Kneading to Know

By Michael Erlewine

Whatever recognition (and/or realization) as to the nature of the mind a particular dharma teacher or guru has is just as it is. We can’t imitate that dharma ‘person’, yet we do have access to the same nature of the mind that they do. It’s available to all of us. The problem is recognizing and becoming aware of it.

We may be able to, with practice, recognize and become aware of the same nature of the mind that our teacher held in mind. Is that the same as being like them? I would think yes, because that’s the whole point.

Becoming familiar with the nature of our own mind is available to all of us 24x7, if only we had awareness of how to access it. Of course, our own individual makeup, intelligence, genes, etc. determines how we will approach the mind’s nature.

This relates, IMO, to how we can contact or channel our favorite guru or dharma teacher if we have one. I believe this is quite simple conceptually.

When we bring to mind or invoke a dharma teacher, whether passed-on or still present, we are not trying to animate how they look, sound, or their other personal qualities. We are invoking their insight and view of the mind itself.

In other words, putting their personal qualities aside, we are left with the particular view as to the nature of the mind that they hold that got our attention. That’s what has been most valuable in my experience about my main dharma teacher of 36 years, his experience and View.

And no, we cannot bring our dharma teacher back from the dead to assist us. However, if we are a good student, we can develop a similar or even the same view that they had, which for all practical purposes is what is most needed. The View is the thing.

The same natural mind our precious dharma teacher had available to him or her, we have available to us right now, if we know or can learn how to access it.

No, we can’t conjure up their body and appearance except through a dream or apparition, yet if we have been a good enough student, we may be able to tie into the same take on the nature of the mind as they have.

All of the great siddhas, Mahasiddhas, and saints of dharma, while no longer personally with us, are totally available as to view because the same opportunities as they had are also available to us, relating to the actual nature of the mind. The availability of the mind and its nature is the same for all of us now as it was to them then, ages ago.

So, forget about trying to hold seances, invoke clairvoyance, dreams, telepathy, remote viewing, and the other forms of extrasensory perception.

Instead, simply get to know and become familiar with the nature of your own mind which has always been there your entire life. The nature of the mind just needs to be exercised. We need to exercise it with calisthenics, viscously, like we would knead dough or work-up clay for making pots.

Our mind is like a congealed fluid that has to be worked up and made flexible through constant use and exercise. What this means is we begin to use the mind, look into and at it, and work it. And I don’t mean ‘think’ it or conceptualize the mind. We already do that too much. I’m talking about ‘feeling’ the mind.

The way the Tibetans speak of this, and I have worked with them on this, is the nature of the mind has to be shown and introduced to us, repeatedly, until it is recognized, until we can recognize it, and we are, as they put it, familiar with our own mind. Familiarity.

We have to look around and actually use that part of our mind that has never consciously been used, just as diesel fuel in winter is congealed and too thick, until it has been heated and warmed up enough to flow.

The nature of our own mind is like that in my experience. It is viscous and like bread dough has to be kneaded until it is totally flexible and by that, I mean until we have become familiar with the mind’s nature so that we know how to use it ourselves. It’s ‘our’ mind.

The whole point is to put us in the driver’s seat and able to use the mind as rinpoches do, as dharma teachers can do.

We can also do that, yet we have to be shown how, repeatedly introduced until we can take the steering wheel in our own hands and manage the mind. That’s what has to be done, and it has to be done by us. Our dharma teacher cannot do it for us.

And the hard part, at least for me, was having the temerity to just start by looking into and at my own mind. Go in there and look around. I used to imagine myself erecting a circus tent in my own mind, putting up poles that stretch and expand the mind, until I could get into it, so that it was known and flexible enough for me to find my own way around in there. Again: the mind is viscous and we knead it to make it workable.

Our own mind, which is always right there with us, is almost completely unknown to us. We take it for granted that just as it came out of the box, our mind is good to go. We just use it as it is. That does not work well.

Instead, the mind needs and wants exercise, to be known and used, and the only one that can do this is us. If we don’t lift a finger, nothing will change. It waits on us.

It’s as simple or difficult as taking possession of our own mind and getting in there and becoming completely familiar with it. At most a good dharma teacher can serve to introduce us to our own mind, prime the pump, so to speak. We have to take hold and learn to use our mind and know its nature all by ourselves..

Let me be clear, even blunt.

All of the vast assemblage of dharma, texts, teachings, and sangha all exist to help us recognize the true nature of our own mind, and at least get us started.

Once that is done, once we recognize the nature of our own mind and how to use it, no more teaching is needed, or very little. At that point we can teach ourselves and learn how to work the mind. We can take it from there.

The sad fact, IMO, is that all it takes is for us to stop reading everything from outward appearances, turn around, look into our own mind, and begin to actively get to know it.

That’s it.

[Midjourney graphic prompted by me.]

EMAIL Michael@Erlewine.net

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As Bodhicitta is so precious,

May those without it now create it,

May those who have it not destroy it,

And may it ever grow and flourish.