Four Yogas Of Mahamudra:
I. Yoga of One-pointedness. Repentance.
- Repentance clears the mind from all traces of the outer cognition.
- This brings to the uncovering of mind-essence, which does not need any affirmation of the own existence.
- When mind-essence has been uncovered, its extensive purity does not accept the reality of suffering.
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The key moment of practice in the method of repentance is a profundity of understanding of norm.
What is norm?
Peace between people, prosperity, development of spiritual aspirations of person, supported by the society - are the norm.
Health, strength and skillfulness of the body, living until the old age are the norm.
The happy contentment, wakefulness and openness of senses are the norm.
Concentration, realization and knowing of truth are the norm.
Confidence in the attainability of all these by means of auspicious accumulations of wisdom and good deeds, being passed from life to life, is the norm.
When we meet with any deviation from these norms, suffering arises naturally.
Identification of this suffering with repentance is a main technical device of the practice.
Identification of suffering with repentance reveals the understanding of the causes of suffering, clearing the mind.
This means that non-satisfactoriness of ignorance, anger and attachment becomes evident. And what is more, we come to the deep understanding of the cause of suffering.
Ignorance becomes visible as our fixation on the materiality of the body. This vision and the knowing of emptiness of the material existence arise in coherence, as an active and a relaxing phases of reflection.
Attachment becomes visible as disappointment. This vision and the knowing of emptiness of desires also arise in coherence.
Anger is seen as our intention for retention. This vision arises in coherence with the knowing of emptiness of the conceptual thinking.
Repentance may be realized by means of identifying it with suffering, as is described above, and by means of the deepened contemplation in the following way:
I repent in evil deeds, words and thoughts, which have been undertaken by me.
I repent that my deeds, words and thoughts were not good enough to make their today's effects perfect.
I repent in false views and in ignorance, which have been hiding from me the path to liberation for a countless number of lives.
I repent in lack of good intention and of wisdom of its embodying, which give rise to all the good in this world.
The experiences of practice and realization may be brought to three main experiences: clarity, bliss and non-duality.
The mistakes are fixation, exaltation and hindering the thought-process.
The experience of clarity consists, mainly, in the deepening and refining process of cutting off the causes of suffering, that start to be perceived physically as a subtle form of suffering, being cut off (yielding the cutting off) and leaving emptiness on its place. The distinctness of comprehension of this emptiness is called the experience of clarity. (Mentioning the cutting off suffering being perceived physically, we mean that, as due to the quality of natural duality our thoughts are the reflection of objects of the physical world and vice versa, operating with thought in our own heart we thus influence the phenomena of the physical world.)
Realization of clarity consists in ability to comprehend this clear emptiness as mind-essence, primordially coherent in all sentient beings.
The mistake of fixation on the experience of clarity hinders the realization that an obscured mind is given the same nature as an enlightened one.
Importance of this realization consists in deepening of the experience of clarity up to achievement of natural state, when while in contact with obscuration the clear vision on its arising, formation and cessation is carried out, which destroys the tendency to fall under the influence of deluded impulses.
In other words, the ability to perceive changes in our own mind and not to fall under the magical spell of the change of decorations of existence is called the clarity of the realization phase.
The experience of bliss consists in soft contentment and width of acceptance of the world, arising in the course of fading away of personal orientations for success and fear of failures.
Realization of bliss consists in the path of merging of this experience with bodhicitta( the good intention ), directing our activity to the good of existence.
The mistake of exaltation consists in being charmed by the width and openness, which are not realized as the qualities of the very mind. In such case the experience of bliss is projected to the surrounding world, producing thoughts of absolutist character, like: "How beautiful this world is!", "How perfect all the existing is!".
Thus, realization differs from the experience of bliss by the firmness of good intention; this is expressed in simplicity and in interpretation of own experience without superfluous decorations.
The experience of non-duality consists in cessation of the conceptual thinking, often expressing itself as the spontaneous flow of observations.
Realization of non-duality consists in the phenomenon that thoughts by themselves are started to be perceived as object of observation, without being involved or reluctance.
The mistake of hindering the thought-process consists in opposing of thought to other objects of perception. Indeed, the intense thought-process blocks the activity of senses, but the same may be said about any intensive process of perception, absorbing all others. As hindering the thought-process brings to the disturbing of natural duality, we find out that inhibition of thoughts inhibits the existence on the whole.
Realization of non-duality of thought in relation to other objects of perception is self-knowing.
Self-knowing differs from the experience of non-thought, as emptiness of the wheel's hub differs from the emptiness of the jug.
Thus, the consciousness is cleared off the traces of the outer cognition (that are attachment and aversion), while preserving knowing and abilities of the ordinary thinking.