The Nature of Mind

by Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

Traditionally, the Buddhist path may be divided into three stages: view, meditation, and action. First we develop the right view, we meditate on it and then we put it into action in our lives. In the Buddhist tradition, what we call view is known in Sanskrit as drishti and in Tibetan as ta wa. It means the way we look at things. It is considered extremely important. The Fourth Noble Truth taught by the Buddha is the truth of the path. The path I am referring to is the Noble Eightfold Path, which begins with correct view. We might reflect a little on why view is placed first. It is because our basic outlook on life influences everything we think and do. Even people who say they have no philosophy of life are affirming a philosophy. That understanding will influence their thinking and everything they do with their lives. This is at the core of everything. Our view determines how we see things, what we think is important, what we think unimportant, our prejudices and our biases. It will determine whether or not we place value on spiritual matters and lay the foundations for our spiritual journey.

Why are we here today? We are here because we have some inherent interest in finding a spiritual dimension to our lives. The fact that you think having a spiritual dimension is important is your view. If you didn't think that dealing with the mind was important, you wouldn't be here. Our basic outlook is the foundation. In the Tibetan schools of mind training, such as Mahamudra and Dzogchen, a division is made between our underlying viewpoint, our inner mind development which arises from this viewpoint, and how we incorporate it into our daily lives. It is not enough to hold vast views. If there is no correspondence between these views and our conduct, we are in danger.

Guru Padmasambhava once said to King Trisong Detsen, "Your view must be as vast as the sky, but your conduct must be as finely sifted as barley flour." There are people who develop vast views, seeing everything as emptiness, the vastness of space, and everything that happens as the interdependent play of bliss and voidness. It sounds wonderful. Then when they are arrogant, rude, unethical, or dishonest, they claim it doesn't matter because it's all emptiness anyway. They believe that tantra gives them a license to do whatever they want. It doesn't matter, they say, because it's all just an expression of our primordial nature, whatever that means. So we have to be very careful. We have to take care to make our view very clear and vast, but at the same time keep our conduct careful and precise. We must avoid falling into what the Tibetans call the "path of the Black Demon," thinking that since ultimate reality is vast, spacious emptiness, it makes no difference what we do.

We are using "view" to mean "understanding the ultimate nature of the mind." From a Buddhist point of view, everything is an expression of our mind. One of the problems in Western society is that we are centred in our heads. This very much affects the way we practice. When you start to do Mahamudra or Dzogchen meditation, one of the questions Tibetan lamas always ask is, "Where is the mind?" Then they ask, "Is it in the heart? Is it the stomach? Is it in your foot? Is it in the whole body? Is it inside you, is it outside you?" They rarely ask if it's in the head. It doesn't occur to them. What a stupid idea! And yet most Westerners would answer, "Well obviously, the mind is in the head." Interesting. Where is the mind? Before you dismiss this whole question and say, "Obviously it's in the brain," consider that when somebody accuses you and says, "I know you stole my money," for example, and you answer, "You mean me?" You point to the centre of your chest, not to your head. Most of our sense organs are in the head, right? Our nose, our eyes, our ears. But when we say we felt something really deeply, we point to our heart. Think about that. Ask yourself why this is.

From the Buddhist point of view, the brain is only the computer. It's the part that does the programming. But what is the energy that drives the computer? Without that energy, the computer is dead. The energy driving the computer does not reside in the computer itself. Recently, I was reading a series of articles written by top brain surgeons. One of them remarked that although we now know a lot about the brain, we still have not found the mind. Tibetans know about the brain. If somebody is very traditional, unable to accept new ideas, very caught up in old ways of thinking, the Tibetans call them "green brained." The idea is that the brain has become mildewed. They understand that the brain has to do with thinking, but thinking is not mind. When we talk about mind in Buddhism, we are not just talking about the intellectual faculty. We are referring to something much more profound. In fact, the words for mind and heart are interchangeable. They are often the same word. The underlying word, which is chitta in Sanskrit and sem in Tibetan, means both heart and mind. Here at the heart is where you concentrate. This gives the energy, the electric current to operate the computer without which the computer is dead. So when we meditate, we have to learn to bring that energy down to the heart level.

Let us return to the specific topic of the view. Traditionally stated, the view says that our primordial wisdom mind is awareness and emptiness combined. If we can break through to the unconditioned nature of the mind, the fundamental underlying condition of who we really are, we are left with non-dual awareness. We are consciousness; that is who we are. We know. If we don't know, we must be asleep, in a coma, or dead. We know. We are aware. But that awareness is not concrete. It's not something we can grasp hold of and say, "This is my awareness," or "This is me." It's transparent, open, and spacious. In Tibetan parlance, it's empty. Empty here means "like the sky."

They say the mind is like the sky. Now why do they say that? Because if you think of a deep, vast, blue sky, it's all-encompassing. It's up there, but at the same time it's down here. Where does the sky begin? It's not, "This is my sky, here's your bit, and there's my bit." It belongs to everybody. It supports us. Without space, we couldn't exist. The Tibetans compare our fundamental primordial mind with the sky or space because it's infinite and vast, yet ungraspable. At the same time, it's unlike space in that it is conscious. When we gain access to that level of our mind it is like being awake for the first time.

This awareness is non-dual; there is neither subject nor object. There is no sense of "I" doing anything. There is just total awareness, which is vast and infinite, beyond time and space. That is what supports all our thoughts and emotions. To understand that, to have seen it even for a moment, is called the view. The fact that we already have it is important for us to grasp. We don't have to bring in something extraneous. We don't even have to develop anything. We already have everything. We just need to uncover it. It's always been there. It's absolutely perfect just as it is. But we don't recognise it. It's as if we're standing in the sunshine, and then we go inside, draw the shutters, and say that it's dark. But the sun is shining the whole time. This innate wisdom mind is always present. Our problem is that we don't recognise it.

There is a story of this great but very eccentric Lama of the last century named Patrul Rinpoche. One of his disciples was a professor of philosophy who had been a follower of his for many years. He was very learned and devoted. Even after all those years, after all the searching and all the practice he had done, he still hadn't seen the nature of the mind, and he was very depressed about it. After all, what's it all for if you don't realise the nature of the mind? It's just words and concepts building upon each other. Then, one night he was at a retreat at Patrul Rinpoche's hermitage and Patrul Rinpoche said, "Let's go outside, lie on the ground and look up at the stars." The professor replied, "Okay, that sounds nice." So they went out. They lay and looked up at the stars. Then in the distance, a dog barked. Patrul Rinpoche asked, "Did you hear that sound?" And his student answered, "Yes, it's a dog barking." Then Patrul Rinpoche said, "That's it." And he got up.

Do you understand? The fact that we are conscious that it is a dog barking is it. But we don't recognise that. We think it must be something else more exciting, and so we are always looking for this something else that is higher and more thrilling. Once I asked one of the yogis in my monastery to give the oral transmission of a very famous Dzogchen text by Shabkar Rinpoche. It has been translated into English as the Flight of the Garuda. He was giving this oral transmission when he stopped halfway through and said, "You know, the problem with these texts is that they make it seem something so far, so remote, so incredibly vast, when actually it's so completely simple. It's so ordinary that we miss it." So we have to go through all of these hundred thousand prostrations and mandala offerings and millions of mantras and all these extraordinarily complex visualisations just to get back to where we have always been, and recognise ourselves at home for the first time.

We have established the view that the nature of our awareness is clarity and emptiness. Since primordial time, that is what we have been and that is what we are. Based on that view, we start to practice. View is so important because it underlies and underpins everything which goes after it. It is so important to understand that we already have everything we need. The Tibetan example is a person who has an infinite treasure chest, full of diamonds, gold, and all kinds of wealth, buried under his hearth. But he has forgotten about it, and he lives like a beggar, going out every day to collect a few measly coins.

That's how we are. We have everything we could possibly need. We have Buddha-nature. But we feel so poor. We feel so unworthy. We think we are failed human beings. We feel so alienated, so worthless. We think, "Other people can do all these wonderful things, but I can't do anything. I'm so stupid. I mess everything up. I had this horrible childhood, and now I'm completely warped, and there's nothing to be done. Maybe a psychiatrist can at least help me to face each miserable day as it comes along." Yet all the time we are a Buddha! All the time we have this infinite amount of wisdom and compassion within us. It's just become clogged up, so we can't find it.

It's important to understand that we are not worthless worms. We have this complete Buddha potential. It's just that it's a bit obscured at the moment. If we go out now and try to look for the blue sky, there are a lot of clouds there, so we can't see it. But the sky is there. However thick the clouds may be, the sky is always there. It's like when we are in an airplane. The clouds are there, but behind them there is this infinite deep blue sky. We all have access to it. We are not ignorant sinners. At the very foundation of our being, there is infinite wisdom and compassion. We have lost sight of it, but we can be back there in a millisecond, just as if you are in a room which has been in darkness for centuries, the minute you switch on the light, it is illuminated. Just because it has been dark in there for hundreds of years doesn't mean that it will take a long time to put the light on. The minute you switch on the light, there it is. However deep our ignorance, however profound our sense of unworthiness, however much we feel inundated by our negative emotions, however alienated and isolated we feel, the moment we access the unconditioned nature of the mind, it's all gone. It might come back, of course. Enlightenment is not usually a once-only experience as some people seem to think.

But that moment of seeing transforms everything. We now realise that we have always identified ourselves with all the wrong stuff. That's not who we are at all! That's why this initial breakthrough is emphasised so much in all schools of Buddhism. My Lama used to say that once you realised the nature of the mind you could begin to meditate. Before that you are kind of playing around, trying to get it right. Suddenly you get it right and you receive a flash. Now you know what you're doing. Next you start to learn how to reproduce these flashes, and then how to prolong them. Then you learn how to integrate that understanding with everyday consciousness.

One of the problems of not having a teacher is that some people experience a profound breakthrough and mistakenly think they are enlightened. Then they set themselves up as enlightened people. It's because they don't have a teacher who says, "Yes, fine, good, keep sitting." There is a story about Gampopa. He was the chief disciple of Milarepa, the great yogi of the eleventh century. In addition to being a very great meditator, he was also a professor. He had a number of disciples, but the main two were Dusum Khyenpa, who was the first Karmapa, and Pagmo Drupa. From Pagmo Drupa came all the other Kagyupa schools. At one time, it is said that Pagmo Drupa had been meditating for a long time and nothing was happening. He was becoming disillusioned. On one occasion he meditated all through the night and had a breakthrough. He became quite excited. He rushed off to tell Gampopa. It was very early in the morning. Gampopa was eating tsampa, which is roasted barley ground into flour. This is mixed with butter tea and formed into balls, called pag. Gampopa was sitting eating his pag. Pagmo Drupa rushed in and said, "Oh, I've had this experience. I've finally got it." He described his experience. He was so excited. Gampopa just sat there and said, "I think I prefer my pag to your experience." So the pupil went back again to sit some more. That's what a teacher is for!

Of course the initial breakthrough is very important. My teacher explained it by saying, "It's as if you are going along a winding mountain path to get to a town. You are not sure that this path does actually lead to that town. You are not even sure that the town exists. But you've heard that it's there. So you have confidence that eventually this path will get you there if you keep on going. There are a few signposts. Then one day you turn a corner, and there, in the distance, is the town. This is an enormous breakthrough on your journey. You now know the town exists. You now know that this path leads there. Maybe, because the path is winding, there will be times when you don't see the town any more. But each time you see it, it gets a bit closer. However, you are not in the town yet. You are just getting glimpses of it. But one day, provided you keep going, you will arrive at the town, and you will be able to live there. Then you're a Buddha."

Another example was given by a Zen master who was living in London years ago. He said the mind is like a big mirror. It's covered with dirt. Then you get a little pin and make a pin prick in the dirt. Through this you see the glow of the mirror. Most of the mirror is still covered with dirt, but that little gleam of light is the real nature of the mirror. Of course, it's not all uncovered yet, but this is a big step forward. You now see that under all that dirt is a gleam of light. The task now is to make that little gleam bigger or make lots of points of light until they all connect and eventually the whole mirror is completely clear. That's why they say that the initial realisation of the nature of the mind is the first breakthrough. It's a very important point in all Buddhist schools. At that moment, you cease to be an ordinary person. You become in Buddhist parlance an arya, a noble one. It doesn't mean you are finished. It doesn't mean you are a high level bodhisattva. We can fall back from this. But still, this is a big breakthrough. We now understand what is true and what is not true. We don't have to take it all on faith any more. It is a direct nondual experience. The point is that it is very easy. It's not difficult, and it's not something that can only be attained after years and years of practice.

Our main obstacle is the fact that we don't know how to relax our minds enough to be open to this experience. In the back of our minds we keep thinking this is something so difficult and so advanced. For this reason we don't recognise what is in front of our face. This is why a teacher can be extraordinarily helpful. A teacher living within that realisation is able — if the mind of the disciple is completely open — to transmit his or her experience. The problem here is that if we have too many hopes and fears, it creates a barrier. It is very hard to be open. You can't just will it.

I knew an English nun who was in her seventies, and her daughter, who was in her fifties, was also a nun. She told me that once she had been at my Lama's community in Tashi Jong for the lama dances. This was during the time when the previous Khamtrul Rinpoche was still alive. She was not his disciple at all. She had Gelugpa teachers. She was just sitting there, watching the dances. My Lama was dancing. He was a very good dancer and she was watching him. During the dance, he turned around and looked straight at her. In that moment, her whole mind fell apart, and she realised the nature of the mind. She wasn't even his disciple, but at that moment she was totally open and he knew it. It's as close to us as this, only we don't see it. This is why a qualified teacher can be very helpful. Some Tibetans say it's almost impossible to realise the nature of the mind without a teacher. I don't think that's true. Some people do realise the nature of the mind spontaneously without a teacher. But a good teacher helps.

Now I think we will just sit for a quarter of an hour. I'll tell you what I want you to do. Just do it at your own speed. First we are going to bring ourselves into the present. Bring the mind clearly into the room. Then bring the mind quietly into the body. In other words, be conscious of how you are sitting. Be conscious of your posture. Be conscious of any pressure on the body. Just know it. Just note it and know that this is how it is. Then, very quietly bring the attention to the in-going and out-going of the breath. Don't think about the breath. Don't look at it from a distance as if you are up in your head looking down at the breath coming in. Just try to experience it. Flow with the in-breath. Flow with the out-breath.

While we are doing this, you are going to think thoughts. We all think thoughts. Thoughts are just the natural play of the mind. They are like waves on the surface of the sea. They are not a problem. It is the nature of the mind to think thoughts, but we don't have to follow after them. We don't have to give them energy. So drop all thinking about the past, stop anticipating the future, and don't give any energy to the present. Just be with the breathing in and the breathing out. When we hear noises, they are just waves impinging on the ear organ. Noises are natural. To hear them is natural. It's not important. Don't give any energy to that either. If you hear a noise and start thinking, "Oh what a horrible noise," or, "I wish this noise could stop," just be conscious that this is what you are thinking and go on. Whatever happens is fine. No problem. Whatever comes up, we recognise it, we accept it, and then we let it go. Very simple. Stay with the breathing. When we lose it, bring the mind gently back again. Whatever happens, recognise, accept, and then let it go.