Trekcho Installment 9

[Guest guest]

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Here is the ninth installment of Joyce Short's wonderful commentary.

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Continuing on from - " Thus the difference between the practitioner and the

untrained person is not in the arising or non arising of thoughts, but

whether thoughts are fixated on or liberated.

 

The liberation of thoughts has several qualities or aspects. The first is

that thoughts are liberated as soon as they are recognized. This is like

meeting a person you already know. If you can imagine that you lived with

someone for a long time, and then you moved to a different city, and then

you do not see them for a few years, but then all of a sudden you meet them

again in the street, you would recognize that person immediately. You would

immediately know that person to be your old friend. In the same way,

thoughts are liberated in the instant of their recognition because they are

recognized as being nothing other than the display of innate awareness.

 

The second aspect of the liberation of thought is that thoughts are

self-liberated without one's having to intentionally free them or purify

them. The analogy used for this is like the knot that snakes sometimes tie

themselves into. A knot tied into a snake does not have to be untied by

anyone because it unravels by itself. In the same way, once the

practitioner gains an immediate recognition of innate awareness, there is

no need to apply any additional technique at all. The same moment a thought

starts to move, the thought is liberated by itself.

 

The third aspect of the liberation of thought is that all thought activity

is naturally liberated without any harm or benefit whatsoever. This is like

a thief entering an empty house; the thief does not gain anything, and the

house does not lose anything.

 

From all of this, it is clear that the experience of a practitioner and the

experience of an untrained person are vastly different, even thought the

thoughts that arises for them may not be different at all. What

distinguishes the practitioner from an untrained person is the continual

self- liberation of thought, not the manner of the arising of thought

itself. So, therefore, continuing from the previous line which went, " WHILE

THOUGHTS ARISE JUST AS THEY DID BEFORE... " then the text says, " ...THERE IS

A TREMENDOUS DIFFERENCE IN THE MANNER OF THEIR BEING LIBERATED. "

 

If one lacks this liberation quality, this third essential point, which is

the self-liberation of thought, then the following quotation, which is not

from Paltrul Rinpoche's text but from elsewhere, decribes one's situation:

" Knowing meditation but not liberation, in what way are you different from

the gods of dhyana? " The 'gods of dhyana' are the gods of the form and

formless realms who abide in states of one-pointed shamatha, or tranquility,

that is without the recognition and self-liberation of thought.

 

What is being said here is that if you maintain a meditative state that does

not enable you to bring about the self-liberation of thoughts (freedom from

all clinging and fixations) it is of no significance. As the commentary

says, " Those who place their trust in a meditation which is merely a

one-pointed tranquillity that lacks this crucial point of liberation are

deviating into the meditative states of the form and formless realms. "

 

In other words, those who think that it is sufficient merely to be able to

recognize stillness and thought occurrence, merely to be able to tell the

difference between there being or not being a thought, are not much

different from untrained people, in their being at the mercy of confused

conceptuality. The gods of the form and formless realms lead a

comparatively delightful existence, because they abide in one-pointed

tranquillity; the problem only is that while they remain in that state for

eons and eons, eventually it does end and then they are still within

samsara. It is still a samsaric state and therefore ultimately useless.

 

One-pointed tranquillity without this crucial point of liberation is not the

only thing that is not of much use; if you attempt to conceptually seal

your practice with some kind of contrived attitude, this will not do much

good either. For example, if you try to tell yourself, " Whatever arises is

of the nature of emptiness, whatever arises is of the nature of the

dharmakaya, " if this is merely a programming of your own mind, then although

you may get away with that while you are meditating, as soon as you

encounter any kind of upheavel, the uselessness and ineffectiveness of this

exercise will immediately be revealed.

 

You will not be able to withstand the test of upheaval or adverse conditions

on the basis of a conceptually simulated experience of the innate nature.

Because neither a one-pointed tranquillity nor a conceptually simulated

recognition is of any use ultimately, the root text says, " WITHOUT THIS,

MEDITATION IS THE PATH OF CONFUSION. "

 

With regard to this cruscial point of the self-liberation of thought, you

can look at it from different angles, or apply different analogies to it; it

can be referred to as liberation simultaneous with appearance, or

self-liberation, or direct liberation. In whatever way you wish to refer to

it, it comes down to one thing: the self-liberation of thoughts so that they

leave no trace, produce no karma, leave no remainder, no trace. All the

different terms come down to this one thing; and this direct, immediate, and

directly experienced self-liberation of thought is the uncommon, special

feature that makes Dzogchen unique.

 

Earlier, we saw what happens if you do not possess this crucial point of

liberation. But if you do possess it, then no matter what mental affliction

or thought arises in your mind, it will always arise as the innate wisdom,

it will always arise as an expression of this (non dual)innate wisdom.

Therefore, once this point of liberation is gained, confused thought as we

knew it has been purified and vanquished.

 

Again, previously we saw how you could not withstand adverse conditions and

upheavels without having gained this point, but when you possess this point,

since everything depends upon thought, you can withstand any kind of

upheavel, any kind of circumstance. Therefore, no matter happens to you,

even the most adverse conditions will assist your practice, will arise as a

friend.

 

This approach is equivalent to taking mental afflictions on the path,

because they no longer pose any problem. It is the purification in place of

samsara, without samsara being abandoned. There is a shift, and it is no

longer samsara. It is liberation both from existence and tranquillity.

Liberation from existence means liberation from the realms of desire, form

and formlessness; liberation from tranquillity means that you totally cut

through the hope of attaining nirvana, you cut through any hope of escape.

 

This approach is the ultimate resolution into a mode of experience in which

there is nothing remaining for you to do; there is no effort that needs to

be applied. The word used here for " resolution " literally means, " to get

beyond the mountain pass, " to " make it over. " It is a true, final

resolution. because everything hinges on this point of liberation, the root

text says in the next line, " IF YOU POSSESS THIS, EVEN WHEN YOU DON'T

MEDITATE, YOU ABIDE WITHIN THE EXPANSE OF INNATE WISDOM, WITHIN DHARMAKAYA. "

 

If you do not possess the confidence of this liberation, then no matter how

high your view is, or how high you think it is, and no matter how deep you

meditative absorption appears to be, it will do you mind not the slightest

bit of good. It will not in any way serve as a real remedy for mental

affliction. It will not be a genuine path, because the definition of a

genuine path, from the Buddhist point of view, is that it actually tame the

mind, actually be a remedy for mental afflictions. Therefore, a high view

and a deep meditation that lack this point of liberation are useless.

 

If on the other hand, you do possess this one point of self-arising

liberation of thought, then even if you do not have the slightest idea of

what a high view might be, or the slightest conceptual understanding of the

view, and even if you do not have one atom of what you would identify as

profoundity in your meditative samadhi, it is impossible that you not be

liberated from the bondage of dualistic fixation.

 

If you travel to an island on which every single thing is made of gold, then

no matter where you look, you are never going to find ordinary rocks or

trees or earth. In the same way, once this point of liberation is gained,

no matter what arises in your mind, no matter what the thoughts consist of,

even if you look for any karmic process of confusion, you will not find it

because it is not there anymore.

 

Even if you look for independent confusion, you will not find it. You have

thoughts that arise, but they vanish without a trace. " Independent

confusion " that is actually going somewhere, i.e. confusion in which

thoughts not only arise, but they lead to a second thought, and so on. This

third vital point itself is the measure, or literally the chalk line, that

decides whether your practice is going anywhere or not: it all depends on

this one point. So therefore, the next line in the root text says, " THIS IS

THE THIRD VITAL POINT WHICH IS CALLED 'DIRECT CONFIDENCE' IN LIBERATION. "

briefly then, the three points are recognition, resolution and liberation.

 

to be continued with the Closing Section of the Root Text.