Cutting
through Samsara
and
entering Nirvana,
Part
1:
Cutting
through
Check
also:
Cutting through Samsara and entering Nirvana, Part 1-guided practice
Samsara
means being caught up by a mind that goes around in cycles. Samsaric
mind refers to thoughts, feelings and subtle energy where thoughts
and feelings are born from. This includes the sense of separate self
or the sense of ”I” or ”me”. Actually all thoughts and
feelings are charged with some sense of me-ness.
When
the samsaric mind is too busy and makes one go crazy because the mind
is so scattered, there is a need to cut this cyclical function of the
mind that thinks and feels.
This
cutting has to be thorough, a thorough cut through all levels of the
samsaric mind. The talkative mind can be silenced simply by relaxing
the jaws and the surface of the subconscious mind can be calmed down
by relaxing the belly and the physical body but to cut through
through all levels of the samsaric mind, we also have to cut through
the subtle energy that is beyond the form of thought and emotion.
This subtle energy is dormant and has no form. That is why it is not
easy for meditators to perceive. However, this is a way to cut
through through that as well. And when this is achieved, a stateless
state of open awareness, where the mind has been completely blown
out, is entered. The meaning of nirvana is literally ”blown out”
as in candle's flame that is blown out.
Tsoknyi
Rinpoche says in his book Ground, Path and Fruition:
The
practice of the Thorough Cut is like taking a great big knife
and just cutting the snake of solidified confusion. You take a
machete to all the thoughts of the past and the future, to the whole
complex of confusion about what is real and what is not, and just
hack them down in one fell swoop. There is no visualization. Do not
think about it. Just cut it. Drop it. It is very energetic.
It is not like having a nice meditation.
There
are many methods to help with this and one whole class of those
methods is the one called Parting Samsara and Nirvana. In it, you get
your body moving-active, walking, anything-and then stop and look,
immediately, and in that moment completely cut through all of the
thoughts-conceptual, intellectual, gross, subtle, whatever.
You
can shake your body violently or you can shout or whatever; just work
for four or five minutes and suddenly drop everything.
In
terms of the traditional methods of parting samsara and nirvana,
practitioners would go to the jungle, take off all their clothes, and
just jump, jump, jump, shout, shout, shout, and do crazy things to
cause a real breakdown. Or they would jump into icy water. By these
methods you can intoxicate all the small states of mind and really
stay in rigpa.
