A Practice That Lets Go Even the Seeking Mind

The affairs of the world are interconnected, and examining and studying society's problems is part of life as well. But the work of illuminating the mind's original place moves in a different direction from gaining more worldly achievement. Even while you practice, if you keep asking yourself, "Have I become happier, more focused, has my stage risen, what have I realized?" you turn practice into just another goal and possession.

This does not mean you should stop practicing. Rather, it is closer to revealing your original place just as it is, without putting yourself forward with the awareness that you are practicing, and without putting the wish to attain awakening ahead of everything else. When the thought arises that you have gained something, do not grasp it again as "I have attained this." The moment you set up knowledge, experience, or a stage of practice as "me," you move away from your original purity.

In daily life, you rely on others, try to obtain certain results, and hope things go as you wish. Rather than forcing such a mind to disappear, first notice it. When expectation and disappointment, attachment and discriminating thought arise, do not add another story on top of them — see them as they are, and let them go.

Even pushing yourself to make the seeking mind disappear completely can become another form of discriminating thought. See even the fact that this is not easy, just as it is. Do not hold on to the thought that your practice is going well, or the disappointment that it is not — return again to the one thing in front of you now.

Practice is not something you do in order to attain awakening — it is illuminating the very moment a mind that wants to gain something arises. When you set aside, even for a moment, the thought "I am practicing," your original, pure mind reveals itself without anything covering it.