Knowledge and Religion

What do you experience anyway?

Bernard has an important question on the nature of experience:

Hello Michael,

Can we talk about experience?

I realize now that I am not my experience. That experience is nothing more than mind and emotions stirring up a dust storm, but what about the experience of inner peace and love and the presence of spirit.

My ‘experience’ has been that when I stop being attached to the experiences which come and go then slowly I find myself less attached to a centre called ‘I’ and the experience of peace and sometimes the flow of love or wonder emerges.  There is almost the sense that it does not belong to me because the me is no where around.

When that happens then I can understand when healers say they do not do any healing but it flows through them. In the ‘experience’ of unity, when there does not seem to be a centre then it seems that love and inner peace are just there and do not belong to me or anyone.

My question then is about the experience as an ‘I’ and the experience of the Soul if one can also talk about inner peace and love in this way as an experience and who is experiencing it then if the I has diminished or disappeared.

         Warm greetings,

                   Bernard

Hi Bernard,

By your question I can see that you are growing and that your meditations are getting deeper. In your practice you try to set up the conditions that allow inner peace and love into your experience. You do this by stopping your attachment to the experiences which come and go, then slowly you find yourself less attached to a centre called ‘I’. Then the experience of peace and sometimes the flow of love or wonder emerges.

So you ask, “But if the sense of ‘I’ disappears, who is left to experience inner peace and love?” Here when we talk about the experience of inner peace and love, we are talking about the experience of identity. In other words, these are just names for what you really are. The ‘I’ that disappears is just another thought in your mind that you see. It is an imposture and not really you.
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Making Your Wisdom Come Alive is like a novel where you are the main character. It takes many surprising twist and turns, and in the end you find yourself standing in the place of wisdom and joy, where you always are,and always will be.

For more information go to:
Amazon.com

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The thought ‘I’ is just an object
This ‘I’ only pretends to be the subject of your experiences, but in reality it is just another object. However, the problem is that experience has both a subject, ‘I,’ and an object. If the subject disappears how can there still be experience?

Your Mind was Not Created

This verse, Mind is non-created is so deep with so many aspects that I divided it up into several sections. But this is just a matter of speaking. In reality mind is not made up of many aspects. Rather it is one homogeneous whole. If you can put aside your concept of what the mind is, and look afresh, you will be in for a surprise.

You will find that your experience of your mind is a lot different than it’s supposed to be. With a direct look into the nature of mind you can do nothing but stand in awe. It defies all the words and conceptual frameworks that can possibly define it. But if you insist on a definition for your mind, Padma’s next verse is as close as you can get:
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Making Your Wisdom Come Alive is like a novel where you are the main character. It takes many surprising twist and turns, and in the end you find yourself standing in the place of wisdom and joy, where you always are,and always will be.

For more information go to:
Amazon.com

____________________________________________________________________

Your Mind was Not Created

This verse, Mind is non-created is so deep with so many aspects that I divided it up into several sections. But this is just a matter of speaking. In reality mind is not made up of many aspects. Rather it is one homogeneous whole. If you can put aside your concept of what the mind is, and look afresh, you will be in for a surprise.

You will find that your experience of your mind is a lot different than it’s supposed to be. With a direct look into the nature of mind you can do nothing but stand in awe. It defies all the words and conceptual frameworks that can possibly define it. But if you insist on a definition for your mind, Padma’s next verse is as close as you can get:
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Making Your Wisdom Come Alive is like a novel where you are the main character. It takes many surprising twist and turns, and in the end you find yourself standing in the place of wisdom and joy, where you always are,and always will be.

For more information go to:
Amazon.com

____________________________________________________________________

Mind Is Non-Created
Mind in its true nature being non-created and self-radiant, how can one, without knowing the mind, assert that mind is created?

There being in this yoga nothing objective upon which to meditate, how can one, without having ascertained the true nature of mind by meditation, assert that mind is created?

Mind in its true state being Reality, how can one, without having discovered one’s own mind, assert that mind is created?

Mind in its true state being undoubtedly ever-existing, how can one, without having seen the mind face to face, assert that mind is created?

The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation
By Padma-Sambhava
Translated by Evans-Wentz
Oxford University Press

Up until now you may have thought that your mind is just a series of thoughts. Are you sure? Are thoughts the things that you see and experience when you look for your mind? When you look again you might find that your mind is nothing. That’s because when you look for it you find that nothing is there. But is that true?

After all it is because of your mind that you have the sense of the mind being here, or not here. The astounding thing about the nature of mind is that it doesn’t fit into any of the categories that you can create. And yet it shines with its own glory. When you find this shining you will have seen your mind face to face. This glow has no discernible quality, yet it lights up everything and makes it shine.

You can’t stand apart from it
It is not an object that you see, and you can’t stand apart from it to look at it as if it were an object; so you have to know your mind in a different way. We call this knowing direct experience which means you know it by being it, not by standing separate.

One of the things this shining doesn’t have is a sense of time like before or after. This shinning is just present; it is always here and was not created. That’s why when you see the nature of this shinning, you step beyond birth and death and you become that which which you see, The Buddha Mind.

What is mind anyway?
If you have trouble grasping this, it means that you have to find a different way of waking up to the nature of your mind. Meditation on the nature of mind means: look afresh and to be ready for some surprises, because your mind is different than you would think.

But you should know that this meditation is not beyond your ability. Just look where Padma’s words in The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation point to, and the way will open up for you. So, best wishes, in your meditation on the nature of your mind.

Feel free to ask questions
Please feel free to continue asking questions. I’m always glad to hear your reactions and clarify my answers. Unlike the path of faith, on the path of Self-Knowledge it is curiosity that destroys limitation and allows you to abide in your natural freedom.

If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friend

Best Wishes,

Michael Gluckman

See Your Mind in Its Original State

The next verse starts to get to the meat of The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation. It also shows why you can celebrate your meditation practice. Meditation is meant to be totally experiential, and not one drop theoretical.

Now here's the genius of the Buddhist masters. After all what’s the thing that you experience as closest to you? It is your mind of course. And everybody knows what their mind is, right? Well in this verse Padma wants you to look afresh and see if your mind is what you think it is.

What is the secret for knowing your mind?
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Making Your Wisdom Come Alive is like a novel where you are the main character. It takes many surprising twist and turns, and in the end you find yourself standing in the place of wisdom and joy, where you always are,and always will be.

For more information go to:
Amazon.com

____________________________________________________________________

The secret to looking into the nature of your mind is to know less. If you can suspend judgment and look afresh, you will we amazed at what this thing that you call mind really is.

The second secret is to look from within the mind; go by your direct experience as opposed to taking an artificial stance as if you were separate from the One Mind. I think you will find that your mind is so vast that there is no room for a separate you. And yet without standing separate, you can know Mind in its totality. This is the mystery of this meditation on the nature of the mind.

To understand this, look at the nature of a dream

Here suffering does not apply

Bernard had the following questions so that he could return to his real identity, free from suffering.

Hello Michael,

Nice to know that you are still available for conversation. It has been quite a long time since I last wrote to you.

On this journey I keep discovering how MIND manages to trick me from going deeper. It does this mostly by splitting itself into two parts… the observer that thinks he is going deeper and the other world of conflict.

I have begun to recognize that this is all mind and that I cannot of my own free will go past my mind. When I stop trying to do this then I seem to become very ordinary, just awareness of the very ordinary state of beingness. Then conflict comes up and I can deal with this by recognizing that it is all mind stuff having a go at itself and this also passes. In that ‘ordinary’ state I sometimes feel really good with the world and myself and sometimes I don’t.

There is no doubt that I am far more at peace and have far more joy than anytime in the past but the question still comes up about transcending mind and what that would feel like and would I even recognize it.
 
Clearly I must already be in that place beyond mind because that is my original state and I sense that all I need to do is accept that as already true. It’s quite strange to just accept oneself as the light of the mind and not the mind, that the mind is only the screen that wants to become ME and does this by creating the whole world of illusion using thought and emotions.

As I write I almost seem to be answering my own question to you, nevertheless your response would be most appreciated.

            Warm greetings,
                    Bernard

Hi Bernard,

It is good to hear from you again. I see that your meditations are going well. It sounds like that little thought ‘I’ is trying to usurp your identity and turn it into a mental state. When you recognize this, you are automatically standing as Awareness and not as a mental state. You do not have to take thought of awareness or anything like that. Awareness is just your normal and natural state. Here you feel right at home.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Making Your Wisdom Come Alive is like a novel where you are the main character. It takes many surprising twist and turns, and in the end you find yourself standing in the place of wisdom and joy, where you always are,and always will be.

For more information go to:
Amazon.com

____________________________________________________________________

Your sense of reality comes from Awareness
Here things feel ordinary like, This is just the way things are. And yet from here you see that the sense of reality, which the world seems to have, and your mind and body seem to have, comes right from Awareness. You know that shiny sense of reality that your emotions and thoughts  have, especially when you are caught up in them. That sense of reality comes from Awareness and not from your mind.

The Timelessness of Mind

Here is the next verse from Padama’s, The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation:

The Timelessness of Mind
If one knows how to apply in a threefold manner this knowing of the mind, all past knowledge lost to memory becomes perfectly clear, and also knowledge of the future, thought of as unborn and unconceived.

In the present, when the mind remains as it is naturally, it is ordinarily comprehended by its own time.

The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation
By Padma-Sambhava
Translated by Evans-Wentz
Oxford University Press

This verse asks us to take fresh look at the nature of time, not as some theory, but as our direct experience. For instance we consider what we remember and what we forget as past experiences, right? But when we are thinking of a past experience, we are remembering the past now in the present. So we are not really remembering the past. We are just seeing our thinking now in the present.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Making Your Wisdom Come Alive is like a novel where you are the main character. It takes many surprising twist and turns, and in the end you find yourself standing in the place of wisdom and joy, where you always are,and always will be.

For more information go to:
Amazon.com

____________________________________________________________________

The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

On this Independence Day I wanted to reprint this particular blog with a few comments. Human liberation is a matter of discovering what is truly independent. 

For instance, the body is dependent on food and air. The condition of the mind seems to depend on the condition of the body. The condition of the world and of the economy depends on many factors including the amount of compassion and love that the people have.

So what can possibly be independent. It is the most overlooked thing in human experience, and yet it is what you are. You know this thing in a different way, you know it by being it. You do not know it as a separate thing. If you set out to discover this thing, you will be declaring real independence. This is freedom from all limitation and it will not die, even when the body dies.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Making Your Wisdom Come Alive is like a novel where you are the main character. It takes many surprising twist and turns, and in the end you find yourself standing in the place of wisdom and joy, where you always are,and always will be.

For more information go to:
Amazon.com

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