Unpolluted by meditation with intellectual effort
Undisturbed by the winds of everyday affairs,
Not manipulating, knowing how to let what is true be itself,
May I become skilled in the practice of mind and maintain it.
Commentary
The first verse in the practice section provides an overview. Most
commentators begin with the second line, taking the view that in order to
practice effectively one has to let go of concern with the eight conventional
concerns—gain and loss, happiness and sadness, fame and obscurity, and respect and disdain.
However, I agree with Rangjung Dorje’s order. Mahamudra practice is
primarily about resting in whatever arises, without doing anything with it,
without doing anything to it, and without it doing anything to you. Any
intellectual effort on your part pollutes practice, whether it is analysis of what
arises in experience, deduction, inference, attempts to predict or control, or any anticipation.
When one day you actually rest and you taste meditation that doesn’t involve thinking your way through or in the practice, something shifts inside. You see or sense a possibility of knowing and being that is completely different, and the winds of the eight conventional concerns lose their sway.
Now you understand both the meaning and the importance of not
manipulating experience. You also understand the skills you need to train and the capacity you need to develop. Tilopa’s Six Words come to mind:
Don’t recall.
Don’t imagine.
Don’t think.
Don’t examine.
Don’t control.
Rest.
Only in this way can you create the conditions to know mind truly for what it
is, to know experience truly for what it is. Only in this way can the empty clarity of mind-nature permeate your being. And that becomes your central concern and your heartfelt aspiration.