from Glimmerings of the Mystical Life

by Namgyal Rinpoche

Discourse XX: Awareness - The Foundation of the Mystical Path

In meditation you need concentration and a calmly focused awareness. This starts by selecting the bits and pieces within the flow, a flow of wave particles, a particle-flow. First there is a selectivity with awareness, followed by awareness of selectivity. Get up in the morning and do the raga for the morning. This is the song of what you want to do in the day, the song of aspiration. You wake up with a pledge, a reminder to remember. At the end of the day, you should review, examine your conscience. This is the second raga, the evening raga. You assess how aware you were, how unaware you were, during the day.

You need simplicity first of all. An intelligent human being wakes up in the morning loosely thinking ahead. Man proposes and God disposes, or perhaps it's vice versa! With adhitthana, which is determination, you raise the question early. Don't carry your aspiration over from day to day; it should be fresh each morning. Study the theme of that particular day, raise the question for that day. Some of you come into this room in the morning in no fit state to face anything. Imagine that the whole day is the transcendental. As you become conscious each morning after sleep, set the tone for the whole day.

Examine the sequences, the whys and wherefores, at the end of the day. When you reflect don't accuse yourselves of not doing this or that but just look back and examine the sequences. This is important for learning. It isn't important to remember that you had a tantrum, but to remember what was its cause, what triggered it. Assess the extent to which the senses were employed during each day. Look at all the experiences of the day together.

It seems to me a fault of Christianity that sin is weighed up in emotional terms. People tend to review their actions in terms of emotion only, but this is not enough. Ask instead, to what extent was the mind alert? Was it bright? All your attention needs to turn to what are called 'mortal sins'. So perhaps you lusted for five minutes during the day (unless of course you're English in which case you might have managed about half-a-minute!)

I don't think the mortal sins come along all that often, lust, rage, and so forth, but you make them so important that your biggest sin is hardly seen. That sin is woolly-headedness.