The text distinguishes between deep meditative states and death, explaining that true spiritual realization involves experiencing the world vividly without attachment or fixation, recognizing the "emptiness" of all phenomena as illusions akin to a magician's trick, and understanding the fundamental nature of mind and its inherent Buddha nature.
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What's the difference between being in a
deep meditative state and being dead?
There is no need to block experience to
go thoughtless and experienceless.
What we can do is to avoid fixating on
the experience and labeling it. It is
very hard to avoid experiencing.
In fact, if you really want to avoid
experience, you'll need to have someone
knock you out with a chandelier. Good job.
job.
>> Then you will succeed, at least for a
while. When both thinking and perception
cease, there is the state we call utter
oblivion which is mindless and without
thought. That state resembles the
original cause of ignorance. When both
the thinking and the perceived are
halted, your samsaric state is only put
on pause on hold.
Experience such as a physical sensation
and the thought about that experience
occur in combination.
We will now try to understand what
Buddhists mean by emptiness. In the
moment of recognizing mind essence,
sensation does in fact take place, but
it's an empty sensation.
This means that the impressions of your
five senses are vividly experienced. Yet
they are indivisible from emptiness.
Sights are empty sights. Sounds are
empty resonance. They don't get
interrupted. They are still felt, still
fully experienced. Whatever occurs to
your eyes is called empty sights.
Whatever occurs to your ears is empty
sounds. For your tongue, empty taste.
For your nose, it is empty smell. You
don't become totally vacant. A void.
There is still sensation. There is still
experience. Great news is that is
impossible to fixate while seeing the essence.
essence.
While not seeing the essence, the empty
quality is missing, isn't it? In the
moment of seeing the empty essence,
there is no attachment, no clinging and
no fixation. Yet there is knowing. The
five senses are wide open. Everything is
vividly clear, utterly open with
unfixating awareness. This complete
openness called sanal in Tibetan, which
means not attached to anything.
This is precisely the opposite of an
ordinary person's frame of mind that
clings to and fixates on everything.
>> The openness of rigpa, the openness of a
yogi does not fixate on anything. It
does not hold anything.
We need to grow used to this type of
openness. Your five senses are wide
open, wide awake and yet thoughtfree.
Remain in that state, utterly open.
We could use the wall as the symbol of
being mindless. Now that is really
mindless. When an advanced practitioner
is asked about their visual experience,
they say it is unblocked, unobstructed.
It occurs through the eyes. I can see
every face individually. None are mixed
together. Each is distinct and clear. I
don't attach words to whatever I'm
seeing or fixate on any of the details.
The field of experience is vividly
clear. Similarly, the moment you
recognize mind essence, there is a sense
of being wide awake. When not fixating
on what is experienced, experience in
itself doesn't harm anything. Fixating
means to attach concepts to each detail.
This is this. That is that. We spend all
day playing name tag with reality. No
wonder we're exhausted.
wide awake but not freaking out about
being awake. That's the whole game.
>> Here's a quote from Lampa's Dharmadu Kosha.
Kosha.
>> When sentient beings look away from
themselves, everything seems solid and concrete.
concrete.
When the yogi recognizes the utterly
free state of Rigpa, he knows that it is
open like space and the appearances of
this world are a marvelous show.
This is why miracles are possible. The
realized yogi is not burned by fire. He
can walk on water and traverse solid
matter. An ordinary person like us is
certain to get burned by fire, blown
away by the wind and drowned in water.
How does a yogi manage to experience
these in a different way? Because Buddha
mind doesn't hold on to anything.
Appearances can't cause any harm.
That is why we are told again and again,
don't grasp at anything. Don't fixate on
anything. Zchin training is all about
exactly this.
The ability to perform miracles doesn't
happen by glimpsing the awakened state
just once or twice. It happens only when
you attain stability in rigpa in the
essence of mind.
Stability in Rigpar is the reason all
the great masters of India and Tibet
were unable to be harmed by fire,
crushed by mountains or drowned by water.
water.
Relative reality is truly like a magical
show. Are you familiar with magic? In
India, there were magicians who by means
of mantra and special substances could
bring forth a palace and invite kings
with their entire entourage to enter and
stay there. In this magical palace that
is experienced without truly existing.
There's a story that a magician once
invited the Buddha with his following of
500 Arhats into such a palace and served
them magical food. The Buddha acted as
if he didn't know and ate the food.
The magician thought, "I managed to fool
him." At the end, the Buddha dedicated
the merit, still acting as if he didn't
know and left with his entourage.
The magician then tried to dissolve his
magical creation, but the Buddha had put
a spell on it so that it just remained
there. He got very upset and went to
find the Buddha. The magician said, "I
am so sorry I tried to trick you. Please
forgive me and allow it to vanish."
Buddha then snapped his fingers and the
whole magical show collapsed. There is
no reality to a magical apparition, not
even as much as a hair tip. It is
created only by the application of
mantra and special substance. You can
conjure something forth to be seen.
While in fact it has no existence. That
is the metaphor for how everything is.
The world and all the beings in it.
Samsara, Nirvana, the path. Everything
is like a magician's creation.
There are traditionally eight analogies
for illusion, including magic,
reflection, a rainbow, a dream, and a
mirage. All these are examples for that
which is perceived to be, but which in
fact doesn't really exist. They are like
a magical show brought forth by a
magician. All appearances, whatever we
perceive, are like that, insubstantial
and devoid of true existence. The more
stable we become in pure awareness, the
more the four elements outside are seen
as they are, visible yet non-existent,
like a rainbow in the sky. Before one
was simply deluded by these non-existent appearances.
appearances.
If you don't want to get tricked by
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from Brilliant teaches many ways to see
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complex saves, jokers, people who always
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who always disagree with the majority.
Also hat puzzles which are the classic
scenarios where people must deduce their
own state from observing others.
Basically a lot of deduction. I do this
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We may think, I perceive this piece of
wood here, so how can that be empty?
>> The wood is empty of inherent existence.
Not only at some future point in time,
but already.
At a certain point, seven fires will
consume the entire universe as
thoroughly as a piece of paper destroyed
in a flame.
That which is left behind, the empty
space, cannot be destroyed.
The Buddha stated, "Form is emptiness
and emptiness also is form. Form is no
other than emptiness. Emptiness is no
other than form. Whatever you perceive
are empty forms." Try to understand this
Everything perceived is empty. But the
actuality of Buddha nature transcends
both being empty and not empty. Please
understand this remarkable fact. In the
moment of recognizing Buddha nature, you
don't need to do a lot. Simply recognize
the identity of that which wants to do
that which thinks. This baseless
ruthless essence is not some concept.
Having a concept of something
non-conceptual doesn't help anything.
A thought constructive emptiness is not
useful. We need the natural emptiness.
The moment you recognize mind essence,
it is already seen. Isn't that quite
easy? If the Buddha had said that there
was something to see and you somehow
miss it, you would be in trouble. But
there is no thing to see. It is
emptiness. This is what we need to see.
When seeing that nothing is missing,
nothing is left out that you still
haven't seen. In the moment of
recognizing the essence, there is no
thought. It is free. It is not an entity
that slowly comes into you like being
possessed by a spirit. In the very
moment of recognizing in that same
instant the empty essence is seen. By
merely seeing the empty essence no
thought remains. It is liberated free.
In this world mind is the most important
for the simple reason that it is mind
that understands and experiences.
In truth there is nothing other than
mind that experiences. The whole
universe is made out of the five major
elements which in themselves are
insensed. They don't know anything.
Likewise, the physical bodies of
sentient beings are made out of the five
minor elements. In their properties, the
bones and flesh are the same as the
element of earth. Blood and the other
liquids resemble the element of water.
The temperature of our body is
essentially the same as fire. Our breath
is wind while the vacuities in the body,
the different openings and hollow places
and so on are in essence the same as
space. These five elements don't
experience. They don't perceive anything
whatsoever. Unless there is a mind in
that body, the body itself doesn't feel
anything. The outer major elements and
the inner minor elements are also
similar in structure. our body with its
flesh and bones and be compared to the
surface of this earth with its soil and rocks.
rocks.
>> The greenery and shrubs growing on the
hillside can be likened to our pores and
small hairs. There are forests outside
and we have hair growing on our head.
Whenever you dig into the ground, you
usually find water at one point or
another. Similarly, if we ever make a
hole in our body, some liquid will start
pouring out. The heat of our body has
the same property as heat found anywhere
else outside. The wind that moves
through our lungs is the same wind or
air outside. The vacuitities are the
same as empty space. There is a very
strong resemblance between inner and
outer elements. In a sense, they are
identical in that the elements by
We also have five senses, five sense
doors. If there is not a mind or
consciousness connected with the five
senses, the sense organs by themselves
do not experience. A corpse has eyes,
ears, nose, tongue, and skin.
But if you show something to a corpse,
even if the eyes are open, it doesn't
see anything. A sentient being is
basically made out of nothing other than
mind. Apart from this mind, nothing in
this world experiences anything at all.
Without mind, this world would be
utterly empty. There would be nothing
known, nothing experienced.
Matter would exist, of course, but
matter doesn't know anything.
It is totally empty of consciousness.
In this world, nothing is more essential
than mind except for one thing.
>> The nature of this mind, Buddha nature.
All sentient beings have this nature
without a single exception.
>> This Buddha nature is present in
everyone from the Dharmakaya Buddha
Samabhadra down to the tiniest insect.
Even the smallest entities you can only
see through a microscope.
In all of these, the Buddha nature is
identical. There is no difference in
size or quality. Not at all.
Buddha nature never differs in terms of
quality or quantity.
It is not like Samantabadra has a large
Buddha nature and a small insect has a
small one or that the Buddha has a
superior Buddhahan nature and a fly an
inferior one. There is no difference at all.
all.
So we need to distinguish between mind
and mind essence. The mind essence of
sentient beings and the awakened mind of
the Buddhas is the same. Buddhahood
means to be totally stable in the state
before dualistic thought occurs. A
sentient being like ourselves not
realizing our essence gets caught up in
our own thinking and becomes bewildered.
Still the essence of our mind and the
very essence of all awakened Buddhas is
primordially the same. Sentient beings
and Buddhas have an identical source.
There is nothing you have to carry on
your back. Nothing you need to make up,
nothing you need to accomplish, nothing
you need to imagine.
Isn't that wonderfully simple and easy?
Seeing no thing is the supreme sight.
When looking at objects, you don't see
mind, but they are all experienced by mind.
mind.
When it comes to recognizing the empty
essence of mind, there is no need to
chase after it as if it was an object.
Because it is mind which experiences objects.
>> Earth doesn't see water. Water doesn't
see fire. Fire doesn't see wind and so on.
on.
Only mind can experience.
While being empty, it is not stuck here.
Any experience can unfold. There is no
need to hold on to being the experiencer
of a particular experience. The moment
you leave everything wide open, free
from clinging and fixation, you discover
that the concepts of perceiver and
perceived naturally subside. The fuel of
further samsara is exactly these
dualistic concepts. When the perceiver
and perceived naturally vanish, what is
there to keep samsara alive? Train not
in this. It is like crossing a 100
rivers over one bridge. It is like
cutting a tree's 84,000 branches and
leaves by a single slash to its main
route. All 84,000 branches will wither simultaneously.
simultaneously.
If you cut the root of just this
dualistic mind, you simultaneously cut
through the 84,000 kinds of disturbing
emotions. Can you trust this? Can you
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