Four Yogas Of Mahamudra:

II. Yoga of Simplicity. Contact.

-1- Definitions

The wakefulness of the senses is a healthy condition of practice (where by practice we mean the all-Buddhist concept of the Eight-Fold Path).
In spite of the variety of objects we perceive, all the sensations arising in the course of contact may be reduced to five groups. Using a metaphor of the sea, let's conventionally name them as the following:

  1. Surface
  2. Diving
  3. Ascending current
  4. Descending (downward-moving) current
  5. Bottom

The metaphorical definition of life in terms of the sea, contemplatively, may be based upon the comparison of the phenomena of the world with waves, raising and fading away; the mental precondition of our metaphor is the origination of life from water and the initial development of the fetus in water, which predetermines the subconscious presence of this image in our thoughts.
Finally and analytically, the water element intensifies energy's contact, as we have learned from electro-conductivity.

Here we describe the method of liberation, by observing sense activity:

  1. The Surface is a state of lightness and joyous peace, as if we are floating on gentle waves, not far from the shore.
  2. Diving is like swimming in the thickness of water, beneath the surface, where even things we are familiar with look shaky and unstable.
  3. The Ascending current is a flow bringing us up, to the surface.
  4. The Descending current is a flow forcibly drawing us down and stormy by the nature.
  5. The Bottom is the heaviness of our own being, routine and of limited perception.

The perverted attitude of these experiences causes five unnatural states to arise, which are explained later:

  1. "Well"
  2. "Dependency"
  3. "Absence of communication"
  4. "Mist"
  5. "Pit"

The root of the perverted attitude toward our own experiences lies in distrust and in the fear and attachment arising from it. Attachment draws us to the pleasant and familiar, while fear obstructs our contact with the unpleasant and unfamiliar. In other terms, this situation may be defined as a basic conflict, rooted in the simultaneous co-existence of hope and fear. A struggle between these two opinions ties our energy, causing these perverted states. As both fear and hope are based upon the objectification of outer circumstances, appearance of one necessarily brings about the appearance of the other.

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