Quote from Luminous Clarity

Luminous Clarity: A Commentary on Karma Chagme's Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen

by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

Snow Lion Publications, Boulder, Colorado    ©  2016     208 pp.


"The full title of this text is Meaningful to Behold: The Essential Instructions of the Great Compassionate One on the Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen which has been shortened to The Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen in English translations. It was composed by the learned and realized teacher Karma Chagme. Karma Chagme was known for compiling instructions given by the Buddha in sutras and in the tantras, as well as many instructions given by the Indian and Tibetan mahasiddhas. He compiled these extraordinary instructions in many different teachings of which one of the best known is his Mountain Dharma teachings, which were instructions to long-term retreatants. Karma Chagme is regarded as an extraordinary teacher and was known for giving instructions that are far easier to understand and put into practice than those found in traditional Tibetan Buddhist texts. In addition to being very lucid these instructions have unique profundity."  (Introduction, p. 1)

"Most Mahamudra guidance texts usually reduce the practice of looking at the mind into two main techniques. These are looking at the mind in stillness and looking at the mind in movement. These two techniques are related to the previous discussion about the mind's true nature and thoughts or mental arising. When our mind is at rest and we simply rest and observe the mind's nature and its characteristic of luminous clarity, we are resting in the natural lucidity of the eight consciousnesses. Looking at the mind when no thoughts are present, we are looking at the mind in stillness. When the fifty-one types of thoughts arise, we are seeing the mind in movement, which is looking at the nature of the thoughts rather than the nature of the mind. Here "moving mind" refers to the occurrence or presence of thoughts.
Now these two states of mind, stillness and movement, are distinct from one another. In one case we're looking at the nature of the mind itself; in the other case, we're looking at the nature of thought. No thoughts are present in the state of stillness of mind. In the other state, movement, the mind is full of thoughts and is usually busy. But when we look at stillness of mind and at movement of mind, we find that they have the same nature. When we look directly at our mind, we experience its characteristic luminous clarity and its nature of emptiness. When we look at thoughts, we see that thoughts are cognitive lucidity that is empty in nature."  (Meditation and Postmeditation, pp 83-84.)

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