Pointing Out the Great Way

times. The Sanskrit mahāmudrā (Tibetan, phyag rgya chen po) literally means “great seal” or “great gesture”

profound, ultimate, absolute reality that is otherwise called nirvāṇa, emptiness-compassion-womb, bliss-void-indivisible, clear-light relativity, buddhahood, truth realm, reality body, nonduality.

Mahāmudrā conveys in its own context the Buddha’s foundational discovery that reality, when it is mentally and viscerally, intellectually and experientially known as it truly is, is perfect freedom, infinite life, omnicompetent love and compassion, bliss.

It is given the name of the ultimate goal, great embrace, because it proceeds directly to the tender reality of blessed release; in all aspects of space and time, it perceives our existence as nondually and blissfully embraced in absolute freedom. Our extraordinary happiness automatically overflows as glorious love and compassion for all other beings, who are seen swimming with us in the ocean of luminosity.

As Westerners it is easy to take for granted how comfortable the conditions of our lives are, as compared to all the masters who ever walked the spiritual path throughout history.

We can practice meditation very comfortably, in a temperature-controlled environment, and we don’t have to worry unduly about eating healthily, getting sick, or getting distracted from our practice by invasions, robbers, animals, or insects. As the Tibetans would say, we as modern Westerners have a rare and precious opportunity.

For my research I used the Rorschach to measure changes in perception among practitioners who developed some proficiency in deep concentration.

research the kind of clinical problems that Western students encountered during intensive retreats, specifically how unresolved psychopathology interfered with progress in meditation.

and colleague Andrea Lindsay, LICSW. She helped show me that meditation is

an activity conducted while sitting on the pillow but a way of being, a way of living with complete awareness.

From a historical perspective, the Burmese mindfulness tradition is rather young, a tradition revitalized by the teachings of Mahasi Sayadaw and others over a half a century ago. The Indo-Tibetan Asaṅga-Maitreya tradition of concentration and special insight meditation has existed at least since the fourth century, and considering this much longer time span, it is not at all surprising that a sophisticated set of meditation methods evolved to handle most of the problems and common points meditators get stuck.

From the essence traditions, like mahāmudrā and dzogchen, I began to appreciate that the depth of realization possible during ordinary concentration and special insight meditation was enhanced remarkably by shifting to the very subtle or extraordinary level of mind. In other words, the issue became less about concentration on the intended meditation object and much more about the level of mind brought to the concentration, and that, from the mind-perspective, shifting from the ordinary self-representation to the extraordinary essence of the mind’s real nature as the vantage point during meditation quickly brought the meditation practice within the range wherein awakening the mind was a definite possibility.

The goal of concentration is to stabilize the mind so that the mind stays continuously and completely on the intended meditation object; the goal of ordinary special insight is the direct experience of emptiness; and the goal of the extraordinary or essence practices is full awakening, or enlightenment.

Few take their meditation practice seriously enough that during every meditation session they approach each and every moment of meditation with a deliberate carefulness based on the assumption that any single moment of flawless practice could establish the conditions to awaken the mind fully. I

approach to this book is helpful to Western meditators along the path… . This book has enjoyed a rather

Mystical states are said to be so profound that they are indescribable. This view is wrong.

Western mysticism largely has been restricted to individual practitioners, small groups, or time-limited movements, wherein the mystics either didn’t express their spiritual attainments in much detail, or expressed these attainments in idiosyncratic ways according to their unique realizations and cultural context. Tibetan Buddhism, in contrast, is a highly organized lineage tradition that has been around since the seventh century, with Indian roots that go back much further.

The central problem then for the Western reader in understanding spiritual development in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is not its alleged ineffability but the opposite: namely, understanding the vast and sophisticated technical language of internal meditative experience.

While instructions given in a book certainly cannot be personalized for each reader, nevertheless, the very richness of these descriptions of internal states of mind follows the spirit of the early pointing-out teachings.

Buddhism picks up where successful therapy leaves off, addressing ordinary unhappiness and how to overcome it.

The Pali word typically translated as “suffering” is dukkha, which could also be rendered as “reactivity.” For, as we experience events unfolding in our stream of consciousness moment-by-moment, the ordinary mind reacts based on ingrained habits.

If the event is experienced as pleasant, the mind habitually gravitates toward the event. If it is experienced as unpleasant, the mind pushes it away. In Buddhism these automatic reactive tendencies are referred to as clinging and aversion, and lapses in the continuity of awareness are called nonawareness, or ignorance.

In other words, Buddhism defines everyday unhappiness in terms of a habitual dysfunction in the way we process our experience. Seen in this way, it can be identified and corrected, and the root of everyday unhappiness can be eradicated.

In early Buddhism, enlightenment meant the eradication of the mind’s reactive tendency and its lapses in awareness. Such enlightenment does not change the content of our experience. Instead, whatever event we experience is experienced with full awareness and without any reactivity whatsoever. All life experiences—positive and negative—are embraced equally, with complete and continuous awareness, so that the quality of everyday experience is greatly enriched, moment-by-moment.

In the Mahāyāna perspective, the practitioner strives to awaken the minds of every sentient being.

Depending on their time in history, their cultural context, and their temperament, different individuals require very different methods of spiritual instruction. Finding

The sūtra methods generally are drawn from the practices of early Buddhism and are typically threefold: (1) preliminary practices to make the body and mind fit for formal meditation, (2)

concentration training to stabilize the mind, and (3) special insight practice to realize the mind’s essential nature. The tantric practices are twofold: (1) generation stage practice, which entails complex visualizations to stabilize the mind and manifest its essential nature, and (2) completion stage practice, which enhances these realizations at the subtle and very subtle levels of mind. Completion stage practices may involve manipulating the body’s energy currents in order to make the very subtle mind more readily accessible.

Some authors add a third category: sūtra vs. tantra vs. essence. Essence traditions are exemplified by the mahāmudrā and the dzogchen (“great perfection”) systems of meditation. The essence viewpoint asserts three levels of mind: coarse, subtle, and very subtle. The coarse level pertains to mental content, such as thoughts, sense perceptions, and emotions. The subtle level is the fleeting mental activity surrounding sensory experience before that activity becomes full-blown mental content. The very subtle, or extraordinary, level is the level where impressions due to past actions are accumulated before these ripen in fresh experience.

The skillful means in the essence tradition is this pointing-out instruction. In this context, the master’s job is (1) to assess accurately the state of the student’s mind, (2) to directly influence the student’s very subtle mind, so as to remove hindrances that might otherwise obscure realization, (3) provide a precise description of the mind’s real nature, and (4) awaken the student to direct realization of the mind’s natural condition.

The extraordinary practitioner gains this realization once the master directly points out the real nature of the mind. Ordinary practitioners generally do not understand the pointing-out instructions because their minds are too clouded by coarse-level thoughts, mistaken ideas, negative emotions, and dualistic perception of the external world. Therefore, ordinary practitioners must refine their minds through standard practices before the essence view can be introduced. The difference between ordinary and extraordinary meditation practice is the difference between working on the conventional and the deeper layers of the mind. In the original mahāmudrā tradition, the earliest masters literally sang the disciples into enlightenment with poems called dohās. The mind’s natural condition was directly pointed out by the master, who then gave instructions to negate any artificial activity during meditation.

differences in spiritual realization, which is a function of several variables, including: (1) practitioner traits (such as intelligence, the capacity to recognize and correct problems, the relative distribution of negative and positive states of mind, the level and range of meditative experience, and the state of mind at the time of pointing out); (2) teacher characteristics (quality of the teacher’s realization, capacity to teach or otherwise transmit realization); (3) nature of the teachings (clarity, depth, sophistication); and (4) context, which means the extent

to which teachings are generally available.

For ordinary individuals the gradual path of spiritual development is generally recommended,

Buddhism has its own version of learning theory. We could call it karma theory.

karma theory simply asserts that: (1) actions have predictable consequences, (2) repeated actions increase the force or weight of any action, and (3) discontinuing the action diminishes the consequences. The main emphasis of karma theory is that all actions have consequences. The consequences of any given action are said to ripen (smin ba) over time, first as mental events and later as behaviors.

ideas. Understanding the nature of the mind in mahāmudrā is conveyed by the term simultaneous mind (lhan cig skye sbyor). The term signifies that the mind’s awareness and its manifest events literally “arise together” in each moment of experience. Another way to say this is that the mind’s awareness and the events of ordinary consciousness form an inseparable pair, and that the perception of a duality is erroneous.

Awareness-itself, as an intrinsic property of the mind, is reflexively aware of its own nature all the time. It is described as “always staying (gnas

Another key concept in the mahāmudrā tradition is artificial activity. In everyday perception, dualistic perception comes from artificially constructing coarse perceptions based on the subtle mental activity associated with sense experience. This

occurs habitually because of the filter of dualistic perception, and the result is the perception of self as independent and self-existing.

Adopting the view that the mind’s real nature is nondual and already awakened has profound implications for meditation practice.

The correct view of mind is the mind in its natural condition, described by the concept of the simultaneous mind that couples absolute truth with the bliss of relative truth,22 and by the fundamental nonduality of mind.

The practitioner must set up the exact conditions for realizing the mind’s natural condition without resorting to artificial meditative activity. The practitioner simply lets the mind “stay”—connected with the correct view continuously—learns to recognize awakened wisdom as an intrinsic property of the mind in its natural state, and then protects the realization.

Root texts were used because they present the practice exactly as presented to practitioners on retreat. These instructions are amplified using important practical manuals, commentaries, and oral teachings.

Each of these primary texts was compared to all the other texts in an effort to construct a complete picture of spiritual development stage by stage, from the very beginning of practice to the post-enlightenment practices.

1. Cultivating The Motivation I. Generating Interest75 A. Interest

ORDINARY LIFE IS FILLED with suffering, and this suffering is the result of attachments and passions.

lifetimes; thus even such well-intentioned actions are not likely to get the novice practitioner very far. Except in very rare cases, Künga Tendzin says, most will lose interest in the discipline and revert to previous bad habits. Therefore in the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition, where the role of a teacher as spiritual friend (dge bshes) is central,78 a sentient being is said to take up the Dharma in a lasting way mainly through direct intervention by a teacher. Such intervention is

Suffering is caused by conflictual emotions (nyon mong; Skt., kleśa), erroneous conceptualization (rtog pa), and bad actions (las; Skt., karma). The ongoing continuum of negative emotional states, conceptualizations, and bad actions, in turn, is contingent upon the configuration of mental factors at any given moment.

It is not possible to follow Künga Tendzin’s reasoning or, for that matter, to understand spiritual practice at all without reference to the doctrine of cause and effect, for it provides the rationale for why meditative practice works as a solution to suffering.

According to this doctrine, all actions are believed to ripen (smin ba) into effects (byas) over time, and the repetition of certain actions further multiplies the effects. These effects become manifest in our experience in the form of signs (brtags) that appear first as mental events that arise in our stream of consciousness and then later in our observable behavior.

The continuum of mental experience, once defiled by cumulative bad karmic actions, tends to perpetuate itself and deepen its defiled condition over time, and over many lifetimes. As a result, the ordinary mind at any given moment is characterized primarily by the unfolding of habitually negative mind-states.

matter,

it is meant to capture the entire fabric of meaning: intensified interest; making an impact; distinguishing the features of the object; having all the features become clear; and finally, taking the object as precious.

II. CAUSING FAITH TO ARISE: THE DECISION TO TRY SPIRITUAL PRACTICE A. GENERATING FAITH It is impossible to pour liquid into a vessel without some belief that, first, you are capable of pouring it, and second, the vessel can contain the liquid. An action as mundane as pouring liquid requires at least some degree of faith.

Without the presence of the mental factor of faith, a beginner may question the new experience. Being riddled with doubt (the tshoms) during the interaction with the holy being interferes with independent action and spiritual development. The doubtful beginner is lacking in faith. In Buddhist psychology faith and doubt are opposites.129

faith is an outgrowth of admiration and respect.

Künga Tendzin says, “Faith is born from having grasped preciousness” (KT, p. 53). By awakening faith, the beginner makes a major stride in spiritual development. Beyond passive admiration, or even acting respectfully toward a lama, faith requires a most decisive act.

The beginner starts to entertain the possibility that he or she, too, might become such a perfected spiritual being, and even thinks that such a thing might be accomplished in this lifetime.

Then, having gathered together each and every one of your notions (blo) about it, you then let go of [all] reflections (bsam), notions (blo), and reasoning (gzhig). Generally you need only examine and analyze the immediacy of the six sense-systems, through which [directly] comes [the truth],

Ordinary people hear only their own ideas of the teachings. Ordinary people become attached to the words. [On the other hand,] great practitioners pursue the truth to understand it through leaving131 this [ordinary] state of affairs, and also through the precious wish-granting

The beginner is told to abandon higher cognitive operations, such as reflection, having notions, reasoning, and so on and is advised simply to take in what has been listened to without thinking about it. The beginner must go beyond the habitual security of ordinary thinking in a leap of faith. Faith requires the beginner to trust, even though present intellectual knowledge may not provide an adequate basis for trust. This kind of faith demands decisiveness toward the object of faith and, moreover, determination to persist over

and against episodes of intense doubt.

Second, the line in Künga Tendzin’s passage that reads “whose nature is incapable of being obscured by any bad karma” is a reference to the faith that purifies.

purification. In order to take up the teachings, the beginner must overcome fear (dogs pa), the emotional counterpart to doubt. A person who acts decisively to try put the teachings into practice acts like a fearless warrior, one who enters a battle without the slightest doubt about being victorious.

A person who acts decisively to try put the teachings into practice acts like a fearless warrior, one who enters a battle without the slightest doubt about being victorious. A warrior who becomes afraid during a battle fights much less effectively. Being hesitant makes the warrior quite vulnerable. Likewise, a single moment of decisive action cuts through all the unvirtuous mental factors that might otherwise inhibit spontaneous, proper action, much like a flash of lightning or a water-purifying gem. Such a warrior acts swiftly at the opportune moment.

A warrior who becomes afraid during a battle fights much less effectively.

Likewise, a single moment of decisive action cuts through all the unvirtuous mental factors that might otherwise inhibit spontaneous, proper action, much like a flash of lightning or a water-purifying gem.

Third, the more a warrior fights, the greater the desire for victory.

The beginner now wishes to “seek only what is rare” and wants only that which will bring enlightenment, the Dharma teachings. Furthermore, the beginner yearns more and more for direct experience of the truth, so much so that all else loses importance. He or she is “not satisfied with” ordinary unvirtuous mental states and behaviors (KT, pp. 89–91). Faith is said to be the “basis of all positive qualities,” and also the “basis of sustained interest.”

He or she is “not satisfied with” ordinary unvirtuous mental states and behaviors

The balance of mental factors is tipped only when faith comes forth.

Faith has been called “the mother of all that is positive.”139 Through awakening faith, the beginner experiences profound changes. This is called “knowing the benefit of faith” (phan yon du shes pa; KT, p. 94): You must have the support of unwavering faith in the root lineage and in the complete teachings…. Without that, you come to amass all the evils and harms of saṃsāra. Without faith, there is no chance of finding bliss, like being thrown naked into a deep well. Without faith, practice fails to come forth. You grieve, as if you were clinging to the edge of a deep abyss. Without faith, you fail to see the gods’ blissful faces…. Without faith, emotions become your enemy…. Without faith…you are vulnerable to Māra’s evils….

In short, you will come to know and experience all the miseries of saṃsāra’s realms from the harm of having no faith.

If you have faith, awareness-itself reveals the sense objects as virtuous, and the five sense gates manifest the enjoyment body.

If you have faith, whatever arises becomes bliss, like a newborn’s wonder of the truth.

transmission, the beginner is expected to read about the lives of the great saints. These accounts may include The Biography of the Eighty-Four Siddhas, a collection of

There are also the accounts of favorite Tibetan masters of the mahāmudrā tradition, for example The Life and Teachings of Naropa, The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa,141 and the like.

the beginner, whose personality and life situation pose enormous difficulties for spiritual development but who somehow manage to develop into great saints.

At the stage of generating faith, the beginner is told to abandon higher cognitive operations such as reasoning and reflection. During the next stage, called faithful recognition (dad pa la ngo shes pa), however, cognitive processes play an important role. A beginner who has faith is said to be capable of intellectually understanding (go ba) the truth (don).

Intellectual understanding—an event that occurs directly within the mental continuum—is considered to be the first type of direct (mngon du) experience of the truth.

No practice is likely to be fruitful without the oral reading that transmits the basis. The power of ignorance is not easily overcome without such a reading. The very clever need not engage in the intervening stages of practice (rim gyis) or meditation (sgom ba).

Henceforth, all appearance is the Dharma body. All sentient beings are the very Buddha. All activity of the [sense] aggregates are the dharmadhātu. All conceptual phenomena are [imaginary] like the horns of a rabbit.155

2. Preliminary Practice I. The Ordinary Preliminaries

Nges ’byung literally means “the occurrence of certainty,” and this is what makes the everyday world and its attachments less interesting.

You do not consider the extent to which your practice has weakened the conflicting emotions, but only the number of months and years you have been working at it. You examine others’ faults but not your own.

Your thoughts are lost in trivialities such as your reputation and amusements. You indulge in meaningless chatter. You imagine that you have integrated religious and worldly achievements when in fact not even one of these goals has been met.

it is better to instill these Four Foundations in the stream of your existence, even to a limited extent, than to practice all the recitations and meditations of the four tantras currently in use.

letting each of the four notions guide daily experience, the beginner is gradually brought to deeper and deeper resolve (brtan po) and renunciation. The change occurs in two areas: (1) the beginner resolves to engage in spiritual practice, and (2) he or she slowly but progressively renounces everyday concerns.

The change occurs in two areas: (1) the beginner resolves to engage in spiritual practice, and (2) he or she slowly but progressively renounces everyday concerns.

The Third Jamgön Kongtrül says, “What renunciation really means is developing the certainty that the conditioned world of samsara is devoid of true value.”159 Resolve and renunciation are two aspects of the same process.

practice. The Third Jamgön Kongtrül says, “What renunciation really means is developing the certainty that the conditioned world of samsara is devoid of true value.”159 Resolve

The beginner is required to abandon (spang ba) ordinary behavior and habits of mind. Rangjung Dorjé’s root text clearly expresses both aspects of this process when he says, “Having abandoned the activities of this [ordinary] life, you should practice earnestly for the truth of perfect enlightenment” (RD, p. 2).

Each one depicts both a particular exercise and a distinct stage (rim pa) in the ripening process. The four notions are called respectively (1) precious opportunity, (2) impermanence, (3) the cause and effect of karma, and (4) the sufferings of saṃsāra.

The four notions are called respectively (1) precious opportunity, (2) impermanence, (3) the cause and effect of karma, and (4) the sufferings of saṃsāra.

The Four Notions

1. Opportunity

“Act to have the truth now, for it is easy to lose that which is difficult to attain” (WD,

Systematically imagining living other, less fortunate lives and contrasting each of them to the current, more fortunate one

progressively develops a receptive attitude. The beginner genuinely comes to appreciate what a rare and precious opportunity it is to be relatively healthy of body and mind, to live at a time when great spiritual teachings are readily and easily available, and to have the intelligence to understand them.

Finally the practitioner imagines making modest gains in spiritual practice but using them narrowly, only as a means of escaping unfortunate life circumstances, not as a way of helping others.

The beginner imagines various ways of straying from diligent spiritual practice. These include strong attachments, ripening of bad karmic actions, lack of concern for the consequences of one’s behavior, lack of faith, behaving in unvirtuous ways, being ill inclined to practice, being unable to restrain oneself from negative karmic behaviors, and/or failing to live up to spiritual commitments.

There are five personal treasures to imagine: (1) being born as a human, (2) being born in a land where the Dharma is taught, (3) having a sound mind and body, (4) having met with a holy being, and (5) having generated faith in the teachings. There are also five treasures given by others. Imagine that (1) a buddha has appeared in this age, (2) a buddha has appeared who is inclined to teach, (3) the teaching has not deteriorated but flourishes, (4) there are many spiritual friends to support practice, and (5) there are benefactors to support the practice. In short the beginner is more likely to continue his pursuit after careful reflection upon how lucky he is. Each of these notions is a skillful means of increasing overall motivation.

From this day onward I must earnestly apply myself to practicing the Dharma. I must act to have the truth now, for it is easy to lose that which is difficult to attain. (WD, p. 53)

A precious human body like this one will never be found again. Do not let it go to waste! [it is]…the means to achieve enlightenment.163

2. Impermanence Opportunity is likened to the act of rolling a rock up a hill. If effort slackens, the rock rolls down the hill again. Similarly, failure in earnest application (nan tan) results in a fall to a lower state of existence in future lifetimes (ngan de song). The weight of ripening past karmic seeds is so influential that it becomes very easy to neglect spiritual practice, despite having made the decision to follow the spiritual path.

There is no greater motivating force (kun slong; KT, p. 8) for earnest spiritual practice than the raw awareness of the certainty of one’s own death.164

First, the beginner should “reflect that nothing lasts,” that is, reflect on the changes occurring in the external world as perceived over time, such as the passing of days, months, and years, or how much of his or her own life has already been used up. Seeing that time passes so very quickly, the beginner becomes frightened and worries more about what to do with his or her life (Jamgon Kongtrul, pp. 36–37).

Knowing that the same end will come to him or her, the beginner decides that the only real preparation for death is to be found in spiritual practice. Third, the beginner should “reflect

The cumulative result of these five reflections (bsam lnga) is summarized as follows: In brief, there is nothing for you to do but practice Dharma from now on. You cannot simply “let it be!” You must make it part of your very existence. You must meditate on making it part of your existence. Once you have achieved stability, you must become the type of person who will be happy at death, and whom others will venerate, saying, “He was a true religious man!”… Think: “Right now, since death is at my door, I must forget about things like food, money, clothing and fame. There is no time to spare!” and fit yourself, body, speech and mind into the path of the Dharma. (Jamgon Kongtrul, pp. 37–38)

The Cause and Effect of Karmic Action Making a decision to practice says nothing about the course of action to follow. The third of the four notions is designed to develop greater sensitivity to everyday actions and their effects.

Here are Wangchug Dorjé’s root instructions, directly following the reflection on impermanence: After you’re dead, your actions will come to you when you once again take another human form. So abandon bad actions henceforth; continually go beyond them by acting virtuously. (WD, p. 63)

The essential teaching of the doctrine of cause and effect is quite simple. Wangchug Dorjé’s commentator, Jamgön Kongtrül, summarizes: In brief: the result of wholesome action is happiness; the result of unwholesome action is suffering, and nothing else. These results are not interchangeable; when you plant buckwheat, you get buckwheat; when you plant barley, you get barley. (Jamgon Kongtrul, p. 42)

In brief: the result of wholesome action is happiness; the result of unwholesome action is suffering, and nothing else.

Nothing could be more “black and white,”170 to use a Tibetan colloquialism.

with an exercise designed specifically “to cut off the roots of attachment” (WD, p. 63).

Wangchug Dorjé’s root instructions say: Because you will be forever tormented by the obvious happiness and miseries of the saṃsāric realms, you should cut off the roots of attachment and accomplish the realization [of truth], as if you were an executioner enjoying a fresh kill. (WD, p. 63)

Because you will be forever tormented by the obvious happiness and miseries of the saṃsāric realms, you should cut off the roots of attachment and accomplish the realization [of truth], as if you were an executioner enjoying a fresh kill. (WD, p. 63)

In the words of Jamgön Kongtrül: The Five Miseries of Aging The miseries of aging include: (1) fading of complexion, (2) deterioriation of the form, (3) dissipation of energy, (4) impairment of the senses, and (5) decline of wealth. The Five Miseries of Illness The miseries of illness include: (1) sufferings in the increase of frustration and anxiety, (2) the body’s natural changes, (3) the inability to enjoy pleasant things, (4) the need to rely on what is unpleasant and (5) the approaching separation from life. The Five Miseries of Death

The miseries of death include: (1) separation from wealth, (2) from influence, (3) from attendants and friends, (4) and even from your own body, and (5) violent anguish. The Misery of Not Finding What You Seek Although you strive so hard for it that you lose all regard for the injury, suffering or malicious talk you inflict on others, you do not obtain the food, money or fame you desire. This is the misery of not finding what you seek. The Misery of Not Retaining What You Have Dreading the approach of an enemy, thief or a violent robber; being left with only the stars for a hat and the frost for boots; being exhausted from too much work; worrying about your ability to protect [your dependents]; and worrying that your enemies will not [be punished]: this is the misery of not retaining what you have. The Misery of Separation from What Is Dear Loss of essential persons such as parents, siblings, servants, students and so on; decline of wealth and power; loss of a large sum of money; anxiety about slander you have incurred through bad deeds or another’s jealousy: this is the misery of separation from what is dear. The Misery of Encountering the Undesirable Encountering illness, dangerous enemies, the arm of the law, a murderer, a bad reputation, evil rumors; incurring punishment in return for help; having lazy servants, and so on: this is the misery of encountering the undesirable. (Jamgon Kongtrul, pp. 44–46) To conclude the exercise, the beginner reflects on the miseries common to all sentient beings across the six realms. These three miseries include: the misery of misery, the misery of impermanence, and the misery of dependent origination.

The Misery of Not Retaining What You Have

The Misery of Separation from What Is Dear

Mental Factor Behavior Intellectual understanding (go ba) Unwavering faith (dad pa mi ’gyur ba) Reflecting upon notions (blo bsam) Earnest application (nan tan) Representing (dmigs pa) Striving (gnyer)

Everyday intellectual operations and motivational patterns are now drawn into the arena of spiritual transformation.

Renunciation is not an outward but an inward action; it means primarily that one uses the object of the five senses but does not depend on them or become attached to them. The opposite of this is what is called in Tibetan “hairy renunciation,” referring to the sudden outward abandoning of the pleasures of this life. Owing to a sudden passion to renounce what he thinks to be saṃsāra, someone might abandon all belongings and escape to a mountain retreat, only to return a week or two later feeling very discouraged and weak. Such “renunciation” is generally insincere and rarely lasts for more than a short time.

Attachment is the inability to separate oneself from something or someone and is also giving all of one’s energy to satisfying a desire, taking it as an ultimate goal.

Having developed such detachment, one should be happy to be with others but at the same time be able to adapt to changing circumstances.184

Genuine renunciation is never an impulsive act, but rather a slow transformation in the configuration of mental factors comprising the mental continuum and the karmic actions based on these.

As the beginner becomes less interested in the everyday world and its suffering, the natural recourse is meditation.

At this stage the beginner is now ready to take up the practice more formally by taking refuge in the Three Jewels.

Ii. The Extraordinary Preliminaries

He describes the extraordinary preliminaries as systematic, intense training until the beginner’s bodily and mental states are sufficiently pliable to undertake more advanced meditation practice.

…guidance in which one’s ordinary mind and the wisdom [of the enlightened ones] are pointed out as being one and the same, namely the simultaneous mahāmudrā.

The extraordinary practices are the means by which the practitioner adopts the attitude that his or her mind is already enlightened.

The four tantric exercises are: (1) taking refuge and generating the enlightened attitude, (2) the Vajrasattva meditation and recitation, (3) the maṇḍala offering, and (4) guru yoga.

According to this commentary, fear of misery193 is the prerequisite to taking refuge.

According to Gampopa, ordinary desires such as wealth and fame constitute improper objects of refuge because, being impermanent, they eventually lead to suffering. Putting faith in relatives or friends, even in gods, are improper objects because these beings have not entirely eradicated suffering themselves.

The more advanced practitioner knows there is no self-existing (yod pa) external object of refuge, proper or improper. Jamgön Kongtrül says: When you reach the goal, your awareness will be the same as the enlightened awareness of all the Buddhas. You will no longer need the Dharma and Sangha. (Jamgon Kongtrul, p. 57) To the extent that a practitioner understands that “one’s ordinary mind and truth, Wisdom, are one and the same, the simultaneous mind,” then the ultimate source of refuge is one’s very own mind (PK, f. 2a).

Very few beginners are able to understand that the ultimate object of refuge is the ground of enlightenment, the Dharma body itself.

In particular, the benefits of going for refuge are the following: becoming a Buddhist, becoming the support for all the [ethical] restraints, finding an end to harmful deeds resulting from previous actions, accumulating precious merit, never again falling to a lower state [of existence], remaining unharmed by the obstacle of [the extreme views of] eternalism and nihilism, bringing to fruition whatever has been reflected upon, the eight [virtuous dharmas] that quickly increase

purification, and taking refuge in the Mahāyāna. These are the most important benefits. (TN, pp. 231–32)202

Gampopa defines the enlightened attitude as follows: The essence of the formation of an enlightened attitude is the desire for perfect enlightenment in order to be able to work for the benefit of others.207 The enlightened attitude is, first of all, a “desire for perfect enlightenment.”

The essence of the formation of an enlightened attitude is the desire for perfect enlightenment in order to be able to work for the benefit

According to Gampopa, a bodhisattva does not wish enlightenment for one or several others. A true bodhisattva will not be satisfied until all sentient beings, as limitless as the atoms of space, have ended their suffering through enlightenment.209 This is why Wangchug Dorjé calls it a lofty state (bla na med pa). Only a superior practitioner (rab tu) can generate such a noble attitude.210

A true bodhisattva will not be satisfied until all sentient beings, as limitless as the atoms of space, have ended their suffering through enlightenment.209 This

Just as a seed contains the potential of a tree within itself, the enlightened attitude contains the potential of perfect buddhahood within it. Just as someone who sees a new moon knows it will become a full moon, a practitioner who generates the enlightened attitude also knows it will eventuate in buddhahood.

The greater the force associated with an action, the more likely it will ripen in obvious ways. Therefore development of an enlightened attitude is typically accompanied by the taking of a vow (dam tshig). Being difficult to break, a vow carries greater weight (mthu) relative to other actions and, as such, is more likely to insure that enlightenment for self and others will come to fruition. On the other hand, breaking the vow through lax practice cuts off (bcod pa) the effect, namely maturation toward enlightenment.

The four immeasurables are (1) kindness, or wishing only the best for others, (2) compassion for others’ sufferings, (3) joy for others’ gains, and (4) equanimity toward all beings.

enlightened-attitude-that-desires develops by “constantly think[ing], ‘I will attain omniscient Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings’ ”

61). Thus the practitioner vows to strive for enlightenment for all sentient beings and then repeats the vow many times, day and night, so that it

gathers force.

These practices originated with Atiśa, whose way of conducting the ceremeny (sbyor tshul) contained the following six steps: 1. Generating equanimity (btang snyoms): The practitioner starts by visualizing people who bring forth in him or her a strong feeling of love, then people who bring out a strong feeling of hatred, and finally people who bring out only a neutral feeling. This is repeated until the practitioner is able to generate equanimity toward these respective people, and ultimately toward all sentient beings. It is said to be impossible to generate an enlightened attitude without first developing equanimity. 2. Next the initiate imagines that over countless lifetimes all sentient beings were at one time his or her own mother (mar shes). This practice is said to generate love (byams) toward all. 3. Next the practitioner recalls specific instances of kindness (drin) given by his or her own mother, and then visualizes the kindness of every sentient being, each of whom was also once the practitioner’s mother in a former life. 4. Next comes a more systematic mindfulness of kindness (drin dran), through which the practitioner specifically imagines the kindness given by close friends and also by his or her spiritual teacher(s), who were also the practitioner’s mother in former lives. 5. Practicing these visualizations eventually leads to grasping the preciousness (gces ’dzin pa) of human life and also to the development of a desire (’dod pa) to bring love (byams), compassion (’snying rje), and joy (dga’ ba) to all sentient beings. The signs that an enlightened-attitude-that-desires is developing typically include the spontaneous emergence of this feeling of preciousness in everyday life, a greater

likelihood of restraining oneself (sdom pa) from harmful behavior, and a greater willingness to serve (bkol ba) others. 6. Finally, these signs ripen into the enlightened-attitude-that-desires. At that point a powerful sense of kindness toward others manifests itself in nothing less than a desire for enlightenment for all others, even above that of the practitioner himself.218 Having generated the enlightened-attitude-that-desires,

“The benefits of bodhicitta are not that great”; or relaxing the vow—all these are attitudes contrary to bodhicitta. If you do not correct these attitudes within three hours, the vow is broken. (Jamgon Kongtrul, p. 62)

First is nonabandonment (sbang med) of the attitude by thinking about the welfare of sentient beings at all times, in all situations.

Fifth is never forgetting (brjed med). Forgetting the enlightened attitude is the result of the four black deeds (nyes bzhi), which ripen from actions of previous lifetimes. These are lying, regret, slander, and deceit.

being truthful, acting in ways that cause no regrets, speaking favorably about others, and acting honestly.

some point the practitioner comes to realize that the entire course of everyday behavior must change and that it must approximate that of a bodhisattva. This realization is a natural outgrowth of understanding the doctrine of cause and effect.

The root cause of these errors is self-cherishing (bdag gces ’dzin):220 All humans make a great mistake in that they are very concerned about external enemies, which can only harm them in this life, yet they cherish their internal enemies—primarily self-grasping and self-cherishing—which harm them for countless lives. One should be less concerned with one’s environment and more concerned with the motivation to deliver all beings from suffering. To attempt to develop bodhicitta [enlightened attitude] for the sake of one’s own progress is still very selfish.221

and taking (gtong len) this way. He says, “Give all profit and victory to others; accept all loss and defeat for yourself” (Jamgon

When some unfortunate life circumstance occurs, the practitioner views it as none other than the ripening of past negative karma. Deep awareness of the suffering that has resulted from these past deeds leads to a greater motivation to persevere with spiritual practice.

The initiate also goes beyond mere acceptance of his or her own misfortunes to take on the sufferings of others: When you are beset by illness or demons, tormented by gossip or by an upsurge of conflicting emotions, take on the misfortunes of all other sentient beings. (Jamgon Kongtrul, p. 66) The skillful practitioner more and more welcomes misfortune and rejects gain until he or she can keep the enlightened-attitude-of-perseverance synchronized with the very rhythm of the breath.226

When you are beset by illness or demons, tormented by gossip or by an upsurge of conflicting emotions, take on the misfortunes of all other sentient beings. (Jamgon

C. ERADICATING HARMFUL FACTORS AND CULTIVATING FACTORS THAT POTENTIATE SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT

Taking the vow heightens awareness of the ordinary mind’s dysfunctional condition. From his knowledge of the doctrine of cause and effect, the practitioner knows that previous bad karmic actions have tremendous power.

The third opponent power is to “turn back the resultant negative action” by means of resisting (sdom pa) the same action in the future (TN, p. 239). The practitioner makes the promise, “Even if my life is at stake, I will never do it again” (Jamgon Kongtrul, p. 84). This is self-restraint. Because karmic effects never diminish, the only way to achieve the complete cessation of suffering is to achieve enlightenment.

Tashi Namgyel likens the meditation to a forest fire, which, once ignited by the winds of ethical training, quickly consumes all obstacles to spiritual development (TN, p. 240).

Sins and obscurations accumulated from former lives are quickly eradicated by the tiny lamp of the Vajrasattva meditation and recitation.

b. The Tantric Vajrasattva Meditation

1. Reflect, [then visualize] Vajrasattva on the crown of your head. He has the [hundred-syllable] mantra [in his heart]. After having confessed and restrained, [imagine that] a stream of nectar pours [from him] and settles in your own body, wherein it cleanses all the sins and obscurations.

Actions which are wholly motivated by attachment, aversion and stupidity but have not assumed a concrete physical or verbal form are mental actions. Those which have assumed concrete form are physical or verbal actions. All actions begin as mental actions. Therefore it is said: “The mind is the source of the poison which leads the world into darkness.” (Jamgon Kongtrul, p. 82)

During the meditation the practitioner considers his or her ordinary self (bdag nyid) to be identical to that of the extraordinary being, Vajrasattva. After the meditation the practitioner becomes alert to certain signs (rtags) of the resultant purification, namely lightness of the body, less need for sleep, better health, clear-mindedness, and fleeting moments of special insight (Jamgon Kongtrul, p. 82). Nevertheless the results of the meditation are short-lived. Without continual repetition of the meditation, along with daily ethical behavior, the practitioner is unable to sustain the momentary purification.236

Vajrasattva. After the meditation the practitioner becomes alert to certain signs (rtags) of the resultant purification, namely lightness of the body, less need for sleep, better health, clear-mindedness, and fleeting moments of special insight (Jamgon Kongtrul, p. 82). Nevertheless

2. Cultivating Virtue: Factors That Potentiate Spiritual Development

The former pertains to virtuous propensities accumulated by one’s own skillful effort, which ripen in the form of positive mental states and virtuous behavior in the future, but which do not ripen in the form of realization. The latter are virtuous propensities resulting from one’s skillful effort, which eventually ripen in the form of direct realization of spiritual truth:

Out of his compassion, the lama manifests an emanation body so as to appear in an ordinary human form so that he or she can impart awakened wisdom

to others. What began as a seemingly chance encounter with an extraordinary being culminates in guru yoga as a formal initiation (dbang skur ba; WD, p. 83) in order to quickly bring the practitioner to direct realization by means of the four influences.250

…Mahamudra meditation should not be practiced haphazardly, just sitting in the meditation posture without having the certainty of the proper view. It is very important first to acquire the proper view on the true nature of mind in order to practice meditation on this foundation.

One of the signs of ripening is the urge to meditate more.

Do not run full tilt at tranquility and special insight. First, cultivate a fertile ground for positive qualities within yourself.

Iii. The Advanced Preliminaries

Although certain signs of progress are guaranteed, the result—firmness (brtan pa)—is not. “Firmness of mind” means uninterrupted awareness of the right view in all situations, in all activities.

not. “Firmness of mind” means uninterrupted awareness of the right view in all situations, in all activities.

to help the practitioner attain firmness. These practices are strenuous in that they strive toward the goal of uninterrupted practice, even in sleep (TN, p. 257). The practitioner uses diligence (brtson ’dgrus), which helps overcome laziness, and striving toward virtue and truth. When diligence gains momentum over time, certainty is said to arise in the mental continuum of its own power (rang slobs). The practitioner progresses from mere occasional signs to uninterrupted awareness of the true nature of the mind formerly pointed out during guru yoga.

Repeated practice of behavioral restraint leads to the development of an internal attitude, namely the mind-that-lets-go. The practitioner then protects the attitude that has developed through mindfulness training.

Through this cognitive appraisal process, raw sense data become associated with conceptualizing (rtog pa) and emotional states (nyon mong). Distinct sensory preferences, notably attachment and aversion to certain sense objects, is an outgrowth of this process.

The practitioner is now instructed to reverse the perceptual process by which attachment and aversion develop by carefully observing exactly when the mind becomes attached to or averts from certain perceptual attributes (mtshan ma). Sensory restraint entails observing moment-by-moment perceptual events with the attitude of the mind-that-lets-go, until the mind is less inclined to grasp (’dzin pa) any given attribute of perception over another.

Then the mind naturally settles inwardly “in a virtuous or neutral state.”

Behavioral and sensory restraint complement each other.

Practitioners who do not live in such controlled environments need to work much harder to master behavioral and sensory restraint. The goal of both types of restraint is continuous practice in all situations:

Reducing attachment to ordinary sensory experience is made easier by the practice of mindfulness (dran pa).

Mindfulness literally means to “re-collect” (dran pa) mental events that otherwise unfold in a disorganized, scattered way. It is likened to taming a wild elephant by chaining it to a post:

To recollect is to plant awareness deeply within the object as if planting a firm post in the ground.275 If this elephant of the mind is bound on all sides by the rope of mindfulness, all fear disappears and virtue comes forth.

According to that text, there are four types of supports: the body, feeling

The latter type includes the virtuous and nonvirtuous mental factors, perceptions, thoughts, and emotions.

tone, state of consciousness, and contents of consciousness.

support of awareness. Regardless of the type of support used to train mindfulness, the primary goal is to develop continuous awareness without discontinuities or lapses in awareness. From the perspective of mind, the goal is uninterrupted mindfulness (rgyun brnyan bar byed) of everything as it occurs in the unfolding mental continuum. This is what Jampel Pawo calls protecting the mental continuum (rgyun skyong ba; JP, f. 15a).

Jampel Pawo calls mindfulness a limb of realization (yang dag byang chub kyi yen lag), in which the practitioner comes to realize that all phenomena are empty. When mindfulness reduces the mental continuum to discrete moments of awareness, moment by moment, it becomes more difficult to locate a point of observation, or self, that is distinct from these mind-moments, and in this sense mindfulness lays the experiential foundation for direct understanding of emptiness:

Mindfulness pertains to periods of sitting meditation. Full awareness pertains to the application of pure awareness while going about daily activities (las).

Diligence refers to strong effort to apply mindfulness/full awareness in all activities in order to overcome laziness and achieve the goal of uninterrupted mindfulness at all times. Concern means being sensitized toward virtuous thought and action so as to prevent reverting back to harmful thought or behavior. No

Apply it like this when standing—standing in a crowd of evil beings, or even standing in a crowd of women. An ascetic’s firmness is never impaired. It is all right to be without property; it is all right to be without honor or life of the body. It is all right for happiness to fall away too; but it is never all right for the mind to be impaired. To those wishing to guide the mind with mindfulness and full awareness, who protect accordingly, with all their efforts, I fold my hands in prayer! (BCA,

Direct observation of the mental continuum moment by moment leads to the discovery that the continuum is constantly changing.

Attempting to apply nonreactive, pure awareness to whatever arises also naturally leads to an appreciation of the mind’s incessant reactivity to whatever comes into awareness.

However, it is generally acknowledged that only highly capable practitioners can practice the preliminaries as a condensed unit all at once, rather than in the more conventional stages. To this end, special texts have been written that combine all the practices into one, for example Trophu’s Guidebook of the Five-Parts Mahāmudrā.293

While the preliminary practices prepare the mind for the realization of certainty, true realization comes only after rigorous meditation.

Continuous elaboration is called “wandering” (’khor ba) from one thing to another, with the mind attaching itself to one sensory object or thought after another.

The ordinary mind constructs (bcos pa) images and ideas for the range of sensory stimulation (reg pa), and these mental constructions become more and more elaborate, in the form of ideas (blo), conceptualization (rtog pa), and conflictual emotional states (nyon mongs).

According to Tsongkhapa, the purpose of concentration meditation is to bring the mind under control and make it serviceable. He says, “Serviceability means that you can direct your mind as you wish toward a virtuous object of meditation.”298

intended meditation object cannot easily be separated from the coarse content of the mind, mostly elaborate thinking. The beginner easily confuses attention with thinking. Since attention is confounded with thinking in these early stages, they are referred to as contemplation (bsam gtan), not as formal meditation (sgom ba).

Once learned, or indeed overlearned, driving becomes second nature. Little awareness is needed to perform all of the requisite driving skills quickly and effortlessly. Learning to meditate is very similar, in that it requires four similar skills—directing, intensifying, pliancy, and intelligence.

Likewise, tying up the mind to a meditation object is the primary strategy by which the mind learns to stay without distraction.

The degree to which the mind learns to stay on the intended meditation object is a function of another skill, intensifying (sgrim ba). Just as progressing along the road while driving requires skillful use of the accelerator to supply more or less fuel to move the car along, progress in developing the skill of staying depends on similar skills of intensifying and easing up.

With practice, smaller and smaller adjustments are necessary to make the mind stay there.

at the painting much more carefully. What does the mind do at that point?

Meditators learn to adjust the degree of energy being supplied to concentration at any given point just like learning to adjust the accelerator while driving. From the mind-perspective, adding more energy—intensifying—makes the mind stay better and decreases the likelihood of distraction. However, supplying too much intensity results in agitation of both body and mind, as a result of which the mind doesn’t stay on anything.

The skilled meditator knows when to intensify and when to ease up depending on the quality of the meditation at the time, just as a skilled driver knows when to accelarate or deccelerate according to the conditions of the road.

From the event-perspective, the mental continuum’s coarse content comes forth with greater clarity. Visual objects are brighter, eventually becoming luminous.300 Bodily sensations are felt more vividly. Staying and clarity are independent but complementary signs of meditation progress viewed from two perspectives.

Learning to direct a flashlight to

an object and then holding the flashlight steady makes the light stay, but if the batteries are weak, the light will stay but have little clarity. Conversely, a flashlight may have strong batteries so that the object is very clear, yet the hand that holds it is unsteady so that the light fails to stay on the object. In this manner, intensifying and easing up are inversely related. Intensifying leads to more and more staying, but at the expense of clarity. Easing up leads to more and more clarity, but at the expense of staying.

Therefore the skilled meditator first learns to intensify so that the mind stays longer and more fully on the intended object. Once the mind is able to stay on its own for some duration as a function of intensifying, the meditator then learns to ease up to bring out greater clarity. With experience the meditator knows precisely when to intensify and when to ease up so that both qualities—staying and clarity—are equally strong.

A rudimentary type of mental pliancy is the ability to stay on the intended meditation object despite marked shifts in mental content or state of consciousness.

“bad mental state” is defined as a condition in which the mind during meditation “cannot bear…being aimed at its object of observation.”301

More experienced meditators reserve a small part of the mind to practice full awareness continually while the larger part of the mind remains bound to the intended meditation object.302

and perhaps by taking a vow of silence. Letting go of the great influence of ordinary thought is understanding that the act of focusing attention or applying awareness is fundamentally different from the act of thinking,

model. With respect to the mind, an important benefit of attentional skill development is an increased sense of organization of the mental continuum.

Many Westerners have the mistaken view that contemplation and meditation lead to bodily relaxation.

Contrary to the claim that meditation is a form of relaxation, scientific electromyographic studies of the striate musculature during meditation have shown that meditation postures do not result in relaxation but rather in an even output and distribution of muscle activity. Holding a meditation posture fixed for the duration of the meditation session requires continuous muscle work.

Before beginning the body-point exercise, the practitioner must put everyday life in order.

Once coarse bodily activities “settle into themselves,” the practitioner begins to discern the more subtle activity of the main and subsidiary energy currents within the body.

Wangchug Dorjé, in his expanded root instructions, is very explicit about the benefit: Unlimited benefit comes from the proper action of the currents and channels. (WD, p. 85)315

Pema Karpo adds: The awakened wisdom of nonconceptualization arises. (PK, f. 2b)

Wangchug Dorjé also adds: First the energy currents flow less. Then they settle into themselves without searching. Then, left alone [in this way], bliss and clarity come forth at the coarse level of the preliminaries. (WD, p. 85)

Tashi Namgyel says that impressions (’jug shes) no longer arise toward their sense objects (yul). Negative emotional states also cease. When Wangchug Dorjé refers to “bliss” (dbe ba), he is referring to the relative cessation of negative emotional states during contemplation. When Wangchug Dorjé says “without searching” (rtshol med), and Pema Karpo speaks about nonconceptual stillness (mi rtog), they are referring to the cessation of cognition at the coarse level of the mind.

Brightness (dwangs) refers to a quality of mind that manifests once no longer obscured by elaborated thought.

becomes calmer, the chaotic activity of the energy currents and mental continuum seem more salient.

The more the beginner tries to maintain a contemplative perspective, the harder, it seems, it is to do so. Jampel Pawo likens the problem of chaotic mental activity, and its interference with meditation, to an itching sensation that won’t go away: About this time the beginner’s meditation appears like an intolerable itch that can’t be scratched. It is therefore very important to know both what happens to obstruct the generation or continuance [of contemplation] and also what conditions cause you to lose the very slight partial-staying that you have. (JP, f. 11b)

The main condition obstructing progress is the enjoyment of speech (smra ba la dga’ ba; JP, f. 10b): Generally, enjoyment of speech is the gateway to poor [results].321

The isolation of speech is called stopping speech, or speech staying settled, because of the silence that follows from expiring the breath and keeping quiet. (PK, f. 3a)

In order to master contemplation, the beginner must let go of the enjoyment of speech.

bring about the purification of the three poisons exhale three times. Then how much more of your foolish ordinary talk should there be? After a little while, don’t even say the recitations you know by heart. (JP, f. 11a)

The practitioner eases up on trying to follow any given train of thought and simply recognizes that mental chatter is occurring moment by moment. Over time repeated easing up greatly diminishes the overall amount of mental activity during contemplation, so that mental chatter eventually becomes less of an obstruction.

The VajrapīṭĀatantra says, “Breath and speech without movement. This brings forth the fruit, namely contemplation.” (JP, f. 11a)

In the mind-isolation exercise (yid dben), the practitioner is instructed to cease engaging in all arbitary mental activity, which includes not only going after certain thought elaborations but also trying to do specific things to meditate, such as intensifying or easing up. Instead of artificial mental activity, the requirement is simply to allow awareness itself (rang rig pa) to manifest itself. Wangchug Dorjé’s root instructions say:

The general mind points: cut off the three times, and whatever has arisen comes forth so purely. (WD, p. 65)

The references to “the three times” (dus gsum) and to “whatever has arisen” (gang shar) pertain to an acute awareness of the process of unfolding of events (not the content) in the mental continuum.

Though these events may vary in their respective content, each successive event is experienced as a discrete unit. One event occurs and ceases before another comes forth. Instead of the previous chaos of many conflicting trains of thought at once, events now unfold one at a time, moment by moment, in a regular succession.

The phrase indicates that attachment to specific mental content becomes less important. The content is simply “whatever.”

The process by which thought ordinarily proliferates so as to mask the succession of simple, discrete events is called elaboration (’phro ba). As elaboration intensifies, there is more mental content to distract (gyeng ba) awareness. Elaboration is to thought content what distraction is to awareness.

Various types of coarse mental content occur during a single contemplation session: thoughts, perceptions, sensations, and emotions.

The reference to “the three times” indicates the categories of mental events likely to occur at this stage of contemplation. Past elaboration (’das pa) refers to personal memories.

Future elaboration (ma’ ongs pa) refers to anticipation of certain experiences or future events. For example, the practitioner may hope for a certain type of experience from the meditation practice and look forward to this. Present elaboration (da lta) refers to labeling, categorizing, or otherwise reflecting on present experience.

For example, the practitioner may try to figure out whether the meditation, at any given moment, is being done correctly according to the teacher’s oral advice. Although each of these forms of elaboration vary in duration and intensity, each serves as a powerful condition (rkyen) for cultivating distraction and eroding contemplation, much in the same way that weeds become the reason a seed fails to ripen.

is designed

The advice for cutting off elaboration comes in two stages, each one of which

form: [Step One:] Do not follow the past. Do not reflect. Do not anticipate what was past going into the future. Do not think, “I am doing or will do this.” Let all categorizing about the present settle. [Step Two:] Establish what begins to arise only as present in the state of ordinary knowledge, bliss. Place your mind to stay without any activity whatsoever [in your mind, such as] abandoning or taking up, expecting or doubting. Don’t artificially construct anything, but stay in the state of freshness, uninterruptedness, by-itself. (WD, pp. 85–86)

Pema Karpo’s root text gives several examples of specific types of reflections: Do not conceptualize [blos btangs nas],326 nor hold [specific] views [blta], for example, about so-called emptiness as being nothing whatsoever. (PK, f. 3a)

this,

From the event-perspective, arising events remain fresh in the moment and do not artificially become constructed into thought elaboration. Describing events as settling into themselves (rang babs) contrasts the ordinary tendency to elaborate upon immediate experience. From the mind-perspective, some skill develops in placing the mind readily on the intended meditation object. This “way of placing [the mind]” (’dug tshul) occurs easily and quickly during contemplation and can be held uninterruptedly (lhug par).

The instructions are to establish the mind “easy” (glod), “freshly” (so ma), “self-contentedly” (rang gar), and “uninterruptedly” (lhug par; JP, f. 13a).

Wangchug Dorjé’s phrase stay so that you don’t have any activity whatsoever refers to the effortless, automatic quality of mind, from the mind-perspective.

7. EXTRAORDINARY PRACTICE THE NONDISSOLUTION EXPERIENCE marks a profound shift in consciousness. From the event perspective, the ordinary mental continuum is experienced in a radically new way—no longer as discrete coarse- or subtle-level successive mental events, but as a vast atemporal network of very subtle, interconnected propensities (bag chags), seemingly produced en masse. The practitioner begins an entirely new set of exercises, called the extraordinary practices (thun mong ma yin pa).

I. The Yoga Of One Taste

No matter what level of mind, all experience becomes the great desire for enlightenment. Yet this desire need not be another form of attachment. To the extent that the practitioner has correctly entered the Middle Path, the taste of enlightenment is not so much an artificial expectation as it is a self-occurring (rang ’byung) given of the extraordinary samādhi state.

To the extent that the practitioner has correctly entered the Middle Path, the taste of enlightenment is not so much an artificial expectation as it is a self-occurring (rang ’byung) given of the extraordinary samādhi state.

From the event perspective, the shift to the very subtle level of mind—experienced as a ground or great network of interconnected karmic impressions of potential experience—puts the practitioner in a position to experience the equanimity of all potential phenomena.

In this sense, knowledge of emptiness is said to stay (gnas) as awareness-itself pervades the network of all karmic propensities throughout all virtual realms and times.

In a sense, we are focusing on being the flashlight.521

From the extraordinary perspective, the natural mind and its event-making function are inseparable. Jamgön Kongtrül explains: One Taste is the union of external objects with the internal awareness that experiences them. Distinctions between subject and object no longer occur.526 However, this fundamental nonduality between the mind and its appearances at the extraordinary level does not mean that events don’t really occur. To protect against the extreme of nihilism, Alexander Berzin, in The Gelug/Kagyü Tradition of Mahamudra, says: Non-duality does not render the mind and its objects totally identical—one and the same thing. Experience always has contents.… Non-dual, then, means that at any moment, these two things—mind and its objects, or experience and its contents—always come together as one entity.527

Therefore since you know bliss and emptiness, clarity and emptiness, and awareness and emptiness to be [nondual] pairs, you understand what is called “many as one taste.” (JP, f. 79a)528

A. THE VIEW 1. Simultaneous Mind The key technical term in the mahāmudrā tradition is lhan cig skye sbyor (Sanskrit, sahaja). It means literally “arising together” or “simultaneous.” Simultaneousness has a number of technical meanings: (1) In one sense, it means that when awareness-itself is taken as the point of observation at the extraordinary level, the mind’s awareness and the content of its experiences arise together as inseparable aspects. (2) The vast network of all potential experience and the occurrence of seemingly discrete events arising in the temporal mental continuum come together in each moment of experience. (3) From the point of observation of awareness-itself, clarity and emptiness arise together in each seeming moment of experience. (4) From the mind perspective, the extraordinary level of practice invites a remarkable realization about awareness-itself.

itself. Awareness-itself begins to seem less and less like the practitioner’s ordinary awareness packaged in ordinary patterns of thought or self-representation or even packaged in the practitioner’s seemingly unique individual consciousness.

This passage illustrates how the deepest level of awareness-itself pervades or saturates all levels of the phenomenal world at the very subtle, or extraordinary, level as well as at the subtle (“movement”) and coarse (“support”) levels of the seemingly ordinary temporal mental continuum.

From the extraordinary perspective, awareness-itself saturates all phenomena because this awareness ultimately is the dharmakāya. Tashi Namgyel quotes the Hevajra Tantra: In the Two Signs it says, “This profound wisdom, as the ground, stays everywhere. It is the way that is neither dual nor nondual, neither with nor without substance. This supreme state stays, pervading all that stays and moves.” (TN, p. 418)

Technical terms such as always there and from the beginning signify that the point of observation is awareness-itself held at the extraordinary level of mind, so that relative experience is always coupled with emptiness from this perspective.

The truth of emptiness, for all possible experience, becomes absolutely certain only when such phenomena are allowed to ripen spontaneously and are “neither prevented nor made to happen” (TN, p. 470).

In order to achieve the highest clarity possible in human experience, the practitioner must allow the ordinary mind to manifest experience on all three levels—the coarse, subtle, and very subtle. Revisiting ordinary experience as a vehicle for wisdom is unique to extraordinary practices (thun mong ma yin pa) such as mahāmudrā.

3. Mistakes Become Wisdom Holding awareness-itself at the extraordinary level as the point of observation by which to examine conventional experience as it seems to arise results in profound purification of any residual defilements that might otherwise obscure the realization that the ordinary mind is itself the carrier of the Mahāyāna enlightenment experience (TN, p. 416).

Realizing all phenomena and mind to be empty and nondual at the subtlest level of mind eliminates all such obscurations.

Perceptions, thoughts, emotional states, and sensations were once described with such adjectives as “enemies,” “poisons,” or “mistakes.” Now these same phenomena are given different descriptors. They are called “friends” (grogs).

It comes from the oral advice of the true-hearted ones and from their [directly] pointing out that these are simultaneous while your mind stays [at the extraordinary level of samādhi]. (TN, p. 424)

At a lower level of realization, simultaneousness refers to the fundamental nonduality of the mind and its manifest appearances and thoughts, so that appearances and thoughts are realized to be the display of the spontaneous activity of awareness-itself. Therefore clarity and emptiness are natural conditions inherent in the mind’s manifestations as they occur in awareness.

The former substage sets up the extraordinary samādhi to realize simultaneousness, and the latter substage is a continuation of the meditation until the three levels of one-taste realization have ripened.

Tashi Namgyel’s initial instruction, called “Entity,” is a review of the practitioner’s understanding of emptiness, now looked upon from the extraordinary level of the always-here mind.

Quoting Gampopa, he says, “Mind-simultaneousness is the dharmakāya, and appearance-simultaneousness is the light of the dharmakāya” (TN, p. 423). Direct realization of the simultaneous mind is important because it establishes the foundation for enlightenment through which buddha bodies come forth (TN, p. 424).

Tashi Namgyel explains the practice in terms of finding just the right balance between staying calm and special insight. The practitioner stabilizes the meditation at the extraordinary level of samādhi and takes the way the realized mind stays (gnas tshul) as the point of observation. Tashi Namgyel explains, “Set up the mind in the way the realized mind stays” (TN, p. 426).

How does a bodhisattva meditate? The answer: by taking-to-mind the stream as it arises, you take-to-mind the [real] nature of mind. (TN, p. 429)

Nāgārjuna says, “Seeing any substance as it really is is seeing all substance as it really is.” (TN, p. 443)

Freshness refers to the absence of any conceptual elaboration whatsoever. Under that condition the meditator is able to “recognize the ordinary mind.”

Once having achieved the undistracted perspective, awareness-itself never departs from continuous awareness of the mind’s nondual intrinsic nature, and the meditator need not do anything to sustain that continuous realization. This is the true meaning of the technical term the way the realized mind stays (gnas lugs). There is no special state nor any particular attainment to protect, as was the case in previous protecting exercises: The Tantra of the King of Secret Nectars says, By meditating on the [natural mind’s] real nature—emptiness and clear light—there is nothing to attain. By not meditating there is nothing to attain. Meditation is a false concept. Nonmeditation is a false concept, too. There isn’t even the slightest cause to meditate, Nor [the slightest] movement of distraction.

The first metaphor, sleep and dreams, is designed to point out the correct view of the simultaneous mind. The root instructions are: First, pointing out appearance to be mind by the metaphor of sleep and dreams: Just as whatever appears during sleep is none other than the mind, likewise, all waking appearances are the dreams of waking state’s ignorance and are none other than the mind. Set up [awareness-itself] in an eased-up manner on whatever appears, so that the seeming external sense objects that appear and the mind-itself become inseparable and transmuted into one taste. Milarepa, the lord of yogis, says, Experiencing last night’s dream carries the same realization as the teacher who pointed out appearance to be mind. Is this not so? In the Hevajra Tantra it also says, Transmute all three realms, without remainder, into one great desire. (PK, f. 12b)

Continuous mindfulness and an undistracted perspective, free from any artificial activity to sustain the realization, are intrinsic properties of the natural mind-itself, so that all seeming appearances arise as manifestations of the same taste of emptiness.540

For some the clear light of awakened wisdom shines more intensely and for a longer time, like the sun breaking through the clouds. For the exceptional practitioner the initial dawning of awakened wisdom immediately becomes full enlightenment, like the sun arising in a cloudless sky.541 For most practitioners, however, this initial fleeting glimpse of awakened wisdom doesn’t last, and may not even be appreciated for what it is.

Tilopa says, Truth derived from reflection does not lead to [real] truth that transcends reflection, nor does truth derived from activity. If you think otherwise, you don’t understand!

Firmly hold the perspective of nonartificially constructed naturalness. (TN, p. 479)

Likewise, the meaning of not-taking-to-mind is also defined in the Avikalpapraveśadhāraṇī [Force of Entering into a Nonconceptual State.] It says, [Question:] O sons of the lineage, why is anyone who enters the nonconceptual realms said to be not-taking-to-mind? [Answer:] Because one really passes beyond the attributes of all mental events. He who does so learns how to really pass beyond all [dualistic] mental events. This is the meaning of not-taking-to-mind.

When taking-to-mind any object, a dualistic distinction is made. Taking-to-mind disrupts the mind’s natural condition by selecting or particularizing this or that object. By focusing upon a particular object, the continuity of awareness across all phenomena is disrupted and one becomes distracted from the general awareness of the one taste of all phenomena. This fundamental intentional act is the basis of all forms of discrimination, which leads to false conceptualization and then to mistaken views. When the mind does not move toward any seemingly appearing object, and more specifically does not-take-it-to-mind, the most rudimentary basis for any discrimination falls away, and the practitioner completely transcends all false conceptualization. Mastery of not-taking-to-mind completely purifies the mind of any tendency to move toward or away from seeming objects.

Not-taking-to-mind is the negation of any artificial activity associated with the relative activity of the simultaneous mind. The way the realized mind appears (snangs lugs) is not associated with any artificial activity, including the artificial activity inherent in every moment of ordinary perception.

“Just as a crow who flies from its ship circles in all [ten] directions, and flies back to the ship again, [because it doesn’t sight land], likewise, the desirous mind pursues thought, but its initial intention [quickly] settles itself into the innate mind.”(TN, p. 533)574

According to Tilopa, such uninterrupted, effortless mindfulness finds no refuge (gtad so) in any particular events of the mind because of their inherent emptiness/clarity, so that awareness-itself turns back on itself and naturally crosses over. Crossing over is most likely to occur when there is absolutely no artificial activity associated with meditating or with mindfulness of the simultaneous mind. Crossing over cannot occur when a dualistic distinction is made between meditator and that which is meditated upon. The practitioner cannot use even valid concepts or views to secure crossing over (TN, p. 608). There is nothing to “generate” (TN, p. 608). There is nothing to “meditate” on (TN, p. 609). Expectation of crossing over or fear of not crossing over prevents the realization (TN, p. 609). There is only “awareness-itself of the way the realized mind stays” (TN, p. 609), only the “awakened wisdom that cannot be reflected [in meditation].” Awakened wisdom is self-occurring (rang byung) and self-staying (rang gnas).

Awakened wisdom spreads “like fire in a forest” among all the relative content of existence in its entirety. As a result of this catapult along the flow of content, the practitioner achieves perfect understanding of all relative events of all realms and all times. The practitioner masters path awareness (lam rig) and all that is not knowable (shes bya med). There is nothing particular to know because everything is known.

The most important feature of fruition enlightenment is that the practitioner’s seemingly individual consciousness is realized to be the three buddha bodies; (1) The dharmakāya, or truth body, represents the level of the fully enlightened mind, namely its vast awareness-space, unstained by artificial activity and false concepts. (2) The sambhogakāya, or enjoyment body, represents the extraordinary level of all potential propensities for experience. (3) The nirmāṇakāya, or emanation body, represents thought, emotion, sensation, and perception seeming to unfold in the temporal mental continuum at the coarse level of mental content. During fruition enlightenment these three levels of mind, or buddha bodies, become manifest simultaneously. Sometimes the term ye shes pa’i sku (“awakened wisdom body”) is used in the mahāmudrā tradition to signify the fundamental nondual unity of the three buddha bodies. The full ripening of awakened wisdom is the realization of the three buddha bodies.

Mahāmudrā enlightenment is the culmination of nondissolution, wherein the seemingly ordinary coarse-level experiences of the mind are not obstructed. This leads, in addition to liberation, to the realization of the three buddha bodies. The seven qualities of the buddha bodies are as follows: (1) nonduality, (2) never-ending bliss, (3) delight in the Dharma, (4) deep compassion, (5) pervasiveness, (6) uninterruptedness, and (7) emptiness.583 The five qualities of the completely purified mind are as follows: (1) emptiness, (2) clarity, (3) unobstructedness, (4) always here or continuous from the beginning, and (5) staying.584 Buddhahood also brings special ways of seeing and paranormal abilities.

According to Tashi Namgyel, path-walking instructions are given only after realization and are applicable to encountering “strong difficulties that arise along the path” (TN, p. 620). The “ideal time” to practice path walking is “after the real nature of mind-simultaneousness in general, and cognition-simultaneousness and appearance-simultaneousness in particular, have been pointed out, and when there is undistracted [inconceivable] mindfulness within postsamādhi practice” (TN, p. 619).

The best time to practice is when there are passions (’khu phrig), and especially when these passions are intense (drag po; TN, p. 619). In short, any difficulties (dka ngal) encountered in everyday life become good vehicles for consolidating the realization, and the more intense the better.

According to Tashi Namgyel, one month of practice in a rough area characterized by terrifying conditions and evil forces is equal to three years of practice in a secluded meditation retreat (TN, p. 624).

1. Yoga Like a Wounded Deer. Like a wounded deer, the practitioner does not associate with others. He does not engage in thought about anything. He stays by himself. He protects the mind’s real nature and cuts off both the enemy and its remedy. He no longer needs advice nor does he need friendship. 2. Yoga Like a Lion. Like a lion that is never frightened of the game [it seeks] nor of other beasts of prey, the practitioner has no terror in his mind. Whatever the conditions of thought that move internally, or the [seeming] appearances externally, he finds no obstacle. He never sheds tears. 3. Yoga Like the Wind Through Space. There is no substance to the winds throughout space. The hawk spreads its wings [and soars above all]. Likewise, the practitioner penetrates [the real nature of the mind] when he walks. The enjoyment body is the bliss of practice that has let go of all attachment and all deluded ideas. There is nothing to take up, nothing to hold on to. 4. Yoga Like Space. Space has no support. The practitioner does not take support in any intended meditation object, does not direct attention,

does not utilize ideas to act or intend to act in a certain way or to think that this or that has or does not have certain qualities. 5. Crazy Yoga. The practitioner is like a madman who has nothing fixed in his experience. He finds nothing “good” and nothing “bad.” He neither prevents any experience nor makes any experience happen. He neither takes up nor abandons anything. (TN, pp. 625–27)

First [of the preliminary practice]. Seemingly ordinary thought is the basis for saṃsāric existence. Not wishing for that to occur, you might abandon thought. This [is wrong]. You are ignorant of path walking. You won’t master the supreme purity, [because you] cling to that [which has been] abandoned and its remedy [as dual]. So don’t do that. Do the reverse meditation [and let thought remain unobstructed].

First, path walking with emotions. Meditate in such a way as to let go of any desire to find an entity and [since you see them as empty]: (1) arising emotions, (2) their [ongoing] agitation, (3) and your getting caught up in their influence are all transmuted into extraordinary experience.

all the primary and subsidiary emotions were condensed, they would contain five emotions.

The mind’s fundamental clear-light nature causes the experience of any mental event to recognize itself. Thus the mind sustains its familiarity [with truth] at all times, [even during deep sleep], as in your meditation.

As another example, whenever you tend to get lost in any of the ten kinds of attachment (such as the emotion of desire), merely recognize the attachment for what it is, and you won’t get lost. The great bliss of just-this is called “awareness-itself.”

When these have arisen and you are afraid, examine if you are afraid of body or afraid of mind? If afraid of body, visualize your body as a sacrifice to all [suffering] sentient beings, and give it away. Give your body over to all those gods and demons. When the mind is empty, they are not able to harm the body either. If you are afraid of Māra, feed this fear-inspiring being with your body, since you have cut off the root of that which makes the fear. Knowing her real nature brings self-liberation. What appears as fear is transmuted into virtue practice.

Third, viewing them as gods and associated demons is a mistake, and results in seeming divine influences occurring in this lifetime. When recognizing [the act of] holding them to be gods and demons [as empty], then the lineage of Māra arises to protect the dharma, and these influences become transmuted into special psychic powers.

IV. Misery The next instruction has two parts: (1) training in the ideas of relative truth as an enlightened attitude and (2) training in the idea of absolute truth as an enlightened attitude. (1) There are many sentient beings who are tormented by all sorts of bodily misery. Take on the misery of all these [beings] and let all of them be endowed with bliss by thinking, “As much [torment] as all these beings carry, that much must be carried by me!” (2) By recognizing the entity of the misery [to be empty], you and they will not fail to enter into purification itself, in that you don’t try to make the experience of either misery or bliss happen. Since there is no other bliss than [that found in] purifying misery, it is called “misery transmuted into bliss.” To conclude [the practice], enter into the [ultimate] enlightened attitude, which gives the same weight to the misery of self and other. This becomes the highest skillful means of practice on this path.

1. The Yoga for Setting Forth Clear Awakened Wisdom at Daybreak Immediately upon coming out of sleep, there comes the samādhi whose natural condition is awareness-itself, along with recognition of the pair—emptiness/clarity—in a way that is unimpeded by false concepts. Meditate intensely on compassion toward all those sentient beings who do not understand this. Only virtue practice comes. As you gain more experience, this realization comes correctly from the [very] moment you begin [to practice upon awakening]. This is the oral advice for entering into the habit of virtue practice.

2. The Yoga That Seals Perception During the Day All [seeming external] perceptions are the mind’s mistakes. They are like dreams when you are unmistaken about their real nature. View them accordingly, as emptiness, because you can’t hold a dream to be substantial. Henceforth, meditate on the seal [of emptiness]. Once you complete the search [for an entity], you’ll no longer come under the power of false concepts. The skill of awareness-itself arises. This is the oral advice for protecting the rest of the day. 3. The Yoga in Which Things Desired Are Carried as “Friends” in the Morning and the Evening Train yourself to absorb all phenomena into themselves. Know the real nature of food, drink, clothing, and resting-place to be emptiness. Do not be attached [to them]. Not only that but train yourself to [give things away and] make offerings to the gods and the lamas. This is the oral advice about the perfect assembly [of buddhas] who are not bound to things desired.

5. The Yoga in Which Knowledge Resides in the Pot at Midnight Meditate on your lama in the center of your heart and pray. Enter into sleep just as you did in the samādhi of unelaborated phenomena [in which you] cut off all the false concepts. Henceforth, in this [initial] state [of sleep], and [also] in very deep sleep that is like death, you’ll practice the oral advice about blending the mother and son clear-light consciousnesses.

6. The Yoga for Penetrating Awakened Wisdom at Death Abandon attachment to everything. Confess all the sins and harmful deeds of this and previous lifetimes to the lineage. After praying to those of virtuous nature, meditate joyfully and pray for perfect enlightenment.

object. Just stay in the samādhi with mahāmudrā, settled into itself [as the point of observation], which is without even the slightest trace of meditating or not meditating, and it transforms itself into

Let me cut off all doubt in the mind. Not only appearances but also the mind’s emptiness is the [very] mind. The mind’s understanding, as well as its mistakes, are the very mind. What arises and what passes away in the mind is also the very mind.

Any attachment to harmful, mistaken concepts becomes purified in the realm of the mind’s real nature.