Whenever any one of the afflictions occurs, if you recognize it and look at its nature, you will see that it does not have any real essence. It no longer takes the form of an affliction that is directed outward because you are looking inward at the essence of its nature. For this reason, when […]
When thoughts appear, they have no nature of their own. This is called “the union of appearance and emptiness.” Whether or not we realize this union of appearance and emptiness has no effect on the nature of thought. Within the experience of a particular person, however, there is certainly a difference between realizing the union […]
The instructions to wish for others’ happiness do not mean that we only make good wishes, because there are situations in which we can actually help others to increase their well-being, to remove their distress and suffering. If we are able to do so, then why hold back? If it is impossible to help them […]
It is often said that virtuous actions produce states of happiness and harmful actions produce states of misery. When we experience the mind’s nature, we find it possesses an inherent blissfulness that transcends the temporary experiences of happiness or suffering produced as a result of our actions. Because this total peace is experienced, there is […]
While the presentations of coemergent wisdom in the tantras and the treatises are very clear, they are not joined with the quintessential instructions. Coemergent mind refers to the point of realization when shamata and vipashyana have been integrated and we realize the mind as it is⎯empty, luminous, and free from complexity. We then rest in […]
If Vipashyana were only analytical meditation, it would not be authentic. If we only analyzed and never placed the mind and allowed it to rest in what we have understood, Vipashyana would not lead us to abandon the afflictions, and we could not develop a definite and certain understanding. So there is placement meditation within […]
It’s quite easy to think that the resting mind and the moving mind have completely different natures, and that when the mind is moving, the stillness has been lost. Some students think that they must clear away the movement before the mind can be at rest. They believe that there is a contradiction between the […]
External appearances appear to the mind, but they are just a construction of the mind; when they appear, the mind gives them a label. For that reason, even if outside things seem good, there is not actually a whole lot to be attached to. If they seem bad, there is nothing to feel aversion toward. […]
The instruction that we need to identify our body, speech, and mind is a particularly important instruction for our time. The reason is that today, many people think that our mind is our brain, or that the brain and the mind are the same thing. The brain is something that can cause thoughts to happen […]
When we speak about luminous clarity, we are not really talking about light or rays of light. We are not really talking about anything terribly profound. It just means the ability to know and understand that whatever there is can appear and can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and understood. This quality of luminous clarity […]
It might seem hard to understand karma. But if we look at it, the teachings on karma simply say that if we have a good intention and do a good act it will bring a good result. If we have a bad intention and do something bad, that will only bring a bad result—harm to […]
There are times when our mind stays with the object of meditation, but the meditation is not very clear, rather it is gentle and soft. It is easy to mistake this for good shamatha, but, in fact, it is not. Such a subtly unclear state of mind needs to be purified by tightening the mind […]
Vipashyana means “the prajna that realizes in a very precise way.” In shamatha we look at mind, but not at what mind actually is. Looking at our mind, we assess the mind’s stability, clarity, wildness, and so forth. But we don’t examine what mind is. What is its shape? What is its color? Does it […]
Without mindfulness (Tib. dranpa), there can be no samadhi. If mindfulness fails, the mind wanders. What is it that knows whether or not the mind has wandered? It is the quality of alertness (Tib. shezhin), which has the sense of knowing what is occurring in the mind in the present. These two are of great […]
The nature of the mind, the essence of the mind, is empty. But is this emptiness just blank, inanimate nothingness? No. It is clear in that it can know things; it is able to understand and be aware of things. This is what is meant by clarity. The essence of this clarity is empty, and […]
When we speak about dharmata, or things as they really are, we are speaking about the absence of the confusion and mistaken appearances that ordinary people experience most of the time. When we talk about the mind itself (Tib. semnyi), or mind as it is, we are referring to the inseparability of luminosity and emptiness. […]
Pure awareness, the empty essence, the union of clarity and wisdom, the essence of clarity and wisdom — all these can be synonyms for wisdom or awareness. This is the essence that is present with in all sentient beings, yet we do not recognize it. We have the instructions to recognize it, and if we […]
The third contemplation in Mind Training is on the infallibility of karma, which is cause and effect. The word karma is often understood as a fate that is impossible to change or alter. But that is not the Buddhist concept of karma. The Buddha taught that one can do something about one’s karma. Happiness and […]
If we start thinking about impermanence now, while we still have time to find skillful means to deal with it, then later we will not be caught unaware. Even though in the short term, the contemplation of death and impermanence might cause discomfort, in the long term it will actually save us from greater suffering. […]
The process of working with our life situation in the practice of tantric Buddhism consists first of acknowledging that one’s own basic nature is that potential, that Buddha nature, and then of meditating upon its presence within one by regarding oneself as a deity. The form of the deity is the embodiment or expression of […]
