Final

Thoughts

The goal beyond Stage Ten is to use the power of śamatha for the continued
deepening of Insight, and to progress to the highest level of complete
Awakening.

Beyond Stage Ten: The meditator is riding the elephant, but now in the opposite
direction. He wields a sword, and there is a flame at his back. The flame represents
the great final effort to achieve Awakening (bodhi). To the power of śamatha
(samādhi, sati, pīti, passadhi, upekkhā) he has added energy (viriya) and
investigation (dhamma vicaya), thus completing the Seven Factors of Awakening.
The sword represents the Insight wisdom (vipassanā) obtained through
investigation and is used to cut through ignorance and mental defilements.
T HE PRACTICE in this book is śamatha-vipassanā, but we have focused mostly on

the Stages of śamatha. The reason was purely practical: to prepare the mind as
quickly as possible for the ultimate goal of Insight and Awakening. With every
Stage of śamatha you pass through, the possibility of Insight grows more likely,
and increases quite dramatically with each Stage from Seven on. Many of the
techniques described in the later Stages are intended to generate Insight
experiences. Indeed, few meditators master Stage Ten without having significant
Insight. Many will have reached at least the first level of Awakening. Much more
could be said about Insight and Awakening than can fit into this book, so it must
wait for another time.
While unlikely, it’s possible for someone to master śamatha without achieving
Insight or Awakening. Therefore, it’s worth discussing why this might happen, as
well as some of the limitations of śamatha, to help protect you from this
potential problem.

ŚAMATHA AND VIPASSANĀ: THE LIMITATIONS OF ŚAMATHA

Persistent śamatha between meditation sessions is truly a wonderful
accomplishment and something to celebrate! Yet, never lose sight of the fact that
śamatha and vipassanā must work together. They are like two wings of a bird:
you need both to arrive at your ultimate destination.

Never lose sight of the fact that śamatha and vipassanā must work
together. They are like two wings of a bird: you need both to arrive at
your ultimate destination.
Too often, however, practitioners forget this relationship and emphasize
either śamatha or vipassanā (see Putting This Practice into Context, p. xxiii). For
readers of this book, the danger is placing all the emphasis on śamatha, seeing
this super-refined state of mind as the goal rather than the ideal state for
achieving Insight and full Awakening.
Always remember that even though śamatha is extraordinary, it’s still a
conditioned mental state. When those causes and conditions cease, śamatha
dissolves. Even though śamatha persists for longer after Stage Ten, it still starts
fading, gradually but continuously, from the moment you get off the cushion.
Life events chip away at this refined state of consciousness, and unconscious sub-
minds diverge from consensus, creating inner conflict. Other sub-minds in turn
react with aversion, and unification starts unraveling. When enough of your
“buttons” get pushed at once, śamatha will fail. Even if you’ve just spent three
hours in deep jhāna, if something significant enough happens, śamatha
disappears altogether.
In an ideal environment, we would always be able to meditate again and
return to a state of high unification before śamatha fades. We might succeed in
avoiding the kind of events that dis-unify the mind for a long time, perhaps
remaining in a continuous state of śamatha for months. But very few readers of
this book are likely to find themselves in such ideal conditions. Even those so
fortunate can never be sure how long those conditions will last. And everyone
eventually finds him- or herself unable to sustain a regular practice due to
sickness, old age, or failing mental faculties.

Figure 56. In śamatha, the mind-system is unified around shared intention. This unification is temporary, and
when it fades, each sub-mind once again operates as a separate entity, striving to preserve its autonomy and
direct the resources of the mind-system toward its individual goals.
Unification of the mind-system around shared Insight into impermanence, emptiness, suffering,
interconnectedness, and no-Self does not fade. From these Insights flow a corresponding set of shared values:
harmlessness, compassion, and loving-kindness. Each sub-mind operates as an independent part of a much
greater whole, working for the good of that whole.

That’s why śamatha isn’t the final goal of the spiritual path. Instead, consider
it a rare and precious opportunity to achieve the true goal: Insight and
Awakening. The unsurpassable mind of śamatha gives you immediate access to
the deepest form of jhāna, to every kind of Insight practice, and allows you to
practice mindfulness in daily life1 with incomparable effectiveness (see Appendix
E). In other words, it creates the ideal conditions for liberating Insight into the
true nature of reality, and an Awakening that isn’t subject to passing away.

Śamatha creates the ideal conditions for Insight and an Awakening that
isn’t subject to passing away.
The unification of mind in śamatha is temporary and conditioned. However,
the unification around Insight is far more profound, and it’s permanent. When
temporary unification around a shared intention fades, each sub-mind operates
as a separate entity, constrained by and at the mercy of the mind-system as a
whole. Therefore, individual sub-minds strive to preserve their autonomy and, as
much as possible, direct the resources of the mind-system toward their
individual goals. Yet after Insight, the various sub-minds become unified around
a shared Insight into impermanence, emptiness, suffering, no-Self, and
interconnectedness. From this flow a corresponding set of shared values:
harmlessness, compassion, and loving-kindness. Now each sub-mind operates as
an independent part of a much greater whole, working for the good of that
whole. This allows each sub-mind to do its job effectively, without running into
fundamental conflicts with other sub-minds.
When enough of the mind-system has undergone this transformation, we’re
able to function as an individual person while simultaneously perceiving
ourselves as part of an indivisible and inconceivably greater whole. T. S. Eliot
beautifully described the nature of this transformation:

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

—T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, “Little Gidding”

The illusion of separate Selfhood, with all its attendant suffering, is gone. We
can be fully present as persons, here and now, realizing that this “personhood” is
just an ever-changing, Self-less construct arbitrarily imposed on an
interconnected whole; “here” is merely another construct imposed on infinite
space, and “now” is a similar construct imposed on eternity.
Acknowledgments

I AM ETERNALLY grateful to my teachers Upasaka Kema Ananda and Joti

Dhamma Bhikkhu. It was Kema who first introduced me to the power and
clarity of the Buddhadhamma, inspiring me to take Upasaka vows and dedicate
myself to meditation and to realizing the highest goals of the spiritual path. Joti
Dhamma subsequently guided my study and practice for many years through
thousands of hours of discussion and instruction. I am also indebted to Namgyal
Rinpoche, Karma Tenzin Dorje, also known as the Venerable Bhikkhu Ananda
Bodhi, who was my teachers’ teacher, and who established a lineage that
transcends the sectarian boundaries of traditional Buddhism.
That this book is readable at all is due to the skilled contributions and
patience of my co-authors Matthew Immergut and Jeremy Graves, who willingly
worked with me through seemingly endless rewrites of every chapter. It is also
quite impossible to properly acknowledge the contribution of my very dear
friend Anne Meyer. Her expertise and dedicated time and effort are responsible
for the quality of the book’s design, illustrations, and general appearance. For
this and so much more, she has my undying gratitude.
I am also grateful to my beloved friends Terry Moody, for the front cover art,
and Eve Smith and Claire Thompson for their extremely helpful advice and
talented behind-the-scenes work to make this book a success. My sincere
appreciation and thanks also go to Nicolette Wales, whose visual thinking helped
us embody abstract concepts and whose original artwork illustrates the book,
and to Chris Vallo for his illustrations of the stages of meditation. Thanks also to
Gwen Frankfeldt and Maureen Forys, who created the layout design, diagrams,
and tables.
Far more people have contributed than I could possibly acknowledge
individually. Much of the information found in these pages derives from my
fellow travelers on the path, and from the hundreds of people I have been
privileged to work with as a teacher. Thank you all for participating in the great
experiment of meditation. You form the real-life laboratory where the techniques
presented here were tested. I have learned at least as much from those wonderful
people I call my students as they have from me.
In particular, I want to acknowledge Allegra Ahlquist, Pam and Tim
Ballingham, Blake Barton, Jesse Fallon, Michelle Garvock, Terry Gustafson,
Brian Hanner, Shelly Hubman, Brian Kassel, Jon Krop, Sara Krusenstjerna,
Alison Landoni, Barbara and David Larsen, Cynthia Lester, Ying Lin, Scott Lu,
Tessa Mayorga, Rene Miranda, Michael Morgenstern, Sanping Pan, Lyn Pass,
Tucker Peck, Wanda Poindexter, George Schnieder, Jessica Seacrest, Hisayo
Suzuki, Debra Tsai, Nick Van Kleeck, Trisangma and Peter Watson, Autumn
and Jordan Wiley-Hill, Cathy Shap, and all those who have served on the Board
of the Tucson Community Meditation Center.
Last but not least, my very special thanks to Michael Chu and Tracy Young,
Aaron and Frieda Huang, CC Lee, Tina Bow, and all the other members of the
Chinese Buddhist community of Southern California who have generously
supported my teaching for so many years. Without you, this book might never
have happened.