Niguma - Vajra Verses of Self-Liberating Mahamudra

The wisdom dakini known as Nigupta, illustrious Narotapa's sister, was a self-manifest yogini, a powerful lord bodhisattva on awakening's tenth stage, who received direct instruction from Conqueror Vajra Bearer. She sang these vajra verses of self-liberating Great Seal:

Nature of mind,
Wish-fulfilling jewel, to you I bow.

Wishing to attain perfect enlightenment,
Visualize your body clearly as the deity
To purify ordinary thoughts.
Develop a noble intention to help others
And pure devotion to your spiritual master.

Don't dwell on your spiritual master or the deity.
Don't bring anything to mind,
Be it real or imagined.
Rest uncontrived in the innate state.

Your own mind, uncontrived, is the body of ultimate enlightenment.
To remain undistracted within this is meditation's essential point.
Realize the great, boundless, expansive state.

Myriad thoughts of anger and desire
Propel you within the seas of existence.
Take the sharp sword of the unborn state
And cut through them to their lack of intrinsic nature.
When you cut a tree's root,
Its branches won't grow.

On a bright ocean,
Bubbles emerge then dissolve back into the water.
Likewise, thoughts are nothing but the nature of reality:
Don't regard them as faults. Relax.

When you have no clinging to what appears, what arises,
It frees itself within its own ground.

Appearances, sound, and phenomena are your own mind.
There are no phenomena apart from mind.
Mind is free from birth, cessation,
And formulation.

Those who know mind's nature
Enjoy the five senses' pleasures
But do not stray from the nature of reality.
On an island of gold,
You search in vain for earth and stones.

In the equanimity of the great absolute expanse,
There is no acceptance or rejection,
No states of meditation or postmeditation.

When you actualize that state,
It is spontaneously present,
Fulfilling beings' hopes
Like a wish-fulfilling jewel.

Persons of highest, middle and common levels of capability
Should learn this in stages suitable to their understanding.

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from Timeless Rapture - Inspired verses of the Shangpa Masters.
compiled by Jamgon Kongtrul.
Translated by Ngawang Zangpo.

Selections from an alternative translation are here.

After preliminary instructions, of maintaining vajra pride, bodhicitta and guru devotion, Niguma's beautiful verses teach how to realise ordinary mind through mahamudra, through the non-meditation, and the self-liberation of all experiences.

Don't dwell on your spiritual master or the deity.
Don't bring anything to mind,
Be it real or imagined.
Rest contrived in the innate state.

There's no need to alter your mind in any way, to bring anything in particular or special to mind. You can recognise how mind or experience is, how it truly is, and how it appears, at any time, with any particular thought or appearance present, or none at all.

Your own mind, uncontrived, is the body of ultimate enlightenment.
To remain undistracted within this is meditation's essential point.
Realize the great, boundless, expansive state.

Experience, just as it is, at any time, *is* the Dharmakaya. It is empty, it cannot be found. When I'm aware and rest in that awareness in how experience is, it's clear it isn't anything. It isn't anywhere. It isn't anything that a concept can tie up or encapsulate. Knowing mind's nature, mind is ungraspable and indescribable. This groundlessness *is* what the notion of Dharmakaya points to.

It's relatively easy to know this, to experience this. But to rest in that knowing - *that* is much, much harder to do. To remain undistracted in this resting, without falling off into conceptual thought, or losing that groundlessness that one is resting in .... like balancing on the tip of a needle, for one of limited capacity as myself. It's also easy to get lost in 'understanding' this, rather than knowing it .... but what is the relation between understanding concepts and direct experience?

Just as it's impossible to say where experience is, where mind is, just so is it impossible to say that it's limited in any way. Experience appears to be boundless, without circumference, without limits. Empty, open and full is experience.

Myriad thoughts of anger and desire
Propel you within the seas of existence.
Take the sharp sword of the unborn state
And cut through them to their lack of intrinsic nature.
When you cut a tree's root,
Its branches won't grow.

The disturbing emotions create the six realms of existence for us. As they arise, so too does the corresponding realm, and so too do we appear to inhabit that realm, that aspect of samsaric conditioned existence, without either knowing or freedom.

As such as anger or desire arises, it's easy to lose knowing, to lose our resting in the knowing of the groundless, empty nature of experience, and to get sucked up into 'believing' in the solidity, the facticity, the reality of the emotion that arises. As we lose that knowing, then we get lost in a world of seemingly solidity that pushes and pulls away at us, driving us on and on, and giving rise to a sense of 'me' as well as 'other' or 'things'. These arise simultaneously with the loss of resting in knowing emptiness. As Niguma says, we are propelled on ... a lovely choice of word which describes so well how we are as if a runaway train, without little ability to either steer or stop our course.

Yet as we come to knowing, as we realise our error, and being groundlessness back into view, that simple recollection cuts all the roots of this delusion, and the six realms dissolve from whence they came .. like dreams they melt away in an instance. In meditation or postmeditation, when you rest in minds nature, it's almost impossible to imagine how disturbing emotions could ever arise again, or how you could ever ride the runaway train of samsaric realms again. (and yet you do, time and time again!).

On a bright ocean,
Bubbles emerge then dissolve back into the water.
Likewise, thoughts are nothing but the nature of reality:
Don't regard them as faults. Relax.

How strongly I tried to get away from thoughts in my early days of meditation, and attempt to quieten the mind through subduing this enemy! Myriad ways of working with thoughts, each more subtle than the last, but each with the same end in mind - to get rid of thoughts from my mind, and instill clarity, peacefulness and stillness.

It's funny that, how pushing a cork down into the water results in? ... results in the cork shooting up out of the waters surface ... reacting to the effort, and triggering a new cycle of activity.

Regarding thoughts as in any way problematic, or to be removed is counterproductive. Thoughts are just what they are, seeming arisings in mind, seeming appearances in experience. When aware of thoughts, what is known? They are empty in nature - you can't find a thought, you can't hold it, you can't pin it down. It comes from where? .. we can't say ... they go to where? we can't say. And whilst seeming there ... are they there? ... we can't say. Ungraspable and unfathomable are thoughts.

So thoughts reveal the nature of experience, when knowing is directed there. Just like anything else, their nature is the same. Not different from a still mind, not different from an 'enlightened' mind, not different from any other experience at all. Thoughts are empty. Know them, and you will not find them. Bizarre but true - the more clearly you know, the less that's there to actually know!

Why on earth would you want to get rid of them, when they are precisely what you are looking for?

One of the most direct ways I can know the nature of mind is to cause a thought to arise, and 'see' whether the nature of experience changes before, during or after the thought is there. Or to see where it comes from, abides at, and goes to. Etc. Resting in the response to those allows me to know that mind/experience doesn't change in nature whether thought is present or not. Empty, and groundless.

Of course, our habitual patterns tend toward grasping onto ideas. Many of us find them particularly alluring, and we buy into them as if they were 'fact', rather than thought. Then we get lost. But as we practice the entrancing quality of thoughts lessens, and we can more easily know them as just what they are, just another seeming appearance in mind.

As we come to know the nature of thoughts, we can ask "what is going on at the story level" ... and rest in the gap or response that arises. Knowing thoughts in this way, we see them as no other than mind's nature, as empty arisings.

As we because less fearful of thoughts through no longer seeing them as the enemy of meditation, we can relax, and rest in what is, whatever is, and know if for what it is.

When you have no clinging to what appears, what arises,
It frees itself within its own ground.

Without clinging to what arises, without pushing or pulling at it (with desire or ill-will), without attempting to apply any antidote to it, just allowing it to be, and resting in the knowing, thoughts naturally self-liberate, they are empty in nature, and mind remains empty throughout.

Appearances, sound, and phenomena are your own mind.
There are no phenomena apart from mind.
Mind is free from birth, cessation,
And formulation.

When an appearance arises, such as a sound, we can ask "where is this thought"? The knowing that arises in the resting after this question reveals the same answer as when we ask "where is mind"? Nowhere and yet everywhere.

I can't find a difference when knowing mind and knowing thought. I can't find a difference when knowing 'awareness' and knowing 'what it is that awareness holds'. When I ask "what is this"? ..... and direct knowing towards awareness itself ..... that is, when I know 'mind' in Niguma's teaching .... and also when I ask "what is known by awareness?" when I direct awareness towards whatever seems to be known or held by awareness ... I can't find anything that would allow me to say 'these are different.

There's different flavours to directing one's attention to awareness or to what seems to arise in awareness .... they seem to appeal to me at different times, and keep practice fresh. But when I know either .... inseparable is the only way I can describe what is revealed.

When I rest in experience, it's clear that experience is what there is. No phenomena are known to mind beyond itself. There's nothing out there, and there's nothing in here. There's nothing other than the endless unfolding of experience, nothing other than mind itself. It's not saying that nothing exists outside of 'my' mind. It's simply that I know nothing of anything other than experience. How could I? Nothing I know is untouched by awareness. Nothing is known 'before' it touches experience or awareness or mind. There is nothing beyond experience that can be known. The great completeness. Innocence

When "where do appearances (of sight, sound, pressure, etc) arise from"? And where do they go to? Where are they when they are arisen? Do these 'things' actually happen at all? Mind's nature remains the same, and untouched by all of this seeming display. Not a jot more, or less, better or worse is the nature of experience, regardless of whatever seems to arise.

Those who know mind's nature
Enjoy the five senses' pleasures
But do not stray from the nature of reality.
On an island of gold,
You search in vain for earth and stones.

No longer either caught up in pushing/pulling, in Samsara's game ... nor indeed caught up in trying to change things, trying to apply antidotes, trying to get somewhere in meditation, trying to make things better, in hopes or fears .... no longer caught up in all this .... one can simply abide in what is ... know if for what it is ... and enjoy the magician's display ... the dance of luminosity ... and smile :-)

Why try to change mind, when it is 'perfect' as it is? Why look for rocks and stones of ideas of perfection, when knowing reveals the great completeness/perfection, right here and now, wherever that is?

In the equanimity of the great absolute expanse,
There is no acceptance or rejection,
No states of meditation or postmeditation.

You don't need to do anything at all ... just relax and rest in mind's nature. You don't need to change anything, to get anywhere ... all goals are empty .... just rest .. and what needs to be done is revealed each moment ... and actions take place, effortlessly, without doing, without a doer.

When you actualize that state,
It is spontaneously present,
Fulfilling beings' hopes
Like a wish-fulfilling jewel.

Should I ever remain resting in wakefulness, rather than slipping off the resting, then no doubt activities will flow forth, as the teachings say .... and Enlightened activity will pervade the ten directions!

Persons of highest, middle and common levels of capability
Should learn this in stages suitable to their understanding.

Dimwits such as I .... build capacity to do nothing ... rest, slip away, come back, rest again ... slip away. Knowing is timeless, awareness is timeless ... coming back to it ... you've never been aware .. stringing a thread of beads, of beads that are not discrete or other than infinity ....

such as it is ... is how it is ... awareness opens .... and resting in this allows knowing to deepen.

What does it reveal ... nothing other than what was there all along.

The taste of grapes, the sight of mountains ... the discordant sound of car engines ... just what they are ... complete, and none other than empty, lucid, and unhindered ...

"May Niguma's heart words illuminate the hearts of all beings ... and the unborn awareness bring great peace to all"

Nobody is running this show

One thing that's been coming into view lately in meditation is how my common sense notions that 'I' am somehow taking the decisions and choices and thereby the active agent of my life is not actually backed up by experience.

My conventional notion is that, for example, when I decide to switch my focus in meditation, say, to being aware of my physical sensations, rather than what is going on at the 'story' level, that it's somehow 'me' that is taking that decision, and that it's the result of some sort of continuity of purpose, which is what allows me to have a general aim to the meditation, and that somehow that carries through whatever is coming and going in appearances.

Knowing reveals something quite different.

I cannot find any 'me' that resides throughout the mediation, and which is making those decisions. Any sense of 'me' that does arise is momentary, and not continuous. So it's just another arising of appearances, like any other, rather than a glimpse into something deep and hidden, and lurking 'behind' everything else.

Moreover, when I allow the process of 'choice' to come into awareness, the actual moments of choice themselves, what do I 'see'?

Well, I see nothing, can't find anything that corresponds to that at all. Choice takes place, quite clearly, yet no location for choice is revealed to awareness, neither location in time, nor in place. It seems to happen, yet it's as if it's a living dream .... it's not happening at all when I turn knowing directly 'towards' it.

"where is this choice" .... I might ask ... and rest in the response - the opening that follows this question, not any answer, any rush to conceptualise or answer or fill that gap or opening with understanding, but just resting in the opening there .... resting in that opening and then taking a choice, doing, acting, creating karma through exercising will .... nothing is there, nothing is revealed, nothing whatsoever is findable .. and yet ... the action occurs.

So where is the agent in all these empty arisings, this luminous emptiness?

When awareness knows, it's clear that there isn't really any agent, no agency. These seeming actions occur, these appearances of action take place, yet nobody is really bringing them about. Similarly, when I don't act, when I decide to act, then stop that and don't follow through on that .... there isn't really an agent which doesn't act. The not acting takes place without 'me'. Not only is there no 'me' there with the doing and deciding not to do, but there's no action or non-action either. Nothing transpires, and nothing is guiding this action.

Woh! .... to my common sense view of myself, my ability to guide my life, to make choices, to direct my life in a way that seems valuable and meaningful is one of my most treasured abilities.

But actually, I'm not running this show at all!

Stuff seems to take place, and choices seem to be made, which attempt to guide my life in useful directions.

Yet knowing reveals nobody there, as well as nothing happening.

There's nobody home.

There's nobody in charge.

The lights are indeed on, yet nobody is home!

Mahamudra has indeed taken 'me' to a strange land, where everything I used to 'know' is no longer true, and what I now actually know is ... well .... nothing! .... but nothing which is truly known, rather than a whole bunch of something which I believed in and thought that I actually knew.

How do I actually take a decision, or act? Where does this take place? What makes it happen, at that time, that place?

Hard to see is this 'acting' (to paraphrase Yoda) - actually, not hard, but impossible thus far.

Actions seem as though they well up, from where? no-where. For what reason? It's hard to say. Most assuredly, it doesn't emanate from any 'me' or locus which is somehow directing this show.

Actorless and actionless.

Autumn Haiku

Sitting in meditation today,
After the Autumn rain;
The smell of wet leaves lingers.

My breath don't live here no more

I've been reflecting more on my experience of Mahamudra Shamatha ... resting with the breath.

Continuing from where I got to in my last post ... the breath isn't anywhere ... and it's not a thing. There is no breath as such, nor is it in a particular place. So how do I rest on it, if there isn't a locatable 'it', as it were.

One of the things I've been noticing in particular, is that there is no 'place' or dimension in my meditation. When I visualise Machig Labdron on a lotus above my head, I have a sense of that .... but actually, there isn't any above at all in experience, in mind. Whilst it's true that to a certain extent I can sense things as being spacially in relation to each other .... there's no absolute or real sense of up or down to be found, or any other dimension. Dimension doesn't apply.

Similarly with the breath ... where is the breath? Is it a sensation in the abdomen. Is it a sensation in the nostril. Is it a sense of movement in the chest. In a way, it's all of these and none.

The breath isn't there in the sense of perceiving it directly. All I can do it perceive various sensations in the body. And they give a clue that the breath was 'passing by' at that point. It was 'there' ... it was 'here'. And then what do I do? .. I string all those disparate sensations together, and call that 'the breath'. I say conceptually, that these are all 'breath' ... and other sensations aren't. So this is the 'breath'.

Ok .. you say .. but actually ... most of the time, those sensations are not there. Most of the time, whatever that is, when I'm resting on the breath in shamatha, there's no appearance or sensation arising. Most of the time I'm between breaths, or sensations. There's space, you could say. Or emptiness. Well, most of the time, I'm kinda hanging around in that space, and waiting for the breath to show up. I'm hanging around, perhaps where I suspect my next sensation around the nostril will be .. for sensations, which indicate that the breath is there.

But how do I hang around in the area of the nostril? Where is this? Spacially? There's no place, or dimension in mind, in experience, only that which I impute. So I'm hanging around .. my awareness is open, and resting .. some'where' .. but where? Somehow I'm hanging in awareness .. and somehow, I'm resting somewhere ... where I think that the breath will reappear, rather than somewhere else ...

and yet I'm not, because I'm just resting .....

and wherever the breath appears, that's where my awareness is, and rests.

However, then it's not resting on a particular sensation, or set of sensations, like 'nostril' ... but wherever the breath shows up ....

I suspect that's why I've got less shamatha and more vipassana in this nowadays, as I can't really switch off the knowing aspect, which knows things as they appear, and knows things as they really are ... or at least, knows these two to some degree.

Can't really just switch that off .... and somehow just rest on a particular object .... and become absorbed in that object .... as nothing is so solid anymore ....

Seems like the 'knowing' aspect is there, and doesn't wanna be turned off!

hmm ... random thoughts on where my breath went

Where did my breath go?

I've noticed a change in my meditation lately. After quite a period of formless mahamudra meditation, I've recently been practicing Shamatha with the breath as the focus.

But, funny thing, I can't really find the breath to focus on.

It's pretty much there when I start ... a sense of it popping up here and there, as my awareness begins to stabilise. I see it here, I see it there! .... and gradually the breath and awareness settle around each other, as it were.

Yet as my mind settles, the breath gradually goes out of view. As my mind settles, then I know more clearly, and the breath ceases to be a 'thing' which I can focus on. Instead of this 'thing' called the breath, which one might assume to be pretty continuous, and solid, a process with continuity, as it were ... there's .... well, what is there?

There are sensations, physical sensations, as the breath touches parts of the body - the lungs, the nose, etc, and leaves a sensation there. I pick these up. At other times there's a sense of energy, not clearly physical, which I am somehow 'associating' with the breath, though of that I can't be sure. It's just that they arise where the breath 'ought' to be, if you see what I mean?

At other times, what is there? There's a constellation of something, not sure what you'd call it .... maybe a vague cloud of vibrations, pulses, shimmerings, which again I'd collate all that together, and assume it to be breath.

Actually, there's no 'thing' there which is the 'breath'. There's shimmerings and appearances, and I have to somehow string that together, bunch it up and package it, and call that 'breath'. But that is not what I am aware of. I'm aware of a bunch of ever changing and ever varied stuff, which doesn't happen in a particular place, such as the nostrils, or the abdomen. It happens 'somewhere' ... well, nowhere really, it just happens, as a location? Nope. No location.

It's not at a particular place. It's not a particular 'thing', with continuity. It's actually a dance of appearances, which I have to almost cobble together and call it my breath.

So what's the issue with shamatha then?

Well, it's actually hard to settle the mind on this after a certain point, as there isn't really an 'object' to settle around at all. There's no one 'thing' which to keep the awareness resting on .... so this isn't a central point which to grasp onto, or focus down on, or keep hold off like I did in years gone by.

There's just this shimmering, and I can't really find it!

So what to do then? I'm kinda used to formless meditation at present, where there is no object of meditation, where I just rest in awareness, where there is resting, and bringing out of the knowing aspect, of clarity. But what that resting, knowing mind rests/knows is whatever appears, and whatever 'actually is' at that moment, which varies continuously.

Now, I'm trying to find an 'object' to rest the mind on, and I'm kinda struggling to find it.

So ... interesting to see how this plays out. How will this develop .... at present I've no idea, which is cool :-)

The birds have vanished into the sky - Li Po

The birds have vanished into the sky,
and now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.

from Endless River: Li Po and Tu Fu: A Friendship in Poetry,
Translated by Sam Hami.

This is so evocative. A truly beautiful image, of Li Po sitting *with* the mountain, together, and in stillness, until only awareness of mountain remains.

It's interesting the sense of time here, as Li Po sits for some time, as the birds fly away, the clouds drain away. Quite some time must pass, and eventually, Li Po's sense of self fades away ....

All the transient appearances are symbolised here (birds and clouds which pass across the sky) as gradually dissolving, until how things actually are (symbolised by the mountain) is seen as it is.

Perhaps more than this metaphor for how things are, what strikes me is the sheer beauty of Li Po's evocation of the process and path, of seeing things as they are ... yet utterly opening to what appears to mind .... relative and ultimate, luminous emptiness ....

Money can't buy you everything

I was driving into work today, and suddenly run into a traffic jam. We inched forward, and eventually I could see cars signalling to pull across into the right hand land. Clearly there's a car ahead, probably an accident, I thought. When I got alongside it was a Porche, with the driver down on his hands and knees, wheel off, and looking under his car. The car was parked half across the lane, with cars trying to get around him and his stricken vehicle.

Through my mind passed the thought - "doesn't matter how much money you have, you can't buy 'luck' .... you can't ensure that everything will go smoothly in life, no suffering, nothing guaranteed to break down, etc, etc". All fair enough, you might think.

And yet, in the back of my mind, as it were, I felt a quiet sense of satisfaction, that someone with tons of money had been 'brought down' by life, and that somehow I felt better as a result of his suffering.

Not the most noble of thoughts, I'm sure you'll agree. Interesting finding that little gem lurking in the shadows, hidden pretty much from view by my more 'Dharmic' reflection on how none of the things people go after in life as 'refuges' would keep you away from impermanence or uncertainty.

Interesting ... and one which made me smile, in a way.

Why on earth would one get a sense of satisfaction out of another's sufferings?

What a strange thing. Hmm .... one to watch as it arises next time, to perhaps see a little more clearly how such a thing works ...?????