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Yin Ling shared:
A very crucial point on why we need to keep meditating, from the book "ocean of definitive meaning" teaching by Thrangu Rinpoche :
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If kleshas really existed, if they had true and solid existence, it would require effort to abandon them. But once you see their emptiness, once you see that they are empty, they will gradually disappear. I say “gradually,” because simply seeing the emptiness of one particular klesha on one occasion does not prevent the reoccurrence of kleshas.
When you practice tranquility meditation, one of the effects is that your kleshas are weakened, but, as you will remember, aside from weakening them, the practice of tranquility does not eradicate them. But when you practice insight meditation, you actually see their nonexistence. Through seeing the nonexistence of a klesha, it is conquered, it is completely pacified. That particular klesha at that moment is pacified and conquered, but that does not prevent a reoccurrence. The reason why simply seeing the emptiness of a klesha once does not prevent its reoccurrence is that we have a strong habit of entertaining kleshas, which we have accumulated throughout beginningless time. For example, you look at your mind and you observe the emptiness of a thought or klesha that is present within it. Then you arise from that meditation and you no longer observe the emptiness of thoughts and kleshas. In other words, simply observing the emptiness of kleshas on one occasion is not the end of the path.
There will also be fluctuations in your experience, which means that some- times you will have a heightened awareness of the emptiness of kleshas, and it will be easy to observe that emptiness directly; and sometimes your aware- ness of emptiness will seem somehow dull or diminished, and it will not serve to enable you to see the emptiness of your kleshas. As long as the habit of indulging kleshas has not been eradicated, there will continue to be the need actually to observe their emptiness again and again.
Although someone has seen dharmata, has directly experienced the nature of mind, this insight has to be further cultivated. In the same way, on the path of mahamudra, if having seen the emptiness of kleshas in experience once, you do not continue to cultivate that insight and you just abandon it, this will not have any effect on the rest of your kleshas. So there is a great deal of difference between what is abandoned simply through being
seen once or a few times, and what has to be abandoned through the path of cultivation. Therefore it has been said by many mahasiddhas, “Our bad habits are like the tendency of a scroll that has been kept rolled up to roll itself back up every time we try to unroll it.” The insight into the nature of one klesha is not the end of the path.
Therefore, even practitioners who have realized the nature of mind must continue practicing meditation. And it need not be said that practitioners who have not realized the nature of mind must also continue practicing. In short, the actual practice of meditation is very important. As was said by Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Thayé in The Essence of Generation and Completion, “The achievement of the final fruition depends upon continuous diligent application. This in turn must be carried out throughout both meditation and post- meditation, through the application of both mindfulness and alertness.”
As for what the result of practice is, it has been said by many teachers, “The sign of having heard the dharma is to be peaceful and subdued. The sign of having meditated is to have no kleshas.” It is said that you can tell whether or not you have genuinely heard the teachings and understood their point by whether or not you are tame and peaceful in your conduct. And you can tell whether or not your meditation is effective by whether or not your kleshas are diminishing. Ideally, someone should finally have no kleshas what- soever. But even on the way to that klesha-free state, your kleshas and thoughts should diminish. Therefore, I think that it is of far greater impor- tance than the experience of dramatic instantaneous pointing out that peo- ple be taught mahamudra as a full system of instruction that they can implement on their own gradually through diligent application using either one of the three texts by the Ninth Gyalwang Karmapa—The Ocean of Defin- itive Meaning, Dispelling the Darkness of Ignorance, or Pointing Out the Dhar- makaya—or one of the texts by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal—either Moonbeams of Mahamudra or The Clarification of the Natural State.
In short, I think it is of far more importance that people receive this kind of complete and systematic instruction so that they can gradually develop experience on their own, than that some kind of dramatic pointing-out pro- cedure be done.
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l think it is a huge problem these days that one have one or two
breakthrough and then think the work is over, l think especially for
those who do not have a teacher this happens and it causes alot of
confusion regarding what is enlightenment among the common man and in spiritual circles.
