This Very Mind, Empty and Luminous

By The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

We can see awakening in the world around us, but we can also turn the telescope inward and look directly at our mind. In the Vajrayana school of Buddhism, we discover that this very mind is the mind of the Buddha, and what we’ve been searching for so long has been right in front of us all the time.

Only when we have a genuine, abiding desire to free ourselves from suffering and all its causes does our spiritual journey begin. That original desire is very potent and very real. It is the basis upon which we enter the path that will lead us to our goal. Yet from the point of view of the Vajrayana, or tantric, school of Buddhism, there is no place to go on that path, no end of the road where we will one day satisfy our thirst for liberty. Why? Because the very thing that we are looking for—freedom, wakefulness, enlightenment—is right here with us all the time.

There is a story in the tantric meditative tradition of Mahamudra about a farmer who owns a buffalo. Not realizing that the buffalo is in its stable, the farmer goes off in search of it, thinking the animal has strayed from home. Starting on his search, he sees many different buffalo footprints outside his yard. Buffalo footprints are everywhere! The farmer then thinks, “Which way did my buffalo go?” He decides to follow one set of tracks and they lead him up into the high Himalayas, but he doesn’t find his buffalo there. Then he follows another set of footprints that lead way down to the ocean. However, when he reaches the ocean, he still doesn’t find his buffalo. It is not in the mountains or at the beach. Why? Because the buffalo is back home in the stable in his yard.

In the same way, we search for enlightenment outside ourselves. We search for freedom high up in the mountains of the Himalayas, at peaceful beaches, and in wonderful monasteries, where there are footprints everywhere. In the end, we may find traces of the great Tibetan yogi Milarepa’s enlightenment in the caves where he meditated, or hints of the Indian pandit Naropa’s enlightenment at the bank of the River Ganges. We may find signs of the enlightenment of many individual masters in different towns, cities, or monasteries. What we will not find, however, is the one thing we are looking for: our own enlightened nature. We may find someone else’s enlightenment, but it is not the same as finding our own.

No matter how much you may admire the realizations of the buddhas, bodhisattvas, and yogis of previous times, finding your own freedom inside yourself, your own enlightenment, your own wakefulness, is much different. When you have your own realization, it is like finding your own buffalo. Your buffalo recognizes you and you recognize your buffalo. The moment we meet our own buffalo is a very emotional and joyful moment.

In order to find our own enlightenment, we have to start right here where we are. We have to search inwardly rather than outwardly. From the Vajrayana point of view, the state of freedom, or enlightenment, is within our mind and has been from beginningless time. Like our buffalo comfortably resting in its stable, it has never left us, although we have developed the idea that it has left home. We think it is now somewhere outside, and we have to find it. With so many footprints leading in different directions, so many possibilities for where it could be, we may start to hallucinate. We might think it was stolen by a neighbor and is gone forever. We start to have all kinds of misconceptions and mistaken beliefs.

To summarize this, we can say: There is nothing called “buddha” or “buddhahood” that exists outside of one’s mind. We can say the same for samsara: It does not exist apart from one’s mind. That is why Milarepa sang:

Nirvana is nothing imported from somewhere else
Samsara is nothing deported to somewhere else
I’ve discovered for sure the mind is the buddha…

From the point of view of the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions of Vajrayana Buddhism, there is nothing within samsara—our state of dualistic confusion—to be relinquished, discarded, or left behind. And nirvana—the state of enlightenment—is not a place we go to from here. It is not a place found outside of where we are right now. If we wanted to renounce samsara, leave it behind physically, where would we go? To the International Space Station, the moon, or Mars? We would still be within samsara. So how can we leave samsara behind?

What we are trying to leave behind is duality, the mind of confusion, our perpetual state of suffering. Physically, yes, you can leave your hometown and go to some secluded place such as a mountain cave or a monastery. Your body will be somewhere else, but will your mind be in a different state? How your mind functions when you are in a mountain cave, a monastery, or at home is what determines whether you are in the state of samsara or nirvana.

According to the Vajrayana teachings, enlightenment is right here within our mind’s nature. That nature is what we are trying to discover and connect with. It is what we are trying to recognize, realize, and perfect. The entire journey on this path is trying to discover the nature of our mind as it is.

How can we recognize this nature of mind? The experience of awakening, of complete enlightenment, can be arrived at through many different methods. The methods of the three vehicles of Buddhism—the Hinayana, the Mahayana, and the Vajrayana—all lead to the same goal. The difference is not in the result achieved but in the time it takes to reach that result and in the methods used. Only the Vajrayana is said to possess the methods that can lead to the realization of the true nature of mind in one lifetime. In the Vajrayana liturgy, this way of achieving the state of wakefulness is called attaining “complete enlightenment in one instant.” When we take the instructions to heart, when we employ the methods properly, stage by stage, and when we focus on the path and do not drift on to any sidetracks, this awakening can take place in any minute. One moment we can be a totally confused, ordinary sentient being, and the next we can be a completely enlightened being. This outrageous but very realistic notion is known as sudden enlightenment, or “wild awakening.”


The Path of Devotion

The tantric path is sometimes known as the path of devotion. With the eye of devotion—toward our guru, our lineage, and our instructions—we can see the true nature of mind. What role does the guru play in our journey to find enlightenment? On the one hand, it is said that enlightenment is right there within you, and on the other hand, it is said that there is no enlightenment without devotion to the guru or lineage of enlightened masters. It sounds a little contradictory.

Why is devotion so important? How does it work? Devotion is a path, a skillful means through which you develop basic trust—trust in your own enlightened heart, trust that your mind is totally, utterly pure and has been right from the beginning. Trusting in that truth is what devotion is. You come to see the truth of your own enlightened heart through the guru and the lineage. Your relationship with your guru is personal, yet it is also beyond the personal. It is so close that you feel like you can control it, yet at the same time you realize it is beyond your control. It is similar to your ordinary relationships—with your spouse, friends, and family—yet it goes beyond them. If you can work with the relationship with the guru, it opens a door to working with every relationship in the world. It becomes a great vehicle for transforming your negative emotions and suffering.

The point here is that the guru simply plays the role of a mirror. When you look in a mirror, your own face is reflected back to you. The mirror does not reflect itself. It shows you whether your face is clean or dirty or if you need a haircut. The mirror is unbiased; it reflects positive and negative qualities equally clearly.

In the same way, when you look at the guru with devotion, you see both your positive and negative qualities. You see your failures, your struggles, your disturbing emotions arising, just as you see dirt on your face in an ordinary mirror. At the same time, you see beyond the surface impurities—which can simply be washed away. You see your true face, your actual reality, which is the perfectly pure nature of your mind.

What happens, though, if you are sitting in front of the mirror in a room that is dark? The mirror still possesses the potential to reflect, and you still possess all those qualities to be reflected. But if there is no light, you could sit there in the dark for ages and nothing would happen. You would never see anything. Therefore, it is not enough just to sit in front of the mirror. You need to turn on the light. In this case, the light is the light of devotion. When this light is on, and when the mirror of the guru is in front of you, you can see the reflection of your own nature of mind very clearly and precisely—yet in a nonconceptual way. That is the role of the guru and the lineage in our enlightenment. The guru is not the creator of your enlightenment. He or she is simply a condition for attaining your own enlightenment.

The mirror does not turn on the light for you. It does not bring you into the room and tell you to sit in front of it. It doesn’t say, “Look here!” The mirror is just a mirror occupying a certain space. You have to enter the room, turn on the light, walk toward the mirror, and look into it. So who is doing the job here? It’s us. We are activating this relationship.

Some traditions say that you have to be passive to receive divine grace or to have mystical experiences, but here it is the opposite. To invoke the blessing of the lineage, you have to be active. Everything is done by you; the guru is simply a condition, a mirror, that you have chosen to keep in your room. That mirror did not mysteriously land there, you know. You selected it and placed it there through your own efforts.

The lineage instructions are also not the creator of your enlightenment. They are simply another condition. They are powerful and profound tools, which you must employ. Instructions are like directions for getting where you want to go. The instructions, the directions, play an important role, but not more important than your own role in initiating and taking the journey. You play the more active role on the path. You act on the directions. They give you all the information you need—which way is the safest, which is a little bit risky, and which is the fastest but most hazardous. However, if you take no action, then eons from now you will still be wandering around without reaching your destination.

We have full power to decide the course of our personal journey. This is the Buddhist view. Even from the perspective of Mahamudra and Dzogchen, you are the center of the path and your enlightenment depends on your own effort. It does not depend on anyone or anything outside of you.


Using Mind to Discover the True Nature of Mind

The basic nature of our mind, and the basic nature of all phenomena that we perceive as being external to our mind, is luminous emptiness. In other words, all forms, sounds, and so on, as well as all thoughts and emotions, are appearing yet empty, empty yet appearing. There are various approaches to discovering this nature of mind that is with us all the time.

From the Mahamudra-Dzogchen point of view, we first look directly at the appearances of thoughts and emotions and ascertain their emptiness. Their nature of appearance-emptiness is easy to see, because such mental forms are fleeting and insubstantial. Once this is seen with confidence, then we look at external appearances. Having penetrated the nature of thoughts and emotions, seeing the true nature of the outer world—the external objects that appear to our sense consciousnesses—is much easier. We see that they are equally empty.

In the Hinayana and Mahayana approach, the order is reversed. We first focus our analysis outside and ask: How is form empty? How is sound empty? How is smell empty? and so on. Through reasoning, we discover that the true nature of all these forms is emptiness. Once we find that the nature of all perceived objects is empty, we conclude that the nature of the perceiving subject is naturally empty as well. Subject and object exist only in dependence upon one another.

From the Vajrayana point of view, it is easier and more straightforward to analyze your mind first. Your own mind is very clear to you—you know your thoughts and emotions very well and you experience them directly. They are not hidden from you. They are not something you have to discover through analysis. Your emotions and thoughts are right there in front of you, so when you look at them, your examination is experiential.

When we analyze a form or sound, or turn our mind to the metaphysics of seeds and sprouts, it is conceptual, an academic exercise. We come to “know,” but our knowing is not direct knowledge. Therefore, from the Mahamudra-Dzogchen point of view, that approach is regarded as indirect analysis. It is not a direct experience. For this reason, the Hinayana and Mahayana stages of the path are called the “causal vehicles.” They cause us to have, or lead us to, the direct experience later. The methods of the causal vehicles will bring us to that experience at some point, but not right now.

Mahamudra-Dzogchen uses the approach of direct analysis, which is known as the “analytical meditation of the simple meditator,” or kusulu. This does not mean simple in the sense of being intellectually deficient, but simple in the sense of being intellectually uncomplicated. The Hinayana and Mahayana approach to analysis is known, on the other hand, as the “analytical meditation of the scholar,” or pandita, which is theoretical or scholarly analysis.

While the scholarly approach is necessary, if used alone, it does not bring us direct experience right away. The analysis of the simple meditator, in which we begin by looking at our immediate experiences of mind, is very clear and brings direct experience to everyone. Using this method, when you look closely at a thought or emotion, you can see its nature of inseparable luminosity and emptiness. You do not find any solid or substantially existent thing. The reason you do not find anything solid is that, on the absolute level of reality, nothing exists in that manner. Therefore, when we look for it, we do not find it.

True emptiness, however, is not just “not finding” something. If, for example, you searched your home to see if there was an elephant somewhere in your house, and you did not find any elephant, would it mean that elephants do not exist? No. There are elephants living in zoos and in the wild.
Simply searching for something and not finding it is not the kind of analysis that leads us to the genuine experience of emptiness. To arrive at the true experience of emptiness, we must base our analysis on looking at something we do see, that appears to us to exist, whether that is an external or internal object. When we analyze that object, let’s say an elephant, we look at it in order to discover its true nature, its fundamental reality. We look for that nature by thoroughly analyzing the existence of the elephant and each of its parts—ears, trunk, eyes, great body, legs, and tail—until we exhaust our looking. At that point, we come to the conclusion that we cannot find the true existence of this solidly appearing being. Nevertheless, we can see, smell, hear, and touch this empty-yet-appearing elephant. That is the method of analyzing that leads to the experience of emptiness.

In the same way, when we look directly at a thought or emotion, it is hard to find anything solid. We may be experiencing strong anger, but when we look at those intense feelings of aggression, we can’t really pinpoint them. We can’t really identify what they are. We may not even be certain why we are angry. After a while, our anger dissolves. One moment, we can barely speak or breathe because we are so enraged. In the next moment, the fury is gone, leaving nothing behind. Even if we wanted to maintain our anger so we can continue tormenting our rival or foe, it is too late. Our empty-appearing anger is gone. In truth, it was never there in the first place.


Ordinary Mind

The actual point of all our efforts on the spiritual path, whether we are studying, meditating, or engaged in socially oriented activities, is to return to the genuine state of our mind, the inherent state of wakefulness, which is very simple and completely ordinary. This is the goal of all three vehicles, or yanas, of the Buddhist path.

The Hinayana school calls this state egolessness, selflessness, or emptiness. The Mahayana school calls it the great emptiness, or shunyata, freedom from all elaborations, all conceptuality. It is also known as the emptiness endowed with the essence of compassion, or as bodhichitta, the union of emptiness with the qualities of compassion and loving-kindness. Further, it is known as buddhanature or tathagatagarbha, the essence of all the buddhas, the “thus gone ones.” In the Vajrayana, it is called the vajra nature, or sometimes the vajra mind or heart, which refers to the indestructible quality of awareness. In Mahamudra, it is called ordinary mind, or thamal gyi shepa, and in Dzogchen, it is called bare awareness, or rigpa. The meanings of all these terms point to the most fundamental reality of our mind and phenomena, which is luminous emptiness. All is empty yet appears, appears yet is empty.

While many different methods are taught to reach this ordinary state of mind, the methods themselves can appear to be anything but ordinary. In some sense they are extraordinary, rather than ordinary; abnormal, rather than normal; and complex, rather than simple. The Hinayana path of personal liberation, for example, is known for its many detailed instructions for practice and postmeditation conduct. For monastics, there are the customs of shaving one’s head and putting on beautiful robes, which are rituals prescribed in order to lead the practitioner to the realization of selflessness.

In the same way, followers of the Mahayana system for realizing the great emptiness undertake the paramita practices, the six transcendent actions of generosity, discipline, patience, diligence (or exertion), concentration (or meditation), and discriminating knowledge (or prajna). In the Vajrayana, there are many complex practices, such as the visualization of deities and mandalas, which lead to the realization of the vajra mind.

So with all these practices, are we getting any closer to the natural state? Since it is natural for our hair to grow, the Hinayana practice of continually shaving our heads seems unnatural. It is also not the normal custom of society. In the Mahayana, there are many highly conceptual and occasionally “counterintuitive” methods for purifying negative states of mind, such as breathing in the impurities of the minds of others in tonglen practice. In the Vajrayana, in contrast to the Hinayana practice of shaving off our hair, we visualize not only extra hair, but also we imagine extra heads, extra arms, and extra legs.

Why do we do this, when such methods seem to take us further and further away from an ordinary, normal, and simple state of mind? There must be a reasonable explanation! The answer is simply that in order to reach the level of ordinary mind, to truly arrive at the basic state of simplicity, we have to cut through our habitual, dualistic pattern of labeling some things as normal and others as abnormal. If we have too much fixation on normalcy, on day-to-day convention, we have to cut through that to experience our mind as it truly is.

Therefore, in order to break through and transcend such solid, dualistic notions, we create “abnormal” situations to practice with on the path. In the deity yoga practice of the Vajrayana, you might be visualizing yourself in the form of an enlightened being with multiple heads, arms, and legs when you suddenly realize that you have no idea who you are—which is a wonderful experience. We usually have too many preconceived notions about who we are and about the world “out there.” We are so caught up in the process of labeling that we never see beyond the surface of those labels to the nonconceptual reality that is their basis.

When we work with profound and skillful methods like those of the Vajrayana path, they cut through the very root of our dualistic concepts. With these methods we rely on concept to go beyond concept, on thought to go beyond thought. A good example of this is a bird taking off from the ground. When the bird wants to fly, it has to either run a little bit or push down against the ground so that it can leap up. It has to rely on the earth to go beyond the earth—to leap into the space of sky. In the same way, we have to rely in the beginning on dualistic concepts in order to leap into the space of non-conceptuality or non-duality.

This is what all these teachings do for us. Through words and concepts, they point out the nature of phenomena, which is emptiness beyond words and concepts. If, when Buddha realized the true nature of mind and the world, he had never spoken about it, never communicated his wisdom to us through words, we would have no way to enter this profound path.

When it comes to the Mahamudra-Dzogchen tradition, however, the masters of these traditions introduce ordinary mind, or bare awareness, with utmost simplicity. Such a master might say to a student, “Look, a flower. Do you see it?” The student will say, “Yes, I see the flower.” The master will say, “Do you see the beautiful sunshine outside today?” The student will say, “Yes, I see the beautiful sunshine today.” Then the master will say, “That’s it.”

Normally we feel that our perceptions, thoughts, and emotions are too ordinary to mean much. Just seeing a flower or the sunshine on a beautiful day is too simple to be profound. As meditatorswe want whatever is profound, and so we look past our mundane experiences. We are looking for something that is extraordinary. Something big. We want the maha, or “great,” religious experience that we know is out there somewhere in a mysterious place called “the sacred world.” However, whenever we try to look outside, that is the point at which we depart from our own enlightened nature. We start walking away from the natural state of our mind—the basic state of Mahamudra and Dzogchen. “Looking outside” does not mean that we literally leave our home and go look in our neighbor’s backyard, or that we pack our bags and catch a bus for the next town, or shave our head and enter a monastery. Looking outside means looking outside whatever experience you are having right now.

Think about it from the perspective of your own experience. What do you do when an aggressive thought suddenly arises? You might try to stop that thought, deflect its energy by justifying it, or even correct it—change it from a “negative” thought into a “positive” one. We do all these things because we feel that that thought, just as it is, is not good enough to meditate on. We will meditate on the next pure thought we have; or even better, we will rest in the essence of the gap between our thoughts, the very next one we recognize. In this way, we continually miss the moment that we are awake now. The problem is that we will never catch up to the wakefulness of the next moment, the wakefulness we will have in the future. If aggression is here now, then that aggression is at heart, in its very nature, vividly awake, empty, and luminous. As our simple-minded master of Mahamudra and Dzogchen might say, “Do you see it? That is it.”

You may prefer to meditate on the Buddha rather than on your emotions. The Buddha is always perfectly relaxed and at ease; therefore, you feel very comfortable. When you are meditating on your emotions, you may start to feel slightly anxious and uncomfortable. You may think that your mental health is at risk, or that the environment of your mind is not in a sacred, uplifted, or spiritual state. It is helpful to a certain point, at the beginning of our training, to meditate on pure objects like images of the Buddha, deities, or great masters. If, however, you get addicted to relying on such objects, there can be negative consequences. When you feel you cannot invoke the experience of sacredness or connect with your basic, enlightened mind through your everyday experiences of perceptions, thoughts, and emotions, you are developing a serious problem. Your emotions are as familiar, as commonplace, as sunshine and flowers, and that is great news for realizing ordinary mind. You have so many opportunities. Appreciate and take advantage of them.

What we have been looking for—the true nature of our mind—has been with us all the time. It is with us now, in this very moment. The teachings say that if we can penetrate the essence of our present thought—whatever it may be—if we can look at it directly and rest within its nature, we can realize the wisdom of buddha: ordinary mind, naked awareness, luminous emptiness, the ultimate truth. The future will always be out of reach. You will never meet up with the buddha of the future. The present buddha is always within reach. Do you see this buddha? Where are you looking?


Adapted from the “Wild Awakening” lecture series presented in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, in February, 2004.


The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche is a meditation master and scholar in the Kagyu and Nyingma schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the president of Nalandabodhi, a network of meditation centers, and founder of the Nitartha Institute, a course of Buddhist study for Western students. His most recent book is Mind Beyond Death.

This Very Mind, Empty and Luminous, The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Shambhala Sun, May 2008.

The Song of enlightenment

By Ch'an Master Hsuan Chuen of Yung Chia. This Ancient Buddha was the Dharma Successor of Hui-Neng and also the Dharma Successor of Master T'ien Kung who was the 7th Patriarch of the T'ien T'ai Sect. Yung Chia is called the "Overnight Enlightened One" by those who dwell at Ts'ao Ch'i.

Do you not know the ease of the man of the Way who has gone beyond learning, and whose state is "non-action"
Who neither suppresses thoughts, nor seeks the "Truth?"
To him the reality of ignorance is the Buddha Nature;
The empty illusory is the Dharmakaya.

When one who is awakened to the Dharma-body, there are no objects;
The essence of all things comes from the self-nature -- Buddha!
The Five Aggregates --- mere floating clouds aimlessly coming and Going;
The Three Poisons --- bubbles that appear and disappear.

When Reality is attained, there is neither ego nor object,
And within that instant, the karma of eternal suffering is wiped away.
If this is a lie to deceive living beings,
For ages as numberless as dust, let my own tongue be plucked out.

When the mind is once awakened to the Ch'an of the Tathagata,
The Six Paramitas are also fully perfect, as are the Ten Thousand Expedient Means .
In dreams, the Six Realms are vivid;
When one awakens, not even a Universe of Universes can be found.

There are no sins, and no loss or gain,
Nothing can be found in Nirvana's midst.
It is like a mirror from which the dust has never been polished clean.
Now is the moment for all this to be openly decided.

Who can be without thought?
And who is without birth?
Then the "not-born" is real, so is the "not-not-born.
Ask a wooden puppet when it will attain Buddhahood by practicing Self-cultivation.

Release the Four Elements: cling to nothing!
And in the midst of Nirvana you may eat and drink!
Seeing that all things are not lasting and are Void,
One attains the Great Perfect Enlightenment of the Tathagatas.

A true monk is completely decided....
If you are not convinced, ask me frank questions.
To be in accord with the Buddha-sealed: Go to The Root!
I have no help for those who search for twigs.....

The Mani-pearl is not known to men
It lies in the Tathagata Storehouse, and
Its Six-fold Function is beyond "is" or "is not"
From it comes One Perfect Light -- it is not formed and yet not formless.

To purify the five types of vision and pain the five powers,
One must personally realize that which is beyond conception.
It is easy to recognize images in a mirror,
But who can grasp the Moon from the Water?

One like this always walks alone, for one is always alone.
Every Perfectedl One travels the One Same Path of Nirvana.
Following tradition, his "ch'i" is clear, his spirits high,
And, if his appearance is dishevelled and his body hardened, who will take notice?

Sons of the Buddha are always poor.
Poverty is of the body: Not of the Mind of the Way!
His body is wrapped in rags,
But his Way-mind possesses the priceless gem.

This rare gem is used without restrictions
To assist others, or respond to accessions as required.
The Three Bodies and the Four Wisdoms are prefected within it,
The Six Powers and Eight Manners of liberation by realizations are impressed on it.

Superior men are awakened to one, and awake to all.
Men of lesser ability learn some, and are skeptical to the rest.
Destroy your dirty garments!
How can one be boastful about externals?

Let yourself be criticized and abused,
Those who lift torches to burn Heaven just tire themselves!
I listen to them, and it is nectaI
I am then able to instantly enter the Realm Beyond Conception.

Because of this, offensive words are a blessing,
And the speaker...my good friend!
Without the mind accepting slander and abuse,
How could it manifest the Compassion of the Unborn?

Penetrate both the Transmission and the Teachings
And Dhyana and Wisdom will be perfect and unhindered by the Void.
I am not alone in coming to this...
This is the realization of all the Buddhas, a number as counties as the sands of the Ganges.

Speak without fear ---- The Lion's Roar!!!
At who's sound all beasts tremble with fright.
Even fragrant elephants drop their sedate strolls and lose their dignity.
The Heavenly [)ragon alone listens in silence and calm joy.

I have crossed many rivers and mountains
Searching for Masters to instruct in the secrets of Ch'an,
But then I came to know the Path of Ts'ao Ch'i Hui-Neng,
And, I are no longer concerned with birth and death.

Do not stray from "Walking is Ch'an, sitting is Ch'an"
Essentially at ease whether talking or remaining silent, moving or staying still.
It is serene even when greeted with sharp weapons.
And is not worried about poisons.

Our Master only met with Dipamkara Buddha after many eons
Of disciplining himself as a "one who suffers in a state of patience."
Going through how many repetitions of Birth and Death;
Endlessly re-occurring...

Since my Instantaneous Awakening to the "Law of No-birth,"
I have lost the sorrow of disgrace and the joy of success.
I stay in a hut on the mountain, beneath the high peak of the evergreens.
I sit quitely and without cares in this monk abode, and light heartedly enjoy the stillness.

When you are awakened, that is all: no striving is needed.
There is nothing common between "this" and the way of the world.
Charity given with attachment earns rewards of Heaven, but this is still like shooting an arrow into the sky;
When the force is depleted, the arrow falls: distasteful things follow.

Compare this to the "Non-active Reality,"
above all things,
Which allows the instantaneous entry
into the Tathagata Stage.

Take hold of the root and do not worry about the branches; It is like a crystal pool reflecting the bright moon.
Now, realizing what the Mani-pearl is, you should use it to benefit yourself and others without ceasing.
The moon reflected on the stream, the breeze in the evergreens,
Where is the disturbance on this quiet night?

The Sila Gem of the Precepts which is within the Buddha Nature stamps itself on the Mind-ground,
And, One's garments are now fog, dew, and clouds
One's Bowl of the sort that subdues Dragons;
One's Staff of the kind that separates Tigers by clear sound of its twin rows of metal rings.

These are not mere symbols, the relics of history,
But the distinctive traces of the Tathagata's Holy Staff.

Do not seek the real nor despise the false,
Both are dualities: Fundimentally E mpty and Void.
That which is Not Empty nor Void, but is "Not-not empty"
Is the Tathagata's genuine form.

The Mind is a Mirror that reflects the Pure Bright Light Without Obstruction
As it penetrates Worlds as numberless as the sands of the Ganges
In it, the diversify of the Universes appear,
Shining like perfect gems; neither inside nor outside.

Do not grasp the Void, nor reject the Law of Karma;
This causes confusion and surely brings troubles.
The same is true regarding the error of rejecting "is" and grasping "what is not."
This is like leaping into a fire to escape from drowning!

When you attempt to obtain the true by rejecting the false,
One makes the error of artifice, and gives rise to the discriminating Mind .
If a disciple does this with his training,
He will mistake a thief for his own son.

The losing of merit and the destruction of Dharma-wealth
Comes solely from the relative and discriminatory mind.
Because of this, Ch'an followers are taught to look thoroughly into this
So that they can instantly realize "No-birth" and the Buddha Wisdom.

A man of great "ch'i" uses the Wisdom Sword
Whose flaming Vajra-Blade cuts all.
It destroys not only the heterodox attitude,
But it also gives flight to spiritual evils.

He rolls the Dharma Thunder and beats the Dharma Drum,
Raising clouds of compassion from which nectar pours down.
Dragons and Elephants come to bless countless beings,
And the Three Vehicles carry the five types of beings.

The Milk from the Himalayas is pure and nourishing, I enjoy the refined butter that is made from it!
The One Nature perfectly pervades all others, The One Dharma enfolds all other dharmas,
The One Moon is reflected by all waters, The Dharma-Pody of all Buddhas pervades my nature;
I am united with the Tathagatas.

When this stage is attained, so then, are all others.
It is neither form, nor mind, nor act; and,
The Eighty Thousand Dharma Doors are prefected in a snap of the fingers:
In but a moment, the Three Endless Ages are wiped out.

Propositions and Logic are not this, and they have nothing in common with my transcendental Wisdom
Because it is beyond either praise or censure,
And its substance is without boundries.
Yet, it is always present when we retain serenity: only when looked for is it gone.

It can not be grasped, nor let go of,
But, if you do neither,
It goes its own way.
If you remain silent, it will speak: Speak and it is silent.

Its Charitable Gate is wide open.
If I am asked about what teaching I understand, I call it the Power of Great Wisdom,
And no man can say that I am wrong or right;
Even the Devas can not agree!

I have spent many long eons in Self-Cultivation
And do not speak lightly to deceive.
I have hoisted the Dharma Banner and proclaimed the Teaching of our Sect.
This is the same as the Buddha commanded Hui-Neng Ts'ao Ch'i to proclaim.

Mahakasyapa was the first in the line of Transmission,
Twenty-eight Patriarchs followed Him, moving ever Eastward.
The Dharma reached the Middle Kingdom where Bodhidharma was again the First Patriarch,
That Six Generations inherited ills Robe and countless persons realized the Way from this is well known.

Do not establish the "real" and the "false" is never formed.
When "existence" and "non-existence" are wiped out, there is also no longer a "not-empty."
From the first, there have not been the Twenty Forms of Emptiness,
Because the Tathagata's One Nature encompasses them all.

The Mind is a sensory organ ... things are its objects.
This duality is like dust on the mirror.
Wipe away the dust and the mirror shines brightly.
Mind and object vanish when the Self Nature is understood.

Alas! This is the Dharma Ending Age, and the world is full of evils;
Beings are ill fortuned and discipline is difficult.
The Sage has long passed and perverted views are deep.
Evil demons grow strong as the Dharma grows weak, hatred is everywhere!

But, when they hear of the Tathagata's Dharma Teaching of Instantaneous awakening,
They regret not having smashed it like broken tiles.
When the Mind acts,
the body suffers ills;

Do not blame or accuse others for this.
If you want to avoid the Karma of Continuous Suffering,
Do not speak ill
of the Tathagata's Right Dharma Wheel.

Other trees do not grow in a sandalwood forest,
And among the thick growths, lions alone live.
Alone and at ease in their own quiet and familiar places
From which all other birds and beasts have fled.

It is only the lion cubs that follow in these footsteps,
And, when reaching the age of three years, they too roar.
How can jackals hope to follow the King of the Dharma?
Ever, after one hundred years, they open their mouths in vain!

The teaching of instantaneous Perfection is beyond the World's imagination .
When a single doubt is left, it must be resolved.
I say this, not because I cling to "self" and "other,"
Instead, I fear that your practice will be trapped by "permanence" or "impermanence ."

"Right" is not right, nor is "wrong" wrong:
If you miss this by the slightest, you will miss by a thousand miles.
The Dragon Maiclen who believed instantly attained the Buddha Stage,
The scholarly Shang Using did not, and was reborn in Hell.

In my youth, I gathered much knowledge, searching the Sutras, Sastras, and Commentaries;
I endlessly analyzed names and forms, a task as vain as counting sands on the Ocean Floor.
I was severely admonished by the Buddha, who asked, " What is the profit in counting other persons' treasures?"
Then, I fully realized the futility of my greatest efforts and the aimless travelling about that I had done.

Due to perverse natures and wrong views,
The Tathagata's method of Instantaneous Perfection is not understood
Those of the Hinayana exert themselves enough, but lack the Way
The wise are intelligent, but lack Wisdom.

In their ignorance and shallow understanding,
They mistake the pointing finger of the empty hand for the Moon.
Their efforts are lost like idle dreamers
in the world of sense and object.

When one encounters the realm of "no-forms, " one can see the Tathagata, and,
Only then can one truly be called a "Regarder of the Cries of the World."
Once this is understood, the hindrances of karma become empty;
When there is no such understanding, karma's full price is taken.

It is like a hungry man refusing to eat a royal feast,
Or the sick refusing medicine sent by the Great Physician; How can they be cured?
While in the World of Desires, Ch'an practice is the most effective:
Like a Lotus that can bloom in the midst of the fire.

Yung-shih broke grave prohibitions,
yet awoke to the Uncreate,
And, thereupon attained Buddhahood
many ages ago.

Teach the Doctrine of Fearlessness as loudly as the lion roars;
Pity those with confused, perverse, inflexible minds.
They are only able to understand that breaking important precepts causes obstructions to Wisdom,
And, they are unable to realize the profound secret of the Tathagata.

Once two Monks broke grave precepts: one by killing, the other by carnality.
Both confessed to Upali, but his own insight was but a feeble glow and he only made the matter worse by exaggeration.
Thereupon, Mahasattva Vimalakirti wiped out the doubts of troth,
And, both grief and doubt melted like frost beneath the hot sun.

This power of emancipation is beyond thought,
and works wonders as numberless as the sands of the Ganges.
To such a one, the offering of the Four Necessities is given easily.
Indeed, he returns for them Ten Thousand pieces of gold without incurring a debt !

Our body and bones may be crushed to a powder,
and we could still not repay enough for these words
that enable us to bypass
Hundreds of Thousands of Ages.

This is the King of Dharmas -- Unsurpassed!
Tathagatas beyond all number have testified to this attainment.
I now have correctly explained the "Mani-pearl," and,
Those who understand this are now in harmony with it.

To him who sees clearly, there is not a thing to be seen;
There is not a man here, nor is there a Buddha.
The Universe of Universes is but a bubble in the sea,
All the Saints and Sages are but flashes of lightning.

Even as the Hot-Wheel of Iron revolved over my head,
The Perfect Brightness of Meditation and Wisdom is unaltered.
The Sun may turn cold and the Moon hot by the powers of Demons,
But, they can not alter a word of this truthful teaching.

When the stately cart is pulled by elephants up the hill,
How can a preying mantis hope to stop its progress?
As great elephants can walk in the foot--tracks of rabbits,
The Great Waking goes beyond the power of intellect.

Do not attempt to measure Heaven
with a small piece of reed for a measuring stick;
If you do not have this insight,
this Song of mine is to settle the matter for you.

Existence & Nonexistence

By Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche


“If you believe there is a thing called mind, it is just a thought. If you believe there is no thing called mind, it’s just another thought. Your natural state, free of any kind of thought about it—that is buddhanature. Mind is similar to space, in that it is insubstantial, not material. Isn’t it quite amazing that something that is insubstantial is also able to experience?”

Whatever practice you do, please do so while embracing it with the Three Excellences.

The first is the excellent preparation of bodhichitta [Skt., lit. “awakened heart”]. The bodhisattva resolve is to form the thought, “I will attain complete enlightenment for the sake of all beings.” Engendering that motivation is a superb way to begin one’s practice.
This excellent preparation is indispensable for all Buddhist practitioners, because we all have had many lifetimes other than this one. The pure vision of the fully enlightened ones sees that we have been through countless lifetimes. In every one of these, we had a father and a mother. We have had so many lifetimes that every sentient being, without a single exception, has been our own father and mother. Thus we are connected to all other beings, and to merely wish enlightenment and liberation for ourselves is far too limited. To achieve enlightenment in this way would mean abandoning all our parents.

Please understand that all sentient beings, all our parents, want nothing but happiness. Unfortunately, through their negative actions they only create the causes for further pain and suffering. Take this to heart and consider all our parents, wandering blindly and endlessly through painful samsaric states. When we truly take this to heart, out of compassion we feel motivated to achieve enlightenment to truly help all of them. This compassionate attitude is indispensable as a preparation for practice.

The excellent preparation also includes the taking of refuge. Do we actually have the ability to genuinely help other beings? Do we have the power, the wisdom, the boundless compassion to do so? At present we don’t. Who does? Only the fully awakened Buddha actually possesses the power to protect others, as well as the pure teachings on how to attain enlightenment. In addition to these two, there are those beings who uphold these teachings in an unbroken lineage. These three, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, are the only true protection and rescue for unenlightened beings.

We should regard these Three Precious Ones as our shelter, our refuge and our escort, from now on until complete enlightenment. They embody a reliable and authentic source of protection. To entrust ourselves and place our confidence in the Three Jewels from this point until we ourselves become truly able to benefit others is called “taking refuge.” Together with bodhichitta, taking refuge is the excellent preparation. Taking refuge essentially embodies all hinayana teachings, while all the mahayana teachings are contained within forming the bodhisattva resolve.

The second of the three excellences is called the “excellent main part beyond concepts.” This has two aspects, development stage and completion stage. This excellent main part beyond conceptual focus is a synonym for vajrayana, the vajra vehicle of Secret Mantra.
Development stage is usually understood as visualizing the support, which is the buddha field and the celestial palace, and what is supported therein—the form of the deity. The palace and deity are considered to be the pure world and pure being. We may think that this is a product of our imagination, but in fact it is an exact replica of the original state of all things. It is how things already are in actuality—also called the great mandala of the manifest ground.

Thus, visualization is ultimately not a matter of imagining something to be what it isn’t, but rather, of seeing it as it actually is. It is acknowledging things as they already are. This is the essential principle of vajrayana. Within this principle is contained both development stage and completion stage.

Development stage is not like imagining a piece of wood to be gold. No matter how long you imagine that wood is gold, it never truly becomes gold. Rather, it’s like regarding gold as gold: acknowledging or seeing things as they actually are. That is what is meant by training in deity, mantra and samadhi. The body, speech and mind of the deity is contained within the three aspects of vajrayana practice called development, recitation and completion.

All appearances are the mandala of the deities, all sounds are the mandala of mantra, and all thoughts are the mandala of enlightened mind. The nature of all apparent and existing things—of this entire world and all its beings—is the great mandala of the manifest ground, our basic state. These three mandalas are present as our ground. The practice of a sadhana is based on manifesting from this ground. Sadhana practice is also based on some very essential principles: that the tantras are contained within the statements, the statements within the oral instructions, and the oral instructions within the application of the sadhana itself.

Let me rephrase this vital point. In vajrayana, a sadhana is the act of manifesting what is originally present in the form of the threefold mandalas of deity, mantra and samadhi. When practicing a sadhana, we are not superimposing something artificial atop the natural state of things. Rather, it is a way of acknowledging our original state, in which the nature of all forms is deity, the nature of all sounds is mantra, and the nature of mind is samadhi. This is the basic principle of development stage. And the differences in profundity between the teachings of sutra and tantra lie in how close the teachings are to the original nature. The closest, the most direct, are the Vajrayana teachings.

What are the reasons for the development and completion stages? The profound development stage enables us to attain enlightenment in one lifetime and in one body through deity, mantra and samadhi. And completion stage means that the deity is none other than our originally enlightened buddhanature. Its essence is present as Body, its nature radiates as Speech, and its capacity is pervasive as Mind.

Our originally enlightened essence contains within itself the awakened state of all buddhas as the three aspects of vajra body, vajra speech and vajra mind. Training in these three vajras is intrinsically contained within the profound state of samadhi, which is none other than one’s own nature. That is the starting point or source of the excellent main part beyond concepts.

Deity, mantra and samadhi are the enlightened body, speech and mind. Vajra body means the unchanging quality which is the identity of the deity. The unceasing quality is the identity of the mantra, while the unmistaken or undeluded quality is the identity of the deity’s mind. These three vajras are complete in our buddha nature. They are also called dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya [Skt.: the three bodies, or kayas, of the Buddha; respectively, the dharmakaya level of absolute, primordial mind; the sambhogakaya level of energy, emotions and symbols, and the nirmanakaya level of manifested form].

These profound methods of Vajrayana—practicing a sadhana, meditating on the deity, reciting its mantra, and training in samadhi—are called a quick path. The essence of this is the nature of mind. This is the unfailing, unmistaken vajra speech of the perfectly enlightened Buddha, which can enable us to attain complete enlightenment in one lifetime. This teaching has been passed through an unbroken lineage of great masters all the way down to my own root guru. While my ears have been very fortunate to receive this teaching, I myself am nothing special. Although I may take great words in my mouth, please understand that I am merely repeating what I have been fortunate enough to receive.

It is very difficult to really learn something or to be educated in it without a teacher. You probably all know this very well, having gone to school so many years. The education we have received is something that we can make use of our entire lives. Even so, our education has not brought us even one inch closer to the state of perfect enlightenment. Our years of effort in school are ultimately of no real benefit.

Because you are all intelligent, I think you can understand why I am saying this. No matter what we do in this life, all the information we gather and all the knowledge we accumulate and all the effort we make to amass wealth through work and business—when the time comes for us to leave this life, all of it is futile and in vain. It will not help us in any way whatsoever. I can easily say this since I am not educated at all! So I can smile and act big about this. Don’t be angry, please.

What I’m trying to say is that we may well succeed in becoming extremely rich and gain great material profit. We can buy the most expensive clothes or manage to be famous in this world so that everyone knows our name. That is quite possible. We can pursue these worldly attainments very enthusiastically and think that there is plenty of time to enjoy them while we are in the first half of our lives.

However, in the second half of our lives, as we age and become elderly, life starts being less fun. I speak from experience here. It begins to be difficult to stand up and to move around. You get sick more often and you start to ail in different ways. What lies ahead of you is only further sickness and finally death.

All these disasters are lined up in front of us, and we will meet them one after the other. What comes after death is not clear to us right now, because we cannot see our next rebirth. We cannot even see if there is anything after this life. When we look down at the ground we don’t see any lower realms; when we look up in the sky we don’t see any heavens or buddhafields. With these eyes we have now, we don’t see that much.

Please consider this: right now, you have a body, a voice and a mind, don’t you? Of these, mind is the most important. Isn’t it true that your body and voice are the servants of mind? Mind is the boss, and here comes more about mind. The five physical elements of earth, fire, water, wind and space do not perceive. Mind, in contrast, means that which can experience; that which perceives. The five sense organs of eyes, ears, tongue, nose and body do not perceive and experience. A corpse possesses the five sense organs, yet a corpse does not perceive, because it doesn’t have a mind.

The term corpse means that the mind has departed. We say that the eyes see, that the ears hear, that the tongue tastes, the nose smells and so forth—but it is only possible for this to happen when there is a mind to experience through the senses. The moment what we call consciousness, mind or spirit leaves the body, the five sense organs are still there; but there is no experience taking place through them.

Mind means that which knows pleasure and pain. Of all the different things in this world, only mind experiences and perceives; nothing else. Therefore, mind is the root of all states—all samsaric as well as all nirvanic states. Without mind there would be nothing to feel or perceive in this world. If there were nothing that feels or perceives in this world, the world would be utterly empty, wouldn’t it? Mind is completely empty, but it is at the same time able to perceive, to know.

The three lower realms are arrayed according to the degree of pain experienced in each, just as the three higher realms are arrayed according to degrees of pleasure. Everything is based on that which feels pleasure and pain, which is mind. In other words, mind is the basis or root of everything.

Mind is empty, and while being empty, it still knows or experiences. Space is empty and does not know anything. That is the difference between space and mind. Mind is similar to space, in that it is insubstantial, not material. Isn’t it quite amazing that something that is insubstantial is also able to experience?

There is mind, but it is not tangible or substantial. You cannot say that there is no mind because it is the basis of everything; it is that which experiences every possible thing. You cannot say really that there is a thing called mind, and yet at the same time you cannot say that there is no mind. It lies beyond both extremes of being and not being. That is why it is said, “Not existent, since even a buddha does not see it; not nonexistent, since it is the basis of both samsara and nirvana.”

If we were without a mind, we would be corpses. You are not corpses, are you? But can you say that there is a mind that you can see, hear, smell, taste or take hold of? Honestly, you can continue to search for it exactly like this, scrutinizing for a billion years, and you will never be able to find mind as something that either exists or doesn’t. It is truly beyond both extremes of existence and nonexistence.

The absence of contradiction between these two is the principle of the Middle Way—that mind is beyond conflict between existence and nonexistence. We do not have to hold the idea that there is a concrete mind or that there isn’t. Mind in itself is natural “thatness,” meaning that it is an unformed unity of being empty and cognizant. The Buddha called this unformed unity shunyata, emptiness. Shunye means empty, while the -ta in shunyata, the ‘-ness’ in emptiness, should be understood as meaning “able to cognize.” In this way, mind is empty cognizance. Natural thatness means simply what is by itself. Our nature is just like that. Just recognize that fact, without coloring it with any kind of idea about it.

If you believe there is a thing called mind, it is just a thought. If you believe there is no thing called mind, it’s just another thought. Your natural state, free of any kind of thought about it—that is buddha nature. In ordinary sentient beings, this natural state is carried away by thinking, caught up in thought. Involvement in thinking is like a heavy chain that weighs you down. Now it is time to be free from that chain. The moment you shatter the chain of thinking, you are free from the three realms of samsara.

In this entire world, there is nothing superior to or more precious than knowing how to break this chain. Even if you were to scan the entire world, or piece by piece put it through a sieve in an attempt to find something more precious, you’d come up with nothing. None of the buddhas of the past, present and future have discovered an instruction that is more profound or more direct in attaining enlightenment. To ask for teachings on the nature of mind means to understand how to recognize mind nature.

The traditional way of receiving the instruction on how to realize the nature of mind involves first going through the training of the preliminary practices of the “four times hundred thousand.” After that, you would carry out the yidam [Tib.: deity] practice, staying in retreat and completing the set number of recitations.

Finally, after all this, this teaching would be given. But nowadays we live in different times. People are so busy that they have no time to actually sit down and go through all this training. My root guru told me once that different times were coming. He said, “If you happen to be in front of people who ask about and want to hear about the nature of mind, explain it to them. If they have the karmic readiness, they will understand, and if they do understand, they are benefited. To benefit beings is the purpose of the Buddha’s teachings. It’s all right.”

When I was young, I often tried to do that. It’s like someone pointing out the sunrise. Often people look towards the west and see that the sunlight has hit the mountain top; that’s how they know the sun has risen. But actually what they have to do is turn around and see the sun rising in the east. When someone tells them to do so, they turn around and say, “Well, yeah, the sun is actually rising in the east!” That is how I have been teaching, and that is how I will continue to teach now.

So: you have heard that our mind is actually empty, meaning it is not a concrete thing, and that at the same time it is able to perceive, to understand, to experience. When you hear this and think about this, can you trust it? Is it clear? Can you decide on this point?
Our mind is empty, and yet it does think. That it is empty means there is no concrete substance with any definable attributes. And yet, mind does think. Isn’t it true that we are always thinking about the past, present or future? And aren’t we so busy thinking that we have one thought after the other, day and night, incessantly?

This is not something that has suddenly happened. It has been going on for a long time, through countless past lives in samsara. We have been spinning around involved in one thought after another in different realms in samsara. That is the essence of samsaric existence. And if we carry on in the same way, we will be busy thinking one thought after the other until the very end of this life.

It doesn’t stop there. Of course there is no body in the bardo [Tib.: the intermediate state between death and rebirth], but mind continues churning out one thought after the other due to habit. After a new rebirth, regardless of whether it’s in the lower realms or the higher realms or the deepest hell, everything is simply one thought after the other. Yet all the time, the very nature of all this thinking is buddha nature—the enlightened essence.

Let me give you an example for the relationship between thinking and the nature of mind. The nature of mind is like the sun in the sky, while thinking is like the sun’s reflection in water. Without water, it’s difficult for the sun to reflect, isn’t it? Water here is the analogy for all perceived objects, for anything held in mind. If you drained the water from a pond, where does the reflection go? Does it run out with the water? Does it stay suspended in mid-air?

Holding subject and object, perceiver and perceived in mind, is symbolized by the reflection of the sun in the pond. Without the sun in the sky, would there be any light in this world? No, of course not. And yet, one single sun is able to illuminate the entire world. This single sun is like the nature of mind, in that it functions or operates in many different ways: it has great warmth and brilliance, and through its heat it sets wind in motion. In comparison to this, the reflection of the sun is nothing. Is the reflection of the sun able to illuminate the entire world? Can it even illuminate a single pond?

Our enlightened essence, the buddhanature, is like the sun itself, present as our very nature. Its reflection can be compared to our thoughts—all our plans, our memories, our attachment, our anger, our closed-mindedness, and so on. One thought arises after the other, one movement of mind occurs after the other, just like one reflection after another appears. If you control this one sun in the sky, don’t you automatically control all its reflections in various ponds of water in the whole world? Why pay attention to all the different reflections? Instead of circling endlessly in samsara, recognize the one sun. If you recognize the nature of your mind, the buddhanature, that is sufficient.

Understand the difference between buddhanature and its expression, which is thoughts. Thoughts appear in many types. There is attachment, anger and stupidity; there are the fifty-one mental events, the eighty innate thought states, the eighty-four thousand disturbing emotions.

No matter how many different types of content the mind can manifest as, they are all simply expressions of the nature of mind. The eighty-four thousand different types of disturbing emotions are like eighty-four thousand different reflections of the sun in different ponds of water. If you take the sun and put it in your pocket, you automatically control all eighty-four thousand reflections. Similarly, the very moment that you recognize your natural state, the buddha mind, your enlightened essence—in that same moment, all eighty-four thousand types of disturbing emotions are simultaneously vanquished.

All the different thoughts we can have are either of the past, present or future, so they can be called past thought, present thought, or future thought. The Tibetan word for thought is namtok. Nam means the perceived forms of the five senses and the mental objects. Tokpa means the concept formed about what is perceived. Sentient beings are constantly busy producing namick, making one idea after the other about what is experienced. This thinking of your own mind’s thoughts is exactly what hinders and obstructs liberation and enlightenment.

If we try to stop thinking it only gets worse. You cannot shake off or throw away the thinking. Can you throw away your shadow? Can you somehow cut the flow of thought created by your own mind, maybe by detonating a nuclear bomb? Will this stop the mind from thinking? It will kill you, sure, but your thoughts will continue in the bardo and into the next life. Is there anything else in this world that can stop the mind from thinking?

To stop thinking, you need to recognize your essence. It’s like seeing the sun in the sky just once—forever after, you know what the sun looks like. If you chase one reflection of the sun after the other, you’ll never be able to see all possible reflections. There is no end to that. The sun in the sky is the real sun, and without it, there would be no reflections. Its reflection in the water is only an imitation.

In the same way, all thoughts are only expressions or displays of your essence; they are not your essence itself. Without being free of thought, without the thinking having dissolved, vanished, disappeared, there is no way to be liberated or enlightened. There is a saying: “Use the thought as its own antidote.” In the same way, the reflection of all suns comes from the original, real sun. If you recognize the real sun in the sky, there is no need to chase around after all its reflections in this world in order to see the sun.

The most important thing is your empty, cognizant mind. Its natural emptiness is dharmakaya, also called empty essence. Your natural ability to know and to perceive is cognizant nature, sambhogakaya. This being empty and being cognizant are an original unity. The famous statement “unity of empty cognizance suffused with awareness” refers to your own nature, the essence of your mind.

After having been pointed out your nature and recognizing your essence, you see that there is no “thing” to see. As I have repeatedly said, “Not seeing a thing is the supreme sight.” We need to see that. It is seen the moment you look, and in the moment of seeing it is free, liberated.

This seeing may last no longer than a few seconds, perhaps no longer than three snaps of your fingers. After that brief period of time, we either get carried away by the thought of something, or we become forgetful. This happens to all ordinary sentient beings. From beginningless lifetimes until now, we have been continuously carried away by forgetfulness and by thinking.

The moment you recognize, it is already seen. There is nothing extra remaining that you missed. This is not like space looking at itself, because space does not see anything. When your mind, which is cognizant, recognizes itself, you immediately see that there is no “thing” to see. It is already seen in the same moment. At that very moment there is no thought, because the present thought has naturally vanished.

The moment of recognizing mind nature is called ordinary mind, whether you talk about Mahamudra, Dzogchen or the Great Middle Way. When recognizing, don’t do anything to it; don’t try to correct or improve it; don’t alter it by accepting one thing and rejecting another, motivated by hope or fear—don’t do anything to it. An ordinary person is involved in conceptualizing with the present thought. Don’t conceptualize with a present thought. Present thought means wanting or not wanting, with hope or fear. Just disconnect from the present thought; don’t follow it up. The moment you are free from thoughts of the three times, that is the buddha mind.

You don’t have to try not to think the present thought. We need to train in just letting go of what is thought of; that is the practice. In this letting go there is not even a dust mote to imagine, so it is not an act of meditating. At the same time, do not be distracted from this for even one second. It’s like trying to imagine space, because there’s nothing that needs to be imagined or meditated upon. Do you need to imagine anything to imagine space?

When we hear “Don’t be distracted,” we may think that we have to do something in order to be undistracted. People usually think that trying to remain undistracted is some kind of deliberate act. This would in fact be so, if the aim was to maintain a particular state of concentration for a long time. Deliberate action would be necessary in that case. But I am not telling you to do that. The moment of natural empty cognizance doesn’t last very long by itself, but that’s perfectly okay. You don’t have to try to prolong that moment; rather, repeat it many times. “Short moments, many times”—this is the training in uncontrived naturalness. Uncontrived naturalness means you don’t have to do anything during that state. It’s like ringing a bell. Once you ring the bell there is a continuity of sound; you don’t have to do anything in order for the sound to continue. Simply allow that continuity to endure by itself until at some point the sound fades away.

At the moment of recognizing your mind essence leave it in naturalness, simply as it is. If you keep striking the bell, the sound is interrupted by the effort. Just leave that recognition be without altering it. That is the way to not lose the continuity. Soon enough the recognition will vanish by itself. As beginners, naturally we will forget after a bit. We don’t need to try to prevent that or guard against it with great effort. Once distracted, again recognize. That is the training.

Every level of teaching has its own purpose, and even though the very heart of the Buddhadharma is to recognize mind essence and train in that, still, there are obstacles and hindrances that need to be cleared away and enhancement practices that need to be done.
An obstacle is something that prevents us from remaining in the natural state. These can be cleared away by certain practices. There are also ways to improve or enhance our practice and to deepen our experience. These two—clearing hindrances and enhancing—are extremely useful.

Outer obstacles are connected with our environment; inner obstacles with our physical body, and innermost obstacles with our thought patterns. To dispel these, it’s extremely beneficial to do the preliminaries and the inner practice of deity, mantra and samadhi. Hindrances need to be removed, as they are the result of negative deeds that obscure our nature. Relying on the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and on the guru, yidam and dakini as support quickly clears away hindrances.

Enhancement practices, for instance, are to develop devotion to the enlightened ones and compassion for sentient beings. Devotion and compassion strengthen the recognition of mind nature. Other practices also further enhance mind essence; however, the Third Karmapa stated the most essential point when he said: “In the moment of love, the empty essence dawns nakedly.”

In the moment that either devotion or compassion is felt sincerely, from the core of our heart, there is really nothing to obscure us any longer. The more we train in devotion to all enlightened masters, buddhas and bodhisattvas, the more our progress in recognizing mind essence will be enhanced. In exactly the same way, generating loving kindness and compassion for all sentient beings will also help tremendously to enhance our realization of buddhanature.

Let us conclude this teaching by engaging in the last of the Three Excellences, the excellent dedication. As a result of having studied these teachings, please dedicate the merit and make aspirations for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Tulku Urgyen Ripoche (1920-1995) was one of the great Dzogchen masters of this era. He studied and practiced both the Dzogchen (Skt.: Maha Ati) teachings of the Nyingma school and the Mahamudra teachings of the Kagyu school, and was the Dzogchen teacher of the late sixteenth Karmapa. Over the course of his life he spent more than twenty years in retreat, including four three-year retreats. Tulku Urgyen established six monasteries and retreat centers in the Kathmandu region, where today his teachings are continued by his sons Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Chöling Rinpoche and Tsoknyi Rinpoche. This article is excerpted from As It Is and is presented with the kind permission of Rangjung Yeshe Publications. ©1999 Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

Existence & Nonexistence Teachings on Dzogchen, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Shambhala Sun, March 2000.

The Twenty Wonderful Miracles That Tell of Appearance and Reality

By Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso

Namo guru hasa vajra

Samsara and nirvana are undifferentiable
And even though you realize this
To purify your thoughts of their attributes
You gained Buddhahood in just one life
Mighty hero, Shepa Dorje [Milarepa]
At your feet, I bow with great respect. [Homage]

Genuine reality transcends birth and death
False appearances, birth and death are like watermoons
Knowing this will make it easy to
Cut through clinging to birth and death as true
Such an explanation of birth and death—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [1]

Since no actor exists, neither does activity
But in terms of appearance, they arise dependently
Just like dream happiness and suffering
And in this way, good and bad deeds result in joy and pain
Such an explanation of cause, result, and karma—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [2]

Samsara’s suffering has never existed
Its appearances are like agony in a dream
Of the very nature of dependent arising
You can’t separate appearance from emptiness
Such an explanation of suffering—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [3]

The human body that has faith, diligence, and prajna
Is so difficult to find, we’re told in many ways
But it, too, is just a watermoon
Dependently arisen, this you should know
This way of thinking about something that is so hard to get—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [4]

All phenomena outside and inside
Decay each moment, they have no power to remain
But this source of sadness, when examined closely
Reveals that impermanence doesn’t exist either!
This way of meditating on impermanence—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [5]

Your friends depend on your enemies
And your enemies depend on your friends
All friends and enemies exist dependently
Just like the ones that you meet in dreams
This way of understanding friends and enemies—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [6]

Without joy, pain is impossible
Without pain, joy is impossible
They are the very essence of dependent existence
They are without the slightest substance
This way of understanding joy and pain—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [7]

When there is clean it is because of unclean
And unclean itself depends on clean
They are of the nature of equality
As they are when they appear in dreams
This way of eliminating thoughts of clean and filth—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [8]

Gain and pleasure, praise and sweet sounds—these four
They rely on their opposites for their very existence
Watermoons and dreams, they have no substance
The eight worldly dharmas are such wonderful miracles! [9]

Being learned depends on being stupid
And being stupid depends on being learned
Both are just dreams and watermoons
Scholar and fool not different—what a wonderful miracle! [10]

From the unborn mind, beyond conceptuality
Appearances self-arise, and by themselves are free
Just like waves dissolving into the ocean vast
The basic way of being—what a wonderful miracle! [11]

No one to progress, no path to progress upon
No progressing whatsoever going on
But the way of progressing that we see
From cause and condition, arises dependently
Like the moon dancing on the waves
This way of traversing the path—what a wonderful miracle! [12]

Nothing to realize, no one to realize it
No realization can be seen, not even a little bit
But our words can describe so carefully
The way of realization that occurs dependently
It is like seeing the moon in a dream
This way of realizing the fruition—what a wonderful miracle! [13]

Since fundamentally there are no conceptual elaborations,
The basic state transcends all reference points and assertions
Yet from this expanse that concepts cannot experience
Conceptuality arises in great abundance!
This way of explaining genuine reality—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [14]

The completely false appearances that you see
Transcend both true and false in reality
But to stop you from thinking that they are true
You are taught that they are false
To halt this clinging to falsity, it is not explained that they have any reality
Liberation from true and false—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [15]

Genuine reality’s dharmakaya
Cannot be experienced by conceptual mind
But there is the way the sambhogakaya
Appears to the noble bodhisattvas
And to the various beings, the nirmanakaya
Appears in a watermoon’s style
This way of explaining the three kayas—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [16]

We have so many thoughts that we are suffering
But this suffering is just like a dream!
And if you can recognize these thoughts’ true nature
Suffering will be self-liberated as soon as it appears!
The ice so easily melting into water
Transformation explained like that—what a wonderful miracle! [17]

Though the wisdoms five and the kayas three
Are all explained individually
Like a sound’s impermanence and composite nature
Kayas and wisdoms are really undifferentiable
This explanation of ultimate union—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [18]

Through great compassion, the Buddha’s activity
Accomplishes the benefit of sentient beings
But the benefitted ones really don’t exist at all
Completely falsely, the benefit performed is as in a dream
This explanation of Buddha’s activity—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [19]

Pure and impure are just imaginary
They do not exist in the expanse of equality
Equality’s expanse encompasses absolutely everything
And nothing can ever move from it at all
This explanation of equality—
E ma! What a wonderful miracle! [20]

Why are all these so incredibly miraculous?
Genuine reality, true being, free of conceptuality
Appearances transcending truth and falsity—
E ma! All phenomena are wonderful miracles!

When you realize all of this
You realize Mahayana’s profound meaning
When you grasp all of this
You are a worthy vessel for the Great Secret
When you grasp all of this
You help everyone in a natural way

So may all you fortunate ones
Realize this meaning well!

So was the casual talk of Dechen Rangdrol [Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso] in the Garden of Translation near the Great Stupa of Boudhanath, Nepal, on Dec. 17th and 18th, 1997. Translated by Ari Goldfield. Translation revised Jan. 2, 2002.
From: ktgrinpoche.org

BOOM! An Interview with Zen Master Seung Sahn

Zen Master Seung Sahn

Tricycle: You grew up in a Protestant family in Korea. I’m curious to know what made the Buddhist teachings so attractive to you.

Seung Sahn: When North and South Korea separated, society became complicated. Everyone fighting. So I went to the mountains to study Confucianism. Then one day a monk asked me, “What are you doing?”

“I’m studying Chinese philosophy,” I say.

“Chinese philosophy?” he said. “You don’t understand Korean philosophy! You should study Korean philosophy.”

So I studied Korean philosophy. Then one day a Zen monk appeared and asked me, “What are you doing?”

I say, “I’m studying Korean philosophy.”

“You don’t understand 'you'. Who are you?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You must get rid of understanding and attain your true self,” he told me. It was like meeting Socrates. So I became a monk and started practicing meditation.

Like meeting Socrates?
Yeah. Socrates said, “Understand your true self.” Very good teaching!

When you first came to Providence you tried to integrate Korean-Americans with Anglo-Americans, but it didn’t work.
No! Korean and American practicing together is impossible. [Laughter]

Why?
Korean people understand too much Buddhism. So clearing mind is very difficult. American students have no idea what Buddhism is, so—Boom! They get it. Very easy! Americans make good students. Koreans too much thinking, which makes practice very difficult. They already understand so much Buddhism, they have a big problem.

You made popular in this country the expression “don’t-know mind.” Could you say what that is?
Human beings understand too much. But what they understand is just somebody’s opinion. Like a dog barking. American dog say, “Woof, woof.” Korean dog say, “Mung, mung.” Polish dog say, “How, how.” So which dog barking is correct? That is human beings’ barking, not“dog”barking. If dog and you become one hundred percent one, then you know sound of barking. This is Zen teaching. Boom! Become one.

But when you live in a Zen community, so many obstacles to “don’t-know mind” are generated by the community itself. Most of us want what Trungpa Rinpoche used to call the “babysitter in the sky”—that need and desire to depend on some other authority outside of oneself. Are we just doomed to live within the suffering that the institution causes?
When students first come to the Zen Center, they’re like babies. Babies don’t understand how to eat, how to walk or talk. But slowly, slowly they grow up. At two years they walk. At three comes speech. After three, memory. That is growing up. At twenty, maybe twenty-five, then get a job, become independent.

Our practice is the same. At first a teacher is necessary. Then when you grow up, a teacher is not necessary. Kick the teacher out.

Do you have students for whom you are not necessary?
Yeah. Some become Zen masters. They find their own way.

And yet you have a reputation for being very strict with what goes on in your centers. And that you want the same form at all your different Zen centers.
I just understand Korean style. That’s all. First, Buddhism appeared in India, so Indian style developed. Then China, so Chinese style appeared. From China it went to Korea, so Korean style developed. Now I transmit Korean style to American students. After a while, American style appears. When that happens, kick out the Korean style, ok. But it takes time for American style to appear.

Do you think that there will be a time when your students will do the chanting in English?
In the future, maybe. When I first came here I thought to change it to English. But then I went to Poland. Can’t use English chants there. And Germany. So I decided to keep Korean style. Now, when our sangha has a big ceremony, people come from all over the world. No problem, we all chant together in Korean. Only Heart Sutra chanted in the language of each country.

You’ve taught in so many different countries. Are there particular obstacles that Americans encounter because of their cultural history or because of their Western philosophy?
American students very easy. America only 350 years old. If you go to Germany or Poland, they have a long tradition.

In the Zen center, five minutes before we begin to sit, we hit the moktak (wooden http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifpercussion instrument). In Germany, students are already seated in dharma hall when we hit the moktak. Go to France and hit moktak, then, slowly, a few minutes, people begin to show up. That is French style. English style: Hit the moktak and people look to see who goes first. Spanish style: Hit the moktak and the man pokes wife to see whether she is going or not. She goes, he goes too. In each country people have different consciousness. Each country has a different style.

What about in Asian centers?
Japanese style is very correct. Chinese style is a little slow - time passes, no matter. Korean style is in the middle, between China and Japan.

Not too loose, not too tight?
Seung Sahn: Yes. Japanese style“too”tight. Japanese Zen shout, “Don’t know!” Chinese style not tight at all. Even Chinese Communism is not so tight.

And American style?
American style is all mixed up. [Laughter]

But the absence of a long tradition is beneficial?
Yeah, that’s American style. Wonderful—so much growing up to do.

In your own writing you have repeated a story that is often told about the Buddha, why he did not give transmission. People came to him when he was dying and said, “What are we going to do now?” And he said, “You have the teachings and the precepts.” Why does the Zen tradition emphasize transmission when the Buddha himself didn’t?
Zen tradition says Buddha did make transmission—to Mahakashyapa. Later, Mahakashyapa gave transmission to Ananda.

Doesn’t that version contradict what the Buddha said?
Other versions come from the sutra tradition. Zen tradition says to transmit clear line from teacher to disciple. In the sutra tradition, they have no line. Buddha gave many kinds of teaching. Peoples’ minds are all so different. To some people give a mantra; for some people, studying sutras is good. Sometimes give“yom bul”practice, repeating Buddha’s name. The real question is, what is most important? Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree until . . . Boom! Got enlightenment. That’s a very important point.

You are also well known in the West for asking “What is this?” For example, you will hold up a stick and ask, “What is this?”
Yes. What is this? [Holding up his fist]

Well, I’ve seen you often enough to know that I can’t just say, “This is a fist,” and I can’t say, “This is not a fist.”
What is this? [Holding up his fist] Is it empty or not empty? What is it? Whether it’s empty or not empty - doesn’t matter. What matters—only moment by moment, what is reflected in your mind.

What do you mean, “reflected in your mind”?
No time, no space. Just moment. Boom! Whatever is in the moment. This moment is very important - whether the world is empty or not, whether it exists or not, doesn’t matter. What we call “world” is only an opinion. Take away your opinion, then what? What is left? That is the point. Take away your opinion - your condition, situation - then your mind is clear like space. Clear like space means clear like a mirror. A mirror reflects everything: the sky is blue, tree is green, sugar is sweet. Just be one with the truth - that’s Zen style. Only talking, talking no good. No truth.

Last night [during a dharma talk at the center], when a student asked you if reincarnation is dharma candy, you said, “No, not dharma candy,“Buddhism”candy.” What did you mean?
Sutra, mantra, yom bul—many kinds of Buddhism candy. Dharma is different.

How so?
Dharma is about how you keep Buddha’s mind. How do you put everything down and keep your mind clear like space? That is our goal - keeping mind clear like space. If your mind clear like space, then you see clearly, hear clearly, smell clearly - everything is clear. That is dharma. That is truth.

How does that work?
Help others. If hungry people come, give them food. If thirsty people come, give water. If suffering people come, help them. That is our job - life after life, just continue to help all beings. But to do that, you have to have mind which is clear like space. Otherwise, how do you help their suffering?

There’s a debate that’s going on among many Western Buddhists about reincarnation—about whether it’s essential to believe in it or not.
If you do good action, then you get happiness. If you do bad action, you get suffering. Very simple. But what if you ask, “What is your original face? Who are you?” That is Zen.

So then what?
Attain your true self. That’s it.

Then what happens to the idea of reincarnation?
Reincarnation? Doesn’t matter. Sometimes go to Heaven, sometimes go to Hell - no problem. You just follow situation - then any place, any kind of body you get, no problem. Only follow situation and help other people. That is the great Bodhisattva way.

So don’t attach to ideas—even reincarnation?
Yeah, any idea—throw it away! This moment important. Next life not so important. This moment is yours. Next life not yours. Past life, present life, future life are not yours. Because past, present, and future are made by thinking. Original face has no past, no present, no future. We only have moment. Moment is yours - infinite time, infinite space. If you make this moment clear, then your whole life is clear, also next life clear. If this moment is not clear, then everything not clear. So Zen practice is just moment to moment - become clear. That’s all.

Zen Master Seung Sahn (Da Soen Sa Nim) was born in 1927, near Pyongyang, now the capital of North Korea. After World War II, he went to the mountains for a one-hundred-day solo retreat. Later he received dharma transmission from Zen Master Ko Bong. Afterwards he worked to reorganize the Chogye Order of Korean Buddhism while serving as abbot of several temples in Korea. He also spent several years in Japan, founding temples and teaching Zen.

In 1972 Seung Sahn came to the United States. While working in a laundromat in Providence, Rhode Island, he met some students from Brown University who would come to ask him questions about life and Zen practice. The Providence Zen Center grew out of this.

Seung Sahn has published several books, including“Dropping Ashes on the Buddha,”and“The Whole World is a Single Flower.”In attempt to connect Zen practice with Christian contemplative prayer, he has led many Zen retreats at the Abbey of Gethsemani, the Trappist monastery in Kentucky, and with other Christian groups.

This interview was conducted in Providence, Rhode Island, in August, 1996.


From: www.tricycle.com

The Easy Middle

By MInguyr Rinpoche

You began to practice very seriously at an early age. Can you say something about that? I entered a three-year retreat at the age of thirteen. It was something I felt strongly about. I wanted to study with Tulku Saljey Rinpoche [1910-1991, an important Kagyu master], who was quite old at the time, at the Sherab Ling monastery, a couple of hours from Dharamsala.

Isn’t it unusual for a thirteen-year-old to begin such intensive practice? In India, yes, but it wasn’t so in Tibet. The major deciding factor in these cases is not age, but resolve, and after that, knowledge of the key points of practice. I had not completed my philosophical education, of course, but I had learned the general rituals, the chants.

As someone who was educated outside of Tibet, how different was your education from that of your teachers? I have tried my best to receive a traditional Tibetan education. In terms of studies and reflections, which form a major part of my theoretical education, I don’t feel there’s any real difference between what is currently taught and what was taught in Tibet. But if you compare me with the past generation, you’ll discover that people often spent more than twenty years in retreat, as did my father and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche [a great Dzogchen master of the last century whose visits to the United States in the 1970s helped to spread Tibetan dharma]. I haven’t done that. Also, the style of retreat has differed. For example, my father spent at least three years in one place with his door sealed off; nobody came or went. There was an opening to pass food through, but that was it. That’s what you call a retreat in the real sense of the word. I haven’t practiced like that. So I’d say that between the present day and the past, there’s no difference in the theoretical studies, but with regard to the degree of perseverance in practice, there’s a big difference.

As part of a new generation of teachers that grew up outside of Tibet, how else did your experience differ from that of your father’s generation? The older generation grew up in an environment where there had been countless practitioners approaching realization. The atmosphere was different; it was easier for students to embrace the Buddha’s teachings and to persevere in practice than it is for those who come to Buddhism outside of Tibetan culture. For example, there’s the question of former lives, and the consequences of karmic actions. When you are in an environment where there have been so many masters who could see where somebody took rebirth, who could point it out and could prove it—identify the reincarnations and so forth—it makes it much easier to trust the teachings on karmic consequences.

But that doesn’t mean that we’re not allowed to investigate? You can examine the teachings for yourself. The Buddha himself said so. When you hear my teachings, you should do as you do when you buy gold: You test it first; you don’t accept what I say at face value. You don’t have to trust blindly. We can derive great benefit from using science as the example. We can use scientific understanding, for instance, to explore the benefits of calm abiding, shamatha; of compassion; of identifying negative emotions and noticing how they can be changed and transformed with Buddhist practice [see “Science and Buddhism,” Tricycle, Spring 2003]. You can, of course, combine these two approaches - simple trust and the scientific method. There’s no problem there, and for Westerners it’s probably best to hear an explanation first, and then to test it out. Once you get a taste of it for yourself, you begin to gain trust, and you can proceed to deepen your practice.

Still, it is perfectly okay to follow the Buddhist teachings through faith? Simply being willing to trust that what the Buddha taught is true is allowed. There is an approach with the Buddha’s teachings that is called the tradition of pith instructions. In this case, it is not required to conduct elaborate investigations. You trust the teachings and you apply them. Not blindly, of course, but without elaborate investigation. It’s different from studying Buddhist philosophy. There you need to investigate intelligently. Otherwise, you won’t really understand the philosophical position, which requires a lot of time and energy. But in the tradition of pith instructions, the Buddha condensed the most vital teachings of what one is to know and apply into just a few key points. Applying these, one can progress very quickly and effectively. It’s like this: Say you’re sick and you need to take a dose of medicine. You can investigate the medicine and find out what it’s made of, who concocted it, how much it cost, how it’s made and so forth, and then take it. That’s perfectly fine. It just takes longer. Or, if you trust the doctor and you feel it’s the right medicine, you take it, and then also it’s fine, and even faster. In both cases you get cured.

Many Westerners came to Buddhism because it seemed so logical. Impermanence made perfect sense, and was easily verified. And no-self made sense—that people and things have no intrinsic, unchanging identity. That we suffer is clear. However, in meditation, often the experience of these things is far more convincing than any of the logical proofs. Can you say something about that? There are two approaches. The first is theoretical investigation. It means using our intelligence to find out what is fact and what isn’t. And if you know how to investigate intelligently, you will discover the Buddha’s truths. You will see what is real and what isn’t. You’ll see that it is true that composite things are impermanent. And if you really pay attention, you will also discover that there is no intrinsic personal identity, that all things are ultimately empty. And that deluded states—samsaric states—are painful. It’s a fact. That’s how it is.

It’s also a fact that calming down, practicing what we call shamatha, or calm abiding in the meditative state, has sublime qualities. This is another way you can attain conviction about what is real and what isn’t, gaining trust in what is. In this case, it doesn’t help to continuously analyze, because the act of analyzing actually disturbs the calm; you cannot be confident in the experience of calmness by being analytical. It’s self-defeating. And when it comes to vipashyana meditation—the experience of seeing clearly—it’s the same; you can’t really have the experience of insight if you continuously analyze. So a different approach is necessary. Aside from intellectual trust, you have to develop an experiential trust. The first kind of trust is only good if it creates circumstances that lead to the second, experiential type. This is gained through training personally in the experience of calmness, shamatha meditation, and also in vipashyana meditation, which leads to the insight of emptiness. Not as theory, but as an experience. Developing this kind of trust, combined with compassion for beings and devotion to the awakened ones, can lead you all the way to the awakened state of the Buddha; mere intellectual understanding will not. That’s the main difference between the two kinds of trust or understanding.


In other words, intellectual understanding will not transform you, but experience can? Not only that, but there’s a danger in relying on the intellect only. Because even though it’s delightful and inspiring in the beginning to “understand,” if it is not combined with actual experience, then the inspiration fades, and the taste of realization diminishes. It’s called being a dried-up intellectual; the understanding is nothing more than theory in the end. You can deceive yourself by talking about it without really knowing it.

There’s a saying that great sinners can be cured by the dharma, but the dharma professional cannot. The great sinner is someone who can still get into practice and be transformed. But someone who’s just intellectually convinced could become insensitive; he doesn’t get anywhere and cannot be helped by the teachings.

Would you say the result depends on the practitioner’s intention? That’s a big part of it. The Buddha said that all phenomena are conditioned and totally depend upon intention. The motivation with which we practice can be of different types, and each type will determine a different outcome. Let me explain. According to Buddhist teachings, external phenomena are not as they seem to be. In other words, they are illusory. And the main source of everything that is experienced—we cannot deny that everything is experienced—is the perceiving mind. And it is through changing this perceiving mind’s attitude that all phenomena can be transformed. Therefore, attitude, or motivation, is the most vital factor to take hold of, and to change for the better. When we practice there are three types of attitude. The first one, which is called the attitude of a lesser person, is to want to better myself. I want to do good. I want to do what is meaningful so that I can achieve a better state, a better rebirth, either as a human being or as a god. By practicing with that attitude, one does attain rebirth as a human being, or as a deva, or god. A second and better attitude is one that comes from a desire to be free. I want to attain liberation from deluded states, from samsara. Through that, one is able to attain freedom from delusion. That is the attitude of the mediocre type of person. The highest motivation is the desire for true and complete enlightenment for the benefit of an infinite number of beings. I want to help all of them. We can do the exact same practice, but with three different attitudes. Depending on attitude, we’ll achieve three different - extremely different - results. So the attitude, one’s intention, is the most important thing.

My point here is that the mind is very powerful. There’s a tremendous strength there, and it makes such a big difference how this mind, this will, this intention is being steered. And everything depends on whether it allows itself to relax and be serene, or whether it allows itself to get caught up in anxiety, grasping, and fear; it makes a difference if you do something with a relaxed, easygoing frame of mind, or if you do it in a harried and distracted way. In past times, people used to walk from eastern Tibet all the way to Lhasa, in central Tibet. Some types wanted to get there really fast, so they’d walk as quickly as they could. They’d tire, or get sick, give up and have to return. But other people, they would just walk at an easy pace, and they’d sit down, take breaks, pitch camp for the night, have a good time. And then, the next day, continue. And in that way they would actually reach Lhasa quite quickly. Thus the Tibetan proverb, “If you walk with haste, you do not reach Lhasa. If you walk at a gentle pace, you will make it there.”

Can you say something, then, about right effort in terms of the proper balance between zeal and, say, the ease that’s required? Okay. Let’s take the practice of shamatha. There are two typical problems; you are too relaxed or too tight. But that doesn’t have to be a problem, because you could always practice shamatha with or without an object. When you focus on an object, you can sometimes tighten up and fixate; then, you can shift to shamatha without an object, without a focus, letting the mind rest. Shifting from one type of shamatha to the other and back will give you some balance, a sense of when you are too relaxed or too tight. But whether something has meaning or not has a lot to do with the reason for doing it in the first place. Again, it’s a reflection of intention. You can approach meditation wanting to experience something. Then when nothing happens, it feels too plain, or absurd, or maybe even disappointing. But that would be to miss the point. Generally speaking, shamatha deals with the flickering of the attention, which is usually something very unsteady, always shifting from one thing to the next, creating endless complications. Shamatha tries to bring a change to that, by steadying the attention. The point isn’t to experience something extraordinary. It’s to develop more one-pointed attention.
Now I have a question: What is it that makes practice difficult for you? I’m very goal oriented. Trying to achieve, I lose my sense of calm. I feel frustration. I guess you could say I’m running to Lhasa. I would like to give you a suggestion. There’s something that you can apply while practicing. One of the main reasons attention does not remain steady is that one thought arises after another. That’s the primary obstacle. Mindfulness is the goal here. One thought, perhaps, is feeling frustrated. But whatever the thought is, just look at the thought. Earlier today, in a teaching, I suggested that we look at visual form, as a support for shamatha, and in the same way, when there’s a thought, then that becomes the support. No matter what the thought—a desired goal, anything—it becomes a support for your practice. So whatever the thought, just be aware: “I want to go shopping. I should take a ride in the car. I should actually stop at the bank first.” All of that, just notice, be aware.

The nature of mind is always with you, never apart from you for a single moment, regardless of your thoughts or mind state, whether you are angry, frustrated, or feeling joy. This natural awareness is the awakened state. In our deluded state, however, this awareness is blocked. And we suffer, and we develop a disenchantment for worldly pleasures, and maybe we come to practice. It is because of pain and suffering that we first want to practice. And it’s because of pain and suffering that we attain enlightenment. Regard suffering as a teacher, and an inspiration. And then try your best to move in the direction of awareness, of enlightenment. It’s not about how successful we are right now, but what we aim at that is most important.

And what is the role of sacrifice, or renunciation? You can say practice makes perfect. What seems impossible, or difficult at present, becomes more familiar as you progress along the way. It becomes easier and easier. As a matter of fact, there’s nothing you can’t become used to. It’s just a matter of training.

How can lay practitioners deal with the conflict that arises between a lay life and more intense study? You can train whenever there’s an emotion. You don’t have to be in a particular place to observe it. And the same is true of being compassionate. You can train anywhere, no matter what you’re involved in. You can also practice all the time, of course! Making an effort to be kinder, and so forth—you can do that training without having to give up your worldly business. There is one thing that one does need to change, though, and that is refraining from harming others. There’s no leeway here. But otherwise, you can carry on as usual, training at being more and more aware, and more and more kind. Then, quite naturally, some people—not everybody—will want to spend more time in meditative practice. They will have less and less interest in pursuing whatever occupied them before.

Eventually, one may give up more and more, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up things in order to practice. If one gives up everything, it’s all very good. But then there are also some who think, “I want to be like the Buddha and give up everything.” Just throw everything away, their job, belongings and so on. And then, after six or eight months, they regret it. They’re not able to practice, and that’s not so good. So you use moderation. You carry on in harmony with your individual abilities or practice, and with your individual degree of fortitude.

How does retreat fit into this? There are external and internal conditions that aid our practice in retreat. Usually what gets us into trouble is involvement with emotions of all different kinds. And they come about through a combination of three factors. One is proximity to the objects that provoke emotion. Another is incorrect thinking. And a third is the unwillingness to abandon negative emotions. Whenever those factors are present, one gets caught up. In retreat we can more easily keep a distance from the objects that give rise to negative emotions. If you go to a place that’s quiet, then automatically, you avoid getting involved. That is the external retreat. Inner retreat has to do with giving up unvirtuous actions. And then together with that, staying physically quiet, not running around doing a lot of things, and avoiding too much conversation. That’s called inner retreat.

But please understand that while going about your business—while doing your job, while accumulating and creating wealth—it’s not prohibited to practice at the same time. It’s not that one has to give up those things in order to be able to practice. It’s not necessary to think like that. You are allowed to integrate spiritual principles in your life situation.

Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, what we need to acknowledge is something natural. Something uncontrived. The uncontrived state is actually very special. Being natural is very special. And this natural way is actually already with us, in or out of retreat, but we just don’t acknowledge it. If you just acknowledge your natural way, that’s enough, good enough. It’s like the cow peeing in the field. [laughs] It just stands there and pees. Every day, it just pees, quite naturally. That’s really enough.



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Part of a new generation of teachers who grew up outside of Tibet, Mingyur Rinpoche represents an era of transition in the Tibetan community. Trained by some of the great Tibetan masters of twentieth century, he serves as a link between his father’s generation, who studied in the traditional monastic environment of pre-Communist Tibet, and teachers who were trained in exile.

Born in Nubri, Nepal, in 1976 to a family of renowned masters in the Tibetan Nyingma and Kagyu lineages, he began an education in the dharma at the age of nine, studying with his father, the late Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, at the hermitage of Nagi Gompa in the foothills of the Kathmandu valley. At thirteen, under the guidance of his teacher, Tai Situ Rinpoche, Mingyur Rinpoche entered a traditional Tibetan three-year retreat; for three years and three fortnights he lived and studied, almost entirely in silence, in a small meditation room at Sherab Ling monastery near Dharamsala, India. He later attended the Dzongsar and Sherab Ling monastic colleges in northern India, where he officially completed his dharma education. Now twenty-seven, he is the retreat master at Sherab Ling and gives teachings in India, Nepal, and North America. Tricycle spoke with Mingyur Rinpoche last fall at Rangjung Yeshe Gomde in Leggett, California, the North American seat of his older brother, Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche. Erik Pema Kunsang translated.


From: Tricycle Magazine