ACI 3 Final

Question 1

List the five parts for the study of meditation

Answer 1

1. How to prepare for meditation
2. The six conditions for an ideal meditation environment.
3. The correct posture for meditation.
4. The actual mental process during meditation.
5. The object of meditation: what we meditate on.

Question 2

List just the names of the six preliminaries that should be performed before a
meditation session.

Answer 2

1.Create a clean and sacred space, with an altar.
2.Set forth beautiful offerings.
3.Go for refuge, and think about the Wish for enlightenment
4.Visualize the collected Lamas and Holy Beings
5.Gather good energy and purify obstacles (through the seven
ingredients)
6.Request blessings from the Holy Beings

Question 3

Who wrote the text that we are studying for the six preliminaries and the seven
ingredients used in preparing for a meditation session? What are his dates? What is the
text called?

Answer 3

The author is Je Tsongkapa (1357-1419). The name of the text is The
Great Book on the Steps to Enlightenment (Lamrim Chenmo.)

Question 4

What are the seven ingredients?

Answer 4

a) Bowing down to the Holy Beings.
b) Making offerings.
c) Confessing (purifying yourself of bad karma)
d) Rejoicing in the good deeds of yourself and others.
e) Requesting teachings.
f) Asking Holy Beings to stay near you.
g) Dedicating the goodness you have done to all beings.

Question 5

These seven ingredients are part of which of the six preliminaries? Which ofthem act to gather
the power of goodness, and how many to clean away obstacles for a successful
meditation?

Answer 5

They are part of the fifth preliminary, which is called “purifying
obstacles and gathering goodness.” Confession clears obstacles and the
rest help to accumulate virtue.

Question 6

What work will we be using for the practice of the seven ingredients?

Answer 6

We will be using the Thousand Angels of the Heaven of Bliss (Ganden
Hlagyama), a lama practice centering on Je Tsongkapa.

Question 7

Name the six conditions that must be gathered together for meditation.

Answer 7

a) Stay in a place which is conducive to meditation.
b) Live simply: don’t need many things.
c) Be satisfied with the things you have.
d) Give up being too busy.
e) Maintain a very ethical way of life.
f) Get rid of sense desires, and desire for worldly pleasures.

Question 8

What is an important source for the teaching on few wants, and easy satisfaction?
Who wrote it, and when?

Answer 8

Abhidharmakosha, by Master

Vasubandhu, written around 350 AD.

Question 9

Briefly describe the eight characteristics of correct meditation posture.

Answer 9

a) Put your legs in a full-lotus or half-lotus position.
b) Don’t keep your eyes open all the way, or closed all the way.
c) Sit up very straight.
d) Make your shoulders level: neither higher than the other.
e) Make sure your head is neither tilted up nor down.
f) Let your teeth and lips stay in their natural, loose position.
g) Leave your tongue in a natural position up against the top of your
mouth.
h) Make your breath completely quiet, and follow it for a count of ten.

Question 10

Name the first of the five problems of meditation. Which four of the eight corrections
are used to counteract it?

Answer 10

Problem: Laziness, or not feeling like meditating today.
Four corrections:
(1) Feel attracted towards meditation, by thinking about how great
it is.
(2) Decide that you want to be a good meditator.
(3) Make the efforts needed to get good at meditation.
(4) Experience the physical and mental pleasure and ease that
comes from meditating regularly.

Question 11

Name the third of the five problems of meditation. What is its correction?

Answer 11

The third problem that occurs in meditation is mental dullness or mental
agitation. The corresponding correction is watchfulness.

Question 12

Explain the difference between gross and subtle dullness of meditation.

Answer 12

In a state of obvious dullness, you do have fixation on the object but the level of attention of the meditation has lost its clarity. With subtle
dullness, you have fixation and clarity, but no intensity.

Question 13

What is the fourth of the five problems of meditation? How do you know it has
occurred?

Answer 13

Failing to take the action necessary to correct dullness or agitation. You
know it has occurred when you have detected their arrival through your watchfulness.

Question 14

What is the correction for the fourth problem of meditation?

Answer 14

The correction is called “taking action.”

Question 15

The correction for the fourth problem of meditation can come in two different forms. Name them.

Answer 15

a) Correcting for mental dullness.

b) Correcting for mental agitation.

Question 16

What is the fifth and final problem of meditation? What is its correction?

Answer 16

The final problem is unnecessarily correcting your meditation. The
correction here is leave well enough alone, and to avoid making any
changes or attempting any corrections.

Question 17

Name and describe the nine states of meditation.

Answer 17

a) Placing the mind on the object. You receive instructions from your
teacher about what object to meditate upon, and can keep your
mind on it for only very brief periods of time.
b) Placing the mind on the object with some continuity. You are able to
keep your mind on the object briefly
c) Placing the mind on the object and patching the gaps. You are able
to keep your mind on the object for a fairly long time, regaining
continuity and “patching the gap” quickly whenever your focus
breaks off.
d) Placing the mind on the object closely. You are able to keep your
mind on the object without losing it, but still have agitation and
dullness.
e) Controlling the mind. Watchfulness is developed to a high degree,
detecting subtle dullness when the mind has been withdrawn
inside too deeply. Obvious dullness can no longer occur.
f) Pacifying the mind. Watchfulness by this point is powerful, detecting
subtle agitation which may occur as a result of uplifting the mind
as a correction in the previous stage. There is no longer any great
danger of subtle dullness.
g) Pacifying the mind totally. Recollection and watchfulness are total,
and there is no great danger of either subtle agitation or subtle
dullness.
h) Making the mind single-pointed. Neither subtle agitation nor subtle
dullness still occur at all; some effort is still needed at the
beginning of the session to make minor corrections to the
meditation.
i) Achieving equilibrium (deep meditation). Your mind goes into deep
meditation automatically, without any conscious effort.

Question 18

Name three different types of meditation.

Answer 18

a) Fixation meditation, such as a visualization fixed on the image of your
Lama.
b) Review meditation, where you go over the same steps of a concept or
principle again and again. An example would be going though
the various parts of the outline of the death meditation until each
succeeding step comes to you almost automatically.
c) Analytical meditation, where you set a problem at the center stage of
your mind and then solve it by thinking about it carefully, from
many different angles.

Question 19

Give the meaning ofthe word “lam-rim.” Where does the name come from?

Answer 19

The Tibetan word “lam-rim” means “steps of the path to Enlightenment.”
The name ultimately comes from the scriptures on the Perfection of
Wisdom (the Prajnya Paramita).

Question 20

Which of the five great texts, and the different levels of secret practice, are contained
in the lam rim?

Answer 20

1. Perfection of wisdom
2. Middle Way
3. Vowed Morality
4. Higher Knowledge
5. Logic and Perception
   The
   lam-rim is an open teaching, so the secret practices are mentioned but
   not explained in detail.

Question 21

Name the four major parts of this lam-rim.

Answer 21

a) The root of the path: taking a lama.
b) How to practice and purify the mind, after taking a lama.
c) Requesting help in your practice.
d) Prayers to meet teachers and to achieve your goals.

Question 22

The first part of the lam-rim (“steps of the path”) we are studying concerned how to
take a Lama. The second part concerns how to practice once one has taken a Lama.
What are the two parts of how to do this practice?

Answer 22

1. Je Tsongkapa urging us to get the most meaning out of this life.
2. Learning how to get the most out of this life.

Question 23

Name the three parts to the subject of taking the essence of this life.

Answer 23

a) Steps shared with those of lesser capacity.
b) Steps shared with those of medium capacity.
c) Steps for those of great capacity.

Question 24

What are the three principles of the death meditation?

Answer 24

a) Death is certain.
b) There is no certainty when you will die.
c) When you do die, only the Dharma can help you.

Question 25

Name the four laws of karma.

Answer 25

1. Actions are certain to produce consequences that resemble them in
   content (good can only lead to good, bad can only lead to bad).
2. The consequences are greater than the actions.
3. One cannot meet a consequence if he or she has not committed an
   action.
4. Once an action is committed, the consequence cannot be lost.

Question 26

State briefly the difference between Buddhists of lesser, medium, and greater capacity.

Answer 26

Buddhists of lesser capacity seek only to avoid being born themselves
in the three lower realms after they die. Those of medium capacity seek
to avoid any rebirth at all, but again only for their own sake. Those of
the greater capacity (the Mahayana) seek to avoid the lower realms and
any rebirth at all, but wish further that they could help every living
being to do the same.

Question 27

Do you think it is true that every event in our present kind of life is suffering? Why
or why not?

Answer 27

The outright pain, such as a bad back or grief over the loss of a loved
one, is obviously suffering (the suffering of suffering). But even the
good things—a good home, family, or job—must inevitably change and
be ripped away from us (the suffering of change). We finally lose even
our own bodies; our minds become senile; and even our names are
forgotten. Since every event in our present kind of life is either
suffering or inevitably degenerates into suffering (pervasive suffering),
then it is true that all these events are suffering.

Question 28

Of the three trainings, why is only the training of morality mentioned at this point?

Answer 28

Morality is the basis of the other two trainings; one must have morality
to be able to concentrate deeply, and gain insight into wisdom.

Question 29

Give the two parts to the steps of the path which are shared with practitioners of the
greater scope

Answer 29

a) Learning how to think like a bodhisattva.

b) Learning how to act like a bodhisattva.

Question 30

Give the definition of quietude (called shamata in Sanskrit and shi-ne in Tibetan).

Answer 30

That single-mindedness which is imbued with the exceptional bliss of
practiced ease due to deep, single-pointed meditation on its object.

Question 31

Give the definition of insight (called vipashyana in Sanskrit and hlak-tong in Tibetan).

Answer 31

That wisdom which is full of the exceptional bliss of practiced ease by power of the analysis of its object, and which is founded upon quietude.