a while.

When we feel not so good,

Then we can sit down for meditation and that is enough.

A continuity is needed,

Regularity is needed not for you but for your mind.

For your mind to always allow you to be in silence,

To allow you to be aware,

This needs practice,

This needs training for the mind.

So,

Regularity is needed.

In these 30-minute sessions every day,

My effort is here to build this continuity for you.

So,

If you don't give yourself even few minutes,

Forget about 30 minutes,

Even 5 minutes every day is building that continuity.

Start with 5 minutes a day,

10 minutes a day,

15 minutes a day,

30 minutes a day to have this training of the mind to build this regularity for the mind so that when you sit down,

Then your mind is going out of the way,

Is allowing you to fall into silence,

To fall into meditation as soon as you sit down or after few minutes.

You have to also see this as when you bring this on daily basis,

A fourth consciousness opens up for you or a fourth state of consciousness opens up for you.

Currently,

Your 24 hours are divided into three states of consciousness.

Those states are your waking state in which you are spending most of the time,

18 hours,

15 hours,

16 hours a day,

You are always in this waking state,

You function in this waking state and then when you go to sleep,

Then you experience more or less two different states of consciousness.

One is dreaming all the time and the other one is deep sleep and you are alternating,

You are switching between deep sleep and dreaming during the night.

These three states are what you experience all throughout your 24 hours.

There is no chance for any other state to arise unless you are out in nature,

Unless you are having exceptional moments in your routine in your daily life.

So you must bring in at least 5 minutes,

10 minutes,

20 minutes,

Half an hour,

1 hour,

Whatever time you can allocate to your daily routines where you step out of all these three states of consciousness and are in the fourth state of consciousness,

Where you are absolutely silent and you are aware,

The state of meditation and that regularity starts building up on daily basis,

Allowing it to become more natural,

Allowing it to become more easier.

The second basic is to have a longing,

To have a longing in your heart for spirituality.

If you are only driven by a very clear goal,

Meditation may not be appealing for you because you cannot see the goal.

You cannot judge and calculate and measure the goal.

What is the goal of meditation?

What is needed is a longing in your heart,

A vision in your eyes and a longing in your heart that everything is there,

That you are living everything,

You are living all sorts of frameworks to enjoy mind,

To enjoy the body,

But still something is missing and that essence which is to be always in your own being,

To be oneself,

That essence is missing.

That longing for that essence of life and wanting to live life every moment is what will keep you driving all throughout this journey towards meditation,

Towards spirituality.

So this longing is a must in your heart.

If you don't have it,

Explore your heart,

See what longing is there,

What reason is there,

Why you are meditating,

Why you want to build this practice for yourself and keep that reason,

Keep that longing in front of you,

Always remain aware of and see that longing starts driving you to build a practice and in times where you think why am I doing this,

In times where you don't want to do this,

That longing,

That reason,

That intention will keep you back into the discipline,

Will keep your mind trained.

Third basic is patience.

Patience is also somewhat underrated and the current lifestyle that we have,

Everything is served within a click,

Everything is served immediately.

We are so much used to quick wins,

Quick gains and we all know that it doesn't work like this but we still fall for it.

You know how many times you must have bought the idea of quick gains,

Quick wins by doing this or that and it never worked but we still don't learn.

So take the chance of these sessions,

Take this opportunity in these sessions to develop patience.

Patience is needed also for the meditation practice to unfold,

To reach to its climax,

To reach to its peak.

You need tremendous patience throughout the journey and in each session.

As you sit down your mind must be all over the place and it takes time,

It takes its own ways for the mind to calm down,

For it to settle,

For your awareness to move away from all different things and become one-pointed.

And allowing you to be seated,

Allowing you to be centered in this silent awareness requires a lot of patience to not try to do something,

To not try to change things but just to wait,

To passively wait for the energies to reorganize by themselves,

For the consciousness to unfold by itself.

So these three basics practice not just in your session,

Practice also throughout your life.

They are not only going to help you in meditation but also are very much relevant to whichever life that you lead,

Whichever lifestyle that you have,

To have patience,

To have longing,

To have regularity in any discipline that you establish for yourself.

With that let us move to the practice,

Let us move to the meditation and since we are talking about basics,

Today we will practice a very basic meditation technique which is to remain aware of your breath.

While you do that,

Revise the basics,

Revise that you are regular,

Meaning you are bringing your awareness and attention to your breath again and again and again,

No matter how many times you get distracted,

No matter what takes you away,

What idea,

What thought,

What sense perception takes you away from your awareness on your breath,

You bring it back.

You bring that regularity back that you are following the breath,

The breath is natural and you are always aware of your breath.

Second,

While you do that,

Have this longing in your heart.

Why you are doing this?

What is this all about?

Have this in the background,

This longing in the background as you remain aware of your breath.

Don't think about it,

Feel in your heart,

Have that longing in your heart.

And thirdly,

Remain passive,

Remain patient,

Remain silent.

With that,

Let us close our eyes.

Make sure that your posture is upright,

At your back and head straight,

Shoulders down,

Hands in your lap or on your thighs,

Your face is relaxed.

Take a nice deep breath,

Inhale from the nose and exhale from the nose.

Let the breath find its natural pace.

For the next minute,

All your awareness on your breath.

Observe the incoming breath,

Observe the outgoing breath.

Let the breath find its natural pace.

Let the breath find its natural pace.

Bring the regularity in this observation,

Which means if you get distracted,

Simply bring back your awareness to your breath.

You may have to do this several times.

Observe the flow of your breath.

With the longing in your heart for silence,

For awareness,

For being yourself,

Observe the flow of your breath.

Let the breath find its natural pace.

Observe the longing in your breath.

Let the breath find its natural pace.

Don't try to change the flow of your breath.

Don't try to control it.

Simply remain aware of your breath.

Remain patient,

Passive,

For the mind to settle,

For the body to settle,

For your awareness to settle in your breath.

Let the breath find its natural pace.

Observe the longing in your breath.

Let the breath find its natural pace.

Now let go of this focus on your breath.

And stay in silence,

Allowing your awareness to expand on its own.

In other words,

Simply remain aware of nothing in particular.

Let the breath find its natural pace.

No thought can enter this awareness.

There is only silence in awareness.

Let the breath find its natural pace.

If you wish to continue with your breath,

Please continue with your breath.

If you wish to stay longer in this state of silent awareness,

Keep your eyes closed,

Let everything go,

Stay in this meditative silence.

Or very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes.

While maintaining this meditative silence,

This awareness,

This state of mind which is calmer,

More trained.

And as you proceed along with your day,

Try to find more occasions to practice this meditative silence,

To also practice the three basic principles,

To build regularity,

To have longing in your heart,

And to have patience.

I will see you tomorrow at 7 am Central European Time.

Namaste.

Reviews

Thanks for distilling the main principles of meditation: Regularity, longing of Heart, and Patience. Very helpful. Also appreciate the skillful guided meditation on the breath. Namaste

I really appreciate Dhyanse's combinations of philosophy and meditation. Very well expressed, making each session comprehensive, accessible and applicable. With gratitude. 💗

I appreciate the structure of these practices. Thank you 🙏💙🙏