thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
conceptual thinking gradually falls under the power of awareness during the daytime, at night you do not need to apply some other instruction, but should simply understand how the recognition of dreams and the luminosities of the shallow and deep sleep correspond.Until you attain stability, by all means continue with undistracted diligence like the steady flow of a river.This was taught by Mipham. May virtuous goodness increase!By Mipham Rinpoche From DharmaMind CommentDzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, Dzogchen, Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Mahamudra, Yongey Mingyur RinpocheMind Nature Composition 001In Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Master Phrases, Vajrayana on April 14, 2009 at 10:30 pm Experience follows intention. Whatever we are, whatever we do, all we need to do is recognize our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions as something natural. Neither rejecting or accepting, we simply acknowledge the experience and let it pass. If we keep this up, well eventually find ourselves becoming able to manage situations we once found painful, scary, or sad. Well discover a sense of confidence that isnt rooted in arrogance or pride. Well realize that were always sheltered, always safe, and always home. Yongey Mingyur RinpocheThe Tibetan word used here for nature literally means simply that. The that refers to the fact that the ultimate true nature is not apart from being the nature of the relative state of mind it is simply its nature. Thats why its called simply that. Since everyone has this nature, what is important is to be sincerely interested and trust that it is possible to recognize it by looking. After looking, we need to see it; and after seeing it, we need to fully realize exactly how it is. Do not feel satisfied with intellectually having figured it out; or with inferring that its probably like such-and-such. That is called clouding the nature of mind with inference, or obscuring yourself with intellectual thoughts. Instead, nakedly and directly see this nature as it is and realize it.Khenchen Thrangu RinpocheOne danger in practicing Mahamudra is that we may confuse inferred knowledge with direct experience and fail to see the difference between what we figure out and what we see directly. These two can be mistaken. Naropa uses the word see, rather than know or understand, to make sure that we dont make that mistake. In this context, the nature of mind is not an object of knowledge. It is not an entity that we inquire about, investigate and finally get an idea about and feel gratified. That would be what is called having a deduced or inferred idea of an entity held in mind.Khenchen Thrangu RinpocheTo make sure that we get the point, Naropa uses the word to see, which means like seeing something with the naked eye. When you see something, you dont have to have any idea about what it is in order to see it you simply see it, directly and nakedly. What is necessary here is to let our mind simply look into itself and directly see how it is. Our mind is empty of any identity, and is cognizant by nature. These two
qualities are indivisible. Knowing this is direct knowledge, attained by seeing in actuality.Khenchen Thrangu RinpocheWhen training in this seeing, everything all that appears and exists is experienced as Mahamudra. Both that which is perceived and the perceiving mind have the identical nature of being the basic state of Mahamudra. If we grow accustomed to this through training and attain complete realization, everything is the great and all-encompassing Dharmakaya. The innate nature is seen as encompassing everything.Khenchen Thrangu RinpocheLook nakedly at the inexpressibleMinds basic nature, bliss and emptiness.Relaxed, at ease, fixation-freeAll that binds is free in bliss-emptiness.Within this clear light, the dharmadhatu,take a look at the play of the unborn mindMinds play manifests as appearance-emptiness.Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso RinpocheThe ability to let go of attachment and resolve our mind is the result of practice and understanding. This achievement is somewhat beyond ordinary human experience; it is extraordinary. But we are not walking alone on this path. Countless beings have gone before us, and countless others are yet to come. To think that were special would defeat the whole purpose of the path.Dzigar Kongtrul RinpocheWith presence of mind, we experience a sense of relaxation and inner resolve in the face of lifes challenges. The natural grace and elegance of inner resolve are a measure of a practitioners life.Dzigar Kongtrul RinpocheA mind that is resolved is simply present. We are not struggling with good or bad, right or wrong, life or death. We are not trying to shape our mind through Dharma Practice or anything else. We have the presence of mind to simply enjoy our life good or bad, right or wrong, dharmic or not. We take great pleasure in the world and the people around us, and we walk in the world with elegance and grace.Dzigar Kongtrul RinpocheAnything and everything can arise in the mind. This is either good news or not such good news, depending on how we look at it. On the one hand, it means anything and everything is possible. On the other hand, if we possess no understanding of mind and how it works, we will be as the traditional example describes like someone without limbs trying to ride a wild, blind horse. We will not be able to reign in the mind, and so the mind will never serve us it will never take us where we want to go.Dzigar Kongtrul RinpocheThe buddhadharma harnesses the power of natural intelligence in a unique way. As we encounter minds raw, unprocessed conceptual activity, the teachings encourage us to utilize our natural intelligence to look dispassionately at mind and emotions and sort through our confusion and ignorance; in this way we uncover our innate wisdom and clarity. The Buddhist teachings affirm this natural gift and also challenges us: Analyze! See if its true. Everything we need to move forward is right here.Dzigar Kongtrul RinpocheWith an open mind, fear can become your greatest ally because facing fear means facing your life, and facing your life means living your life. You become courageous and victorious over the world of good and bad, right and
wrong, comfort and pain. This notion means a great deal to me, as my birth name, Jigme Namgyel, means Fearless Victory. But I think it is good advice for everyone.Dzigar Kongtrul RinpocheSomeone asked me recently if Im afraid to die. Truthfully, I am more afraid of not living my life fully of living a life dedicated to cherishing and protecting myself. This fear-driven approach to life is like covering your couch in plastic so it wont get worn. It robs you of the ability to enjoy and appreciate your life.Dzigar Kongtrul RinpocheFear and worry are understandable at times. It would be stupid not to be concerned for our personal well-being, and selfish not to be concerned for others. Feeling concern is a natural part of human goodness. But when it prevents us from accepting our life, fear is crippling. We find ourselves saying no to the world; no to our karma; no, no, no to everything which is a very painful way to live. When we spend our life wishing it were different, its like living someone elses life. Or, we could say, its like living our life despite ourselves. Meanwhile, the full spectrum of our life experience goes by unnoticed.Dzigar Kongtrul RinpochePractitioners who train in courage become true warriors. The war we wage is not with enemies outside ourselves but with powerful forces of our own habitual tendencies and negative emotions. The greatest of these is fear. In order to become fearless, we need to experience fear. Facing fear changes our perspective and gives rise to the courage to face our neuroses as well as our enlightened qualities.Dzigar Kongtrul RinpocheThe great eleventh-century Indian pandita Atisha taught that the greatest pith instructions are those that rub hard on our sore spots. Exposing these sore spots is the teachers job. In this sense, the teacher is the greatest mirror. When I was in the presence of my teacher, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, the evenness, clarity, and spaciousness of his mind naturally exposed my self-importance. I knew he could always see through my self-absorption, no matter how significant or complex I thought my story was. This was an unspoken understanding we had as a teacher and student. This kind of communication was one of the ways I learned from him.Dzigar Kongtrul RinpocheIn the empty space of sky with no center or edgeOn the globe of this world without a bottom or topIn the company of beings empty forms like a dreamMind knows clarity and emptiness unspeakableThis cannot be realized by knowing aloneBut if one knows the natural way to naturally relaxThis is meditation and non-meditations bestIn this non-meditation live in and from it do not stray.Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso RinpocheThe basic nature of things is not produced by cause or conditionIf you cant cut through your subtle ideasAbout the way things really areYour own theories about realityWill shackle you in chainsSo baselessness and rootlessness areDefinitive meanings profound point.Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso RinpocheThanks to http://twitter.com/ryderjaphy CommentDrikung Kyabgon Chetsang, Mahamudra, Snow Lion, TilopaThe Attainment of Non-AttainmentIn Mahamudra, Vajrayana on March 23, 2009 at 4:21 pm Once, Tilopa advised his
disciple to go off to an isolated retreat and avoid any meditation. Now, this may seem a little unusual for a meditation retreat. He explains, however, that when you go to meditate, you normally take up something to meditate on, some thing. That thing, and therefore that meditation, is necessarily artificial. The practice of Mahamudra is not like that at all. It is not taking up a thing called Mahamudra and meditating on it. Ultimately, Ma-hamudra practice is meditation directly on reality itself.Reality itself is not something devised or made up. What you have to do here is accustom yourself to that, practice that. You are not taking up a meditation, but rather are practicing something. Like any activity, when you practice and become accustomed to it, it becomes easier and easier. So, acquaint yourself with this lack of anything whatsoever to be taken up as a discrete object. Focus on reality itself and become accustomed to that. Tilopas advice, then, is that if you attain something by this Mahamudra practice, then you have not attained Mahamudra. Attaining Mahamudra is attaining non-attainment. If you are not getting anything, then youre getting Mahamudra. If you get some thing, then necessarily it is not Mahamudra.What is the meaning of this? If, when we strive for Buddhahood, we think that Buddhahood is something that we are going to get, we will be making a great mistake. We would be like hunters going after an animal. Buddhahood would be reduced to just another worldly activity in which we engage to get some pleasure for ourselves. Mahamudra is not like that, it is not some thing to be obtained. It is attaining the state of non-attainment. Understanding that, we do not focus on obtaining something but on transcending. We have to get beyond that search for something to grasp onto.Now the nature of reality is beyond the illusion of the phenomenal world, the world as it appears. What appears is illusory; reality is something else. So, when engaging in this meditation on Mahamudra, one seeks to realize Mahamudra. As long as it is something that is an object of mind, something that is conceived by mind, then is it necessarily something other than Mahamudra. Mahamudra is not a conception, not something which is of the nature of appearances or of the nature of objects of the conventional mind.Therefore, whatever we look for, whatever we try to hold on to in terms of objects of mind, is not going to be Mahamudra. It is something other than that. It is not of the nature of the phenomenal world in any sense. As long as we conceive of it as something, we are making a mistake and will not attain the realization of Mahamudra in that way. Tilopas advice is that if the disciple wishes to see Mahamudra, the disciple must go beyond conventional mind and abandon worldly involvement, because the conventional mind and worldly activities are what obscure the realization of Mahamudra and can never lead to it.Excerpted from the book The Practice of Mahamudra - Drikung Kyabgon
thinking, there are the acts of accepting and rejecting, of pleasure and of pain. The circumstances may be external, but the thinker is this mind within. Beauty and ugliness appear to belong to external objects. However, that which creates the beauty or the ugliness is actually the forming of a concept in this mind, here. Also, the liking and the disliking of what is considered beautiful or ugly are actions taken by this mind. The circumstance is the sense object, but the main factor is our mind.In order for all six classes of beings [gods, asuras, humans, animals, pretas and hell beings] to be totally free of the entirety of samsara, we need to solve the problem of the thinking that forms the causes that propel us around through the various realms. We understand that thinking is delusion. However, to want to be free and at the same time to want to hang on to conceptual thinking is a contradiction in terms. It is something that will not happen. It is an impossible task. If you want to attain liberation and omniscient enlightenment, you need to be free of conceptual thinking. Meditation training, in the sense of sustaining the nature of mind, is a way of being free from clinging and the conceptual attitude of forming thoughts, and therefore free from the causes of samsara: karma and disturbing emotions. Please do not believe that liberation and samsara is somewhere over there: it is here, in oneself. Thought is samsara. Being free of thought is liberation. When we are free of thinking, we are free of thought. The problem is that the causes for further samsara are being created continuously. We spin through the six realms and undergo a lot of suffering. Compared to the other life forms in samsara, we human beings do not suffer that much. We dont experience the unbearable, overwhelming suffering that countless other beings do. But for some humans, their mental or physical pain may be unbearable. If we continue to allow our ordinary thinking to run wild, we cannot predict what is lined up for us in the future, where we will end up, in what shape or form.The bottom line is this: we need to know how to dissolve thoughts. Without knowing this, we cannot eliminate karma and disturbing emotions. And therefore the karmic phenomena do not vanish; deluded experience does not end. We understand also that one thought cannot undo another thought. The only thing that can do this is thought-free wakefulness. This is not some state that is far away from us: thought-free wakefulness actually exists together with every thought, inseparable from itbut the thinking obscures or hides this innate actuality. Thought-free wakefulness is immediately present the very moment the thinking dissolves, the very moment it vanishes, fades away, falls apart. Isnt this true?The Buddha described in detail that we can have 84,000 different types of emotions. In a condensed way, there are six root emotions and twenty subsidiary ones. An even shorter categorization of thoughts is that of the three poisons. Whatever the
number of types of emotions or thoughts, the Buddha taught how to eliminate all of these by giving 84,000 sections of the dharma.Perhaps you do not have the time to study and learn all these teachings, or maybe you dont have the desire, the ability or the intelligence to do so. In this case, the Buddha and the bodhisattvas very skillfully condensed the teachings into a very concise form. This is called the tradition of pith instructions that deals with overcoming all the disturbing emotions simultaneously. The basic instruction here is to understand that all of these emotions are merely thoughts. Even ego-clinging and dualistic fixation is simply a thought. The pointing-out instruction given by a master to qualified students shows how to dissolve the thought and how to recognize the nature of the thinker, which is our innate thought-free wakefulness.The root of confusion is thinking, but the essence of the thinking is thought-free wakefulness. As often as possible, please compose yourselves in the equanimity of thought-free wakefulness. It is said, Samsara is merely thought, so freedom from thought is liberation. Great masters explain this in more detail, because simply being thoughtless is not necessarily liberation in the sense of thought-free wakefulness. To be unconscious, to faint, to be oblivious, is surely not liberation. If those states were liberation, attainment would be swift since it is very easy to be mindless. That would be a cheap liberation!Simply suspend your thinking within the nonclinging state of wakefulness: that is the correct view. One important point about the teachings on mind essence is that they need to be simple and easy to train in. Particularly in Mahamudra and Dzogchen practice, the view is said to be open and carefree. The less you cling and grasp, the more open and free it is. It is the nature of things. The less rigid our conceptual attitude is, the freer the view.The mind is empty, cognizant, united, unformed. Please make the meanings of these words something that points at your own experience. You can also say the mind is the unformed unity of empty cognizance. These are very precious and profound words. Empty means that essentially this mind is something that is empty. This is easy to agree on: we cannot find it as a thing. It is not made empty by anyone, including by usit is just naturally empty, originally so. At the same time, we also have the ability to know, to cognize, which is also something natural and unmade. These two qualities, being empty and cognizant, are not separate entities. They are an indivisible unity. This unity itself is also not something that is made by anyone. It is not a unity of empty cognizance that at some point arose, remains for a while and later will perish. Being unformed, it does not arise, does not dwell, and does not cease. It is not made in time. It is not a material substance. Anything that exists in time or substance is an object of thought. This unformed unity of empty cognizance is not made
of thought; it is not an object of thought.Whenever there is an idea based in time or substance, its upkeep becomes very complex; it takes a lot to sustain or maintain its validity. This unformed basic nature, however, is very simple, not complicated at all. So many complications are created based on concepts of time and substanceso much hope and fear. Honestly, substance and time never did exist; they never do exist, nor will they ever exist in the future, either. The conceptualization of time and substance is the habit of the thinking mind. Although right now time and substance do not exist, it seems to the thinking mind as if they do.Concerning substance, if you look around, it seems like everything is solidly and precisely there. In the experience of a real yogi, time and substance do not exist, of course. Even a scholar can, through intelligent reasoning, feel convinced about this fact. When we think that which is not, is, then, it seems to be. As perceived by a buddha, however, all the experiences that samsaric beings have are no more substantial than dreams. It all looks like dreaming.At the very foundation of Vajrayana practice lie two principles: devotion and pure perception. We should have devotion towards the unmistaken natural state, in the sense of sincerely appreciating that which is truly unmistaken, unconfused, never deluded. In reality, the nature of all things is totally pure. Impurity occurs only due to temporary concepts. That is the reason why one should train in pure perception.In this context, there are three levels of experience: the deluded experience of sentient beings, the meditative experience of yogis, and the pure experience of buddhas. Whenever there is dualistic mind, there is deluded experience. The deluded experience of sentient beings is called impure because it is involved with karma and disturbing emotions. In deluded experience, there is the attempt to accept and reject; there is hope and fear. Hope and fear are painful: that is suffering. Whenever there is thinking, there is hope and fear. Whenever there is hope and fear, there is suffering.The meditative experience of a yogi is free of giving in to ordinary thought. It is something other than being involved in normal thinking. We can call it the state of shamatha or vipashyana or other names, but basically it is unlike ordinary thinking. The meditative experiences of a yogi are good and they become evident because of letting mind settle in equanimity. The most famous of these meditative moods are called bliss, clarity and nonthought. They occur during vipashyana meditation, but they can arise even during shamatha practice. Through meditation training, the mind becomes more clarified, more lucid. But if we are not connected with a qualified master and if we do not know the right methods of dealing with these meditative states, we may believe that we are somehow incredibly realized beings. That becomes a hindrance; it can even turn into a severe obstacle.The Mahamudra path is presented as the twelve aspects of the four yogas. These four yogas of Mahamudra constitute