Emptiness meditation

Investigating subtle clinging

I would like to share this dzogchen-inspired practice that has been useful for me. It sums up my recent findings that have led to exposing some new conceptual layers behind subtle forms of clinging.

Just letting the mind rest had become my main "practice" and I hadn't done any formal sitting for a long time. Recently as I started to teach and sat with my students, I realized during those sessions that I could fine-tune my realization of mind's nature. After a while these experiments took the form of a more organized study.

The idea is to systematically investigate how the aggregates of body and mind condition the experience seen from the perspective of the subtle state of emptiness. As conceptual layers are dissolved into emptiness, the insight into mind's nature is deepened and one rests in a more refined awareness of emptiness. At least until at some point intellectual clinging to duality arises again and is recognized and liberated instantly.

This systematical way of studying has helped me to recognize what causes non-dual experience to fluctuate during the day.

Emptiness meditation

I. Rest

Let the mind be just as it is, unmodified and unfabricated. See how all phenomena are inherently mind, with no solidity or substance, devoid of unconditioned or unchanging existence and just rest in this essential nature of mind that is thus brought to the foreground of awareness.

II. Refine

While resting in emptiness and clarity, incline the mind to see how the experience consists of following aggregates of body and mind:

1 Senses

'¢ Hearing
'¢ Seeing
'¢ Smelling
'¢ Tasting
'¢ Touching
'¢ Thinking

One by one look at the sensations and thoughts and see how they are all empty and all mind despite seeming solid at the first glance. See how fundamentally there is no difference between sensations and thoughts or thoughts and silence. When the state of emptiness and clarity is firmly established, all sensations and thoughts are seen to be manifestations of the infinite mind space, like reflections on a cosmic mirror.

(cont.)

2. Awareness

Awareness of sense object is flawless pure presence that is beyond concepts. [1]

3. Clinging to sensations

Favoring or disliking parts of the experience give rise to a feeling of aversion or desire, like for example taking a feeling of pain to be real and solid for a moment or noticing how after seeing beautiful forms, the memory of it lingers on for a while afterwards. Depending on the baseline of the yogi this aversion and desire may also cause physical sensations, urges and push and pull of the attention.

Look directly at those arising sensations and feelings and see if there is anything concrete behind them. All these reactions can be seen to be just sensations and thoughts without substance.

4. Perception

Perception distinguishes one part of the experience from another and gives names to them, for example: conference room, car, man, bird, jamaican, beautiful, unfair. Could there be anything concrete behind the categorizing?

The cognitive function that recognizes and groups sensory data will always remain, otherwise we would not be able to function, but seeing through and dropping clinging to the gross conceptual categories enables one can look at the world in a fresh and undivided way.

(cont.)

5. Mental Formations

There are a huge number of mental formations that are conditioning our experience. They are like a transparent glue holding together the aggregates and therefore easy to miss. The following ones seem to be relevant to me at his point of my path.

5.1 Owning a body

Even though painful and unpleasant sensations make this body feel solid, look closer to see how behind this apparent solidity there is just compounded conceptual phenomena and therefore nothing real and how this concept dissolves into emptiness with a feeling of relief.

I have noticed how even with the mind space free from thoughts, there might be subtle clinging with the attention contracting around the physical space of the body instead of extending to infinity and reflecting everything without grasping.

5.2 Personal history

Firm belief in biographical history of this cluster of sensations causes thoughts of the past and plans for the future to emerge. Unless mindfulness is strong, these story lines fabricated by the mind may turn into worry and grasping. What else is found behind this belief except void?

5.3 Identity

After letting go of personal history, it is easy to see how our own idea about ourself is a complete fabrication with no power to have any real influence on anything. We are fictional dream characters. Still unless this illusion is seen through, the mental formation will cause continuous arising of thoughts that are clung to.


(cont.)

5.4 Existence

What is a sense of being? A cluster of concepts that just somehow feels important? A contraction of the awareness? A sense of pressure behind the eyes? An ever-present urge to exist?

There are only sensations, thoughts and a bunch of conceptual overlays. Look at the sense of being from this angle of insubstantiality and it evaporates. How could anything exist or not-exist within the all pervading pure emptiness that is this mind?

5.5 Where-ness

The space behind, below and above us and everything else that we cannot see is automatically constructed by the mind. We are living in a conceptual mind made space that extends to all directions like a virtual reality.

Hearing noises from the outside will cause the mind to create a fabricated virtual reconstruction of the situation and subtle here-ness there-ness duality is created instead of limitless mind space that momentarily and choicelessly reflects all passing phenomena.

Ask yourself: Where is here?

5.6 Time

It is easy to turn "this moment" into a solid entity without noticing it. One might be firmly resting as the awareness without noticing the subtle sense that everything is happening 'now'. Just inclining the mind toward that concept makes it dissolve.

(cont.)

III. Abide

Now that all the aggregates are seen to be just fabricated constructs with no concrete reality other that what we give to them in our minds by clinging to them, the clarity increases and the realization of emptiness becomes deeper than before. Abide in that state and it will support itself.

IV. See the essential nature of whatever arises

Because of the momentum created by years of dedicated practice of ignorance, inevitably at some point a conceptual thought is formed or awareness contracts on a concept which reveals some form of grasping to dualities. Perhaps it was a remembering thought that gave rise to concepts of personal history and identity? Or a feeling of discomfort that was taken to be real? Whatever it was, because of mind's clarity and non grasping presence, it is instantly seen through with precision and the contraction of the attention dissolves and becomes unimpeded again.

During this practice the mind might be perfectly motionless or in a state of great turbulence, or anything in between, it does not matter. The only thing that matters is continuous and effortless resting in the nature of the mind to clear any possible misconceptions of whatever arises.

[1]

for example see:

"The awareness arising at the first sudden instant of sense contact is that pure presence which is manifested without modification or correction by the mind and which is not created or produced by any cause. What is this state of presence? It is a condition of existence transcending the limitations of both subject and object; it is a natural or authentic self-originated primordial awareness or pure presence."

- Namkhai Norbu, The cycle of night and day (p. 66)

(end of post)

Nice.

FYI, somewhat related -- Chogyal Namkhai Norbu is the subject of a very interesting documentary which I saw just last week on PBS. He escaped Tibet and settled in Italy, married an Italian woman and had a son, Yeshi, who is thought also to be a tulku but who wanted nothing to do with all that being a tulku brings to one's life. You can watch the film in its entirety online here:

myreincarnationfilm.com/film/chogyal-namkhai-norbu/

Thanks for this, Antero. Very lucid and helpful. cmarti, I also recently watched that documentary, fascinating.

P.S. guys I'm not sure if these teachings will only be introductory, or more advanced, but Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will be doing a live streaming dzogchen teaching / guided meditation today beginning at 3:00 PM eastern ( new york time ) until 4:30 PM. I will be joining, I hope some KFD folks join too! There will be another next sunday the 8th. Here's a link to the schedule:

www.ligmincha.org/about-rinpoche/by-location.html#worldwide

This is beautiful, and very helpful. Thanks for posting this Antero.

Thanks, Antero.

Atammayata.



thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/...tion-atammayata.html

dharmafarer.org/wordpress/wp-content/upl...-Atammayata-piya.pdf

Thanks everybody, atammaya seems to be the word!

And thanks for the links Nikolai. There was an interesting piece of information on the Piya Tan's article on Atayammata:

Suchness (sunnata) of the real world is the opposite pole of emptiness (tathata). Still they are not really opposites and there is no real contradiction between them. If one investigates the phenomena closely, despite apparent and obvious differences between various sense objects and thoughts, ultimately they seem to be made of the same stuff: mind porridge, which tastes like emptiness.