Practicing This Practice

As you’d probably guessed, you’ll incorporate this approach into your daily Round Robin sessions. If you’ve already spent months doing Shamata daily, then hopefully you’ve stabilized your mind enough that you’re ready to begin to fold Vipassana in with the Shamata sections of your Round Robin. If not, then do yourself a BIG favor and wait until you’ve got a more stable foundation in Shamata. I really encourage you to have a strong, stable foundation before building on it; otherwise you’ll end up with something like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I don’t think you want to do that with your mind.

Once you’ve determined you’re ready, I suggest you re-read the whole Vipassana section. Then you can fold it into your practice. And

I can’t recommend highly enough that you go to at least a weekend Vipassana retreat. In his book, 10% Happier, Dan Harris talks of reading and reading about Buddhism. But it isn’t until he road-tests meditation that he begins to experience real personal benefits. Then he signs up for a Vipassana retreat. At first, he goes rather stir-crazy (like, as I mentioned earlier, Daniel Siegel at his first retreat). Harris regales us with a blow-by-blow account of his mind on the cushion. Hysterical! Then his mind settled down.

That retreat changed his life.

Summary

• When you come to the Shamata part of the Round Robin, rest in

Shamata.

• When you notice you’ve been lost in thoughts, look directly at the thought and analyze it to see its lack of intrinsic existence (Vipassana). Or just look directly at it and watch it go poof. Or look at the essence of the thinker. You might do the dying rehearsal sometimes.

• Recognize that truth that you land on, with certainty. • Immediately rest in Shamata. Remember, you’re not stopping thoughts, simply registering them as they flow by. • If you do this many times per session, good! Many reps for your brain and mind! Lots of glimpsing the true nature of thoughts and thinker, and lots of fresh resting back in Shamata.

When you’re bored with resting, or drowsy, or realize you’ve been sunk in a mind movie, bring analytical meditation (Vipassana) again (following the above steps), until you realize the true nature of whatever you’re analyzing, with confidence. This is a way to alternate Shamata with Vipassana.

During these next few months (or longer), I suggest you use the following Round Robin guideline, emphasizing the analytical Vipassana or catching the thought in the act (and resting once you’ve arrived at the ultimate point of the analysis or it’s gone poof) until you’ve thoroughly developed certainty. If you can attend at least one Vipassana or Shamata retreat during this time, it would hugely help your practice. Better yet, both!

Follow-Through

You might think that now you know how to do Vipassana. It’s tempting to think that. After all, how can you know what you still don’t know? That’s why I want to be sure to remind you: as with everything in this whole Smiling series, I’m just giving you an introduction to the di erent concepts and practices, to give you a way to get started. With Vipassana too, there’s a ton more to know, and you can follow a progression to further train your mind. What might be the next stages? Well, of course, how can you know about the rest of it until you, well, know the rest of it? And that gets to be a long story best heard in person. Every year, we o er a four-part series of weekend retreats, starting with Shamata and progressing through three levels of Vipassana, taught by Namchak Khen Rinpoche. He’s a scholar of the highest level, in the Nyingma tradition, as well as a consummate practitioner. He’s also a powerful lama. Surprisingly, even though he needs a translator for the teachings, he’s an accessible teddy bear, bringing lots of jokes and stories to illustrate the teachings. We tend to find the retreats by turns funny, fascinating, peaceful, and mind-blowing.

Namchak Khen Rinpoche at site for Three-Year Retreat with the Mission Mountain Range behind him