Discovering
the True Nature of Mind
by Geshe Tenzin Wangyal
Geshe Tenzin Wangyal teaches us a five-stage Dzogchen meditation
that begins with contemplating our worst enemy and culminates in
the discovery that mind is empty, clear and blissful.
Vision is mind.
Mind is empty.
Emptiness is clear light.
Clear light is union.
Union is great bliss.
This is the heart instruction of Dawa
Gyaltsen, a Bön meditation master who lived in the
eighth century. Bön is the native, pre-Buddhist religion of
Tibet, which has incorporated many Buddhist elements. This
teaching is a direct introduction to the nature of mind and is
not elaborate with ritual. The pith instructions of these
masters'their heart advice to their students'are often only a few
lines, but these few lines can guide the fortunate practitioner
to recognizing his or her own true nature as Buddha.
Vision is mind.
How do we work with Dawa Gyaltsen's
instruction, which begins, "Vision is mind"? Vision
includes everything we perceive, but I suggest that you use what
bothers you as an entrance to this practice. Do you have a famous
person in your life? The famous person is the one who seems to be
born to create a problem for you, as if that were his or her
number-one mission in life. Sometimes we feel there are people
like that. Such people can make trouble for you not only with
their presence, but with one single postcard sent to you. When
you see the postcard with their handwriting on it, you are
immediately disturbed. So we begin our meditation practice with
this famous person as our starting point. Create a protected
environment and sit in a comfortable upright position. Now invite
the image of your famous person to come into your awareness. They
always come anyway, but this time you are inviting them so that
you can look more deeply into this experience. What exactly is
this famous person composed of? See the image of the person, the
character of this person who bothers you so much. Sense the
energetic or emotional presence of this person. When your famous
person was born, he or she did not show any physical signs or
marks of what you now see. And not all people share your view of
this person. What you perceive is your mind, your karmic vision,
which is more karma than vision. So in this moment, instead of
looking out and focusing on that person, look inward. Step back
and let the experience come in. Do not step forward but step
backwards. Don't go to your office and make phone calls and send
emails. Just sit and close your eyes and reflect on this person,
and experience what you're experiencing at this very moment. This
is your vision. It is very much in you, in your mind. That famous
person is now an image or a felt sense. Perhaps you have a sense
of being contracted, closed or agitated in the presence of this
person; feel this fully, not simply with your intellect. Sit with
the image of your famous person, and with the resulting feelings
and sensations, until you recognize that this experience is in
you, and you conclude, "Vision is mind."
Mind is empty.
The next question is, "What is this mind?" Look for
your mind. Look from the top of your head to the soles of your
feet. Can you find anything solid? Can you find any permanent
color, shape or form that you can call your mind? If you look
directly, you come to the conclusion that your mind is empty.
Some people come to this conclusion very quickly; for others it
requires an exhausting search to discover this clear awareness.
But this is what mind is. You can obviously pollute that clarity
in any given moment, but by continuing to look directly, you can
discover that mind itself is just clear. Clear means empty.
"Empty" is a philosophical term, but as experience it
is clear and open. So what began as the famous person is now
clear and open. If this is not your experience, you are grasping
the image and holding on to the experience in some way. Just be.
Relax into the experience. Simply be. Mind is empty. When we
arrive at the experience of emptiness and vastness through the
doorway of the famous person, it is possible to have quite a
strong experience of emptiness. Emptiness is clear light Our next
question is, "What is this emptiness?" Sometimes
emptiness is scary to the point where someone may prefer even
their famous person to this nothing where one experiences the
absence of self. But this experience of open space is essential.
It clears the identity that creates the famous person. In order
to clear the obstacle of the famous person, you have to clear the
identity that creates that famous person. There is an expression,
"The sword of wisdom cuts both ways." Don't be scared
by this.
Remember: "Emptiness is clear light." It has light. It
is possible to feel the light in the absence of the stuff.
Usually we accumulate a lot of stuff in life. Then we have a big
yard sale in order to get rid of that stuff. For a moment we
might feel "Ahhh . . ."a sense of relief at getting rid
of our old stuff - but soon we are excited again about all the
new stuff we can accumulate to decorate and fill the open space.
In your meditation, when things clear, just be with this. Don't
focus on the absence of the stuff, but discover the presence of
the light in that space. It's there. I'm not saying it's easy to
recognize and connect with the light - clearly it will depend on
how much you are caught up with appearances and with the famous
person. I'm not talking about the clear appearance of the famous
person; I'm speaking of the clear appearance of the space. So
when you look at appearance and discover it is mind, and then
discover that mind is empty, clear light emerges. When you look
for the mind, you don't find the mind. When you don't find
anything, the Dzogchen instruction is to "abide without
distraction in that which has not been elaborated." What has
not been elaborated is that space, that openness. So you look for
mind; you don't find anything. What you don't find is pure space
which is not elaborated. So don't do anything. Don't change
anything. Just allow. When you abide in that space without
changing anything, what is is clear light. The experience or
knowledge of emptiness is clear light. It is awareness. Clear
light is the experience of vast emptiness. The reason you have a
famous person in the first place is that you experience yourself
as separated from the experience of the vast, open space. Not
recognizing the vast space, not being familiar with it, you
experience visions. Not recognizing the visions as mind, you see
them as solid and separate and out there'and not only out there,
but disturbing you and creating all kinds of hassles for you that
you have to deal with. Perhaps you say, "Well, I am very
clear about the direction in my life." Here, you are clear
about something. The clarity Dawa Gyaltsen points to is not clear
about something; it is clear in the sense of being. You
experience your essence, your existence, your being as clear.
That clarity is the best. Through experiencing that clarity, you
overcome self-doubt.
Clear light is union.
From this experience of vast emptiness we say, "Clear light
is union." The space and the light cannot be separated.
Clear refers to space, and light refers to awareness; awareness
and space are inseparable. There is no separation between clear
presence and space, between awareness and emptiness. We have a
lot of notions of union: yin and yang, male and female, wisdom
and compassion. When you pay close attention to the experience of
emptiness, you experience clarity. If you try to look for
clarity, you cannot find it'it becomes emptiness. If you don't
find it, and you abide there, it becomes clear. The experiences
of clarity and emptiness are union in the sense that they are not
separate. Clarity is the experience of openness. If you don't
have the experience of openness, you cannot be clear. What is
clear is that openness, the emptiness. What is empty and open is
that clarity. The two are inseparable. Recognizing this is called
union. This means that our experiences do not affect our relation
to openness. It is usually the case that experiences affect our
connection to openness because immediately we get excited and
attached. Then we grasp, or we become agitated, conflicted and
disturbed. When that doesn't happen, when our experience
spontaneously arises and does not obscure us, that is union: the
inseparable quality of clear and light. You are free; you are
connected. You are connected; you are free. This combination
experience, whether in deep meditation or in life, is rare.
Often, if you are "free," that means you are
disconnected. So this sense of union is important. Having the
ability to do something and the ability to feel free, having the
ability to be with somebody and still feel a sense of freedom, is
so important. That is what is meant by "clear light is
union."
Union is great bliss.
If you recognize and experience this inseparable quality, then
you can experience bliss. Why is bliss experienced? Because that
solid obstacle to being deeply connected with yourself has
disappeared. You can have a strong experience of bliss because
you have released something. Bliss spontaneously comes because
there's nothing that obscures you or separates you from your
essence. You have a feeling that everything is complete just as
it is. So you begin with the famous person, and you end up with
bliss. What more could you ask for? This is the basis of the
whole Dzogchen philosophy in a few lines. The famous person you
project is great bliss, but you must understand this as your
mind, and that very mind as empty. From there, emptiness is clear
light, clear light is union, union is great bliss. You can
experience this in an instant. The moment you see the famous
person, you can instantly see light. But sometimes we have to go
through a longer process to see this. It is a question of
ability. So this progression, this process, is our practice. It
takes time. But there is a clear map. These five principles can
be applied in daily practice. You can do this practice anyplace,
in any given moment, and especially when the famous person is
bothering you. When a difficult circumstance arises, of course
you could just live with it, or you could try to find one of many
solutions. But as a Dzogchen practitioner, this practice of the
Fivefold Teachings is what you do. Perhaps you lost a business
deal and you feel bad. What does "lost" really mean?
You look at that; that is vision. Whether fear-based vision or
greed vision, you look directly at that experience. Be with that
experience.
Then you realize it is mind, and you look at your mind and
discover that mind is clear - just clear. Even when we have a lot
of problems, the essence of mind is always clear. It is always
clear. There is always the possibility to connect with the
essence of mind rather than the confusion aspect of it. How we
conclude I love this practice very much. On the one hand, it is
so practical. It gives you a tool to deal with a very specific
situation. On the other hand, it guides you directly into the
essence, to the root of yourself. It always amazes me when people
fight with one another and say, "Oh, that terrible person.
We have been good friends for a long time and I always thought
that person was so honest. It took me a long time to discover
that that person is really terrible." So your conclusion is
that that person is terrible. Have you heard people say things
like that? This is not really a healthy solution. It's like going
to therapy and realizing, "My dad was really a bad guy. Now
I feel much better." Of course, you might realize some
difficult aspect of your situation, but realizing that is not the
conclusion. You need to conclude into the essence, conclude into
the root, to come to the place in yourself where you realize your
mind is clear and blissful and the image that was bothering you
has finally dissolved through your meditation. What is the
conclusion here? The conclusion is bliss. "Union is great
bliss."
What better conclusion would you want than that? And it will be
like that if you open your mind to learn, trust with your heart,
and pray. It's really important to pray, and to pray for a deep
experience. Because if what you think is not that deep, the
result won't be that deep either.
Through prayer, you open your heart and receive the blessings of
effortlessness. The quality of effortlessness is a quality of
heart, and devotion and prayer open the heart. So praying is
wonderful. It sets up the intention and puts you in the right
direction, so when you do the practice of meditation - of
directly looking and being with your experience' it will work.
I encourage you to practice this heart advice of Dawa Gyaltsen,
to look directly into what is disturbing you and discover the
nature of your mind. Through the profound simplicity of these
five lines, not only can you heal your day-to-day life and make
it lighter and more pleasant, but you can recognize and connect
with your innermost essence, the nature of your mind as Buddha.
Questions and Answers
Question:
In terms of the experience of "vision is mind," it
seems that our grasping mind, our small mind, is different from
the natural state of mind which is clear light. I don't know how
to bridge the gap between the grasping mind and emptiness,
because the grasping mind doesn't seem empty.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche:
It doesn't seem empty, but it is. If you look at the ocean you
might find it calm and peaceful, or with small ripples, or bigger
ripples, or small waves, or bigger waves. All these appearances -
from calm to ripples to waves - have the quality of wetness. All
are water in every appearance. The appearance of the ocean can
never be anything other than water, no matter how terrible or
peaceful the ocean appears. In the same way, no matter what
vision appears, it is always empty. The essence is always there.
The only question is, "Am I able to see it or not?" It
is wonderful when the famous person dissolves, but I still have
an obligation to him or her, a responsibility. He or she is my
child. So the "famous person" situation may keep
recurring. Do I keep dissolving in the same way? Sure. The famous
person can still be famous without disturbing you as much. The
reason we call him or her "famous" is that they really
bother you. Do they really need to bother you? No. He or she can
be as they are or they can be different, but they don't have to
bother you. We have expectations that things need to be a certain
way. Do they really have to be a certain way? No. Let's take a
situation in which I'm trying to help my child. How am I trying
to help? I want him to go to school and study well. So what's the
problem? Well, the child has some difficulty learning. O.K. So
I'm trying to do the best I can under the circumstances. If I'm
doing that, then what am I worrying about? Some people learn
faster, some learn slower. Right? But the problem is not about
the child learning too slowly; it's that I can't accept the
situation. It's not about the child; it's about me. I have some
fixed idea about what would be good for my child. This is usually
the case. I think, "What I want is good for you." The
child probably doesn't agree. He might be interested in a
completely different thing than I am. But I feel like I'm the
boss, and of course I am: I have a moral responsibility and so
on. But there is someplace where it is just fine. I need to
realize that. Is it just the lack of practice of recognizing that
"vision is mind" that makes me feel there is a hook
that draws me back to, "Yeah, but that famous person really
is mean"? I am not suggesting that this is the only way to
deal with life. This is one of the Dzogchen ways. It is not a
samsaric way, and sometimes we have to deal in a samsaric way. If
somebody is trying to cheat me, of course I don't like that. If
somebody asks me for something, I don't mind giving. But if
somebody is taking something from me, then I don't want to give.
If that aspect of me seems to be who I really am in this moment,
then I will fight or do whatever needs to be done. It's not a
question of one approach being more valid than another. Who I am
and what realization I have determines how skillfully I am able
to work. In the end, the real sense of victory is the practice.
But in the conventional sense, we do whatever we have to do. We
naturally defend and we fight. Sometimes, you defend, you fight,
and you still lose. Then maybe you don't have any other choice
but to see it as emptiness! That is a forceful way of discovering
emptiness.
Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, the director of Ligmincha
Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia, was the first lama to
bring the Bön Dzogchen teachings to the West. He is the author
of, among other books, Healing with Form, Energy, and Light: The
Five Elements in Tibetan Shamanism, Tantra, and Dzogchen.
Discovering the True Nature of Mind, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal,
Shambhala Sun, May 2004. (Rinpoche gave retreats in Denmark in
the nineties.)