The Traditional Meditation: Ordinary Preliminary

Meditations (ཐུན་མོང་གི་སོན་འགོ།, thun mong gi sngon ‘gro) -

Buddhist Meditation and Philosophy
Tibetan traditions generally state that the classical meditation practices are strengthened
by preliminary training that facilitates the acquisition of foundational motivation,
abilities, and knowledges. Certain sects - especially the Nyingma and Kagyü - presented
these as “preliminary meditations,” which must be done before one engages in other
meditations. These preliminary practices are divided into two categories, “ordinary” or
“common” preliminaries and “extraordinary” or “uncommon” practices. There are four
ordinary preliminaries, which are termed “the four thoughts that turn one away from
ordinary existence” (blo ldog rnam bzhi). These constitute meditative reflections on
four major Buddhist philosophical themes: (i) a reflection on the freedoms and
advantages enjoyed by being born as a human being with the opportunity for
contemplative reflection (“a precious human life”), (ii) the ubiquitous reality of
impermanence (“impermanence”), (iii) the shortcomings of ordinary existence and
reality of suffering and exploitation (“the defects of saṃsāra”), and (iv) the reality and
workings of cause and effect in relationship to human agency (“karma”).

These ordinary preliminary meditations are thus deeply interwoven with Buddhist
meditation, and constitute experiential reflections on some of the greatest themes of
early Buddhist philosophy through the use of narrative, analysis, examples, and images.
Buddhist was a deeply philosophical tradition in its roots, though of course that is
hardly to say that all of its participants, elite or ordinary, had strong philosophical
backgrounds. In Tibet, these philosophical meditations, however, were actually done on
a widespread basis, and in the monastery could be a practice of one’s teenage years.
They were foundational for all subsequent contemplative practice, and essentially at
heart are formal, deep deliberations of enduring Buddhist philosophical themes with a
personal, existential intent of considering one’s own life and commitments in their
illumination. Their ultimate goal is motivational with their evocation of universal
change and suffering, and the imperative to explore the human capacity for self-
awareness with the aim of finding a personal pathway to an agency allowing for
navigation of change, eradication of suffering, insight into reality, and care for others. In
practice, they were rather unstructured meditations, with the individual practitioner
often determining what might the best for them, though the goal was formal,
concentrated meditative sessions, rather than simply reading a book and reflecting upon
it as one has time. Thus sessions have a formal beginning, middle, and end, usually in
some type of formal posture, most commonly a cross legged sitting one, and located
where one won’t be distracted by others. After reflecting on, and setting intent, the
practice typically blends reciting short verses expressing the theme in question,
consulting a commentarial work with a wealth of reflections, narratives, and reasonings,
and pondering them deeply while quietly sitting in solitude. A session is then brought to
an end with brief moment of silence, possibly with a dedication of whatever benefit
derives from these deliberations to the welfare of others, and a reflection on the desire to
carry these reflections into one’s daily life.

The actual practice, then, might be called narrative meditations, reflective meditations,
or philosophical deliberations. There are certainly analytical in orientation, though
though the rubric of analytical meditation (dpyad sgom) is usually reserved to more
narrowly defined meditations focusing especially on explicitly logical forms of
reasoning. The reflections range over the key principles of foundational Buddhist
philosophy - the four noble truths, suffering, impermanence, human agency, causation,
interdependence, the nature of self, and the possibilities of human being. In Tibet, these
in part functioned to lay these philosophical foundations deeply in a practitioner’s mind.
If the person in question has limited intellectual background in these areas, the
meditations thus compensate with an intensive overview; if the person had extensive
studies, the meditations are instead a highly experiential review with a focus on practice
that function to bridge their intellectual studies with their upcoming meditative studies.
In many cases, the ordinary and extraordinary preliminaries are the chief way in which
individuals were being exposed contemplative practices, while the other exoteric
meditative systems here explored - “calm”, “insight”, “emptiness”, “compassion” and
so forth – are often not separately practiced as exoteric meditations as such, even if they
were often evoked and understood to be accomplished in the context of these
preliminary practices and later tantric practices. Thus the actual meditative path, as
opposed to the elaborate schemes depicted in literature, was historically often ordinary
preliminaries, extraordinary preliminaries, deity yoga, subtle body practices, and either
Great Seal or Great Perfection natural meditations. In the Geluk tradition, more
typically the functions of the ordinary preliminary practices was fulfilled by meditative
retreats structured by their “stages of the path” (lam rim) literature, though this literature
often has a more philosophical cast and can involve formal study of calm and insight as
separate practices as well.