Part 3b.1 - Shamatha: Taming discursive thoughts

How is it done?

First, regarding the stages of practicing shamatha,
We should stay seated within a solitary place.
In- and out-breaths are counted and colors visualized.

Remain for several days to tame discursive thoughts.

At the time of meditating, stay in a place free from disturbances of people and occupations, danger, and so forth, among things which the mind naturally grasps as pleasant. Sitting cross-legged, rest the hands on the knees. Of the three luminous nadis, as from white roma the breath is exhaled from the right nostril, all sickness, döns, evil deeds, and obscurations are purified, like smoke escaping a cook-house.

When it enters in, the samadhis of the buddhas and so forth, becoming light, enter from the left nostril into the red kyangma. Visualize that they dissolve in the central channel, and that for a little while the pranas above and below the hearth of the Sage are grasped and united. Also in gradually sending as before, hold the rest a little while.

As for the colors of pranas, if the three places of the prana of spring are thickened by phlegm, the antidote is the green air prana. To clear away the heat of fire from the three of summer, there is the white water prana. For the three of autumn, to clear away the motility of bile, there is the yellow earth prana. For the three of winter, as an antidote to cold and dampness, meditate on the red fire prana.

As for their shapes, meditate on the essences of prana and mind in the heart center as respectively like a bow, triangular, round, and square. Those are their corresponding touchables.

As for counting, breaths up to seven are mentally counted.

Beginners should visualize the exhalation of that prana going four cubits and so forth from the nostrils, then more and farther until it fills the whole of the three realms. Make the mind completely undistracted. At the time of drowsiness, not keeping it inside, eliminate it by forcefully expelling outward. At the time of arousing virtue, faith, and so forth, hold them inside.

After training prana for some days, completely non-conceptual shamatha of the clear and luminous mind arises. At that time, because the coarse pranas are motionless, mind is without thoughts, and the white and red essences of roma and kyangma are the motionless sun and moon. Within, as that motionless prana remains in non-thought within the central channel, co-emergent wisdom is recognized. The Dohakosha says:

In those whose prana and mind are without wandering,
The sun and moon are inactive and unengaged.
Those who do not know exhale their minds at this time.^[1]