[An e-mail I recently sent to one of my professors at Naropa. It is in response to a particular line from a text we read in class, The Mahamudra Upadesa.]
Dear Robert,
I’ve been considering the question you posed to us in class (or rather that Tilopa posed to Naropa). What is the root of mind? And how is it cut?
Cut the root of mind and let consciousness remain naked.
It’s very clear to me that the root of mind is the “i am” process. Ramana Maharshi called it the “I-thought” and it’s the continual process of a coalescing self, of there being a center-point that somehow experiences the world and is being impacted by the world. It’s always set slightly apart from the world.
Cutting the root of mind seems to have at least two major meanings. One is seeing through the I-thought in any given moment. Who sees through the I-thought? No one as far as I can tell. It just happens. The I emerges and then disappears, is itself radically empty, and because it is empty the root of mind can be cut.
However, the self keeps coming back (at least for me). It constantly dies into a recognition of emptiness and then is re-born. So the 2nd meaning of cutting the root of mind, seems to be a more permanent cut. No-self. There are these major jumps of understanding as the path unfolds, and I suspect an important one is the more permanent cutting of the root of mind.
In any case, that is what has been on my mind lately. I wanted to thank you for the Meditation Practicum class that you taught, especially the Mahamudra Upadesha, and particularly the inquiry into the root of mind. It has been a big help for me this past year or so.
Sincerely,
-Vince Horn
