Beyond Recognition
By Michael Erlewine
My Dharma teacher for 36 years, the Ven. Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, said this:
“You need to sustain Recognition by being undistracted because as soon as you are distracted, then you are completely ordinary.
“Ordinary here simply means that you are accumulating karma again. You are bewildered again because you are distracted from the nature.
“If you attempt to meditate on something, to do something to your mind, no matter how refined that meditation may be, it is still going to be a diversion.”
End of quote.
I understand the above from personal experience only too well. To my surprise, I first experienced ‘Recognition’, the Vipassana part of Mahamudra spontaneously out in nature and not sitting on the cushion as I always assumed it would be. And it was vivid awareness and immersive.
Yet, when I went home that same day from the experience, my mind was completely ordinary again, as if what happened never happened.
In fact, I had to go out (and did) the very next morning and I again slipped into the immersion of Insight Meditation, which was not ordinary at all. And as a testimony to how powerful this recognition experience was, I then went out every following morning it was not pouring rain from late May until late November when the winter forced my camera and me inside.
I had not watched the Sun come up for years, probably for decades, and suddenly I watched the Sun rise every morning for six months or more. That should say more than words can about how important this experience of Mahamudra Insight Meditation can be for us. It changed my life forever, which is why it is worth realizing.
As to how we continue to keep Recognition as to the nature of the mind fresh and not allow it to go fallow, something can be said. First and most important, the very experience of Recognition is self-fueling and illuminating. In my experience, it is more addictive than anything I know, so in that sense it is self-perpetuating.
The correct words are that as we naturally extend and expand what recognition we have, that itself kicks the can down the road.
And there is the simple fact that continued forward motion speaks against backsliding. I have no intention of not practicing Mahamudra because it is not only immersive, but like a torus, consistently turns everything inside out. There is no encouragement to regress and nothing in the past worth remembering much less re-instating.
And I imagine that continued practice of Mahamudra seeds our future rebirths as well.
[Midjourney graphic prompted by me.]
EMAIL Michael@Erlewine.net Note: If you would like to have access to other free books, articles, and videos on these topics, here are the links: StarTypes.com.
As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.