"Words of the Wise"
A Direct Look at Your Own Mind
When
we look directly at the mind
. . .
we don't see any solid thing . . .
when we see that there is nothing there,
thoughts automatically cease on their own
without having to be intentionally altered,
without viewing them as enemies,
without attempting to diminish them.
How
does this actually happen?
How does looking at the mind somehow cause thoughts to dissolve?
.
. . anger is usually directed outward.
However, if we look directly at anger,
there doesn't seem to be anything there.
We can't find where the anger is located.
We can't find what shape it has or what color
it has or any other substantial quality it has.
If anger, for example, has none of these substantial qualities,
then what does it have?
What could it possibly be?
What we think of as being "anger" is merely
the appearance of anger
and not really anything at all.
It is like looking at the wind
while asking for the sky - we can't see anything.
So if we look at our own anger, we won't see it,
and that produces pacification of this anger.
This
is not only true of anger,
but also of other mental afflictions
such as desire, attachment, jealousy, pride and so forth.
It is not only true of negative thoughts,
but also of positive thoughts.
Whatever form a thought takes, if we look directly at it,
we will see that in its nature it is not existent,
and that recognition pacifies the thought or causes it to cease.
Normally,
we do not ever look at our mind in this way.
From the time we awake in the morning
until the time we go to sleep,
our mind is just a stream of one thought after another,
one thought producing a second,
which produces a third and so forth,
and that is our whole life.
Not only that, but while some of these
uncontrolled thoughts are virtuous,
most of them are negative.
Under the influence of negative thoughts,
we engage in harmful actions,
which cause us to wanter around and around
. . . and to be completely miserable.
We can see that, in fact, thoughts that are
expressions of delight and uplifted happenings
are comparatively rare for us.
We spend most of our time thinking about how miserable we are.
from
"Bodhi" magazine vol 5, no 8
www.bodhionline.org
Tilopa's Teaching to Naropa: The Ganges Mahamudra
by Khenchen Thrangu Rimpoche