Diamond Mind, A Psychology of Meditation by Rob Nairn

Excerpts

Happiness, compassion, wisdom, and clarity are inherent qualities within all human beings. The true nature of the mind is gentle, peaceful and clear. This seems difficult to believe because most of the time our minds are in a state of anxiety, agitation, desire, passion, anger, or grief - all clouds that obscure the bright pure quality of what we truly are. We ourselves are creating obscurations and thus keeping our innate qualities inaacessible within our minds.

Through understanding the psychology of meditation we can reverse our perspective, and recognize these obscurations, how they came about, and how to release and dissolve them. The innate brilliance of the mind then naturally manifests.

Meditation is inherently simple. We do not need to import anything new into the mind. There are no complex, intellectual mechanisms involved. We don't have to understand profound philosophical systems. What is necessary is to learn the very basic simplicity of being - and in this way discover the diamond mind.

"What is presented here is like a map; it is an entirely different experience to actually make this journey. It requires a guide to make this journey, and as well, we must make the proper preparations; our minds must be tamed and trained through the practice of meditation. Only then can we see the vajra world."

Chogyam Trunpa, Journey Without Goal

What is meditation?

It is you and me, it is us! our inner journey, our business, our effort. Nobody can do it for us. Meditation is a method of gaining access to the inner wisdom and compassion - and resolving our inner problems in the process.

As soo as we are in the success/failure dimension in meditation, we're in trouble, because there is no success in the normal sense.

So, in meditation, we are not working with the success/ failure paradigm at all. We are simply training ourselves to be present in the moment with exactly what is there. For most people the big suprise is that what is there is a bewildering stranger. One of the greatest strangers in the world is this one in the heart. We don't know much about ourselves.

When we start looking, we discover there is a great deal we don't want to be with, don't want to know about, don't want to feel. Meditation reveals a paradoxical situation. We are travelling through life with a stranger who at some level is trying to communicate with us, yet we want to know only a very limited aspect of communication. We want to know only the nice things about ourselves: whether we are happy, good-looking, enjoying things. If we experience anxiety, anger, guilt, depression, jealousy, and other unpleasant emotions (which we mostly know as a sinking feeling that gets pushed down into the pit of teh stomach) then we definitely don't want to know.

Towards a description:

To attempt a loose description rather than a definition of meditation, one could say it is a training based on mindfulness. This entails being present in the moment, which is the ground out of which tranquility arises. One comes face to face with the mind and learns about it at a deep level. This leads to inner understanding and penetrating insight into the illusion we have created about ourselves and the nature of life. Hence Buddhist meditation is often loosely termed "insight meditation", which describes the result of training in mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the founding cause of both tranquility and penetrating insight. When the mind is established in these two, we experience liberation from suffering and a co-emergent manifestation of compassion and wisdom. But the reslut is not the goal. We let go of goals and focus on the action of meditation. If we fixate on a goal, we block the arising of the meditative condition.

Meditation, then, involves being present with what is here.