Lojong Slogan 6: In postmeditation, be a child of illusion

Practice can be divided into two: meditation and postmeditation. Meditation refers to time spent in formal practices such as mindfulness-awareness, and postmeditation refers to what we do the rest of the time. The notion of practice, of being a spiritual practitioner, includes both meditation and postmeditation, which means that practice applies both on and of the meditation cushion.”

Once you embark on the meditative path, once you are called a practitioner, everything you do should be seen as practice. The problem is that this could be taken in a very heavy-handed way, which would cloud ordinary activities with a pall of earnestness. It could be taken in an overly precious way, in which everything takes on deep import and a quality of icky religiosity. The trick is to maintain an attitude of practice and at the same time be light and ordinary.

In this slogan, the particular postmeditation practice is to “be a child of illusion.” It is to play within an environment that we recognize to be shifty and illusory. So rather than trying to make our world solid and predictable, and complaining when that is not the case, we could maintain the glimpses of the illusory nature of experience that arise in meditation practice, and touch in with that open illusory quality in the midst of our daily activities. That looser more open quality is the ground on which the compassionate actions of the bodhisattva can arise.

~Judy Lief

Illusion does not mean haziness, confusion, or mirage. Being a child of illusion means that you continue what you have experienced in your sitting practice [resting in the nature of alaya] into postmeditation experience.

You realize that after sitting practice, you do not have to solidify phenomena. Instead, you can continue your practice and develop some kind of ongoing awareness. If things become heavy and solid, you flash mindfulness and awareness into them. In that way you begin to see that everything is pliable and workable. Your attitude is that the phenomenal world is not evil, that 'they' are not out to get you or kill you. Everything is workable and soothing.

...

It's a very strong phrase, 'child of illusion'. Think of it. Try to be one. You have plenty of opportunities.

~From Training the Mind & Cultivating Loving-Kindness by Chogyam Trungpa

The view and the meditation are encouragements to relax enough so that finally the atmosphere of your experience just begins to come to you. How things are really can't be taught; no one can give you a formula A + B + C = enlightenment.

These supports are often likened to a raft. You need to raft to cross the river, to get to the other side; when you get over there, you leave the raft behind. That's an interesting image, but in experience it's more like the raft gives out on you in the middle of the stream and you never really get to solid ground. This is what is meant by becoming a child of illusion.

The "child of illusion" image seems apt because young children seem to live in a world in which things are not so solid. You see a sense of wonder in all young children, which they later lose. This slogan encourages us to be that way again. I read a book called 'The Holographic Universe'...what science is finding out is that the material world isn't as solid as it seems; it's more like a hologram - vivid, but empty at the same time.

Being a child of illusion also has to do with beginning to encourage yourself not to be a walking battleground...the truth is that good and bad coexist; sour and sweet coexist. They aren't really opposed to each other...The Buddha within is messy as well as clean.

We generally interpret the world so heavily in terms of good and bad, happy and sad, nice and not nice, that the world doesn't have a chance to speak for itself. When we say "Be a child of illusion," we're beginning to get at this fresh way of looking where we're not caught up in our hope and fear.

~From Start Where You Are : A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chodron

After meditation, do not allow the experience of resting evenly to dissipate, no matter what form of activity you engage in. Continually foster the feeling of knowing that all appearances, yourself, others, animate or inanimate, appear though they seem to be nothing - be like a child of illusion.

~From The Great Path of Awakening: An Easily Accessible Introduction for Ordinary People by Jamgon Kongtrul, translated by Ken McLeod

Between Meditation Sessions act as an Illusory Being

Arise from the meditation cushion maintaining a continuity between the insight that you had during the meditation and your mental state afterwards. As you stand up, walk to the door, or speak to someone, try to maintain the awareness that phenomena - including your self, your mind, other people you come in contact with, everything around you - exist not as intrinsic entities, but as dependently related events.

This means that if I seek my self among my physical or mental constituents, I am nowhere to be found - neither among them, nor as their sum total, nor apart from them. Why is this? Because I exist as a dependently related event. Dependent upon what? I exist in dependence upon my mental designation of my self I conceive of myself and in so doing I mentally designate myself on the basis of things that are not myself.

In the act of identifying things we are co-producers of the objects we perceive. How does this occur? In what way are we co-producers of the events that present themselves to us? As we reach out with the mind in response to events, we identify them-as joy, ill health, poverty, wealth, and so forth. We conceptually designate them and we thereby create the world we experience, moment by moment. We are finally responsible for the events that we encounter.

In a life devoid of dharma the response to misfortune is anger, resentment, and fear. When prosperity arises, the response is attachment, clinging, and anxiety in anticipation of loss. When events are neither pleasing nor unpleasing, the response is indifference; the mind is cloudy and sluggish in ignorance. In this mechanical behavior we recognize the three poisons: anger, craving, and confusion.

In dharma, the creativity of spiritual practice lies in transforming our responses to the myriad events that present themselves to us. A profound aspect of this practice is to recognize how we have created, and are still creating, the events, objects, and people we encounter by the manner in which we mentally identify them. Our daily spiritual practice is profoundly empowered when we bring to it this insight into the emptiness of intrinsic identity of phenomena.

~Excerpted from: The Seven-Point Mind Training(first published as A Passage from Solitude: Training the Mind in a Life Embracing the World), by B. Alan Wallace

In the Meditation Break Be a Creator of Illusion.

When we are not formally meditating on emptiness, but are engaged in the activities of daily life, such as reading, eating, walking, and working, we should reflect on our mistaken view of all phenomena in the same way that a conjurer regards his own illusory creations. For instance, a conjurer, being a master of illusion, is able to transform one thing into another magically, such as a rock into a bird. Both he and his audience see the bird, but there is an important difference between his attitude and theirs; he is not deceived by his own creation because he knows that it has appeared only as a result of his ability.

In the same way, when we are out of formal meditation on emptiness and again have to experience our external environment, we should regard the mistaken view we have of it, which will still continue to arise, as merely the illusory creation of the ignorant propensities in our mind. Since we have seen previously in the meditational period that the object of such a mistaken view is empty of independent existence, we should regard this deceptive view of things as completely false, just as the conjurer regards his illusory creations.

Most serious emotional afflictions arise not when we are meditating intensively but when we are engaged in daily activities. Therefore, if we treat the appearances of phenomena and our ego with the same attitude as that which a magician has toward his own illusory creations, then even if emotional afflictions do arise, we shall not grasp them with as much ignorance as we would have before we practiced meditation. Such intelligent awareness is extremely precious and will help to diminish the force of the ignorance that clings to the independent existence of all phenomena. Thus, meditation and post-meditation sessions will be mutually beneficial.

~Excerpted from Advice from a Spiritual Friend, by Geshe Rabten and Geshe Dhargey translated by Brian Beresford

In Postmeditation, Consider Phenomena as Illusory

It is said that when one arises from meditation, all phenomena, oneself and others, the universe and its inhabitants, appear in the manner of an illusion. This however should be properly understood.

When great Bodhisattvas come into the world to accomplish the benefit of beings by establishing them on the path to liberation, it is not through the power of their karma or defiled emotions that they do so. As we read in the stories of his previous lives, Lord Buddha, while still a Bodhisattva, took birth among the birds and deer and so forth, in order to teach and set them on the path to virtue. He was born too as a universal ruler who practiced great generosity, and later in his quest for the Dharma, for the sake of hearing only a few lines of teaching, he would burn his body, or jump into fire or water, unconcerned for his life. Because he had realized emptiness, he experienced no suffering at all. Until we achieve the same degree of realization, however, that will not be the case for us. This is something we should bear in mind as we go about our daily lives.

~Excerpted from Enlightened Courage, by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche