The Scientist, Philosopher and Artist.

The Scientist.
Scientists like to experiment. They like to figure out what is really going on, and then to look to discover solutions to problems. The scientist pursues knowledge, but she does so through experience, trial and error.

The Philosopher.
The philosopher likes to examine and question. They want to know what is true, what is deceptive, and how these views influence and shape our world. The philosopher examines the very nature of our being and what can be known about our world by relying on reason, logic and critical thinking.

The Artist.
The artist is concerned with connection, relationships and impact. The artist conveys the value aspect of her work, her work creates meaning. Meaning is created through connection, change and impact. If no connection is made, or if no one is impacted, then the artist's work is undone. The artist's medium is reality, people and the web in which we are all connected.

Each of these three archetypes play a role in our practice.

When we sit down to meditate, we should sit down as a scientist. Your mind is your lab, what are you trying to solve?

Once we gain stability in our meditation, we should become a philosopher. Look deeper into your experience. Examine the nature of your own mind and the nature of reality. What is the true nature of the mind? What can be known through your experience?

When we stand from meditation, we stand as an artist. Use your daily life and interactions as the medium to create art. Share kindness, generosity and compassion. Use your trade to impact your community, create change and shape the world.

Don't be attached to any one role. Don't get caught up in the result or effect of your work. Simply attend to the different roles as they arise. There is a time to be a experiment, a time to analyze, and yes, even a time to dance.

Shamatha and vipasyana.

ཞི་གནས་
Tibetan: zhi-nay
English: calm abiding, peacefully resting, resting in serenity

ལྷག་མཐོང་
Tibetan: lha-thong
English: penetrative insight, clear seeing, higher perception

Meditation is the science of training the mind. It is a vehicle for awakening to our own true nature and the nature of reality. What we often call meditation can be categorized as two types of meditation, shamatha and vipasyana. Shamatha, or calm abiding, is the practice of bringing the mind to rest. The practice of shamatha involves choosing an intentional focus, whether it be the breath, an object, or even resting in the nature of mind.

The goal of the practice of shamatha is to cultivate an effortless, joyful, and peaceful equanimity that is accompanied by a very powerful and sharp mindfulness. When this mind that is resting in shamatha is combined with the practice of vipasyana, it can give rise to very clear and profound insights; insights into our own mind and the nature of the world in which we live.

We are all familiar with brief flashes of insight. We may be moving throughout our day and suddenly, catch a moment of clarity. These moments come and go, and they can fuel our well-being, joy and creativity. While we may have these insights frequently, they are often not transformative. The transformational power of the higher insights into the true nature of the mind and the nature of reality only occur when the mind is resting in shamatha.

The union of shamatha and vipasyana give rise to moments of awakening, as well as the final awakening to our true nature. These moments of awakening and higher perception are unpredictable and depend on certain conditions and the depth of your practice. The way that you can impact your chances of gaining these higher insights is to practice more.

Sit. Train your mind. Develop familiarity with bringing the mind to rest. Familiarize yourself with the stages of bringing the mind to rest, so that you can continuously and regularly rest in shamatha- a powerful mind that is joyful, effortlessly resting in peaceful equanimity. From this place of calm abiding, we can direct our discerning awareness to questions that explore the mind, our experience and the world around us.

Honor.

Not much is sacred anymore.

Everyone appreciates values such as self-reliance, independence, hard work and kindness. We all value honesty, integrity and optimism, whether it is in our homes, at work or in our communities. As young adults we start to explore our values, what impact they have on our lives and which values we want to live by. Our values shift and change over time, depending on the shape of our lives and the relationships that we forge.

I was fortunate to encounter the Dharma when I was in my early twenties. During my formative years as an adult, I experienced and explored values such as honor, reverence and humility. I had the privilege of sitting at the feet of great spiritual teachers; teachers like my own root teacher Younge Khachab Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama, Kusum Lingpa and Lama Tharchin. I practiced a tradition that had a long lineage of reverence towards teachers like the Karmapa, Patrul Rinpoche, Longchen Rabjam, Padmasambhava and all the way back to the Buddha himself. I was able to explore what it meant to be humble in the presence of these teachers, but also recognize a powerful sense of self-worth and innate potential. 

Nowadays, everyone has the right to say what they want. Everyone can choose to have a voice. Everyone can choose to lay out a vision. No one wants to exclude anyone. No one is wrong. There is no authority to be found, authority is seen as anti-egalitarian.

When we don't honor anything then nothing is sacred. Without any sacred values in our life, there is no authority to be found. Without authority, we end up with chaos, indecisiveness, and a lack of action. Without honor, traditions wither and die, movements stagnate, and communities suffer.

Honor gives rise to other values. It gives birth to authentic reverence and humility, which themselves rely on values like integrity, determination, self-respect and service.

I'm glad to have honor as one of my core values. What, or who, do you honor?

Goals for the state of unification.

The state of unification has two main goals:
1. Recognize the error of subtle dullness.
2. Persevere in the practice until effortless mindfulness unfolds.

As we gain stability in the immovable state, our practice transitions to the state of unification. Now we have considerable stability in our meditation. We are no longer bound by fixation on appearances such as thoughts, sounds and sensations. We strive to remain in this uncontrived, open presence for as long as we can, but the practice still requires a degree of effort at this state to eliminate potential errors.

The biggest error at this state is to confuse resting in rigpa with resting in the alaya-vijnana, or the foundational consciousness. The alaya consciousness is the unconscious aspect of our mind, in which reside our habit patterns, memories, karmic imprints, and various unconscious sense perceptions and emotional and cognitive obscurations.

We can rest in the alaya consciousness, which has a knowing aspect, but lacks clarity and vividness. Resting in the alaya consciousness is often stable and free from thought, and may even have a pleasant, peaceful feeling. This can also be described as being similar to daydreaming, where you are awake, but not really, as the mind drifts in and out of various mental states. 

We should recognize these signs of subtle dullness in our meditation and make an effort to correct for them when we see them. As a precursor to these signs of subtle dullness, often we can notice vigilance starting to wane and lose its alertness. Oftentimes though, by the time we notice vigilant awareness waning we are already on the slippery slope of being caught up in subtle dullness. It may even be necessary to move around a little, refresh yourself and settle back into meditation.

Knowing the errors of subtle dullness in our meditation, we simply must persevere in our practice. During the state of unification, we will experience many states of bliss, clarity and non-conceptuality, as well as many sessions where nothing seems to be happening at all. Stick with the practice. Continue to apply effort and be diligent. Don't let doubt, uncertainty and boredom create rifts in your practice.

As you are able to sustain and deepen your practice of resting in the uncontrived, natural state, eventually the effort of mindfulness falls away and you enter the effortless state of equanimity- a vast, limpid ocean of awareness.

Goals for the immovable state.

There are two primary goals for the immovable state:
1. Learn how to work with appearances in all their variety.
2. Increase the power of mindfulness and vigilance.

We start the practice by settling into and abiding in the natural state, the nature of mind to which we have been introduced. We simply want to maintain this state continuously, in an uncontrived and effortless manner.

In the beginning, as we sit for a few moments or minutes, stuff starts to come up in our experience. We encounter a variety of sights, sounds and sensations. Our mind wanders to various thoughts and memories. We might experience certain emotions. We become aware of all kinds of appearances within our field of awareness.

How do we work with these appearances?

We simply rest, which is not easy to do. Our mind quickly grabs onto various appearances, chases after pleasure and pushes away pain. Our vigilant peripheral awareness notices when our mind has wavered, and with the effort of mindfulness, we return to the natural state.

This might seem similar to meditating on the breath. We simply return the distracted mind to our breath, and refocus on our object. Our attention likes to be placed on something. It likes to be exercised. The challenge is when we are resting in an uncontrived open presence, we suddenly become aware of lots of things that our attention wants to grab onto. 

As we learn to work with appearances, it is important to remember that we are not concerned with the contents of our experience. What is appearing isn't important, even if it seems to be. It is more important how we are engaging in the practice, rather than what is happening. We should be aware of the activity occurring in our field of awareness, but not concerned with what is occurring. 

This is a really important distinction. Our goal isn't to stop appearances from arising, our goal is to cut through fixating on those appearances as they arise. This isn't easy, it is counter to everything our minds normally do. Our mind wants to hold onto its experience, savor its pleasure and take another sip.

Which brings us to our second goal of this practice, which is giving rise to powerful mindfulness and vigilance. Initially, our minds are overwhelmed by appearances. Whatever is occurring in our experience is too exciting, too painful, too intense. We get swept up and carried away by all the movement of our mind. By increasing the power of mindfulness and vigilance we don't get so overwhelmed by appearances. This takes time and effort. Eventually, through practice, we start to loosen up our fixation. We start to let appearances be, just as they are. We let them arise. We let them abide, We let them cease. Eventually, appearances don't disturb our meditation. Eventually, we don't waver. 

This is what we mean by the immovable state.

The way to increase the power of mindfulness is to practice. There is no other way that to simply become familiar with the natural state. Start with short sessions. Sit for 10-15 minutes. Then break for a minute, and then meditate again. Go in and out on purpose. Develop agility for resting in the natural state, not only on the cushion but off.

We can increase the power of vigilance by expanding our awareness.  You can see that when you are experiencing dullness, peripheral awareness closes down and has a sinking feeling. Everything is losing energy and shrinking, and you simultaneously lose clarity and alertness. To increase the power of vigilance, imagine expanding your field of awareness. Imagine your awareness is a transparent glass that can see everything inside and out, above and below.  This vast, powerful vigilance awareness simply witnesses the extent of space, both inside and out. Everything is clearly apparent, appearances naturally unfolding in all their variety.

Combining a powerful mindfulness with clear and alert vigilant awareness, we simply rest in the uncontrived natural state. As we continue to learn to work with appearances, we gain more and more stability such that we no longer waver. As stability further increases in this immovable state, we transition to the state of unification. 

Unique Dzogchen Mindfulness and Vigilance

Everyone is familiar with mindfulness. Mindfulness is often described as focus or attention directed towards a particular object. We can be mindful of our breath, mindful of the way we walk or our daily activities, like washing the dishes. In this sense, mindfulness is synonymous with attention or focus.

Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as paying attention on purpose, in the present and without judgment. That is a useful definition, but again here the indirect meaning is that we are paying attention to some thing.

In Dzogchen we also employ mindfulness, but in Dzogchen there is no object of focus. The practice of Dzogchen is said to be without support. 

How do we be mindful, but not mindful of any thing?

We can define mindfulness in the Dzogchen tradition as an uncontrived, open presence free from judgment.

It is uncontrived because we are not directing our attention towards anything in particular and we are not trying to make anything happen. It is open presence because we are alert and aware, here and now. It is without judgment because we are not concerned with the contents of what is arising in our experience, whether it is good or bad, painful or pleasurable.

We simply rest in uncontrived, open presence free from judgment.

At first this takes a lot of effort. The habitual instincts of our mind is to be engrossed and fixate on our experience. We chase after sights and sounds. We follow trails of thought and get caught up in a web of stories. Our attention picks out objects, clings to them and gets caught up in distraction. This is where vigilance comes into play.

Vigilance is a clear, alert peripheral awareness that guards our meditation. Vigilance can be both extrospective and introspective awareness. We are aware of various appearances to our senses, but we also clearly see the array of thoughts and emotions coming up in our internal experience. In this way, vigilance is like a transparent looking glass, it sees everything but doesn't react to it. It is mindfulness which does the fine tuning, when it is necessary.

Vigilance notices when our attention has strayed towards an object or appearance. Noting that we have strayed, we use mindfulness to again rest in the uncontrived, natural state. As we train ourselves to rest in the natural state, the wandering of attention becomes less and less, eventually giving way to effortless mindfulness.

In effortless mindfulness, the strength of vigilance becomes further intensified and more powerful. It is like a sharp razor that cuts through appearances in all their variety. As we continue our training, eventually effortless mindfulness gives way to baseless mindfulness and the actual path of Dzogchen.

A simple aspiration prayer.

Every morning as part of my practice I recite a few prayers before settling into meditation. There is one verse that encompasses my intention perhaps more than any other:

Please bless me to see the dharmakaya as my own awareness, 

Please let me take undesirable difficult situations onto the path,

and quickly returning the kindness of all father and mother beings of the six realms,

Bless me to come to the perfection of generosity. 

It is a simple aspiration. It doesn't involve any sort of big project or magical feat. It is within reach at this very moment, but also pervades all times, places and activities. 

Simple, yet its impact on your own life and the lives of others can be profound.

Symbols for awakened mind.

A mirror perfectly reflects anything that is placed in front of it. The various aspects of color, shape and qualities is complete just as it is. Because the mirror is clear, there is no distortion. Whether the object is pure or contaminated, the mirror is not improved upon or brought to ruin.

So it is with awareness.

Space is without support and never comes into existence. It does not abide in any way and it is utterly beyond all description. Yet, anything and everything comes and goes within the sphere of space. Space is not defiled by the arising of impure phenomena. Space is not made more pure by the arising of pure phenomena. It is unchanging, completely unbiased, and encompasses all.

So it is with awareness.

The sun is forever utterly lucid, unobscured and radiant. The sun and its rays are inseparable, they do not come together or separate. Where there are light rays there is no darkness and warmth is felt without bias or expectation.

So it is with awareness.

Spontaneous Presence.

Within the expanse of spontaneous presence is the ground for all that arises.
Empty in essence, continuous by nature,
it has never existed as anything whatsoever, yet arises as anything at all.
Within the expanse of the three kayas, although samsara and nirvana arise naturally,
they do not stray from basic space- such is the blissful realm that is the true nature of phenomena.

Longchen Rabjam, from the Choying Dzod

When we enter into the state of spontaneous presence in our meditation, we have arrived at naked awareness beyond mind. This is the actual introduction to rigpa. Our teacher introduces rigpa through language and signs, but the actual introduction is based on our own experience. That is the real introduction. 

The expanse of spontaneous presence is baseless. We say that it is baseless because there is no ground, there are no concepts about emptiness or the way things exist. The spontaneously present luminosity of the mind is not divided into subject or object, there is no distinction between meditation and post-meditation, no distraction by thoughts, appearances or emotions. Everything dawns as the ornament of awareness, which is itself nothing at all. Longchenpa's quote captures how this single expanse of awareness, which is timelessly pure and spontaneously present, manifests as all that appears and exists whether it is of samsara or nirvana. 

Once we have been directly introduced to this unique state of the natural Great Perfection, our own awareness, we need to gain certainty and perfect its potentiality. To stop here, having been introduced, is not enough. We need to resolve all doubts and uncertainty in order to be decisive about this unique state, not to mention the uncertainty with how to work with this within the world. Once we can carry on this conviction regardless of what is coming up in our experience, whether on the cushion or off, then we can continue with confidence in liberation. 

The great master Longchen Rabjam in his Choying Dzod, the Basic Space of Phenomena, skillfully lays out this path of resolution. He takes a look at questions like:

How do we account for ordinary and pure appearances?

How are we to understand different types of beings? 

How do we approach confusion and suffering?

How are we to understand this unique state of the awakened mind?

How do we understand karma and dependent origination from this unique perspective?

Where are the potential errors and pitfalls in this approach?

What brings accomplishment, what is accomplishment?

How is this different than buddhahood? How is it the same?

Once we have come to a decisive experience that everything is subsumed by the expanse of awareness, we continue with confidence in liberation. The way in which we come to that decisive experience is through the practice of trekchod and thogal, which are the two paths of training in the practice of Dzogchen. 

Equanimity.

The four foundations of Dzogchen naturally unfold in our meditation if we are able to maintain the uncontrived natural state. Each stage is marked not by a sense of accomplishment or progress being made, but rather by what we are not able to resolve in our meditation or where we are getting stuck.

Initially, we are distracted by the play of appearances and the diverse experiences that arise in our meditation. As we gain agility in working with appearances, we can have a very clear appreciation of our meditation moving from the immovable state to single-pointedly abiding in rigpa. As we continue to cut through dualistic appearances and to not fall prey to subtle distraction or dullness, the single-pointed state becomes like a vast limpid ocean. This is the state of equanimity.

In the state of equanimity, stability and clarity are equal. Whatever arises in our meditation is equal in being the dynamic energy of awareness, or rigpa tsal.

There is no need for other methods. There is no doubt, no excitement. Everything is equal.

Clarity and dullness are equal in nature, equal in experience. Clarity and emptiness are equal. Stability and clarity are equal.

Often in meditation, too much stability can lead to dullness. Here, abiding in equanimity, stability induces clarity.

Often in meditation, too much clarity can lead to agitation. Here, abiding in equanimity, clarity induces stability.

It is here that the subtle Dzogchen mindfulness that we employed moves from effort to effortless. Mindfulness here is really mindfulness of the instruction, of the pointing out. While previously, as we struggled to resolve appearances, we employed a subtle mindfulness that allowed us to cut through appearances. Here, that mindfulness becomes completely effortless.

As we gain greater stability in the state of equanimity, we eventually cut through to baseless spontaneous presence, naked awareness beyond mind. 

A flash in the pan.

A formal meditation session is composed of three parts- intention, main practice, and dedication.

Our intention is the why of the practice. Why are we sitting? What is our aspiration?

The main practice is applying ourselves to the meditation instructions.

The dedication is sharing the merit and benefits of the practice with others.

It is good to have a formal meditation session each day. Generally the morning or evening work best, but whatever fits your schedule is fine.

There is another type of practice that you will find yourself engaging in throughout the day. That is the sudden or flash meditation. These are the moments in your day when suddenly, awareness lights up and you recognize the meditative awareness. You mind is instantly calm, clear and at ease. Your attention is focused, yet expansive.

You might encounter these moments in conversation, during commutes, walking, or simply drinking a glass of water.

These moments of clarity and insight are important to your practice. Try to give rise to them throughout your day. Can the next meeting you have be one in which you enter with an open, calm and clear mind?