IF1 第一课

Class 1: Introduction, Why, Overview of 9 stages. Focus: Setting the stage, map, terminology, and prelims to practice to set you up for success!

Learning objectives: Get them excited · Overall vision framework · High level overview of the program and how the process unfolds (conscious intention of each stage).

Welcome and course overview. Inner Fundamentals is the course I wanted to have when I was beginning to meditate — it would have saved me ten years or more of bad meditating.

Every single person has the opportunity to change their habit, their practice, their capacity.

Meditating and studying with Geshe Michael for 30 years. Many retreats including a 3-year silent retreat. Teaching meditation. What do you want to get out of this? (type in the chat)

Level 1 covers foundational shamata training: learning to place attention, recognize distraction, and build stability. Remember that initial mind wandering is completely normal and part of the process.

Terminology · Progress through stages 1-4 · Obstacles and antidotes · Consistent practice · Develop stable attention.

Course takeaways: The map and how to progress through it. Life benefits of developing single-pointed concentration: productivity, emotional regulation, happiness. We are what we pay attention to. See the beauty in the world. It is the platform to see emptiness directly (SED). Watching your breath perfectly isn't the point — it's a method to develop the state of mind we need to have to see emptiness directly.

Lineage: Instructions from perfect, realized, divine beings. Master Asanga identified 9 distinct stages. Four centuries later, Master Kamalashila elaborated on these stages.

Shamata (Quietude): That single-mindedness which is imbued with the exceptional bliss of practiced ease due to deep single-pointed meditation on its object.

Vipashyana (Insight): That wisdom which is full of exceptional bliss of practiced ease by the power of the analysis of its object, and which is founded upon quietude (shamata).

The process of training the mind unfolds through 9 stages. Each stage has its own characteristics, challenges to overcome, and specific techniques. The stages mark a gradual improvement in your abilities. There are milestone achievements where mastery of certain skills takes your meditation to a whole new level.

How the process unfolds: Only when you have mastered the skills of a particular stage will you be able to master the next stage. Your abilities build on each other — a brick foundation. To make progress, correctly determine your current stage, work diligently with the techniques you've been given, and move on only when you have achieved mastery. Trying to jump ahead or create shortcuts just creates problems.

The secret to progress really is working with the specific obstacles and goals appropriate to your current stage. The methods overlap, so the skill you develop at stage one is used in stage 2 and the next, so you make faster and faster progress.

Rate of progress: Everyone's seeds are unique, and their progress will unfold differently. Don't separate practice from the rest of your life! All-day-long practice — take these ideas off the cushion. Progress is not exactly linear; you can move between stages over several sits or even during a single sit. Skillful means and positive reinforcement are much better for pacifying the mind than blind, stubborn persistence. Patience pays off!

Stage 1 - Placing the Mind on an Object: establishing a consistent daily practice. Stage 2 - Keeping the Mind on the Object with Continuity: more off than on the object — positively reinforcing waking up. Stage 3 - Keeping the Mind on the Object and Patching the Gaps: attention becomes extended and we overcome forgetting (Milestone 1: continuous attention to the meditation object). Stage 4 - Maintaining the Mind on the Object Closely: continuous attention, overcoming gross distractions and strong dullness.

Cultivating the right attitude & setting clear intentions for the stage you are at. There is a tendency to beat ourselves up — "I suck." This can turn into a habit unless you realize there is no "self" in charge of the mind. In reality, all we are "doing" in meditation is forming and holding specific conscious intentions. All of our achievements originate from intentions.

Intentions repeatedly sustained over many meditation sessions give rise to repeated mental acts, which become habits. Intentions lead to mental actions; repeated mental actions become mental habits. So at stage one this means — put all your effort into forming and holding a conscious intention to sit down and meditate for a set period every day, and to practice diligently for the duration of the sit.

Seeds / garden metaphor: Your intentions are your seeds in the soil of the mind. Impatience and striving won't make things grow faster — don't pull on things to make them grow. Be patient, trust the process, garden your perfect seeds with love, and trust everything will flower in due time.

There are two ways we can perceive our world: attention and peripheral awareness. Consciousness — whatever we're experiencing in the moment. Two tools — attention and peripheral awareness: spotlight and floodlight.

Attention: isolates and analyzes · selects info from awareness · focuses in on an object · processes info, slower.

Peripheral awareness: minimally conceptual · concerned with relationships between things · gives us info about background and context to our experience.

When one of these doesn't do its job we respond less effectively. Lack of peripheral awareness: getting so lost in our own thoughts in conversation that we aren't listening to the other person; wrapped up in "me me me"; we lose the context of the situation and over-react. So we want to increase the power of these two. Mindfulness is the ultimate interaction between the two.

Object for meditation — sensations of breath at the tip of the nose. If you go in too fast, the mind can just immediately bounce off. So we start becoming aware, allowing everything to be there, and then gently transition attention from free-ranging daily life to a specific space — all the while maintaining peripheral awareness.

Step 1 - Focus on the present: establish an open, relaxed awareness and attention, letting everything in, but giving priority to sensations over thoughts. Step 2 - focus on bodily sensations, but continue to be aware of everything else. Step 3 - focus on sensations related to breath, but continue to be aware of everything else. Step 4 - focus on sensations of the breath at the nose, but continue to be aware of everything else.

Meditation: Motivation · Four-step transition · Experientially differentiate the two aspects of the mind.

Date and time · Length of sit · Describe the intention and object of your meditation (intention - sit down and meditate daily, practice diligently for the duration of the sit) · Describe the quality of focus · What stage did you reach, what problems did you experience, and what antidotes did you apply? · Reflection: How was the meditation? Insights? What went well? What can you do better next time? · How I will carry my meditation into the day · Intention for the day.

Daily 10–30 min sit, journaling insights. Get a journal. Set a location, time, and duration. Set a place in your house — a meditation corner you love to spend time in, with images that inspire your heart. Set a time — first thing in the morning works best. Set a duration — choose a length you can commit to every day. No "zero days" — keep the momentum going. 30-day challenge — what you put into it is what you will get out of it.

Feedback: Script is for 75 min class. Asked people if they knew their level. Sharing highlighted concepts in the chat was great. Simplicity + repetition: we progress by understanding and mastering the stages, and by creating intentions that become habits. Singjon feedback: wants to move faster through the content; work on variety/rate of speech.

Notes (May 25–26): Too much talking at the beginning. Move quicker, more engagement and interaction, maybe a meditation to start, and ask what level people are on. Motivation over information.