Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: And he gave me an example, that our fundamental quality is like sky. I was born in the Himalaya Mountains. We have beautiful sky, but the sky is not always beautiful. We have thunderstorms, snowstorms. So these storms are like panic attacks, and no matter how strong they are, these storms cannot change the nature of sky.
Tami Simon: Hi, friends. Today we’re re-airing a conversation I had with the very wise and funny, deep and accessible Mingyur Rinpoche. Mingyur Rinpoche is a beloved Tibetan Buddhist teacher in the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages. In this episode, he shares stories and teachings, including one he calls “adding wood to the fire.” It’s a way of meeting life’s obstacles, not as problems to avoid, but as fuel for growth.
We’re re-sharing this conversation because Mingyur Rinpoche is now partnering with Sounds True to create a brand-new course. It’s centered around his teachings and filmed on location at his monastery in Nepal. It’s a unique opportunity to sit with and learn from this extraordinarily insightful teacher. The course is called Wild World, Steady Mind: 21 Days to Embrace Modern Reality with Clarity and Calm. You can learn more at soundstrue.com. The course begins in early October, so again, go to soundstrue.com so that you can register before the early October start date.
For now, I want to invite you to listen to this conversation with Mingyur Rinpoche on working with challenges and falling in love with the world. Thanks for being with us.
Mingyur Rinpoche, born in Nepal, is the youngest son of the celebrated meditation master Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. He began his formal monastic studies at the age of 11, and two years later he entered his first three-year retreat. Today his teachings integrate the practical and philosophical disciplines of Tibetan Buddhist training with the scientific and psychological orientations of the West. In addition to his role as abbot of three monasteries, Mingyur Rinpoche directs Tergar—that’s T-E-R-G-A-R—which is an international meditation community with a hundred centers around the world.
Now, here’s where things get really interesting and wild, dare I say. At the age of 36, Mingyur Rinpoche secretly left his monastery in India to engage in a four-and-a-half-year-long wandering retreat, living in mountain caves and village streets. He had some remarkable, challenging, life-changing experiences during his wandering retreat. He describes them in a beautiful book. It’s called In Love with the World, a book Pema Chödrön calls one of the most inspiring books she’s ever read. And I have to say, I found that to be true too. And we’re going to hear now from Rinpoche about some of the life-changing insights that he experienced during his wandering retreat. Welcome.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Hello. Thank you. Thank you very much, and very happy to be here.
Tami Simon: To begin, you share a teaching in In Love with the World about your inspiration to go on a wandering retreat. You call it “adding wood to the fire.” Share with us a little bit what this means, adding wood to the fire, and why you wanted to go on this wandering retreat.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Yes. So we have this tradition, wandering retreat, which is a little bit like the example of how to make a fire. So first, when we make the fire with the right condition, protective area, with small wood or maybe even grass, and then the fire becomes bigger and you can open more wind, then you add more wood. Even the huge wood, actually it helps the fire.
So adding wood to the fire, that means up to a certain level, obstacles become opportunity, problems become solution, and poison becomes medicine. So this is the traditional style, that making friends with everything that comes to your life. What we call life is up and down, like a wave of the ocean. But the most important is how we take this up and down as learning and growing and transforming ourselves. That is the key important thing.
If you are taking up and down in a kind of negative way, then up and down really hurt us, impact us, and then we feel maybe anxiety, depressed, even lonely, a lot of hate, anger. So many things can come. But if you’re taking this up and down—up is wonderful, but the down, sometimes we learn more, we grow more, we transform more. So that’s the way, adding wood to the fire, the traditional meaning.
Tami Simon: I want to ask a little bit more about that, because I notice that when people have this kind of mindset, that they take obstacles as opportunities, I respect that so much, and yet it can be hard. I notice a lot of times when obstacles emerge, I don’t see them as opportunities. I see them as things that are getting in my way, and I resent them, or I complain. I certainly complain about them. So what can you say to help those of us who aspire to that but aren’t currently living it at the level we would like?
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Yeah, of course. It’s very difficult—easier said than done. Yeah. Normally we have this phrase: it’s very difficult, but it is possible.
So in my life, when I was eight, nine years old I had panic attacks. Then I learned meditation when I was nine years old, and the panic was very severe. But I tried to make friends with my panic attacks. I learned meditation from my father, but I’m very lazy, a lazy boy. It took me five years to make friends. But actually, when I made friends with the panic, I really believe this: obstacle becomes opportunity, poison becomes medicine.
But in order to do that, we need to have out-of-box thinking. If you’re still in the box, then I think you cannot go through. For example, one of my father’s important pieces of advice: if you are going somewhere and you reach a dead end, there’s a huge wall in front of you. What should we do? If you are thinking everything’s possible, obstacle is opportunity, I can go through—and you bang your head to the wall, I can go through—you cannot go through. And what happened? It’ll hurt your forehead, and what we call, you will have a potato. No matter how you try, you bang your head to the wall. Impossible. So we need to accept that one. Most people don’t know how to accept that one. They think everything is possible, meaning I can go through the wall, bang head on the wall.
But it doesn’t mean you cannot go to the other side of the wall. There are so many different ways. Maybe you can look right and left, bring a staircase, you know, just a few steps, and then to the other side you cross. Or maybe rope, or maybe rock-climbing style, or maybe detour, maybe go underneath. There are so many different ways.
What we call life is impermanence, is changing, like a wave of the ocean. We need to accept that. Once we accept that, then we will see a new door, new possibility, potential opportunity. In the end, you can cross the wall.
Tami Simon: Now, Mingyur, you said that as a young person you had panic attacks and you discovered over a five-year period how to befriend them. What did you discover about this befriending?
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: So I developed at the beginning very strong resistance. I have this fear, and then my heart, like, bumps, like a drum, you know, and then tight around my neck. I cannot breathe. And then the ground is shaking, almost like you’re in an airplane and the airplane is passing through turbulence.
So then I tried my best to fight with my panic. You know, I ran, I hiked the mountain. When I reached the top of the mountain, panic came there. I went into the forest, played with my friends. And I checked with the doctor also. I thought it was a heart attack, you know, and the doctor said, “Your heart is very good.” But I don’t believe doctor.
And then when I was nine, I discussed this with my mom. My mom said, “You should learn meditation from your father.” So I learned. I’m very shy to ask him, but my mom asked on behalf of me, and he was very happy. And my first question to my father is, “How can I fight with my panic attacks?” And he said, “Don’t fight.”
And I was surprised. What? You know? And he said, “Don’t fight. Why? You don’t need to fight. There is wonderful nature, wonderful quality within us, which is beyond panic. It’s the basis of the panic attacks.” And he gave me an example, that our fundamental quality is like sky. I was born in the Himalaya Mountains. We have beautiful sky, but the sky is not always beautiful. We have thunderstorms, snowstorms. So these storms are like panic attacks, and no matter how strong they are, these storms cannot change the nature of sky. He asked me, “Will the storm change the nature of sky?” And I thought a lot, and then in the end I said, “No.”
So what is this wonderful nature? What we call awareness, love and compassion, and wisdom. And these three things are together, inseparable, quality of our own mind, the fundamental quality of the mind. So the meditation is not trying to get rid of the cloud or storm, but just trying to connect with the inner sky. How do we connect with the inner sky through the cloud? So sometimes sky and space are not tangible, not easy to see it, but when we see the cloud—oh, there is sky, there is space. We can see the space of sky through the cloud. So making everything as friend, by making friend, we can connect with the inner sky. Very helpful.
Tami Simon: Now, you decide at 36 to intensify hardship for yourself, to make trouble for yourself, to add wood to the fire by going on this wandering retreat. And one of the things that impressed me with In Love with the World, reading this account, is you were willing to be very forthcoming at the beginning about your complaints, about how difficult it was. Here you know, a privileged tulku, you’d always had an attendant by your side, people taking care of you, traveling in first class, et cetera, and now suddenly you’re in a completely different situation that is very, very challenging—sleeping on a train station floor, the smells, the sounds. But what impressed me, Mingyur, was that you were willing to share that this was really hard for you, and that you were really upset by it, and that it forced you to work with your upset. So I wanted to ask you about this willingness to talk about your own challenges.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Yes. So this wandering retreat style, I really was inspired from childhood, because every time my mom read about these great yogis in Tibet, like Milarepa, and there’s some female yogis also—these life stories are really, really touching, and I really wanted to do like that. But of course I don’t have that capacity. But then I finished the three-year retreat, all the teachings, and when I was 36, I thought maybe I’m ready now.
But as you mentioned, sometimes I call myself, it’s like a prince. I have this name, tulku, like a very high-level kind of title, teacher. Wherever I go, people really respect them. And everywhere, and then many attendants and nice bed. I got all this. So I never made food in my life before that, even one time. I know it’s very difficult, but I thought, I will do this. This is what I really want to do.
So then one day I left my monastery in India, in Bodh Gaya, in the middle of the night, and I don’t have much money—a few thousand Indian rupees. And then just left. No friend, no attendant, no place to live. Just took the train. My destination is overnight train from Bodh Gaya, the place called Kushinagar. Then I don’t know where to go. I slept on the train station for a few days.
Then, one thing, in the train I have a lot of emotion comes, because I thought I finished this three-year retreat, I make friends with my panic attacks, I thought I’m better than this. But very funny that this disturbance was not because of nowhere to go or no home, but it’s just embarrassment. I am on the ground and there’s a lot of local Indians there and I feel like everybody’s looking at me, and there’s police there also looking at me. And then I have a lot of kind of emotion comes. So that’s quite a challenge.
But I didn’t give up, and then I continued, went to another place. Then after that, I finished all my money. I had to beg for food, first time in my life. So there’s one kind of street restaurant, tiny restaurant. When I have some money, I buy food from there. It’s not expensive. But when I finished all my money, I thought I’m going to beg from them, because I know them, you know, it’s not stranger. And they gave me leftover food in the evening. And that leftover food became like food poison. I have diarrhea. Almost die.
Tami Simon: Yeah. And we’re going to talk about that experience of almost dying, because it really forms the core of the story in In Love with the World, and your discoveries from really a type of interesting near-death experience that you went through.
But before we get there, I want to ask you just one more question about this forthcomingness, about your embarrassment. Because you write, “In the old days when I was a young monk, I berated myself quite regularly for any discrepancies between some ideal version of practice and what I was actually able to do.” But then you didn’t berate yourself. You had a way of accepting your difficulties and your embarrassment. And I want to ask you about that, because I think a lot of us have a disappointment. Like, you know, I read these great inspiring books, and then this is how I actually am in my life. And then on top of it, I feel disappointed in myself. I’m upset with myself, I berate myself. But it sounds like you had a way of working through that, where you accepted right where you were. So that’s what I want to hear more about.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Yes. So what we call normally, anything what we do special, when we think it’s important or matters to me, then there’s always this blame, some kind of self-judgment or self-blame, or kind of critical about ourself. So that is one of the causes of, like when I was young, panic attacks. That’s one of the causes, that I really wanted to get rid of my panic attacks. I feel like this is a kind of obstacle for my life, getting my life away and taking all my happiness from me. And I feel like this is a part of me, and then that really becomes like a loop.
But then what I discovered is, it’s okay. It’s another storm. We all have good days and bad days. The sky always blue, without cloud, always sun shining, may not be good. Maybe one or a few days is good, but sometimes cloud is good, sometimes rain is good. Sometimes there’s some storm—it’s okay. This is nature. But whatever happens, it will not impact the fundamental quality of us. There is wonderful quality within ourself.
Even that self-critical thinking, even that guilt and judgment is coming from awareness. It is a manifestation of love and compassion. So it looks like that is a poison, but actually, what we call, like when we look at the wave—if we don’t know that is a wave, we think it’s a landslide, but actually it’s just water. The nature of the wave is water. So when we see it—and of course we have a lot of technique, teachings—seeing even that negative or disturbing or strong emotion, the essence of that, there’s awareness, love, and compassion, and wisdom. Once you discover that, you don’t need to fight with them, you don’t need to get rid of them. They automatically transform, and it’s okay.
Everybody has mistakes. Nobody is always perfect. In Tibet, we have one saying: no mistake, no success. So that’s part of that. But important is learn from the mistake, grow from the mistake.
Tami Simon: So back to your wandering story. Here you are, begging for the first time, getting leftovers, and you develop food poisoning. And at a certain point, at first you think you just have a stomach bug or something, it’s going to pass. But at a certain point you realize, oh, this could actually be really serious. I might even be dying. This stomach illness is so severe. And you have a decision point, which is, do I reach out for help? Because of course, if you did, you would be able to get word to someone, and you know, the helicopter would come in or some version of that, and you would be rescued. Do I reach out for help or not? And I’d love to know more, if you could put that decision under a magnifying glass for you, and then how you made your way to clarity around that.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Yeah. So after I ate the food—so I ate food in the evening, then after one hour later there’s a lot of noise. Then in that night, in the midnight, I need to run into—there’s no really woods, a lot of plants, and there’s no really toilet there, it’s just outside. And then when I go there to do my business, all the dogs chasing after me. There’s a lot of street dogs. In the daytime, we are friends. By nighttime, we have become enemies.
But then next day I thought, oh, it will go away. I meditated a little bit about impermanence—it’s coming and going, of course it’s impermanent. But it continued and continued and continued. And then a few days later, because I don’t have food to eat, I only drink the water. There’s a pump well, which I have to pump like this, and then water comes. When I try to reach the water, then the water is already stopped, so I have to run very fast. I drink that water again and again.
In the days five, six later, the diarrhea is not getting better. It’s vomiting, diarrhea, getting worse, not getting better, and my body losing strength. Now I cannot really sit straight. It’s like collapsing. Then I thought, okay, maybe I’m going to die here. What should I do? Should I go back or continue to stay like that? And if I go back, maybe I can try to find the phone of my monastery. I remember the phone number, maybe try to call. Or what should I do?
I have a little bit of feeling of panic for a few hours, maybe one or two hours. Panic came a bit. But then after that I decided—you know, this is a very, very bold and strong movement, I mean, the decision. Normally I’m telling other people, don’t try like that. You know, don’t try at your home. So I decided to stay.
Actually, there’s a practice, what we call: if I live is good, please bless me to have courage to live long; if I die is good, please bless me to have courage to die. So I prayed this a few times, and then just let it be. That fear is gone. I mean, the anxiety, the panic is gone. And now I’m prepared, almost like dying.
And we have this death and dying meditation, and I practiced this death and dying meditation in the midnight already. And then slowly, slowly, my senses are dissolving. I cannot see, I cannot hear, and the body becomes paralyzed. Then I have this inner, what we call dissolution experience. Everything dissolves, dissolves, dissolves. But then I maintain the awareness meditation—we have this awareness meditation—and eventually awareness becomes more clear, more clear, more clear. And then I don’t have even body sensation. I think all the other senses are collapsed, but the awareness is really present. And no front, no back, no time. And it’s really opening. It’s kind of like it becomes vast, and also the direction—no far, no close. It’s a wonderful experience. So I stayed in that maybe six, seven, maybe around eight hours like that.
Then in the end I feel like, oh, maybe it’s not the time for me to die. There’s something—not the time for me. There’s some kind of compassion, but no word. You know, the normal words are gone. Normally we have this image, word—it’s gone. So it’s kind of a nonconceptual level of feeling, compassion, and that becomes stronger, stronger. Then I feel my body, and first I hear something, there’s so many noises. Normally we don’t hear nature kind of sound. Slowly, slowly I can hear, and then it’s in the morning. So I can slowly, slowly open, try to move my fingers, and I look around.
Now, the environment where I stayed before, I felt like unsafe. A lot of dogs behind me. There’s a broken wall. And why? I’m here now, that feeling of unsafe is completely gone. That street, the dirty street, became like my home, and the tree in front of me is so beautiful—what I call the tree of love. And when the wind touches my face, it’s all blissful, and so much appreciation, gratitude. The street became like my home.
Tami Simon: And then what happens?
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: So then I thought, okay, I feel thirsty. I want to drink that pump water again. So I get up. I can get up now, kind of like body becomes quite light—not much strength, but light. And I try to walk a few steps to the pump well, and suddenly I become unconscious, I think. And then when I wake up, somebody took me to the hospital. I met one Asian guy a few days before, and I think he took me into the hospital, and there’s an IV.
When I wake up, there’s an IV and I’m on, like, a plastic, iron-plastic bed, which is a little bit moving. And I look around, and this Asian guy said, “You almost die.” And I took something to drink, very like salt and sweet together. And a few hours later I feel quite good, and I want to go out of the hospital. Doctor said, “You should stay one day.” I said, “I’m good.” And finally doctor said, “You can go and come back.” But I went outside of hospital. I didn’t come back.
Tami Simon: Now Mingyur, let’s go back to the dying experience that you were having, where you talked about the dissolution that was occurring and how you used your Tibetan training, the practices you had learned during that period. One of the things that in In Love with the World you share is that you engaged in the practice of offerings at this time. And I thought that’s such a beautiful practice, and something that we could do really throughout any time in our life. And I wonder if you can share that particular practice you did.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Yes. So we have this death and dying meditation, so what we call bardo practice. Bardo meaning in between. So normally in our life we all have this bubble, we have our own cocoon, and to go out of that bubble is very difficult. But these in-between moments are really great opportunity, bardo. So it’s in between. Moment is the up and down moment of the life. So when you are 18 years old, moving away from home, big bardo. When you’re looking for a new job, also a gap. When you lost your job—very good. I’m not saying losing job is good, but the gap. The part when you start a new relationship, there’s a gap. When you break up, also a gap.
And special: when we go to sleep, we have the dissolution experience, so what we call sleeping and dying are very similar. But the sleeping is very short and unclear. When we are really dying, it’s so clear, and a long time. Otherwise, no difference. So we do this bardo practice. So bardo practice is mainly to understand this dissolution state, to recognize, and then rest in the awareness—maintain special, what we call open awareness, or objectless awareness, awareness without focus on any object. Like a candle lamp, it illuminates itself. Our mind is illuminating itself always, but we don’t recognize that. So recognize that and rest in that.
So what are the dissolutions? So four elements. First we feel like falling, or kind of dismantle, like earth element. Then we feel like melting—water element, floating or melting. Then we feel like burning and shock, and then in the end, like blown away. So the shock is fire, blown away is the wind. For example, if you have a breakup, first you feel shock and falling, collapsing, then you feel like floating, then a lot of nervous, and then in the end dark. So these are the dissolutions, normally.
And then actually what happens is, as we are experiencing this dissolution, the fundamental quality of our mind, the awareness, is actually becoming more clear, more present, more open. And now there’s a lot of opportunity that you can transform. Sometimes what I call a plasticity moment. But we need to recognize that. We need to first recognize that is the moment that we can transform, and bring awareness.
So we do that when we go to sleep also. When we go to sleep, first we feel like falling, then we feel like floating, then we feel shock a little bit, and then—most people don’t feel that in the end—but blown away, and dark. And then after that, awake, but without concept, one or two seconds. We experience that. That is the ground luminosity, what we call the fundamental quality of the mind. If you can rest with that, then the entire sleep becomes meditation.
For example, if you are taking a nap, you know, maybe you’re in a meeting, a boring meeting, and, “Oh yeah, this is a good idea,” and then you almost fall asleep, you know, not really completely fall asleep, almost fall asleep, and then wake up. So when you wake up in that moment, mind is so present, clear, fresh, for a few seconds. So most people experience that. Why? In that moment we go into the ground luminosity—baby version of ground luminosity. But when we die, that luminosity becomes so vivid, present, clear. So I experienced that.
So, as you said, the offering. Normally there are four steps of practice before dying. And we do that at the imagination level. Now also, we can do that during sleeping also. And of course the big, what we call the big day, the last day of our life, big day, we can do that. Therefore, first is offering. Second is dedication. The third is intention, motivation. Last is whatever prayer or practice you do, the prayer.
So therefore, the first is offering, meaning when we are going to die, we need to let go, ready to die. So if you want to make a will, make a will—also normally it’s quite important. No need to wait until dying, but you can make wills before, ahead. And then if you have anything you attach to, the object, maybe friends, family, shoes—traditional, what we call the meditators, attached to mala, or prayer book, or house.
So I was thinking during that time, I have attachment to my mom, my mother. And I offer my mom, my teacher, my student, also my monastery—all this, offer. So whatever object of attachment, maybe money, possession, anything, offer, let it go.
Tami Simon: So just to clarify, this is a visualization that you’re doing. But are you suggesting that also in the course of our everyday life we might actually offer physical objects or money or things like that? Or is this just a visualization practice that we can do?
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: This is more like visualization practice.
Tami Simon: Okay.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: In everyday life, we need to assume that today is the final day, the big day. And we imagine that, like, if the big day comes, I will do similar like this, and today is a big day. And this offering is at imagination level. Making wills is real, but the others—
Tami Simon: Sure. So what does that mean, to offer your mother in your imagination? What does that mean when you say that?
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: So I offer my mom to, what we call, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and awareness, our true nature. So that means I feel that my mom now is under the care and love of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and the fundamental quality, awareness. So now I’m not worried. Something like that.
Tami Simon: Right. So it’s this gift giving. Internally, you’re doing this, like, gifting and honoring and presenting. And you wrote about how you could take, like, a favorite experience, like a part of nature or something, and offer that as well.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Yes. If you go outside, it’s a beautiful mountain, you can appreciate and offer that too. Flowers, sky, sun shining—like appreciation and offering like that.
And the second practice is now what we call dedication. So meaning you look backward to your life, like whatever you did, like virtue, maybe helping other people, meaningful things in your life. Maybe you meditate, maybe social work—all this virtue, you appreciate about that. And also happiness, and appreciate about your life. Appreciate all the virtue, and even not just up, even down also—that is experience, up and down is the life. Appreciate that. And all this virtue, all this happiness, again, dedicate for world peace, for friends and family. It’s like kind of offering. So number two, thanks to the life, appreciate and dedicate again.
Number three, now intention. So today I’m going to die. I’m going to use this opportunity to practice the bardo meditation, to explore my inner sky, the wonderful quality within myself. I’m going to experience that and learn and grow until the last breath or even beyond. So that motivation, to seek your true nature—inspire. Not like, “I’m doomed and this is the worst thing.” Not like that. Actually, even death, death and dying, is a great opportunity to explore, like an adventure.
Last is you can pray. If you have any religion, you can pray that, or you just pray, “All my friends and family, world be peace, everybody be well,” and some kind of goodbye. And then you just rest in awareness. Awareness, and then dissolution comes, then in the end we will experience this, the ground luminosity, sometimes what we call the mother luminosity. Everybody will experience it. It doesn’t matter whether you are a religious person or Buddhist, non-Buddhist, religious, nonreligious. It doesn’t matter. It’s everybody’s nature. And then you will rest with that. And then your death becomes, what we call, the death becomes merged with enlightenment.
Tami Simon: What was your prayer, Mingyur?
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: I pray first to all my teachers and the teaching, and I pray to the nature of myself and all beings. Then I pray this: May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. So I did these prayers.
Tami Simon: Now, you mentioned that the dissolution process culminates in this meeting with ground luminosity. And part of the power of In Love with the World for me, reading the book, was your direct introduction to us of what you call child luminosity meeting mother luminosity. And you know, quite honestly, that’s something I’ve heard about before, but there was a way when you described it, I had an appreciation of it that I’d never had. And so I wonder if you can share that with our listeners, this child luminosity meeting the mother luminosity.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Yes, so this is the traditional example. The child luminosity, meaning right now when we practice—so maybe we understand awareness intellectually, and then if we practice a little bit, little bit, then we get some glimpse of experience. Then the third stage, what we call direct realization. So intellectual understanding, then some experience, then direct realization of the awareness. All this process, what we call child luminosity, because it’s not really fully grown yet, and a lot of up and down. And even you meditate, some days very well, some days feel worse. So this is what we call child luminosity. Child is very, very, you know, sometimes laughing and then sometimes crying and sometimes making a lot of noise. So it’s like up and down.
But then when we die, everything dissolves. So actually, like I experienced that—of course my sensory perception, everything dissolves. Not only that, the thought also dissolves. The thought—normally a thought is like, when we think about apple, there’s an image of apple, then there’s a word, “apple,” then there’s some sensation, apple-like feeling about the apple. And these three come together. That is what we call conceptual mind. These three dissolve.
So, but you know what is going on in that moment without having this conceptual mind? And that is what we call ground luminosity. So vast. Now our mind, when we think about apple, we cannot think about orange. When we think about orange, we cannot think about apple. It’s very fast, we think we can think of both, because actually it’s just back and forth. But in that moment, in the ground luminosity, it’s like—I give an example—like a lake in the mountain reflects the entire valley at the same time. The trees, rocks, sky, cloud, house, everything can manifest. So this aspect of the mind is so vast, profound. And we have that right now, right here. We all have that.
But the problem is we don’t see it. Why? We don’t see it—too close, too easy—and then conceptual mind. Because we hold on to conceptual mind, and this ground luminosity is too close, too easy, we don’t see it. But when we die, we will see. So the child, meaning child has some familiarity about this ground luminosity, although it’s not so clear. But when we die—oh, like child recognizing the mom. The reunion. They become one.
Tami Simon: So you had this big day, you could say a dress rehearsal of the big day. You had a big day while still being alive and being here. How did that change you?
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: That actually really, really changed. Like, there’s no feeling of unsafe. That’s gone. That’s why my book title is In Love with the World. Why? Because what I felt is, if you love the world, world loves you back. After that instant, after I came out from hospital, actually I feel like the whole world is my home. And then actually I became more smart. I know how to manage my time, where to find food, where to go. And even ups and downs or whatever comes, it really becomes like my friend.
So the rest, almost more than four years, wonderful. And my practice really, really improved, my meditation practice. And normally I hear about the death and dying, I hear about that the awareness cannot die—why? It’s unborn, and never being born, how can you die? I really experienced that. It’s not just belief. So the whole perspective about myself and the other world is changed after that.
Tami Simon: Tell me more. This word, unborn—awareness being unborn. What does that mean?
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: So this mother luminosity is beyond concept, of course beyond five senses, but it has luminous quality, and that is beyond subject and object, beyond concept, beyond time. So it is not created by cause and condition. It is emptiness—sometimes what we call is emptiness—but it’s not nothing. It is emptiness, it’s not nothing. It is like basis for everything, entire universe for us.
You know, one time I had a lot of discussion with one of the physicists, and they talk about this dark matter and dark energy. I thought, oh, quite similar. So this is the fundamental basis of our being, the core being, yet beyond subject and object. But it has luminous quality. So that’s why, what we call, it is unborn, is emptiness.
Tami Simon: And just to have you say a little bit more about this word, luminosity or luminous. I think, you know, hearing it, it sounds like there’s a quality of light, but yet it’s unborn light. So I’m curious if you could say more descriptively.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: So it is not the physical light, it is experience light. For example, you can see me, I can see you through the screen, you can hear my voice. All this is what we call manifestation of the luminous mind. Can see, can hear, can smell, can think, can feel. All this appearance, all this experience, all this perception, all this knowing is based on that luminous mind. But that luminous mind itself is beyond everything. So it’s emptiness.
Tami Simon: Okay. So you mentioned that this bardo state and these bardo teachings can have all these different kinds of applications. Somebody’s going through a divorce, somebody’s lost their job. And I think a lot of people can relate to that, and they can even relate to this sense of, I feel like the earth has just sunk and fallen. You know, I’m in a crevasse. Everything’s falling. The sense of things kind of dissolving and liquefying, and the shock of the experience, and even the sense of, like, everything seems to be moving and uncertain. But often we don’t get to this luminous space. Instead, we’re in this shock, movement, fear, concern. You’ve pointed out, oh, you know, there’s the sky, the inner sky, we can get to the inner sky. But I think it’s hard for people, and I’m wondering if you can give me some more concrete pointers for someone who’s in that situation.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Yeah. It’s like when we look at the ocean, on the surface we only see up and down, up and down, up and down. But if you go a little bit deep into that, there’s calm water, clear calm water. When you go to the lake—one time I went to the lake and there was a lot of movement, and I swim inside, pristine water, look, everything’s calm. So actually it’s like that. On the surface level, we have so much up and down, but the fundamental is this luminous mind.
But of course, sometimes just intellectual level is very difficult, to accept that and understand that. This is why we need to learn what we call being mind. So we have two things: inquiry mind, like analytical mind, and the being mind, which just needs to be with the reality as it is. So we need to learn step by step.
Normally I teach some kind of experiential, step-by-step practice, like in my meditation community. We have this Joy of Living meditation workshops, levels one, two, three. So first, level one. And level one, first important is recognize awareness. So what is awareness? Awareness means your mind, actually, that you know what you are thinking, feeling, doing. You can see my face, you can hear my voice. You are looking at this screen, and while you’re looking at this screen, maybe you have this window here, chair there. So that knowing quality, that can experience, can know, can understand, can feel—that is the awareness.
And then next phase is we need to connect with that awareness through an object. So object can be anything. What we call, we can meditate everywhere, anytime, with anything. So maybe at the beginning could be breath, could be sound, could be something that you can see, could be taste, could be tactile. Then eventually the body, the sensation in the body. Then thought—thought means positive thought, negative thought, neutral thought—and then emotion.
When you reach the emotion, even the panic attacks can be object of awareness. So the funny thing is, when you see even the panic attacks, actually you are out of panic attacks. For example, when you see the river, you are out of river. When you see the mountain, you are out of mountain. And that coming out comes as a byproduct. You don’t need to make space, you don’t need to come out, but just being with that, you’re free. And yet the panic becomes still supporter or reminder of the awareness. Awareness becomes bigger than panic attacks, and actually watching or holding the panic attacks. So these step-by-step traditional techniques, once we learn that—not so easy, it’s doable, but of course difficult.
Tami Simon: Right. So really what you’re saying is that for people who want to develop this capacity, meditation training, that is the time-tested method—a progressive series of meditation training practices like you offer at Tergar.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Yes, yes. Yeah. So we have these three things: the view first, the perspective. Then experiential meditation. Number three, apply in everyday life, application. So we need these three components. Then we can transform.
Tami Simon: One last point, Rinpoche, to talk about together, which is this quality of confidence. And you say that confidence comes when we can have faith and trust that in the uncertainty, in that gap, there will be new life, a type of regeneration. And I wonder what you can share with people to give them, to help them have that kind of confidence, no matter what part of the journey they’re in right now.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: So in my tradition, we believe that everybody has basic innate goodness, that no matter what happened to us, what kind of situation we’re facing in our life, this wonderful nature is with us all the time. So sky is always there, even though there’s a lot of cloud and storms. But important is try to connect with that inner sky through making friends with the ups and downs of life.
But I’m saying that, like, if you go somewhere and you reach that dead end, a huge wall, and if you’re thinking that I can go through this wall by banging my head, that is impossible. Need to accept that. Most people sometimes get stuck there. But it doesn’t mean you cannot cross the wall. There are so many different ways. Even maybe you cannot cross the wall at all, but there might be another opportunity also, another possibility, another way to learn and grow. So potential, possibility, opportunity is always there. But whether you pursue that or not, that is the issue.
Tami Simon: Mingyur, I feel honored to be able to have had this chance to talk with you and bring your teaching to the Sounds True community. And I wonder, could we end—I’m going to ask one more thing—with a blessing of some kind for all of our listeners, and then further out even, for anyone who the molecules of this recording might touch in any way? With some kind of shared blessing together. Would that be okay?
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Yes. Yes. And I’m also very happy and appreciate to have this with this program. Thank you. And through your channel, helping many, many people—really appreciate. And I will pray that through this conversation and all our positive effort, that help society, community, the world. And may all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness, may all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering, and may we all discover the mother luminosity right here, right now, within us. Thank you.
Tami Simon: Thank you so very, very much.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: You’re welcome.
Tami Simon: Thanks, friends.
