Rest
By Michael Erlewine
REST
[This is another longish one and about a topic that is best approached by degrees, ‘Rest’, and learning to rest in the nature of our ordinary mind. And to make things harder, this is very difficult to almost impossible to do, so be warned.]
First, a few quotes from the great dharma masters that pertain to resting in the nature of ordinary mind.
Gampopa:
“Let the mind rest in its uncontrived state, like a clear sky free of clouds.
Tilopa:
Let the mind rest naturally, like a wave dissolving into the ocean.
The nature of the mind shines forth, like the sky without center or edge.”
Milarepa:
“When meditation ends, do not arise with grasping,
But rest in the expanse of awareness, vast and open,
Like a bird soaring in the sky, leaving no trace.”
17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje:
“At the end of a meditation session, do not rush to get up or engage in thoughts. Instead, rest briefly in the natural state of the mind, without effort or fabrication. This allows the recognition of the mind’s clarity to deepen.”
End of quotes.
Sooner or later, we all have to learn to just rest in the nature of the ordinary mind, whatever that means for us. The keyword is ‘rest’ and it took me years to understand what the dharma idea of ‘rest’ might be. I wondered if dharma ‘rest’ was somehow more special or spiritual than ordinary rest as we know it.
What I found out after many years is that rest, parochial or civil, are the same. Rest is the same the world over. Flop yourself down, put up your feet, or whatever floats your boat, and take a load off. Rest is rest, but there are degrees of rest that should interest you.
In other words, rest may not be as easy as just asking us to “take it easy.” We may have to learn to rest thoroughly; I know I did. And of course, we can’t ‘try’ to rest. Rest requires no effort, other than just letting go and rest. Letting go takes the effort of ‘no effort’ if there is such a thing.
In the dharma training that I took up, we were introduced to resting each day at the end of our sitting on-the-cushion dharma practice. We were asked to just rest for a moment in the nature of the ordinary mind. Of course, being told to rest is not restful, so no real attention was paid to how it went. Just rest as best you can and then get up and go about your off-the-cushion business.
Of course, for many years I knew that I could not really just let go and rest, but you know I tried, and as I mentioned ‘trying’ to rest does not do it. Back then we were just becoming familiar with the concept of resting in the mind.
Anyway, decades went by and I knew that I did not know how to just rest, although I stumbled through it for a moment or so every day. It was more a reminder that I could not just rest, thus somewhat of an irritation.
Then, one fine day I realized that in this world there is only one kind of rest and that is when we find ourselves resting. I stopped worrying about it. Period. End of story.
From that day forward, I did not care or expect anything of that brief moment of trying to rest in the mind at the conclusion of sitting practice. This was much better, but still not exactly resting.
My two cents is that ultimately, we will not rest until we master non-duality with practices like Insight Meditation, Mahamudra, or Dzogchen. Until we experience full immersion and the deconstruction of duality, we will not (and cannot) know and experience actual resting in the nature of the mind. Yet, that’s not easy to do. The mind has to be trained and how we go about this can vary. There are many ways and many dharma practices to go through until we reach that level, or so I was told.
Yes, we can rest somewhat while sitting on a couch, putting up our feet, and watching a football game or a movie. That’s a step in the right direction, IMO, yet not near enough.
‘Deeply’ resting requires full immersion in non-duality to the exclusion of our normal subject-object duality. And that is not something we can just make an effort and do. No amount of trial and effort will result in non-duality. ‘Trying’ to rest is an oxymoron. So, what can we do? That’s the real question that each person faces.
I mentioned the moment of resting in the nature of the mind at the close of sitting meditation. Of course, I did that for decades with no result that I am aware of. I was just trying to rest but certainly not exactly resting.
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And this effort to rest is a bridge that very few of us can cross without the help of an authentic dharma teacher, a guru, to point out to us how to recognize the actual nature of the mind, and by that slip into non-duality, which is the kind of ‘rest’ being looked for here.
This form of complete rest cannot be faked by making effort. As long as we remain in duality, our common subject and object state of mind, there can be no full rest. It is the signature of Samsara.
How to get beyond duality, our ordinary state of mind, is perhaps ’THE’ question every dharma practitioner has to figure out. And to make it almost impossible, we can’t do it by ourselves.
While in every other part of dharma practice that I know of, we are on our own and have to do it by ourselves, in ‘Recognition,” resting in the true nature of the mind, we require an authentic lama or dharma teacher to point out to us how this is done. And this, IMO, is a major roadblock.
Of course we may be too shy to ask for help, or there is no one in our sphere that we can ask or who is qualified to instruct us. And we may be unable or unwilling to make the effort to actually reach out and find an authentic dharma teacher that will work with us. The list goes on.
And yet, after reading scores of pith dharma texts stating that only an authentic lama who has experienced ‘Recognition’ themselves is capable of giving us what are called the “Pointing-out” instructions as to recognizing the true nature of the mind. Where in America will we find that?
And to make things worse, it’s not enough to find a lama capable of giving us these instructions, we have to be at a point in our dharma training where we can receive these instructions. That may be even harder to find, our being worthy, able, or ready to receive.
And so, I apologize for presenting this problem and not offering a simple solution. I don’t have one and had to face this same problem myself. Perhaps you can see the difficulties here that have to be overcome. It also explains why this is a big deal, one that requires our caring enough about it to get up and go out and make this happen. We have to go at least halfway. Most folks are too shy to do this.
And even then, there is a modicum of luck involved, that we can be lucky enough to assemble the conditions required for this recognition to happen. I know this from experience. I received the pointing-out instructions a number of times myself, and from the most qualified lamas, and nothing at all happened other than I did not get it. I was not able to respond to these instructions. Apparently, I was not ready.
I did not give up but soldiered on. And there was one more major obstacle that I had to face. I had to admit I did not know what such a ‘recognition’ was all about. By definition, I had no idea, otherwise I would have already recognized the nature of the mind long ago. And to make this more convincing, my Tibetan dharma teacher of 36 years, a high rinpoche, said to us clearly that we are the stragglers, the ones not only in this life, but in innumerable lives before now NEVER got it. It’s not that we once knew but have forgotten. We never knew and still don’t. I find that thought sobering.
And last, but not least, when it came time for me to get an inkling as to all of this, it took a very special set of circumstances in which this could happen. And it was not when I was at my best, at the top of my game, but just the opposite. I was at one of the lowest points in my entire life. It took real adversity and depression to get my attention. And that I would never have expected or wanted to happen. Yet, it did.
It was like a perfect storm, one that forced me out of my life’s groove and left me desperate, in order to turn the wheel of the dharma and bring change at the level of Recognition. I’m sorry to say that in my case it took a very painful situation to get my attention enough that something as radical as Recognition was possible, something well beyond the comfort zone of my normal life.
Of course, I would never have chosen those untoward conditions, not in a million years, but as mentioned, for me, it took that level of discomfort for me to wake up enough to undergo something like recognizing the true or actual nature of the mind and realize how that mind worked.
And so, I don’t intend to discourage anyone from seeking ‘Recognition’. I’m just saying that for me, the poor dharma student that I apparently was, my easy life was not the ground for such a significant dharma event to occur. It took a perfect storm, some fire and brimstone under my butt, to get my attention. I did not come willingly into those conditions, yet that is what it took. And even then, it took some years.
I had received the pointing out some three years earlier, something I had received several times before. Yet, this time I finally understood what I was not doing right. Then it took at least three years of very intense dharma practice for me to restructure my life to be ready for what I am calling here the perfect storm, although such a storm I would never have wished on myself or anyone.
And so, it was then, after those special practice years that apparently, I was ready to weather such a perfect storm of adversity. And it was in the middle of that adversity that I woke up enough that the proverbial dewdrop, as they say, slipped into the shining sea and I experienced full immersion, full resting in the nature of the mind.
I don’t recommend the perfect storm to anyone, yet I am thankful that it held me down long enough to effect the very real change of Recognition, after which I was never the same again.
I’m just sharing.
[Midjourney graphic prompted by me.]
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As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.
