learn to be water

 Three Kinds of Water

“It was said in the oral instruction of Master Tilopa (Upadesha) that Master Milerepa,the lineage holder and student of Lhodak Marpa Choski Lodos (Marpa the Translator), explained that there exists three kinds of mind-stream experienced on the path.

The common person is like the ‘swiftly running mountain stream’ which stirs up much dirt and debris and flows quick and violent, shallow and narrow and in just one direction. One that constricts, is bound, imprisoned by egoic restrictions and stirs up bad karma as it flows because it rejects and ignores openness and vastness due to clinging of illusory nature. Drama, disorder, chaos and confusion are created by the boundary of this limited perception. Negative karmic impressions are accumulated due to grasping of egoic mind-stream and wrong view.

The advanced practitioner creates a ‘river deep and wide’ that runs slowly without much disturbance. Although the bottom of the river is not yet clear, this state creates good karma through a settled and open view by its nature of allowing and gentleness. Here the practitioner has developed conscious awareness that is vast enough to see through transient nature and reactive mind-stream influencing others and himself for good virtue due to diligent practice and right view.

The adept practitioner is like the gentle silent river that has opened up into a great lake. There is no disturbance, the lake is clear and transparent even down to it’s depths. There is the creation of neither good karma nor bad karma because view itself has been eliminated. This adept has moved past ‘good or bad’ as all possibilities are accepted without any undulation of discrimination from mind-stream which remains constantly quiet and still without aversions. Vast open awareness like a cloudless sky pervades and Clear Light accompanies the practitioner through death and bardo into the ‘Pure Lands.”