If the practitioner did not receive instructions like on
Dzogchen or Mahamudra, but they are practicing mantra as part of
the tantric tradition, then what they are practicing is actually
called the Development stage. It is part of the path, but itself is
not the same as the realisation of the nature of mind.
Chanting is a form of Shamatha practice. Shamatha (tranquility,
one pointedness, concentration) practice serves as a foundation for
Vipashyana (insight), but they are not the same. Chanting calms the
mind so that you are not lost in the thoughts, but even if you
transcend thinking, you may not necessarily realise the nature of
mind. At this stage one must look and observe directly to discover
the nature of mind. The thing is, you will never be able to observe
the nature of your True Mind if you are constantly overwhelmed by
thinking, hence Shamatha is helpful in the beginning. But even if
thoughts stop or slow down, that doesn't necessarily mean you
discovered your Mind, or are directly observing the true nature of
Mind.
As someone (who himself spoke about realising his own Mind while
reciting a mantra many years ago, but that webpage was taken down)
wrote, Imagine a torch shining on a wall...The torch symbolises
the SEEING, and the light which emanates from the torch and hits
the wall symbolises the thoughts. The problem is that you are
trying to find the torch, (ie: the SEEING), but you are looking for
it on the wall, (ie: in the thoughts). Also, thoughts can happen
thick and fast and can be quite erratic... so not only are
you looking in the wrong place, but you are
chasing a moving target. A mantra at least steadies the appearance
of the thoughts. It's like steadying the light on the wall, so you
have a better chance of tracing the beam back to its source, but
never forget, only the torch (the SEEING) is the source. The mantra
is nothing but a thought, an appearance that has no independent
nature, repeated. However, as I have said, whilst a mantra can help
on the so called 'search', it is not actually necessary. Knowledge
is the DIRECT method.
No techniques are needed. The SEEING ( the ordinary everyday
awareness ) does not need to do anything to BE, to exist. Any
techniques can only be on the level of thought, and therefore are
outside of the only reality which is the SEEING. The SEEING is
NEVER not there, it is ALWAYS seeing the thoughts, no matter what
they may be. It is always aware of everything, it cannot under any
circumstances not be there, you can't lose it. So just BE IT. HAVE
A SENSE OF IDENTITY WITH IT AND NOTHING ELSE. You ARE the torch
!
http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/A%20-%20Tibetan%20Buddhism/Authors/Mingyur%20Rinpoche/Vajrayana%20and%20Empowerment/Vajrayana%20and%20Empowerment.htm
(Mingyur Rinpoche)
Within the skilful means there are also two divisions: the
development stage and the completion stage. What does the
development stage mean? It means to realize the wisdom of the
Buddha and to practise visualizing ourselves as a deity, the buddha
body relates to the visualization of the physical form of the deity
one is practising. The speech aspect is the mantra recitation. The
mind aspect is to do with visualizing in the heart centre various
objects. Sometimes it's a letter: hung or hri, it can be a Dorje
and so on. These aspects together define the development stage
practice. The wisdom of the Buddha has no shape or colour, however,
we practise with shape and colour.
Some people like this method. If people feel positive towards this
type of practise, then they should do that. But some people don't
like that kind of practice. For people who don't feel drawn to this
type of practice, they shouldn't do it too strongly, just a little
bit. That's the explanation of the development stage.
What does completion stage mean? Within our mind we have wisdom and
awareness the same as a Buddha, and our body is also the same as
the buddha body. When we are practising the completion stage we
have the idea that our body is the wisdom aspect of the Buddha.
Then we practise with the body, we train with the body physically.
Having trained physically, the channels and the wind energy and the
essence which travels around in the channels are slowly
transformed. Because our physical nature is transformed, our mind
also becomes transformed. The main point is practising with one's
body. So then, if one is training with the wisdom wind which moves
through the channels and the precious drops, then one adopts the
posture and holds the vase breath and does the trulkor or the yoga
practice and it's very physical. When one gradually over time
purifies the impure winds, impure channels and impure drops, then
all of one's defilements and obscurations are purified. One will
naturally give rise to recognition of the nature of mind. That's
the explanation of the completion stage.
http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/issues/2006/fall/forum-perfection.html
MINGYUR RINPOCHE: In Vajrayana, we have development-stage
practice, involving visualization and mantra, and completion-stage
practice, which involves working with the energy channels – prana,
nadi, and bindu. Dzogchen gets right to the heart. It’s more direct
than any other method. You need preparation and various kinds of
support, but the practice itself is direct. Even if you have a
shortcut, there still needs to be a road there to travel on.
Otherwise, you can’t use the shortcut.
...
MINGYUR RINPOCHE: The teacher’s role is to point out. There are
many stages of development and many experiences that can be quite
similar to or confused with rigpa. For example, the practice of
formless or objectless shamatha – resting the mind without an
object of meditation – can be similar to Dzogchen practice, to
rigpa, but it is not the same. Similarly, one may experience a kind
of dullness of mind that has very little conceptualization, which
we call alaya, the base consciousness. Many people think
that alaya is the essence of the mind, but that’s not really
Dzogchen. So the teacher keeps pointing out the natural mind, so
you can see very clearly the difference between conceptual mind and
natural mind, between alaya and rigpa, between objectless shamatha
and rigpa.
http://www.dharma-haven.org/thrangu-medicine-buddha.htm
(Thrangu Rinpoche)
In his "Introduction," the
Editor, Lama Tashi Namgyal, sets the these teachings on the
Medicine Buddha Sadhana in the context of
Buddhist meditation practice, in general, beginning with the
statement "All of the Buddha's teachings can be subsumed under the
two categories of shamatha and vipashyana— calm abiding and
insight."
------------------------
When one meditates on the
form, the attire and other attributes, the entourage and
environment, and the internal mandala of a deity, and when one
recites the deity’s mantra, one is practicing shamatha; and when
one realizes that all that one is meditating on is mere empty
appearance, one is practicing vipashyana.
.........................
http://buddhism.sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/262408
(Skype conference with our moderator Thusness on Lankavatara
Sutra, participant asking about chanting)
Thusness: Ok. I think when we
view consciousness, we have to understand that there are a few
things. We cannot keep on thinking about the objective world first.
We must see how consciousness reacts. That is if we react very
intensely, strongly towards symbols, then whatever reactions will
go back deep into your consciousness. This is one thing. My
perspective is that when you chant, you are not dealing with our
luminous clarity. We're dealing with propensities deep in your
consciousness. Insight meditation itself deals directly with this
clarity. That is the luminous clarity. But if we were to continue
to chant, you are actually focusing more on the deeper layers of
consciousness that deals with propensities and the power of
concentration. Do you see what I mean? It's not so much of the
luminosity. However, the chanting itself, when it takes strength,
it creates a kind of momentum. A momentum that synchronises not
only with your sub-conscious or the deeper layers of your
consciousness, but also your conscious level. This means it can
sync the two layers into one. This syncing the two into one clears
your mind, clears your thoughts. And then at this time, you ask who
you are, that is, not letting the momentum take place, but just
feel and sense... then you ask what is it. At that moment, you
might see your reality. But your mind must be able to settle down
first. But you must know there is a difference between working at
the concentration level, dealing with the karmic propensities and
creating new momentums, and practicing insight meditation that
touch directly the clarity and the luminous nature, are two
different things. You see what I mean or not?
Participant 1: Yeah I think so.
This means that I still need to do insight meditation?
Thusness: Yes you have to do
insight meditation. Even if you attain calmness you still have to
do insight meditation. You must feel the awareness... You must
sense it everywhere... That is very important for liberation. Now
when we talk about awareness, we don't call it Self or we don't
call it Mind. Why people call it Awareness is because they do not
want to call it Self, because there is no Self. The reason they
said Awareness, is because Awareness is not an entity. It is not a
thing. It is just a point of luminous clarity. It is just clarity.
But because we are so accustomed to thinking things in terms of
object and subject, we always take Awareness as something. It must
be somewhere inside, residing somewhere. Even if it is not residing
inside the body it must be somewhere, someplace. This is the
problem, you see. So when you say that lets be aware. We always
think of how? How to be aware? When we say where is awareness,
they always look for a place, they always look for a something.
This is how the mind react, this is what I call a momentum. They
always behave this way. They do not know how to say Just do
nothing. Everything is expressing itself by clarity. They always
want to react, you see what I mean?
.........................
http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english_5.php
(Bhante Gunaratana)
Meditation is a word, and words are used in different ways by
different speakers. This may seem like a trivial point, but it is
not. It is quite important to distinguish exactly what a particular
speaker means by the words he uses. Every culture on earth, for
example, has produced some sort of mental practice which might be
termed meditation. It all depends on how loose a definition you
give to that word. Everybody does it, from Africans to Eskimos. The
techniques are enormously varied, and we will make no attempt to
survey them. There are other books for that. For the purpose of
this volume, we will restrict our discussion to those practices
best known to Western audiences and most likely associated with the
term meditation.
Within the Judeo-Christian tradition we find two overlapping
practices called prayer and contemplation. Prayer is a direct
address to some spiritual entity. Contemplation is a prolonged
period of conscious thought about some specific topic, usually a
religious ideal or scriptural passage. From the standpoint of
mental culture, both of these activities are exercises in
concentration. The normal deluge of conscious thought is
restricted, and the mind is brought to one conscious area of
operation. The results are those you find in any concentrative
practice: deep calm, a physiological slowing of the metabolism and
a sense of peace and well-being.
Out of the Hindu tradition comes Yogic meditation, which is also
purely concentrative. The traditional basic exercises consist of
focusing the mind on a single object: a stone, a candle flame, a
syllable or whatever, and not allowing it to wander. Having
acquired the basic skill, the Yogi proceeds to expand his practice
by taking on more complex objects of meditation: chants, colorful
religious images, energy channels in the body and so forth. Still,
no matter how complex the object of meditation, the meditation
itself remains purely an exercise in concentration.
Within the Buddhist tradition, concentration is also highly
valued. But a new element is added and more highly stressed. That
element is awareness. All Buddhist meditation aims at the
development of awareness, using concentration as a tool. The
Buddhist tradition is very wide, however, and there are several
diverse routes to this goal. Zen meditation uses two separate
tacks. The first is the direct plunge into awareness by sheer force
of will. You sit down and you just sit, meaning that you toss out
of your mind everything except pure awareness of sitting. This
sounds very simple. It is not. A brief trial will demonstrate just
how difficult it really is. The second Zen approach used in the
Rinzai school is that of tricking the mind out of conscious thought
and into pure awareness. This is done by giving the student an
unsolvable riddle which he must solve anyway, and by placing him in
a horrendous training situation. Since he cannot flee from the pain
of the situation, he must flee into a pure experience of the
moment. There is nowhere else to go. Zen is tough. It is effective
for many people, but it is really tough.
Another stratagem, Tantric Buddhism, is nearly the reverse.
Conscious thought, at least the way we usually do it, is the
manifestation of ego, the you that you usually think that you are.
Conscious thought is tightly connected with self-concept. The
self-concept or ego is nothing more than a set of reactions and
mental images which are artificially pasted to the flowing process
of pure awareness. Tantra seeks to obtain pure awareness by
destroying this ego image. This is accomplished by a process of
visualization. The student is given a particular religious image to
meditate upon, for example, one of the deities from the Tantric
pantheon. He does this in so thorough a fashion that he becomes
that entity. He takes off his own identity and puts on another.
This takes a while, as you might imagine, but it works. During the
process, he is able to watch the way that the ego is constructed
and put in place. He comes to recognize the arbitrary nature of all
egos, including his own, and he escapes from bondage to the ego. He
is left in a state where he may have an ego if he so chooses,
either his own or whichever other he might wish, or he can do
without one. Result: pure awareness. Tantra is not exactly a game
of patty cake either.
Vipassana is the oldest of Buddhist meditation practices. The
method comes directly from the Sitipatthana Sutta, a discourse
attributed to Buddha himself. Vipassana is a direct and gradual
cultivation of mindfulness or awareness. It proceeds piece by piece
over a period of years. The student's attention is carefully
directed to an intense examination of certain aspects of his own
existence. The meditator is trained to notice more and more of his
own flowing life experience. Vipassana is a gentle technique. But
it also is very, very thorough. It is an ancient and codified
system of sensitivity training, a set of exercises dedicated to
becoming more and more receptive to your own life experience. It is
attentive listening, total seeing and careful testing. We learn to
smell acutely, to touch fully and really pay attention to what we
feel. We learn to listen to our own thoughts without being caught
up in them.
The object of Vipassana practice is to learn to pay attention.
We think we are doing this already, but that is an illusion. It
comes from the fact that we are paying so little attention to the
ongoing surge of our own life experiences that we might just as
well be asleep. We are simply not paying enough attention to notice
that we are not paying attention. It is another Catch-22.