How to Lose Your Mind
or
The One and Only Path of Mahamudra
by the peerless Lord Gampopa
I bow to my excellent teachers.
There are three points to this presentation of mahamudra:
1. Nailing down how it is,
2. Pointing out how it comes to be, and
3. Training in living thatness
1. The first has five points:
1. Mahamudra has no genesis,
2. Mahamudra has no conditions,
3. Mahamudra has no method,
4. Mahamudra has no path, and
5. Mahamudra has no result.
2. Pointing out how it comes to be also has five points:
1. Although mahamudra has no genesis, faith and devotion are its genesis.
2. Although mahamudra has no conditions, an excellent teacher is a condition.
3. Although mahamudra has no method, this unaffected mind is its method.
4. Although mahamudra has no path, this undistracted mind is its path.
5. Although mahamudra has no result, this mind free in pure being is its result.
3. Training to live in thatness has four points:
1. The groundwork is to practice teacher-union with faith, reverence, and devotion, three times a day and three times a night;
2. The main matter is to place mind intentionally without affectation.
3. The conclusion is to train the vitality of awareness once all that appears is experienced as mind.
4. Depending on how energy shifts arise, work hard at practice and meditation until any sense of mind is gone.
Energy shifts arise in two ways:
1. Unconducive energy shifts and
2. Conducive energy shifts.
1. For the first, whatever the unconducive energy shift — unstable attention, illness, panic attack, doubt, and so on — it comes up from your practice. Without suppressing it, settle in looking at and practicing thatness. When you do this, at some point a conducive energy shift suddenly arises.
2. For conducive energy shifts, first the shift into mind resting arises, then the shift into presence emptying, then the shift into direct knowing, and then the shift into clinging unwinding.
As for how to practice depending on how these energy shifts arise, do not be content but keep moving forward steadily.
First, don’t be content with just mind resting. You have to practice seeing presence emptying again and again.
Don’t be content with just seeing presence emptying. You have to practice coming into direct knowing again and again.
Don’t be content with just coming into direct knowing. You have to practice clinging unwinding again and again.
Don’t be content with just clinging unwinding. You have to practice until your mind is free in pure being, any sense of mind is gone, and you are completely awake.
This concludes The Pure Essence of Mind, The One and Only Path of Mahamudra
translated by Ken McLeod in Windsor, CA in April 2025
