Four Foundations of Mindfulness #6

[Guest guest]

 

 

By Dzogchen Ponlop Rimpoche

Tiny Slippery Spot of Mind

Buddhadharma spring 2005

 

THE THIRD FOUNDATION OF MINDFULNESS

 

The third stage of mindfulness is working directly with out

basic state of mind, which is our consciousness or awareness.

We're not speaking of one giant, all-pervasive mind, which does

not exist in any case. In the general Buddhist approach, the

mind refers here to a detailed classification of mind, and our

practice is working with every single experience of our

consciousness. We have a very detailed explanation of mind, and

our practice is being mindful of every individual movement of

our mind, every momentary experience of thought, perception

and memory.

 

In the Mahayana tradition, mindfulness of mind is closely

connected to the meditative experience, beginning with our

practice of *shamatha and vipashyana and continuing all the

was up to tantra. The *Vajrayana practices are closely connected

to this mindfulness of mind.

 

*shamatha or Tranquility Meditation - (Tib. she nay) This is basic sitting

meditation in which one usually follows the breath, while observing the workings

of the mind, while sitting in the crosslegged posture.

 

*Vajrayana Buddhism. Theravada Buddhism was the earliest form of Buddhism to emerge.

After that came Mahayana Buddhism - the 'Great Vehicle'. When Buddhism spread

northwards to Tibet in the 7th century a tradition known as Vajrayana -

the Diamond or Thunderbolt Vehicle - developed. Explore its rich and

complex teachings, cosmology, rituals and symbols.

 

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/b3schvaj.htm

 

In this practice, we develop the discipline of watching our

mind-guarding the mind and bringing it down to some experience

 

of groundedness. Right now, our mind is up in the air. It's

totally in the state of dreaming, in the state of non-reality, in the

state of non-existence. This mindfulness brings the mind down

to the fundamental state of nowness-nowness of this reality, of

this moment. That is the mindfulness of mind in the Mahayana.

 

Dwelling in the Past and Anticipating the Future.

 

Because of the dream state that is our basic experience of mind,

we have never, ever lived. We have never, ever lived in all of these

years. We think we are living. We believe we are living.

We dream we are living, But although we imagine we are living,

we have never actually lived.

 

We are either in the state of "having lived" or "will be living"

-that's how our mind functions in the samsaric world. Often,

our mind is dwelling in and dreaming about the past. Experiences

of the past are always occurring in our mind, and we are always

"sort of living" in the state of past memories. Our mind has never

been free to live in the present: It's always under the dictatorship

of our memories of the past or dream of the future. We have a

long list of plans for how we will love in the future-how we will

practice, how we will achieve this and that- and we invest our

energy, time and effort in these dreams. As a result, we may actually

 

achieve a certain number of our dreams, but when the future

becomes the present, we dont' have the time or prajna to experience

it. We don't have the space, the freedom, to enjoy the

dreams that have come true in the present.

 

We have totally, gone out of control. We have lost

our freedom and our dreams, along with our basic beliefs in

those dreams. Our idea of living has altogether disappeared,

slipped out of our hands, like the present moment. Therefore,

this practice of mindfulness teaches us to bring our mind to a

greater state of freedom. It teaches us to free our mind from the

imprisonment of dwelling in the past or future. In that freedom,

we are able to experience the actual sense of living, the simplicity

of being completely present with our living state of mind.

 

The Present Moment

 

When we look at it, the present state of our mind is a very tiny

spot. It's a very tiny and slippery spot, so tiny and slippery that

we always miss it. It's so tiny that it's an infinite spot.

 

The whole purpose of mindfulness of mind is to bring us back

to this tiny spot of the present, the momentary nature of our

mind, and to experience the infinite space and freedom within

that speck of existence. In order to do that, we much experience

the lively nature of our mind, which is so present, so momentary

and so fresh. Every individual moment, every individual fragment

of the mind is completely pure and fresh in its own state.

 

The whole point is to experience this freshness and genuineness-

the honest face of that tiny spot-without coloring it

with our memories, concepts, philosophies or expectations.

Experiencing it without all these is what we call simply being there.

That cant happen if we dont let go of our memories of

our understanding, our memories or our expectation. We have

to see the nature of our thoughts directly, and genuinely be

there, rather than living in our memories of understanding, or

memories of meditation, or our memories of our expectations

of our meditation. If we are living in the memory of thoughts,

then we are still not being there. We are still not experiencing

that fundamental, tiny, infinite spot.

 

Imprisonment

 

To the extent that we live in the memory of thoughts, we are

not experiencing the freedom of space. To the extent that we

live in the memory of understanding, even though we may have

good memories or a good understanding, it's like we are decorating

our prison. Our prison may look a little better and more

refreshing, but we still are living within a limited apace. We

haven't freed ourselves from the prison of dwelling in the past

and anticipating the future. Mindfulness of mind is being there

in that tiny spot, that infinite space, and that only comes through

totally letting go of our expectations. When we totally let go our

thoughts, we are totally free of thoughts.

 

In a way, our thoughts are imprisoning us. On the other hand,

we are imprisoning them. We imprison our thoughts in the same

way they imprison us. We're not letting thought be thought.

We're not letting these thoughts be thoughts in their own state.

We are coloring them. We are clothing them. We're painting the

face of our thoughts. We're putting hats and boots on them.

 

That's very uncomfortable for the thoughts. We may not recognize it,

but if you really look at the thoughts themselves, it's

very uncomfortable for them to be what we want them to be. It's

like dressing up a monkey in the circus. the monkey is all dressed

up in a beautiful tuxedo and bow tie, with a dignified hat and

beautiful shinjang boots. But you can imagine the discomfort the

monkey feels at that points. Now matter how beautiful he may look,

no matter how dignifies this monkey may appear to be, from the

point of view of the monkey's basic instinct, it's uncomfortable

to put up with all the expectation of your human boss.

 

Freeing our Thoughts and Ourselves

 

Mindfulness of mind is freeing our thoughts and coming back

to the basic spot. How do we practice this? In our meditation

and post-meditation, we have to recognize the arising of our

thoughts and emotions. We have to acknowledge them at the

first stage of their arising. For example, if strong anger arises in

our mind, the first thing to do it simply recognize it. However,

we have to recognize it again and again, because it only exists in

this tiny spot. Every moment, every fragment, is a new anger.

One anger may have hundreds of moments, and we have to distinguish

these moments as many times as they appear.

 

Then, when we identify a moment of anger, we just let the

anger be anger. We give some freedom to the anger. As much

as we want freedom from our anger, our anger is striving for

freedom from us. Therefore, at this stage of recognition, we

must let it go, allow it to be in its own state. There is a great

need for us to practice this, because recognition is the first stage

in working with our thoughts. It is the first stage of freeing our

thoughts and freeing ourselves.

 

Recognition: The Speed Bump

 

Recognition is like a speed bump. What does a speed bump do?

It slows us down; it slows down the speed of our car. The purpose

of the speed bump is not to stop the car, and the purpose of

recognizing our anger is not to stop it. Recognition slows down

the speed of our klesha* mind. *(kleshas Emotions and/or habitual patterns that defile or confuse,

such as anger, fear, and resentment.)The emotional obscurations (in contrast to intellectual obscurations)

which are also translated as "disturbing emotions" or "poisons." The three

main kleshas are (passion or attachment), (aggression or anger); and

(ignorance or delusion). The five kleshas are the three above plus pride and

(envy or jealousy).

 

Whether it's anger, passion or jealousy we're feeling,

it slows down the speed of that klesha mind.

In the process of slowing down, we are creating more space, and

in the space created by the simple moment of recognition it the

space of wisdom, of compassion, of love and of mindfulness.

 

This space will help us handle this car we are driving. That

gives a greater sense of safety not only to us as the driver but

also to the pedestrians who are walking on the street. we're not

creating more space just for our selves; it's for others, too. We're

creating some space between ourselves and our anger, between

ourselves and our klesha mind. the space we experience because

of the speed bump is this tiny spot, which is the beginning of

experiencing our infinite space.

 

Three Stages of Recognition

 

There are three stages of recognition. The first stage is recognizing

the very tip of the arising of thought. this is the very first

moment of the movement of thought or emotion. This is the

foremost way of recognizing thought, which happens only after

we have some shinjang, some development of suppleness in our

practice.

 

The second stage of recognition is recognizing thought when it

has arisen. At this stage, our thoughts are a little bit grownup.

It's like diagnosing a disease at a later stage of development.

Because it has already developed, its treatment requires a little

more work. It's little bit late, but still manageable.

 

The third stage of recognition is recognizing thought after

everything has happened. We don't recognize thought until after

it has arisen and grown to the full-blown stage. This is like

recognizing our monkey in the zoo. We recognize our monkey

wearing the full tuxedo, but it's a little late, because we have totally

imprisoned him at that stage. We have totally imprisoned our emotion,

our thoughts and ourselves. This is a stage where our

disease if fully grown, and there's nothing much we can do except to

take painkillers and wait.

 

These are the three stages of recognition; the Mahayana path

very much emphasized the first stage. Through the development

of our courage, skill and compassion, we increase our power to

recognize thought at its very beginning. As soon as any thoughts

or emotions arise, at the very first trace of their arising, we much

try to maintain our mindfulness. In this process, we're letting emotions

be emotions and mind be mind- we simply observe the movement

of mind and work with it. When we experience that tiny spot

of nowness, we are experiencing the infinite

space of our mind, the infinite space of our thoughts and the

infinite space of our emotions. We are freeing our thought and

emotions, and we are freeing, ourselves at that tiny moment.

In a way, it's a very simple process, although it takes many

words to describe. In the practice of mindfulness we repeatedly

bring our mind back to its present state of nowness, to the

present momentary fragment of our mind. That's why we use

all these different techniques- to come back to that very tiny

spot and experience its infinite space. that is the whole purpose

of our meditation.

 

The Forth Foundation of Mindfulness next.