Posted by Julie Miller, 08/17/2015
Calm Abiding
Excerpt from “An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life” by the Dalai Lama (Back Bay Books, 2002)
Calm abiding, or single-pointed concentration, is a form of meditation whereby you choose an object and fix your mind upon it. This degree of focus is not achieved in one sitting! You must train the mind by degrees. Slowly you will find that your mind is capable of greater and greater concentration and focus. Calm abiding is the steady state in which your mind is able to remain focused on a mental object for as long as desired, with a calm that is free of all distraction.
Calm abiding is practiced by members of many faiths. A meditator begins the process of training his or her mind by choosing an object of meditation. A Christian practitioner may take the holy cross or the Virgin Mary as the single point of his or her meditation. Buddhist texts often use the image of Shakyamuni Buddha as an example of an object of concentration. One of the benefits of this is that it allows one’s awareness of the great qualities of a Buddha to grow, along with one’s appreciation of his kindness. The result is a greater sense of closeness to the Buddha.
The image of the Buddha that you focus on in this meditation should not be a painting or a statue. Though you may use a material image to familiarize yourself with the shape and proportions of the Buddha, it is the mental image of the Buddha that you must concentrate upon. Your visualization of the Buddha should be conjured in your mind. Once it has been, the process of calm abiding can begin.
The Buddha you visualize should be neither too far away from you nor too close. About four feet directly in front of you, at the level of your eyebrows, is correct. The size of the image you visualize should be three or four inches high or smaller. It is helpful to visualize a small image, though quite bright, as if made of light. Visualizing a radiant image helps undermine the natural tendency toward mental torpor or sleepiness. On the other hand, you should also try to imagine this image as being fairly heavy. If the image of the Buddha is perceived to have some kind of weight to it, then the inclination toward mental restlessness can be averted.
Whatever object of meditation you choose, your single-pointed concentration must possess the qualities of stability and clarity. Stability is undermined by excitement, the scattered, distracted quality of mind that is one aspect of attachment. The mind is easily distracted by thoughts of desirable objects. Such thoughts keep us from developing the stable, settled quality necessary for us to abide truly and calmly on the object we have chosen. Clarity, on the other hand, is hindered more by mental laxity, what is sometimes called a sinking quality of mind.
Developing calm abiding demands that you devote yourself to the process utterly until you master it. A calm, quiet environment is said to be essential, as is having supportive friends. You should put aside worldly preoccupations–family, business, or social involvements–and dedicate yourself exclusively to developing concentration. In the beginning, it is best to engage in many short meditation sessions throughout the course of the day. As many as ten to twenty sessions of between fifteen to twenty minutes each might be appropriate. As your concentration develops, you can extend the length of your sessions and diminish their frequency. You should sit in a formal meditative position, with your back straight. If you pursue your practice diligently, it is possible to attain calm abiding in as little as six months.
A meditator must learn to apply antidotes to hindrances as they occur. When the mind seems to be getting excited and begins to drift off toward some pleasant memory or pressing obligation, it must be caught and brought back to focus on its chosen object. Mindfulness is the tool for doing so. When you first begin to develop calm abiding, it is difficult to keep the mind placed on its object for more than a moment. By means of mindfulness you redirect the mind, returning it again and again to the object. Once the mind is focussed on its object, it is with mindfulness that it then remains placed there, without drifting off.
As you begin to cultivate calm abiding, it soon becomes apparent that maintaining your focus on the chosen object for even a short period of time is a great challenge. Don’t be discouraged. We see this as a positive sign because you are at last becoming aware of the extreme activity of your mind. By persevering in your practice, you become able to prolong the duration of your single-pointed concentration, the focus on the chosen object, while also maintaining alertness, the vitality and brightness of thought.
http://spiritualnetworks.com/blog/131691/calm-abiding/
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The Dalai Lama ~ Calm Abiding
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