Phakchok Rinpoche - In the Footsteps of Bodhisattvas: Buddhist Teachings on the Essence of Meditation

W HOEVER APPLIES the instructions contained in this book can move from fear and discontentment into confidence and joy. It contains the very heart of Buddhist meditation practice, distilled by an authentic Buddhist master and offered to anyone who harbors the wish to become a lamp for this confused world. These teachings were given by Phakchok Rinpoche across the globe over the course of several years. I recall an intimate group of students sitting on the floor of Rinpoches living room in Boudhanath, Nepal, drinking tea under a wood-worked shrine filled with precious statues handed down from Rinpoches ancestors, listening raptly as he elaborated on the essence of compassion. At Rinpoches retreat center in Cooperstown, New York, in the height of summer, Rinpoche used the root text of the King of Meditation Sutra to vividly show his students the true meaning of meditation. In a cozy apartment, beside an autumnal Central Park, Rinpoche described how things appear to a mind that is free from suffering. In each of these instances Rinpoche took us to the core of the Buddhas wisdom by relying on the words of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni.

The teachings attributed to the Buddha are called sutras, and this book is based on the sutra called the King of Meditation (also known by its Sanskrit title, Samadhiraja Sutra). This sutra is considered to be one of the most influential of all the Buddhas teachings on meditation in the Mahayana school of Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism, or the Great Vehicle, teaches that enlightenment dawns when we realize the indivisibility of emptiness (shunyata) and great compassion (mahakaruna). Emptiness here refers to the fact that we are unable to find anything stable or permanent, either within ourselves or within so-called outer phenomena. Great compassion refers to compassion that has no reference pointsomething akin to an unconditional love. The Buddha says that we can realize this profound unity when we develop the correct conduct, meditation, and discerning wisdom. The King of Meditation Sutra contains powerful teachings on precisely these three topics; it can therefore reliably guide us into the sustained and indestructible meditative realization that is free from suffering.

Samadhi is often roughly translated as meditation and raja as king, which is why the Samadhiraja Sutra is commonly called the King of Meditation Sutra. While it is convenient to equate the word samadhi with meditation, Phakchok Rinpoche doesnt want us to reduce our understanding of samadhi to a state of absorption or feel-good voidness. Throughout the course of this book, Rinpoche reminds us again and again that the highest samadhi is beyond absorption and beyond concept. It is naturally present when you bring together the correct view of reality, authentic meditation practices of the Buddha, and supremely altruistic activity. It is enhanced through the cultivation of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. It is unearthed through skillfully discerning who we are, what we are made of, and where we are going. In this book we learn how to engage in such practices and investigations, so that we can naturally let go into the unity of emptiness and compassion.

This book is organized around Phakchok Rinpoches favorite quotes from the King of Meditation Sutra. Rinpoche sifted through his personal copy of the sutra and selected lines from the Tibetan that he felt were most potent for his own training. He then asked Oriane Lavole of Lhasey Lotsawa Translations and Publications to render these lines in English. These quotations are not presented in the same order as they appear in the root text, which is many hundreds of pages long. Instead the compilation has been distilled and organized as a path of training for Phakchok Rinpoches students and readers. These are the words of the Buddha. They are to be contemplated, savored, and applied within our own experience.

This is a book for beginner practitioners as well as for those who have made the Buddhas teachings the core of their lives. It is perfectly suitable to read this book from front to back while sequentially spending a week, two weeks, a month, or a year on the exercises at the end of each chapter. It may also be helpful to open to any of the chapters and glean inspiration from the words therein.