The limits of perception.

Vipasyana is the practice of looking. It is a practice of seeing directly, gaining firsthand experience. But isn't all perception relative? Doesn't the mere act of seeing mean that others may see things differently?

All perception is limited by our thoughts and ideas about what we are seeing. Concepts define what we experience. Our own bias and value judgements color and shape our perception of the world and what we hold to be true. So if vipasyana is the practice of looking, can we ever see truly or are we simply seeing within the cage of our own confusion?

Vipasyana is preceded by the practice of shamatha because in shamatha we learn to let go of grasping to thoughts and following after trains of thought. The practice of shamatha gives us the skills and familiarity to recognize the limits of thoughts and ideas. Thoughts and ideas are not the thing itself. Concepts are not real. When we recognize this crucial flaw of concepts, we stop investing in them. We loosen the tight knots of limiting beliefs and perceptions.

Our view influences our meditation, and our view is largely formed by concepts and cultural influences that we have rarely examined fully if at all. Coming to a right view is an important first step to approaching meditation, but even more important is learning to engage in a practice that recognizes the futility of thoughts and ideas about the way things are. When we learn to simply look, free from mental elaboration and speculation, then we can start to appreciate what is right in front of us. Then we can start to explore the limits of perception and what is really true.

Reading is not enough.

How do you know something?

When it comes to the practice of vipasyana, how we come to know something is important. Over the past two thousand years Buddhist traditions have developed a rather extensive system of reason and logic. One of the subjects that was developed by Dignaga and Dharmakirti was the system of pramana, or valid cognition. How do we go about correctly knowing something?

Broadly speaking there are two types of valid cognition, inferential and direct. Inferential valid cognition is made using reason, logic and analysis to come to know something. We can study, read various works on the subject at hand, and debate others until we come to a correct understanding.

Direct valid cognition is a direct experience that is free from concepts. Direct valid cognition is seeing something directly, having your own experience. You can study the great stupa at Boudhanath, its layout and history, the various materials and methods used for its construction; but that is a very different experience than actually being at the great stupa, seeing it firsthand, feeling the energy of the environment and the various sounds, smells and interactions taking place. Direct valid cognition is a first-hand experience that is free from conceptual imputations or bias.

In the practice of insight, we are relying on direct valid cognition. The time to use inferential valid cognition is before the meditation session. Inferential valid cognition enriches and prepares us, but it is not a replacement for the actual experience. We should study interdependence and emptiness, we should be familiar with the different presentations of mind and how it manifests, and we should be familiar with how to recognize the nature of mind. We should read, a lot. But reading is not enough. At the time of practicing vipasyana, we need to set aside our ideas and concepts and focus on our actual experience.

Vipasyana is the practice of have a direct valid cognition of the nature of the mind and the nature of reality. This is our chance to see things as they are, don't waste your time and energy on going back to ideas and concepts. Look directly. What do you see?

Experience versus realization.

Experience is temporary, fleeting, easily lost.
Realization is unchanging, seen, known, directly recognized.

Nyam is the Tibetan for experience. We have all kinds of experiences.
Bliss, clarity, non-conceptuality.
Visions, sounds, feelings.
Physical sensations, thoughts, emotions.
Sometimes we feel energetic and focused, sometimes tired and sleepy.
We get confused, then a moment of being awake.

We have all kinds of nyam, the point is to realize that they are illusory and to not become attached to them. We create all kinds of problems for ourselves once we try to recreate nyam, or always try to get back to a particular mental state, a particular feeling tone or perspective.

Tokpa is the Tibetan for realization. It is seeing directly free from concepts. You know and understand without an intermediary.  It is direct recognition.

Tokpa is recognizing your friend in a crowd. There is no question of whether it is, or is not. 
It is knowing fire is hot, water is wet. Realization is embodied and informed by the senses, we see things as they truly are. We see our own face, directly. 

The danger with tokpa is confusing conceptual understanding with actual realization.  Conceptual understanding can seem very certain and logically refined, but it is all thoughts and words.  We need to constantly recreate and reinforce our story to confirm our realization.

If you find yourself scrambling, feeling your realization slipping from you and trying to conceptualize your way back to that state, then you are holding onto a nyam that you are calling tokpa. Be careful, ego and grasping can create a very precipitous path. 

Bound.

No one likes to have their freedom taken away.  No one likes to have limits placed on them, on their ability, on their choices.  No one likes to be bound and confined to a limited space.

Yet, we do it to ourselves all the time.

We are bound by concepts.  We get ourselves tied up in thoughts.  We become restrained by our own narrative.  We become a captive stuck in solitary confinement, our own confinement and we are the tormentor.  It is a strange phenomenon indeed that we become a victim to ourselves.

But how does this happen?

Grasping and fixation.  We fixate on thoughts as real.  We grasp to ourselves as real.  When both ourselves and thoughts are perceived as concrete things, we easily slip into bondage.

Of course, right now it is pretty easy to dismiss the idea that we fixate on thoughts as real.  Of course thoughts aren't real, they come and go and not a one of them has ever lasted.  Reason and logic can easily refute this proposition of them being real and only a fool would think otherwise.  Yet, time and time again we fool ourselves, because when bad things happen and when we don't control the situation, everything seems real.

Then our thoughts become demons.  Real demons.  Demons with fangs and colors and imminence.

Reason and logic serve us no benefit when we are bound in confinement with our own demons.  Reason and logic might even serve to reinforce our demons due to our own grasping and fixation.  So we don't move.  We sit there helpless and scared, waiting for the darkness to pass.

What choice do we have?

Meditation opens you up to the experience of thoughts as illusory, like clouds that come and go through the spacious sky.  This definitely helps loosen the chains, but it doesn't undermine grasping and fixation completely.

Introduction to the nature of mind opens us up to the experience of the true nature of mind and the nature of phenomena.  This undermines fixation and grasping at the root, but carrying this understanding from the cushion into the real world takes perseverance and dedication.

Introduction to rigpa zangthal, transparent awareness, opens us up to the groundless nature of mind in which thoughts have no legs to stand on.  Even as thoughts and demons arise, what can they do?

Unbound.  Not afraid to dance with demons.  The highest yoga, Dzogchen. 

Not the same thing.

Accomplishment and fulfillment are two different things.

Accomplishment is like consuming a meal.  You have the erroneous perception that you are full and you exclaim it with joy.  And in a couple hours you will be hungry again.  Spend your life seeking out accomplishments and you might look back at life and realized that you have indeed eaten well, yet thirst persists even on your death bed.

Fulfillment doesn't rely on conditions.  Not relying on conditions it doesn't make any sense.

Which means you need to move beyond concepts and mind.  Which you can do. 

Amogasiddhi.

OM AH HUNG AMOGASIDDHI AH

Amogasiddhi is one of the Five Family Buddhas.  

His pure land is Karmaprasiddhi, representing the accomplishment of perfect activity.  His color is green, representing the activity of subjugating and overcoming resistance, obstacles and problems.   His element is wind, representing movement and change, along with the continual energetic process occurring in the outer world and in our own body and mind.  His right hand is in the mudra of fearlessness, representing an authentic refuge that protects from the fears of cyclic existence.  His left hand rests in his lap in meditative equipoise holding a crossed vajra, representing an immovable foundation and support.  The crossed vajra also represents the vajra seat, the immovable posture in which the Buddha gained enlightenment.  The vajra seat, or vajrasana, in the outer world is Bodhgaya, but it also represents the unshakeable ground in which all beings awaken to buddhahood. 

Amogasiddhi is the Buddha that represents completely purified jealousy.  Jealousy or envy manifests as paranoia, an internal dialogue that plays itself out again and again with fear of failure or not being chosen at its very root.  In order to combat this internal struggle, we often assume very negative postures- we become power hungry, manipulating and controlling people around us to uphold and maintain our status.  We dominate the conversation so no one else has an opportunity to outshine us.  Amogasiddhi represents the transformation of that jealousy and insecurity into all-accomplishing wisdom, the wisdom of spontaneous fulfillment. 

Amogasiddhi rides a garuda possessed with all the major and minor marks.  A garuda is a great eagle-like bird, a mythological horned golden eagle.  The garuda is a powerful guardian, offering servitude and often shown biting down on nagas.  Nagas are serpent-like human deities that live in bodies of water.  They are said to be the holders of great treasures and secret teachings, but if upset cause disease and create unpredictable weather patterns.  The garuda also has an unusual birth, for as soon as it hatches from its shell it is able to soar in the sky.  The shell represents the limitations of our own five skandhas and upon breaking free from their confines, great spontaneous awareness is able to soar in the sky of awakened mind. 

In regard to our own mind and self, Amogasiddhi represents the skandha of mental formations, ideas, concepts and opinions along with the habitual patterns associated with these.  Throughout the day we enter into numerous mental states, high and low.  We are continuously trying to 'make sense' of our world and justify who we are and our place in the world.  This process of thought and intention creates action and karma.  As we cycle through this process of cause and effect, we are constantly fighting to guard ourselves from loss and vulnerability.  We fight day and night to control our fate in hopes of accomplishing our aims and finding happiness and prosperity. 

When we deeply contemplate and integrate the wisdom and symbolism of Amogasiddhi, we can learn to transmute this insecurity and paranoia into the wisdom of spontaneous fulfillment.  We take our vajra seat amidst the unceasing windstorm of thoughts and mental states with the firm resolve not to waver from this immovable ground which is the way of abiding.  Breaking out from the confines of the shell of ignorance and mistaken views, great spontaneous awareness takes its second birth and flies unobstructedly, riding the winds of change.  This awareness is practical and effective, efficient, timely and in sync with the world around it.  It does not manipulate or control, demand or distort.  No longer needing to justify your own position or qualifications, you discover a natural ease and fulfillment, a profound sense of inner wealth and satisfaction.  Having fulfilled your own aims, you are able to work for the aims of others, sheltering them from fear and vulnerability. 

Others see you in a dynamic dance, awed by your fearlessness.  Yet you never waver from your unshakeable ground, the unchanging vajra seat that supports the whole universe.  In this way you abide in Karmaprasiddhi, the accomplishment of perfect activity.