Daniel Brown, a clinical psychotherapist, has practiced meditation for more than thirty years. Coauthor of Transformations of Consciousness, he lives in Newton, MA.
List of Tables xi
Foreword xiii
Preface xv
Introduction 1
Putting Meditative Experience into Words 2
Intellectual Understanding Versus Actual Experience 3
The Technical Language of Spiritual Development 4
How This Book Is Structured 5
Mahamudra in Context 5
The Aim of Spiritual Development in Buddhism 5
Indian Antecedents to Mahamudra 7
Sutra, Tantra, and Essence 8
Gradual or Instantaneous 10
The Virtues of the Gradual Path 11
Tibetan Developments 13
Key Terms in Mahamudra 13
The Early Mahamudra Source Tradition 15
Tantric Mahamudra 17
The Source Translation Lineage 18
The Subsidiary Lineage 19
Gampopa and Monastic Mahamudra 21
Mahamudra Schools and Lineages of the Kagyu Tradition 22
Mahamudra in the Nyingma and Gelug Traditions 25
Navigating this Book 27
Types of Texts 27
An Integrated Synthetic Text 28
Semantic Field Analysis 30
The Selection of Texts 31
Technical Notes 33
Source Text Abbreviations 35
1. Cultivating the Motivation 37
I Generating Interest 37
A Interest 37
B Admiration 46
C Respect 53
II Causing Faith to Arise: The Decision to Try Spiritual Practice 58
A Generating Faith 58
B Faithful Recognition 65
2. Preliminary Practice 71
I The Ordinary Preliminaries 71
A The Four Notions 74
1. Opportunity 74
2. Impermanence 77
3. The Cause and Effect of Karmic Action 79
4. The Sufferings of Samsara 82
5. Concluding the Four Notions 86
II The Extraordinary Preliminaries 88
A Taking Refuge 91
B The Enlightened Attitude 96
C Eradicating Harmful Factors and Cultivating Factors That Potentiate Spiritual Development 106
1. Removing Obstacles: Sin and Obscuration 107
a The Nontantric Background 107
b The Tantric Vajrasattva Meditation 111
2. Cultivating Virtue: Factors That Potentiate Spiritual Development 113
a The Sutric Background 113
b The Tantric Mandala Offering 117
c Guru Yoga 120
III The Advanced Preliminaries 132
A Virtue Practice 133
B The Behavioral Training: Ethical Training and Binding the Senses 134
C The Mental Training: Mindfulness and Full Awareness 136
D Protecting 145
1. Ordinary Protecting Practice: The Conditions That Bring Forth Certainty 146
2. Extraordinary Protecting Practice: The Devotional Prayer 149
3. Contemplation 151
I The Nature of the Ordinary Mental Continuum 151
II Contemplation: From the Perspective of Mind-Cultivating the Skills for Staying 152
A Basic Skills for Contemplation and Meditation 153
III Contemplation: From the Perspective of Mental Events-Isolating Attentional focus from Mental Elaborations and Enhancing Organization of the Mental Continuum 157
A The Isolations and Points 157
1. The Isolation of the Body 159
2. The Isolation of Speech 170
3. The Isolation of Mind 173
4. Formal Meditation: Concentration with Support 181
I Concentration-in-Front: Partial Staying 186
II Concentration-Inside: Great Virtue 197
III Skill in Visualizing the Emanating Seed 205
IV Being-Done-With the Absorbed Seed 215
A The Diamond Recitation 221
B Vase Breathing 226
C Space Yoga 231
5. Concentration Without Support 235
I Intensifying 240
II Easing Up 249
A The Representation of Letting Go 252
B Not Reacting to Whatever Has Arisen 255
III Balancing: The Means to Set Up 257
A Brahman's Thread 262
B Straw Rope 264
C Child Viewing a Temple 265
D The Elephant Pricked with Thorns 271
IV The Stages of Concentration 277
6. Special Insight 283
I Putting in Order the View 287
A Attaining the View by Stages 287
1. Emptiness of the Person 292
a Examination Meditation 292
b Samadhi Meditation 294
1. Putting in Order the Entityness of the Mind 294
2. Bringing Forth Special Insight in the Samadhi Meditation by Searching 300
3. The Outcome: Putting in Order Emptiness 304
2. Emptiness of Phenomena 309
a Examination Meditation 309
b Samadhi Meditation 313
1. Putting in Order the Entityness of Phenomena 313
2. Bringing Forth Special Insight in the Samadhi Meditation by Being Assured 315
3. The Outcome: Putting in Order Clarity 317
B Attaining the View by a Condensed Form of Instruction 318
II The Skill of Recognition 325
III The Yoga of Unelaboration 342
A The Dialectic on the Three Times 345
B The Middle Path Without Extremes 354
C Nondissolution 356
7. Extraordinary Practice 361
I The Yoga of One Taste 361
A The View 366
1. Simultaneous Mind 366
2. The Return of Conventional Appearance 369
3. Mistakes Become Wisdom 371
4. Pointing Out 372
B The Way to Practice 375
1. The Way to Practice by Stages 375
a Examination Meditation: Appearance as Mind 375
b Samadhi Meditation on the Simultaneous 379
1. Setting Up the Simultaneous Mind 379
2. Bringing Forth Awakened Wisdom by Cognition- and Perception-Simultaneousness 382
a Cognition-Simultaneousness 382
b Perception-Simultaneousness 386
c Removing Faults and Recognizing Flawless Meditation: Knowledge of the Ordinary 388
1. Removing Faults 388
a The Fundamental Faults of Samadhi 388
b The Faults of Pointing Out 390
c Biased or Partial Extraordinary Samadhi 390
2. Recognizing Knowledge of the Ordinary: Initial Awakened Wisdom 392
2. The Condensed Way to Practice the Yoga of One Taste 397
II The Yoga of Nonmeditation: Crossing Over to Enlightenment 401
A The Stages Way to Practice Nonmeditation Yoga 405
1. Protecting the Realization about the Simultaneous Mind 405
2. Virtue Practice: Maintaining the Realization 406
3. Setting Up the Conditions for Enlightenment 416
a Recognizing Wisdom 416
b Setting Up Enlightenment 419
4. The Postsamadhi State 432
5. Crossing Over 437
B The Outcome: The Nature of Enlightenment 440
1. The Stages of Enlightenment 441
a Basis Enlightenment 441
b Path Enlightenment 442
c Fruition Enlightenment 444
C The Condensed Style of Pointing-Out Practice 446
D Protecting Practices for Correcting Mistakes That Prevent Enlightenment or Cause the Practitioner to Lose It 448
1. Missing It 449
2. Errors in the State 454
3. Obstacles to the Continuance of Enlightenment 458
8. Practice after Enlightenment 463
I Path Walking: Enhancing the Realization 463
II Walking the Path of Passion: The Oral Transmission of "Same Taste" by Pema Karpo 467
III Path Walking Using the Conditions of the Everyday Perceptual World 473
IV Path Walking with Compassion: The Mahamudra Devotional Prayer by Rangjung Dorje 476
Notes 481
Glossary 519
Bibliography 537
Index 547
