Understanding the Nature of the Mind
When the mind looks at itself, what can it learn about its own nature? The first thing that becomes apparent is that countless thoughts prompted by our feelings, our memories, and our imagination constantly rush through our mind, almost without our knowledge. But is there not also a basic consciousness, always present behind this movement, even in the absence of thoughts, a presence that could be called the fundamental ability of the mind to know or to be conscious? (Matthieu Ricard, On the Path to Enlightenment: Heart Advice from the Great Tibetan Masters)
This basic consciousness could also be described as basic awareness.
The Western poet Rainer Maria Rilke has said that our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure. The fear that impermanence awakens in us, that nothing is real and nothing lasts, is, we come to discover, our greatest friend because it drives us to ask: If everything dies and changes, then what is really true? Is there something behind the appearances, something boundless and infinitely spacious, something in which the dance of change and impermanence takes place? Is there something in fact we can depend on, that does survive what we call death?
Allowing these questions to occupy us urgently, and reflecting on them, we slowly find ourselves making a profound shift in the way we view everything.
With continued contemplation and practice in letting go, we come to uncover in ourselves “something” we cannot name or describe or conceptualize, “something” that we begin to realize lies behind all the changes and deaths of the world.
The narrow desires and distractions to which our obsessive grasping onto permanence has condemned us begin to dissolve and fall away. As this happens we catch repeated and glowing glimpses of the vast implications behind the truth of impermanence. It is as if all our lives we have been flying in an airplane through dark clouds and turbulence, when suddenly the plane soars above these into the clear, boundless sky.
Inspired and exhilarated by this emergence into a new dimension of freedom, we come to uncover a depth of peace, joy, and confidence in ourselves that fills us with wonder, and breeds in us gradually a certainty that there is in us “something” that nothing destroys, that nothing alters, and that cannot die. ….
Gradually, then, we become aware in ourselves of the calm and sky-like presence of what Milarepa [a Tibetan master] calls the deathless and unending nature of mind. And as this new awareness begins to become vivid and almost unbroken, there occurs what the Upanishads call “a turning about in the seat of consciousness,” a personal, utterly non-conceptual revelation of what we are, why we are here, and how we should act, which amounts in the end to nothing less than a new life, a new birth, almost, you could say, a resurrection.
What a beautiful and what a healing mystery it is that from contemplating, continually and fearlessly, the truth of change and impermanence, we come slowly to find ourselves face to face, in gratitude and joy, with the truth of the changeless, with the truth of the deathless, unending nature of mind!
Source: Sogyal Rinpoche. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. 20th Anniversary Edition. Edited by Patrick Gaffney and Andrew Harvey. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
Three fundamental aspects of our pure or original mind may be described as follows:
(1) Complete openness
(2) Natural perfection
(3) Absolute spontaneity
These three aspects are explained as follows:
Complete Openness
All aspects of every phenomenon are completely clear and lucid.
The whole universe is open and unobstructed, everything mutually interpenetrating.
Since all things are naked, clear, and free from obscurations, there is nothing to attain or to realize.
The nature of things naturally appears and is naturally present in time-transcending awareness.
The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions and to all people, experiencing everything totally without mental reservations and blockages, so that one never withdraws or centralizes onto oneself.
This produces a tremendous energy which is usually locked up in the processes of mental evasion and generally running away from life experiences.
Clarity of awareness may in its initial stages be unpleasant or fear inspiring. If so, then one should open oneself completely to the pain or the fear and welcome it. In this way the barriers created by one’s own habitual emotional reactions and prejudices are broken down.
When performing the meditation practice one should get the feeling of opening oneself out completely to the whole universe with absolute simplicity and nakedness of mind, ridding oneself of all “protecting” barriers.
Don’t mentally split in two when meditating, one part of the mind watching the other like a cat watching a mouse.
One should realize that one does not meditate in order to go deeply into oneself and withdraw from the world.
Even when meditating on chakras in Buddhist yoga there is no introspective concentration—complete openness of mind is still the keynote.
Natural Perfection
Everything is naturally perfect just as it is, completely pure
and undefiled.
All phenomena naturally appear in their uniquely correct modes and situations, forming ever-changing patterns full of meaning and significance, like participants in a great dance.
Everything is symbol, yet there is no difference between the symbol and the truth symbolised.
With no effort or practice whatsoever liberation, enlightenment, and buddhahood are already fully developed and perfected.
The everyday practice is just ordinary life itself. Since the under-developed state does not exist, there is no need to behave in any special way or to try to attain or practice anything.
There should be no feeling of striving to reach some exalted goal or higher state, since this simply produces something conditioned and artificial that will act as an obstruction to the free flow of the mind.
One should never think of oneself as “sinful” or worthless, but as naturally pure and perfect, lacking nothing.
When performing meditation practice one should think of it as just a natural function of everyday life, like eating or breathing, not as a special, formal event to be undertaken with great seriousness and solemnity. One must realize that to meditate is to pass beyond effort, beyond practice, beyond aims and goals, and beyond the dualism of bondage and liberation.
Meditation is always perfect, so there is no need to correct anything. Since everything that arises is simply the play of the mind, there are no bad meditation sessions and no need to judge thoughts as good or evil. Therefore one should not sit down to meditate with various hopes and fears about the outcome—one just does it, with no self-conscious feeling of “I am meditating,” without effort, without strain, without attempting to control or force the mind, without trying to become peaceful.
If one finds one is going astray in any of these ways, stop meditating and simply rest and relax for a while before resuming.
If one has experiences that one interprets as “results,” either during or after meditation, do not make anything special of them, but just observe them as phenomena. Above all, do not attempt to repeat them, since this opposes the natural spontaneity of the mind.
Absolute Spontaneity
All phenomena are completely new and fresh, absolutely unique at the instant of their appearance and entirely free from all concepts of past, present, and future, as if experienced in another dimension of time.
The continual stream of new discovery and fresh revelation and inspiration which arises at every moment is the manifestation of the eternal youth of the living dharma and its wonder, splendor, and spontaneity are the play or dance aspect of the universe as guru.
Learn to see everyday life as a mandala in which one is at the center, and be free of the bias and prejudice of past conditioning, present desires, and future hopes and expectations.
The figures of the mandala are the day-to-day objects of one’s life experience, moving in the great dance or play of the universe, the symbolism by which the guru reveals profound and ultimate meaning and significance. Therefore be natural and spontaneous, accept and learn from everything.
See the ironic, amusing side of irritating situations.
In meditation see through the illusion of past, present, and future. The past is but a present memory or condition, the future a present projection, and the present itself vanishes before it can be grasped.
Free oneself from past memories of, and conceptions about, meditation. Each moment of meditation is completely unique and full of the potentiality of new discovery, so one is incapable of judging meditation by past sessions or by theory.
Just plunge straight into meditation at this very moment with one’s whole mind and be free from hesitation, boredom, or excitement.
Source: Chögyam Trungpa and Rigdzin Shikpo. “The Way of Maha Ati” in Chögyam Trungpa, The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa. Volume One. Edited by Carolyn Rose Gimian. Boston & London: Shambhala, 2003.
Three fundamental aspects of our pure or original mind may be described as follows:
(1) Complete openness
(2) Natural perfection
(3) Absolute spontaneity