Thought-Free Wakefulness
By Chökyi Nyima
Rinpoche
Meditation training,
in the sense of sustaining the nature of mind, is a way of being free from clinging
and the conceptual attitude of forming thoughts, and therefore free from the causes
of samsara: karma and disturbing emotions. Please do not believe that liberation
and samsara is somewhere over there: it is here, in oneself. Thought is samsara.
Being free of thought is liberation. When we are free of thinking, we are free
of thought. The problem is that the causes for further samsara are being created
continuously. We spin through the six realms and undergo a lot of suffering.
Compared
to the other life forms in samsara, we human beings do not suffer that much. We
don't experience the unbearable, overwhelming suffering that countless other beings
do. But for some humans, their mental or physical pain may be unbearable. If we
continue to allow our ordinary thinking to run wild, we cannot predict what is
lined up for us in the future, where we will end up, in what shape or form.
The
bottom line is this: we need to know how to dissolve thoughts.
Ego-clinging
is simply a thought. Clinging to the notion of self is a thought. Clinging to
the notion of other is also a thought. Clinging to duality is a thought. The concept
of good is a thought, and the concept of evil is a thought. A neutral concept
is also a thought. Whenever there is thought, it follows that there is clinging.
The attitude of clinging follows the tracks of the three poisons-passion, aggression
and ignorance. Since the formation of thought involves the three poisons, that
means that thinking causes samsara, the endless suffering of cyclic existence.
Whenever there is involvement in thought, our experience will be samsaric. Deluded
thinking is the root of samsara.
Deluded thinking forms karma and disturbing
emotions. When there is thinking, there are the acts of accepting and rejecting,
of pleasure and of pain. The circumstances may be external, but the thinker is
this mind within. Beauty and ugliness appear to belong to external objects. However,
that which creates the beauty or the ugliness is actually the forming of a concept
in this mind, here. Also, the liking and the disliking of what is considered beautiful
or ugly are actions taken by this mind. The circumstance is the sense object,
but the main factor is our mind.
In order for all six classes of beings [gods,
asuras, humans, animals, pretas and hell beings] to be totally free of the entirety
of samsara, we need to solve the problem of the thinking that forms the causes
that propel us around through the various realms. We understand that thinking
is delusion. However, to want to be free and at the same time to want to hang
on to conceptual thinking is a contradiction in terms. It is something that will
not happen. It is an impossible task.
If you want to attain liberation and
omniscient enlightenment, you need to be free of conceptual thinking. Meditation
training, in the sense of sustaining the nature of mind, is a way of being free
from clinging and the conceptual attitude of forming thoughts, and therefore free
from the causes of samsara: karma and disturbing emotions. Please do not believe
that liberation and samsara is somewhere over there: it is here, in oneself. Thought
is samsara. Being free of thought is liberation. When we are free of thinking,
we are free of thought. The problem is that the causes for further samsara are
being created continuously. We spin through the six realms and undergo a lot of
suffering.
Compared to the other life forms in samsara, we human beings do
not suffer that much. We don't experience the unbearable, overwhelming suffering
that countless other beings do. But for some humans, their mental or physical
pain may be unbearable. If we continue to allow our ordinary thinking to run wild,
we cannot predict what is lined up for us in the future, where we will end up,
in what shape or form.
The bottom line is this: we need to know how to dissolve
thoughts. Without knowing this, we cannot eliminate karma and disturbing emotions.
And therefore the karmic phenomena do not vanish; deluded experience does not
end. We understand also that one thought cannot undo another thought. The only
thing that can do this is thought-free wakefulness. This is not some state that
is far away from us: thought-free wakefulness actually exists together with every
thought, inseparable from it-but the thinking obscures or hides this innate actuality.
Thought-free wakefulness is immediately present the very moment the thinking dissolves,
the very moment it vanishes, fades away, falls apart. Isn't this true?
The
Buddha described in detail that we can have 84,000 different types of emotions.
In a condensed way, there are six root emotions and twenty subsidiary ones. An
even shorter categorization of thoughts is that of the three poisons. Whatever
the number of types of emotions or thoughts, the Buddha taught how to eliminate
all of these by giving 84,000 sections of the dharma.
Perhaps you do not have
the time to study and learn all these teachings, or maybe you don't have the desire,
the ability or the intelligence to do so. In this case, the Buddha and the bodhisattvas
very skillfully condensed the teachings into a very concise form. This is called
the tradition of pith instructions that deals with overcoming all the disturbing
emotions simultaneously. The basic instruction here is to understand that all
of these emotions are merely thoughts. Even ego-clinging and dualistic fixation
is simply a thought. The pointing-out instruction given by a master to qualified
students shows how to dissolve the thought and how to recognize the nature of
the thinker, which is our innate thought-free wakefulness.
The root of confusion
is thinking, but the essence of the thinking is thought-free wakefulness. As often
as possible, please compose yourselves in the equanimity of thought-free wakefulness.
It is said, "Samsara is merely thought, so freedom from thought is liberation."
Great masters explain this in more detail, because simply being thoughtless is
not necessarily liberation in the sense of thought-free wakefulness. To be unconscious,
to faint, to be oblivious, is surely not liberation. If those states were liberation,
attainment would be swift since it is very easy to be mindless. That would be
a cheap liberation!
Simply suspend your thinking within the nonclinging state
of wakefulness: that is the correct view. One important point about the teachings
on mind essence is that they need to be simple and easy to train in. Particularly
in Mahamudra and Dzogchen practice, the view is said to be open and carefree.
The less you cling and grasp, the more open and free it is. It is the nature of
things. The less rigid our conceptual attitude is, the freer the view.
The
mind is empty, cognizant, united, unformed. Please make the meanings of these
words something that points at your own experience. You can also say the mind
is the "unformed unity of empty cognizance." These are very precious
and profound words. "Empty" means that essentially this mind is something
that is empty. This is easy to agree on: we cannot find it as a thing. It is not
made empty by anyone, including by us-it is just naturally empty, originally so.
At the same time, we also have the ability to know, to cognize, which is also
something natural and unmade. These two qualities, being empty and cognizant,
are not separate entities. They are an indivisible unity. This unity itself is
also not something that is made by anyone. It is not a unity of empty cognizance
that at some point arose, remains for a while and later will perish. Being unformed,
it does not arise, does not dwell, and does not cease. It is not made in time.
It is not a material substance. Anything that exists in time or substance is an
object of thought. This unformed unity of empty cognizance is not made of thought;
it is not an object of thought.
Whenever there is an idea based in time or
substance, its upkeep becomes very complex; it takes a lot to sustain or maintain
its validity. This unformed basic nature, however, is very simple, not complicated
at all. So many complications are created based on concepts of time and substance-so
much hope and fear. Honestly, substance and time never did exist; they never do
exist, nor will they ever exist in the future, either. The conceptualization of
time and substance is the habit of the thinking mind. Although right now time
and substance do not exist, it seems to the thinking mind as if they do.
Concerning
substance, if you look around, it seems like everything is solidly and precisely
there. In the experience of a real yogi, time and substance do not exist, of course.
Even a scholar can, through intelligent reasoning, feel convinced about this fact.
When we think that which is not, is, then, it seems to be. As perceived by a buddha,
however, all the experiences that samsaric beings have are no more substantial
than dreams. It all looks like dreaming.
At the very foundation of Vajrayana
practice lie two principles: devotion and pure perception. We should have devotion
towards the unmistaken natural state, in the sense of sincerely appreciating that
which is truly unmistaken, unconfused, never deluded. In reality, the nature of
all things is totally pure. Impurity occurs only due to temporary concepts. That
is the reason why one should train in pure perception.
In this context, there
are three levels of experience: the deluded experience of sentient beings, the
meditative experience of yogis, and the pure experience of buddhas. Whenever there
is dualistic mind, there is deluded experience. The deluded experience of sentient
beings is called impure because it is involved with karma and disturbing emotions.
In deluded experience, there is the attempt to accept and reject; there is hope
and fear. Hope and fear are painful: that is suffering. Whenever there is thinking,
there is hope and fear. Whenever there is hope and fear, there is suffering.
The
meditative experience of a yogi is free of giving in to ordinary thought. It is
something other than being involved in normal thinking. We can call it the state
of shamatha or vipashyana or other names, but basically it is unlike ordinary
thinking. The meditative experiences of a yogi are good and they become evident
because of letting mind settle in equanimity. The most famous of these meditative
moods are called bliss, clarity and nonthought. They occur during vipashyana meditation,
but they can arise even during shamatha practice. Through meditation training,
the mind becomes more clarified, more lucid. But if we are not connected with
a qualified master and if we do not know the right methods of dealing with these
meditative states, we may believe that we are somehow incredibly realized beings.
That becomes a hindrance; it can even turn into a severe obstacle.
The Mahamudra
path is presented as the twelve aspects of the four yogas. These four yogas of
Mahamudra constitute the path of liberation. The first of these, one-pointedness,
essentially means that you can remain calmly undisturbed for as long as you want.
The next yoga is simplicity, and means to recognize your natural face as being
ordinary mind, free from basis and free from root: "Simplicity is rootless
and baseless ordinary mind." We need to develop the strength of this recognition;
otherwise, we are as helpless as a small child on a battlefield. We train by means
of mindfulness, first effortful, then effortless. We train in simplicity at lesser,
medium and higher levels, and then arrive at one taste, the third of the four
yogas of Mahamudra. One taste means that the duality of experience dissolves,
that all dualistic notions such as samsara and nirvana dissolve into the state
of nondual awareness.
Having perfected one taste through the levels of the
lesser, medium and higher stages, the fourth yoga is nonmeditation. This is the
point at which every type of conviction and the fixing of the attention on something
completely dissolves. All convictions and habitual tendencies have dissolved and
are left behind. One has captured the dharmakaya throne of nonmeditation.
In
the beginning one needs to be convinced about how reality is: one needs to have
confidence in the view. Ultimately, however, any form of conviction is still a
subtle obscuration, still a hindrance. At the final stage of nonmeditation, all
types of habitual tendencies and convictions need to be dissolved, left behind.
There is nothing more to cultivate, nothing more to reach. One has arrived at
the end of the path. All that needs to be purified has been purified. Karma, disturbing
emotions and the habitual tendencies have all been cleared up, so that nothing
is left.
The path is necessary as long as we have not arrived. The moment
we arrive, however, the need for the road to get there has fallen away. As long
as we are not at our destination, then it is also necessary to have the concept
of path in order to get there. But once the destination has been reached, once
whatever needs to be cultivated has been cultivated and whatever needs to be abandoned
has been left behind, the whole need for path is over. That is what is meant by
nonmeditation, literally non-cultivation. This is the dharmakaya [the formless
body of ultimate reality, one of the three bodies (kayas) of Buddha] throne of
nonmeditation. In Dzogchen, the exhaustion of all concepts and phenomena is the
ultimate level of experience. This is the state of complete enlightenment. Both
these levels of realization are equal to that of all buddhas.
At this point,
for oneself, there is exclusively pure experience. At the same time, other beings
are still perceived, along with their impure, deluded experiences. Take the example
of the six classes of beings. When their experiences are compared with each other,
each being will feel that his or her way of experiencing is more profound than
the realm below. In general, everyone thinks that what they experience is real.
The difference in the experiencing of the different realms is the difference in
the density of their karma and obscurations. The less dense the karma, the closer
to real experience. Compared to the ordinary samsaric sentient being, the meditative
experience of a yogi is more real, more pure. But compared to that, the pure experience
of a buddha is more real and more pure still.
We need to dissolve impure deluded
experience. Deluded experience comes from not knowing the nature of mind; it comes
from unknowing, from being ignorant of the natural state. When not knowing our
nature, we are sentient beings. Ignorance clears when knowing the natural state,
the state of a buddha. While not knowing, there is the forming of karma and disturbing
emotions. While knowing, karma and disturbing emotions are not formed. If, in
the very moment of knowing innate nature and sustaining the continuity of that,
you were to never stray again, then you would be a buddha.
Buddhist philosophy
has many splendid words to describe what happens. The Chittamatra, or Mind-Only
school, presents a threefold classification of reality as the imaginary, the dependent
and the absolute. In the Dzogchen teachings, ignorance is described as having
three aspects: conceptual ignorance, coemergent ignorance and the single-nature
ignorance. These are all very nice words. Basically, it is in the state of not
knowing that confusion can take place. Not knowing our own essence is confusion.
The essence of what thinks is dharmakaya. The thinking itself is not dharmakaya,
but the identity of that which thinks is dharmakaya. Thinking is thought. Thinking
is not the thought-free state. It is the identity of that which thinks that is
thought-free.
Whether we use the terms mind-essence, the primordially pure
state of cutting through, original coemergent wisdom, or the Great Middle Way
of definitive meaning, one point is true: at the moment of not being involved
in thought, you spontaneously have arrived at the true view, automatically.
There
are two ways to approach the view. One is through scriptural statements and reasoning,
and the other is through experience. The first way is called "establishing
the view through statement and reasoning." Although we want to train in Mahamudra
or Dzogchen, still, without some feeling of certainty about the view obtained
through studying and through our own reasoning, it is not that easy to be sure.
It
is sometimes possible to transmit or communicate the view without using any scriptural
statements, but this requires that a totally qualified master possessing the nectar
of learning, reflection and meditation meets with a qualified disciple who is
receptive. There are three types of transmission. The first two, the mind transmission
of buddhas and the symbolic transmission of the knowledge-holders, are like that.
Mind transmission uses not even a single word or gesture, no sign. Yet, something
is communicated-the wisdom of realization is communicated and fully recognized.
Symbolic transmission uses no more than a word or sentence - no explanations,
just a gesture - to point out the wisdom of realization and have it recognized.
The third type is the hearing lineage, which uses a very brief spoken teaching.
In these times we are in, most people would have a hard time if we were only
to use mind transmission, symbolic transmission or hearing transmission with nothing
else, no explanation. Explanation is generally necessary in order to point out
the natural state. There are two ways to do so. One of these is the analytical
approach of a scholar; the other is the resting meditation of a simple meditator.
There are some people who can trust a master and be introduced to the natural
state without using any lengthy explanations. For other people, this is not enough.
Then it is necessary to use scriptural references and intelligent reasoning in
order to establish certainty in the view. But after arriving at the intellectual
understanding of the true view, the scholar still needs to receive the blessings
of a qualified master and to receive the pointing-out instruction from such a
master.
Do you have doubts about anything? Does anything need to be cleared
up?
Student: Could you give a few more details about pure perception?
Chökyi
Nyima Rinpoche: To refrain from hurting others and to abandon the basis for harm
is the main precept of the Hinayana teachings. To help others and to create the
basis for benefit is the main precept for Mahayana. Vajrayana is called the path
of pure perception, taking sacred outlook as the path. This is done on the foundation
of the two previous precepts: the attitude of wanting to avoid harming others,
and of wanting to help them. In addition to this, we train in pure perception,
not only in a spiritual context but also in any normal life situation in human
society.
The Vajrayana statement to regard everything as pure could at first
sound strange, maybe even awkward. But examine very carefully and you will discover
that the very nature of everything is one of purity. Therefore, to regard everything
as pure is very reasonable. Pure perception is very close to ultimate reality,
to how things actually are. All sentient beings have an enlightened essence, buddhanature.
It is said that all beings are buddhas, yet they are covered by temporary obscurations.
Even though all beings are veiled by obscuration, they are still in reality buddhas,
and therefore, it is perfectly all right to see all beings as perfectly pure.
The
Hinayana precepts of refraining from hurting others are vital. The Mahayana precept
of the will to assist other beings is extremely important. In addition to that,
the Vajrayana training in pure perception is tremendously profound. It is a training
in recognizing and acknowledging the natural purity of everything. Therefore,
the Tibetan approach to Buddhism is one in which the three vehicles are not separated,
but are practiced in combination.
We need to very carefully examine this principle
of pure perception, because seemingly things are not pure. On the seeming level,
we can have notions of something being pure or impure, but on the level of what
really is, everything is pure. The Vajrayana perspective of pure perception is
that everything, since the very beginning, is in actuality the three kayas of
the Buddha [nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya and dharmakaya]. All movement of thought
is the play of original wakefulness. We discriminate and judge because of not
knowing this.
It is a mistake to hold the opinion that something which is actually
pure is impure. But to regard that which is pure as being pure is correct. Compared
to the attitude of regarding things as being permanent and concrete, the attitude
of regarding everything as being impermanent and insubstantial is correct. To
regard everything, all phenomena, as not only being insubstantial and impermanent
but as being completely pure is an even higher view.
Student: With regard
to pure perception, it seems easier to see oneself as pure, doesn't it?
Rinpoche:
Without pure perception, Vajrayana is very difficult. Vajrayana is the swift path
because through the power of trust and devotion it becomes much easier to realize
the nature of things.
Generally speaking, pure perception means appreciating
that everyone has the capacity to be enlightened, everyone has a nature that can
be totally revealed and perfected. Moreover, the five elements, the five aggregates,
the five poisons-all the different aspects of experience-are by nature already
pure. It is only because we see these in a confused way that they appear as impure.
In the pure experience of not forming concepts of clean or unclean, pure or impure,
everything is seen as it actually is-as manifestations of original wakefulness.
When
someone understands the value of devotion and pure perception and is willing to
train in this way, he or she is a suitable recipient for Vajrayana teachings.
This suitability for Vajrayana entails being both broad-minded and sharp. Everything
is total purity, all-encompassing purity. Unless someone is very open-minded and
has a sharp intelligence, he or she just does not understand that this is how
reality is.
Moreover, we should also train in perceiving the teacher and our
fellow practitioners as pure. One person cannot truly judge another. Therefore,
we should have appreciation for our vajra brothers and vajra sisters. As for the
teacher who expounds the Vajrayana, we shouldn't have the attitude: "He is
just another guy, another human being, probably a little special, but what do
I know?" Not like that! Have a pure appreciation of the teacher as well.
There is great power in such pure perception.
According to the Vajrayana tradition,
it is through devotion and trust that realization dawns in our stream of being.
Devotion springs from pure perception of everyone. All sentient beings are potentially
buddhas. They are temporarily obscured, but in essence they are buddhas. Obscured
suchness may become unobscured suchness, which is buddha. The obscuration can
be purified; it will be purified; it is able to be purified.
So pure perception
is very profound and precious. It is through pure perception that we can have
true devotion. And through this devotion, realization dawns. This is like Milarepa's
statement to Gampopa: "Unlike now, there will be a time in the future, my
son, when you will see me as a buddha in person. At that point, the true view
will have dawned within your stream of being."
Vajrayana is not like the
general teachings of the Buddha. A Vajrayana saying goes: "Regard whatever
the teacher says as excellent, whatever he or she does as pure, and mingle your
minds as one." Unless a person is very open-minded and sharp as well, it
is just not easy to be that way. When seeing somebody as pure, it does not mean
being blind. That is not what we are talking about here. That would be stupid
admiration, false admiration. Real trust has more to do with acknowledging the
basic purity of all things.
Devotion or trust and pure perception are the basis
for Vajrayana practice. And that holds true whether we are listening to a dharma
talk, whether we are applying those teachings or whether we are interacting during
daily activities: in any situation pure perception is vital.
Chökyi Nyima
Rinpoche is the abbot of Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling monastery in Kathmandu. Eldest
son of the late Dzogchen master Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, he also teaches annually
at Rangjung Yeshe Gomde, his retreat center in northern California. This teaching
is excerpted from his latest book, Present Fresh Wakefulness: A Meditation Manual
on Nonconceptual Wisdom, published by Rangjung Yeshe. This article © 2003
Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche. Reprinted with permission of Rangjung Yeshe Publications.
From
"Thought-Free Wakefulness" by Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche.
Shambhala
Sun, November 2002.