thigle wrote:
If one practice "giving up practice", it's "practise", because he constructs a reified concept and therefore "thing" called "giving up practice", because there's a form of expectation, which want to have something from "giving up practice". That's grasping. One makes a "thing" out of the fact of giving up practice. Complementary to grasping, now it seems there's something like a "giving up practice'nes". It's anything "behind", like a "big brother, which is reified-identified with "giving up practice". It's really great, if one can detect this, because now it's really possible to interrupt this artificial focus. You can't, because you are afraid, you "can't see something" what you expect from doing "giving up practice"? Great, you detect it once again.
At some point one has enough. Neither "practice" nor "non-practice", so what will be left? Naturally loosed, therefore neither distracted yet focused. Not as "practice" or reified "non-practise", but as a self-obvious non-constructed fact, not "made" by anything or anyone. Now, transparency/knowledge is self-obvious.
"Self-obvious" doesn't mean "automatic". It's just without any need for an extra artificial knowledge-focus like this: "transparency is self-obvious". You can't tell "from where" immediate knowledge comes from, because it doesn't matter from itself from where it comes from. The fact that "it doesn't matter" is immediate "knowledge", not to distinct from what appears, therefore everything is obviously "transparent"-like or "insubstantial"-like, primordially without any need for a base.
Marginal note: One cannot overemphasize the importance of this. "Naturally loosed, neither distracted yet focused", is not about doing or practicing "to be naturaly loosed". It's not about "to remain" naturaly loosed. But some people do that in perfection. Therefore they believe, they are "naturaly loosed" and that's the big goal. Such a "reified non-practice" tends to a special "state" of consciousness. Now the disciple maybe think: "It's really the big goal, because of my true "natural relaxation", there's some-"thing" like "clarity" or "openness" or whatever. But his "clarity" or "openness" or whatever are only reified concepts, based on grasping/ignorance. This is really different from the terms "naturally relaxed" or "naturally loosed" in our context. What sounds the same, may also be different.
Sry for my bad english
The 'natural' part of the practice arises as a result of recognizing the nature of mind. If that recognition hasn't occurred, no matter how relaxed or loose we remain, the mind is still acting as a reference point and is mediating experience, which means that delusion is still present, and there is nothing natural about ones practice. Resting in mind is a necessary preliminary practice for most, but it shouldn't be confused as the definitive view.
There's (i) non-fixation which is resting in the clarity of mind (as a reference point), and then there's (ii) non-fixation resting in the nature of mind (free of a reference point). Confusing the former for the latter causes a lot of issues.
Per Dudjom Lingpa; the clarity of mind can be referred to as the 'relative' nature of mind, but this (clarity) is not the ultimate nature of mind. The 'ultimate' nature of mind, meaning the minds definitive nature, is sems nyid i.e. the recognition of the non-arising of the mind (sometimes parsed as 'nondual clarity and emptiness'). That recognition frees up the illusory reference point of mind and so mind no longer mediates experience and appearances self-arise [rang byung] and self-liberate [rang grol].
The clarity (cognizance) of mind alone implies a subtle reference point and a subtle grasping, because clarity is susceptible to conditioning. But when clarity is sealed with emptiness, that reference point is freed up and the grasping is cut. This is why, for example; tregchö [khregs chod] is sometimes defined as cutting the binding on bundle of wood. The binding represents the delusion which keeps clarity conditioned and sustains the artificial reference point of mind. Clarity alone (divorced of the recognition of its emptiness) is merely the neutral indeterminate cognizance of the ālaya. All sentient beings function from the standpoint of the ālaya and mind.
An allegedly natural resting in the clarity of mind is simply śamatha, when that clarity is recognized as empty, the knowledge that the mind has been beginninglessly non-arisen gives rise to the 'natural' resting you are alluding to, which is the vipaśyanā of the natural state. The former entails effort, even if one thinks they are resting effortlessly. The latter is the true effortlessness.
Tulku Urgyen discusses how resting in mind is not equivalent to the definitive view:
"The glimpse of recognizing mind-essence [sems nyid] that in the beginning lasted only for a few seconds gradually becomes half a minute, then a minute, then half an hour, then hours, until eventually it is uninterrupted throughout the whole day. You need that kind of training. I mention this because, if the goal of the main training is to construct a state in which thoughts have subsided and which feels very clear and quiet, that is still a training in which a particular state is deliberately kept. Such a state is the outcome of a mental effort, a pursuit. Therefore it is neither the ultimate nor the original natural state.
The naked essence of mind [sems nyid] is not known in shamatha, because the mind is occupied with abiding in stillness; it (mind essence) remains unseen. All one is doing is simply not following the movement of thought. But being deluded by thought movement is not the only delusion; one can also be deluded by abiding in quietude. The preoccupation with being clam blocks recognition of self-existing wakefulness and also blocks the knowing of the three kayas of the awakened state. This calm is simply one of no thought, of the attention subsiding in itself while still not knowing itself."