Kalu Rinpoche | The Cleansing Practice of AH – like a painting

Because you cannot recognize the nature of the mind, because you cannot recognize the nature of the mind by wanting it too much, you know? You can have an immense desire, wanting to recognize, wanting to recognize, right? Let’s say you practice, you put in effort, you study, you debate, you practice, you go for solitude retreat, you receive some further more teachings. Right? So you put all that effort at the beginning.

But when you reach to the state of, when you reach to the state of, you know, to recognize the nature of the mind, the whole approach, the final stage of approach has to be more subtle. You know? So if your final stage is too aggressive, too rigid, and then you cannot recognize. So, of course, the preparation is needed, right? The preparation is needed, all the stages of the experience is needed, all the different creation stage is needed.

But when you reach to the final point, it’s a, it’s a little bit like a painting. I’m not a big painter or artist or anything. It’s a little bit like a painter. Like, in order to paint beautiful, you have to paint the foundation, whether it’s a blue sky, whether it’s a ground, you have to paint, you know, with a little bit of strength, with a little bit of chaotic, with a little bit of force. You need that. But in order to finish the painting, in order to paint the stars, in order to draw the eyes within the painting, to show that expression, to have that human connection to the viewers, then you need to be subtle, you need to be careful, you need to be precise, same as that.

So just like that in the spiritual approach, in the beginning it’s a little bit rough, it’s a little bit challenging, little bit of debate, little bit of confusion, little bit of practice and solitude. But when you reach to the final stage of recognizing the nature of the mind, the subtlety has to be experienced.

Without a subtle body and subtle mind experience, even somebody says “this is the nature of the mind and I give it to you and it’s very special teaching”, you cannot. You know? So it’s not so much to do with the precious teaching, it’s more to do with your own commitment and your continuous progress.

And that tend to make the difference in the long run.

Special teaching this, special teaching that, has an effect but if you don’t put in effort regardless of the great teaching it doesn’t have effect.