Q: Rinpoche, throw us some light on how we recognize our mind.
A: Recognize our mind is very simple and yet due to our ego, we do not recognize it.
So it’s very simple. Basically, there’s a saying in the teachings of the master, there is a saying: “It’s so vast, and then we are in denial to accept it. It is so simple, that we do not believe it.” So therefore I think it’s very important to understand that recognizing the nature of the mind is very simple, it is very easy. But, to reach to the point where you can be a potential to recognize the nature of the mind takes time.
Like an example, I have said this before many times. We have devotion to the Buddha Dharma, we have devotion to our guru, to the lineage, so on and so forth. Purpose of having devotion, the purpose of the devotion is absence of the ego, absence of the selfishness. You cannot be compassionate and devoted, meanwhile being selfish. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t exist together. But at the same time, our illusion of our mind, the projection of thoughts is so rapid, that we don’t have a sense of stability in our spiritual practice. So the very purpose of the devotion is to minimize the ego, is the absence of ego, is the opposite of the pride and selfishness. And then, once you have an incredible amount of devotion to the Buddha Dharma, genuinely, and then when you receive the teachings from the master about the recognition to the nature of the mind, and then you have a higher chance to recognize the nature of the mind.
Because you cannot have an ego and recognize the nature of the mind. It’s impossible. It’s basically, it’s a little bit like arguing with a GPS. Your GPS saying “Go this way!” then you say “No, I want to go that way!” So having ego and able to recognize the nature of the mind, doesn’t come together. It’s very simple.
In order to have a devotion, you must have a renunciation and acceptance to the meaning of impermanence, to the reality of the suffering. Once you have that, you have a devotion. When you have that devotion, and then gradually you have a sense of detachment to the samsara, you have detachment to yourself, you have detachment to all the material things. So as you continue to develop with the devotion, and then on top of that, when you do a deity practice, then all the pollution in your mind becomes more distanced. And then your mind becomes more sharper, and sharper, and clear and established.
And then when your guru or your master or it can be some other external occurrence, it can also lead to the recognition to the nature of the mind. Once you reach to that state of the sense of stability of the mind, and then once you’re given the instruction about the nature of the mind, then you simply recognize it.
Kalu Rinpoche
FB Livestream – 8 November 2020
To be continued…
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