into the essence.As we become more stable in recognizing the essence free from conceptualthinking, its expression as conceptual thinking becomes increasingly baseless orunfounded.In the face of directly seeing emptiness, the thought cannot remain, just as noobject can remain in mid-air. When we do not recognize emptiness, we arecontinually carried away by thoughts. This is how the mind of sentient beingsworks, day and night.Repeatedly you hear, 'Recognize mind essence, attain stability in that'. What thismeans is that we should repeatedly look into what thinks. We should recognizethe absence or emptiness of this thinker over and over again, until finally thepower of deluded thinking weakens, until it is totally gone without a trace.The very moment you look,=20it is immediately seen that there is no 'thing' to see. It is seen in the moment oflooking. In the moment of seeing, it is free from thought. This is also calledprajnaparamita, transcendent knowledge, because it is beyond or on the 'otherside' of a conceptual frame of mind. The first point is deliberate mindfulness. The next moment is seeing your nature. At that time you should allow for an ongoing state of naturalness. All the different speculations should be dropped completely. In the moment of seeing, allow for a continuity free from thought. Simply rest freely in that. Because we have been carried away from this state by conceptual thinking sincebeginningless lifetimes, we will again be swept away by the strength of habit.When this happens, you must notice, 'I am distracted'. Then look into 'Who isbeing carried away'. That immediately brings about the meeting with buddhanature. At that moment, leave it as it is. Here is how the nature of mind isintroduced in the Mahamudra system: First the practitioner is told, 'Look into yourmind'. The big question at this point is, 'What is mind?'The teacher will say, 'Do you sometimes feel happy or sad? Do you want things?Do you like and dislike this and that? Okay, look into that which feels thoseemotions.'After doing that, the practitioner then reports, 'Well, that which thinks and feels does not seem to be a real thing. But, at the same time, there are thoughts and emotions'. The teacher will say, 'All right. Keep a close eye on that thinker.' Afterwards, the student will return and tell the teacher, 'Well, I've been looking into the thinker and sometimes it makes many thoughts about this and that and sometimes it just rests without thinking anything.' For a diligent person to reach this point in the process takes about two or threemonths. The disciple becomes very clear about the fact that, mind, the thinker, isnot a real thing. Even though this is true, it gets involved in thinking up allpossible things and sometimes remains without thinking anything.These two states, thought-occurrence and stillness, refer to thinking and thecessation of thinking. These aspects can also be called 'arising' and 'ceasing'.The teacher will then say, 'Let's give these two states names. When there isthinking taking place, call it 'occurrence'. When there are no thoughts, call it'stillness'. After this the disciple will feel, 'Now I understand these two states.Thinking