Sneaking Up on a Mirror
By Michael Erlewine
Repeatedly, when I think of finding a forum or venue on the Internet to read, comment on, or chat with, I end up turning back and talking to myself instead and perhaps writing something down. Chatting alone with myself is often more interesting than looking outside for something I already know and have been exposed to.
Instead, I find and search in the Mind and open up a thread that interests me, has life, something that, at least for me, sparks and has a future. So much that is out there is just the husk of a topic that mostly has burned out, at best an ember of what was or used to be good thread.
It’s a little disconcerting to find me talking to myself for company. LOL. And of course, as mentioned, I note, write things down, and share them here.
But talk or inquire I do, and that is what fuels this blog, such as it is. My takeaway from all this is it just does not pay to look anywhere else other than at and into my own mind, if I want clear answers.
In summary, ultimately, at least in my experience, I end up not finding answers from the outside, but rather find them within me, right here in my own mind. It’s like the Tibetan mind terma, hidden treasures in the mind itself waiting to be discovered.
In every case that I know, after I exhaust taking things from the outside and try to digest them, I finally stop trying and just turn within and discover what I am looking for and it is most familiar and was there all along. It’s just easier.
And indeed, it is humbling how familiar it all is, which is exactly what the rinpoches have pointed out all along, to look for what is most familiar of all, what is closest to us. And it’s already right there. We are it.
Obviously, we don’t know what that is because we ourselves are so exactly that, being at the heart of such familiarity, that we can’t see it. That’s why, especially in dharma, this has to be pointed out to us, and I found that is no small task.
It’s like one of those figure-ground paintings where there is a painting within a painting and we can’t see the hidden image until it is pointed out to us. No, in this case, not even we can find it, because unlike my example, with the mind we have no idea what we are looking for, not a clue until it appears.
It is the same with Vajrayana dharma training, where we have a multitude of dualistic dharma practices, which we dutifully perform. Yet that is just dharma or meditation ‘practice’, not the actual non-dual meditation itself. For actual meditation of the Mahamudra variety, it takes what are called Pointing-Out instructions to resolve and that then is called non-meditation. It is without effort or doing.
In that case, like in my kid’s books we can’t find Waldo without looking and then having him pointed out, so we have a vast number of quite serious and advanced dharma practitioners swimming around in one great pool, and not enough authentic dharma teachers to point out the actual nature of the mind to them.
And to make things worse, most of these dharma students are not ready or able to receive the pointing-out instructions, so there you have it. I know. I had Recognition pointed out to me from the highest lamas and I couldn’t get it. I was not ready.
That’s why for many the rubber does not yet meet the road, because there is a full-stop disconnect here, one that can’t be jimmied because with ourselves we can’t be politic and just sneak in the back door.
Instead, we have to straighten out and align ourselves with the truth of the actual nature of the mind for that to work. Period. You can’t be grandfathered no matter how hard you try. Effort is ineffective.
In a way that’s a great blessing, one that we, even as smart as we are, can’t get around. It’s what keeps the dharma pure and inviolate.
And the Mind reflects.
I wrote this poem that points it out.
KARMA MIRROR
According to the Dharma:
The world just as I see it is my reflection,
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A perfect mirror of the mind,
Reflecting karma — My every thought and action.
Karma is pure result,
The outer reflection,
Of an inner reality,
That once ripened,
Cannot be altered,
No matter how carefully I choose my words,
No matter how right I get my mind,
No matter how close I hold my tongue,
No matter how slyly I take a peek,
I always only see myself peeking.
The world looks back whenever I look.
And clever as I am,
Even I can’t sneak up on a mirror.
Mostly practitioners have read and studied, yet had no actual experience, so they don’t yet know what they are looking for.
We have never experienced Insight Meditation until we do. And when we do, it is unlike anything we have ever known and by its very nature we immediately devote our life to protecting and sharing it with others.
[Midjourney graphic prompted by me.]
EMAIL Michael@Erlewine.net Note: If you would like to have access to other free books, articles, and videos on these topics, here is the link: SpiritGrooves.net.
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.
