More on the First Insight Technique, Looking at the Mind within Stillness

The mahasiddha Naropa predicted to Lord Marpa, “Son, just as lion cubs do, the disciples will surpass the guru.” We understand this to have been a prediction of the flourishing and the increase in clarity of these mahamudra instructions over time. The original source of these instructions was the instructions of the Indian mahasiddhas. But they taught somewhat cryptically through songs. Over time, generation after generation, these instructions have been progressively clarified. This progressive clarification, which has caused these instructions to become more and more effective, has in each case and in each generation been based upon practical experience and realization of the path. At present, the guidance texts that we use for mahamudra instruction and practice are the three books on mahamudra by the Ninth Gyalwang Karmapa, Wangchuk Dorje, of which the longest is our present text, The Ocean of Definitive Meaning. What is taught in

this book is essentially the same thing that is taught in the original dohas of the mahasiddhas. However, it is taught in a very precise, clear, accessible, and gradual way, so that there is all the instruction that one needs from the very beginning. It teaches how a beginner can start the path through the practice of tranquility, what kinds of experiences are likely to arise and what needs to be done about them, and then how gradually to introduce oneself to and begin the practice of insight. These detailed instructions are very helpful in practice; there is no doubt about this whatsoever. It has been proven over time that this particular system of instruction is extraordinarily beneficial. It is not the case that it might be useful or it might not; it definitely is. This book and the system of instructions from which it arises make it very easy for teachers to point out mahamudra to students and make it very easy for students to actually practice mahamudra. The book makes the whole path very simple and streamlined and makes you independent of relying on a lot of extraneous resources. What is pointed out in this text, what is gradually introduced to

the student, is what in the sutras we call “emptiness” and what in the mantra system of vajrayana we call “the wisdom of great bliss.” The entire path of mahamudra is presented in full detail, from the very beginning practice of a beginner up to the full achievement of the fruition of mahamudra, called “great no-meditation.” Now, while I cannot say that I myself possess great blessings that I can bestow upon you, I can say with complete confidence that these instructions are so profound that there is no doubt whatsoever that they will help you and will enable you to practice effectively, and, therefore, I am utterly delighted to have this opportunity to offer these instructions to you.

Obviously all of you take these instructions seriously enough to have made the effort to come here. Nevertheless, I still urge you to use the relatively short time we have together as fully and wisely as you can. Do not waste any of it. Remember that these instructions—whether you consider them as coming from the dharmakaya Vajradhara, as being the instructions of the mahasiddha Saraha, or as coming from some other source—are the instructions that will enable you to dispense with all fear of lower states of rebirth and all fear of cyclic existence. I therefore ask you to practice with enthusiasm.

Yesterday we mainly looked at the first technique of insight practice— looking at the mind within stillness. By looking at the mind within the state of stillness you are trying to observe the mind’s nature in that state. The text goes on to clarify this practice and to discuss some of its implications. As you will see when you read it, the presentation of the implications of this practice is actually presented as questions to be posed by the guru or meditation instructor to the student practitioner. However, you can do this yourself by reading the text and honestly appraising your own experience. This is appropriate, because, after all, your own experience is not hidden from you. You yourself know best what you have been experiencing. The purpose of this assessment of experience, whether done in dialogue or done on your own, is to ascertain whether your experience is genuine or in some way faulty. This ascertainment can be accomplished quite clearly using this text. This portion of the text is as effective as if the Ninth Gyalwang Karmapa were sitting right in front of us asking us these questions himself. These particular questions are found in the forty-first teaching session.

The first question posed is, “What is your mind’s nature like?” At this point you have been practicing insight meditation and looking at the mind’s nature directly in the way, for example, you would watch the behavior of a bird. You have been looking to see how the mind comes to rest, how the mind moves, and so on. There are several things you might have experienced and that therefore might constitute your answer to this first question. You might say, “Well, there is nothing to find; I cannot find anything; there is

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simply nothing there.” Or you might say, “What I experience is a kind of vague obscurity, a sort of darkness.” Or you might say, “What I’ve experienced is lucidity, a kind of knowing.” Another question posed is whether or not there is any difference in your experience between the practice of tranquility meditation and this first practice of insight meditation. Previously, when you were practicing tranquility alone, you brought your mind to a state of rest in a natural way. Now, what you are doing in the initial practice of insight is looking at the mind within that state of rest or stillness. Is the experience of looking at the mind within stillness any different from the experience of stillness itself, of the experience of tranquility alone? It might be exactly the same; there might be no difference whatsoever, or it might be slightly different. If you say that there is no difference whatsoever, that the experience of looking at the mind within stillness and the experience of just achieving a state of stillness itself are not different, then you are still just practicing tranquility. There is as yet no practice of insight, and the text says that you need to remember that tranquility alone, while it can weaken kleshas, cannot eradicate them; it cannot generate great wisdom. So, if there is no difference between this first practice of insight and the practice of tranquility, you need to keep looking. If there is a difference, if in your experience looking at the mind within stillness and simply resting in stillness are slightly different, then our text says you probably have a partial experience of your mind’s nature, in which case you should continue in the same way. About looking at the mind, it was written by the Third Gyalwang Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje, in his Aspiration of Mahamudra, “When one looks repeatedly at the mind which cannot be viewed or cannot be looked at.” That line indicates that, when you look at your mind, there is no object to be seen in the visual sense of something you can look at physically. He continues, “When you do so, you vividly see that which cannot be seen.” Vivid seeing is what we call insight or lhaktong (in Sanskrit, vipashyana). That which cannot be seen is the mind, which is not an object that is in any way separate from that which is looking. This kind of looking is not like looking outside yourself at trees or hills or buildings, and so on. Yet, while it is not an object to be viewed outside the looker, it can be experienced. There is an experience, which here is called “vividly seeing that which cannot be seen.” Now, when we look at the mind in this way, we are not trying to condition or alter the mind in any way. We are not trying to convince ourselves that that which does not exist, exists. We are not afraid of finding nothing and so are trying to find something. Nor are we trying to convince ourselves that that which exists, does not exist. We are not afraid of finding something and are not desperate to turn it into nothing. When we describe the mind, we have to say that it is not something in the usual sense of that word, because it has none of the substantial characteristics that we normally associate with words like “something” or “existence.” But we also cannot say that it is nothing, because when we say nothing, we mean nothing at all, absolutely nothing. If the mind were nothing in that sense, then it would be an utter absence, like the absence of mind in a corpse. The mind is not nothingness. Now, in order to attempt to communicate this state or characteristic of the mind, mahasiddhas have used different terminology. They have sometimes referred to it as the unity of cognitive lucidity and emptiness, or as the unity of the expanse and wisdom. Sometimes they simply say that it is inexpressible and beyond words. In any case, it is this nature, which cannot be easily characterized as one thing or another, that we are attempting in this practice to experience directly.

The previously quoted stanza by Rangjung Dorje goes on to say, “If you vividly see that which cannot be seen, you cut through doubt about any kind of, ‘It is this,’ or ‘It is not this;’ ‘It is that,’ or ‘It is not that.’” The last line of the stanza, which makes it an aspiration, reads, “May I see this just as it is without bewilderment or confusion.” It is appropriate to make this aspiration and to attempt to accomplish it through practice, because what you are looking at is the nature of your own mind. Your mind, which is looking, is fully capable of seeing its own nature. It is not something that is distant from you or hidden from you in any way. It is, therefore, most important to put the effort into looking at the mind in this way.

That is the first technique, looking at the mind within stillness. For some people this first technique will lead to experience of the mind’s nature, and for some it will not. If it does not, then the text suggests that you allow a thought to arise. It does not matter what the thought is. It can be a good thought, a bad thought, a neutral thought, any kind of thought. When you allow a thought to arise, the first thing that will happen, the first thing you will experience, is the recognition that a thought has arisen. You will think, “Oh my mind moved; it is not at rest.” And then you will recognize what the content of the thought is. It could be an angry thought, a lustful thought, a faithful thought, a regretful thought, a thought like, “Oh, I am happy,” or, “Oh, I am sad,” and so on. It does not matter what it is. Whether it is a thought of anger or sadness or delight or faith or any other kind of thought, when the thought has arisen and you experience the presence of the thought within your mind, look for it to see where it is. This means looking for the actual substance or stuff of the particular thought itself. For example, where

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is the anger? Or where is the sadness? Or where is the delight? And so on. Look to see where it actually is, and then look to see what it is. What is the actual stuff of which this anger or sadness or delight is made? What are its characteristics? Does it have a color? Does it have a shape? And so on. Now, the thought is in a sense there, because you experience it, but when you look right at it and when you look for it, you will not find anything. Why? Because the thought is empty. Even while the thought is there, it is empty. But its emptiness in no way prevents or diminishes its vivid appearance. This is why, so long as we have not meditated in this way, we follow thoughts; because, in spite of their emptiness, they continue to appear. So when a thought of anger arises, it takes hold of us, and we become angry; when a thought of sadness arises, it takes hold of us, and we become sad. But if you are able to look at the nature of the thought, it dissolves. You are not overpowered by the apparent substance of the thought, because you see its emptiness, you see through it. So, doing insight practice in this way, looking at the nature of thoughts, can also lead to experience of the mind’s nature and to identification of it. You also can apply this technique to other types of experience or cognition than the sixth consciousness. You can also apply it to the functions of the five sense consciousnesses. For example, if you consider visual consciousness, obviously, when you close your eyes, you do not see external objects, shapes, colors, and so on. When you open them, you do. We are very used to seeing things; but exactly what happens when you see something? There is an event that we call cognition that occurs when you see something. But how does that happen, and where exactly do the object and the cognition encounter each other? Does the object in some way enter you, or does your cognition in some way flow out from you and encounter the object in its place? If you analyze this, you will see that, while you see things, neither is really happening. The object is not coming into you and your cognition is not going out to it. So, the eye consciousness sees, but it does not have a location anywhere; it seems to be nowhere. In the same way, if you scrutinize the experiences of hearing with the ear consciousness, smelling with the nose consciousness, tasting with the tongue consciousness, and feeling with the body consciousness, you will find that, while the intensity or vividness of the experience remains undiminished, you do not find anything when you look for it. The reason why you do not find anything is that the nature of the five sense consciousnesses is what we call emptiness. But the emptiness of the consciousnesses does not mean nothingness, because they are cognition, they are consciousness. So when you see something, that seeing is empty. When you hear something, that hearing is empty, and so forth. And yet the emptiness of seeing and the vividness of seeing in no way conflict with or inhibit one another. Therefore, it has been said by the learned, “While the apparent quality of appearance is undiminished, it is utterly empty; and while the emptiness of appearance is utterly undiminished, it is utterly apparent.” This statement is true not only for visual appearances but also for the cognitions of all five sense consciousnesses.

Another way you can look at the mind, and you can do this in looking for any function of the mind—which is to say, you can look for the sixth consciousness or you can attempt to look for or locate any of the five sense consciousnesses—is to search through your body from the top of your head to the tips of your toes and try to see exactly where any particular consciousness is happening, where it is. You will not find any specific location for the cognition itself. On the other hand, you certainly cannot simply say, “It is nowhere,” because there is cognition. Now, this has to be experienced, and the experience is very different from simply understanding it through logical analysis. Through logical analysis and inference you can determine, “Well, it must be like this; this is how it must be, because there is no other possibility.” But that type of determination or certainty will not lead to direct experience.29 The direct experience needs to be gained through the act or process of direct observation, and that is what is meant, as I mentioned yesterday, by the view of direct valid cognition, the looking of direct valid cognition.

So I am going to end this morning’s instruction here and continue with the reading transmission I began yesterday. [[[Rinpoche]] continues the reading transmission.] [[[Rinpoche]] and students then dedicate the merit.]