Where Should You Start?

You want to learn meditation. So where should you start? Not ‘mind’. But those things which make your mind unable to come to rest when you try to meditate, what your thoughts go to, that is, what you are attached to. We need to think about these things first, come to understand them correctly, and know why attachment is not good for us. So it is the preliminary practices, the four thoughts that turn the mind, that we should work at first.

The preliminaries are not something you do in the beginning and forget about later. We should understand that they are the foundation of Dharma, the root of all practices. The preliminaries are not just about doing prostrations or reciting mantras. It is about changing our way of thinking. If done well, the preliminary practices will change our ideas about all things being unchanging and permanent, and will reduce our attachment to them. Once we have this foundation well established, we can then start learning the Dharma. Our mind will naturally relax and settle, and there is hope to know meditation.

Teachings and instructions on ‘Meditation on Emptiness’ by Drupon Rinpoche at Taiwan Kagyu Buddhist Institute. 14 November 2016