"During 1983 Lama Yeshe continued to travel and teach constantly, this time in Italy, Spain, Italy again, India, America, France, back to Italy, Switzerland, and finally, India and Nepal. The teachings below are from a weekend seminar on death given by Lama in Geneva, Switzerland and published by LYWA as Life, Death and After Death. These teachings are among the very last Lama gave in the West before he directly taught on death and impermanence by disappearing completely in 1984 once and for all. Each human being has a mind, and that mind has three divisions: gross, subtle and most subtle. Similarly, we have a body, and that too has three divisions: gross, subtle and most subtle. The gross consciousness comprises the five sensory consciousnesses that we use every day. The subtle consciousness can include things like intuitive ego and intuitive superstition. They’re subtle in the sense that we can’t see or understand them clearly. The gross mind is so busy that it obscures the subtle. When the gross mind is no longer flashing, or functioning, the subtle mind then has a chance to arise. And that’s one of the functions of Tibetan Buddhist tantra: it eliminates the gross concepts, giving the subtle mind space to function. That’s the business of tantra. Also, the gross mind has no strength, no power. Even though it understands certain things, it’s relatively weak. The subtle mind has much more power to penetrate and comprehend. Meditation cuts the gross, busy mind and allows the subtle consciousness to function. In that way it performs a similar function to that of death. However, to do the kind of meditation that leads us through the death process, we need strong single-pointed concentration. Lama meditating at the ocean in Sicily, 1983 (Photo: Jacie Keeley) As you know, Buddhism explains emptiness [Skt: shunyata], the nature of universal reality. We experience emptiness when we have eliminated the gross, superficial, conventional mind, allowing it to manifest. Even people who have never heard of emptiness and have no idea what it is experience great emptiness in their mind during the death process when all their busy minds have dissolved. The moment your gross, crowded concepts stop, you feel some space, emptiness. There’s nothing you actually empty, but because your concepts are so crowded, because your mind is so full, when all that content disappears you experience emptiness Sometimes when Buddhist philosophers describe shunyata— “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah”—it sounds so complicated. And it’s true; Buddhist philosophy can be very sophisticated. Ordinary people don’t understand. “How can I possibly understand shunyata? Nagarjuna says, ‘Blah, blah, blah’; Chandrakirti says, ‘Blah, blah, blah.’” But when we really bring it back down to earth, all we’re saying is, when you cut your crowded superstitions, the experience will come; when you eliminate all your busy concepts, the experience of shunyata will arise, as it does in the death process. The moment your gross, crowded concepts stop, you feel some space, emptiness. At the moment we’re normally far from reality—from the reality of ourselves, the reality of all that exists—because we’re enveloped by a heavy blanket of superstition. One blanket of superstition; two blankets of superstition; three blankets of superstition . . . this blanket, that blanket, another blanket . . . . All these gross blankets, gross minds, completely built up, like Mt. Meru, like Mt. Everest—so heavy that you can’t shake them off. Now, I don’t know what methods you normally use, but our business this weekend is to look at the Buddhist method of slowly, slowly removing these blankets one by one: meditation. And in order to do that, we have to understand the characteristic nature of our own mind. Rene Magritte. The False Mirror. 1928. Painting. First of all, the mind is not a material substance; it has no shape or color. It’s a kind of formless, colorless energy: the energy of thought or consciousness. Therefore its nature is clean clear and it takes the reflection of phenomena inside. Even thoughts you consider to be heavy and negative still have their own essence, their own clarity, in order to perceive reality or reflect projections. Also, consciousness, or mind, is like space. The essence of space is its own nature, unmixed with pollution or clouds. The nature of clouds, or pollution, and the nature of space are different—even though pollution pervades space. The reason why I’m mentioning the negative mind is that humans have a tendency to harbor preconceptions such as “I’m a bad person, my mind is bad, I’m too negative.” We always criticize ourselves in a dualistic way. Buddhism says that that’s wrong. The characteristic nature of space is not pollution; the nature of pollution is not space. Similarly, the nature of the consciousness is not negative. In fact, the Buddha himself said that Buddha nature lies within each of us and its nature is pure, clean and clear. Also, Maitreya explained that if you put a diamond in kaka, its nature remains different from that of kaka and the nature of the kaka remains different from that of the diamond. It’s important to know this. A clean clear mind exists within us; the fundamental nature of our consciousness is pure. But while our mind has its own essence of clarity, it’s covered by a contaminating heavy blanket of concepts. Nevertheless, its nature is still clean clear; our consciousness is clean clear. Therefore we have to recognize, “My nature, the essence of my consciousness, is not totally negative. The pure, clean clear nature of my mind exists within me right now.” Actually, our consciousness has two characteristics, relative and absolute, and the nature of the relative is not negativity or superstition. Christians might say that the human soul is pure, not negative. It is free of ego conflict, craving-desire, hatred and jealousy. Similarly, the relative human consciousness can go from whatever level it’s currently at all the way up to enlightenment. That doesn’t mean that ego conflict goes all the way to enlightenment; the dissatisfied, emotionally restless mind never goes through the first, second, third and other bodhisattva levels to the tenth and then enlightenment. That doesn’t happen. The essence of the human consciousness or, we can say, the essence of the human soul, continuously goes up, up and up. The negative blanket of superstition never goes up. Each time we purify our negativities they just disappear, disappear, disappear . . . . So, that’s the relative. With respect to the absolute nature of human consciousness, or soul, it is totally nondual. In the nonduality of the human mind there’s no mixed up confusion or emotional disturbance. No such thing exists; its nature is always clean clear. Therefore we should understand that the nuclear essence of each of us is our consciousness and that consciousness is not mixed with negativity. It has its own nature, both relative and absolute. Sometimes we liken the mind to the ocean, where ego conflicts are like waves upon the surface. Concepts arise like waves, shake things up a bit and then subside back into the ocean of consciousness. So the consciousness of each of us is clean clear in nature and our craving desire, hatred and ignorance are like waves upon the surface. That means we have the capacity not to shake our consciousness; to some extent we can hold it without shaking. That’s what meditation does. Now, with respect to motivation, negative motivation is also like a wave. It creates all the confusion, dissatisfaction, pain and misery we experience. All that comes from the negative motivation in our mind—that’s the root of all human problems. It’s most worthwhile to investigate this directly for yourself. Still, we should understand that our own nature is not totally negative, not totally hopeless. We should respect our own nature, our own purity, our own characteristics. When we respect ourselves we respect others. If we interpret ourselves as a big hassle, selfish, totally hopeless and negative, we interpret others in the same way. That’s dangerous. Meditating on Your Own Consciousness When you meditate, it’s not your sense perception or sense consciousness that’s meditating. Western people sometimes get confused about this because they’re so used to the sense world being their only reality; out of habit, Western mentality is that reality is limited to what you can see, touch and so forth. But the sense consciousness is foolish. It does not have the intelligence to discriminate between right and wrong. That’s why as soon as we open our eyes we’re distracted by sense objects and the flashing of dualistic concepts. To avoid these foolish old habits of the senses I always recommend that you meditate with your eyes naturally closed. You can see why. Your mind always wants to see beautiful things. It has already decided. Say you’re planning to go to the market. Before you leave home you start visualizing: “Apples are beautiful this time of year. Pears would be good too.” So when you get to the market and see the apples and pears, they appear beautiful because of your preconceptions. Sense perception is like the Swiss population; consciousness is like the Swiss government. The Swiss government decides, “These people are good; those are bad.” The decision is made. The consciousness is like that. Our preconceptions decide ahead of time what objects are good or bad, so when the sense consciousness contacts those objects it sees them as good or bad. That’s why I say that sense perception is foolish—it doesn’t have its own strength and discrimination. As soon as we open our eyes we’re distracted by sense objects and the flashing of dualistic concepts. Moreover, sense perception sees only the gross reality. It has no way of understanding totality. Modern science tries to understand things by looking at them with ever more powerful microscopes but you can never penetrate their essence that way. Buddhism knows well that you can never understand emptiness like that. So this afternoon we are going to meditate on our own consciousness. But don’t be afraid: “How can I meditate? I don’t know what my consciousness is. This monk’s telling me to meditate on my consciousness, but my problem is that I don’t know what it is. How can I meditate on it?” Grand Central Terminal in New York City, 1954. (AP photo) Well, say, for example, you’re in a room where you can’t see the sun directly but you can see its rays coming in through the window. From seeing the rays, you can understand that the sun exists. Similarly, from experiencing your thoughts and motivations you can understand that your consciousness underlies them. Looking at or simply being aware of your thoughts and motivations is good enough for you to be meditating on your own consciousness. Is that clear? I’ll say it again. One way of meditating on your consciousness is simply to be aware of your mind’s view. When you look at your own mind’s view, when you are aware of your own mind’s view, that’s good enough. I call that meditation on your consciousness. Looking at or simply being aware of your thoughts and motivations is good enough. Another way of doing this is to be aware of the essence of your own thoughts. You know the moment you close your eyes some kind of thought is going to arise—just be aware of its essence. I also call that meditation on your consciousness. Don’t worry whether your thoughts are good or bad—the essential aspect of both is clear, because both good thoughts and bad reflect phenomena. When I say “meditation” I don’t mean that you should squeeze yourself. These days there are a lot of misconceptions about what meditation is, especially in the West. Some people think it means you should squeeze yourself tightly or even shake; others think it means you should just completely go loose. Both are wrong. With one, you’re completely distracted; with the other you’re completely sluggish Meditation is actually very simple. When you close your eyes, what happens is that your awareness begins to radiate, like a sensitive radar detector. A good radar detector picks up any kind of signal; it notices, it’s aware. Similarly, when you meditate your mind becomes aware; you become very sensitive or totally awake as to what’s going on. That’s what I call meditation—intensive conscious awareness. But I don’t mean that in the conversational sense: “Blah, blah, blah, oh, there’s a light, there’s something else.” It’s not like that. However, I’d better explain what I mean by conversation. Let’s say we’re supposed to be meditating. We’re aware of what’s going on around us: a car goes by; there goes a truck . . . . We’re aware, but then what we should not do is start some kind of conversation about what we’ve noticed: “That must be a very nice truck. Perhaps it’s full of cheese or juice for sale.” Conversation. That’s what we should not do. We should be aware but in control and not start some kind of internal dialog. " Läs hela artikeln och se videor här: http://multimedia.lamayeshe.com/the-nature-of-the-mind