Reflections on All is Mind, from the Aspiration Prayer of Mahamudra

Appearance is mind and emptiness is mind.

Realisation is mind and confusion is mind.

Arising is mind and cessation is mind.

May all doubts about mind be resolved.

from The Aspiration Prayer of Mahamudra
3rd Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje

How radically different this view is to how my mind often gravitates …. into seeing solid appearances ‘out there’, and a solid ‘me’ in here. When meditation is weak, and the view is weak, then I begin to believe that a real, solid ‘I’ operates in relation to a ‘truly existent’ and solid ‘external world out there’. It feels like a polarity, a polar relationship, between these twin locii of simply ‘given’ objects – me and the rest.

Solidities soften and blur

Yet when meditation deepens, and the view strengthens, then both these seeming solidities soften and blur, and they appear more like shimmering patterns, fluid and luminous. Along with this goes a loosening of the sense of a singular ‘I’, and a corresponding easing of attachment and identifying with both these more flickering aspects.

The field of flickering appearances

Yet when meditation deepens further, and the view becomes clearer, then even these light and airy polarities begin to evaporate, revealing not so much two less solid polarities, as a single field of display, which reveals aspects we commonly call us or not-us. One field remains, where us or not-us cannot be found. One field where appearances seemingly arise, flicker for awhile, then seemingly fade away. That field ‘holds’ merely appearances, not knowing in or out, us or not-us, internal or external phenomena.

Nothing is there

Looking at that field, no field is found. No unitary phenomena called ‘mind’ can be found, and so nothing ultimately replaces the dualistic phenomena of me and the world. Just a shimmering of light, and flickering of seeming appearance, and a lack of anything anywhere that can be pinned down, named or owned.

Not just nothing

Not that there’s nothing there at all, not that value or meaning disappears. But as our view changes from us and not-us to a play of mind, then so follows a lessening of attachment, and a lessoning of suffering which poisons us and our ‘mothers’ in equal measure.

Oh to realise that view, to stabilise that realisation, to cut short this seemingly endless beguilement with appearances and thoughts!

Momentary experiences hint at what can be, and what lies ahead/within/already there.

May I and all beings lose our entrancement with appearances, and recognise the illusory display of mind!

May our aspiration be strong and unceasing, and our realisation correspondingly clear and stable.