Fearless Simplicity - Drubwang Tsoknyi Rinpoche

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Relax, breathe in. Relax the feelings and sensations. This is necessary in order to relax, to be aware of how we are.

      Then there is mindfulness of mind. Realizing that mind is everywhere, we respond to it with warmth: “Oh, poor mind! I love you too. Don’t get jealous because I love feelings and body—I love you too. You also work so hard. I’m always squeezing my brain, my mind.” So give warmth to your mind, hug, kiss, relax your mind. Any thought that comes is okay. If anger comes, it’s okay. “Whether I am happy or angry, I welcome it into my mind.” Give space to anger. Don’t look at anger and think, “Oh, anger, you are so bad!” That means you are giving your anger a bad time and bad thoughts. Whether a good thought comes or a bad thought comes, just give room to any thought. Anything that comes in your mind, just make space, and mind settles down. Good thought, bad thought—you are aware of that. You treat them the same; give them equal rights. This tolerance toward all kinds of thoughts actually makes it easier for them to dissolve naturally later.

      People who have low self-esteem and feel bad about themselves—if another person just praises them and comforts them a little bit, they really appreciate it and are helped by it. Their own thoughts have nagged them, saying, “You are bad, you are bad, you are bad.” So when someone comes along and says, “You are okay,” they really like it, and why not? Mind has “emotional rights.” Anything can come into the mind—happy, unhappy, good thought, bad thought. There is no law that says some thoughts should have restricted access while others should be allowed to move freely in and out of the mind. There is no such law! You can allow anything to come. But whether you cling to it or not is your right. The rights of the emotions are to come in as they please. Your right is to decide not to follow. So, you cannot disturb their business and say, “If you are emotional, then you cannot come in!” That thought should not happen here, because it will create problems. Mind is creative; anything can come to the mind. That is mind’s beauty. Whatever comes, comes. When it comes, your only responsibility is whether you cling to it or not, whether you go with it or not. You have a right in this regard. We need to learn that.

      To learn how to allow thoughts to move freely while not clinging is the mindfulness of mind. In this way, we become skilled in dealing with thoughts. We become more aware, more present. A mindful presence develops so that we know what the body actually feels like, how the sensations truly are, how thoughts and feelings really are. Through training in this way, we become more and more mindful.

      The fourth application is sometimes called the application of mindfulness of samadhi. This means that the awareness of everything else needs to be allowed to remain as it naturally is. It settles into itself. It is aware, undistracted. While being allowed to be that way, it notices the body, the sensations, and the mental activity. All of that is being hosted by the mindfulness of samadhi. We can call this mental stability. There is complete harmony between all the different events here, between body, sensations, and mental events. We are simply letting everything be, and as this awareness becomes increasingly settled, subtle, and refined, it can grow further. That is the point. If all goes well, then it can be rigpa—the possibility is there. For that to happen, however, the attachment or clinging to meditation must be relinquished. This is called “undistracted while not meditating.”

      STUDENT: How do we not get carried away?

      RINPOCHE: The main problem in most cases is not the lack of theory about how to do things, either on the material level or the mental level. Rather, it is that one forgets how to deal with a particular problem the moment it arises. Our sense of being mindful and alert is forgotten; it gets lost. Due to habit, we lose it; we somehow lose control. We are no longer in charge of the emotions in which we are involved, and at that point the real problem begins.

      Centuries ago, many human problems had causes consisting in a lack of expertise—curing diseases, for example. There was not much education in human society, and not many proper laws. Also, there was not much understanding of human psychology. The situation now is different, of course. Our current problems are due to a scarcity of the ability to not be carried away by our own tendencies. It is almost involuntary. We almost seem to be enslaved by the habit of being carried away.

      Actually, I think we have more problems than people did six hundred years ago, although our problems are not due to a lack of education. We are very well educated—you could say we are almost too well educated. We have the wrong way of being educated. It is an incomplete education, because there is no inner education.

      This problem happens a lot. Circumstances arise, and somehow the intelligence seems to get switched off and one loses control of oneself. It is like being a smoker. You know smoking is no good for your health, but, being addicted, you just cannot give it up. If you didn’t know that smoking was bad for health, then it would be a different matter, but that is not the case. Nowadays you’re educated about the hazards of smoking—that all the black stuff goes into your lungs, that your teeth get yellow and your fingertips discolored, that you have bad breath all the time. When you try to kiss your girlfriend or boyfriend, they are disgusted. And if you don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend, it makes it more difficult to get one. You know all this, and still you continue smoking many cigarettes.

      It is precisely this addicted attitude that we deal with through meditation practice. Meditation practice is simply about how to release habitual attitudes; it’s not about anything else. And this is done through shamatha and vipashyana. Really, there is no other way to address this problem than by learning how to naturally release or liberate the addicted conceptual attitude.

      Shamatha without support is a superb way to exactly identify my particular addiction. “What is it that carries my attention away repeatedly? When a certain thought or emotion comes, I am sucked into it right away. Now I notice, I see exactly what is going on.” That is the function or the effect of training in shamatha without support. And it is the vipashyana, free of concepts, that actually cures it, like taking the medicine that heals that problem. If you don’t know your particular health problem, it doesn’t help to take just any kind of medicine. Once you diagnose the disease, you can obtain the exact cure and be free of it.

      If the problem is a mental addiction, then no material substance can really cure it. Likewise, nobody’s help from outside can “do it for you.” Rather, this addicted mental attitude needs to cure itself through knowing how. Certain physical substances can cure a material problem like a physical disorder. This is because material substance can influence material substance. But that which is immaterial or insubstantial—which mind surely is—cannot really be influenced by material substance. The mind needs to cure itself. This is a very important point. Through the practice of shamatha without support, we become aware of exactly what our problem is.

      Imagine that a wild elephant is to be tamed by an elephant tamer, but the elephant tamer is also a little wild and also needs to be tamed. In fact, you need to be a little wild to even want to deal with a wild elephant, or you may get stepped on and squashed. But what happens if this wild, slightly too energetic elephant tamer gets into your home and starts to move things around? Maybe he’ll smash things; maybe he will rob you or beat you up. He needs some taming as well. Shamatha is the method of taming the conceptual mind; it is the elephant tamer. But who will tame the elephant tamer?

      That method is called vipashyana, egoless vipashyana. Within the method of egoless vipashyana you find Mahamudra, you find Dzogchen, and you find the great Middle Way.

      The wild elephant is our rampant emotions, our tendency to get attached, get angry, get closed-minded. The elephant tamer is our ability to be mindful and alert, to tell ourselves, “I’m not going to get involved in these strong emotions. I’m going to be quiet and calm; I will stay collected; I’m going to be mindful; I’m going to be alert. Now I’m quiet; now I’m peaceful; now I’m at ease.” That is the tamer.

      But this tamer himself also needs to tamed. What can do that? The elephant tamer continues thinking in a dualistic way: “I must remain mindful; I shouldn’t be distracted. Who knows, maybe the elephant will get wild again. I’d better watch out. I must be mindful, I must be alert,” and so on. If this attentiveness of the elephant tamer is not allowed to be naturally liberated, dissolved, then one is still stuck in that dualistic way. The watcher has not dissolved. He is

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