Natural Mind

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, with a friend. Photo by Matthieu Ricard

Late one afternoon, as the evening sun was sending its final shafts of golden light into the silent, incense filled air of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche's room, i found myself alone with the great Master.

Even though I was some distance away, nearer to the farthest end of his long carpet filled shrine, Khyentse Rinpoche had such an enormous presence that it felt as though he filled the entire room.

I was quietly fingering some beads and basking in the tremendous silence and sanctity that permeated this blessed space. The atmosphere felt utterly charged and in it i felt complete and whole.

This particular evening there were very few visitors around, something which was rather unusual. However before long there was a rustle of activity in the outer guest waiting hall and i looked over just in time to see a well known Lama enter with a handful of his western students.

Soon they appeared before Khyentse Rinpoche, bowing and offering scarves of welcome as He greeted each one. They seated themselves before Him and all fell into an expectant silence.


Presently the Lama leaned over to Rinpoche and asked Him in a quiet but clear voice, 'Rinpoche how can we be sure that we are recognizing our Buddha Nature? How can we be sure that our experience is authentic?'  Rinpoche, who had leaned forward and placed His hand lovingly under the Lama's chin, smiled at him and replied, very simply, 'you will know that it is authentic, if it is unaltered.'

Just those few words, nothing more. He did not add any explanation, He did not try to elaborate, yet those words fairly dripped with the power of His realisation. Words saturated in the clarity of what is so astonishingly present and yet almost always overlooked, become potent arrows that can pierce right through the fabrications of the mind, if they are uttered by a realized being.

Natural Mind is what we wake to in the mornings,

 it is what accompanies us into our dreams. 

It is never, at any moment of the day or night ,separate from us. 

It is what and who we really are.

We do not need to add anything to it, nor take anything away. It need not and can not be changed. 

It just simply is and from its 'is ness' arises the whole infinite manifestation of life.

His simple, but powerful words seemed to come alive in the

stillness of that calm evening. The horizon appeared suddenly to open up beyond the boundaries of the room in which we sat, to extend beyond the temple in which the room was cloistered, to merge into an infinite beyond...

Such is the incalculable treasure which we all hold within the palm of our very own hands, awaiting our notice.

The Gold Within

Read more in Tibetan Masters and Other True Stories
Second Volume in series Shades of Awareness