When meditators are learning to stabilize the mind, they should not regard meditative equipoise as something good. If they fail to have an experience of meditative equipoise,they should not regard that is a failure. The important point is not whether meditative equipoise is present, but whether you can maintain awareness in both a settled and a disturbed state of mind. If disturbing thoughts arise, you should use them with awareness to recognize that thoughts are transient — they arise, persist for a while, and then disperse. The transience of a thought is revealed by its elusiveness. Before you can get hold of a thought, it is already gone, and another one has appeared in its place.
Gampopa
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Further quotes from the book The Ninth Karmapa, Wangchuk Dorje's Ocean of Certainty :
- The root of samsara and nirvana
- Realizing the nature of mind
- Mind’s reflections
- The way to rest the mind
- Diversity and unity
- Relaxing in an unconditional state
- Free from all empirical characteristics
- Maintaing awareness in the states of agitation and meditative equipoise