A practice

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Hi all,

 

This works for me. Perhaps it may work for you. This is by Thrangu

Rinpoche. See http://www.rinpoche.com/reason.html

 

In kindness - Victor

 

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Question: Rinpoche, can you say a little more about the practice of

letting go when the mind is agitated, as you described, as used in

mahamudra and dzogchen? I experience my mind when I sit as being

agitated. And there's the practice of letting go. And I'm wondering

if you can just say more about that in a practical way?

 

Rinpoche: In general, the main approach that is taken in the mahamudra

and dzogchen traditions is applied when you are looking at the nature

of your mind. Now, kleshas or mental afflictions are thoughts, and

thoughts are the natural display of the mind. Thoughts may be pleasant,

neutral, or unpleasant, they may be positive or negative, but in any

case, whatever type of thought arises, you deal with it in exactly the

same way. You simply look directly at it.

 

Now, looking at the thought, or looking into the thought, or looking at

the nature of the thought, is quite different from analyzing it. You

don't attempt to analyze the contents of the thought, nor do you attempt

to think about the thought. You just simply look directly at it. And

when you look directly at a thought, you don't find anything. Now, you

may think that you don't find anything because you don't know how to

look or you don't know where to look, but in fact, that's not the reason.

The reason, according to Buddha, is that thoughts are empty. And this is

the basic meaning of all the various teachings on emptiness he gave, such

as the sixteen emptinesses and so on.

 

Now, to use anger as an example of this, if you become angry, and then

you look directly at the anger - which doesn't mean analyze the contents

of the thoughts of anger, but you look directly at that specific thought

of anger - then you won't find anything. And, in that moment of not

finding anything, the poisonous quality of the anger will somehow vanish

or dissolve. Your mind will relax, and you will, at least to some

extent, be free of anger.