7/27/2019 Esprit et penses

1/1

Thoughts and the Mind

Thoughts and the Mind

Like waves, all the activities of this life have rolled endlessly on, one afterthe other, yet they have left us feeling empty-handed. Myriads of thoughts haverun through our mind, each one giving birth to many more, but what they have done is to increase our confusion and dissatisfaction.

When we closely examine the ordinary habits that underlie whatever we do and try to discover where they come from, we find that their very source is our failure to investigate them properly. We operate under the deluded assumption that everything has some sort of true, substantial reality. But when we look more carefully, we find that the phenomenal world is like a rainbowvivid and colourful, but without any tangible existence....When a rainbow appears in the sky we see many beautiful coloursyet a rainbow is not something we can clothe ourselves with, or wear as an ornament. There is nothing we can take hold of; it is simply something that appears to us through the conjunction of various conditions. Thoughts arise in the mind in just the same way. They have no tangible reality or intrinsic existence at all. There is therefore no logical reason why thoughts should have so much power over us, nor any reason why we should be enslaved by them.

Mind is what creates both samsara and nirvana. Yet there is nothing much to itit is just thoughts. Once we recognize that thoughts are empty, the mind will no longer have the power to deceive us. But as long as we take our deluded thoughts asreal, they will continue to torment us mercilessly, as they have been doing throughout countless past lives. To gain control over the mind, we need to be awareof what to do and what to avoid, and we also need to be alert and vigilant, constantly examining all our thoughts, words and actions.

To cut through the minds clinging, it is important to understand that all appearances are void, like the appearance of water in a mirage. Beautiful forms are of no benefit to the mind, nor can ugly forms harm it in any way. Sever the ties ofhope and fear, attraction and repulsion, and remain in equanimity in the underst

anding that all phenomena are nothing more than projections of your own mind.

Once you have realized absolute truth, then you will see the whole, infinite display of relative phenomena that appears within it as no more than an illusion or a dream. To realize that appearance and voidness are one is what is called simplicity, or freedom from conceptual limitations.-Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche