Verse 10: What Arises in Experience is Mind

Perceptions that have never existed are mistaken for objects;
Because of ignorance, awareness is mistaken for a self;
Through the power of dualistic fixation I wander in samsara.
May ignorance and confusion be completely erased.

Commentary

What is life? Life is a stream of experience. That’s all we can say. Ordinarily,
this stream of experience presents itself to us as a perceived world out there and a perceiving mind in here, but those perceptions are mistaken.

What is this perceived world out there? It is a world constructed out of
perceptions. Perceptions arise in mind like clouds forming in the sky. Because they are associated with the senses, deeply conditioned habits lead us to experience these perceptions as objects that are perceived through the senses. However, when we try to find an actual object, we cannot. We have to conclude that the experience of perceptions as an object is mistaken.

A similar mistake arises with respect to awareness. We take the experiencing of thoughts, feelings, and sensations to indicate that there is some sort of self that does the experiencing — a solid sense of a self, an “I,” that perceives the world. We take it to be an unchanging entity that exists independently from the world we perceive. Yet when we look for it, it cannot be found. Again, we have to conclude that this sense of self is also a mistaken perception.

In other words, although we experience things, there are no things there, and, although we experience an abiding sense of “I”, there is nothing that constitutes that “I”. This dualistic fixation is deeply habituated. It leads us to be attracted to pleasant thoughts, feelings, and sensations, to be averse to unpleasant thoughts, feelings, and sensations, and to be indifferent to neutral thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Actions that support and maintain the sense of self evolve out the flow of attraction, aversion, and indifference and lead us to struggle in our lives, trying to procure or keep what we like, trying to avoid when we don’t like, and largely ignoring the rest. As long as we are mired in the apparent reality of this dualistic fixation, we know no peace. The struggle never ends.

The way out offered through mahamudra practice is to know directly that the world we experience as out there is constructed out of perceptions, that the self we take ourselves to be does not exist as an entity, that awareness and experience are not separate, and that because there is nothing more than that to life, the possibilities are completely open. That is the resolution to which we aspire.

Links to Related Verses

Verse 18