Gampopa’s fourth instruction is:
As energy shifts arise, keep practice and meditation consistent until any sense of mind is gone.
This may not seem like much to go on, but Gampopa packs a lot into this one sentence. He immediately notes that energy shifts arise in two ways: energy shifts that are unsettling and energy shifts that are settling, that is, are moving in the direction of awakening. The latter will be the subject of the next and final newsletter in this series. In this issue, we focus on unsettling energy shifts.
Once you have touched the clear empty knowing of mind nature, how you practice changes. As I have said in a previous newsletter, the metaphor of a flower blooming becomes just as important as the metaphor of making a journey. Once a bud has formed, there is little we can or should do to influence how the flower blooms other than provide the plant with the right conditions: light, food, and water, not too much, not too little. With respect to the flower itself, the best we can do is do nothing. The flower takes care of itself.
When we do nothing, mind takes care of itself. Like the sky, mind does not care what arises. Just as the nature of clouds is to form and dissolve, so the nature of experience is to arise and pass.
However, most of us are not used to letting things come and go on their own. As we rest, the web of patterns which comprise our personality, our way of perceiving the world, and our way of operating in the world begins to unravel. As it unravels, energy that was locked up in one or other pattern is released. How and where that energy will flow is impossible to say.
Sometimes it flows into what we are cultivating in practice. Possibilities include:
Strong and deep surges of faith, reverence, or any of the four immeasurables, equanimity, loving kindness, compassion, or joy,
Experiences of bliss, deep well-being, sometimes without any clinging or cloying quality,
Experiences of clarity, even the ability to know other people’s emotions or thoughts, or
Experiences of non-thought, non-self, emptiness, or vast depth or space, or
An unfathomable imperturbable peace that is beyond any conceptual understanding.
When such experiences arise, we usually try to hold on to them, extend them, or replicate them. Such efforts put us straight back into the striving mind — wanting things to be a certain way. These kinds of shifts are usually unstable. If we take them to mean something in terms of progress or who we are or what we can do, we fall into another trap, the trap of identity. The best way to practice here is to do nothing. Make no effort of any kind to control what we experience and let the thoughts and chatter of progress or ability or whatever dissipate on their own.
Gampopa writes:
For the first, whatever unsettling energy shifts come up — unstable attention, illness, panic attacks, doubts, and so on — they come from your practice.
Sometimes energy flows into other old patterns, and we experience unpredictable, unexpected, and often disturbing shifts in our experience. Possibilities include:
attention becomes scattered and we are unable to focus on anything with any stability,
wild thoughts about anything and everything come and go uncontrollably,
obsessions about things past, present, or future arise and won’t let go,
shorter or longer bouts of depression, anxiety, and confusion come and go for no apparent reason,
physical and emotional pains arise out of nowhere,
physical disturbances may also arise for no apparent reason, including sleeplessness, lack of appetite, digestive disorders, headaches, or muscle pains in any part of the body,
panic attacks, extreme irritability, or desperate needs, including food, money, power, or sexual obsessions, or
devastating doubts about oneself, one’s abilities, or spiritual practice,
Gampopa then writes:
Knowing all these to be energy shifts, without suppressing them, settle in the outlook and practice of thatness and practice from there.
Gampopa notes that all these unsettling shifts come from our practice. One way to view them is to see them as resulting from the unravelling of the web of patterns that maintains samsara experience, that is, dualistic perception and conceptual confusion along with the associated emotional reactions and patterns of behavior.
Gampopa’s advice here is to maintain outlook and practice, and practice from there. What is the outlook? Here we go back to Part 1 and Part 2:
Mahamudra has no genesis,
Mahamudra has no causes,
Mahamudra has no method,
Mahamudra has no path, and
Mahamudra has no result.
That is the outlook. As we rest and let each of these points about outlook sink deeper into us, the shifts I described in the outlook section may arise more vividly. No matter. We do not do anything with them
What is the practice? Here we go back to the first three instructions in point 3:
Practice teacher-union with faith, devotion, and awe three times a day and three times at night.
Consistently place mind without distraction and rest without affectation.
Once all that appears is experienced as mind, refine the vitality of awareness.
The first point keeps our relationship with practice full and alive. The second point helps us to develop skills, abilities, and capacities. When the third point arises, we move to the metaphor of a flower blooming, that is, there is nothing for us to do but let awareness and the various shifts unfold on their own. From time to time we may enhance our experience of awareness using any of the practices described in Part 8.
Our aim here is not to accomplish anything per se. To try to accomplish anything at this stage of practice puts us straight back into doing something. The unravelling of the web of patterns stops, but the energy already released continues to stir up and reinforce old patterns. As I described in Chapter 3 of Wake Up to Your Life (bottom of page 87ff), any attempt to control what arises usually involves some kind of repression, the results of which may be tragically problematic:
Finally, there is one pitfall in meditation practice that you must avoid. Meditation practice raises the level of energy in your system in the form of active attention. The higher level of energy inevitably brings you into contact with reactive emotional patterns. If you now become selective and repress certain emotions, pushing them out of attention, two things happen. The higher level of energy in your system flows into the reactive pattern, making it stronger. The higher energy also flows into the repressing pattern, making that stronger. Both the reactive patterns of the emotion and the repression are reinforced. You end up splitting in two. One part of you is capable of attention and response. The other part becomes increasingly rigid and inflexible. It takes over unpredictably whenever the repressed emotion is triggered by events or situations. Typically, a person becomes more arrogant and self-indulgent, obsessed with power, money, sex, security, or other fixations, and acts in ways to control or amass the object of the obsession. Long-term practitioners and teachers who protect areas of their lives from their practice frequently run into this problem with unfortunate and sometimes tragic results. We run the risk of a similar fate if we protect any area of our personality or lives from the increased awareness that develops in meditation.
If possible, we ride out these energy shifts as best we can without being carried away by the good and pleasant experiences or being disturbed or overwhelmed by the difficult and unpleasant experiences.
Sometimes, however, they are so strong that we are not able to do so. In this case, it is better to make small movements in the direction of balance. The point here is not to remedy the disturbance. Nor is it to achieve a state of balance. We just move in the direction of balance indicated by the unsettling experiences that arise.
A light touch and a delicate sensitivity are important here. Our sense of who we are and how we function in the world is falling apart, quite literally. New possibilities are opening. Drastic decisions and heroic efforts are not advised. Best is to let these unsettling experiences resolve themselves. Next best is small steps in the direction of balance. These induce a shift in the imbalances. We check to see if we still need to do something, and go from there. Our aim is to be sufficiently close to these disturbances to experience them without engaging them yet without being overwhelmed by them.
As we experience this unravelling without engaging or trying to remedy them, at some point, as Gampopa notes, things change. The unsettling experiences resolve themselves. It is as if we have been through a storm and the sky is inexplicably completely clear. How long do we have to endure such difficulties? It is impossible to say. How many times will we go through unsettling experiences? It is impossible to say. There is no rhyme or reason here. The point is that the unsettling experiences that may arise in practice are not necessarily a sign that something has gone wrong. On the contrary, they may indicate that something very profound and good is taking place, even though subjectively, we are unlikely to see it that way.
We do not and cannot control how the web of patterns unravels. Our effort in practice is to build the skills and capacities that enable us to touch mahamudra and the skills and capacities that enable us to rest in the unravelling without engaging what arises. More than that we cannot do.
Gampopa’s final instruction in this section is:
At some point settling energy shifts come alive on their own.
No matter how challenging these shifts may be, no matter how powerful their allure to hold onto them or replicate them may be, no matter how painful or unpleasant they may be, if we rest and do nothing with them or to them, at some point, they fall apart and settling shifts arise strongly and deeply. What to do or not do then is the subject for the next newsletter, the last in this series.
Remember, if you try to make a perfect cup of tea, you may end up with something that tastes almost, but not entirely, unlike tea.
Additional reading:
https://unfetteredmind.org/practice/pith-instructions-on-mahamudra/
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