Being Aware of the Illusion
In this teaching, Lama Zopa Rinpoche advises that everything which appears as real is a hallucination, a projection, like a dream. Rinpoche recommends practicing this awareness while walking, shopping or going on pilgrimage. Excerpted from Lecture 6, Kopan Course No. 52, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, November-December 2019. Lightly edited by Gordon McDougall.
Everything that appears—the I, the action, the object, Kopan, the buildings, the trees, the sky—everything that appears, appears as real. What appears as real, all this is a production, a projection, a creation of your delusion, your ignorance, timug dendzin marigpa. The ignorance holds the I as real; it holds everything as real. Everything appears real—the I, action, object, food, everything. Practice the awareness of that, the awareness that this appearance is due to the negative imprints piled on the continuation of the consciousness from beginningless rebirths. All this is projected, decorated, so it all comes from your mind, from your ignorance. It is not there. The real I is not there. It’s like a dream.
A dream is a very good example. After you wake up, it’s not there. In the dream, you don’t recognize the dream as a dream. In the dream you see everything as real. You get married; you have a hundred children; you become the president of America. But when you wake up—nothing. So, all this is like a dream. It has all come from your ignorance, from your negative imprints. Practice this awareness.
On top of that, your ignorance believed it is true. What appears as real, you believe is real. “All this is real.” Like that, it’s exactly the same as in a dream. While you are dreaming you believe everything is real. It’s exactly the same. It’s totally wrong! Totally wrong! Do you understand?
For example, after you have crossed the sand, although there is no water, when you look back you have a vision of water. But you know there is no water. It’s exactly the same. Exactly the same! Do you understand?
Practice this awareness. It is such an incredibly profound meditation. Therefore, deep in your heart happiness arises. There is no longer attachment or anger. It’s like your life is boiling water, bubbling away, causing your life to be up and down, up and down, up and down. But now, like pouring cold water on it, your emotional life becomes like this, very quiet and peaceful. Practicing this awareness meditation is very profound.
This is one of the best walking meditations. Just being mindful—“Oh, I’m walking,”—even planning the best robbery, you have to have great awareness of the right time, how to steal from the bank, how to escape and everything. If you don’t have awareness, you’ll have problems. But the mindfulness like in this meditation is excellent; it is so profound.
Like that, you can go to the market or a department store from here and you don’t even have to buy anything. You go for the meditation. You have nothing to buy but you go for meditation; you walk up and down with this mindfulness, being aware that everything that appears to you seems real—all the people, all the makeup shops, (there are a hundred thousand things to sell for makeup), clothing shops—you don’t even have to buy anything when you go there to meditate.
[Although it appears as real], you see that nothing exists from its own side. Everything appearing real is a creation, a projection, a decoration of your ignorance. You go up and down the steps, the electric ones, [the escalators], like that. Even if you are shopping, you the buyer, what you buy, [the seller], it’s the same: the real one from there. What you buy, which seems the real one, is not there; the person you pay, the seller, who seems the real one, is not there. That is the meditation.
If you are going for pilgrimage, do the same meditation. If you go for pilgrimage, that is great! Don’t just go for the external pilgrimage but do your side meditation on emptiness. If you go to the beach, the ocean appears to you as the real one, the hundred thousand naked people lying down all appear as the real one, but they are a decoration or a projection, a creation of your own ignorance, of the negative imprint. With that mindfulness, you walk around the beach.
That is one way—looking at that which is a hallucination as a hallucination. When you do that, your mind has great peace. Whatever appears, everything is empty. One meditation is looking at everything as empty: the I, the action, the object.
Another meditation is seeing it is merely labeled. The I walking is merely labeled, the action of walking is merely labeled, there is the merely labeled road, the merely labeled beach, the merely labeled people, the merely labeled ocean. Here, there is the merely labeled Kopan, the merely labeled food, the merely labeled trees, the merely labeled sky. In the supermarket or the department store, everything is merely labeled. Practice the mindfulness of subtle dependent arising.