Wild Awakening (eBook)

FromChapter1: The Nature of the Path

Buddhismis a personal journey into the depths of one's heart and mind—,an explorationof who we are and what we are. The teachings of the Buddha show us how torediscover that essence and come to a full realization of that reality. Amongall Buddhist paths, the lineages of Mahamudra and Dzogchen represent the heartessence of the Buddha's teachings. Undertaking the practices of either of thesetwo paths opens the way to a profound journey. These are the lineages thatprovide us with the most skillful means to experience the fully awakened stateand directly taste the reality of our mind and environment.

Yetthe spiritual journey can be very tricky. It can start with great power,energy, intellect, skepticism, and inquisitiveness. Nonetheless, it canultimately result in nothing more than a kind of religion based completely onblind faith. That is the principal danger for Buddhist practitioners. It iseasy to fall into this trap without really noticing it. We think we are beingvery skeptical and inquisitive. Then suddenly we find ourselves in a totallyblind tradition of religious dogma. We find ourselves in the midst of a greatdarkness—,still walking, but not knowing where we are going.

Thereis a tremendous need to reflect again and again on the nature of our spiritualpath. What is our purpose in being here? What is the basic motivation thatbrought us to this path? Is it a genuine interest in awakening, inenlightenment, in freedom? Or do we have other reasons? Every now and then wehave to remind ourselves of our purpose and motivation. We have to go back tothe most basic questions: Do I really want to attain enlightenment? Am I reallywilling to achieve that? It is not a question of how difficult it is or howlong it takes to become enlightened. The question is, Do I really want to wakeup from this dream?

Fromthe perspective of the Mahamudra and Dzogchen teachings, we can wake up rightnow. When we wake up from our confused state of mind, that is enlightenment.There is no difference between this moment and enlightenment. The nature of ourmind is fully awakened right from the beginning, and this awakened state isnothing other than our ordinary experience of emotions, thoughts, andperceptions. If we can genuinely see our emotions, senses, and thoughts just asthey are, without trying to change them or improve our way of seeing them, thenwe can see the basic state of wakefulness. The state of fruition is simply therecognition of this nature of mind. That is what we call 'nirvana,'or 'freedom from samsara.' There is nothing more.

Atthe same time, there is a sense of making a journey, undergoing a gradualprocess of evolving our consciousness. This journey is the mutual effort ofteacher and student. It is a process of developing the qualities of faith,trust, and confidence in an atmosphere of total openness. Such a relationshipcan develop only when the student has thoroughly examined and processed theteachings and has developed a clear, precise foundation of knowledge. At somepoint, as practitioners of these lineages, we must go beyond the level ofconceptual experience in order to open fully to our guru and the lineage. Thisis the experience of devotion, which is the intense and powerful experience ofthe naked reality of mind. The experience of devotion is not blind faith.Rather, it is deeply rooted in wisdom and knowledge. Genuine devotion ariseswhen we develop a firm ground of trust and confidence in our own enlightenedheart. Ultimately, our commitment is to the nature of our own mind.

Buddhism:The science of mind

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