Insight through Learning, Reflecting, and Meditating:

The Fourfold Application of Mindfulness

Translated, edited and introduced by Martina Draszczyk

These teachings by Shamar Rinpoche are based on The Dharma Discourse on Defining the Topics (Arthaviniścaya Dharmaparyāya), a text considered to be a discourse or sūtra taught by Buddha Śākyamuni. 

Shamar Rinpoche guides practitioners along a trajectory toward increasingly profound levels of insight, leading them through the steps of learning, reflecting, and meditating within the context of the fourfold application of mindfulness. This comprises training in mindfulness with regard to the body, feelings, the mind, and mental phenomena.

Where the process of studying, reflecting, and meditating is concerned, Shamar Rinpoche tells us that the insight gained from listening serves as the riverbed; the insight gained from reflection corresponds to the river emanating from the spring and coursing along the riverbed, and the insight gained from meditation is comparable to the river reaching and merging with the sea. He stresses that practitioners who undergo this process thus reach a point at which they experience insight that is direct, deep, and expansive. This insight possesses the power to dispel ignorance, making the journey truly rewarding!