Natural Mind About this site| Archives| RSS Feed
Archive for the ‘Mahamudra’ Category
Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Shabkar





Once my fortunate spiritual son Kunzang Shenpen asked me, “How should one remain in the nonmeditation samadhi that is like a continuous stream? What is meant by ‘stream’? Is there any risk of confusing this with another state?” My answer was this song:

Having received the faultless instructions on Mahamudra or on Dzogchen,
The unique path traveled by countless
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,
If you wish to remain uninterruptedly
In the nonmeditation samadhi
That is like a continuous stream,
You must do this:
Read the rest of this entry »
▶ CommentDzogchen, Mahamudra, Mipham Rinpoche


The Essence of Wakefulness – A Method in Sustaining the Nature of Awareness
In Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Vajrayana on April 15, 2009 at 11:08 pm


Homage to the glorious Primordial Protector.

When sustaining the nature of awareness, the three stages of recognizing, training and attaining stability will gradually occur.

First of all, scrutinize the naked and natural face of awareness by means of your master’s oral instructions until you see it free from assumptions.

Having resolved it with certainty, it is essential that you simply sustain the nature of just that.

It is not enough just to recognize it, you must perfect the training in the following way:

You may already have recognized the face of awareness, but unless you rest in just that, conceptual thinking will interrupt it and it will be difficult for awareness to appear nakedly.

So, at that point it is essential to rest without accepting or rejecting your thoughts and to continue by repeatedly resting in the state of un-fabricated awareness.

When you have practiced this again and again the force of your thought waves weakens while the face of your awareness grows sharper and it becomes easier to sustain.

That is the time when you should abide in the meditation state as much as you can and be mindful of remembering the face of awareness during post-meditation. As you grow used to this the strength of your awareness is trained further.

At first, when a thought occurs you need not apply a remedy to stop it. By leaving it to itself it is, at some point, naturally freed – just as the knot on a snake becomes untied by itself.

When you become more adept, the occurrence of a thought will cause slight turmoil but immediately vanish in itself – just like a drawing on the surface of water.

When you train in just that, you gain experience that transcends benefit and harm, at which point thought occurrences cause no problem whatsoever. Thus, you will be free from hope or fear about whether or not thoughts do occur – just like a thief entering an uninhabited house.

By practicing further you perfect the training so that, finally, your conceptual thinking and the all-ground along with its moving force dissolve into un-fabricated Dharmakaya.

That is the attainment of the natural abode of awareness.

Just as you cannot find any ordinary stones on an island of gold even if you search for them all that appears and exists will be experienced as the realm of Dharmakaya.

Attaining stability is when everything has become all-encompassing purity.

In the same way, just as conceptual thinking gradually falls under the power of awareness during the daytime, at night you do not need to apply some other instruction, but should simply understand how the recognition of dreams and the luminosities of the shallow and deep sleep correspond.

Until you attain stability, by all means continue with undistracted diligence like the steady flow of a river.

This was taught by Mipham. May virtuous goodness increase!

By Mipham Rinpoche – From DharmaMind
▶ CommentDzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, Dzogchen, Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Mahamudra, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche


Mind Nature Composition 001
In Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Master Phrases, Vajrayana on April 14, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Experience follows intention. Whatever we are, whatever we do, all we need to do is recognize our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions as something natural. Neither rejecting or accepting, we simply acknowledge the experience and let it pass. If we keep this up, we’ll eventually find ourselves becoming able to manage situations we once found painful, scary, or sad. We’ll discover a sense of confidence that isn’t rooted in arrogance or pride. We’ll realize that we’re always sheltered, always safe, and always home.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

The Tibetan word used here for “nature” literally means “simply that.” The “that” refers to the fact that the ultimate true nature is not apart from being the nature of the relative state of mind – it is simply its nature. That’s why it’s called “simply that.” Since everyone has this nature, what is important is to be sincerely interested and trust that it is possible to recognize it by looking. After looking, we need to see it; and after seeing it, we need to fully realize exactly how it is. Do not feel satisfied with intellectually having figured it out; or with inferring that it’s probably like such-and-such. That is called “clouding the nature of mind with inference,” or “obscuring yourself with intellectual thoughts.” Instead, nakedly and directly see this nature as it is and realize it.
Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

One danger in practicing Mahamudra is that we may confuse inferred knowledge with direct experience and fail to see the difference between what we figure out and what we see directly. These two can be mistaken. Naropa uses the word “see,” rather than “know” or “understand,” to make sure that we don’t make that mistake. In this context, the nature of mind is not an object of knowledge. It is not an entity that we inquire about, investigate and finally get an idea about and feel gratified. That would be what is called “having a deduced or inferred idea of an entity held in mind.”
Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

To make sure that we get the point, Naropa uses the word “to see,” which means like seeing something with the naked eye. When you see something, you don’t have to have any idea about what it is in order to see it – you simply see it, directly and nakedly. What is necessary here is to let our mind simply look into itself and directly see how it is. Our mind is empty of any identity, and is cognizant by nature. These two qualities are indivisible. Knowing this is direct knowledge, attained by seeing in actuality.
Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

When training in this seeing, everything – all that appears and exists – is experienced as Mahamudra. Both that which is perceived and the perceiving mind have the identical nature of being the basic state of Mahamudra. If we grow accustomed to this through training and attain complete realization, everything is the great and all-encompassing Dharmakaya. The innate nature is seen as encompassing everything.
Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

Look nakedly at the inexpressible
Mind’s basic nature, bliss and emptiness.
Relaxed, at ease, fixation-free
All that binds is free in bliss-emptiness.
Within this clear light, the dharmadhatu,
take a look at the play of the unborn mind
Mind’s play manifests as appearance-emptiness.
Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

The ability to let go of attachment and resolve our mind is the result of practice and understanding. This achievement is somewhat beyond ordinary human experience; it is extraordinary. But we are not walking alone on this path. Countless beings have gone before us, and countless others are yet to come. To think that we’re special would defeat the whole purpose of the path.
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

With presence of mind, we experience a sense of relaxation and inner resolve in the face of life’s challenges. The natural grace and elegance of inner resolve are a measure of a practitioner’s life.
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

A mind that is resolved is simply present. We are not struggling with good or bad, right or wrong, life or death. We are not trying to shape our mind through Dharma Practice or anything else. We have the presence of mind to simply enjoy our life – good or bad, right or wrong, “dharmic” or not. We take great pleasure in the world and the people around us, and we walk in the world with elegance and grace.
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

Anything and everything can arise in the mind. This is either good news or not such good news, depending on how we look at it. On the one hand, it means anything and everything is possible. On the other hand, if we possess no understanding of mind and how it works, we will be – as the traditional example describes – like someone without limbs trying to ride a wild, blind horse. We will not be able to reign in the mind, and so the mind will never serve us – it will never take us where we want to go.
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

The buddhadharma harnesses the power of natural intelligence in a unique way. As we encounter mind’s raw, unprocessed conceptual activity, the teachings encourage us to utilize our natural intelligence to look dispassionately at mind and emotions and sort through our confusion and ignorance; in this way we uncover our innate wisdom and clarity. The Buddhist teachings affirm this natural gift and also challenges us: “Analyze! See if it’s true.” Everything we need to move forward is right here.
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

With an open mind, fear can become your greatest ally – because facing fear means facing your life, and facing your life means living your life. You become courageous and victorious over the world of good and bad, right and wrong, comfort and pain. This notion means a great deal to me, as my birth name, Jigme Namgyel, means “Fearless Victory.” But I think it is good advice for everyone.
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

Someone asked me recently if I’m afraid to die. Truthfully, I am more afraid of not living my life fully – of living a life dedicated to cherishing and protecting myself. This fear-driven approach to life is like covering your couch in plastic so it won’t get worn. It robs you of the ability to enjoy and appreciate your life.
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

Fear and worry are understandable at times. It would be stupid not to be concerned for our personal well-being, and selfish not to be concerned for others. Feeling concern is a natural part of human goodness. But when it prevents us from accepting our life, fear is crippling. We find ourselves saying no to the world; no to our karma; no, no, no to everything – which is a very painful way to live. When we spend our life wishing it were different, it’s like living someone else’s life. Or, we could say, it’s like living our life despite ourselves. Meanwhile, the full spectrum of our life experience goes by unnoticed.
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

Practitioners who train in courage become true warriors. The war we wage is not with enemies outside ourselves but with powerful forces of our own habitual tendencies and negative emotions. The greatest of these is fear. In order to become fearless, we need to experience fear. Facing fear changes our perspective and gives rise to the courage to face our neuroses as well as our enlightened qualities.
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

The great eleventh-century Indian pandita Atisha taught that the greatest pith instructions are those that rub hard on our sore spots. Exposing these sore spots is the teacher’s job. In this sense, the teacher is the greatest mirror. When I was in the presence of my teacher, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, the evenness, clarity, and spaciousness of his mind naturally exposed my self-importance. I knew he could always see through my self-absorption, no matter how significant or complex I thought my story was. This was an unspoken understanding we had as a teacher and student. This kind of communication was one of the ways I learned from him.
Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

In the empty space of sky with no center or edge
On the globe of this world without a bottom or top
In the company of beings empty forms like a dream
Mind knows clarity and emptiness unspeakable

This cannot be realized by knowing alone
But if one knows the natural way to naturally relax
This is meditation and non-meditation’s best
In this non-meditation live in and from it do not stray.
Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

The basic nature of things is not produced by cause or condition
If you can’t cut through your subtle ideas
About the way things really are
Your own theories about reality
Will shackle you in chains
So baselessness and rootlessness are
Definitive meaning’s profound point.
Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

Thanks to http://twitter.com/ryderjaphy
▶ CommentDrikung Kyabgon Chetsang, Mahamudra, Snow Lion, Tilopa


The Attainment of Non-Attainment
In Mahamudra, Vajrayana on March 23, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Once, Tilopa advised his disciple to go off to an isolated retreat and avoid any meditation. Now, this may seem a little unusual for a meditation retreat. He explains, however, that when you go to meditate, you normally take up something to meditate on, some thing. That thing, and therefore that meditation, is necessarily artificial. The practice of Mahamudra is not like that at all. It is not taking up a thing called Mahamudra and meditating on it. Ultimately, Ma-hamudra practice is meditation directly on reality itself.

Reality itself is not something devised or made up. What you have to do here is accustom yourself to that, practice that. You are not taking up a meditation, but rather are practicing something. Like any activity, when you practice and become accustomed to it, it becomes easier and easier. So, acquaint yourself with this lack of anything whatsoever to be taken up as a discrete object. Focus on reality itself and become accustomed to that. Tilopa’s advice, then, is that if you attain something by this Mahamudra practice, then you have not attained Mahamudra. Attaining Mahamudra is attaining non-attainment. If you are not getting anything, then you’re getting Mahamudra. If you get some thing, then necessarily it is not Mahamudra.

What is the meaning of this? If, when we strive for Buddhahood, we think that Buddhahood is something that we are going to get, we will be making a great mistake. We would be like hunters going after an animal. Buddhahood would be reduced to just another worldly activity in which we engage to get some pleasure for ourselves. Mahamudra is not like that, it is not some thing to be obtained. It is attaining the state of non-attainment. Understanding that, we do not focus on obtaining something but on transcending. We have to get beyond that search for something to grasp onto.

Now the nature of reality is beyond the illusion of the phenomenal world, the world as it appears. What appears is illusory; reality is something else. So, when engaging in this meditation on Mahamudra, one seeks to realize Mahamudra. As long as it is something that is an object of mind, something that is conceived by mind, then is it necessarily something other than Mahamudra. Mahamudra is not a conception, not something which is of the nature of appearances or of the nature of objects of the conventional mind.

Therefore, whatever we look for, whatever we try to hold on to in terms of objects of mind, is not going to be Mahamudra. It is something other than that. It is not of the nature of the phenomenal world in any sense. As long as we conceive of it as something, we are making a mistake and will not attain the realization of Mahamudra in that way. Tilopa’s advice is that if the disciple wishes to see Mahamudra, the disciple must go beyond conventional mind and abandon worldly involvement, because the conventional mind and worldly activities are what obscure the realization of Mahamudra and can never lead to it.

Excerpted from the book The Practice of Mahamudra - Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche – Snow Lion Publications
▶ Comment
Virupa: Lada
In Dzogchen, Mahamudra on February 2, 2009 at 5:23 pm

Mahasiddha Virupa

By detaching itself from the duality
of observation and observer,
the mind achieves self-liberation
from division;

By thus smashing the contrived practitioner,
the mind frees itself from striving and seeking;

By discarding the concern for the fruit
of inner development, the meditator
unshackles himself from hope and fear;

By eliminating the sense of the “self” or the “I”,
the mind emerges victorious in its battle
against inner adversaries;

By dismantling the clinging to substance,
the meditator will gain liberation from
both samsara and nirvana.
▶ Comment
Great Perfection
In Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Vajrayana on January 22, 2009 at 8:47 pm

H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche

All that appears is exalted Bodhisattva Great Compassion’s body;

Resonant sounds are the six-syllable mantra’s wisdom speech;

All recollection and thoughts are clear light, the exalted Bodhisattva’s wisdom mind.

Yet, these are not newly fashioned: Know that they exist self-manifest.

Sustain this knowledge within the natural state and you will be liberated.
▶ Comment
Mahamudra and Dzogchen: Thought-Free Wakefulness
In Dzogchen, Mahamudra on August 13, 2008 at 10:05 pm

Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche

The ability to dissolve thoughts is essential to attaining liberation, says renowned Dzogchen teacher Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche. Devotion and Pure Perception are two principles that lie at the root of Vajrayana practice that lead beyond confusion to thought-free wakefulness.

Meditation training, in the sense of sustaining the nature of mind, is a way of being free from clinging and the conceptual attitude of forming thoughts, and therefore free from the causes of samsara: karma and disturbing emotions. Please do not believe that liberation and samsara is somewhere over there: it is here, in oneself. Thought is samsara. Being free of thought is liberation. When we are free of thinking, we are free of thought. The problem is that the causes for further samsara are being created continuously. We spin through the six realms and undergo a lot of suffering.

Compared to the other life forms in samsara, we human beings do not suffer that much. We don’t experience the unbearable, overwhelming suffering that countless other beings do. But for some humans, their mental or physical pain may be unbearable. If we continue to allow our ordinary thinking to run wild, we cannot predict what is lined up for us in the future, where we will end up, in what shape or form. The bottom line is this: we need to know how to dissolve thoughts.

Ego-clinging is simply a thought. Clinging to the notion of self is a thought. Clinging to the notion of other is also a thought. Clinging to duality is a thought. The concept of good is a thought, and the concept of evil is a thought. A neutral concept is also a thought. Whenever there is thought, it follows that there is clinging. The attitude of clinging follows the tracks of the three poisons—passion, aggression and ignorance. Since the formation of thought involves the three poisons, that means that thinking causes samsara, the endless suffering of cyclic existence. Whenever there is involvement in thought, our experience will be samsaric. Deluded thinking is the root of samsara.

Deluded thinking forms karma and disturbing emotions. When there is thinking, there are the acts of accepting and rejecting, of pleasure and of pain. The circumstances may be external, but the thinker is this mind within. Beauty and ugliness appear to belong to external objects. However, that which creates the beauty or the ugliness is actually the forming of a concept in this mind, here. Also, the liking and the disliking of what is considered beautiful or ugly are actions taken by this mind. The circumstance is the sense object, but the main factor is our mind.

In order for all six classes of beings [gods, asuras, humans, animals, pretas and hell beings] to be totally free of the entirety of samsara, we need to solve the problem of the thinking that forms the causes that propel us around through the various realms. We understand that thinking is delusion. However, to want to be free and at the same time to want to hang on to conceptual thinking is a contradiction in terms. It is something that will not happen. It is an impossible task.

If you want to attain liberation and omniscient enlightenment, you need to be free of conceptual thinking. Meditation training, in the sense of sustaining the nature of mind, is a way of being free from clinging and the conceptual attitude of forming thoughts, and therefore free from the causes of samsara: karma and disturbing emotions. Please do not believe that liberation and samsara is somewhere over there: it is here, in oneself. Thought is samsara. Being free of thought is liberation. When we are free of thinking, we are free of thought. The problem is that the causes for further samsara are being created continuously. We spin through the six realms and undergo a lot of suffering.

Compared to the other life forms in samsara, we human beings do not suffer that much. We don’t experience the unbearable, overwhelming suffering that countless other beings do. But for some humans, their mental or physical pain may be unbearable. If we continue to allow our ordinary thinking to run wild, we cannot predict what is lined up for us in the future, where we will end up, in what shape or form.

The bottom line is this: we need to know how to dissolve thoughts. Without knowing this, we cannot eliminate karma and disturbing emotions. And therefore the karmic phenomena do not vanish; deluded experience does not end. We understand also that one thought cannot undo another thought. The only thing that can do this is thought-free wakefulness. This is not some state that is far away from us: thought-free wakefulness actually exists together with every thought, inseparable from it—but the thinking obscures or hides this innate actuality. Thought-free wakefulness is immediately present the very moment the thinking dissolves, the very moment it vanishes, fades away, falls apart. Isn’t this true?

The Buddha described in detail that we can have 84,000 different types of emotions. In a condensed way, there are six root emotions and twenty subsidiary ones. An even shorter categorization of thoughts is that of the three poisons. Whatever the number of types of emotions or thoughts, the Buddha taught how to eliminate all of these by giving 84,000 sections of the dharma.

Perhaps you do not have the time to study and learn all these teachings, or maybe you don’t have the desire, the ability or the intelligence to do so. In this case, the Buddha and the bodhisattvas very skillfully condensed the teachings into a very concise form. This is called the tradition of pith instructions that deals with overcoming all the disturbing emotions simultaneously. The basic instruction here is to understand that all of these emotions are merely thoughts. Even ego-clinging and dualistic fixation is simply a thought. The pointing-out instruction given by a master to qualified students shows how to dissolve the thought and how to recognize the nature of the thinker, which is our innate thought-free wakefulness.

The root of confusion is thinking, but the essence of the thinking is thought-free wakefulness. As often as possible, please compose yourselves in the equanimity of thought-free wakefulness. It is said, “Samsara is merely thought, so freedom from thought is liberation.” Great masters explain this in more detail, because simply being thoughtless is not necessarily liberation in the sense of thought-free wakefulness. To be unconscious, to faint, to be oblivious, is surely not liberation. If those states were liberation, attainment would be swift since it is very easy to be mindless. That would be a cheap liberation!

Simply suspend your thinking within the nonclinging state of wakefulness: that is the correct view. One important point about the teachings on mind essence is that they need to be simple and easy to train in. Particularly in Mahamudra and Dzogchen practice, the view is said to be open and carefree. The less you cling and grasp, the more open and free it is. It is the nature of things. The less rigid our conceptual attitude is, the freer the view.

The mind is empty, cognizant, united, unformed. Please make the meanings of these words something that points at your own experience. You can also say the mind is the “unformed unity of empty cognizance.” These are very precious and profound words. “Empty” means that essentially this mind is something that is empty. This is easy to agree on: we cannot find it as a thing. It is not made empty by anyone, including by us—it is just naturally empty, originally so.

At the same time, we also have the ability to know, to cognize, which is also something natural and unmade. These two qualities, being empty and cognizant, are not separate entities. They are an indivisible unity. This unity itself is also not something that is made by anyone. It is not a unity of empty cognizance that at some point arose, remains for a while and later will perish. Being unformed, it does not arise, does not dwell, and does not cease. It is not made in time. It is not a material substance. Anything that exists in time or substance is an object of thought. This unformed unity of empty cognizance is not made of thought; it is not an object of thought.

Whenever there is an idea based in time or substance, its upkeep becomes very complex; it takes a lot to sustain or maintain its validity. This unformed basic nature, however, is very simple, not complicated at all. So many complications are created based on concepts of time and substance—so much hope and fear. Honestly, substance and time never did exist; they never do exist, nor will they ever exist in the future, either. The conceptualization of time and substance is the habit of the thinking mind. Although right now time and substance do not exist, it seems to the thinking mind as if they do.

Concerning substance, if you look around, it seems like everything is solidly and precisely there. In the experience of a real yogi, time and substance do not exist, of course. Even a scholar can, through intelligent reasoning, feel convinced about this fact. When we think that which is not, is, then, it seems to be. As perceived by a buddha, however, all the experiences that samsaric beings have are no more substantial than dreams. It all looks like dreaming.

At the very foundation of Vajrayana practice lie two principles: devotion and pure perception. We should have devotion towards the unmistaken natural state, in the sense of sincerely appreciating that which is truly unmistaken, unconfused, never deluded. In reality, the nature of all things is totally pure. Impurity occurs only due to temporary concepts. That is the reason why one should train in pure perception.

In this context, there are three levels of experience: the deluded experience of sentient beings, the meditative experience of yogis, and the pure experience of buddhas. Whenever there is dualistic mind, there is deluded experience. The deluded experience of sentient beings is called impure because it is involved with karma and disturbing emotions. In deluded experience, there is the attempt to accept and reject; there is hope and fear. Hope and fear are painful: that is suffering. Whenever there is thinking, there is hope and fear. Whenever there is hope and fear, there is suffering.

The meditative experience of a yogi is free of giving in to ordinary thought. It is something other than being involved in normal thinking. We can call it the state of shamatha or vipashyana or other names, but basically it is unlike ordinary thinking. The meditative experiences of a yogi are good and they become evident because of letting mind settle in equanimity. The most famous of these meditative moods are called bliss, clarity and nonthought. They occur during vipashyana meditation, but they can arise even during shamatha practice. Through meditation training, the mind becomes more clarified, more lucid. But if we are not connected with a qualified master and if we do not know the right methods of dealing with these meditative states, we may believe that we are somehow incredibly realized beings. That becomes a hindrance; it can even turn into a severe obstacle.

The Mahamudra path is presented as the twelve aspects of the four yogas. These four yogas of Mahamudra constitute the path of liberation. The first of these, one-pointedness, essentially means that you can remain calmly undisturbed for as long as you want. The next yoga is simplicity, and means to recognize your natural face as being ordinary mind, free from basis and free from root: “Simplicity is rootless and baseless ordinary mind.” We need to develop the strength of this recognition; otherwise, we are as helpless as a small child on a battlefield. We train by means of mindfulness, first effortful, then effortless. We train in simplicity at lesser, medium and higher levels, and then arrive at one taste, the third of the four yogas of Mahamudra. One taste means that the duality of experience dissolves, that all dualistic notions such as samsara and nirvana dissolve into the state of nondual awareness.

Having perfected one taste through the levels of the lesser, medium and higher stages, the fourth yoga is nonmeditation. This is the point at which every type of conviction and the fixing of the attention on something completely dissolves. All convictions and habitual tendencies have dissolved and are left behind. One has captured the dharmakaya throne of nonmeditation.

In the beginning one needs to be convinced about how reality is: one needs to have confidence in the view. Ultimately, however, any form of conviction is still a subtle obscuration, still a hindrance. At the final stage of nonmeditation, all types of habitual tendencies and convictions need to be dissolved, left behind. There is nothing more to cultivate, nothing more to reach. One has arrived at the end of the path. All that needs to be purified has been purified. Karma, disturbing emotions and the habitual tendencies have all been cleared up, so that nothing is left.

The path is necessary as long as we have not arrived. The moment we arrive, however, the need for the road to get there has fallen away. As long as we are not at our destination, then it is also necessary to have the concept of path in order to get there. But once the destination has been reached, once whatever needs to be cultivated has been cultivated and whatever needs to be abandoned has been left behind, the whole need for path is over. That is what is meant by nonmeditation, literally non-cultivation. This is the dharmakaya [the formless body of ultimate reality, one of the three bodies (kayas) of Buddha] throne of nonmeditation. In Dzogchen, the exhaustion of all concepts and phenomena is the ultimate level of experience. This is the state of complete enlightenment. Both these levels of realization are equal to that of all buddhas.

At this point, for oneself, there is exclusively pure experience. At the same time, other beings are still perceived, along with their impure, deluded experiences. Take the example of the six classes of beings. When their experiences are compared with each other, each being will feel that his or her way of experiencing is more profound than the realm below. In general, everyone thinks that what they experience is real. The difference in the experiencing of the different realms is the difference in the density of their karma and obscurations. The less dense the karma, the closer to real experience. Compared to the ordinary samsaric sentient being, the meditative experience of a yogi is more real, more pure. But compared to that, the pure experience of a buddha is more real and more pure still.

We need to dissolve impure deluded experience. Deluded experience comes from not knowing the nature of mind; it comes from unknowing, from being ignorant of the natural state. When not knowing our nature, we are sentient beings. Ignorance clears when knowing the natural state, the state of a buddha. While not knowing, there is the forming of karma and disturbing emotions. While knowing, karma and disturbing emotions are not formed. If, in the very moment of knowing innate nature and sustaining the continuity of that, you were to never stray again, then you would be a buddha.

Buddhist philosophy has many splendid words to describe what happens. The Chittamatra, or mind-only school, presents a threefold classification of reality as the imaginary, the dependent and the absolute. In the Dzogchen teachings, ignorance is described as having three aspects: conceptual ignorance, coemergent ignorance and the single-nature ignorance. These are all very nice words. Basically, it is in the state of not knowing that confusion can take place. Not knowing our own essence is confusion. The essence of what thinks is dharmakaya. The thinking itself is not dharmakaya, but the identity of that which thinks is dharmakaya. Thinking is thought. Thinking is not the thought-free state. It is the identity of that which thinks that is thought-free.

Whether we use the terms mind-essence, the primordially pure state of cutting through, original coemergent wisdom, or the Great Middle Way of definitive meaning, one point is true: at the moment of not being involved in thought, you spontaneously have arrived at the true view, automatically.

There are two ways to approach the view. One is through scriptural statements and reasoning, and the other is through experience. The first way is called “establishing the view through statement and reasoning.” Although we want to train in Mahamudra or Dzogchen, still, without some feeling of certainty about the view obtained through studying and through our own reasoning, it is not that easy to be sure.

It is sometimes possible to transmit or communicate the view without using any scriptural statements, but this requires that a totally qualified master possessing the nectar of learning, reflection and meditation meets with a qualified disciple who is receptive. There are three types of transmission. The first two, the mind transmission of buddhas and the symbolic transmission of the knowledge-holders, are like that. Mind transmission uses not even a single word or gesture, no sign. Yet, something is communicated—the wisdom of realization is communicated and fully recognized. Symbolic transmission uses no more than a word or sentence—no explanations, just a gesture—to point out the wisdom of realization and have it recognized. The third type is the hearing lineage, which uses a very brief spoken teaching.

In these times we are in, most people would have a hard time if we were only to use mind transmission, symbolic transmission or hearing transmission with nothing else, no explanation. Explanation is generally necessary in order to point out the natural state. There are two ways to do so. One of these is the analytical approach of a scholar; the other is the resting meditation of a simple meditator. There are some people who can trust a master and be introduced to the natural state without using any lengthy explanations. For other people, this is not enough. Then it is necessary to use scriptural references and intelligent reasoning in order to establish certainty in the view. But after arriving at the intellectual understanding of the true view, the scholar still needs to receive the blessings of a qualified master and to receive the pointing-out instruction from such a master.

Do you have doubts about anything? Does anything need to be cleared up?

Student: Could you give a few more details about pure perception?

Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche: To refrain from hurting others and to abandon the basis for harm is the main precept of the Hinayana teachings. To help others and to create the basis for benefit is the main precept for Mahayana. Vajrayana is called the path of pure perception, taking sacred outlook as the path. This is done on the foundation of the two previous precepts: the attitude of wanting to avoid harming others, and of wanting to help them. In addition to this, we train in pure perception, not only in a spiritual context but also in any normal life situation in human society.

The Vajrayana statement to regard everything as pure could at first sound strange, maybe even awkward. But examine very carefully and you will discover that the very nature of everything is one of purity. Therefore, to regard everything as pure is very reasonable. Pure perception is very close to ultimate reality, to how things actually are. All sentient beings have an enlightened essence, buddhanature. It is said that all beings are buddhas, yet they are covered by temporary obscurations. Even though all beings are veiled by obscuration, they are still in reality buddhas, and therefore, it is perfectly all right to see all beings as perfectly pure.

The Hinayana precepts of refraining from hurting others are vital. The Mahayana precept of the will to assist other beings is extremely important. In addition to that, the Vajrayana training in pure perception is tremendously profound. It is a training in recognizing and acknowledging the natural purity of everything. Therefore, the Tibetan approach to Buddhism is one in which the three vehicles are not separated, but are practiced in combination.

We need to very carefully examine this principle of pure perception, because seemingly things are not pure. On the seeming level, we can have notions of something being pure or impure, but on the level of what really is, everything is pure. The Vajrayana perspective of pure perception is that everything, since the very beginning, is in actuality the three kayas of the Buddha [nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya and dharmakaya]. All movement of thought is the play of original wakefulness. We discriminate and judge because of not knowing this.

It is a mistake to hold the opinion that something which is actually pure is impure. But to regard that which is pure as being pure is correct. Compared to the attitude of regarding things as being permanent and concrete, the attitude of regarding everything as being impermanent and insubstantial is correct. To regard everything, all phenomena, as not only being insubstantial and impermanent but as being completely pure is an even higher view.

Student: With regard to pure perception, it seems easier to see oneself as pure, doesn’t it?

Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche: Without pure perception, Vajrayana is very difficult. Vajrayana is the swift path because through the power of trust and devotion it becomes much easier to realize the nature of things.

Generally speaking, pure perception means appreciating that everyone has the capacity to be enlightened, everyone has a nature that can be totally revealed and perfected. Moreover, the five elements, the five aggregates, the five poisons—all the different aspects of experience—are by nature already pure. It is only because we see these in a confused way that they appear as impure. In the pure experience of not forming concepts of clean or unclean, pure or impure, everything is seen as it actually is—as manifestations of original wakefulness.

When someone understands the value of devotion and pure perception and is willing to train in this way, he or she is a suitable recipient for Vajrayana teachings. This suitability for Vajrayana entails being both broad-minded and sharp. Everything is total purity, all-encompassing purity. Unless someone is very open-minded and has a sharp intelligence, he or she just does not understand that this is how reality is.

Moreover, we should also train in perceiving the teacher and our fellow practitioners as pure. One person cannot truly judge another. Therefore, we should have appreciation for our vajra brothers and vajra sisters. As for the teacher who expounds the Vajrayana, we shouldn’t have the attitude: “He is just another guy, another human being, probably a little special, but what do I know?” Not like that! Have a pure appreciation of the teacher as well. There is great power in such pure perception.

According to the Vajrayana tradition, it is through devotion and trust that realization dawns in our stream of being. Devotion springs from pure perception of everyone. All sentient beings are potentially buddhas. They are temporarily obscured, but in essence they are buddhas. Obscured suchness may become unobscured suchness, which is buddha. The obscuration can be purified; it will be purified; it is able to be purified.

So pure perception is very profound and precious. It is through pure perception that we can have true devotion. And through this devotion, realization dawns. This is like Milarepa’s statement to Gampopa: “Unlike now, there will be a time in the future, my son, when you will see me as a buddha in person. At that point, the true view will have dawned within your stream of being.”

Vajrayana is not like the general teachings of the Buddha. A Vajrayana saying goes: “Regard whatever the teacher says as excellent, whatever he or she does as pure, and mingle your minds as one.” Unless a person is very open-minded and sharp as well, it is just not easy to be that way. When seeing somebody as pure, it does not mean being blind. That is not what we are talking about here. That would be stupid admiration, false admiration. Real trust has more to do with acknowledging the basic purity of all things.

Devotion or trust and pure perception are the basis for Vajrayana practice. And that holds true whether we are listening to a dharma talk, whether we are applying those teachings or whether we are interacting during daily activities: in any situation pure perception is vital.

Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche is the abbot of Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling monastery in Kathmandu. Eldest son of the late Dzogchen master Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, he also teaches annually at Rangjung Yeshe Gomde, his retreat center in northern California.

This teaching is excerpted from Present Fresh Wakefulness: A Meditation Manual on Nonconceptual Wisdom, published by Rangjung Yeshe. This article © 2003 Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche. Reprinted with permission of Rangjung Yeshe Publications.

Mahamudra and Dzogchen: Thought-Free Wakefulness, Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, Shambhala Sun, November 2002.

Fonte: Shambala Sun
▶ Comment
Uma breve exposição do Grande Selo
In Mahamudra on August 1, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Mahasiddha Maitripa

Rendendo homenagem no estado de satisfação total, vou falar do Grande Selo [Phyag-rGya Chhen-Po].

Toda coisa possível não é mais que nossa mente – buscar a verdade no exterior é o funcionamento de nosso intelecto confuso. Todas as aparências são essencialmente vazias, como num sonho. E a mente não é igual ao movimento da memória e das idéias. Sem natureza própria inerente, ela é parecida à energia do vento e como é vazia por essência, ela é semelhante ao céu.

Toda coisa possível permanece na igualdade, como o céu – é assim que eu expresso o Grande Selo.

Nossa própria essência não pode ser demonstrada, também a natureza da mente não deixa o estado verdadeiro do Grande Selo, nem o modifica. Se pudermos verdadeiramente realizar isso, então todas as aparências fenomenais se tornam o Grande Selo. É o grande modo natural onipenetrante.

Permanecei relaxados em vossa natureza não bloqueada. É o modo natural livre do pensar. Esta meditação permanece nela mesma sem buscar o que quer que seja além. O tipo de meditação que consiste em buscar alguma coisa é a atividade do intelecto confuso. Completamente como o céu ou uma ilusão mágica, na ausência da meditação bem como da não-meditação, como poderemos falar de separação ou de não-separação?

Para o yogui que tem esta compreensão, todas as ações virtuosas e errôneas são liberadas pelo conhecimento desta realidade. Todas as aflições mentais tornam-se a grande cognição primordial e agem como amigas do yogui, semelhantes ao fogo incendiando a floresta. Como então poderíamos nós falar de ir ou de ficar?

Pouco importa quanto estabilizais vossa mente em um lugar tranqüilo, se não tendes realizado esta verdade, vós não sereis liberados dos estados que são somente circunstanciais. Mas se experimentais esta verdade, alguma coisa poderia doravante vos entravar?

Quando permaneceis impertubavelmente neste estado, não tereis mais necessidade de meditação construída para vosso corpo e vossa fala. Quer estejais ou não no que chamamos a verdadeira integração [mNyam-Par-gZhag], não tereis nenhuma necessidade de meditação forçada incluindo os antídotos. Sem tentar realizar o que quer que seja, descobrireis que tudo o que pode surgir é desprovido de natureza própria inerente. Todas as aparências são espontaneamente liberadas nesta dimensão aberta. [Chhos-dByings] e todos os pensamentos são liberados espontaneamente na e enquanto grande cognição primordial. É a igualdade não dual e perfeita do modo natural. Como a corrente dum grande rio, o sentido real estará convosco onde permanecerdes. É o estado de budeidade em marcha, a grande alegria de estar livre de todos os objetos samsáricos.

Todos os fenômenos são eles mesmos naturalmente vazios e o intelecto que é apegado a esta vacuidade é purificado em seu próprio lugar. Livre de toda intelectualização, não há implicação com mentalização. Esta é a Via de todos os Budhas.

Para aquele que é verdadeiramente afortunado, eu compus este sumário de meus verdadeiros ensinamentos. Graças a isso, possam todos os seres sensíveis permanecer no Grande Selo.

Isso conclui a exposição de Maitripa sobre o Grande Selo. Ela foi recebida diretamente desse sábio e traduzida em tibetano pelo tradutor tibetano Marpa Chökyi Lodrö.

Por Maitripa
Do livro: “La simplicité de la Grande Perfection”
textos recolhidos e traduzidos do Tibetano apresentados por James Low.
Tradução p/português: Karma Tenpa Dargye

Fonte: Shunya
▶ Comment
Mahamudra Upadesha
In Mahamudra, Vajrayana on July 29, 2008 at 3:38 am

Mahasiddha Tilopa

Tilopa’s Song to Naropa
(from Mother of the Buddhas by Lex Hixon)

Mahamudra, the royal way, is free
from every word and sacred symbol.
For you alone, beloved Naropa,
this wonderful song springs forth from Tilopa
as spontaneous friendship that never ends.
The completely open nature
of all dimensions and events
is a rainbow always occurring
yet never grasped.
The way of Mahamudra
creates no closure.
No strenuous mental effort
can encounter this wide open way.
The effortless freedom of awareness
moves naturally along it.

As space is always freshly appearing
and never filled,
so the mind is without limits
and ever aware.
Gazing with sheer awareness
into sheer awareness,
habitual, abstract structures melt
into the fruitful springtime of Buddhahood.

White clouds that drift through blue sky,
changing shape constantly,
have no root, no foundation, no dwelling;
nor do changing patterns of thought
that float through the sky of mind.
When the formless expanse of awareness
comes clearly into view,
obsession with thought forms
ceases easily and naturally.

As within the openness of universal space
shapes and colors are spontaneously forming,
although space has no color or form,
so within the expanse of awareness
realms, relations and values are arising,
although awareness possesses
no positive or negative characteristics.

As the darkness of night,
even were it to last a thousand years,
could not conceal the rising sun,
so countless ages of conflict and suffering
cannot conceal the innate radiance of Mind.

Although philosophers explain
the transparent openness of appearances
as empty of permanent characteristics
and completely indeterminable,
this universal indeterminacy
can itself never be determined.

Although sages report
the nature of awareness to be luminosity,
this limitless radiance cannot be contained
within any language or sacramental system.
Although the very essence of Mind
is to be void of either subjects or objects,
it tenderly embraces all life within its womb.

To realize this inexpressible truth,
do not manipulate mind or body
but simply open into transparency
with relaxed, natural grace
intellect at ease in silence,
limbs at rest in stillness
like hollow bamboos.
Neither breathing in nor breathing out
with the breath of habitual thinking,
allow the mind to be at peace
in brilliant wakefulness.

This is the royal wealth of Mahamudra,
no common coin of any realm.
Beloved Naropa, this treasure of Buddhahood
belongs to you and to all beings.

Obsessive use of meditative disciplines
or perennial study of scripture and philosophy
will never bring forth this wonderful realization,
this truth which is natural to awareness,
because the mind that desperately desires
to reach another realm or level of experience
inadvertently ignores the basic light
that constitutes all experience.

The one who fabricates
any division in consciousness
betrays the friendship of Mahamudra.
Cease all activity that separates,
abandon even the desire to be free from desires
and allow the thinking process to rise and fall
smoothly as waves on a shoreless ocean.

The one who never dwells in abstraction
and whose only principle
is never to divide or separate
upholds the trust of Mahamudra.
The one who abandons craving
for authority and definition,
and never becomes one-sided
in argument or understanding,
alone perceives the authentic meaning
hidden in the ancient scriptures.

In the blissful embrace of Mahamudra,
negative viewpoints and their instincts
are burned without remainder, like camphor.
Through the open door of Mahamudra,
the deluded state of self-imprisonment
is easily left behind forever.
Mahamudra is the torch of supreme liberty
shining forth through all conscious beings.

Those beings constituted by awareness
who try to ignore, reject or grasp awareness
inflict sorrow and confusion upon themselves
like those who are insane.

To be awakened from this madness,
cultivate the gracious friendship
of a sublime sage of Mahamudra,
who may appear to the world as mad.
When the limited mind
enters blessed companionship
with limitless Mind,
indescribable freedom dawns.

Selfish or limited motivations
create the illusory sense of imprisonment
and scatter seeds of further delusion.
Even genuine religious teaching
can generate narrowness of vision.
Trust only the approach
that is utterly vast and profound.

The noble way of Mahamudra
never engages in the drama of
imprisonment and release.
The sage of Mahamudra
has absolutely no distractions,
because no war against distractions has ever been declared.
This nobility and gentleness alone,
this nonviolence of thought and action ,
is the traceless path of all Buddhas.
To walk this all-embracing way
is the bliss of Buddhahood.

Phenomena on every plane of being
are constantly arising and disappearing.
Thus they are forever fresh,
always new and inexhaustible.
Like dreams without solid substance,
they can never become rigid or binding.
The universe exists in a deep, elusive way
that can never be grasped or frozen.
Why feel obsessive desire or hatred for it,
thereby creating illusory bonds?

Renounce arbitrary, habitual views.
Go forth courageously to meditate
in the real mountain wilderness,
the wide open Mahamudra.
Transcend boundaries of kinship
by embracing all living beings
as one family of consciousness.
Remain without any compulsion
in the landscape of natural freedom:
spontaneous, generous, joyful.
When you receive the crown of Mahamudra,
all sense of rank or attainment
will quietly disappear.

Cut the root of the vine that chokes the tree,
and its clinging tendrils wither away entirely.
Sever the conventionally grasping mind,
and all bondage and desperation dissolve.

The illumination from an oil lamp
lights the room instantly,
even if it has been dark for aeons.
Mind is boundless radiance.
How can the slightest darkness
remain in the room of daily perception?
But one who clings to mental processes
cannot awaken to the radiance of Mind.

Strenuously seeking truth
by investigation and concentration,
one will never appreciate
the unthinkable simplicity and bliss
that abide at the core.
To uncover this fertile ground,
cut through the roots of complexity
with the sharp gaze of naked awareness,
remaining entirely at peace,
transparent and content.
You need not expend great effort
nor store up extensive spirtual power.
Remain in the flow of sheer awareness.
Mahamudra neither accepts nor rejects
any current of energy, internal or external.

Since the ground consciousness
is never born into any realm of being,
nothing can add to or subtract from it.
Nothing can obstruct or stain it.
When awareness rests here,
the appearance of division and conflict
disappears into original reality.
The twin emotions of anxiety and arrogance
vanish into the void from which they came.

Supreme knowing knows
no separate subject or object.
Supreme action acts resourcefully
without any array of instruments.
Supreme attainment attains the goal
without past, future or present.

The dedicated practitioner
experiences the spiritual way
as a turbulent mountain stream,
tumbling dangerously among boulders.
When maturity is reached,
the river flows smoothly and patiently
with the powerful sweep of the Ganges.
Emptying into the ocean of Mahamudra,
the water becomes ever-expanding light
that pours into great Clear Light
without direction, destination,
division, distinction or description.

Alternative translation of extracts from ‘Song of Mahamudra’

Phenomena on every plane of being
are constantly arising and disappearing.
Thus they are ever fresh,
always new and inexhaustible.
Like dreams without solid substance,
they can never become rigid or binding.
The universe exists in a deep, elusive way
that can never be grasped or frozen.

Renounce arbitrary, habitual views.
Go forth courageously to meditate
in the real mountain wilderness,
the wide open Mahamudra.
Transcend boundaries of kinship
by embracing all living beings
as one family of consciousness.
Remain without any compulsion
in the landscape of natural freedom:
spontaneous, generous, joyful.
When you receive the crown of Mahamudra,
all sense of rank or attainment
will quietly disappear.

Cut the root of the vine that chokes the tree,
and its clinging tendrils wither away entirely.
Sever the conventionally grasping mind,
and all bondage and desperation dissolve.

///

Second alternative translation of ‘Song of Mahamudra’

Tilopa’s Mahamudra Instruction to Naropa in Twenty Eight Verses
(translation by Keith Dowman – reproduced with kind permission)

Homage to the Eighty Four Mahasiddhas!
Homage to Mahamudra!
Homage to the Vajra Dakini!

Mahamudra cannot be taught. But most intelligent Naropa,
Since you have undergone rigorous austerity,
With forbearance in suffering and with devotion to your Guru,
Blessed One, take this secret instruction to heart.

Is space anywhere supported? Upon what does it rest?
Like space, Mahamudra is dependant upon nothing;
Relax and settle in the continuum of unalloyed purity,
And, your bonds loosening, release is certain.

Gazing intently into the empty sky, vision ceases;
Likewise, when mind gazes into mind itself,
The train of discursive and conceptual thought ends
And supreme enlightenment is gained.

Like the morning mist that dissolves into thin air,
Going nowhere but ceasing to be,
Waves of conceptualization, all the mind’s creation, dissolve,
When you behold your mind’s true nature.

Pure space has neither colour nor shape
And it cannot be stained either black or white;
So also, mind’s essence is beyond both colour and shape
And it cannot be sullied by black or white deeds.

The darkness of a thousand aeons is powerless
To dim the crystal clarity of the sun’s heart;
And likewise, aeons of samsara have no power
To veil the clear light of the mind’s essence.

Although space has been designated “empty”,
In reality it is inexpressible;
Although the nature of mind is called “clear light”,
Its every ascription is baseless verbal fiction.

The mind’s original nature is like space;
It pervades and embraces all things under the sun.

Be still and stay relaxed in genuine ease,
Be quiet and let sound reverberate as an echo,
Keep your mind silent and watch the ending of all worlds.

The body is essentially empty like the stem of a reed,
And the mind, like pure space, utterly transcends
the world of thought:
Relax into your intrinsic nature with neither abandon nor control –
Mind with no objective is Mahamudra -
And, with practice perfected, supreme enlightenment is gained.

The clear light of Mahamudra cannot be revealed
By the canonical scriptures or metaphysical treatises
Of the Mantravada, the Paramitas or the Tripitaka;
The clear light is veiled by concepts and ideals.

By harbouring rigid precepts the true samaya is impaired,
But with cessation of mental activity all fixed notions subside;
When the swell of the ocean is at one with its peaceful depths,
When mind never strays from indeterminate, non-conceptual truth,
The unbroken samaya is a lamp lit in spiritual darkness.

Free of intellectual conceits, disavowing dogmatic principles,
The truth of every school and scripture is revealed.

Absorbed in Mahamudra, you are free from the prison of samsara;
Poised in Mahamudra, guilt and negativity are consumed;
And as master of Mahamudra you are the light of the Doctrine.

The fool in his ignorance, disdaining Mahamudra,
Knows nothing but struggle in the flood of samsara.
Have compassion for those who suffer constant anxiety!
Sick of unrelenting pain and desiring release, adhere to a master,
For when his blessing touches your heart, the mind is liberated.

KYE HO! Listen with joy!
Investment in samsara is futile; it is the cause of every anxiety.
Since worldly involvement is pointless, seek the heart of reality!

In the transcending of mind’s dualities is Supreme vision;
In a still and silent mind is Supreme Meditation;
In spontaneity is Supreme Activity;
And when all hopes and fears have died, the Goal is reached.

Beyond all mental images the mind is naturally clear:
Follow no path to follow the path of the Buddhas;
Employ no technique to gain supreme enlightenment.

KYE MA! Listen with sympathy!
With insight into your sorry worldly predicament,
Realising that nothing can last, that all is as dreamlike illusion,
Meaningless illusion provoking frustration and boredom,
Turn around and abandon your mundane pursuits.

Cut away involvement with your homeland and friends
And meditate alone in a forest or mountain retreat;
Exist there in a state of non-meditation
And attaining no-attainment, you attain Mahamudra.

A tree spreads its branches and puts forth leaves,
But when its root is cut its foliage withers;
So too, when the root of the mind is severed,
The branches of the tree of samsara die.

A single lamp dispels the darkness of a thousand aeons;
Likewise, a single flash of the mind’s clear light
Erases aeons of karmic conditioning and spiritual blindness.

KYE HO! Listen with joy!
The truth beyond mind cannot be grasped by any faculty of mind;
The meaning of non-action cannot be understood in compulsive activity;
To realise the meaning of non-action and beyond mind,
Cut the mind at its root and rest in naked awareness.

Allow the muddy waters of mental activity to clear;
Refrain from both positive and negative projection –
leave appearances alone:
The phenomenal world, without addition or subtraction, is Mahamudra.

The unborn omnipresent base dissolves your impulsions and delusions:
Do not be conceited or calculating but rest in the unborn essence
And let all conceptions of yourself and the universe melt away.

The highest vision opens every gate;
The highest meditation plumbs the infinite depths;
The highest activity is ungoverned yet decisive;
And the highest goal is ordinary being devoid of hope and fear.

At first your karma is like a river falling through a gorge;
In mid-course it flows like a gently meandering River Ganga;
And finally, as a river becomes one with the ocean,
It ends in consummation like the meeting of mother and son.

If the mind is dull and you are unable to practice these instructions,
Retaining essential breath and expelling the sap of awareness,
Practising fixed gazes – methods of focussing the mind,
Discipline yourself until the state of total awareness abides.

When serving a karmamudra, the pure awareness
of bliss and emptiness will arise:
Composed in a blessed union of insight and means,
Slowly send down, retain and draw back up the bodhichitta,
And conducting it to the source, saturate the entire body.
But only if lust and attachment are absent will that awareness arise.

Then gaining long-life and eternal youth, waxing like the moon,
Radiant and clear, with the strength of a lion,
You will quickly gain mundane power and suprem enlightenment.

May this pith instruction in Mahamudra
Remain in the hearts of fortunate beings.

Colophon

Tilopa’s Mahamudra Instruction to Naropa in twenty Eight Verses was transmitted by the Great Guru and Mahasiddha Tilopa to the Kashmiri Pandit, Sage and Siddha, Naropa, near the banks of the River Ganga upon the completion of his Twelve Austerities. Naropa transmitted the teaching in Sanskrit in the form of twenty eight verses to the great Tibetan translator Mar pa Chos kyi blos gros, who made a free translation of it at his village of Pulahari on the Tibet – Bhutan border.

This text is contained in the collection of Mahamudra instruction called the Do ha mdzod brgyad ces bya ba Phyag rgya chen po’i man ngag gsal bar ston pa’i gzhung, which is printed at the Gyalwa Karmapa’s monastery at Rumtek, Sikkim. The Tibetan title is Phyag rgya chen po’i man ngag, or Phyag rgya chen po rdo rje’i tsig rkang nyi shu rtsa brgyad pa.

///

This translation into English has been done by Kunzang Tenzin in 1977, after transmission of the oral teaching by Khamtrul Rinpoche in Tashi Jong, Kangra Valley, India.

Fonte: http://www.kagyu-asia.com
▶ Comment
The Buddha Within
In Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Vajrayana on June 22, 2008 at 11:48 pm

Milarepa, 11th. century cave yogi

Behold and search your unborn mind;
Seek not for satisfaction in samsara.
I attain all my knowledge through observing the mind within –
Thus all my thoughts become the teachings of Dharma,
And apparent phenomena are all the books one needs.
Seeing the innate face of the self-mind is supreme,
How can common meditation match it?

He who realizes the nature of his own mind knows
That the mind itself is Wisdom-Awareness,
And no longer makes the mistake of searching for Buddha from other sources.
In fact, Buddha cannot be found by searching,
So contemplate your own mind.
This is the highest teaching one can practice;
This very mind is the Tathagatagarbha, Buddha nature, the womb of the Buddhas.

fonte: http://www.dharmadata.org/
▶ Comment
Uma breve exposição do grande selo
In Mahamudra, Vajrayana on March 13, 2008 at 1:56 pm

Maitripa

Rendendo homenagem no estado de satisfação total, vou falar do Grande Selo [Phyag-rGya Chhen-Po].

Toda coisa possível não é mais que nossa mente – buscar a verdade no exterior é o funcionamento de nosso intelecto confuso. Todas as aparências são essencialmente vazias, como num sonho. E a mente não é igual ao movimento da memória e das idéias. Sem natureza própria inerente, ela é parecida à energia do vento e como é vazia por essência, ela é semelhante ao céu.

Toda coisa possível permanece na igualdade, como o céu – é assim que eu expresso o Grande Selo.

Nossa própria essência não pode ser demonstrada, também a natureza da mente não deixa o estado verdadeiro do Grande Selo, nem o modifica. Se pudermos verdadeiramente realizar isso, então todas as aparências fenomenais se tornam o Grande Selo. É o grande modo natural onipenetrante.

Permanecei relaxados em vossa natureza não bloqueada. É o modo natural livre do pensar. Esta meditação permanece nela mesma sem buscar o que quer que seja além. O tipo de meditação que consiste em buscar alguma coisa é a atividade do intelecto confuso. Completamente como o céu ou uma ilusão mágica, na ausência da meditação bem como da não-meditação, como poderemos falar de separação ou de não-separação?

Para o yogui que tem esta compreensão, todas as ações virtuosas e errôneas são liberadas pelo conhecimento desta realidade. Todas as aflições mentais tornam-se a grande cognição primordial e agem como amigas do yogui, semelhantes ao fogo incendiando a floresta. Como então poderíamos nós falar de ir ou de ficar?

Pouco importa quanto estabilizais vossa mente em um lugar tranqüilo, se não tendes realizado esta verdade, vós não sereis liberados dos estados que são somente circunstanciais. Mas se experimentais esta verdade, alguma coisa poderia doravante vos entravar?

Quando permaneceis impertubavelmente neste estado, não tereis mais necessidade de meditação construída para vosso corpo e vossa fala. Quer estejais ou não no que chamamos a verdadeira integração [mNyam-Par-gZhag], não tereis nenhuma necessidade de meditação forçada incluindo os antídotos. Sem tentar realizar o que quer que seja, descobrireis que tudo o que pode surgir é desprovido de natureza própria inerente. Todas as aparências são espontaneamente liberadas nesta dimensão aberta. [Chhos-dByings] e todos os pensamentos são liberados espontaneamente na e enquanto grande cognição primordial. É a igualdade não dual e perfeita do modo natural. Como a corrente dum grande rio, o sentido real estará convosco onde permanecerdes. É o estado de budeidade em marcha, a grande alegria de estar livre de todos os objetos samsáricos.

Todos os fenômenos são eles mesmos naturalmente vazios e o intelecto que é apegado a esta vacuidade é purificado em seu próprio lugar. Livre de toda intelectualização, não há implicação com mentalização. Esta é a Via de todos os Budhas.

Para aquele que é verdadeiramente afortunado, eu compus este sumário de meus verdadeiros ensinamentos. Graças a isso, possam todos os seres sensíveis permanecer no Grande Selo.

Isso conclui a exposição de Maitripa sobre o Grande Selo. Ela foi recebida diretamente desse sábio e traduzida em tibetano pelo tradutor tibetano Marpa Chökyi Lodrö – Do livro: “La simplicité de la Grande Perfection”
textos recolhidos e traduzidos do Tibetano apresentados por James Low. Tradução p/português: Karma Tenpa Dargye.

Fonte: http://www.nossacasa.net/shunya/default.asp?menu=1169
▶ Comment
The reason we practice meditation
In Mahamudra, Vajrayana on April 25, 2007 at 2:10 am

The venerable Thrangu Rinpoche

In the spread of Buddhism in America, the Kagyu lineage was in the forefront of the sending of lamas to America. Of these lamas, the three great progenitors of the dharma in America were His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa, His Eminence Kalu Rinpoche, and the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

It was very unfortunate that in the 1980s we lost all of these great beings, but in the aftermath, there were a number of remarkable lamas in the lineage who stepped forward to fill their places and to bring great benefit to sentient beings.

Amongst these, in the forefront of them, was The Very Venerable Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, abbot by appointment of His Holiness Karmapa of Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim. He is also abbot of his own monasteries in Nepal and Tibet, and by appointment of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, of Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. In addition he has been very generous and kind to Western students, teaching the dharma extensively in retreats and seminars throughout the world. Rinpoche taught in Seattle for the first time in May 1996. This transcript is from his teachings the evening of May 24.

I’d like to begin by welcoming all of you here tonight. I recognize that you’ve come here out of your sincere interest in, and wish to practice, genuine dharma, and out of your respect for my teaching. And this is all delightful to me, and I thank you for it. I consider myself fortunate to have such an opportunity to form such a connection with you. To begin, I would like to recite a traditional supplication to the teachers of my lineage, and while doing so, I invite you to join me in an attitude of confidence and devotion. (Chants)

The essence of the buddhadharma, the teachings of the Buddha, is practice. And when we say practice, we mean the practice of meditation, which can consist of either the meditation known as tranquillity or that known as insight. But in either case, it must be implemented in actual practice. The reason we practice meditation is to attain happiness. And this means states of happiness in both the short term and the long term. With regard to short-term happiness, when we speak of happiness, we usually mean either or both of two things, one of which is physical pleasure and the other of which is mental pleasure. But if you look at either of these pleasant experiences, the root of either one has to be a mind that is at peace, a mind that is free of suffering. Because as long as your mind is unhappy and without any kind of tranquillity or peace, then no matter how much physical pleasure you experience, it will not take the form of happiness per se. On the other hand, even if you lack the utmost ideal physical circumstances of wealth and so on, if your mind is at peace, you will be happy anyway.

We practice meditation, therefore, in part in order to obtain the short-term benefit of a state of mental happiness and peace. Now, the reason why meditation helps with this is that, normally, we have a great deal of thought, or many different kinds of thoughts running through our minds. And some of these thoughts are pleasant, even delightful. Some of them however, are unpleasant, agitating, and worrisome. Now, if you examine the thoughts that are present in your mind from time to time, you will see that the pleasant thoughts are comparatively few, and the unpleasant thoughts are many – which means that as long as your mind is ruled or controlled by the thoughts that pass through it, you will be quite unhappy. In order to gain control over this process, therefore, we begin with the meditation practice of tranquillity, which produces a basic state of contentment and peace within the mind of the practitioner.

An example of this is the great Tibetan yogi Jetsun Milarepa, who lived in conditions of the utmost austerity. He lived it utter solitude, in caves and isolated mountains. His clothes were very poor; he had no nice clothes. His food was neither rich nor tasty. In fact, [for a number of years] he lived on nettle soup alone, as a result of which he became physically very thin, almost emaciated. Now, if you consider his external circumstances alone, the isolation and poverty in which he lived, you would think he must have been miserable. And yet, as we can tell from the many songs he composed, because his mind was fundamentally at peace, his experience was one of constant unfolding delight. His songs are songs that express the utmost state of delight or rapture. He saw every place he went to, no matter how isolated and austere an environment it was, as beautiful, and he experienced his life of utmost austerity as extremely pleasant.

In fact, the short-term benefits of meditation are more than merely peace of mind, because our physical health as well depends, to a great extent, upon our state of mind. And therefore, if you cultivate this state of mental contentment and peace, then you will tend not to become ill, and you will as well tend to heal easily if and when you do become ill. The reason for this is that one of the primary conditions which brings about states of illness is mental agitation, which produces a corresponding agitation or disturbance of the channels and the energies within your body. These generate new sicknesses, ones you have not yet experienced, and also prevent the healing of old sicknesses. This agitation of the channels and winds or energies also obstructs the benefit which could be derived from medical treatment. If you practice meditation, then as your mind settles down, the channels and energies moving through the channels return to their rightful functioning, as a result of which you tend not to become ill and you are able to heal any illnesses you already have. And we can see an illustration of this also in the life of Jetsun Milarepa, who engaged in the utmost austerities with regard to where he lived, the clothes he wore, the food he ate, and so on, throughout the early part of his life. And yet this did not harm his health, because he managed to have a very long life, was extremely vigorous and youthful to the end of his life, which indicates the fact that through the proper practice of meditation, the mental peace and contentment that is generated calms down or corrects the functioning of the channels and energies, allowing for the healing of sickness and the prevention of sickness.

The ultimate or long-term benefit of the practice of meditation is becoming free of all suffering, which means no longer having to experience the sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death. Now, this attainment of freedom is called, in the common language of all the Buddhist traditions, buddhahood, and in the particular terminology of the vajrayana, the supreme attainment, or supreme siddhi. In any case, the root or basic cause of this attainment is the practice of meditation. The reason for this is, again, that generally we have a lot of thoughts running through our minds, some of which are beneficial – thoughts of love, compassion, rejoicing in the happiness of others, and so on – and many of which are negative – thoughts of attachment, aversion, jealousy, competitiveness, and so on. Now, there are comparatively few of the former type of thought and comparatively many of the latter type of thought, because we have such strong habits that have been accumulating within us over a period of time without beginning. And it’s only by removing these habits of negativity that we can free ourselves from suffering.

You cannot simply remove these mental afflictions, or kleshas, by saying to yourself, “I will not generate any more mental affliction,” because you do not have the necessary freedom of mind or control over the kleshas to do so. In order to relinquish these, you need to actually attain this freedom, which begins, according to the common path, with the cultivation of tranquillity. Now, when you begin to meditate, [when] you begin to practice the basic meditation of tranquillity meditation, you may find that your mind won’t stay still for a moment. But this is not permanent. This will change as you practice, and you will eventually be able to place your mind at rest at will, at which point you have successfully alleviated the manifest disturbance of these mental afflictions or kleshas. On the basis of that, then you can apply the second technique, which is called insight, which consists of learning to recognize and directly experience the nature of your own mind. This nature is referred to as emptiness. When you recognize this nature and rest in it, then all of the kleshas, all of the mental afflictions that arise, dissolve into this emptiness, and are no longer afflictions. Therefore, the freedom, or result, which is called buddhahood, depends upon the eradication of these mental afflictions, and that depends upon the practice of meditation.

The practice of tranquillity and insight is the general path which is common to both the paths of sutra and tantra. In the specific context which is particular to the vajrayana, the main techniques are called the generation stage and the completion stage. These two techniques are extremely powerful and effective. Generation stage refers to the visualization of, for example, the form of a lineage guru, the form of a deity or yidam, or the form of a dharma protector. Now, initially, when first encountering this technique, it’s not uncommon for beginners to think, what is the point of this? Well, the point of this is that we support and confirm our ignorance and suffering and our kleshas through the constant generation of impure projections or impure appearances which make up our experience of samsara. And in order to transcend this process, we need to transcend these impure projections, together with the suffering that they bring about. A very effective way to do this is to replace these gradually, replace these projections of impurity with pure projections based on the iconography of the yidam, the dharmapala, and so on. By starting to experience the world as the mandala of the deity and all beings as the presence of that deity, then you gradually train yourself to let go of mental afflictions, let go of impure projections, and you create the environment for the natural manifestation of your own innate wisdom.

Now, all of this occurs gradually through this practice of the generation stage. The actual deities who are used can vary in appearance. Some of them are peaceful and some of them are wrathful. In general, the iconography of the wrathful deities points out the innate power of wisdom, and that of the peaceful deities the qualities of loving-kindness and compassion. Also, there are male deities and female deities. The male deities embody the method or compassion, and the female deities embody intelligence or wisdom.

For these reasons, it’s appropriate to perform these practices of meditation upon deities. And because these practices are so prevalent in our tradition, if you go into a vajrayana practice place or temple, you will probably see lots of images of deities – peaceful deities, wrathful deities, and extraordinarily wrathful deities. And you’ll see lots of shrines with some very eccentric offerings on them. Initially, if you’re not used to all this, you might think, “What is all this?” And you might feel, “Well, the basic practices of tranquility and insight make a lot of sense, and are very interesting; and all these deities, all these rituals, and all these eccentric musical instruments are really not very interesting at all.” However, each and every aspect of the iconography, and each and every implement you find in a shrine room, is there for a very specific reason. The reason in general is that we need to train ourselves to replace our projection of impurity or negativity with a projection or experience of purity. And you can’t simply fake this, you can’t simply talk yourself into this, because you’re trying to replace something that is deeper than a concept. It’s more like a feeling. So, therefore, in the technique by which you replace it, a great deal of feeling or experience of the energy of purity has to be actually generated, and in order to generate that, we use physical representations of offerings, we use musical instruments in order to inspire the feeling of purity, and so on. In short, all of these implements are useful in actually generating the experience of purity.

That is the first of the two techniques of vajrayana practice, the generation stage. The second technique is called the completion stage, and it consists of a variety of related techniques, of which perhaps the most important and the best known are mahamudra and dzogchen or “The Great Perfection.” Now, sometimes, it seems to be presented that dzogchen is more important, and at other times it seems to be presented that mahamudra is more important, and as a result people become a little bit confused about this and are unsure which tradition or which practice they should pursue. Ultimately, the practices in essence and in their result are the same. In fact, each of them has a variety of techniques within it. For example, within mahamudra practice alone, there are many methods which can be used, such as candali (see footnote) and so forth, and within the practice of dzogchen alone there are as well many methods, such as the cultivation of primordial purity, spontaneous presence, and so on. But ultimately, mahamudra practice is always presented as guidance on or an introduction to your mind, and dzogchen practice is always presented as guidance or introduction to your mind. Which means that the root of these is no different, and the practice of either mahamudra or dzogchen will generate a great benefit. Further, we find in The Aspiration of Mahamudra by the third Gyalwa Karmapa, Lord Rangjung Dorje, the following stanza:

It does not exist, and has not been seen, even by the Victors.
It is not non-existent, it is the basis of all Samsara and Nirvana.
This is not contradictory, but is the great Middle Way.
May I come to see the nature which is beyond elaboration.

And that is from the mahamudra tradition. Then, in The Aspiration for the Realization of the Nature of the Great Perfection by the omniscient Jigme Lingpa, an aspiration liturgy from the dzogchen tradition, we find the following stanza:

It does not exist, it has not been seen, even by the Victors.
It is not non-existent, it is the basis of all Samsara and Nirvana.
It is not contradictory, it is the great Middle Way.
May I come to recognize dzogpa chenpo, the nature of the ground.

In other words, these two traditions are concerned entirely with the recognition of the same nature.

So both short-term and ultimate happiness depend on the cultivation of meditation, which from the common point of view of the sutras (the point of view held in common by all tradition of Buddhism) is tranquillity and insight, and from the uncommon point of view of the vajrayana is the generation and completion stages.

Meditation, however, depends in part upon the generation of loving-kindness and compassion. And this is true of any meditation, but it is especially most true of vajrayana meditation. The reason is that the specific vajrayana practices – the visualization of deities or meditation upon mahamudra and so on – depend upon the presence of a pure motivation on the part of the practitioner from the very start. If this pure motivation or genuine motivation is not present – and, since we’re ordinary people, its quite possible that it might not be present – not much benefit will really occur. For that reason, vajrayana practitioners always try to train their motivation, and try to develop the motivation that’s known as the awakened mind, or bodhicitta.

Now, as an indication of this, if you look at the liturgies used in vajrayana practice, you’ll see that the long and extensive forms of vajrayana liturgies always begin with a clarification of, or meditation upon, bodhicitta, and that even the short and shortest liturgies always begin with a meditation upon bodhicitta, loving-kindness and compassion, the point of this being that this type of motivation is necessary for all meditation, but especially for vajrayana practice.

The only real meaning that we can give to our being born on this planet – and in particular being born as human beings on this planet – and the only really meaningful result that we can show for our lives is to have helped the world: to have helped our friends, to have helped all the beings on this planet as much as we can. And if we devote our lives or any significant part of our lives to destroying others and harming others, then to the extent that we actually do so, our lives have been meaningless. So if you understand that the only real point of a human life is to help others, to benefit others, to improve the world, then you must understand that the basis of not harming others but benefiting others is having the intention not to harm others and the intention to benefit others.

Now, the main cause of having such a stable intention or stable motivation is the actual cultivation of love and compassion for others. Which means, when you find yourself full of spite and viciousness – and it is not abnormal to be so – then you have to recognize it, and be aware of it as what it is, and let go of it. And then, even though you may be free of spite or viciousness, and you may have the wish to improve things, you may be thinking only of yourself; you may be thinking only of helping or benefiting yourself. When that’s the case, then you have to recollect that the root of that type of mentality, which is quite petty and limited and tight, is desiring victory for yourself even at the expense of the suffering and loss experienced by others. And, in that case, you have to gradually expand your sympathy for others, and therefore this cultivation of bodhicitta or altruism in general as a motivation is an essential way of making your life meaningful.

The importance of love and compassion is not an idea that is particular to Buddhism. Everyone throughout the world talks about the importance of love and compassion. There’s no one who says love and compassion are bad and we should try and get rid of them. However, there is an uncommon element in the method or approach which is taken to these by Buddhism. In general, when we think of compassion, we think of a natural or spontaneous sympathy or empathy which we experience when we perceive the suffering of someone else. And we generally think of compassion as being a state of pain, of sadness, because you see the suffering of someone else and you see what’s causing that suffering and you know you can’t do anything to remove the cause of that suffering and therefore the suffering itself. So, whereas before you generated compassion, one person was miserable, and after you generate compassion, two people are miserable. And this actually happens.

However, the approach (that the Buddhist tradition takes) to compassion is a little bit different, because it’s founded on the recognition that, whether or not you can benefit that being or that person in their immediate situation and circumstances, you can generate the basis for their ultimate benefit. And the confidence in that removes the frustration or the misery which otherwise somehow afflicts ordinary compassion. So, when compassion is cultivated in that way, it is experienced as delightful rather than miserable.

The way that we cultivate compassion is called immeasurable compassion. And, in fact, to be precise, there are four aspects of what we would, in general, call compassion, that are called, therefore, the four immeasurables. Now, normally, when we think of something that’s called immeasurable, we mean immeasurably vast. Here, the primary connotation of the term is not vastness but impartiality. And the point of saying immeasurable compassion is compassion that is not going to help one person at the expense of hurting another. It is a compassion that is felt equally for all beings. The basis of the generation of such an impartial compassion is the recognition of the fact that all beings without exception really want and don’t want the same things. All beings, without exception, want to be happy and want to avoid suffering. There is no being anywhere who really wants to suffer. And if you understand that, and to the extent that you understand that, you will have the intense wish that all beings be free from suffering. And there is no being anywhere who does not want to be happy; and if you understand that, and to the extent that you understand that, you will have the intense wish that all beings actually achieve the happiness that they wish to achieve. Now, because the experience of happiness and freedom from suffering depend upon the generation of the causes of these, then the actual form your aspiration takes is that all beings possess not only happiness but the causes of happiness, that they not only be free of suffering but of the causes of suffering.

The causes of suffering are fundamentally the presence in our minds of mental afflictions – ignorance, attachment, aversion, jealousy, arrogance, and so on – and it is through the existence of these that we come to suffer. Now, through recognizing that there is a way to transcend these causes of suffering – fundamentally, through the eradication of these causes through practicing meditation, which may or may not happen immediately but is a definite and workable process – through this confidence, then this love – wishing beings to be happy – and the compassion of wishing beings to be free from suffering, is not hopeless or frustrated at all. And, therefore, the boundless love and boundless compassion generate a boundless joy that is based on the confidence that you can actually help beings free themselves.

So boundless love is the aspiration that beings possess happiness and the causes of happiness. Boundless compassion or immeasurable compassion is the aspiration that beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. And the actual confidence and the delight you take in the confidence that you can actually bring these about is boundless joy. Now, because all of these are boundless or immeasurable or impartial, then they all have a quality, which is equanimity. Which is to say that if these are cultivated properly, you don’t have compassion for one being but none for another , and so on. Now, normally, when we experience these qualities, of course, they are partial; they are anything but impartial. In order to eradicate the fixation that causes us to experience compassion only for some and not for others, then you can actually train yourself in cultivating equanimity for beings through recognizing that they all wish for the same thing and wish to avoid the same thing, and through doing so you can greatly increase or enhance your loving-kindness and compassion.

This has been a brief introduction to the practice of meditation, and how to train in and generate compassion. If you have any questions, please ask them.

Question: Rinpoche, can you speak a little bit about the difference between pure projection and impure projection, and in particular, where do pure projections actually come from?

Rinpoche: First of all, impure projections are how we experience because of the presence in our minds of kleshas or mental afflictions. Because we have kleshas, then we experience friend and enemy – that to which we are attached and that towards which we have aversion – we experience delight and disgust and so on. And all of these ways we experience the world – all these ways we experience are fundamentally tinged with, at least tinged with unpleasantness.

Now, what is called pure appearance or pure projection is based on the experience of the true nature or essential purity of what, in confusion, we experience to be five types of mental affliction, or the five kleshas. The true nature of these five kleshas is what are called the five wisdoms. For example, when you let go of fixation or obsession on a self, or with yourself, then the fundamental nature of the way you experience is a sameness, a lack of preference or partiality, which is called the wisdom of sameness. And, when you recognize the nature of all things, then that recognition which pervades or fills all of your experience is called the wisdom of the dharmadhatu. And so on.

Now, when you experience the five wisdoms rather than the five kleshas or five mental afflictions, then instead of projecting all of the impurity which you project on the basis of experiencing the kleshas, you project purity, or you experience purity, which is the actual manifestation of these five wisdoms as realms, as forms of buddhas, and these are what are called the pure appearances which are experienced by bodhisattvas and so forth. Now, in order to approach this, in order to cultivate the experience of these wisdoms and the external experiences which go along with the experience of these wisdoms, we meditate upon the bodies of these buddhas, the realms, palaces and so on. By generating clarity of these visualized appearances and stabilizing that, then gradually we transform how we experience the world.

Question: In practicing compassion, there’s the practice of tonglen, which is the sending and receiving, taking the suffering from all sentient beings and giving them the happiness and merit that we have. And, in this practice, I’ve practiced it before, and it seems to go well for a while, but then there’s a subtle sense of “I” that creeps in that says, “I don’t really want to take the suffering,” or its, “I can’t deal with too many people having cancer, I just can’t take it all on myself,” and so one kind of loses a little courage in the practice. So, could you illuminate us on this practice, and how to overcome these obstacles and really develop heroic mind?

Rinpoche: What you say is very true, especially in the beginning of undertaking this practice. And, in fact, its okay that it be experienced that way. Even though there is a quality of faking it about the degree to which you actually really are ready to take on the suffering of others in the beginning, there’s still benefit in doing the practice, because up until you begin this practice, you’ve probably been entirely selfish. And, to even attempt to fake altruism is a tremendous improvement. But it doesn’t remain insincere like that, because eventually the habit starts to deepen and starts to counteract the habit of selfishness.

Now if, when you began practicing tonglen, you already had one hundred per cent concern with the welfare of others and no concern for your own welfare, then you wouldn’t need to practice tonglen in the first place. So, it is designed to work for a practitioner who’s starting from a place of selfishness and to lead them into this place of concern for others. And, gradually, by using the practice, you will actually cultivate the sincere desire to take suffering away from others and experience it yourself; you will cultivate real love and compassion for others. But on the other hand, you don’t really do the practice in order to be able to, at that moment, take on the suffering of others and experience it yourself; you’re really doing it in order to train the mind. And by training your mind and developing the motivation and the actual wish to free others from suffering, then the long-term result is that you have the ability to directly dispel the suffering of others.

Question: Rinpoche, you said that we may not be able to – one person may not be able to directly affect or remove short-term unhappiness or suffering of another person, but that we can learn to generate the basis of another’s happiness, ultimate happiness. So could you say more, please, about how one person can generate the basis of ultimate happiness for another person?

Rinpoche: Well, the direct basis of establishing another being in a state of freedom or happiness, long-term or ultimate happiness, is being able to show them how to get rid of their mental afflictions and to teach them how to recognize and therefore abandon causes of suffering. And, through doing so in that way, then you can establish them gradually in ultimate happiness. But even in cases where you can’t, for whatever reason, do that, by having the intention to benefit that being, then when you yourself become fully free, then you will be able to actually help them and gradually free and protect them as well.

Question: Rinpoche, can you say a little more about the practice of letting go when the mind is agitated, as you described, as used in mahamudra and dzogchen? I experience my mind when I sit as being agitated. And there’s the practice of letting go. And I’m wondering if you can just say more about that in a practical way?

Rinpoche: In general, the main approach that is taken in the mahamudra and dzogchen traditions is applied when you are looking at the nature of your mind. Now, kleshas or mental afflictions are thoughts, and thoughts are the natural display of the mind. Thoughts may be pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant, they may be positive or negative, but in any case, whatever type of thought arises, you deal with it in exactly the same way. You simply look directly at it.

Now, looking at the thought, or looking into the thought, or looking at the nature of the thought, is quite different from analyzing it. You don’t attempt to analyze the contents of the thought, nor do you attempt to think about the thought. You just simply look directly at it. And when you look directly at a thought, you don’t find anything. Now, you may think that you don’t find anything because you don’t know how to look or you don’t know where to look, but in fact, that’s not the reason. The reason, according to Buddha, is that thoughts are empty. And this is the basic meaning of all the various teachings on emptiness he gave, such as the sixteen emptinesses and so on.

Now, to use anger as an example of this, if you become angry, and then you look directly at the anger – which doesn’t mean analyze the contents of the thoughts of anger, but you look directly at that specific thought of anger – then you won’t find anything. And, in that moment of not finding anything, the poisonous quality of the anger will somehow vanish or dissolve. Your mind will relax, and you will, at least to some extent, be free of anger.

Now, you may or may not, at this point, understand this, but in any case, you’ll have opportunity to work with this approach tomorrow and the next day, and over the next couple of days you may come to have some experience of this.

So, we’re going to conclude now with a brief dedication. But I would also like to thank you for demonstrating your great interest in dharma, and listening and asking questions.
▶ Comment
The Essence of One’s Heart: How to Recognise the Nature of Mind.
In Mahamudra, Vajrayana on March 26, 2007 at 11:07 pm

H.E. the XIIth Tai Situ Rinpoche

Based on the topic concerning the nature of the mind, there are three particular questions:

1) What does it mean to recognise the nature of mind?
2) How do we experience and live in the relative and absolute truth in everyday life?
3) How can we manage to look through delusions and transform the related negative emotions?

We, being more than five billion human beings and other creatures too, are composed of three things: (1) the Body which is tangible, (2) the Emotions and Expressions which are individual and unique, and (3) the Mind.

First, in order to discuss these topics, we must define what the mind is and explain its nature according to the Buddha’s teachings.

The mind is the most important thing we have to take care of and cultivate. Its nature, also called the essence of the heart, is what we wish to recognise; we want to recognise our Buddha-nature. Besides the mind, our body and our environment also exist relatively. But, regardless of the body or the environment, the mind matters the most and proceeds these.

The mind is the most essential. It is the mind which expresses the emotions through the body; the body does not convey expressions and ideas through the mind. The body acts like an attendant, messenger and tool, and the mind uses the body to express what it wants to and needs to. So, the mind is the master of everything, even though we might not be very adequate and only get everything right from time to time.

When referring the mind’s essence, it is limitless. The mind’s nature does not have any limitation.

For centuries it has been common for people to debate whether or not the mind exists. If one does not believe there is a mind that is fine. Also, if one believes there is a mind, and asserts “there is something more than the body, there is definitely a mind,” that is fine too. These two view-points can be argued, and the debate can go on and go on forever. This debate will go on for as long as the mind goes on; whether or not one believes in the mind, this debate is all within the mind anyway.

~ ~ ~ ~

Now, what does it mean to recognise the nature of the mind?

Temporarily, everyone has ambition and wants to be satisfied. After that, they feel contented. But, no one in human history ever reached a state of ultimate contentment, in which their struggle to be satisfied was then over.

Only those who are enlightened can have ultimate contentment. To fulfil one’s search and struggle totally, and ultimately, is to realise the nature of one’s mind.

All the spiritual masters of Buddhism, and even those of other religions, found contentment within themselves. This is what we call recognising nature of mind, realising one’s own essence. According to the Buddha’s teachings, every single living being has this potential which is limitless and within themselves. There are then a limitless amount of ways and means which can be used to attain this potential, to recognise one’s essence. We must then respect all these various ways and means, even though one might not understand each and every one of them.

~ ~ ~ ~

Now we can deal with the next two concepts which are interconnected: Experiencing the relative and ultimate truth in everyday life, and transforming delusions and the related emotions.

Whether we know it or not, or believe in it or not, or live in heaven, hell or here on earth, we are apart of and always in unity with the relative and ultimate truth. We cannot live beyond it.

One example is that of a parent and one’s wonderful child. While walking down the street, they pass by a toy shop which has a very expensive toy. As the parent, you do not have much money. But, your child wants to go in and that toy is the most important thing to him or her, no matter how much it costs. However as the parent, spending the money in order to have better food, medical care and education is far more important than wasting it on a toy. After a hard decision the parent decides to buy the toy. Tomorrow at home though, the toy is all in pieces and broken. Then one’s child absolutely does not want it. Yesterday it was the most
important thing for the child, and today he or she does not even want it. So, one can see how relatively the toy was important to the child, but ultimately the toy was meaningless, it was just an illusion in Samsara.

Another example deals with the emotions. Today two people might get really mad at each other; they get on each other’s nerves and are in turmoil. But, then they apologise tomorrow and everything is forgotten; yesterday’s big deal is now nothing. Likewise, a long time ago two countries might’ve fought each other. Then, after some time, they are friends. As time passes, they fight again.

So, we can see, whether we believe in it or not, there is this relativity, and also the ultimate aspect of the illusory nature of phenomena and emotions in everyday life.

Now, we come to the topic of transforming our relative experiences and emotions. We, as people, try to manage everything so everything goes well for us; there is no one who did not try to manage it since were are all here! Karmically, one might manage negativity by being in hell for millions of years, one can manage very positive actions by being in heaven for millions of years or one can manage having a mixture of both by being born a human being.

As human beings now, we are trying to manage and want to transform our experiences. In summary, as the whole subject cannot be covered, there is a difference in the manner which sentient beings manage and transform our experiences and emotions. One is through the worldly or materialistic methods, the other is through spiritual methods based on the dharma teachings.

As humans using worldly and materialistic methods, one tries to be at peace and calm down. We try to transform Samsara by drinking coffee or very strong liquor, or smoking lots of cigarettes, or taking drugs. This is how ordinary individuals manage in Samsara.

By the definition of Samsara, we go in circles. So, with these worldly methods we must keep doing them and in the long run they keep increasing: Right now one drinks only one cup of coffee but next month one needs two cups. But soon that coffee is not enough, one must smoke a cigar with it. Later on, even that is still not enough to be at peace. The end result becomes very, very demanding.

According to the Buddha, the dharma or spiritual method of transformation is inside of you, not outside of you. One does not have to go outside of oneself to find the solution for the afflictions which are inside of oneself.

Therefore, the ultimate solution to take care of delusions and afflictions is inside you. The solution is within one’s essence, the nature of one’s mind. That is why the Buddha taught us to meditate by sitting down and straight, breathing normally, and calming one’s mind.

These methods help one overcome Samsara. Normally people are quite hysterical: When happy we are wild and when we are upset we our wild too. Hysteria is a bad solution since it abuses ourselves from time to time, and abuses other people many, many times.

The first step in Calm-abiding (Shinay) and Insight (Lhatong) meditation is just this: One does not have to create anything, just let your potential and essence arise naturally. One cannot overcome difficulties hysterically, calm down and let it take care of itself. Just let the nature of one’s mind function, don’t disable it by being hysterical.

The beginning of the end of Samsara, for oneself, is just that. Buddhism is very rich in methods, there are thousands of methods suitable to each individual state of mind. Whether or not one is a Buddhist, in one’s essence you are a Buddha anyway. Only in the application of methods the difference arises.

Doing something outside of oneself, like using a computer or ten secretaries or problem solver services, to transform the afflictions is not the best solution. The real essence is inside, so one must calm down and think clearly in order to realise it.

Without meaning to be negative, the problems and afflictions around us are here because we created it whether directly or indirectly. So, if we created it, the solution must also be within us. And the simple solution begins to be found once we look clearly, we transform complicated situations easily then.

In this way now, one has a basic idea about the nature of mind, the options we have, the transformation of negativity and positivity, and abiding in the different truths.

~ ~ ~ ~

Our ultimate inner potential, the nature of one’s mind, has no limitation, but our relative external manifestation has all the limitation. We are not Superman or Superwoman, our external manifestation is not, unless we buy an airplane ticket!

You might not respect the relative manifestation and emotions of someone who is creating problems for oneself. Relatively you feel this way, but this individual has the same potential as you; your potential is equal in others, even those you don’t respect due to their relative manifestation. Ultimately one cannot hate, resent or disrespect someone, as their ultimate nature is Buddha.

As we can understand now, any kind of situation and major problems are not limitless. One might have a big problem, but the relative problem is limited. There is no such thing as a limitless loss or mess, no problem can equal your ultimate potential. Through gradual practice, we can realise this fully and our potential can arise clearly.

There is an ordinary Tibetan expression which says, “If you hold your little palm in front of one’s eye, it is so big that it can obscure the whole universe. If one just holds it at arms’ length, then it is just a palm.” So, we must hold our palms at arms length at all times figuratively speaking when it comes to our relative afflictions, problems and delusions.

Every single sentient being is a Buddha, in essence, and that can never be lost or contaminated ultimately.

We as Buddhist wish to aid every single sentient being so we all can attain Buddhahood. This is more than just solving a small problem then. But if one approaches this problem by being hysterical and acting desperately one’s solution will not work since nobody is ultimately in trouble. Therefore, we must be open.

For example, you might want to help someone. But your solution does not work and you feel upset. One must realise the need for openness and not be desperate. One must look at the situation differently and not think that it must work the way I tried. One simply must try one’s best, be open, be sincere and pray. Once we understand this, things will become calm. There is a Tibetan saying: “The condition of happiness (having it, and then grasping or desperately running after it, wanting it to stay) is the cause of the suffering. If I know this, I will be happy.” Being hysterically stubborn and narrow-minded won’t work.

~ ~ ~ ~

Knowing this limitless nature of the mind is pivotal: The mind never dies. Academically speaking the mind is described in different ways. But the mind in reference to our essence, which is that of the Buddha, never dies. It is beyond time and beyond matter.

Death is just a term used to demonstrate impermanence: Anything that is composed will decompose. The body forms out of all the elements, goes through a life-span with conditions. Once those conditions are not fit for it to survive, the body disintegrate and dies.

When one dies naturally, not due to some fatal occurrence, death is not negative or positive then; it is natural. What dies is the body and the speech. What continues is the incarnation of the mind to a different body. The mind is like a candle with a flame. One puts or transfers that flame onto another candle as it gets blown out in the original candle. The flame continues as the candles get burnt down. So with the body, it always changes, or might be male or female, but the essence of the mind continues.

Death is only the separation of the body and mind. One’s mind stops identifying itself with the body. At first with death, there are some emotions and irritation of course. The observer must use this process so then the limitless potential of the mind can be experienced.

During conception, the mind enters the body. One’s family, and father and mother, had the strongest immediate karmic connection than anyone else at that point in time: The time was right, so therefore you were conceived in the womb.

So, one’s limitless mind which has no material substance was then conceived and concealed in a liquid substance that is limited. How does this limitless mind get conceived into something limited? It is due to our concept of the self driven by ignorance. We call it “I” in English, but even animals have this concept. For instance, a deer will run for cover if you go near it. They also have this idea of self and also this idea of others. Sentient beings then get angry, jealous, aggressive, and have desires, all in order to supposedly maintain this self.

So now, the mind is concealed in liquid, that is conception. Afterward, the centre of the body forms in the womb; the centre begins forming with energy and spaces (where all the vital organs, energy channels, etc., develop). It is the most sensitive section of the body, if anything disrupts it can hinder one’s survival.

Afterward it takes nine months to be born, many years to mature and then also after some time one dies. When one is developing it is gradual, it takes many years. But death happens very quickly, we have no space for wondering, that is it. Due to this difference, we grew slowly but left life very fast, agitation can arise easily. Our attitude at that point is important, we cannot be stubborn. We must not let ourselves panic. Those around us who might be dying we shouldn’t cause them to panic, and if we work with the dying it is important to give positive assurance to others.

One’s understanding of this subject should be beneficial for all. Whatever has been said is based on what my own precious masters have taught and it contains their blessings. We should dedicate this wishing that all sentient beings may also realise this.

Fonte: http://www.sherabling.org/teachings/nature_of_mind.htm
▶ Comment
The Song of Mahamudra
In Mahamudra, Vajrayana on February 18, 2007 at 9:01 pm

by Tilopa

Mahamudra is beyond all words and symbols,
But for you, Naropa, earnest and loyal, must this be said.

The Void needs no reliance; Mahamudra rests on naught.
Without making an effort, but remaining natural,
One can break the yoke thus gaining liberation.

If one looks for naught when staring into space;
If with the mind one then observes the mind;
One destroys distinctions and reaches Buddhahood.

The clouds that wander through the sky have no roots, no home,
Nor do the distinctive thoughts floating through the mind.
Once the Self-mind is seen, Discrimination stops.

In space, shapes and colors form
But neither by black nor white is space tinged.
From the Self-mind all things emerge;
The Mind by virtues and by vices is not stained.

The darkness of ages cannot shroud the glowing sun;
The long eons of Samsara ne’er can hide the Mind’s brilliant light.

Though words are spoken to explain the Void, the Void as such can never be expressed.
Though we say “the Mind is a bright light, ” it is beyond all words and symbols.
Although the Mind is void in essence, all things it embraces and contains.

Do naught with the body but relax;
Shut firm the mouth and silent remain;
Empty your mind and think of naught.
Like a hollow bamboo rest at ease your body.
Giving not nor taking, put your mind at rest.
Mahamudra is like a mind that clings to naught.
Thus practicing, in time you will reach Buddhahood.

The practice of Mantra and Perfections, instructions in the Sutras and Precepts, and teaching from the Schools and Scriptures will not bring realization of the Innate Truth.
For if the mind when filled with some desire should seek a goal, it only hides the Light.

One who keeps the Tantric Precepts yet discriminates, betrays the vows of Awakening,

Cease all activity; abandon all desire; let thoughts rise and fall as they will like the ocean waves.

One who never harms the Non-abiding nor the Principles of non-distinction, upholds the Tantric Precepts.

He who abandons craving and clings not to this or that,
Perceives the real meaning given in the Scriptures.

In Mahamudra all one’s sins are burned; in Mahamudra one is released from the prison of this world. This is the Dharma’s supreme torch.
Those who disbelieve it are fools who ever wallow in misery and sorrow.

To strive for liberation one should rely on a Guru. When your mind receives the Guru’s blessing emancipation is at hand.

Alas, all things in this world are meaningless; they are but sorrow’s seeds.
Small teachings lead to acts. One should only follow teachings that are great.

To transcend duality is the Kingly View; to conquer distractions is the
Royal Practice; the Path of No-practice is the Way of the Buddhas. One who treads that Path reaches Buddhahood.

Transient is this world; like phantoms and dreams,
Substance it has none. Grasp not the world nor your kin;
Cut the strings of lust and hatred; meditate in woods and mountains.
If without effort you remain loosely in the “natural state,” soon Mahamudra you will win and attain the Non-attainment.

Cut the root of the tree and the leaves will wither; cut the root of your mind and Samsara falls.

The light of any lamp dispels in a moment the darkness of long eons;
The strong light of the mind in but a flash will burn the veil of ignorance.

Whoever clings to mind sees not the truth of what’s beyond the mind.
Whoever strives to practice Dharma finds not the truth of Beyond-practice.
One should cut cleanly through the root of the mind and stare naked.
One should thus break away from all distinctions and remain at ease.

One should not give and take but remain natural, for Mahamudra is beyond all acceptance and rejection.

Since the consciousness is not born, no one can obstruct it or soil it;
Staying in the “Unborn” realm all appearances will dissolve into the ultimate Dharma.

All self-will and pride will vanish into naught.
The supreme Understanding transcends all this and that.
The supreme Action embraces great resourcefulness without attachment.
The supreme Accomplishment is to realize immanence without hope.

At first a yogi feels his mind is tumbling like a waterfall;
In mid-course, like the Ganges, it flows on slow and gentle;
In the end, it is a great vast ocean,
Where the lights of Child and Mother merge in one.

from: Teachings of the Buddha, Ed. Jack Kornfield

Fonte: http://www.allspirit.co.uk/mahamudra.html

▶ Comment
The view
In Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Vajrayana on January 2, 2007 at 8:42 pm

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Once you have the View, although the delusory perceptions of samsara may arise in your mind, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in front of it, it’s not particularly flattered, and when the clouds appear it’s not particularly disappointed either. There is a deep sense of contentment.

You chuckle from inside as you see the facade of samsara and nirvana; the View will keep you constantly amused,with a little inner smile bubbling away all the time.”
▶ Comment
The Supreme Doctrine of the wise and glorious King
In Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Vajrayana on January 2, 2007 at 4:20 pm

Patrul Rinpoche – 1808-1887

The Supreme Doctrine of the wise and glorious King
by Dza Pältrül Rinpoche, ‘Jigme Chökyi Wangpo
English Translation by Mike Dickman

To the Spiritual Teacher I bow down.

The View is the All–pervasive Vast Expanse, Longchen Rab’jam.
Meditation is Light Rays of Knowledge and Love, Khyentse’i ‘Özer.
Activity is the Child of the Victorious Ones, Gyalwa’i Nyugu.
Thus practising
One will attain Buddhahood in a single lifetime without the least effort,
Or — if not — A LA LA! — what peace of mind!

The View is precisely the All–Pervading Vast Expanse:
Three words strike the essential meaning.
First, keep your mind relaxed,
Not scattered, not concentrated and without divisive thoughts.
Resting in this state of even–minded relaxation,
Utter a sudden mind–shattering PHAT,
Forceful, vigorous and abrupt.
E MA HO! — How marvellous!…
Nothing at all!… Astonishment and wonderment!…
In this state of wonderment, all–penetrating mental freedom,
An all–encompassing mental freedom that is inexpressible,
Recognise this awareness, the dimension of absolute reality.
Identifying the primacy of the nature of mind is the first essential point

Then, whether arising or resting in place,
Angry or desirous, happy or sad,
At all times and in all situations,
Having recognised the pristine awareness of the dimension of absolute reality,
For those who have previously familiarised themselves, mother and son clear light meet.
Rest in this inexpressible state of pristine awareness.
Over and over again, destroy any sense of quiescence, bliss, clarity or projection
With the sudden exclamation of the syllable of skilful means and insight.
There is no difference between (periods of) meditation and subsequent insight (into daily life),
No division between meditative sessions and the pauses between them:
Remain in this non–differentiable state continuously.
None the less, until stability is attained,
Renounce distraction and treasure meditation.
Practice formal meditation in set periods
And at all times and in all situations
Maintain only this free play of the dimension of absolute reality,
Firmly convinced that there is no other practice than this.
Absolute conviction of this, and only this, is the second essential point.

At that time, abiding in the understanding of the essence of desire, hatred, pleasure, pain
And of all adventitious thoughts without exception,
Remain in direct recognition without remainder or addition.
Seizing the reality dimension state of what it is that is to be released,
Like a drawing on water,
There is uninterrupted self–arising and self–liberation:
Whatever arises is sustenance for naked awareness–emptiness,
All fluctuation the creativity of the sovereign dimension of the absolutely real,
Spontaneously self–purified and leaving no trace — A LA LA!
The mode of arising is the same as before
But there is an immense and crucial difference in the mode of liberation,
And without it meditation is a path of delusion.
Possessing it is the state of the dimension of absolute reality beyond meditation:
Confidence in (simultaneous arising and) liberation is the third essential point.

In this View embracing the Three Essential Points,
A meditation combining knowledge and love,
And the general activities of a Buddha–Son will be of assistance.
Though the Victorious Ones of the three times consulted together,
They would have no pith–instructions superior to these.
The Treasure–Finder of the awareness and creativity of the dimension of absolute reality,
Extracted this from the treasury of the vast expanse of perfected insight.
It is not like those treasures taken from earth or stone
But is the final testament of Ga’rab Dorje.
It is the heart–essence of the Three Transmissions,
Destined specifically for my Heart Sons.

It is the profound meaning, the outpouring of the heart,
And this message of the heart hits directly at the meaning;
Do not waste this essential truth!
Do not allow these pith–instructions to fade!

This is the Supreme Doctrine of the Wise and Glorious King.

▶ Comment
Thoughts and emotions
In Dzogchen, Mahamudra on December 28, 2006 at 6:40 pm

Sogyal Rinpoche

Just as the ocean has waves, and the sun has rays, so the mind’s own radiance is its thoughts and emotions.

The ocean has waves, yet the ocean is not particularly disturbed by them. The waves are the very nature of the ocean. Waves will rise, but where do they go? Back into the ocean. And where do the waves come from? The ocean.

In the same manner, thoughts and emotions are the radiance and expression of the very nature of the mind. They rise from the mind, but where do they dissolve? Back into the mind. Whatever rises, do not see it as a particular problem. If you do not impulsively react, if you are only patient, it will once again settle
into its essential nature.

When you have this understanding, then rising thoughts only enhance your practice. But when you do not understand what they intrinsically are—the radiance of the nature of your mind—then your thoughts become the seed of confusion.

So have a spacious, open, and compassionate attitude toward your thoughts and emotions, because in fact your thoughts are your family, the family of your mind. Before them, as Dudjom Rinpoche used to say: “Be like an old wise man, watching a child play.
▶ Comment
View, Meditation and Conduct
In Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Vajrayana on December 12, 2006 at 8:26 pm

Kunzig Shamar Rimpoche

The term view means the right understanding of the Buddhist path. Meditation is the actual practice, and conduct is the discipline necessary to stay on the path. The view is a very profound guide to meditation.

Without proper knowledge of the teachings, many obstacles can arise due to mistakes in the practice. Naturally, if you do not know anything about meditation you won’t recognize them as mistakes. This is why before you start practicing, you should first develop a correct understanding. You will then be able to recognize obstacles and the meditation will progress. In this way view and meditation are connected.

Conduct is based on the understanding of karma. Right conduct means to ensure that actions, whether through our body or our speech, are not influenced by disturbing emotions. If actions are tainted, negative karma is created. For example, if we let ourselves be influenced by anger, we may harm people or we may possibly even kill. Motivated by anger, a great deal of ill will and negativity do arise. Right conduct means to be free of those influences. Instead, we let our actions be guided by positive qualities such as compassion.

Like meditation, conduct is also influenced by our view because right understanding leads naturally to right conduct. Some people have problems with this. For example, we understand the teachings, and have the right view and yet we do not follow it. This is due to difficulties with our own emotions. Even learned people can act negatively because they can have the right understanding without the right meditation. Meditation is the means to conquer the negative emotions. The right view provides the understanding of how to overcome them.

If we want to become liberated, then our own negative emotions are our real enemy. We can learn how to overcome disturbing emotions by studying the AbhiDharmakosha. This text explains in detail how to overcome negative emotions, and even how long it will take. Such teachings can also be found in the Prajnaparamita. In the Vajrayana, they can be found in the Sabmo Nang Gi Don where it explains that by calculation, it takes three years, three months and three days of practice to remove all samsaric problems. To study such texts is to become a learned person and to understand the path.

However, someone who has completed a three year retreat could be seated on a stage and recite everything by heart without necessarily being enlightened at all. This means that his emotions are still stronger than his knowledge because he has not followed the path personally. Emotions can then overpower the view if the emotions are not conquered through meditation.

There are many different obstacles on the path. By knowing them, you will see which ones are in your Dharma practice. To meditate, you need the right understanding or you will make many mistakes. Meditation without understanding is very risky. You may know a little bit about meditation, but this is not sufficient to develop your practice over a long period of time. It is not enough to simply imagine what it is.

Overcoming obstacles is about cause and effect and the knowledge that things are connected. Conduct generally is related to karma. The specific behavior to be applied depends on the developed level of practice.

In Vajrayana, samaya is important. It is more than receiving an empowerment or practicing a certain aspect of Buddha mind, samaya means proper conduct. We need to avoid any behavior that would harm our practice.

For example, while you are engaged intensively in the calm abiding meditation (Tib. shi-nay, Skt. shamatha) it is wrong to think that you would rather be doing a higher practice like Mahamudra. It is not right to practise a higher meditation before having successfully built the foundation for it. Of course, the intention to practise a higher teaching like Mahamudra is positive but the wrong timing makes it a hindrance. If you already cannot successfully practice shi-nay now, then Mahamudra would be even more so challenging later on. Another caution for those engaged in shi’nay is not to eat too much. If you eat a lot, you will feel sleepy. Your meditation cannot go well. This is why Buddha said that monks should not take the evening meal.

View, meditation, and conduct are therefore practically connected. Buddhism does not simply prescribe rules to people but more importantly, it provides practical methods to achieve results. There are no arbitrary rules like, for example, to belong to a religious group one must wear a certain hat…. despite the fact that I do have a red crown. (Each incarnation of the “Shamar” Rinpoche line traditionally wears a red hat.)

Right view ultimately means to understand the meaning of the Madhyamaka. Madhyamaka is the quintessential view of the highest meditations of Mahamudra and Maha Ati.

These high meditations cannot be practised without understanding the Madhyamaka view. Perhaps there are other high meditations that I do not know about, but Mahamudra and Maha Ati lead us to Buddhahood. First, the Madhyamaka explains the right view. Then, based on this view, special meditation methods developed and were compiled and have been given names like Mahamudra and Maha Ati. The view and the meditation are separately represented. For example, in the practice of Chod1., there is a ritual execution where one actually plays a big damaru (a ritual drum) and so on. Such details are not described in the Madhyamaka. However, without the Madhyamaka view, one cannot do this practice. There is more to it than just the sound of the drum.

In Mahamudra and Maha Ati there is much said about the nature of mind. This means that when the meditator recognizes the actual meaning of Mahamudra or Maha Ati, he is enlightened on the spot. But just try to do it. We joke about it. Many people who have studied these teachings would say, “Mahamudra and Maha Ati are the highest meditations. I have studied them for many years and now I know.” But that would mean that they have been enlightened for a long time. To recognize the nature of mind is to become enlightened. In the teachings of Maha Ati, it is said that if one begins this practice in the evening, one is enlightened the next morning. If one starts in the morning then one is enlightened in the evening. That is only twelve hours, isn’t it? If someone says that he knows it because he has studied it for many years yet if he is still not enlightened, then what does he really know? It is not so easy.
You may have heard that you should see the guru as the essence of all Buddhas. Take for instance that I agreed to be your guru and to show you the nature of your mind. You might get very excited because it seems so direct and special. Afterwards when you go home, you would think, “Today I have received a profound meditation from my guru.” But look at yourself. What has actually changed in you? You should then come back to view, meditation and conduct.

Milarepa received the teachings from Marpa and then practised alone. He conducted himself to practise twenty-four hours a day in his cave, fully concentrated.

But he also sang many songs. Often he meditated and afterwards he would sing a song. Why did he do that? It was his knowledge of meditation that guided his practice. The songs contained this knowledge. He sang them often as a reminder to himself. In the course of his practice, certain methods were necessary at certain times. He would compose a verse to rekindle his knowledge from memory. Although he never studied poetry, he was very good at composing it. Whenever his meditation needed it, he would compose a precise poem. If you read the life story of Milarepa you will notice that he sang songs at important junctures in his practice. When he encountered obstacles, he would recall various methods from memory. In this way Milarepa’s knowledge guided his meditation.

The Madhyamaka teaches logically and precisely that phenomena and beings do not really exist, what mental confusion is, and how illusion arises in the mind. It teaches how, if you practise, you can become free from the neuroses, attachments, and the habit of believing in concrete existence. You can remove all of them if you understand very precisely the Madhyamaka view. According to the Madhyamaka view of emptiness, all substantial phenomena are heaps (Skt. skandhas) composed of particles. The particles are then examined metaphysically by breaking them down until even the smallest particle is found not to have any real existence. You then examine mental projections in the same way. It is explained that mind itself is emptiness. It is an accumulation of momentary thoughts, none of which exist independently but arise in dependence on one another. Therefore even mind itself does not have a solid existence either. That is how the Madhyamaka explains emptiness. But then, if we punch the wall now, our hand will still hurt! Although you understand through logic that there is no real existence, you cannot yet experience what it really means. It is not just simply explaining that everything is nonexistent. Logic alone is not enough to remove the illusion. Grounded in the Madhyamaka view, meditations, which build upon one another, have to be practised.

What will we achieve by the methods? The Madhyamaka explains that all things are empty. But we do not want to achieve sheer emptiness – what would be the benefit of that? Understanding emptiness will help us achieve a deeper understanding of mind through Mahamudra, the core of the Madhyamaka. We will realize that it is neither the outer world that imprisons us in samsara nor our body. It is neither the universe nor our physical body that is in samsara – it is our mind. The point is to examine mind with the precise logic of the Madhyamaka. When we are properly oriented towards the mind, we have the correct view. To apply this view of the mind in practice, to simply let the mind experience this very view is the Mahamudra experience in one instant.

To experience Mahamudra, great concentration is necessary. This is why it is so important to first practise shi-nay. Without the stability of shi-nay, the view of mind is like a flame in the wind. One moment it is there, in the next, it is gone. If you try to have the right view without mental stability, a short insight may come up but the untamed mind is unable to sustain it. Before you can hold the view without interruption, statements like “one can achieve enlightenment in one instant” make no sense.

Develop first the view. Next, on this basis, develop a direct experience of the mind and practise it without interruption. When the right view of mind is developed it is an awakening from ignorance. This view must be held continuously. Without mental stability it will disappear again.
▶ Comment
O Tesouro dos Cantos
In Mahamudra, Vajrayana on December 10, 2006 at 3:55 am

Sarahapa

Instruções esotéricas sobre o Mahamudra
Por Sarahapa – Do livro: LA SIMPLICITÉ DE LA GRANDE PERFECTION – Textos traduzidos do tibetano e comentados por James Low. Tradução para o português; karma tempa dhargy

Introdução

Este texto de Saraha sobre o Mahamudra tem um estilo mais formal que o de Maitripa. É composto por três seções sobre assuntos tradicionais da base, da via e do resultado.

[...] Ele aborda o dilema essencial quando declara que a verdadeira natureza “não pode ser demonstrada, ela é inexprimível e nada pode apreende-la de maneira dualista”. A experiência de integração está além da expressão e, portanto a energia desta experiência derrama-se como uma onda de compaixão espontânea para ajudar os seres.

Se a verdade é inexprimível, os ensinamentos, por sua própria natureza, não serão aproximativos, talvez falsos? A afirmação familiar de não confundir o dedo que aponta a lua com a própria lua nos vem à mente. Temos necessidade do dedo para ajudar-nos a encontrar o caminho, mas tendo encontrado o dedo, é muito tentador, porque é muito tranqüilizador, passar sua vida a medi-lo, examina-lo, a tornar-se um “dedólogo” diplomado. Como disse Budha Shakyamuni, temos necessidade de um barco para o rio mas não é útil transporta-lo consigo uma vez do outro lado. Os tântricos observam que as coisas que prendem as pessoas comuns podem tornar-se os meios de liberação para um yogui; semelhantemente, as instruções que conduzem à liberação podem ser os meios de confusão para aqueles que a elas se apegam.

Neste texto, como nos outros, o estilo é de uma exposição experimental. Ele nos mostra como são as coisas (a base); como entrar em contato com isso (a via); e como permanecer aí sem apego (o resultado). Não há discussão nem debate – não se trata da apresentação de uma tese, mas de uma revelação. Esse estilo de discurso, que se assemelha a um sutra, oferece à mente poucas facetas com as quais possamos jogar: somos inspirados e começamos a praticar, ou não somos tocados e o deixamos de lado. E isso, seguramente, como nos diz Saraha, é justamente como é preciso que seja.

Saraha fala claramente de uma via de conhecimento, de compreensão direta. Ele não fala de experiências místicas ou alguma coisa estranha, mas de resultados obtidos pela aplicação de uma metodologia simples. Não há nada de particular a fazer, somente olhar claramente o que é. Assim, tomando o exemplo do céu, diz: “Mesmo se examinarmos a mente e todos os fenômenos de um lado a outro, não seremos capazes de encontrar apenas um único átomo de existência verdadeira”. Tendo feito nós mesmos o trabalho, o resultado da clara compreensão é-nos inalienavelmente adquirido.

O texto

Homenagem à Sri Vajra Dakini.
Homenagem às Três Jóias cognição primordial co-emergente.
O sentido deste texto será dado em três seções.
A primeira seção é o ensinamento da condição natural do Mahamudra.
Isso comporta três aspectos.

1. Primeiramente, a explicação de como são as coisas.

Tudo o que se move ou não se move1, tudo o que estável ou instavel2, tudo o que é material3 ou imaterial, tudo o que se apresenta como aparência e tudo o que não se apresenta como aparência – tudo isso, sem exceção, nunca separou-se e não se separará jamais da natureza semelhante ao céu. E mais, ainda que utilizemos o termo “céu” para se referir ao céu, o céu em si-mesmo não tem nenhuma natureza específica individual. Ele está totalmente além do fato de ser um objeto ao qual podemos aplicar conceitos delimitantes como “é”, “não-é”, “sem existência” e “sem não-existência”, e tudo mais. Semelhante, ao céu, a mente e a realidade verdadeira4 não têm entre elas nenhuma diferença. Todos os nomes que indicam uma diferença não passam de títulos adventícios5, inopinados. Eles não têm validade e não são mais que palavras descritivas. Tudo está em nossa própria mente.

Fora de nossa mente, não há um único átomo do que quer que seja. Alguém que realize que desde o início, não há mente existindo enquanto entidade, obteve a excelente compreensão de todos os Budhas dos três tempos.

O que é bem conhecido como “cornucópia6 natural” não é uma idéia falsa suplementar, porque desde o início, é a natureza co-emergente7. Esta natureza não pode ser demonstrada; ela é inexprimível e ninguém pode compreende-la de um modo dualista. Se há um possuidor, haverá então possessões. Mas, se desde o início, não há um eu, quem pode possuir esse não-eu?.

Se a mente é uma coisa real que possuímos, todos os fenômenos serão então também reais e passíveis de apropriação. Se não há mente, quem compreenderá o que é “alguma coisa”?.

Não podemos encontrar a mente e todos os pensamentos que podemos perceber ao buscá-los – e o buscador em si mesmo não pode ser encontrado. Nem aquele que sabe nem o que é sabido existem enquanto tais e entretanto eles são sem nascimento e sem fim no passado, presente e futuro. Isso não muda porque é a condição natural da grande satisfação inata. Por esta razão, todas as aparências são o modo natural. Todos os seres sensíveis são Budhas. Toda construção e toda atividade estão, desde o início, no céu que engloba tudo. Todas as coisas que são identificadas pela linguagem e conceitos são como os chifres de um coelho.

2. Onde mostramos como os seres tornam-se confusos porque não realizam esta realidade.

Ai! Quando o sol não é obscurecido pelas nuvens, seus raios se espalham em tudo, entretanto aqueles que não tem olhos permanecem nas trevas perpétuas. A co-emergência espontânea está presente em tudo, mas aqueles que são estúpidos estão muito afastados dela. Como os seres não compreendem que a mente não é uma entidade, eles prendem solidamente a natureza original da mente na discriminação e no julgamento conceitual. Então, assim como as pessoas tornam-se loucas pelas “bênçãos” de um demônio, os seres tornam-se impotentes, vazios de sentido e criam seu próprio sofrimento.

1. Isso se refere a tudo o que é animado ou inanimado.

2. Isso se refere a mente e aos eventos mentais.

3. Quer dizer o que “existe” e o que “não-existe”.

4. Chos-Nyid, dharmata.

5. Eles são somente convencionais e não têm conexão inerente com o objeto que supomos que eles representam ou aos quais supomos que eles se referem.

6. Chos-Kyi Za-Ma-Tog.

7. Da claridade e da vacuidade.

Acreditando que as coisas são reais, os seres são capturados pelo grande demônio dos pensamentos e, assim, somente criam sofrimentos insensatos para eles mesmos. Alguns desses seres estúpidos estão ligados pelas discriminações de seus intelectos. Eles guardam o mestre (quer dizer a mente em si mesma) em casa e vão buscá-lo longe. Alguns dentre eles crêem que os reflexos são reais. Alguns não cortam a raiz, mas somente os ramos e as folhas. Pouco importa o que façam, eles não são conscientes de estarem iludidos1.

3. Terceiro, mostramos a Via na qual os ermitãos obtêm a realização.

Maravilhoso! Os seres semelhantes às crianças não conhecem sua própria natureza verdadeira, mas eu a realizo não me desviando nunca do estado desta verdadeira natureza. Obtive o conhecimento do começo e do fim (quer dizer, da totalidade) de mim mesmo, e assim eu me vejo: minha verdadeira natureza é e permanece pura (ela não está misturada a nada, ela não depende de nada). Entretanto, ainda que tenhamos a experiência desta pureza (Ka-Dag), esta não é percebida como fortemente real. Não há um observador nem alguma coisa a observar, também isso é inexprimível. E como ela é inexprimível, quem pode conhece-la2?

Quando praticam a mente imutável, vocês penetram na realização que eu, o eremita, tenho. O leite de uma leoa das neves não pode estar contido em um pote de má qualidade. Quando o leão ruge na floresta, todos os pequenos cervos ficam apavorados, mas os leõezinhos estão felizes e continuam a correr em torno de sua mãe. Do mesmo modo, quando é ensinada a grande satisfação que é inata desde o início, as pessoas estúpidas que mantêm falsas idéias ficam apavoradas, mas os seres afortunados tornam-se felizes e os pelos de seus corpos vibram.

1. Quer dizer que eles não se dão conta do erro subjacente.

2. Quer dizer conhece-la da maneira como um sujeito conhece um objeto, porque esse tipo de conhecimento depende de conceitos exprimíveis.

A segunda seção trata dos três aspectos da Via do Mahamudra

1. Determinar-se claramente quanto à Base da Via – a segunda seção trata dos três aspectos da Via do Mahamudra:

Primeiramente, a natureza da Via será mostrada.

Maravilhoso! Olhem com uma mente imóvel. Se vocês mesmos realizarem sua própria natureza, a mente móvel emergirá igualmente enquanto Mahamudra. No estado de grande satisfação, todas as características dualistas se liberam por si mesmas. (auto-liberação)

Quando despertamos de um sonho, vemos que todas as alegrias e sofrimentos não têm substância verdadeira. Também abandonem todo pensamento de esperança ou de dúvida, porque o que existe aí para pensar em inibir ou encorajar?

‘Vendo’ a verdadeira natureza, reconhecemos que todas as coisas no samsara e no nirvana são desprovidas de natureza própria individual e por esse fato, nossos pensamentos de esperança e de dúvida evaporam-se. Quem fará esforços para abandonar ou aceitar? Cada aparência e cada som são como uma ilusão mágica, uma miragem ou um reflexo – eles são livres de características das entidades que parecem reais. Quem compreende a natureza ilusória das aparências, é a natureza da mente em si mesma, e ela é semelhante ao céu. Esta verdadeira natureza não tem centro nem limite, então quem seria capaz de compreende-la?1. Existem numerosos rios diferentes como o Ganges, etc., mas quando eles atingem o mar salgado, têm todos um mesmo sabor. Igualmente, a mente discriminante, todas as suas funções e seu conteúdo devem ser conhecidos como tendo um mesmo sabor no campo da realidade.

Segundo, mostrar o método da realização.

Se alguém examina completamente toda a extensão do céu, verá que este não tem centro nem fim, também ultrapassará definitivamente esses conceitos. Do mesmo modo, se examinarmos a mente e todos os fenômenos de um lado ao outro, não seremos capazes de encontrar algum átomo de existência verdadeira. A mente que efetua a busca não pode ser percebida. Também, vejamos que não há absolutamente nada que possa ser visto (como existindo realmente).

Terceiro, não se desviar desta natureza.

Como uma gralha solta de um barco voa em todas as direções, mas volta ao barco em seguida (quando ela não vê mais a terra), do mesmo modo a mente cheia de desejo perseguirá talvez os pensamentos, mas se estabilizará em seguida sobre a natureza original imutável da mente em si-mesma. Não afetada pelas situações, livre de esperança, destruímos todas as dúvidas ocultas – é a mente vajra.

2. A meditação comporta três aspectos.

Primeiro, a não-meditação do Mahamudra.

A verdadeira natureza da mente que cortou a raiz da ignorância é como o céu. Não há meditação a fazer, então evitem a meditação. Mantendo a mente comum em seu modo original espontâneo, ela não é adulterada por nenhum conceito artificial. Esta mente naturalmente pura não tem necessidade de artifício. Sem segurar firmemente nem deixar ir, repousemos em nossa própria natureza. Se não há nada a realizar, então, o intelecto não tem necessidade de meditar sobre nada. E aquele que realiza está também livre do objeto da meditação como do meditante. Como o céu não é objeto para o céu, a vacuidade não medita sobre a vacuidade. Esta compreensão não-dual é como leite na água, assim toda coisa permanece imutavelmente na satisfação total da integração.

Segundo, a suprema meditação consiste em não separar-se nunca da natureza da não-meditação.

Assim, através dos três tempos, permaneçam no estado original e sem limite livres da meditação. Manter isso é convencionalmente chamado “meditação”. Não reprimam os ventos vitais, não entravem a mente. Guardem a presença não artificial como carregaríamos uma criança2.

Quando pensamentos e lembranças surgem, conservem a presença da sua verdadeira natureza – não criem nenhuma diferença entre a água e a onda!

Terceiro, a ilustração, com ajuda de exemplos, da Via do Mahamudra

A verdadeira natureza livre do ‘objetivismo’ da mente comum libera totalmente os três princípios da interação3.

No Mahamudra, a mente não é levada a trabalhar e não há o mínimo de prática da meditação, por isso não há meditação. A meditação suprema nunca esteve separada da natureza da não-meditação – não-dual, espontaneamente co-emergente, é o sabor da satisfação completa.

Quando a água é vertida na água, não há mais que um sabor, e mesmo quando estamos totalmente fundidos no estado natural, a mentalização da espera e da conceitualização é completamente esgotada.

3. O ensinamento sobre a ação comporta três aspectos.

Primeiramente, mostrar que a ação do Mahamudra não é fixado por uma regra.

Maravilhoso! Os yogis que permanecem na natureza imutável da não-dualidade não têm o menor traço de apego e rejeição. Não mantenho nem descarto nenhum fenômeno, também não digo, a meus filhos, fazer o que quer que seja. De mesmo modo que esta jóia, a mente não tem realidade substancial, a ação de um yogui é, também ela, desprovida de realidade substancial.

1. Quer dizer que não é um objeto para a compreensão dualista.

2. Nem muito relaxado nem muito tenso, lhe dando liberdade mas sempre vigilante.

3. Sujeito, objeto e sua conexão.

Falamos de numerosas espécies de construções mentais, mas os yoguis permanecem em uma única percepção. Esta não sendo uma entidade, o yogui esta completamente livre das numerosas possibilidades de manifestação. Também, com esta liberdade louca e ilimitada, mantenham a ação parecida a de uma criança, livre de toda atividade intencional.

Segundo, o ensinamento sobre como evitar ser manchado pela situação objetiva quando nos comportamos desta maneira.

Maravilhoso! A mente é como o lótus que cresce do lodo do samsara, porque pouco importa quantas faltas temos, a mente jamais é tocada por nenhuma delas. Alimentos e bebidas podem trazer prazer, mas podem igualmente atormentar nosso corpo e nossa mente. Pouco importa o que utilizemos, não sejamos afetados, nem ligados nem liberados.

Terceiro, o ensinamento sobre como ser espontaneamente benéfico aos outros por uma compaixão sem desejo.

Quando estamos no estado de realização, cujas modalidades de ação são ilimitadas, vendo os tormentos dos seres extraviados insensatos, lágrimas correm por uma irresistível compaixão. Dando-lhes a nossa felicidade e tomando seus sofrimentos, trabalhamos pelo bem estar de todos. Se examinarmos a realidade, descobriremos que ela é livre dos três conceitos de sujeito, objeto e conexão dos dois. Não é uma coisa verdadeiramente real, porque é como um sonho ou uma ilusão mágica. Estando livres de todos os desejos e de todos os apegos, experimentaremos uma alegria desprovida de tristeza, do mesmo modo ajam como um mestre da ilusão fazendo mágica.

A terceira seção trata da realização total do Mahamudra.

1. Ensinamento sobre a realização incontestável do resultado.

Da natureza primordialmente pura como o céu, não há a menor entidade a obter ou descartar. É o Mahamudra livre da mentalização, igualmente não ansiamos por qualquer resultado! Posto que a mente que sustenta esperança é inata (sem nascimento) desde o início, como poderia haver alguma entidade a obter ou a descartar? Agora, se alguém for capaz de verdadeiramente possuir uma entidade real, o que acontecerá à doutrina dos quatro mudras1?

2. Ensinamento sobre a confusão de querer obter alguma coisa quando não há nada há obter.

Como um cervo da montanha que, quando é obnubilado pela sede, corre rapidamente para a água que vê em uma miragem, as pessoas insensatas perturbadas pelo desejo dão-se conta que, malgrado seu furor, seu objetivo só faz afastar-se.

3. Nada obter completamente, é chamado realizar o estado de Vajradhara.

A natureza completamente pura é inata desde o início, e quando não há o menor traço de discriminação, a consciência que cria a distinção é purificada nos campos da realidade. O único nome que pode ser dado é Vajradhara (“quem não se separa jamais da pura natureza”). Assim como vemos, em uma planície desértica, miragens de água pura que não têm existência, da mesma maneira, a mente que nomeia e discrimina deve ser purificada na pureza original. Não podemos dizer que ela é imutável ou totalmente anulada.

Como a jóia que realiza os desejos e a árvore que concorda com a realização dos desejos, nossas esperanças estarão repletas pelo poder de nossa aspiração (em realizar este ensinamento). E ainda, as noções convencionais desse mundo não pertencem senão a verdade relativa – na realidade, não há a menor coisa que tenha alguma existência individual.

Este ensinamento secreto do Mahamudra chamado “O Tesouro dos Cantos” (Dohakosha) emana da voz do glorioso ermitão Saraha. Foi traduzido pelo erudito indiano Vairocanaraksita.

1. Karmamudra, jnanamudra, mahamudra, samayamudra.

Fonte: http://www.nossacasa.net/SHUNYA/default.asp?menu=1157

▶ Comment
The Mahamudra Way – Ngondro, the Preliminary Practices
In Mahamudra, Vajrayana on September 29, 2006 at 2:30 am

The Kunzig Shamar Rimpoche

A teaching given at the Karmapa International Buddhist Institute (KIBI), April 1994

The Ngondro practice is very important for purifying negative karma and to generate wisdom. Actually, our main practice is Mahamudra, but you cannot practice Mahamudra without the purification or the blessing. In this context, the “Preliminary Practices” are most essential.

You are in samsara now, and as long as you remain thus, you will experience disturbing emotions. Otherwise, you would already be enlightened. In the past, no matter where you were born, you experienced various poisons of the mind. This is true regardless of whether you were in the higher realm of beings or whether you were born in the lower realms. Your present state is proof of that, because were it different, you would not be experiencing disturbing emotions now.

The Ngondro practice is very important for purifying negative karma and to generate wisdom. Actually, our main practice is Mahamudra, but you cannot practice Mahamudra without the purification or the blessing. In this context, the “Preliminary Practices” are most essential.

You are in samsara now, and as long as you remain thus, you will experience disturbing emotions. Otherwise, you would already be enlightened. In the past, no matter where you were born, you experienced various poisons of the mind. This is true regardless of whether you were in the higher realm of beings or whether you were born in the lower realms. Your present state is proof of that, because were it different, you would not be experiencing disturbing emotions now.

So long as these disturbing emotions are in you, you are accumulating negative karma. However, it is not as if a certain karma was accumulated, it would then ripen to give a certain result, and afterwards, that karma would disappear completely. And that the only karma left in us now is what has caused this present human life. No, you have millions of different karmic imprints built up from many past lives. In addition, you are continuing to create much new karma through your thoughts, speech and actions everyday. Sometimes they are positive, sometimes negative. But unfortunately, they are most often negative. As humans, we are constantly involved in disturbing emotions which can never result in anything positive.

This does not mean that we should belittle ourselves. Rather, we should accept our present situation – this is our karma now, and it is preventing wisdom from appearing. This wisdom is already there. It is the nature of our mind. However, our disturbing emotions cover it. From our disturbing emotions we create karma. The result for us is more samsara where we create more karma.

So our karma is very strong. We weaken it by doing the “Preliminary Practices” until it cannot harm us any more. We practice the accumulation of merit through the Mandala-Offering, the third of the Ngondro practices. This will create in us all the necessary conditions to reach enlightenment.

When we are freed of karmic influences and have accumulated all the positive conditions, we can successfully begin the Mahamudra practice. If, however, after 111,111 repetitions of each of the four preliminaries, we realize that no development has occurred, then we have to continue to work hard on the preliminaries in order to weaken the negative karma.

While practicing Ngondro, many good signs may appear. They are an indication that a result has been reached. But one should not have too many expectations regarding these signs. They should appear naturally as they cannot be artificially produced.

After having practiced Ngondro extensively, students receive the Mahamudra teachings. It would not be very beneficial to teach them the Mahamudra before that because they would not be able to understand them precisely. The mind must be purified for that to happen.

As well, the more profound aspects of Mahamudra should not be taught too early, as students would not be able to appreciate them at a later time. When one has not understood the precise meaning of something, and yet has heard a lot about it, it becomes boring and confusing, and the effect of the meaning is lost . For this reason, great masters like Milarepa, and Gampopa transmitted the Mahamudra teachings only in a very restricted manner.

It has been said that the Preliminary Practices are more profound and more important than the main practice. This is because Ngondro creates the necessary conditions for the Mahamudra practice. Mahamudra enables you to reach enlightenment within one moment, but in order to do so, you first need the proper conditions.

By doing the Ngondro practice you turn yourself into a “qualified practitioner”. However, this does not mean that when you’ve finished you are fully qualified. In addition, you need a good understanding of the Dharma. For instance you should know the teachings about the qualities of Buddhanature. This subject is explained in the Uttaratantrashastra, Gyu Lama in Tibetan. Other important texts that you should study are: The Distinction Between Consciousness and Wisdom (tib: Nam-she Yeshe) and “Showing the Essence of the Buddha Nature” (tib: Nyingpo Tenpa) [both texts were written by the third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje]. The Nyingpo Tenpa is a shorter version of the Gyu Lama.

It is also important to know the Madhyamaka teachings. Madhyamaka explains in what way samsara is an illusion, and that the Buddha mind is beyond this illusion. As a result, one understands that samsara and one’s mind in its current mode are only delusions. The Buddha mind is something altogether different, something beyond this illusion. However, it is not different in the sense that it is separate from the present mind. Both are inseparably one. Madhyamaka explains exactly in what way the nature of your present mind is the Dharmakaya. But Madhyamaka is not able to point out the Dharmakaya as something special like one could point at a flower and say, “This is a white rose.” What the Madhyamaka can do is show the precise nature of the illusions. In addition to that, there is something that you have to recognize and understand by yourself: Mahamudra realization. For a meditator on this path, it is very important to learn the philosophical views of the Madhyamaka.

The Madhyamaka also explains that the conditions of “cause and effect” will continue as long as the mind is under the influence of illusion. Positive or negative causes always lead to corresponding results. This is why meditators with the Madhyamaka view have great respect for the law of karma. Even Bodhisattvas on high levels will experience the results of unpurified actions in the postmeditative phase. Due to their great merit, they generally encounter good and positive results. But sometimes, during their postmeditative phase, disturbing things may appear to them.

So the Madhyamaka is very important, as it leads to a fundamental understanding of the Dharma in its entirety.

Today, some scholars have also published books with short, comprehensible explanations about certain parts of the Abidharma. For instance, the different stages of Shinay meditation which a meditator goes through are explained. There are many details concerning how the philosophical view on different levels will affect certain forms of ignorance and disturbing emotions in the mind. During the continuous development of Shinay meditation, it is important to know these details precisely. Why? Because when you rest in deep meditation, you are more likely to be led by your deep knowledge than by an outside person. Therefore, if your knowledge is good, you will not encounter any obstacles. Without this knowledge, however, there are many risks of being misled during meditation. Sometimes you may perhaps follow wrong views which you consider right. At other times, you may not know how to deal with certain intellectual problems due to a lack of know-how, or the necessary remedial methods. You may also become agitated about certain experiences; even then, you should not be attached to them. At that point, you need a good meditation teacher, otherwise there is great danger of making mistakes. When you do a practice for the accumulation of merit, you need a teacher who knows about it specifically. The teacher need not necessarily have mastered all the other Dharma subjects, but he or she should be qualified to give you advice on merit accumulation methods.

When meditators are confronted with experiences during meditation, they need a teacher who is very qualified in this practice. An example I always enjoy telling is the story about Gampopa who once had a problem with his meditation practice – all of a sudden Gampopa could not see anymore. He crawled to Milarepa and asked him what he should do. Milarepa answered, “Your meditation belt is too tight. You should loosen it.”

If the meditation teacher has no experience of his own, he cannot teach you anything. In which book can you find the information about the meditation belt being too tight and needing to be loosened? Such books do not exist. Geshes and Khenpos could study all the Buddhist subjects for 25 years, but among all the books that can be studied, there is not one that explains such things because the number of beings is infinite and therefore the number of problems is infinite. Who could describe all the individual problems of all beings of the past, the present and the future? So when you come to these meditation experiences, the teacher needs to be qualified.

Another important point is the development of the Bodhisattva mind. It is the cause for our development from one lifetime to the next. For this reason, all Mahayana and Vajrayana teachers advise us to concentrate on Bodhicitta, the compassion aspect of the Bodhisattva’s mind.

The “Bodhisattva Vow” helps to develop our positive side so we become able to help other beings. It prevents us from falling into the lower realms as a result of anger or jealousy, etc. Even if such disturbing emotions arise, the Bodhisattva vow immediately purifies them. This is why we should never give up on developing Bodhicitta.

Anger and jealousy directly affect your Bodhichitta, as does the ego. They are your enemies. The three mind-poisons are the reason why beings are always so aggressive. There is so much anger everywhere. When energy is connected with that anger, beings become dangerous to others and create in themselves the causes to be reborn in the lower realms. The Bodhisattva Vow is one protection against the lower realms. The accumulation of merit, (the Mandala practice is one example), is increased by the Bodhisattva Vow as well as by the power of the purification practices.

Fonte:http://www.dhagpo-kagyu.org/anglais/science-esprit/chemin/medit/methodes/nongdro.htm

▶ Comment
Meditação Mahamudra
In Mahamudra, Vajrayana on June 28, 2006 at 3:57 am

Bokar Rinpoche

A Indizível Mente

O mahamudra(1) é um termo que designa o modo de ser, a natureza última, de todos os seres.

Qual é, fundamentalmente, essa mente que caracteriza os seres? Está ela no corpo? É ela exterior ao corpo? Ou em algum lugar entre os dois? É ela branca, vermelha ou de uma outra cor? Qual é sua forma? Qual é sua dimensão?

Se examinarmos a mente com atenção, constatamos que ela é vazia por natureza. Não podemos atribuir-lhe nenhuma característica material.

A mente é vazia, ela não é uma coisa. Isso quer dizer que ela não é nada? Também não. A mente não pode ser uma simples vacuidade, um simples nada, visto que, segundo a experiência que temos dela, ela é a base de surgimento dos múltiplos pensamentos da existência condicionada. Dela nascem, do lado negativo, a cólera e as outras emoções conflituosas, assim como, do lado positivo, a fé e a compaixão. Essa produção natural dos pensamentos basta para demonstrar que ela não é apenas vacuidade.

Quando procuramos o modo de ser da mente e nos perguntamos o que ela é, não podemos dar, de fato, nenhuma resposta, não podemos dizer que ela seja algo. Se disso concluímos que ela não é absolutamente nada, devemos também admitir que essa conclusão não é pertinente, pois há sentimentos de felicidade e de sofrimento. A mente não pode ser definida pelas noções de existência e de não-existência.(2)

Em verdade, se a natureza da mente é indizível, é porque ela é o dharmakaya(3) o “Corpo Absoluto”. Ora, esse dharmakaya está para além do campo do pensamento ordinário, para além do que podem exprimir as palavras, para além de todo conceito. Entretanto, embora o dharmakaya seja a nossa verdadeira natureza, não o reconhecemos e vagamos no samsara, o ciclo das existências e do sofrimento. Reconhecer o dharmakaya é a função do dharma e mais particularmente da meditação do mahamudra.

A fonte da prática

Na linhagem kagyupa, a prática do mahamudra foi em sua origem revelada pelo Buddha primordial Vajradhara ao grande realizado indiano Tilopa que, tendo atingido a realização última, transmitiu-a a Naropa. De Naropa ela passou à Marpa, o tradutor, depois a Milarepa, em seguida a Gampopa, que a transmitiu a Tusum Khyenpa, o primeiro Karmapa. A tradição foi, em seguida, mantida pela sucessão dos Karmapas, sem interrupção e na íntegra.

Eu mesmo recebi a transmissão da graça do mahamudra de meus lamas-raízes, o décimo sexto Karmapa e Kalu Rimpoche.(4)

Um Corpo completo

A prática do mahamudra, para ser completa, deve reunir três elementos, que comparamos às partes de um corpo, a ausência de uma ou de outra impedem o conjunto de ser funcional. Dizemos que:

· O não-apego são as pernas do mahamudra;

· A devoção é sua cabeça;

· A meditação é seu tronco ou seu corpo.

Um corpo só é funcional se estiver completo. Um corpo sem cabeça de nada serviria, assim como um corpo sem tronco. Um corpo que teria cabeça e tronco, mas desprovido de pernas também não poderia realizar as atividades de um corpo completo. Um corpo, para preencher plenamente sua função, deve possuir a integridade de seus membros. Da mesma maneira, para que a prática do mahamudra seja efetiva, ela deve ser completa: cabeça, pernas e tronco. Na falta disso, não seria um mahamudra autêntico.

As pernas: o não-apego

Quando somos apanhados por um fortíssimo apego por esta vida, somos como que impedidos de avançar na via do mahamudra. Eis por que ser livre desse apego constitui as pernas da prática.

Semelhante não-apego procede de uma compreensão da natureza dos fenômenos. No estado de não-realização, todos os fenômenos, os objetos exteriores que são as formas, os sons, os odores, etc., assim como nosso corpo ou as aparências interiores produzidas em nossa mente, tudo é apreendido como dotado de uma existência real e permanente, o que é uma apreensão errônea.

É preciso, ao contrário, tomar consciência do fato segundo o qual os fenômenos exteriores que nossos sentidos percebem, longe de serem dotados dessa permanência que nós lhes atribuímos, são transitórios: modificam-se a cada instante. Nosso corpo e nossa mente são submetidos ao mesmo processo de modificação constante.

Tomemos como exemplo a casa na qual nos encontramos. Aparentemente, é a mesma de ontem, a mesma do ano passado. Parece que nada mudou. É apenas uma falsa aparência. No nível imperceptível das moléculas constitutivas do edifício produz-se uma mudança contínua, de modo que ele nunca permanece semelhante a ele mesmo. Uma casa nova não continua a ser nova em razão dessa constante modificação. Esta mudança rege seu envelhecimento e assegura que surja inelutavelmente um dia em que ela não será mais do que uma ruína e, por fim, desapareça completamente. Isso vale para todas as coisas, inclusive aquelas que nos parecem as mais duradouras, como as montanhas ou os rochedos. Tudo é impermanente.

Nosso corpo e nossa mente não escapam a essa regra. Considero, por exemplo, que hoje sou Bokar Tulku, que ontem fui Bokar Tulku, que no ano passado também fui Bokar Tulku. Eu teria, então, tendência a pensar que sou sempre o mesmo Bokar Tulku. Todavia, meu corpo modifica-se a cada instante, assim como minha mente,(5) que já não é agora o que foi outrora.

A essa compreensão da impermanência deve acrescentar-se a tomada de consciência do sofrimento próprio ao ciclo das existências. Ainda que levemos em consideração tão somente os seres que povoam a terra, podemos constatar o número de sofrimentos contínuos que os afligem, tanto físicos quanto interiores. Acontece, as vezes, que parecemos felizes e que nenhum sofrimento é visível; porém, não é uma verdadeira felicidade, pois não é definitiva e se transformará em sofriniento mais cedo ou mais tarde. Mesmo um estado neutro, sem sofrimento nem felicidade, pela opaciclade mental que ele implica, também provocará um sofriniento. Diz-se que existem três tipos de sofrimentos: o sofrimento doloroso, o sofrimento da mudança e o sofrimento inerente a tudo o que é composto. Desse modo, nenhum ser do samsara conhece um estado de felicidade autêntica.

A partir do momento em que compreendemos que todos os fenômenos exteriores e interiores são impermanentes, que são todos maculados pelo sofrimento e que o samsara é desprovido de interesse, nosso apego as aparências desta vida diminui. Então, voltamo-nos para os métodos de libertação que permitem atingir o estado de Buddha.

A cabeça: a devoção

A devoção é considerada como a cabeça da prática do mahamudra. Essa devoção tem por objeto todos os lamas da linhagem de transmissão e, mais particularmente, aquele denominado “lama-raiz”, quer dizer, o mestre que nos introduz diretamente à natureza de nossa própria mente.

A devoção é essencial, pois, sem ela, não podemos abrirmos à graça e, sem esta, a realização do mahamudra permaneceria impossível. Comparamos amiúde a graça do mestre a uma montanha nevada e a devoção do discípulo ao sol cujos raios incidem sobre as encostas da montanha. O calor do sol faz a neve fundir, podemos coletar a água e bebê-la. Mas se o sol da devoção não brilha, a neve não fundirá. Não receberemos, assim, a indispensável graça.

O corpo: a meditação

O não-apego ao ciclo das existências e o desejo de libertar-se dele, por um lado, e, por outro, a devoção, formam as pernas e a cabeça da prática. Não poderíamos nos abster de abordar o terceiro ponto: a meditação que observa a natureza da mente.

Essa meditação requer saber “posicionar” o corpo e saber “posicionar” a mente.

Uma grande importância é concedida à postura do corpo, pois há interdependência entre o nosso corpo e a mente. Uma postura correta do corpo favorecerá a estabilidade da mente, enquanto uma postura incorreta será nociva a essa estabilidade. Tomamos, portanto, de modo ideal, a postura dita de “Vairochana de sete pontos”:

1 – as pernas cruzadas na postura do vajra;
2 – as mãos no mudra da meditação;
3 – a coluna vertebral reta como uma flecha;
4 – os ombros afastados como as asas de um abutre;
5 – o queixo recuado;
6 – a língua pousada contra o palato de maneira relaxada e os lábios soltos;
7 – o olhar pousado no vago, [+- 1,5m] obliquamente para baixo.

Para aqueles que encontram dificuldades para manter essa postura, podemos resumi-la a dois pontos essenciais: a coluna vertebral perfeitamente reta e as mãos no mudra da meditação.

Uma vez o corpo bem estabelecido dessa maneira, é preciso, em seguida, aprender a posicionar a mente. Como fazê-lo?

Em primeiro lugar, constatamos que surge em nossa mente uma infinidade de pensamentos concernentes ao passado ou ao futuro. Os pensamentos do passado podem referir-se ao que ocorreu há vários anos, alguns meses, algumas horas, ou nos minutos precedentes. Do mesmo modo, os pensamentos do futuro podem referir-se a eventos que ocorrerão daqui a vários anos, em alguns dias, algumas horas, ou nos minutos a seguir. Esses pensamentos do passado ou do futuro, não os seguimos. Permanecemos unicamente na mente tal como ela é no presente, sem distração.

Permanecer sem distração na mente do presente é o que denominamos meditação do mahamudra.

Certas pessoas pensarão que meditar dessa maneira, sem ser tomado pelos pensamentos do passado e do futuro, deve ser extremamente difícil, e mesmo penoso. No entanto, se a mente cessa de projetar-se no que foi ou no que será e permanece tal como é no presente, aberta e relaxada, ela conhece uma sensação de repouso que torna a meditação fácil e agradável.

Mente imóvel, mente em movimento

Nesse estado de relaxamento do corpo e de não distração interior, a mente vai, por momentos, permanecer imóvel, sem nenhum pensamento. Por momentos pensamentos vão surgir, e a mente estará assim em movimento. Quando a mente está imóvel, reconhece-se isso e permanece-se nesse estado. Quando surgem pensamentos, da mesma maneira, reconhece-se isso. A maneira justa de proceder é então evitar duas atitudes:

1 – considerar que os pensamentos são uma coisa ruim e que é preciso deter sua produção;

2 – segui-los sem se dar conta disso.

Ao contrário, sem deter, nem seguir, permanece-se relaxado no estado de simples reconhecimento.

A mente que permanece no presente é a meditação do mahamudra.

Os principiantes, quando sua mente permanece calma e estável, têm tendência a regozijar-se dizendo-se que sua meditação é boa. Quando, ao contrário, muitos pensamentos apresentam-se, sentem-se decepcionados e desencorajados, considerando que nunca conseguirão meditar. Estas são duas reações errôneas.

Habitualmente, seguimos os pensamentos sem estarmos sequer conscientes disso; somos enganados por eles. Por isso, a meditação não implica temê-los, desejar seu desaparecimento e tentar detê-los. Em relação aos pensamentos, devemos permanecer sem rejeição, nem aceitação. Que ocorram ou não, isso não tem importância.

O ponto importante da meditação não é a ausência de pensamentos, mas a manutenção de uma vigilância não-distraída, destituída de julgamento, livre das noções de bom ou de ruim.

Tais são, portanto, as três partes que tornam completa e autêntica a prática do mahamudra: as pernas do não-apego, a cabeça da devoção, e o tronco da mente instalada no presente, tal como é, sem distração, sem nada recusar e sem nada tomar.

Notas:

——————————————————————————–

1 – O termo mahamudra designa ao mesmo tempo a natureza última da mente e a meditação que conduz a reconhecê-la, meditação da qual “shine e lhaktong” são etapas. Ele se refere, portanto, ao grau mais elevado da prática. Embora a palavra seja feminina em sânscrito, foi difundido o uso no masculino em francês (e também em português), uso que respeitamos aqui.

2 – As noções de existência e de não-existência aplicadas à nossa mente podem parecer-nos de difícil apreensão, ainda mais porque podemos ter a crença implícita de que nossa mente é um produto do cérebro, enquanto o budismo vê este apenas como um suporte de funcionamento momentâneo. Essas noções constituem a “visão”, quer dizer, o fundamento teórico sobre o qual vai apoiar-se a prática da meditação. Seriam necessários longos e sutis desenvolvimentos para apoiar essa visão. Bokar Rimpoclie apresenta aqui apenas o essencial a fim de permitir melhor compreensão da meditação.

3 – A plenitude do Despertar é explicacla pela noção de “Três Corpos” de Buddha, a palavra “corpo” não se refere aqui a organismo físico, mas a diferentes modalidades do ser.

O dharmakaya (Corpo Absoluto), é não-manifestado, escapando a toda determinação. Ele é a-temporal e não-espacial, embora todo tempo e todo espaço procedam de suas potencialidades.

O sambhogakaya (Corpo de Glória) é um corpo de luz manifestando-se em domínios diferentes dos nossos e para nós inacessível em razão dos véus que obscurecem nossa mente.

O nirmanakaya (Corpo de Manifestação) é o aparecimento sobre a terra, ou em outros lugares da existência condicionada, de um ser Desperto. Foi o caso, por exemplo, do Buddha Shakyamuni.

Para ressaltar que esses três Corpos não são realidades separadas, acrescentamos a eles amiúde um quarto, o svabhavikakaya (Corpo de Unidade essencial).

4 – Dos mestres da linhagem aqui mencionados os dois primeiros são indianos e os seguintes tibetanos. Eis suas datas:

Tilopa: 988-1069;
Naropa: 1016-1100;
Marpa: 1012-1097;
Milarepa: 1040-1123;
Gampopa; 1079-1153;
Tusum Kyenpa: 1110-1193;
Décimo sexto Karmapa: 1924-1981;
Kalu Rimpoche: 1904-1989.

5 – Mente refere-se aqui ao psiquismo, que é mutável. Em contrapartida, a essência da mente é imutável.


Fonte: http://www.nossacasa.net/shunya/default.asp?menu=357
Texto de Bokar Rimpoche, extraído do livro “Meditação – Conselhos ao Principiante”



▶ Comment
Shi’nay – Calm Abiding Meditation
In Mahamudra, Vajrayana on April 25, 2006 at 8:03 pm

Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche.

This afternoon session marks the start of a program of teachings at the Bodhi Path Centre. I now begin with a teaching on Shi’nay.

Training the mind and a trained mind are two different things. To practise Shi’nay is training, and it is different from a ‘trained Shi’nay’. There are different varieties of Shi’nay practices but they all serve one purpose and it is to train the mind to be in Shi’nay.

Shi’nay is an ordinary level of mind. To attain a trained Shi’nay does not depend on purification of mind, or the accumulation of merit, or Lhakthong (Vipassana) meditation. So it will not take long to achieve the results of Shi’nay. But success in Shi’nay does, however, depend very much on how many times a day, and how long you can do it. What is essential is consistency of practice.

Mind does not exist substantially, or physically. Once you are trained, then you will have the flexibility of mind to do many things. How well you have trained will determine how much freedom of mind you have to remain in one level, while thinking, or concentrating. You are considered trained when your mind has this kind of freedom. This is the trained state, and to get there, you employ the methods of training.

To have this flexibility of mind of Shi’nay is very useful. You have heard of the so-called Five eyes and the Five extensive powers of the mind to know hidden things. You can access these states after you have achieved the training of Shi’nay. If you have wings then you can fly anywhere you’d like. If you are a good swimmer, you can swim in whichever way you want. Mind has limitless skills. When you have trained your mind, you will have more freedom than you do now. Since mind is not physical, it is very easy to use it everywhere. Through training, you will know more extensively than what you do now, which is rather limited.

At present, your mind has no peace because you are not free to be at peace. Because the mind is in the habit of thinking constantly, like a waterfall, it is totally overwhelmed by thoughts. The habit of thinking is very strong. All the time, you are thinking because the mind connects to everything and everywhere. The thoughts are therefore incessant, and you have no freedom, only distractions. If you hear something, mind connects to the sound. If you feel anything, or see anything, your mind is right there. Mind is totally inundated by contacts. There is no rest, no peace. Peace of mind means to be free from thoughts. You need freedom of mind to have control of your mind. This means you need to be free from confusion. Then you will be able to maintain your mind in its peace.

Because mind has no form or substance, the extent of mind’s peace is limitless. There is just peace. When you are able to go deeper into the nature of mind, then it is called a realization of mind, which can get rid of the ignorance of mind. First you should have the freedom to rest in the peace of mind. Later, you develop the skill to realize the nature of mind, and then you will be free of the ignorance. These are the steps.

To achieve some freedom of mind, you practise Shi’nay. The level of Shi’nay within the ordinary level of mind does not take long to achieve. However, it does depend on effective methods. They are effective in pacifying the mind, to free it from thoughts, or to give it some freedom. One very effective method to gain control over the habit of thinking is to concentrate on the breath.

breathing and meditation sitting posture

The main causes for mind’s restlessness are ignorance and dualistic attachments. But temporarily, an imbalance in the physical posture can also disturb the mind.

To maintain a proper balance in the internal circulation, you need to know how to breathe gently. When your breathing is proper, it brings about a very balanced circulation in the body. It makes your mind comfortable and clear. The Buddha gave a lot of advice on health, too. One such advice is proper breathing, which keeps your physique very steady and comfortable.

To make mind peaceful, the sitting posture must be correct. A wrong sitting posture will give you physical as well as some nervous problems. Sit in the shape of a pyramid (triangular-shaped) where all sides of the body are properly balanced. It was exactly how the Buddha sat under the tree. He sat on a stone-seat with some kusha grass layered on top. Nowadays, we use cushions, and we don’t need to go to the forest either.

Here are the points for a proper sitting posture (They include all the points of the seven-point posture) :

- While sitting, the backside should be a little higher. The lap in front is thus lowered and slopes slightly downward. If you sit as you would on a sofa with the front higher and the back lower, then you cannot meditate. The full lotus posture for the legs is fine. If you cannot sit fully cross-legged, then you can adopt the half lotus posture with the left leg in and the right leg out.

- Regarding the two hands, the right hand is placed on top and in the left hand. Both hands are resting on the lap.

- The two elbows should not be bent. They should be straight, but not too much. If you have long arms that reach past the lap, you could rest the hands on the feet to give them support.

- The shoulders should be raised up slightly.

- Your eyes are open and looking downward and slightly ahead of you so that you can see the tip of your nose.

- The head or neck is tilted very slightly forward and not too much.
The stomach should be in. Below the navel is the abdomen. When you gently press in the stomach, the breath will go down to the abdomen so just keep it there. In this way, you will feel very comfortable. If you keep the breath in the stomach then it will become uncomfortable to meditate.

- The back should be straight, and when it is, your whole posture will naturally be proper. And the inner circulation of the breath will be smooth.

- The mouth is gently closed and you breathe through your nose. You should not breathe through the mouth. Just naturally, breathe very gently.

What is beneficial for health is to visualize the breath as a very bright (not straight, but slightly arched) beam of crystal light. This will prevent you from falling asleep, or feeling drowsy. The bright light brightens your mind and keeps away dullness. But do not attach to it. You should not have a vision of crystal as practised in some crystal religion. The object here is for your mind to concentrate on your breath. When breathing out, the light is almost touching to the ground, and when you breathe in, it comes back into you and down into the navel. The light is just a visualisation. It is not real. It is not like the tongue of a lizard, going out and in again. The light should be independent of you.

As to the length of practice, in the beginning, it should not be too long. Later on, when you are more trained, you can practise for a longer period. To concentrate means to focus the mind on the breath, and to keep the awareness. To be aware means you know what you are doing. And at the same time, you can count by mind. You can also use a mala, a counter, or you can use a clock, and time yourself for five minutes. Afterwards, relax a little, feeling free, and then you can start again. It does not matter whether you do it for five minutes, or for three, the point is to do it with quality. This means to keep the awareness, and try not to think unnoticed.

Training means to develop new habits. Your habit now is thinking constantly. You don’t need training in that. You already do it all the time. To train a new habit depends on the accumulation of the desired new habit. This means to accumulate ‘quality’, which is to focus with awareness – this is proper training. If you do one hour without resting during which time you are very distracted, then you are nurturing a bad habit again. Therefore, do it for just a short while, but with quality. There’s nothing wrong with that. To be clear means you realize, you are fully aware, whether you are concentrated or not. True, awareness is also thought, but that does not matter for now.

A 5-minute session with quality counting to 10, is much better than a 10-minute session of lower quality where you are distracted. In the latter case, you are not accumulating good habits. Instead, you are practising making mistakes. Therefore, do the five minutes well, and take breaks in between. If you can manage a count with quality to 10 for a five-minute period, then you will be trained very quickly. Soon you will be able to increase the duration to ten quality minutes with counting to 10. Many of my students in Washington D.C. in America can comfortably count to 100. There is even one member there, who could count to one thousand. Then mind is very, very peaceful and you will experience the wide peace of the mind. For extensive training, the practitioners train to have the capacity to count up to many thousands. This means that they are then fully trained.

the levels of Shi’nay

Counting the breaths is the first level. Not counting, or letting the mind to simply follow the breath is the second, and subtler level. A third level is where the mind does not even follow the breath. Mind just rests on the breath. Between these first three levels, you progress from coarse to more subtle, to very subtle. All three levels fall within the very preliminary levels of Shi’nay.

Another three levels that are even subtler follow the preliminary levels. The first of these is called realization of the connection of mind and breath where the realization of the described connection becomes the object of focus. When you are able to control mind then you will know how to do it. If you don’t have the control then it is difficult to imagine. But, that is the first step of the advanced Shi’nay.

Once you have become proficient in the first, you can then progress to the second level called playing. At this level, you will play a lot with the mind in order to extend the skills of the mind.

The next or third level is called pure level. This level is connected to Lhakthong (Vipassana). There you will enter into the natural peace of the mind. There is a way to enter into a more profound, deeper, or subtler state of mind.

You will be taught these levels according to your own progress in your practice. What I have presented to you is for your information only. The main thing for you to do now is to start the practice of the counting of breaths. The first three preliminary levels are very important. To dance in the water, you must first know how to swim. So, start from the counting.

Shi’nay is very important. Without Shi’nay you can never meditate. There is no chance, no way to meditate without Shi’nay. Think about it, how can you meditate with this busy mind? You cannot keep the candle lit in the wind. You cannot ride a wild horse without taming it first. Mind is like a wild horse so you should train it. And discipline is quite important in order to train the mind to be clear and energetic.

advice regarding eating

Usually, the advice for Shi’nay meditators is not to eat very heavy foods after 1p.m. This is very true from experience. When we do summer retreat in the monastery for 45 days, we do not eat after 1p.m. Mind is indeed very clear at that time.

During the time when Buddhism flourished in India, many highly qualified Indian monks and meditators had meditated very well. And when the Dharma was first introduced in Tibet, the Tibetans could not follow and meditate exactly like the Indian masters did. Their meditations were less successful but still good. One contributing factor for the difference had to do with eating. The very good Indian meditators had strictly kept the discipline of not eating after 1p.m. This was something the Tibetan meditators were unable to do. Meditators in China were even less successful than the Tibetan monks because they liked to eat a lot. Here we are talking about success in meditation. However, where karma is concerned, the Chinese monks in general, have less karma because they are vegetarians. The Tibetan lamas on the other hand, had to eat meat of the lamb and yak, especially in the olden days, when there were no other foods.

Milarepa’s diet consisted only of nettles. His diet, too, became a training tool for him. You can find this in his biography. He would think to himself in this way.

Food needs salt. Salt is food. Nettle is food. To add salt, I eat more nettles.

He was not making fun in the least. He would reason with himself and then he would apply the reasoning in his own experience. This was his line of reasoning.

Salt is food. Between food and salt, there is no difference so they are equal. Therefore, instead of adding salt, I will eat some more nettles.

Food needs butter. But butter is food. As far as their natures are concerned, food and butter are the same. So instead of butter, I will eat some more nettles.

So Milarepa ate only nettles. Not everybody can do what he did. Therefore, it takes the rest of us longer.

To be vegetarian like the Chinese monks, and then to eat only twice in the morning and not after 1p.m. will certainly make one very successful at practice. This was difficult for many people in the past especially for travellers who had the added problem of inconvenience. But nowadays, health foods are very popular and readily available. Meditators could easily manage to have more proteins in their diets. One could eat more in the morning, and only very light foods in the afternoon. This should prove very helpful for meditation. When the meditation is already advanced, then diet, or the timing of meals, will no longer exert as much effect on it.


be careful of attachments

In general, your job or everything else you do to make your daily life run smoothly is very important. As I explained this morning, attachment is the main chain, which ties up your mind. A very important advice then is to curb your attachments. They are the chains that tie you down. It is not your work or anything else that you have to do that binds you. It is your grasping and attachment. If you can make your mind freer from this kind of grasping, then the Western way of life will not deter or disrupt your meditation.

Again, how to sit is very important; sit in the right posture as I have demonstrated. The next is how to concentrate, how to keep your mind in the awareness of your concentration. And then comes discipline. These three points are key to the success of Shi’nay meditation.

Summary of meditation posture and method

We will do some meditation now.

The posture: The right hand is in the left hand and rests on your left leg. Raise the shoulders a little, but not forward, a little more towards the back. Keep the stomach in. Breathe into the stomach and press it down. Keep it below the navel, in the abdomen. The spine should be kept straight up. The neck is bent down a little. The eyes look to the ground along the nose. The mouth and the tongue are kept normal. The mouth is closed but without pressure. The advice is not to close the eyes when doing Shi’nay. Keep the eyes normal as usual. Blinking is not a problem.

Then concentrate on your breath. Breathe out gently, visualize your breath as a slightly curved beam of light, and it almost touches the ground. Then, it independently comes back in. You inhale and it goes down almost touching your navel. In, out, in, out. Concentrate and keep the awareness of whether the mind is focused on the breathing and the beam of light, or not.

While you are meditating, don’t be tense. But if you are too relaxed then you will fall asleep. So by thinking, or by forcing your mind to be brighter, you energize yourself.

Visualize your breath from the two nostrils, but as one beam of light, slightly curved, and independent of you. It’s tiny but very clear. Inhale and exhale. Do not try to think that the light is really there. It is just a vision. It is like training a wild horse. In the beginning, it is very uncomfortable for the horse to be controlled by people. It’s the same for the mind. At first, the mind doesn’t want to agree with you. But later, the mind will become naturally calm. Then, the mind will be very comfortable.

Concentrate on one thing. Try not to think so much.

When you breathe out, the tip of the light beam nearly touches the ground, and the other end of the beam is almost out just underneath the nose. Since the beam is visualized, it does not have to exactly follow through the whole body.

When you are used to it then you can expand it. You could do it all the way to the tip of the toe and so on. You will do that later. It will produce a good effect also. For now, visualize the light beam from the navel to the nose and out, more in a curve.

For beginners, those of you who have never done any meditation, this is very uncomfortable. The mind won’t stay focused. You may feel that you can never do it well. But do it. Quickly you will get used to it. You can do it.

Fonte: http://www.shamarpa.org/teachings/maha-curric05.php

▶ Comment

About this site


Mahamudra Upadesha
"Lo! This is the self-aware primordial wisdom. It is beyond all avenues of speech and all thoughts of mind. I, Tilopa have nothing further to reveal. Know all to be the display of awareness. Without imagining, without deliberating, without analyzing, without meditating, without investigating, just let the mind be in its natural state." - Mahasiddha Tilopa