Two fundamental principles in the Mahamudra and Dzoghcne traditions are:
- the peace and clarity of mind nature is present in all experience and
- we can touch that peace and clarity by interrupting the ordinary functioning of mind.
There are hundreds of ways to interrupt the operation of mind, but for our purposes today, almost any pointing out instruction, Zen koan, or even certain passages from Alice in Wonderlandwill work-anything that brings you up short and stops the thinking.
For example:
- When you think of Paris, does your mind go to Paris or does Paris come to your mind?
- Is the mind that rests the same as or different from the mind that moves?
- What is the sound of one hand clapping?
- "I ca'n't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir," said Alice, "because I am not myself, you see."
When the mind stops, it is usually only for a moment. Most of us quickly fall back into the usual patterns of conceptual thinking. What to do?
We practice. We stop the mind over and over again. This requires a quiet, persistent effort because we can't force the issue. These methods are not concerned with conceptual understanding but with interrupting the operation of the conceptual mind. They open up a space, so to speak, but then we have to learn how to rest in that space. We do so by patiently returning to that space whenever we fall out of it. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we open up the space again, rather than return. Essentially, we are learning how to be in a fundamentally different way, and it takes time and effort for mind and body to attune to this possibility.
We fall out of that space in all sorts of ways. There are, one might say, many pitfalls. It is helpful to have a set of reminders that help us to recognize pitfalls, tell us how to climb out of them and show us how to avoid them going forward. Here is one set I have found helpful.
Eat your pudding
"I believe in emptiness." The pitfall here is to trust belief over experience. We hear a lot about mind nature or emptiness and how it can transform our lives, and we come to believe in it. But belief does nothing. Mind nature or emptiness is an experience, an experience that leads to a different way of experiencing your whole life. Belief is just an idea that we hold. When we regard emptiness as an object of belief, an ideal, a higher truth, an absolute reality, or a goal-we have stopped any possibility of stepping into the actual experience of emptiness. The Sufis tell
a story about tea and how some people believe in tea and its many wonderful qualities, but never taste it. There is no point in believing in tea. You cannot know how tea tastes by believing in it. Belief may comfort us but it doesn't refresh us the way a sip of tea does. In the same way, we have to taste mind nature or emptiness. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so eat your pudding.
Don't wait for anything
"I'm doing this practice now because it will have such and such a result." This is another kind of pitfall-practicing with the attitude that direct awareness practice is about some kind of result in the future. It's not. When we interrupt the operation of mind, that's it. It is like jumping into a bottomless abyss. As soon as we jump, we are in free-fall. We don't have to wait to experience free-fall. We are already falling. If we interrupt the operation of mind and then wait for something to happen, we miss the point. We keep that one thought in our back pocket and we don't step out of the conceptual mind. "Wait without thought," writes T.S. Eliot, "for you are not ready for thought." When you jump, don't hold anything back. Let go of everything, even the expectation that something will happen. There is no point in waiting for something to happen because it already has.
Go into the fog
"Thoughts and feelings are solid and I need to make them empty." In this kind of pitfall, it's as if you see some fog in front of you, and you say, "Oh, that fog is so thick and solid. I have to make it insubstantial before I can walk into it." How are you going to do that? People may tell us that fog is insubstantial, but we don't believe them. We may not even understand what they are saying. What to do? We have to walk into the fog and find out for ourselves.
Thoughts and feelings are similar. Patterns of perception and behavior are invested with a solidity they do not have. We may read that thoughts and feelings are empty. People can tell us that they are empty. But we can't know that until we experience them that way ourselves. As long as we keep thoughts and feelings at a distance and try to make them empty, we continue to experience them as solid and substantial. When we go right into them-all the way into them-we discover a peace and clarity in them that reveals that these thoughts, feelings and patterns of perception are not as solid as we thought. They really are like fog or mist, but we cannot know that unless we summon our courage and walk right into the fog.
Put your nose to the grindstone
"It's enough to know that thoughts and feelings are empty." This pitfall is about conceptualizing experience. Even though we have experienced the insubstantiality of thoughts and feelings, if we feel needy or proud, for instance, it's not enough to think, "Oh, that neediness is empty. That pride is empty." It's a bit like saying that to play a violin it's enough to know how to draw the bow across the strings. You may make a sound, but it is hardly music.
The ability to play music comes through practice--lots of practice, practice in which we are constantly and steadily refining our skill, sensitivity and musical sense. In the same way, whether in formal practice or during the day, again and again, whenever emotional reactions arise, we practice. We don't wait for anything. We jump off the cliff. We walk into the fog. We eat the pudding. Sometimes we just shut down. Sometimes we are swept away. Sometimes we are completely consumed. And sometimes we spin out of control. As soon as we recognize what is happening, we don't wait. We again jump off the cliff, go into the fog, and eat the pudding. in doing so, we refine our skill, sensitivity and sense of balance.
First, we learn how to do this. Then we do this until it becomes second nature. Finally, we do this until everything that gets in the way no longer gets in the way. Only then can we touch mind nature in all we experience, no matter how joyful or pleasant, how frightening or painful. That is the grindstone of practice.