What tastes better?

Imagine in front of you a shot glass and a pitcher, both filled with water. Maybe even do this experiment yourself.

Take one teaspoonful of salt and add it to the shot glass. What happens?

The water is cloudy and a lot of salt settles on the bottom and stays there.

Take one teaspoonful of salt and add it to the pitcher of water. What happens?

The water remains pretty clear, with a little cloudiness at the bottom and a little bit of salt remains on the bottom.

In which container will the salt completely dissolve more quickly? Obviously the pitcher.

Here is the real kicker, which water tastes better?

The shot glass of water tastes terrible. Gross. The pitcher of water tastes like regular water.

What's the point of this little exercise?

Our mind is the container through which we experience the world. When we are narrow-minded, or small-minded, our minds are very easily overwhelmed. That very same suffering, problem, or challenge, when met with an open mind is very easily dealt with and resolved.

What is a small mind? A mind that is rigid, fixated, agitated, tired, hungry, unfocused, restless.

What is a open mind? A mind that is understanding, tolerant, patient, resilient, kind, receptive, present, aware.

And here is the good news, we can train our minds to be more open. We can make it a daily practice to develop and embody this type of mind. We can also learn to recognize when we are being small minded, and we can learn to take those moments of recognition as reminders to practice.

What is the point of training your mind? You will enjoy your life more, and the suffering that you experience will not overwhelm you. Of course you will still experience pain and problems, but they won't taste nearly as bad.

Metaphors for the progression of your practice.

The process of developing our shamatha practice of calm abiding develops through five stages of experience. This progression of experience can be described through five metaphors.

Waterfall. The first experience of shamatha is movement. When we sit down the first thing we discover is that our thoughts, feelings and sensations are raging like water cascading down a steep cliff. This is the first experience which is like a waterfall.

Torrent in a deep ravine. The second experience is attainment. Our mind, which was once cascading and all over the place is being channeled and brought to focus. We discover in the stages of settling the mind and continuously settling that the mind is incredibly powerful and provides a lot of resistance to being directed towards our object of meditation. Effort is required to keep bringing the mind back to its focus. This is the second experience which is like a torrent in a deep ravine.

Meandering river. The third experience of shamatha is familiarization. The raging waters of our mind have calmed considerable, and we have discovered a gently flowing current. Within this river of meditation, we still experience the currents of agitation and dullness pulling us away from our focus, but we are able to come back and rest much more easily.  This third experience which is like a meandering river is like the stages of completely settled mind and the subsequent stages of training and calming the mind as we continue to work with the movement of the mind.

Ocean free of waves. The fourth experience is stability. The waters of our mind have merged with the great ocean which is free from waves. This is the fourth experience of resting in single-pointedness in which the mind does not waver, like an ocean free of waves.

A candle flame unstirred by any breeze. The fifth experience of shamatha is consummation. This is the stage of resting in equanimity in which the mind rests naturally in a state of limpid clarity, like a candle that is unstirred by any breeze. It is the state free from effort in which we experience the total pliancy of mind and body.

These five metaphors describe the progression that takes place in your meditation as you deepen your practice of shamatha. You can further understand and appreciate these experiences by contemplating the four ways of working with the mind and the eight remedial techniques that eliminate the five flaws of meditation.

Metaphor for the nature of mind.

A glass of water.

What are the qualities of a glass of pure water?

Transparent, clear, refreshing, healthy, reflective surface.

The pure water represents the nature of our own mind, with its qualities of being pure, transparent, calm and clear.  A state of natural peace and health.  A pristine state of self-reflexive awareness. The Buddha referred to this as the tathagatagarbha, or buddha heart. The water represents our natural condition.  

What happens if we put a handful of dirt in the water? Now what qualities do we notice? The glass is mucky, cloudy, obscured, disgusting, impure.

The dirt represents all of our thoughts, emotions, beliefs, habitual patterns and conditioning. We really identify with the dirt. Do we even notice the originally pure water?

How many of us are busy and have to stay on top of many responsibilities? Me too. Start stirring the glass. 

Normally we spend most of our days stirring that glass up, cycling through various mental states and emotional responses.  Our habits and actions keep churning up that dirt in the glass, the dirt swirling and obscuring the qualities of the water.   

But what happens if we let the water rest.  Just set it down and let it rest. At first it continues to swirl for a little bit, right? As we let it sit for five or ten minutes, naturally the dirt starts to settle.  The natural qualities of the water reveal themselves without any effort.

The dirt doesn't go away. Actually the handful of dirt occupies very little of the glass once it settles out. In the beginning, the dirt occupies almost all of our identity, but once we learn to recognize our natural condition then we become less preoccupied with our own thoughts and feelings. They no longer overwhelm us, since we know how to work with them.

What this metaphor reveals to us is that we simply need to learn how to bring the mind to rest. As we learn to rest naturally, thoughts, sights and sounds settle into their own place.

Rest naturally and emotions and fears disappear revealing insight and clarity.
Rest naturally and our habits and karmic conditioning lose their impetus.
Rest naturally and the qualities of the nature of mind reveal themselves.
Rest naturally and our intrinsic buddhanature becomes evident.
Rest naturally, and there is nothing more to do.    

Self-liberation.

རང་གྲོལ་
Tibetan: rangdrol
English: self-liberation, naturally liberated

In the Dzogchen tradition we talk about self-liberation, or natural liberation; liberated just as it is, in it's own place.  There are three types of self-liberation- like a snake uncoiling itself, like meeting an old friend, and like a thief entering an empty house.

Rangdrol like an uncoiling snake.
When a snake is resting coiled up it doesn't tie itself into knots when it moves.  It simply and effortlessly uncoils.  It doesn't need to think about it or create a plan of attack for uncoiling itself, it naturally goes on its way.

We struggle at this.

When we are tied up in knots we plot our best to escape.  We fight back, try to break out or just give up in exhaustion.  We struggle.  We see all of the struggle in our life and we know we are tied up in knots.  We also know that we don't know how to get untied.

The way that we experience self-liberation is to experience the nature of mind and the nature of phenomena directly.  It is not a conceptual process, we don't talk ourselves through it into a state of cessation or acceptance.  It is a direct experience.  This is what Garab Dorje talked about in the first of his Three Statements.  When we experience the originally pure and uncontrived nature of mind directly, we encounter the naturally liberated state.  Recognizing that we come to experience the timeless freedom of the nature of mind and the way in which all experiences, whether good or bad, are naturally liberated.  In this way, the knots of whatever is manifesting in our experience are naturally uncoiled and liberated in their own place.

The distinctive feature of this first stage of self-liberation is that prior to this experience you have been trying to use the craftiness of your mind to bring about freedom, freedom that has never manifested or never lasted.  Here in this tradition, you are using the direct experience of the nature of mind.

Rangdrol like meeting an old friend.  
It doesn't matter how busy you are, how crowded the place or even how long it has been, when you see an old friend you immediately recognize them.  "Oh, hello.  There you are, I recognize you dear friend".  It is a moments recognition, nothing more to do.

You are already intimate and familiar with the natural state of being and the experience of timeless freedom, yet there are moments when you get caught up, moments when you get tied up in knots.  So at this stage you are becoming more proficient at recognizing the naturally liberated state and dealing with problems and obstacles as they arise.  For you, problems and obstacles start to arise as friends.  As negative thoughts and emotions arise you instantly recognize them as a dynamic dance, free in their own place with nothing more to do.  You see them, but they don't necessarily bother you.

The key feature here is the familiarity you have gained familiarity of the naturally liberated state.  Familiarity allows us to recognize the natural liberation of thoughts, emotions and habitual tendencies as they arise, even though we may have a moment of distraction.  This is really a process of working with doubt and uncertainty in your practice, really sitting so that you start to gain that experience of liberation upon arising.      

Rangdrol like a thief entering an empty house.
This one is a bit more obscure conceptually.  The metaphor here is that the thief has nothing to gain and the house has nothing to lose.  This experience of self-liberation is connected to the essence of liberation in the Dzogchen tradition, which is liberation upon arising.  Normally what is manifesting in our experience can be viewed as an enemy or a problem, a thief.  Our house is secure, a safe zone where we experience freedom and peace of mind.  So our normal experience is that something manifests in our life and we lose something, our peace of mind or freedom get stolen from us and ultimately we get tied up in knots.  In this situation, the thief that arises- whether it be negative situation, thoughts, bad habits, karma or ignorance- doesn't threaten the house because the house has nothing to lose.  The nature of mind, your house, cannot be ruined by negative thoughts or emotions, it cannot be bound up in any way at all.   

Sometimes we are also the thief looking for valuable experiences and qualities.  We might start to have some 'real signs' that we are accomplishing something or be looking for confirmation or validation, but truly there is also nothing to add or improve upon in the nature of mind.   

The key feature here is that whatever arises in your experience is free just as it is, liberation is simultaneous with arising, with nothing to gain and nothing to lose.

You can always tell when you have fallen from this realization when you start to see thieves all over the place and long for the experience of a peaceful house.  Your work is a thief, those people, this problem, this thought, this emotion, all of it starts to tie you up pretty good again, doesn't it?

In the beginning, you discover the naturally liberated state,
In the middle, you recognize it again and again amidst confusion,
In the end, you realize that there is nothing to gain and nothing to lose.