An Overview of Mental Refinement

It is our mission is to awaken to our true nature, our Original Buddha Nature. We can do this by helping others who desire to awaken to their true nature and to serve people in our local communities, in prisons, and the grip of the illusion by sharing the teachings of Buddhism in its universal forms without creating barriers.

My main emphasis in practice and training others might be called "attitude refining" or better yet, "refining the mind," a cognitive approach to fashioning the mind in such a way as to stimulate bodhicitta, the awakening mind. The intention of this practice is to lead to greater happiness and a genuine concern for others and not preoccupied with how the self might be in distress. The individual can clearly see how his or her thoughts are actually that which is tormenting us. It is not the whims of the universe that are or enemy, it is our many selves.

When directed to the right training and guidance the average person becomes an extraordinary individual and will naturally create environments in which they can transform their own habituated conceptual understanding into experiential knowing. This is how we can resolve our deepest questions about how to make freedom, compassion and awareness alive and active in their lives.

Mental Refinement has been around since before the Buddha's sojourn on this planet. The Suttas tell us that the Buddha had teachers. Alara Kalama was his first teacher and one of the best-known gurus in India at that time. When Alara could not teach the student any more, the Buddha sought another teacher. He found Uddaka, who was famous for his sharp mind. These gurus taught meditation but we don't know what else they may have introduced to their students. All we know is that the man who was to become the Buddha left in disappointment. We do know that these two incredible teachers gave the Buddha a firm enough of a foundation to gain insight and "enlightenment."

While the act of training the mind was well established in both Theravada and Mahayana Schools, it is best known by its Tibetan appellation, lojong, often erroneously translated as "mind training". We should keep in mind; however, mental refinement is any method that implants a set of ideas, perspectives, and experiences that work to take apart habitual patterns of thought, behavior and perception. It is a purely cognitive psychological process that awakens the mind, referred to as bodhicitta in the Mahayana. Bodhicitta creates the present and effortless helping of others to wake up and be present in their lives, too. The technique was used in various forms throughout Mahayana world in a wide variety of forms, but the Tibetan version is the most widely known and most codified.

It is said that mental refinement works like two sticks rubbed together to make fire. One stick consists of the perspectives and discipline of mental refinement; the other is composed of the projections and dynamics of habituated patterns in you. Practice generates friction that causes both sticks to burn up.

Taking and sending is most important feature of the Tibetan version, also known as tonglen, is a specific technique used in mental refinement to undermine the pattern of self-centeredness that characterizes pattern-based experience. It is based on the more general technique of mentally exchanging one's experience with the experience of others, which is also found in Theravada and sometimes taught in Zen practices.

The tradition of Mahayana mental refinement began in India, possibly as early as 200 C.E. It was certainly well established by the time of Shantideva, 8^th century CE, who makes extensive use of it in his Bodhicharyavatara.

The technique of taking and sending itself is usually traced to Dharmakirti, an Indonesian master. The Indian Master Atisha, aka Dipankara Shrijnana, received instruction from him in both mental refinement and taking and sending and took the teachings to Tibet early in the 11th century. By that time it had already been transmitted to Western China and other parts of Asia.

In Tibet mental refinement was was originally a secret transmission, taught only to students who had a proven capacity and sincerity for practice. Chekawa Yeshe Dorje (1102-1176), for whom the practice had special significance, composed the seven points and taught them openly. 

Mental refinement was so important in the Buddha’s teachings that he incorporated it into the Four Noble Truths. In the Fourth Truth of the Way of Cessation we have what we call the Eightfold Path. Some think of the Eightfold Path as an eight-step program we can use to attain deep realizations and free ourselves from dukkha. Because of the way it is stated, we seem to believe that Samma Samadhi, “Right Concentration”, is the eighth step.

We need to stop thinking of the as an eight-step program. In other words, the eight parts of the path are not steps to be mastered one at a time. They are to be practiced all together, and each part of the path supports every other part of the path, just like the eight-spoked wheel that is used to represent it. This why the Buddha called it a Path or “The Way” and not the “Eight Steps.”

Three parts of the path, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration, are related to mental discipline. These three sound like they represent the same thing under three names. This is the illusion of language at work.

In fantastically simple terms,

Right Effort implies refining what is wholesome and purifying oneself of what is unwholesome. As the Dhammapada puts it, “Cease doing that which is evil, do only that which is good, and purify the mind.

Right Mindfulness is being deliberately and fully present and aware of one's body, senses, thoughts, and environment. It is the opposite of being lost in fantasies.

Right Concentration is making the entirety of one’s mental faculties the center of attention and practicing the Four Absorptions, also called the Four Jhanas (Pali) or Four Dhyanas (Sanskrit).

The Role of Meditation

Right Concentration is usually linked to meditation. In both the Sanskrit and Pali dialects of Prakrit, the lingua franca of ancient India, the word for meditation is bhavana, which means "producing", “developing” or “cultivating”. Today we us meditation primarily as a relaxation technique, but bhavana is not a secularized fairy dust practice. It also doesn’t involve creating fantastic visions or having out-of-body experiences, as some of the New Age folks advocate.

Walpola Rahula, the Theravadin scholar, explains,

“The word meditation is a very poor substitute for the original term bhavana, which means 'culture' or 'development', i.e., mental culture or mental development. The Buddhist bhavana, properly speaking, is mental culture in the full sense of the term. It aims at cleansing the mind of impurities and disturbances, such as lustful desires, hatred, ill-will, indolence, worries and restlessness, skeptical doubts, and cultivating such qualities as concentration, awareness, intelligence, will, energy, the analytical faculty, confidence, joy, tranquility, leading finally to the attainment of highest wisdom which sees the nature of things as they are, and realizes the Ultimate Truth, Nirvana." [Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (dharmaweb.net, pdf), p. 48]

Bhavana really involves all parts of the Eightfold Path, but the particular role of Right Concentration has to do with the jhanas.

The Four Jhanas, or Absorptions are the way to directly understand the inherent wisdom found in the Buddha's teachings. In particular, through Right Concentration we can be freed from the delusion of a separate self.

In the first jhana, passions, desires and unwholesome thoughts are let go. A person dwelling in the first jhana feels bliss and a deep sense of security, peace and serenityIn the second jhana, intellectual activity fades and is replaced by tranquility and one-pointedness of mind. The rapture and sense of security of the first jhana are still at hand.

In the third jhana, the rapture fades and is replaced by equanimity (upekkha). The mind is balanced, free of discrimination, above distinction, and rooted in insight. This balance is not indifference, but actively aware. Because of its rootedness into the perception of anatta, not self, it cannot be affected by the excitement of attraction and aversion. One senses the freedom of the excesses of ecstasy or unhappiness and experiences great clarity.

In the fourth jhana, all sensation is quelled and only attentive equanimity remains.

The fourth jhana is often described as “the direct perception of emptiness”, a pure experience with no one actually having the experience. Through this direct knowledge, one perceives the individual, separate self to be a misapprehension.

This is the basis of mental refinement. There are many techniques written about in Buddhist literature, but here is where we start.