The method for taking all situations as the path is to rest within the essence of the mind. Within our minds, there are three aspects: the way things appear, how they are confused, and the way they actually are. We do not take our difficulties as the path in relation to how things appear or are confused, but in relation to how they actually are. We rest naturally within their nature — the clear and empty nature of the mind that is sometimes called the union of clarity and emptiness or the union of wisdom and the expanse. We rest within this, recognizing it. When we take sickness as the path, we look at the essence of the sickness without altering it in any way and just rest naturally within that. When we take the afflictions as the path, we just look at the essence of the greed, aversion, or delusion that has occurred. We do not follow the affliction or block it. We do not try to stop our thoughts. Instead, we look at those thoughts and at the afflictions that occur, and we rest naturally within their inherently empty essence.

Thrangu Rinpoche

from the book Vivid Awareness: The Mind Instructions of Khenpo Gangshar

Read a random quote or see all quotes by Thrangu Rinpoche.

Further quotes from the book Vivid Awareness:

• Virtuous and Non-virtuous Actions
• Confused appearances
• Taking Pain and Illness as the Path
• Karma
• Mind and brain
• The most important thing
• Awareness is naturally liberated
• The essence of afflictions
• Not rooted in anything
• Thinking while resting in the natural state
• Thoughts are just displays of the mind
• Goodness is something we all have
• Ordinary mind