Mahamudra: Practice guide and advice
There is a lot of talk about Mahamudra and how to practice. Most of this is of poor quality.
Mahamudra is a very immediate relationship between a group of people where spontaneous immediate instructions are given.
Mind is innately pure and obscured by ignorance as the fog obscures the sun. Instructions do not remove the fog of ignorance but as the sun dissolves the fog through heat, instruction teach one how to build a mental heat to burn away ignorance until ones pure mind shines forth.
Ones own mind and the minds of all the enlightened come together to burn ignorance away leaving a pure enlightened mind. Your own pure mind does not change.
As mind is extremely fast one can quickly go astray as the collective coincidence of this universe of dualistic fixation causes further ignorance to arise leading to more suffering.
By using other practices and some Mahamudra a centering post is built so one can become aware of ones own innate purity and continue to dissolve untoward passions (ignorance) until one knows with confidence who one is and can then extend ones spontaneous and solid based Mahamudra practice.
You must practice till pure images arise naturally and then let your mind flow through the mediations without exertion. This is attaining Mahamudra within a practice and causes frustration when one reads about these instructions but one cannot accomplish them.
Do not worry for your efforts form the ground of accomplishment.
Practice till you transform the Universe in your meditation as this creates tremendous Karma for returning all beings to Heaven. Do this pure Universe as much as you can through out the day and you will notice your days becoming more peaceful.
Perfecting Mahamudra as a practice and practicing a perception of a perfect Universe is very difficult to do. Milarepa (a great accomplished practitioner) gave this advice to Gampopa that even when he had perfected Mahamudra not to abandon deliberate practice, when they parted.
Start with Mahamudra and combine with Manjushri and some Heart Sutra ; understanding Dharmachakra is important, see . ; Understanding the processes of crushing and consuming in the Heart Sutra is a necessity as this process breaks down the attachment and aversions used to defend an untoward ego structure.
Find a teacher to help build your centering post.
Always try to be honest and true with yourself. The better you are with honesty and truth the faster progress will be made.
Studying historical Mahamudra teachings are of some benefit but mostly this kind of study and practice only build further delusions as the spontaneous interactions do not occur. If a teachers is good enough to teach what a past master of Mahamudra said they are good enough to give there own instructions. Life is such that people will try a take their own frustrations out on you. It is better to practice Manjushri or a similar practice.
Personally, I mainly practice Mahamudra when I am too busy and cannot practice meditations such as Manjushri because of the danger of relying solely on Mahamudra. Most people will ignore this advice but hopefully they will determine the wisdom of this advice before it is to late.
Dharmachakra .