Awakening to inner stillness: A practice shared by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. Subtitle: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once meditation practice

 

Before I start this post I should emphasise that I do not gain materially from this or any other blog I have written. If you have to get through Google adverts to read these blogs then I apologise – I would turn them off if I knew of a way to do that. 

Anyway, this blog is devoted to a recommendation for a meditation practice that I really appreciate and that is taught by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, who was trained in both the Tibetan Buddhist and Bon traditions. The meditation itself goes under a variety of names, but is often called something like, ‘Awakening the luminous mind’ or ‘Awakening to inner stillness.’

As with all meditation practices of which I am aware, some will find this one profound, transformative and enlightening (me, for example), while others will find it less helpful.

The reason I want to recommend this practice is related to the reason why I meditate at all and that is to explore inner life and understand human potential. If you meditate to de-stress, to improve sleep quality, to help wind down from a busy day, or similar, then I think you can still gain benefit from this meditation but the scope of it is such that it is particularly well suited to inner exploration. 

To give some idea of the scope of this meditation practice, I list below the main areas to which attention is given during the meditation. By the way, the content and duration varies a bit in different versions. This list is from the Hemi-Sync version (cited below) and, at 42 minutes, is the longest version I’ve come across so far. The briefest I’ve found is 10 minutes in the YouTube video, also cited below. Anyway, here are the areas of inner focus:

    • Stillness that is within the body, but is beyond the world of physical form

    • Silence within

    • Peace within

    • Unlimited spaciousness within heart and mind – a sacred space, or inner refuge, which has the following qualities:

        ◦ Relief from pain

        ◦ Relief from conflicts

        ◦ Relief from addictions and habitual patterns

        ◦ Healing – physical and emotional

        ◦ A place of rest, protection, safety and love

        ◦ A place of conscious awareness and knowing

        ◦ A place of self-realisation

        ◦ A place of inner light

        ◦ A place of awakening

        ◦ A place of discovery and creativity

        ◦ A place of joy

        ◦ A place of equanimity

    • Inner enlightenment

These qualities are seen as being of benefit to the practitioner, and also to others as they radiate out and transform people and places.

In case you wondered what ‘Hemi-Sync’ means above, it is the registered name of a kind of audio technology and is a contraction of ‘hemispheric synchronisation’, in which the two hemispheres of the brain are induced to adopt the same EEG frequency. If you want to explore the background to that further I have added a reference to a paper by Jirakittayakorn and Wongsawat and published in 2017, as a good, albeit academic, place to start.

As I mentioned above, I found this practice profound, transformative and enlightening. I don’t think it is worth me saying too much more about my own experience than that, given that we can have such a variety of responses to the same meditation. In fact the same person going through the same practice several times is likely to have different experiences each time, as I describe at greater length in my academic paper on meditation (also cited below).

You may, however, notice parallels between some of the meditative states evoked by this meditation and by some states evoked by the jhana practice described in the previous blog, “What are the jhanas and how can they help awakening?” for example. 

Finally, the experiences had while going through this meditation were consistent with previous experiences with other meditations, or with simply sitting in silence, when looking deeply within, noticing that there is always stillness, silence, peace, awareness, wisdom and love. This meditation consistently brought greater clarity to such observations, which is why I am recommending it here.

Bibliography

Forster, P. M. (2021). The inner life of an experienced meditator: From shopping lists to awakening. Spiritual Psychology and Counseling, 6(1), 89–105. https://dx.doi.org/10.37898/spc.2021.6.1.129

Jirakittayakorn, N. & Wongsawat, Y. (2017). Brain responses to a 6-Hz binaural beat: effects on general theta rhythm and frontal midline theta activity. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 11, 365. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2017.00365

Wangyal, T. (2017). Awakening the Luminous Mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa2zvm2jjo4

Wangyal, T. (2017). Sacred space: The practice of inner stillness. Interstate Industries, Inc.

Key words

meditation, luminous mind, stillness, jhana, dhyana, consciousness, altered state of consciousness, awakening, enlightenment, 

Image

The picture at the top of this blog is of rocks reflected in the sea off Phuket, Thailand.