The Path

Mahamudra is the name of a set of supreme teachings on reality and, also, of reality itself. The aspirant must walk straight upon the Path, without falling to one side or the other.

A Guide to Avoiding Straying

Falling away from the Path, or straying from the correct way of meditation, is described in four fundamental ways:

• 1. Mistaking the map for the territory: The error of taking a simulacrum or a representation of reality for reality itself. Reality in its ultimate sense (shunyata*) cannot be grasped intellectually alone. The practitioner falls from the Path when relying on simple logical understanding instead of experiencing it directly through practice.
• 2. Projecting an external Buddha: The belief that realizing Mahamudra means changing into 'something else' or ceasing to be a living person to become a separate Buddha. It is a major error to try to transform yourself into something you are not, when Buddha-nature is already present.
• 3. Rejecting mental processes (Kalpana**): The belief that conceptual thoughts must be completely destroyed to find a 'pure mind' separate from them. This is a subtle error; thoughts are of the same nature as the mind, just as waves are of the same nature as the ocean.
• 4. Seeking Emptiness outside of Appearances: Seeking a shunyata that is an ultimate reality separate from the world of forms. Thinking that appearances are an obstacle and that truth is 'somewhere else', you lose the essence. The Prajnaparamita clearly states: 'Form is shunyata, and shunyata itself is form'.