This has three parts: (1) the prerequisites of vipashyana, (2) how to practise it, and (3) the measure of accomplishment.

 

1. The Prerequisites of Vipashyana

 

The Intermediate Stages of Meditation says:

What are the prerequisites of Vipashyana? To follow a noble teacher, to seek extensive learning, and to contemplate in the proper way.

As this says, we must apply ourselves to following a qualified spiritual teacher, to acquiring extensive learning to the best of our ability, and especially to studying and contemplating the scriptures and pith instructions which teach the profound path. As Lord Atisha said:

Life is short and there is much that could be known,

But since the exact length of our lives in uncertain,

Earnestly, like geese extracting milk from water,

We must apply ourselves to our particular goal.

 

2. How to Practise Vipashyana

 

This has three parts: (a) eliminating conceptual constructs through the view, (b) taking to heart through meditation, and (c) enhancing through action.

 

a. Eliminating Conceptual Constructs through the View

 

This has three parts: (i) eliminating conceptual constructs regarding outer objects, (ii) eliminating conceptual constructs regarding the mind, and (iii) eliminating conceptual constructs regarding the antidote of meditation practice.

 

i. Eliminating conceptual constructs regarding outer objects

 

The root text says:

Consider all things and events to be like a dream.

The meaning of this is explained in the Intermediate Stages of Meditation:

‘Things and events’ (or dharmas), in short, refers to the five aggregates, twelve sense sources and eighteen elements. The physical aspects of the aggregates, sense sources and elements are, in an ultimate sense, nothing other than aspects of the mind. When they are broken down into subtlemost particles, and these are examined to determine the nature of their parts, no real nature can be definitively identified.

Therefore, through the force of our timeless clinging to forms and so on, which are in fact unreal—just like the appearances in a dream—visual forms and such like appear to ordinary beings as if they were external to the mind. Yet we must examine them, because on the ultimate level, these forms and the like are nothing other than aspects of mind.

As this says, although we experience all manner of things in our dreams, as a result of our habitual tendencies from waking life and through the contributing circumstance of being asleep, nothing that we experience in the dream possesses even the slightest reality. In just the same way, through the habitual tendency, which have developed throughout beginningless time, of perceiving things as real, and through the contributing circumstance of our own karma, we experience a variety of objects. Although these appear to us to be more than just aspects of mind, it is certain that they do not have even the slightest reality.

 

ii. Eliminating conceptual constructs regarding the mind

 

The root text says:

Examine the nature of unborn awareness.

The Stages of Meditation says:

When we consider how all the three realms are merely the mind, and we realize that this so, and that all imputed phenomena are really nothing other than the mind, then by examining the mind we are examining the nature of all phenomena. We must analyze along the following lines. On the ultimate level, the mind too can not truly exist. How can the mind that perceives the aspects of forms and so on, which are essentially unreal, and that appears in these various aspects, ever be real? Just as physical forms and so on are false, since the mind is not separate from them, it too is false.

 

When we examine the nature of mind with wisdom in this way, we find that ultimately mind is perceived neither inside nor outside. Nor is it perceived in the absence of both. The mind of the past is not perceived; nor is that of the future. The mind that arises in the present too is not perceived. When the mind is born, it comes from nowhere, and when it ceases, it goes nowhere. Mind is not apprehensible; it is not demonstrable; and it is not physical.

As this says, when we understand that all appearances are the magical manifestation of mind, and we examine the essence of mind using ultimate analysis, we arrive at the certain conclusion that it is beyond all conceptual constructs, such as outer and inner, past, present and future, arising and ceasing, and so on.

 

iii. Eliminating conceptual constructs regarding the antidote of meditation practice

 

The root text says:

Let even the antidote itself be naturally freed.

The Stages of Meditation says:

If, in this way, the fire of the awareness of things as they are can be ignited through precise investigation, then just like flames sparked by rubbing sticks together, it will burn away the wood of conceptual thought. This, the Buddha himself, has said.

 

In the Arya Cloud of Jewels Sutra, he said, “In order to be free of all conceptual constructs, the one who is skilled in discerning faults practises the yoga of meditation on emptiness. Such a person, through repeated meditation on emptiness, when searching thoroughly for the identity and nature of the objects of mind’s distraction and delight, realizes them to be empty. When the mind itself is also examined, it is realised to be empty. When you search in every way for the nature of what is realized by the mind, this too is realised to be empty. Through realization such as this, you enter into the yoga of signlessness.”

As this explains by drawing upon the sutras, when we meditate, having analyzed both outer objects and the mind, if we become attached to the meditation which is the antidote, we must thoroughly investigate its essence, cause and result, and become certain that it is, and always has been, empty.

 

 

b. Taking to heart through meditation

 

The root text says:

Rest in the nature of alaya, the essence of the path.

Generally there are many explanations of alaya (or the ‘all ground’) as one of the eight collections of consciousness, but here, as in the teachings of the Lamdré tradition, it refers to shunyata, the nature of which is the unity of awareness and emptiness. It is called the ‘all ground’ because it is the basis for all the phenomena of samsara and nirvana. Therefore, as Lord Atisha said:

In the nature of things, beyond all conceptual elaboration,

Consciousness too comes to rest, beyond all concepts.

In other words, when it is directed towards the ‘object’, the nature of reality beyond the limitations of fixed ideas, the mind which is the ‘subject’ enters a mode of utter simplicity, or freedom from concepts, by cutting through any fixed ideas in the way described above. When we enter this state of simplicity, we must simply rest in meditative equipoise without any further analysis or evaluation, projection or absorption, effort and exertion, or such like.

 

The Stages of Meditation says:

When entering, in this way, into the reality of the selflessness of individuals and phenomena, since there is no further analysis to be done, you gain freedom from concepts and evaluation. Mental activity enters, naturally and spontaneously, into the single state that is beyond expression. Without conceptualizing, remain in meditation with exception clarity regarding reality itself. And while abiding in that state, do not allow the continuity of mind to be distracted.

The way to dispel dullness and agitation has already been described.

 

c. Enhancing through action

 

The root text says:

Abandon the seven and their mental processes, because they are conceptual.

The seven, meaning the consciousness associated with the six senses, and the rigid idea of “I” and “mine” which is referred to as the emotional mind, together with their accompanying thought processes, are all said to be ‘incorrect conceptual patterns’, as it says in Distinguishing the Middle from Extremes:

Incorrect conceptual patterns are the mind

And mental processes of the Three Realms.[1]

When states of mind such as these are directed towards and reacting to objects, we must not follow the tendency to perceive things as real or to cling to their reality. Instead, by thoroughly examining the essence of the objects mind is directed towards and the thoughts themselves, we must decide that they are beyond any conceptual constructs. If we can familiarize ourselves with this and with the technique, by practising it again and again, then all proliferation of conceptual thoughts will become a support for the arising of non-conceptual wisdom. That is why this is referred to as enhancement.

 

3. The Measure of Accomplishment

 

The Stages of Meditation says:

While focused in that state of calm abiding (shamatha), to analyze reality is higher insight (vipashyana).

And:

Once we have achieved physical and mental pliancy, when abiding in that, having eliminated every other mode of thought, whatever is contemplated by the mind within the realm of samadhi is considered to be like a reflection. Within that domain of samadhi meditation, to regard these reflections and discern the meaning of these objects of knowledge, to discern them thoroughly, understand them fully, analyze them fully, endure them, take delight in them, discern their distinctive features, observe them and understand them, is what is known as higher insight. Thus the bodhisattva is skilled in the practice of higher insight.

As this says by drawing upon the Samdhinirmochana Sutra, vipashyana is discerning wisdom that is built upon physical and mental pliancy. It is called vipashyana (higher insight) because, with a capacity exceeding that of other states of mind, it sees the nature of objects.

 

We must practise shamatha and vipashyana, which we have now explained, as a unity. This is because each of them by itself will not fulfil the purpose of eliminating the destructing emotions, realizing the nature of things, and so on. We must therefore acquire a detailed understanding, including how they are to be combined. This has already been explained elsewhere.