Summary of the Key Points of Advice on Trekchö

by Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö

I prostrate at the feet of the noble guru!

The key points of the introduction to the actual nature of mind are as follows. Reflect
continually on impermanence. Contemplate the trials of saṃsāra. Adapt your
behaviour according to the laws governing actions and their effects. With a stable
foundation of refuge and altruistic intentions, ensure that all your actions of body,
speech and mind are for the sake of others. Dedicate merit and make prayers of
aspiration. Apply yourself conscientiously to the stages of accumulation and
purification. And ensure that the generation and perfection phase practices of your
yidam deity are made effective through the key points of approach and
accomplishment. To realise the actual nature of your own unborn awareness you
must persist in the practices until you develop uncontrived devotion toward the
guru. And even after you develop such uncontrived devotion, it is vitally important
that you continue praying to the guru and receiving empowerment.

Actual Instruction on the Nature of Mind

Probing to the root of mind means investigating which of the three doors (of body,
speech and mind) it is that causes us to wander throughout beginningless time in
saṃsāra and which it is that carries out virtuous or non-virtuous actions. When
investigating, we discover mind to be the most important factor. Searching for
hidden flaws means examining whether body, speech and mind are unitary or
distinct, and finding that, while on a conventional level they appear to be related,
ultimately there is no real entity called ‘mind’ that could be one with or distinct from
anything else. It is simply a deception, a clear appearance of something unreal. When
you investigate the essence of this mind, even if you search for its arising you
cannot find it. There is no reality to mind’s apparent presence. Nor is there anywhere
that it ceases. It is thus without foundation or origin. When investigating whether
the searching mind and the mind that is sought for are the same or different, it seems
as if one gives rise to the other. But as the mind that is the object of the search is
unreal, so too is the mind that searches. Nevertheless, by clinging to a self in all our
vague and transitory thoughts, which are brought about by fleeting causes and
conditions, we experience the delusion of saṃsāric existence.

Having recognised this fact, we should look directly into the nature of the mind that
does not find anything when it searches for mind. Leaving the three doors of body,
speech and mind as they are, without altering them in any way, we will
intermittently experience a state of non-conceptual clarity. This fluctuating
experience, which can change according to circumstances, is the all-ground
consciousness. Whatever meditative experiences might arise at this level of

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consciousness, whether blissful, clear or free from thought, they are still flawed
mental experiences. Moreover, the vacant, thought-free state of being wonderstruck
is also of the nature of the all-ground consciousness and deeply flawed.

No matter what arises in the mind, whether it is states such as these, obscured by
mental speculation, or fluctuations of thought unsullied by such experiences, we
must sustain an awareness of the present that cannot be benefitted or harmed or
transformed in any way by such risings. This awareness is vivid, fresh, uncontrived
and unspoilt. It is limpidly clear, nakedly apparent, lucid and bright, beyond any
concrete definition. This clear, penetrating awareness is not a void or vacuity, but a
primordially pure genuine awareness that is and always has been empty, its essence
utterly indefinable. This clear light of awareness and emptiness, which is the Great
Perfection, is the very face of rigpa that is to be sustained.

The method for sustaining the face of rigpa is the four ways of leaving things as they
are:

the view, like a mountain, leave it as it is;

meditation, like the ocean, leave it as it is;
action, appearances, leave them as they are; and
fruition, rigpa, leave it as it is.

To make naked awareness and emptiness evident through this method is what we
call “introducing directly the face of rigpa in itself”. We must have confidence in this,
recognising that there is no other “buddha” or “primordial wisdom” aside from such
a state, and that there is nothing further to do with phenomena that are already
perfect within rigpa’s expanse.

Meditation means not to waver from an experience of the view, without clinging,
distraction or fixation. Don’t try to block or shut out any perception related to the
six senses, and don’t allow your attention to become diffused or withdrawn. Instead,
simply settle naturally and without restraint. With no duality between objects and
awareness, allow any rising thoughts or perceptions to be freed naturally by
themselves, dissolving without trace like the path of a bird in flight. This is what we
mean by “confidence directly in the liberation of rising thoughts.” With this kind of
practice to remain unmoving is a special key point that applies equally to meditative
equipoise and post-meditation.

If you persevere in the way I have here described, then even if you experience what
might appear plainly and distinctly to be dualistic clinging it will still not obscure the
nature of mind, just as clouds do not sully the sky. As these apparent veils do not in
fact taint your experience, the two kinds of obscuration, together with any habitual
tendencies, will clear away and purify themselves, and the experience of the great
primordial wisdom of awareness and emptiness will increase. As this happens, it is
crucial that you remain unattached to any meditative experience, including any form

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of visions or moods, whether elated or depressed, calm or agitated, and that rather
than supressing experience you allow it to unfold spontaneously.

This summary of the key points of advice on Trekchö was composed by Chökyi Lodrö to
fulfil the request of Yönru Lhasé Sogyal.1

| Translated by Adam Pearcey, 2017.

1. Jamyang Sonam, the king of Yönru in Lithang, who renounced his kingdom as
soon as his son was of age in order to follow Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö.
Arriving in Sikkim after Jamyang Khyentse had passed away, he went on to
Tso Pema in India, where he stayed in retreat, before eventually dying in
Manali. ↩

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