I will discuss both of these ways further in this book. Some themes will be employed as an aid to recognizing mind nature in one context and as an enhancement in other contexts. Although we may glimpse the natural state through the blessings of a qualified master, we are unable to sustain this recognition unless we gather the accumulations and purify our obscurations. Based on the skillful means of Dzogchen, we are introduced to the unconfused aspect of our minds—the very essence of mind. Sem, or discursive mind, is the deluded aspect. From the very beginning of our training in rigpa, we explore the difference between being confused and being unconfused. As we meditate, meditate, meditate on the unconfused aspect, we gradually become more open. As this openness grows, from the state of emptiness compassion naturally arises. This compassion is the ultimate compassion. It is undivided emptiness and compassion, a topic I will cover in more detail later.
As I do not wish to repeat what I said in Carefree Dignity, please familiarize yourself with that book. The terminology is important for understanding the material I will present here.
Whether our Dharma practice will progress in the right direction depends on our attitude, our intention. Motivation is extremely important: it is what everything stands or falls with, and this is true not only in spiritual practice but in whatever we set out to do. Therefore, in Buddhist practice it is of utmost importance to continually correct and improve our attitude.
The attitude we need to cultivate is one that is suffused with bodhichitta. This enlightened attitude has two aspects. The first aspect is the urge to purify our negativity: “I want to rid myself of all shortcomings, all ego-oriented emotions such as attachment, aggression, stupidity, and all the rest.” The second aspect is the sincere desire to benefit all beings: “Having freed myself of all negative emotions, I will benefit all sentient beings. I will bring every sentient being to the state of complete enlightenment.”
This compassionate attitude of bodhichitta should encompass oneself as well as all others. We have every reason to feel compassionate toward ourselves. In the ordinary state of mind we are helplessly overtaken by selfish emotions; we lack the freedom to remain unaffected when these emotions occupy our mind. Swept away by feelings of attachment, anger, closed-mindedness, and so forth, we lose control, and we suffer a great deal in this process. In such a state, we are unable to help ourselves, let alone others. We need to relate to our own suffering here with compassion in a balanced way, applying compassion toward ourselves just as we would do with others. In order to help others, we must first help ourselves, so that we can become capable of expanding our efforts further. But we shouldn’t get stuck in just helping ourselves. Our compassion must embrace all other beings as well, so that having freed ourselves of negative emotions we are moved by compassion to help all sentient beings.
At this point in our practice, it’s okay if our attempts to experience the attitude of bodhichitta are a little bit artificial. Because we haven’t necessarily thought in this way before, we need to deliberately shift or adjust our intention to a new style. This kind of tampering with our own attitude is actually necessary. We may not yet be perfect bodhisattvas, but we should act as if we already are. We should put on the air of being a bodhisattva, just as if we’re putting on a mask that makes us look as if we are somebody else. The true, authentic bodhichitta only arises as a natural expression of having realized the view. Before experiencing this spontaneously and fully, however, we need to consciously try to move in that direction. Even though our efforts may feel a little artificial at this point, it is perfectly okay—assuming of course that this is the good and necessary kind of artifice.
The need to improve our attitude, to correct our motivation, is not particularly difficult to understand, nor is it that difficult to actually do. Although it may be simple, this does not mean that we should belittle its importance. At this point, we should repeatedly cultivate the bodhisattva attitude. This is very important. To look down upon it as an inferior or unimportant practice seriously detracts from real progress in spiritual practice. Therefore, again and again, in all situations try your best to motivate yourself with bodhichitta.
In Tibet there is a lot of livestock: many cows, sheep, yaks. The skin from these animals needs to be cured in order to be useful; it needs to be softened by a special process. Once the hide has been cured, it becomes flexible and can be used in all sorts of ways: in religious artifacts, to bind up certain offerings on the shrine, as well as for all kinds of household purposes. But first it needs to be prepared in the right way: it needs to be softened, made flexible. If the hide is simply left as it is, it hardens and becomes totally stiff; then it is nothing but an unyielding piece of animal skin. It is the same way with a human being’s attitude. We must soften our hearts, and this takes deliberate effort. We need to make ourselves gentle, peaceful, flexible, and tame, rather than being undisciplined, rigid, stubborn egocentrics.
This softening of our heart is essential for all progress, and not just in terms of spiritual practice. In all we do, we need to have an attitude that is open-minded and flexible. In the beginning this act of improving our attitude is definitely artificial. We are deliberately trying to be a bodhisattva, to have the compassionate attitude of wanting to help all sentient beings. This conscious effort is vital, because it can genuinely soften us up from deep within. If we do not cultivate this attitude, our rigidly preoccupied frame of mind makes it impossible for the true view of ultimate bodhichitta to grow. It’s like trying to plant seeds in a frozen block of ice atop Mount Everest—they will never grow, they will just freeze. When, on the other hand, you have warmed up your character with bodhichitta, your heart is like fertile soil that is warm and moist. Since the readiness is there, whenever the view of self-knowing wakefulness, the true view of Dzogchen that is ultimate bodhichitta, is planted, it can grow spontaneously. In fact, absolutely nothing can hold it back from growing in such a receptive environment! That is why it is so important to steadily train in bodhichitta right from the very beginning.
The word “Dharma,” in the context of this book, means method. The Dharma is a method to overcome the delusion in our own stream of being, in our own mind—a way to be totally free of the negative emotions that we harbor and cause to proliferate, and at the same time it is a way to realize the original wakefulness that is present in ourselves. There are ten different connotations of the word “Dharma,” but in this context we are speaking of two types: the Dharma of statements and the Dharma of realization. The Dharma of statements is what you hear during a lecture or a teaching session. Within the Dharma of statements are included the words of the Buddha, the Tripitaka, as well as the commentaries on the Buddha’s words made by the many learned and accomplished masters of India and Tibet.
Through hearing the explanations that constitute the Dharma of statements, and through applying these methods, something dawns in our own experience. This insight is called the Dharma of realization, and it includes recognizing our own nature of mind. In order to approach this second kind of Dharma, to apply it, we need the right motivation. Again, this right motivation is the desire to free oneself of negative emotions and bring all beings to liberation. We absolutely must have that attitude, or our spiritual practice will be distorted into personal profit seeking.
Basically there are three negative emotions: attachment, aggression, and closed-mindedness. Of course these three can be further distinguished into finer and finer levels of detail, down to the 84,000 different types of negative emotions. But the main three, as well as all their subsidiary classifications, are all rooted in ignorance, in basic unknowing. These are the negative emotions we need to be free of, and their main root is ignorance.
Someone