The Very Venerable Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

The Seven Points Of Mind Training

Birmingham Karma Ling, December 2002

The Practice of Shinay

Actually we have studied the 7 Points of Mind Training with the root text and we have completed all of the seven points. Along with the 7 Points of Mind Training root test there is a very small commentary and normally one would explain that but as the shinay meditation is

Generally speaking with the Shinay we practice with our mind and our mind has this naturally happy state and peaceful state and also power, it has power. But often we can’t utilise this power that we have naturally within our mind. The reason we aren’t able to use this natural power in our minds is due to us not having the mindfulness.

Our mind can be likened to this mala; each of the beads is like a thought so we have one thought after another without reason, one after another. There is little bit of a gap there, but in reality there probably wasn’t any gap, just joking.

We can also liken the mind to a waterfall that is rushing down a mountain, this water that comes down with great force and rushes down to the plain, if one gets that water when it is in the waterfall stage then one can use that water to wash with and one can drink it. When the water comes down into the plain and spreads out then it meets the earth and it will meet the sand and it gets mixed with the sand and one is unable to use it. You can’t really wash with it and you can’t really drink it because it's polluted with the sand. So our mind at the moment with all the thoughts is rather likened to the water that is in the plain mixed with the sand.

Often when this water is in the plain stage mixing with the sand, one can’t actually see clearly through the water because the sand is mixed in with it. How can we recognise the naturally present power of the mind that we have what kind of method we can apply? There are three things we can apply, first is mindfulness, the second is one-pointedness and the third is not being distracted. So these three have the same meaning, though the name is slightly different, the meaning is identical.

If one is able to rest naturally in a relaxed state with mindfulness then naturally we can subdue and pacify the mind poisons and one's naturally existing power of the mind will arise and one will obtain joy and happiness, without having some kind of very strongly applied technique. If one has this mindfulness and relaxed state of mind then these things naturally happen. Then one will reduce one's suffering, pacify the suffering, and within one's mind one won’t experience difficulties or problems.

There is an American psychology doctor and he said “if you put four Americans together one of those Americans will be crazy”, his mind will be a bit off, the reason for that being he is not practising the awareness of the mind, mindfulness. Normally, how we are every day we can’t actually rest in this natural state for very long or maybe not at all. Staying without any kind of problem or difficulty we can’t really stay in that state for long, maybe we don’t achieve it at all.

It is rather like a monkey, if you put a monkey in a house and it doesn’t have any work to do, it doesn’t have any problems, but it makes work and it makes problems for its self by running around. For example, if you put a monkey in the shrine room here then he would jump on the shrine and throw all the things on the floor, he would get the thankas and hang on them and pull them to ground, and everything that’s on the table here he would throw on the ground, he has no reason for doing this he doesn’t have to do it but he just does it, its his nature.

What happens with us then is we don’t have to make a problem but we make a problem it can be quite small then gradually it becomes a bigger and bigger problem, its rather like having a hammer and hitting oneself on the head with it. But if one has the mindfulness with the shinay practice then naturally one's problems and suffering will be diminished and pacified.

If one takes vitamin pills, one's illness is pacified and it happens like that naturally, shinay is like a vitamin.

Now I'm going to explain the practice of shinay.

The first thing one has to do is have a very straight upright body, not slouching. If one can sit with crossed legs and hands like that. You don’t have to stretch out like that because you will be falling over backwards, and you don’t sit like this with your back all bent because then you will fall asleep.

If one sits with this kind of hunched up back then all of one’s subtle channels in the body will be squashed land bent over, so then the blood and the wind energy that moves in the subtle channels will be constricted, and that will give rise to many illnesses and also problems with one's mind. For that reason one is told to sit up straight, if one has a sore back or problems with the back one can put a cushion at the back.

In brief there are seven points. One sits with what some people call the lotus posture, crossed legs, if one can do one crosses the legs completely, or you can do it another way you have one up and one leg down whatever one is able to do, and if one has difficulties with one's legs one can sit with the legs pointed out straight. or you can sit on a chair, if you can’t do that then just go to sleep. The last one was a joke!

If you can adopt what is generally known as the lotus posture or just the crossed legs posture if one can do that, it is very beneficial. Then secondly one has the hands in this posture, left below and right on top, and it is also possible to do it the other way, right underneath the left.

Generally speaking males should have their right hand on top and females should have their left hand on top, but whatever you do will be fine, ladies can also put their right hand on top, both on top, so you can do both it doesn't have to be one or the other, but generally speaking there is a difference.

The third point is about having a straight back, straight spine, and if one finds the posture with the hands in the lap is uncomfortable then you can rest them over your knees like that, so one covers the knees with one's hands.

The fourth point is that between the elbows and the side of one's chest there should be a gap there, you don’t sit with your elbows tucked into your side, you don’t have to hold it very forcefully keeping a space there, just naturally there should be a gap.

The fifth point one has one's chin slightly pulled down, one is still straight, you don’t have it pointed up like that, and you don’t have it all the way down, a lot of Chinese people tend to go like this!!!!!! Pull their chin right on their chest, and a lot of western, English people all go like that, their eyes are really wide and their mouth are wide open. Then Tibetans go like this, slouching, so those three are not very good not very beneficial, just keep straight just a tiny tilt of the chin down, not very much.

The sixth is the mouth, the tongue is just resting slightly behind the upper front set of teeth, a little bit touching the top, not flat against it, just the tip of the tongue against the palate behind the top set of teeth. If one has got a very short lumpy tongue and you can’t reach then it doesn’t matter. You don’t have the mouth wide open either like that, not like that, and you don’t have your lips closed together either, the mouth is naturally just open a little bit, a little gap. Don’t put your teeth together, it’s fine to breath in and out through the nose or in and out through the mouth or any combination of that it doesn’t matter you don’t have to make the breath follow a certain pattern.

The seventh is the eyes, with the eyes one should not have them facing one way one direction or other, up or down or to the sides, one just rests and naturally look straight ahead. You don’t have to have your eyes wide open, and you don’t have your eyes screwed up either. Some people kind of move their eyes about a lot and squeeze them up, you don’t have to do anything like that, just naturally leave your eyes and they will look straight ahead.

There are three different positions you can use, the first one will be looking down slightly, so it's kind of looking down and one can still be aware of one's nose looking down, the second one is just level straight in front of you, and the third is looking slightly with eyes raised up, and it's very good for you to inter change them, if you use one of the eye positions for a long time it will be boring and some have problems if you use the one looking up into the space, if you do that for a couple of days or for a few hours then you get quite a lot of nice feelings coming up, but after sometime continually using that position one will become tired and uncomfortable. So leave that and look downwards and immediately you will feel better, and then you feel quite fine looking downwards for a while, and then when that gets boring and uncomfortable then you look straight ahead so you interchange these three eye positions.

Generally with the eye positions whether they are looking up, down or straight ahead, one does it naturally. However, it is beneficial to have the eyes open. Generally if one has the eyes closed when one meditates at first one will be quite relaxed you will feel it's ok, but the fault of having the eyes closed is one won’t have a very good experience or clarity.

These seven points are of great importance because in one's body are many subtle channels which go all over the body including the brain area and there’s a wind energy that moves around in those channels and gives rise to the different mind poisons.

If you can sit in this seven-point posture then it helps to naturally pacify them and one can meditate properly. Really, if one is having meditation sessions or a kind of practice session then if one can adopt the seven point posture at that time it is very beneficial but that doesn’t mean you can’t practice shinay when you are doing anything else, you can meditate when you are driving you can meditate when you are walking around, the most important thing to remember if you are not in the actual session is to have a straight body.

For beginners with meditation these seven points are extremely important but for someone who got some kind of realisation then they are not so important for that type of person.

That was how the body should be; now I'll explain about the mind.