A Letter on Sitting
Sit, as always, in the immovable seven-point posture of Vairocana. Let the body remember stillness. Breath naturally. Before you, see the teacher, and then let that vision dissolve, as water poured into water, until nothing remains outside you. What was the presence of other now lives in the presence of your own mind.
Rest here. As long as you are able, rest in the evenness of a mind unburdened by thought. And then, relying on the words of Garab Dorje, as simple as they are profound, become your compass to recognize your own awareness as stainless dharmakaya.
First, recognize your own nature. This mind you carry at this very moment—uncontrived, undistorted, needing no remedy—is awareness. Do not mistake it for a thing, for something with attributes. It is timeless awareness, empty yet luminous, a great, lucid, all-pervading state beyond ordinary mind and its thoughts and memories. It is this awareness that is the originally pure dharmakaya.
Second, come to certainty about one thing. Rest without moving in the dharmakaya beyond mind. Do not wander into what has passed; do not reach toward what has not yet come. Stay with this present mind, completely free of fabrication or alteration. Just as when muddy water is left to stand undisturbed, it becomes naturally limpid and clear. Nothing is gained by effort here. Simply rest. Uncontrived awareness that is vivid, lucid, and clear, is enough.
Third, trust in liberation. Thoughts will come, as waves must rise on the sea, but see how they fall back again into their source. Do not chase after them, do not change them, and they leave no trace. In this way you learn that everything resolves in its own place. To recognize this is to stand beyond effort, beyond acceptance and rejection, beyond anything left to do.
When fixation falls away, awareness is nothing but an expanse of openness and timeless freedom. To rest at ease in that—utterly uncontrived, utterly relaxed—is to discover what has always been present: the freedom of self-knowing awareness, the clear expanse of the originally pure dharmakaya.
Inspired by Heart Essence of Mother and Child by Jamgon Kongtrul
