Table Of Content:Mind is the Root
Praise to the Jnanasattva Manjushri
who is none else but one's mind
one with the Guru
MIND IS THE ROOT of both Samsara and Nirvana:
There is no entity of reality that has not sprung from mind.
The frolicking and dancing ofw orldly and tramworldly apparitiom
in all their multiplicity
Comes to an end when its creator, mind as a magician,
has been overpowered.
Non-understanding is the mind gone astray into any
ofi ts six kinds of existences;
Understanding this mind is 'pristine awareness.'
Pristine awareness is Buddhahood, and
As the quintessence of happiness it resides in one's heart.
Hum OMAHHUM
LAMA MI-PHhM [Mi-pham 'Jam-dbY ang rNam-rGyal rGya-mTso, "The Com
pletely Victorious Ocean of Gentle Voice") was an incarnation of Manjushri, and
the most renowned and comprehensive scholar in Tibet during the 19th century.
Lama Mi-pham systematized the sutras and philosophical tantras, and wrote 32
volumes, including works on music, logic, ascrology, alchemy, and medicine. He
compiled and pracriced over 200 sadhanas, and at one time spent 7 years in retreat. He
caught at Katog, Dzog-chen, and Zhe-chen as well as other great monasteries in
Eastern Tibet [Kham). He carries on the direct lineage of Pal-trul Rinpoche, Jam
Yang Khyentse Wan gpo, and Jam Gon Kongtrul.
Mind Is the Root 3
Look this way, look at your mind:
Wide are the eyes that look at everything everywhere,
Like a beloved child with whom one has long been together.
What is seen compared to what is said to be 'my mind'?
Now is the time to look at this 'my mind':
Better it is to take a profound look within
Than letting the eyes roam over the external realms.
Even if one were to enter the pristine awareness
in which there is no duality
And which has one flavor, in its intrimicness,
when one has realized
That all the entities of reality are ineffable
in their apparitionalness,
It is by this looking at one's mind that in one moment
and in one big sweep
One tears open the hidden recesses of the mind
craving what appears before it
And sees the very core ofp ristine cognitiveness.
Therefore this is called the 'short cut.'
There is no need to unite technique and discrimination
in what is the unity oft he aesthetic continuum
and its intrimic awareness.
The fact that this continuum and its awareness are not such that
they can be added to or abstracted from each other
Has been laid bare, 0 fortunate seeker.
A-Ho (OPENNESS AND BLISS)
The appearance ofa world of objects is the frolicking of the mind,·
Ift here is no mind, who knows the objects?
This very act ofk nowing is not something apart from the mind:
While there is nothing, there is yet appearance and this is the
self-presentation of apparitionalness.
A-Ho
This mind has nothing about it that could allow it
to be taken hold of;
If it had, one could concentrate on what is already there;
If not, one would concentrate on something non-existent.
Do not disrupt unity into such opposites.
A-Ho
4 Teachings
That which is not-two, dispels (the idea o!J duality;
That which is not definable as one, appears as a duality.
That which cannot be objectified as 'this,'
Is the selfsettledness oft he King, Mind-as-such.
A-Ho
Even ifo ne does not know what to concentrate upon
But by seeing it as unattainable, though not
In the manner ofh aving thr()lvn something away or lost,
Is to have come to the foundations of mind.
Let this attainment be in the realm of the unattainable.
Once you let it be there,
Although there is no longer any concrete entity,
You have the creativeness oft he all-illumining cognitiveness.
The aesthetic continuum and the intrinsic awareness
which are not two entities, are such that none
can be added to or subtracted from the other.
In this nothingness they have no essence ofn othingness;
Ifi nvestigated they are nothing as such, but ifl et alone
they shine in a primal light.
They are not caught by grasping for them, but are like
the moon's reflection in the water.
Devoid ofa ny essence such as cause, effect, presence,
coming-and-going,
The actuality oft his openness is a self-existent iridescence.
The response ofa nd to this luminosity never ceases,
How can it be soiled by contradictions and arguments
concerned with non-existence or existence!
In investigating mind, mind is an analogy for pristine awareness:
In understanding it, it is the self-present intrinsicness
in pristine awareness.
What a miracle!-This effulgence of mind in Mind-as-such.
What is its use in being open, what point is there
in its appearing?
Who is this in which there is no duality, what is it
that is to be concentrated upon?
Preserve it as what it is in its selfsettledness.
Mind Is the Root 5
According to their various capacities, individuals
See this pristine awareness that is beyond the ordinary mind
Either gradually or, at their best, at once.
In this pristine awareness yogis burn the seeds
of the six kinds ofe xistence
together with their potentialities
By the fires of the indestructible nature of reality,
that come as the embodiment, communication, and
appreciation of values,
That are the self-creativeness of the pristine awareness
in one's heart;
Out oft heir innermost being the sun ofi nfinite strength and
indestructible confidence shines forth.
They hold this pristine awareness with folded hands,
And in a single lifetime reach primordial Buddhahood.
SAMAYA
I wrote these verses
when I was meditating on Heruka
on the 15th day of the 11th month of the iron-horse year
and felt like an old dog whose teeth
and the bone in its mouth had seemed to become one
and suddenly were vomited.
Or, when love filled a young man, glancing and swaggering around,
whilst meeting a beautiful girl; adorned in her finery-
then words came genuinely and spontaneously.+
6 Teachings
On 'Jhoughts
Ifw andering thoughtJ keep on ariJing,
Catch hold ofyour Selfmind with alertnm.
Be attached not to SamJara nor Nirvana,
But re.rt yourself at eaJe in full Equality.
Let what ariJe.r riJe,
Take care not to follow.
MILAREPA
As sooN AS we start to say something, meditation is destroyed.
As soon as we start to conceptualize, at that moment, the meditation
experience runs away. And yet, without saying something, without
examining, it doesn't seem satisfying. So, to feel that we understand, we
use verbal symbols. That is our nature-we use words to express things,
to give measurement: it's like this, or like that. We have ideas: it's not
like this, it's not like that. But, finally w::. become blocked. We can't
express real mean'ing so we become frustrated. We think that we can't
know something unless we can measure it. But really, the only simple
way is to go directly into the situation, to see it, be it, and then express
it. Then, some sort of 'understanding,' or 'experience,' may come
through this very narrow channel.
So how do we break this shell of conception? How can we crack cracking
our own thoughts? This shell is like gravity, and thoughts in a way have our
gravity. They pull with tremendous force, characteristic of our dual thoughtJ
TARTIIANG TULKU RINPOCHE, is a reincarnate lama ofTarrhang Monastery
in Eastern Tiber. He carries on the Dzog·chen Nying-rig lineage of the Nyingma
school which traces irs origin through Padma Sambhava to Lord Buddha. Articles by
Tarrhang Tulku are edited transcriptions of talks given in early 1974.
On Tlwught> 7
mind. On th.e surface of the ocean there are many vibrations, many
heavy waves. But if you go down just twenty feet, it's very quiet, very
calm, very still. It's the same with our minds. In the outer form of one
thought, the forces are very active. Go further in and there is stillness ...
you can find it in the thought. There is no distraction left.
In medication we try to find a different consciousness chan our
usual state of mind. Our mind or thoughts are always running here and
there, rapidly changing. We cannot still or relax our mind, and so we
cannot focus on it.
Basically, there are two ways to approach the mind. One is
intellectual: we examine and analyze it. Forget these things. Concepts
have limits. We want to try to deal with mind and thought directly.
One approach is to try to scare away all thoughts, or maybe tranquilize
them so that meditation becomes a big vastness: no thoughts, no
concepts, very peaceful, very still.
In another way, it's possible to make the thought itself medita
tion. Most of the time, our problems are really thoughts-our emotions make
and judgments make us disturbed. Bur the substance of thought itself the thought
can become meditation. As thoughts come, limitations, fixations and itself
judgments are set up. Bi.lt if our awareness is in the center of thought, meditatiun
the thought itself dissolves. The mind is completely aware, completely
balanced.
How do we go into .that state? The moment you try to separate
yourself from thought, you are dealing with duality, a subject-object
relationship. You lose the state of awareness because you reject your
experience and become separate from it. You are trying to catch a
rainbow: it seems close, and at the same time you can't reach it. Mind is
sensitive, like radar, dividing reality into hundredths of seconds. It
always needs relationships, objects, this and that. It needs something to
touch, and cannot survive alone. But there is a way to go into true
stillness, where no one is holding, where no one is preparing medita
tion, where no one is left out. This state is all inclusive: nothing is left
other than meditation or, you could say, complete awareness, complete
dance.
With any kind of thought, or form, you have mental activities
going on. Before the conceptualization, you can be in the thought and
you can stay in it ... within the moment, within that very first state. At
the very beginning, almost nothing moves. Stay in the concepts, the just
thoughts. Just be there. You can do this, and it automatically becomes be there
meditation, automatically becomes balance, automatically becomes
awareness. There is no need for any support, or knowledge, or any
instructions, or anybody. There is no outside 'you'.left. You become the
center of the thought. Bui: there is not really any center-the center
becomes balance. There's no 'being,' no 'object-subject relationships':
On Thoughts 9
none of these categories exist. Y er ar. the same rime, there is func
tionality, there is complete openness.
The beauty of your own nature allows you to exercise upon these
within things: within thought, wirhin concepts. First, a thought comes: okay,
thought I see it ... and thought may sometimes hypnotize me completely, so
that I completely swallow it: I become the thought. But then, some
rimes, the thought may not completely block me, and I can see it, but
I cannot get free. The thoughts are there, always pulling me back.
Sometimes, thoughts pull a~ your legs: you have no free access, no
liberation ... you are not free, you're tied up. Or sometimes, thoughts
build a wall: you can't see anything other than that thought. Sometimes
I myself become the thought. I am the thought. It seems we have little
control over our own thoughts.
The one who is practicing, the meditator, is trying to see: "A
thought is coming ... now it's coming, be careful." You try to push it
back ... it goes back and forth. Sometimes you win, sometimes you
lose. But we don't realize who he is that is pushing: that's another kind
of thought manifestation. Your own mind is making tricks. Who is
pushing?-that's another kind of thought. And then it's back and forth
again, pulling and pushing. It rakes a long time to realize that all of this
is a game.
A very wise person, who has great experience, will later on realize
mind that all of it's a game ... tricks. You're playing mind games, many inner
games dialogues. Later on you realize how you've been wasting time. Formany
years of meditation you've been doing things perfectly, giving lots of
effort-bur, you know, it's a waste of rime, of no value. You don't realize
that it's always the thought's game-making your own self-tricks. So
gradually we become old. Children are so fascinated by their own games,
bur then they become older and wiser, and, though they still enjoy
them, they know they're not truly real. In the same way, as you find
maturity in your own practice, you see that all this pushing and pulling,
all these games, are the same family. There's no differences.
Soon you become less interested in these games. Thoughts come,
or they don't come ... emotions come, or they don't come ... and you
embrace the do not become so fixated by them. As you mature, you develop a big
judgmental mind. You don't care so much. Your mind becomes less narrow. If you
mind become skillful, you can go into that thought-into the front of it, or
into the back of it, or into the one that is making the judgments about
it: "This is good . . this is not good." Maybe you can embrace that
judgmental one who is you trying to discriminate, "This is not good."
You may embrace your judging mind and become united with it.
So we kind of crack each thought, like cracking nuts. If we can
do this, any thought becomes meditation. Any mental activities, any
situation, can be transcended into that state of balance. Negative char-
10 Teachings
