Rest In Natural Great Peace

Talk and meditation exploring the deeper meaning of the lines from a Tibetan master:
Rest in Natural Great Peace
This exhausted mind, beaten helplessly by karma and neurotic thoughts
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves on the infinite ocean of samasara

Transcript

So what I was thinking of talking about today is some lines from a wonderful piece of verse by a Tibetan teacher,

Niyoshul Khen Rinpoche,

Which have become quite well known and I just feel there's so much value and teaching in them that it's just worth thinking about them and diving into them a bit.

And so the full quote goes,

Rest in natural great peace,

This exhausted mind,

Beaten helplessly by karma and neurotic thoughts,

Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves in the infinite ocean of samsara.

Maybe I should say it again just because it's so much in it.

Rest in natural great peace,

This exhausted mind,

Beaten helplessly by karma and neurotic thoughts,

Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves in the infinite ocean of samsara.

So where should we start with this?

Rest,

Rest,

Rest.

I think rest is what we all look forward to,

Resting in peace.

The Dalai Lama once said,

In the final analysis,

The hope of every person is simply peace of mind.

That if we look at whatever we're doing in one way or another,

Maybe devious at times,

But in one way or another,

Whatever we're doing,

We're doing it in the hope that we actually are going to feel more at ease,

More peaceful for doing it.

So in a way,

Peace is what we're looking for.

We put different words on it,

But I mean,

It's a fundamental thing.

In fact,

When we think about it,

What do we put on people's gravestones?

Like rest in peace.

Finally,

This whole ordeal is over.

You can rest in peace.

So there's something,

Even just that,

Just the resting in peace is something really fundamental,

I think,

To what we all want.

And the resting as well.

It's not like doing something.

It's not like going and finding peace or creating peace.

It's actually the opposite.

The resting is relaxing,

Allowing the mind to relax and just to settle down.

So it's coming to rest.

So in that sense,

It's not doing,

It's not trying to get anywhere.

It's just allowing ourselves to come to rest.

And this exhausted mind,

I think we all probably have noticed this at times I do,

You know,

When I'm meditating and the thoughts begin to quieten down,

I step back,

It's like I realize,

Oh my God,

How much tension there is in thinking and how tired one can get from thinking.

The mind gets exhausted by all the thinking we get caught up in and things we have to attend to.

So we want to rest this exhausted mind.

But what's I think most interesting about this first opening is the natural great peace.

I mean,

Great,

It's great peace,

Not just like peace.

It's the great peace,

Which is the peace that is,

I consider it as a natural aspect of our being.

Last time we talked about being and how we run the questions we looked at,

You know,

Are there qualities of being?

And I was suggesting being itself doesn't have any qualities.

But when we are resting in being,

Then certain,

There are qualities of mind that are there when we're resting in being.

And one of those is being at ease,

Being at peace,

Along with a sense of mental stillness.

So that's the great peace.

And it's interesting,

I mean,

This is coming from Tibetan.

But if we look at Eastern Indian teachings,

It's the word you've often heard,

Ananda,

Ananda.

It's,

You know,

Almost the one word out of Indian teachings we hear so much.

And,

You know,

So many gurus have Ananda at the end of their name,

Brahmananda,

Shiva Ananda,

Who just knows what Ananda.

And Ananda is usually translated as bliss.

And I think that came about because,

You know,

A couple of 100 years ago,

Western scholars were going out to India,

And discovering these new cultures with new religions in new languages,

It was all totally new.

And trying to understand it,

The word bliss got attached to Ananda.

But if you look at the root meaning of Ananda in Sanskrit,

The A is,

Means great.

The short A,

A means not,

But the long A means great.

Ananda means contentment.

So the root meaning of Ananda in Sanskrit is actually great contentment,

Which to me is a much better way of relating to Ananda.

So that's what we feel when the mind becomes still this great contentment.

And that seems to me a reflection of what the Tibetans are talking about as great peace.

And the natural,

It's like this is,

This is what I call natural mind and natural state of mind.

And natural doesn't mean normal.

I mean,

A normal state of mind,

The normal state of the mind is the average state,

It's a state where everybody is most of the time.

And normal state of mind is not great peace or great contentment.

It's the opposite.

It's the exhausted mind.

It's the worrying,

The planning,

What do I do next?

What's happening,

All that stuff,

Or getting excited about stuff.

That's the normal state of mind.

But the natural state of mind,

Which I would call the unperturbed state of mind is when the mind is not caught up in thinking,

Worry,

All that stuff.

The natural state of mind is just one of ease,

Relaxation.

I sometimes call it simply the feeling of just being a being okay,

It's the state of just being okay.

And it's also a reflection in a way of how things are in the world.

If everything is okay in our world,

If we're,

You know,

Not in danger,

Not threatened,

If we're feeling there's nothing to worry about in the world,

Then we feel okay inside.

I think there's a natural complement between how things are in the world and how we feel inside.

When there's needs to attend to,

There's dangers,

Whatever,

We actually step out of that natural state into whether it's worry,

Planning,

Whatever it is,

There's something to do,

Something to take care of.

And we move into a sort of dissatisfied state of mind,

What the Buddhists call dukkha.

It means not being at ease,

Meaning it's feeling discontent.

In fact,

I wasn't planning to go into root meanings of Buddhist words today,

But dukkha is usually translated as suffering,

I think,

Again,

For similar reasons,

As you know,

When the early explorers were out looking at the root meaning,

Looking at the meaning of the words,

But the root meaning of dukkha is actually a negation of sukha.

And sukha means ease in Pali,

The Buddhist language,

Sukha means ease.

So dukkha means not at ease,

We're not feeling at ease.

So we're feeling discontent.

And that to me is,

Again,

A much more,

I think,

Daily interpretation of the word,

Because we're not at ease most of the time,

It's something we're thinking about,

Worrying about,

Whatever.

And most of our thoughts,

If you look about them,

Are in one way or another,

Ultimately about how can we come back to being at ease,

To being at peace.

So this I see,

Peace,

Ease,

Whatever you want to call it,

We can give it many different words,

Happiness,

Joy,

Contentment,

We can find many different words for it.

And the words themselves don't matter.

It's just that it's that quality that's important.

That's our natural state of mind.

And so that first line is talking about resting in natural great peace.

It's like,

Allowing the mind to come to rest,

Allowing the thinking mind to come to rest.

And then when we do,

Just come back into that feeling of just great peace,

Contentment,

This exhausted mind,

Resting this exhausted mind.

And then it goes on,

Beaten helplessly by karma and neurotic thoughts.

Karma,

Again,

One way which karma tends to be sort of superficially interpreted is like,

Oh,

You've got good karma,

You've got bad karma,

Or that's my karma,

Like there's some sort of cosmic accounting machine out there,

Which says you did wrong,

So you're going to be,

You're going to get wrong,

Or you did good,

So good things are going to happen to you.

I think that's a very superficial idea of karma.

It's much more,

The root meaning is actually action.

It just means action in the world.

And so in the sense,

When we're acting in the world,

Then also the world acts upon us.

And I think that's more what the karma means here is,

The mind is beaten helplessly by all the stuff in the world that comes upon us,

All the things we have to do.

If we're active in the world,

There's all the things that are coming back that we have to respond to,

Take care of.

If you're sitting in a cave meditating,

Not interacting with the world in any way,

Then there isn't karma in that sense much.

I mean,

Maybe there's bad weather or something.

But karma in this sense is because we're interacting with the world,

Inevitably,

Inevitably,

Beaten helplessly.

We can't do anything about it.

There's all these things coming at us,

Which we have to attend to,

Which leads to part of just this exhausted mind that it's talking about.

And then,

You know,

The other side of that is neurotic thoughts.

I should actually emphasize the word is neurotic.

As I think a couple people here in this meeting will know the workshop I was doing many years ago,

There was a misunderstanding.

Somebody thought it was erotic thoughts,

The mind beaten helplessly by erotic thoughts,

Which yeah,

One form of neurotic thought.

But our neurotic thoughts,

What I see this as referring to is all the thoughts we have,

The worries,

The things we go through again and again,

The mind pondering stuff.

And it's sometimes said that 90% of our thoughts are repeats.

They're just going over the same stuff again and again,

Thinking about things just in case or out of habit.

It's not to put thoughts down.

I mean,

Thoughts are absolutely wonderful.

They're useful.

It's what gets us,

What makes us human,

How we get things done in the world.

But there's neurotic thoughts,

The thoughts about,

Oh,

What if this were to happen?

And I wonder about this and what so and so thinking and,

Oh,

That's going to be good.

It's like the mind just keeps on chattering away to itself.

That's the neurotic side of the neurotic thoughts.

And again,

You know,

It's ongoing.

It's like it's there nearly all the time,

Just this neurotic thought.

So that's the mind beaten helplessly by the world,

What's coming at us and all this thinking that's going on.

And so the admonition here is really to rest the mind,

Step back from all this thinking,

Step back from the world for a while,

And just let this mind rest in natural great peace.

And it's really I think what all the great teachers are pointing to in one way or another,

Different languages,

Different metaphors.

But that's what they're all talking about.

I mean,

What Jesus was saying,

The peace that passes all understanding,

When we look at the mind,

It's the peace that passes all understanding,

When we let go of all the understanding,

Go beyond understanding,

Go beyond the mind in that sense.

Then it's the peace we come back to the peace that passes all understanding.

And then the final bit,

Beaten helplessly by karma and neurotic thoughts,

Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves in the infinite ocean of samsara.

Samsara,

Samsara is to just wander on to,

We wander on endlessly.

And,

Again,

You know,

One interpretation of that is we wander on from one lifetime to another,

There's the whole cycle of rebirth,

The cycle of samsara.

But again,

A more everyday meaning is we wander on in the world,

Looking,

Looking for satisfaction,

Looking for happiness,

Looking,

Looking for peace.

Ultimately,

We wander on from one possibility to another to another.

And sometimes we find it,

We do something and we feel we feel happy for a while,

But it's a very conditional happiness or conditional peace of mind,

Because we achieve what we wanted.

But it,

You know,

Pretty soon,

We find something else to be dissatisfied about and something else to chase.

And so we wander on just chasing one possible fulfillment to another possible fulfillment.

And that is,

You know,

So much,

I think,

A description of life in the modern world in our culture,

We just wander on,

Looking,

Looking for this all the time from just one possibility to another possibility.

And then when we don't find it,

We just find more disfaction that's not working.

So that,

That's the world of samsara,

As I see it,

The world,

World most people live in,

Most of us,

You know,

Live in a lot of the time.

We can help like the relentless fury of the pounding waves is relentless.

It's just samsara is just always come back just relentless,

The fury of the pounding waves.

It's like,

It's just,

Again,

To me,

This is emphasizing just continually,

This is what we are subject to.

And the infinite ocean of samsara just never stops.

There's so many possibilities to chase.

So that's how I,

How I interpret that these lines,

They are so,

I find,

You know,

So powerful.

I know I've used the sometimes in my local meditation group in Tiburon,

I've almost become sort of famous points of contemplation in the group.

So that's why I decided to talk about it.

But also,

I want to look at how this relates to,

To meditation itself.

Because what,

What meditation really is about is about allowing the mind to come to rest to come to peace.

But one of the things that I've noticed with meditation,

I used to be this way for myself,

And I see it in other groups and other practices,

It's like we can be so busy,

As busy as the wrong,

I would say so busy meditating,

But so engrossed or whatever it is in the meditation itself,

Whether it's,

You know,

A mindfulness practice,

Or TM or other practices,

There's the practice and the mind is becoming quiet,

And which is lovely.

But then we actually miss the loveliness of it,

We actually don't consciously notice how wonderful it feels when the mind settles down,

We don't notice that.

And what I found really important in my own practice,

This is really what I want to share today is not just the the setting down of the mind,

But the actual noticing how that feels,

Noticing the quality of peace of ease and actually enjoying it.

Because I think I think meditation should be enjoyable.

And this is the most important thing.

It shouldn't be a drudge,

It shouldn't be something you're trying to do,

It shouldn't be an ordeal or whatever it is,

Or discipline,

It should be enjoyable.

I think so often we miss the enjoyment because they were so busy meditating,

We miss the deep quality of peace and ease that is there.

Or if we notice it,

We don't pause to really allow it in.

And the more we can,

What I find is the more we can allow in that enjoyment of how it feels to be settling down,

The easier it is to settle down.

And this was something that when I started TM,

Whatever it was,

Probably about 50 years ago,

More,

60 years ago,

No 50,

Whatever.

One of the things that Maharishi said is that,

As the mind settles down,

It naturally gets drawn to deeper and deeper levels,

As the mind settles down and notices greater levels of peace and quietness,

It's naturally drawn into deeper and deeper levels of quietness.

And this is something that really struck me,

You know,

Goes against the whole idea,

We have to control the mind,

But we almost,

It's the opposite,

We have to let it go,

Noticing the peace,

And then it's almost like it gravitates down into a quieter and quieter level.

And so this is what I like to sort of focus on or look at it in this little meditation we'll do now,

We'll meditate for about,

I don't know,

Probably about 10 minutes or so.

But really,

Leading you into some ways of just enjoying how it feels in noticing more the peace and enjoying that and noticing how we can just by letting go,

Just settle into that more and more easily.

So what I'll ring a bell when we've finished will sound like that,

Maybe a bit quieter,

I hope.

But as I said before,

Don't never rush out of meditation,

It's always good just to come out,

Come out gently.

I actually like to turn my video off when I'm leading a meditation.

Somehow it just allows me to be more internal.

And I'd really encourage any of you who just want to turn your video off while we're meditating,

You may find it just helps you sort of just be more,

More with yourself.

So yeah,

Let's just like to settle down.

Just allow,

Wherever you are just always finding good just to take a few deeper breaths,

Taking a few deeper breaths just allows the body to relax.

It's almost a sign to the mind that everything is okay,

You can just you can just let go and relax a little more.

And then just first we'll just notice how that feels to relax.

And that's the first,

Just notice how it is when you just when the body relaxes any,

Any sense of whatever it is,

Maybe a sense of relief,

Relaxation,

Ease,

Whatever it is.

And just,

Just appreciate that for a moment,

Just notice what you what you like about that.

And as you do,

Just let the attention coming to coming to this moment,

Whatever you're,

Whatever you're hearing my voice,

Feelings in the body,

Other sounds around you,

And thoughts,

You'll notice thoughts there,

Popping in and out little thoughts or big thoughts.

And just just let the just let your attention relax.

One way often talk about in meditation.

So often with our attention where we're zoomed in on something,

We're focusing attention,

We're zoomed in.

I like to think of this as doing the opposite,

Just letting the attention soften,

Just letting it zoom out to have a more modest,

Open,

Expansive awareness.

And again,

As you do that,

As you just let the attention soften again,

Just notice how that feels,

Whatever it is,

I don't necessarily give you words,

Whatever it is for you,

How that feels when you just let go a little bit.

And just,

Just savor that.

So really just allowing ourselves to come back to,

To resting in the present moment,

Resting in the present moment,

Not not looking for anything or trying to get anywhere.

And as in many practices of meditation,

When you find the mind has wandered off on some thought,

Just choosing not to follow that thought anymore.

For the moment,

You can do that later,

But it's choosing not to follow it.

And again,

Just letting the attention relax again,

Because when we're caught up in a thought,

The attention tends to get a little tighter,

Just letting the attention relax again.

And just noticing that,

That quality of ease that comes as you do that,

Just noticing how it feels,

What you like about it.

You might ask yourself,

Could you be even more relaxed?

Could the mind be even more relaxed in this moment?

And if you notice some deeper level of letting go,

Again,

Just appreciating how that feels.

And something else I like to suggest is,

If you're feeling that,

You know,

Greater sense of lightness,

Ease,

Relaxation,

Relief,

Openness,

Whatever it is,

And it's something you're liking,

Just allow an inner smile to be there.

It's sometimes talked about as letting your being smile,

Just allowing yourself to smile inside as an appreciation to yourself,

Of just savoring it.

And I find that again,

Just allows more of a just letting go into,

Into the feeling,

Into the quietness,

Into the peace,

Not trying to get anywhere or have anything happen,

But just coming back to just allowing ourselves to rest in this moment,

And enjoying how it feels.

And just continuing for a couple minutes just to allow ourselves to just,

Just to soak in it,

Just to soak in our feeling.