Since perception is mind and emptiness is mind,
And knowing is mind and confusion is mind,
And arising is mind and ending is mind,
May I erase all embellishments of mind.
Commentary
Mind is like a mirror. When we look at a mirror, we do not see the mirror. We
see reflections, and we infer from the reflections, that we are looking at a mirror. If we don’t know what reflections are, if we don’t know that a mirror reflects things, we take the reflections to be objects that exist independently. In the same way, if we don’t know how mind is, we mistake what arises in mind for things that exist independently in their own right. Such confusion can and does lead to serious problems, in life and in the practice of mahamudra.
The principal reason we study outlook is to prepare us for the practice of
mahamudra. Mind is experience and experience is mind. There is nothing that makes mind mind, and there is nothing that makes experience experience. Experience and the knowing of experience are groundless. Because mind cannot be known or experienced through reason or through the intellect, all ideas about mind are incorrect. A higher form of knowing is needed. That knowing is called mind-nature, or the pure being of mind, awareness, the perfection of wisdom, and so on. All these terms refer to a clear empty knowing in which knowing and experience are not separated into subject and object.
This last verse in the exposition of outlook summarizes all these points. In
effect, whatever arises in practice, the good, the bad, or the ugly, it is movement in mind. To do anything with it or to it is to fall into confusion. Not to do anything with what arises in mind is the essential practice of mahamudra, and that is what we turn to now.