regard discursive thinking as a fault. We can then look at it this way: the more
thoughts, the more dharmakaya.
The extent to which we can cut ourselves free from experiences of bliss, clarity,
and no-thought is the extent to which we gain confidence in our practice. With
confidence there will be no attachment to friends or hatred toward enemies and
no need to choose between samsara or nirvana. Whatever thought arises vanishes
immediately, like writing on water. Later, not only does attachment to the
experiences of bliss, clarity, and no-thought disappear, but also whatever arises
becomes the food of naked empty pure presence, and nonmeditation becomes the
meditation of the great yogin-meditator. Since there is then no point of reference,
there can be no wavering even for an instant from the naked pure presence. Since
the function of removing the obstructing experiences of bliss, clarity, and no-
thought is an autonomous reaction, no matter what we encounter—sleep, food,
walking, sitting, happiness, pain, misfortune, sickness, harm from an enemy, and
so on—we recognize it as a part of the universal lie of appearances. If faults of
attachment arise, if we relax into the offending cognitions, they dissolve like the
morning mist under the warming sun. If obstacles are removed this way, naked
pure presence is revealed like grain falling out of its husk, and this is to be highly
cherished.
Regarding subconscious thoughts that arise during meditation, very subtle
thoughts that are unsensed—when they go unrecognized, they will arise one after
another and gradually engulf us in delusion, eventually appearing as gross
thoughts that accumulate the karma of desire, hatred, and ignorance. These
subconscious thoughts—thoughts that remain unrecognized—are like water
running on the ground under green grass. We need no extraneous antidote to
counteract them, however, because if we simply rest in naked pure presence, they
are released.
Further, when strong aversion is generated and immediately recognized as pure
presence, the anger inherent within it is reflexively released. But in the following
moment, subtle anger arises like a snake quaking, unable to rise after being cut in
two. If at that moment we target the pure presence fiercely, and then just hang
loosely, the subconscious emotion dissolves into itself. The rigzin’s instruction on
dealing with subconscious thought is an imperative for the great meditator.
Just by training on this path both gross and subtle attachments to bliss, clarity,
and no-thought are exhausted, basic pure presence is revealed, and buddha is
realized. Delusory samsaric appearances, which had risen from the ground of
being, the ground consciousness, and ordinary consciousness, now rest in their
own place, utterly pure, and buddha-nature, in essence empty, in nature clear,
and in compassion all-embracing, is spontaneously accomplished.
2.18 THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN MIND AND PURE PRESENCE
In his commentary upon The Treasury of the Dharmadhatu, Longchenpa says,
When pure presence is separated from mind, it is separated from the mind’s