thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
We describe this nature inusing all sorts of terms, the unity of the expanse and wisdom, the unity of cognitivelucidity and emptiness, the unity of bliss and emptiness, and so on. All of these thingsrefer to the minds nature, and is how in his Aspiration of Mahamudra, the ThirdKarmapa describes what you experience when you look at the mind. In that way, thenature of the mind is described in the Mahamudra tradition.In the tradition of The Great Perfection, it is described similarly. For example, fromthe words of the omniscient Jigme Lingpa, It is not something and is not seen even bythe Buddhas. It is not nothing for it is the ground for all samsara and nirvana. This is nota contradiction; this is the Middle Way of unity. May the nature of the ground, the GreatPerfection be realized. In other words, exactly the same thing is said in both traditions.And the way you discover this is simply by looking at your own mind, without makingany attempt to alter it or to control what you experience.When we use the word looking in ordinary speech, we mean to look at somethingand to see it as it is. So for example, with your eyes when you look at a color you wantand expect to see the color properly. You want to see red as red, and white as white, andso on. In the same way the practice of vipashyana or insight, is looking directly andwithout prejudice at your minds nature, so that you see it, as it is. This is therefore not anattempt to control what you experience or to prejudice yourself about what you willexperience. When you look at the mind you dont attempt to reinforce a conceptual view,such as the mind is empty, it is nothing whatsoever. That is what I must see and so on.At this point in the text a quotation is provided from Karma Chagmey, by the FourthTrungpa Rinpoche, Kunga Namgyal. The instructions given in this quotation areparticularly beneficial. He says, When you are meditating by looking at the nature ofyour mind, whether you are doing so through primarily the application of consciouseffort in tension or through a conscious effort in relaxation, what you need to do isengage in direct observation. Direct observation means you are not using faculty ofreasoning, here you are using your faculty of observation. So one thing that will happenCourtesy Namo Buddha Publications Thrangu Rinpoche"From The Direct Instructions on Mahamudra and Dzogchen. To be published, Fall, 2008."when you are meditating, at some point your mind will come to rest. When your mind isstill, when your mind is at rest, then you look at that state of stillness. If your mind is atrest, what is that stillness? Of what does it consist? What are the qualities of thatstillness? What are the characteristics of that stillness? For example, does the stillnesshave color? Does it have form or shape? And, if so what? and if not, what does ithave? Here you have to be careful, Kunga Nangyal says, to observe these thingscarefully. Which means you keep on looking until you
have directly observed the presentor absence of the looked for characteristics. You dont stop when you decide, well itprobably doesnt have these things, or it must not possess these things. That is notenough you have to experience it directly through observation.Now, when you are in the midst of this observation at some point a thought is going tosuddenly appear. Since your mind is no longer in a state of stillness you look at thethought. It doesnt matter whether the thought is a particular coarse or vivid thought, or amore subtle one. And it can be any kind of thought, even the most unpleasant ones. It canbe thoughts of hatred, of jealousy, of intense sadness or fear. In any case whatever thethought is, you look at it. By looking at it with the faculty of direct observation, you seethe thought arise.Now thoughts do arise, we do experience thoughts. The first thing you need to look tosee is, when we say thoughts arise, do they arise from somewhere? Do thoughts arisefrom some prior state, or place, or origin? So first you look to see where the thought hascome from. Now, after a thought arises it remains present for a little bit. While thethought is present, while it is still apparent within your mind, look directly at it and try toobserve its nature.Now the problem that can occur here is the temptation to use the faculty of reasoningin this instead of direct observation. If you use the faculty of reasoning you wouldnt beable to detect or observe anything. Youll just be trying to figure it out. So here you aretrying to observe these things directly, and only through experiential direct observation,will there be experience of the nature of thought. At a certain point the thought willdisappear, this is how thoughts are. A thought initially appears in your mind, remains fora bit, and then it disappears.When the thought disappears where does the thought go? Where does it end up? Whatdoes it become? Kunga Nangyal says; When a thought disappears is it that it existedand it then ceased to exist? Or is it that it is a product of some source and then dissolvesback into that source? Or is it that the thought becomes emptiness? Which of these thingsis actually happening when a thought dissolves or disappears? He continues,Sometimes the thoughts that arise in our minds are not so much as concepts, but asimages. For example it might be an image of a person, or people, of a horse, of buildingsand places. Nowadays we would have to add of cars, of airplanes and images frommovies and so on. Now technically, such an image is considered as an abstraction derivedfrom experience, but fundamentally speaking these things do appear in our minds asfairly concrete images. Kunga Nangyal continues, When such an image appears in yourmind look to see where it came from? We say they appear, and they do seem to appear,from where do they appear? Do they come from outside your body, and somehow enterinto it? Do they come from some place in your body? While the image
is present withinyour mind, where is it? And finally when the image dissolves and disappears like anyother thought, where does it go? What does it become? What happen to it?Courtesy Namo Buddha Publications Thrangu Rinpoche"From The Direct Instructions on Mahamudra and Dzogchen. To be published, Fall, 2008."Now when you look at this in the manor or sense of direct observation, you see thateven while the image is apparent, even while the image is vividly present as an image inyour mind, it is empty of existence. While being utterly empty, even while being present,it still appears vividly. Now these two things, its being empty and its being apparent arenot contradictory. We might imagine that something can either appear, or be empty, butin fact things are both. And, you can experience this directly by looking at these images.This is finally what your mind is like which is why we categorize it as the unity ofcognitive lucidity and emptiness, or appearance and emptiness. So, in this way,conducting direct or experiential observation of the mind, and of the thoughts and imagesthat arise within the mind and in that way discovering that the mind is appearance, that atthe same time is emptiness, is what is called the analytic meditation of a Pandita.The ViewIn the fourteenth chapter of the Karma Chagmey text, the practice of Mahamudra andthe view of The Great Perfection called Trekcho, are presented together. Most of it ispresented in the context of Mahamudra and it points out that what is taught here appliesalso to the view and practice of Trekcho.The next quotation comes from the Mahasiddha Tilopa, and Tilopa taught: This isself- aware wisdom; it is beyond the speech and is not an object of conceptual mind,therefore, I, Tilopa have nothing whatsoever to show you. Know by yourself your ownsupreme self-awareness. Now the first thing that Tilopa explains is that what isdiscovered as the nature of the mind is self-aware, and it discovers itself. So it is calledself-aware wisdom. But it can only be discovered in that way, as an object of directexperience. The reason is because it can not be correctly contained in thought orlanguage. This means that we always assume in the way we think and in the way wespeak about things that something must either exist or not. Sometimes we come up withideas like it might both exist and not exist, or it might neither exist nor not exist.The nature of mind is way beyond all of these ideas or concepts and it is notcomprised within or contained within any such linguistical description of its state. In fact,not only can you not describe it in words, you cant even think about it. It can only beexperienced directly. Therefore, the Buddha said that Prajnaparamita is inconceivable,indescribable and unnameable. So Tilopa is saying what has to be recognized cant bedescribed or even thought about. He cant show it, there is nothing for him to show. Allhe can do is direct you to look at your mind because it is discovered by someone lookingat their own mind in the way which is the mind looking
at itself.In this chapter another quotation is given from Guru Rinpoche, GuruPadmasambhava, in which he is giving meditation instructions. He says, When youallow your mind to rest naturally and simply without alteration, then in that state look atthis knowing, look at this cognition, this experience directly. When you look at yourmind in that way your thoughts will subside, they will be pacified; the thoughts will stop.When you do that is there a state within the context of no alteration? Is there a state ofthe mind being completely at rest? That is tranquility; it is not the nature of the mind. Itis not the nature described in Mahamudra and it is not the view of Trekcho. He continues,Courtesy Namo Buddha Publications Thrangu Rinpoche"From The Direct Instructions on Mahamudra and Dzogchen. To be published, Fall, 2008."But in that state of tranquility look directly at the nature of that which is at rest. Whenyou do so you observe that it has no substantial entity, nor the characteristics of suchthings as shape and color. It has no substantial existence whatsoever. In that way thereisnt an utter emptiness, an utter absence of a substantial entity that of itself is nothingwhatsoever. That is what is called the empty nature of the mind. The quotationcontinues, But if you look further at that emptiness which you experience the mind tobe, dont you see that while it is utterly empty it has an unceasing and unlimited lucidityor knowingness that is its characteristic, and that lucidity is limpid or clear without anycrud in it? Isnt it a lucidity that is completely open and spacious, not blank or neutral?That is what is called the cognitive lucidity that is the minds characteristic.So Guru Rinpoche is pointing out two things. The first is the minds nature which isemptiness and the second thing is the minds characteristic quality which is cognitivelucidity. So, it seems at this point, as if there are two distinct aspects to the mind.However, if you keep on looking you will see that utter emptiness that is the absence ofany kind of essence, any kind of creative substantial entity, and the radiance of thatemptiness which is this unceasing cognitive lucidity; these two are not really differentthings, they are the same thing.And their sameness is that very receptive glaring awareness, that in its receptivity isempty and in its glaring quality is lucidity.So when you look at your mind you see that in spite of its emptiness, it is literallyglaring and blaringly aware. Other than the fact that the mind is aware, and you canexperience that, there is nothing else you can say about it. You cant say that thisawareness is like this or like that. For example Lord Marpa, one of the Kagyu lineageforefathers said: The experience of recognizing it is like the experience of a mute persontasting sugar. They can experience it, but they cant describe it. This awareness, whichis glaring in its intensity and always present, in the present, that is what is given the nameawareness or rigpa.The Fifteenth chapter of this text talks about how to practice this in meditation. Thereare
basically two ways of viewing or looking at the mind, one is looking at the mind instillness and the other is looking at the mind in motion or occurrence. When no thoughtsare present, this is looking at the mind in stillness. When thoughts arise, which are seenas occurring in the brain, and you look at the nature of the thought, rather than the natureof the mind; that is looking at the mind within occurrence.These two things are distinct. In one case you are looking at the nature of the minditself and in the other case, you are looking at the nature of thoughts. These two states aredistinct. One state is stillness, no thoughts are present, and the other state is occurrence.The mind is full of thoughts and possibly very busy. But the nature that is looked at is thesame nature; and the characteristic is the same characteristic. When you look directly atyour mind, you experience its characteristic cognitive lucidity and its nature, which isemptiness. When you look at thoughts you see that thoughts are cognitive lucidity thatare empty in nature. Now, if you feel that one of these two states is preferable to the otherand substantially different, then there is a third way of looking that is the remedy for that,the belief which is looking to see if stillness and occurrence are the same or different. Asto how you implement them, you implement them as these states arise, and these methodsare designed to enable you, within different types of states of mind, to rest in theDharmata.Courtesy Namo Buddha Publications Thrangu Rinpoche"From The Direct Instructions on Mahamudra and Dzogchen. To be published, Fall, 2008."All of this is summarized in a clear way by Jetsun Milarepa in one of his songs inwhich he says: Appearance, emptiness and their inseparability, these three thingssummarize the view. Now appearance here means not only external appearance but thewhole aspect of appearance or lucidity. So it includes cognitive lucidity and the cognitivelucidity which is the minds defining characteristic as a mind, and is at the same timeutterly empty; not only is the minds cognitive lucidity empty, but the cognitive lucidityand its emptiness are not two different things. So knowing this summarizes the view. Asfor meditation he says: Lucidity, non-thought and non-distraction, these threesummarize meditation. Now when we meditate and rest in and look at the minds nature,we experience cognitive lucidity, but while we experience that lucidity, the lucidity isneither created by, or limited to, thought. It is innate to the mind and does not depend onthe existence of thought in order to be maintained. So, therefore, the lucidity is not onlyexperienced, it is recognized as being fundamentally non conceptual.Now in order to rest in this you need the faculties of mindfulness and alertness. So thekey point in resting in the minds lucidity, a non-thought or non-conceptuality is beingundistracted, because sometime you observe this nature and are able to rest in thatobservance, and then you find that youve lost track of it, which means youve becomedistracted. So the key points to meditation are lucidity, non-conceptuality and non-distraction. That is how
you practice in even placement, in meditation.The most important condition, the thing that needs to be present for progress insamadhi, both in meditation and post meditation is faith and devotion. Both are necessaryfor your practice to develop and to increase. Even more than that, faith and devotion arenecessary to even practice at all. If you dont have faith and devotion you are not going todo the practices.The first and foremost devotion is Dharma itself. If you have the attitude that Dharmais what you need in this life, to insure your welfare and benefit in future lives, to be abenefit to yourself and others, you will continue to progress. To practice you mustbelieve there is something to be realized and that the methods youve been taught willenable you to realize it. If you believe these two things you will do the practice and if youdo it you will realize it. The second object of faith and devotion are the root and lineageGurus. The previous masters put the teachings into practice and by doing so they gainedrealization. If you have confidence in the practice and the transmission of the practiceyou will be diligent and will achieve the result. The other aspect of practice is postmeditation. The practice of meditation is not enough because no matter who you are youstill have enough normal everyday activity to do that you are going to be spending a lotof time in post meditation. If you dont do anything about your state of mind in postmeditation, even if you are diligent in meditation, you are not going to progress. Thereason for this is if you let your mind wander utterly lost the whole time in postmeditation then whatever is achieved in your formal meditation will be undone. Soattempt to carry the awareness and mindfulness achieved in meditation as much aspossible into your post meditation activity. From time to time you will lose track of it andyou will become bewildered but at least you wont become bewildered intentionally. Ifyou dont try to maintain awareness in post-meditation then, from the end of onemeditation session until the next, there will be one whole interrupted period of utterdistraction. By attempting to bring what is achieved in meditation into your postmeditation, each part of your life will enhance the other and you will make progress.Courtesy Namo Buddha Publications Thrangu Rinpoche"From The Direct Instructions on Mahamudra and Dzogchen. To be published, Fall, 2008."TogelPreliminariesThe second half of the Dzogchen is called Togel or leap over. The outlook of thispractice is that the mental events of the minds cognitive lucidity, when experienced intheir true or pure form they are the peaceful and wrathful deities. The peaceful ones arein the heart, the Vidyadharas in the throat and the wrathful deities in the mind. Theyabide in the channels as body, speech and mind.Because they are there if the right circumstances are created, they can be seen. Youcreate these circumstances through external and internal conditions, such as gaze, as youwill see. Initially, when you first see them, you see them as circles or spheres of light orrays of light. When
you see them within the context of the proper conscious applicationof method, such as the use of light and the use of darkness, then what you will seegradually ripens or develops and gradually the circles become more distinct and brighter.Then the forms of the deities with their ornaments and scepters will appear. This methodis called Togel.There are two situations in which you can see these deities; one is within the Togelpractice of meditation and the other when you experience the bardo of death.While alive these deities abide within your body, within the various channels. Theyare not present physically in the form of deities; they are present in the form of thoughtsand the function of mind. When we die the body and mind separate and these deitiesemerge from the channels where they are present until this time. When they do so you seethem, sometimes as the peaceful deities, other times as the wrathful deities and at othertimes as the Vidyadharas. If you are unfamiliar with them, you will not recognize them.Either they will appear so quickly that you will not notice their appearance, or you willnot recognize them at all, and be terrorized by them and run away from them. The terrorthat you generate for the display of your own nature is the immediate cause generatingthe mental body in the bardo. The mental body is in turn the vehicle for the nextcultivation of attachment, craving, acceptance, which causes you to seek andunfortunately find a rebirth. At that point, once you are conceived in your next life, thedeities are withdrawn once again into the channels in which you are starting to develop.Now during this life you can see these deities using the technique of light, either thesun or an electric light or darkness. If you perform these techniques their appearanceswill arise as sound, light and as rays of light. However, for this to be of any use, you needto have experience of your minds nature. The nature of these deities is spontaneouspresence, they are the natural display of Dharmata itself. But if you have no experience ofthat nature of mind, Dharmata, you will mistake them to be substantial which will in turncause further bewilderment.The practice of Togel has two parts, the preliminary and the main practice. The Togelpreliminaries consist of the separation of samsara from nirvana, and this is done in body,speech and mind, [the separation of body, the separation of speech and the separation ofmind.]Courtesy Namo Buddha Publications Thrangu Rinpoche"From The Direct Instructions on Mahamudra and Dzogchen. To be published, Fall, 2008."We start the practice with the focus on samsara. Now samsara consists of six realms orthe six states; so there is a separate meditation for each of these. In each case youmeditate on the sensations of that specific realm and then on the emptiness of thosesensations. You do so by looking at the direct nature of your own mind and therebyexperiencing the emptiness of the sensations.So the first realm is the hell realm and, among the two types of hell realms, the hothell. During these meditations you will be visualizing yourself in