The Importance of Resting the Mind in Meditative Stability

The seventh means concerns how to meditate so as to allow your mind to abide in
utter relaxation, since this is so important. Simply receiving the lama’s advice and
understanding the explanations will not free your mind-stream, so you must meditate
Many people cut their own throats, so to speak, for their meditation is that of a fool or
is corrupted by concepts, or they are incapable of prolonging it. Although they spend
their entire lives on some trifling imitation of meditation during their practice
sessions, they have no positive experiences or realizations, so it is important that you
meditate according to the personal instructions of your lama, if only for a single
practice session.

Sit up straight on a comfortable seat in a solitary place. After your breathing has settled
into a completely relaxed rhythm, gently hold the intermediate vase breath (bar-lung).
Rest your gaze directly in front. Relax your mind and body, and do not let this natural
state of limpid, clear consciousness wane. Maintain it in all its lucidity, in an utterly
relaxed state. Do not let a lot of speculative fantasies corrupt it, or focus your
meditating mind too narrowly, or indulge in much hope or fear (“Is this it or not?”).
To begin with, practice in many short sessions, resting your mind well in each brief
period. Whenever you meditate, observe mindfulness, and implement it in your
practice, for this is what is meant when it is said, “Without distraction, without
reification.” As your familiarity increases, extend the length of your practice sessions.
If you become drowsy, rouse yourself vigorously. If your mind is too agitated, rest in
a relaxed manner. Determine the degree to which your mind should be focused or
allowed to relax, as well as what your diet and lifestyle should be, by using whatever
agrees with your personal meditative experience. It is a flaw to hold your mind too
tightly, as though imprisoning it, or to be too relaxed—for example, to lose the quality
of clarity by being sloppy or to let your tongue or your eyes wander. It is a hindrance
to talk too much about any spurious psychic powers you experience, or dreams you
have, or gods or demons you perceive, saying, “I know this. I have realized that.”
Whether someone will have any meditative experience, pleasant or otherwise—of
mental activity or anything else—is not uniformly certain, owing to the great disparity
in individuals’ acumen and makeup.

As you maintain this state of utter mental relaxation, you experience physical and
mental well-being, mental clarity, or nonconceptual awareness (in which forms arise
as expressions of emptiness or in which concepts either cease or do not disturb your
mind in any way even if they do not cease). Whatever occurs—any meditative
experiences or visions, whether gentle or violent, subtle or coarse, long-lasting or
fleeting, powerful or weak, positive or negative— do not concern yourself with them
or indulge in evaluating them or reifying them (“Is this it or not?”). Make an utterly
relaxed and limpid state of consciousness the very core of your practice. If you are able
to serve as your own master, developing each key point as precisely as you would
thread a needle, you will achieve a natural stance in which your afflictive emotions
are overcome and you do not fall under their influence. Your mind will always be
peaceful and tame, able to function as the ground within which all states of meditative
absorption—the stages of development and completion—arise. This is analogous to
having a well-tilled field, and so it is important that, come what may, from the outset
you do not prattle on with a lot of pretentious talk, but instead come to a very precise
understanding of your mind and establish a basis for your practice.