THIS MIND

This mind, your mind, is Buddha.

Awake.

See this once clear through and it’s finished.

This text assumes you already want to become lucid to this situation. This term ‘lucid’ I’ll use now in place of the more traditional ‘awake’, as it’s less accurate to say that one awakens from this dream than to say one awakens to the nature of this dreaming here. As for theory, we’re going for minimum viable scaffolding. No need for concepts extraneous to actual practice.

It can be very simple, simpler than tying your shoes. Just see clearly what is happening in this mind at all times without falling into speculation and doubt. Sooner or later, depending on continuity and clarity of seeing, all confusion about this existential predicament will shatter, slough, and eventually vanish without remainder.

This existential predicament here at your feet: being born you are soon dead. Pleasures vanish, pains accumulate. Body and mind develop, maintain, but inevitably degrade. All friends perish. All loves die. All projects crumble. This all appears to be your fate, your issues, your burden. Work, taxes, envy, regret, this, that, likes, disgust, outrage, upset, what a whirlwind it all is!

What to do? There are ways through to the utter ending of all this restless dismay. Not an ending of appearance, but ending this mode of experiencing which places you at the center of all this in opposition to every one and thing, pushing and pulling against circumstance, in conflict within and without, unable to completely rest even for a moment.

Overthrowing this most deep-seated illusion of I is not likely to happen all at once, but perhaps you’re one of the few fortunate. Always sudden, the path to this most often is gradual, and the total unbinding of everything dependent on this misperception likewise unfolds in its own time.

So, how to begin?

Posture and Breath

This mind moves with blinding rapidity and restless intent. Bodily stillness makes it easier to catch the currents and settle in equipoise. Unfortunately many of us, due to long habit sitting in un-ergonomic chairs, lack of stretching, exercise, and other sources of chronic bodily stress have difficulty adopting the classical seated meditation postures for extended periods of time. Find what works for you, and if you like invest the time and energy to remediate your back, as well as hip, knee, and ankle flexibility to allow for the classic style.

Likewise, many people have become habitual chest-breathers. On inhalation, shoulders rise, ribcage expands, and the diaphragm barely moves, the belly remains taut, and there is hardly any rhythmic relaxation at all. As with posture, best to remediate this as soon as you can, for your ease, comfort, and depth of samadhi in stillness, but also for the whole of your life. Breathe deeply. You’ll feel better. I recommend Meido Moore Roshi’s books ‘The Rinzai Zen Way’ and ‘Hidden Zen’ for more detailed instruction on proper posture and breathing conducive to practice.

Setting This Mind

Intention is everything. Why are you doing this ridiculous thing, practicing for long hours, for many days, weeks, months, and years, continuously, in silence, in movement, at rest, speaking, thinking, walking, talking, all in vigilant clarity? Why have I done so; why do I continue to? Suffering and its end. Benefiting others. Transcending life, transcending death, at ease, enjoying appearances for what this is, what I am, what you are, becoming a better friend, son, brother, lover, spouse, doing good, refraining from harm.

You’ll have your own motivations, explicitly reasoned, fervently urgent, subduedly timid, or perhaps now as you read these words there is already this unquenchable thirst for freedom that stirs your every breath, that burns at night and blazes in day. It may come to this point, sooner than you would wish.

Whatever it is, remind yourself, often, many times every day, why? Why am I doing what I am doing? What for? To what end? For what purpose? Discern, refine, and drop everything which does not serve. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, so don’t entertain discouragement. One footfall follows the other, keep going, don’t stop, keep going, don’t stop!

Paths and Methods

There are many ways home. You’ll find what’s suitable for you. I’ve trained through Theravada, Vajrayana, Zen, Dzogchen, and Shinzen Young’s distillation of his decades of practice and teaching, and I can happily state that these all lead to the same no-place, with some flavorful variations. It’s a matter of preferences, interests, aptitude, and karmic affinities, if you buy that, which is why I far prefer teaching people individually according to their unique circumstances. This text is a stab in the dark. May it pierce your heart.

To dip into Shinzen’s jargon, there is this, which is the ‘Absolute’, just to term it. Here it is Absolute Activity, at spontaneous play as these words, these waves of appearance. This can be glimpsed at a glance. Direct pointing, as in Zen and Dzogchen, relies on this. This is already all it is. Lucid, formless form, always already complete. When your naked face is not seen clearly, there appears disjunction between a knowing subject and a known object, there is distance, there is space, there is time, there is I, there are things, there is dissatisfaction, there is something other, something else, some where to go, some one to become, some thing that is not here, that is not this. All that mistaken grasping is also this.

At Absolute Rest, which you may die into via progressive states of concentration and insight, there is no sight, sound, sensation, and awareness itself is utterly extinguished. One meaning of the word nirvana. Out like a flame. Great Death. Gone, gone, completely gone. While not strictly necessary for lucidity to dawn, it is quite the kick having this happen once, many times, for longer durations. Makes changes.

Eventually, through claps of thunder and exhaustive practice, for most it’s both, it’s seen there is no difference, and preferences regarding rest and activity will fade and fall off, as it is all already this and never was otherwise.

Shinzen has laid all this out very well in more systematic style and secularly appealing language. I recommend his freely available text, ‘What Is Mindfulness?’.

Hear Here!

Bluntly, I wasted countless hours reading words like these when I could have found genuine teachers earlier and gotten down to work sooner. What a pity! I might have died, any time. A witless tendency towards arrogance, I must admit. So, coming to this point writing, I find I have nothing else I want to say but this:

For all beings’ benefit, find a qualified guide for whichever path you wish to walk, and walk it all the way without straying and delaying.

I finished typing this on the 8th of August, 2024.

It tumbled out and here I find I’m done with it.

If something here has struck you, please make use of it!