Look for the mind: its colour, shape and location

From a settled state, ask what the mind actually is — does it have a colour, a shape, a place? — and look for the answer instead of thinking it.

Why it works

This is where Mahāmudrā turns from calm to insight. Within a settled mind, the Ninth Karmapa’s text has the meditator examine its nature: does it have a colour, a form, a shape; does it arise, endure and cease; is it outside, inside, or where? Is it a blank void, or an awareness that cannot be identified as “this” yet is vividly clear? Tilopa’s Ganges instruction gives the traditional answer as an image — the mind, like space, is beyond colour and shape — but the manual insists the answer be found by looking, not by repeating it. Searching for the mind as a thing, and not finding one, is meant to loosen the habit of treating mind and thought as solid objects.

How to do it

1. Only after a period of settling, keep the eyes open and the mind relaxed but a little more alert.
2. Ask one question at a time — Does this mind have a colour? A shape? Where is it: inside the body, outside, somewhere else? — and look rather than reason toward an answer.
3. Notice what you find, including finding nothing, without deciding yet what it means.
4. Rest, then look again; the manual alternates examining and resting.
5. Bring what you found to a qualified teacher; the tradition holds that telling an idea about the mind from genuine recognition needs someone who can question you.

Evidence

The questions are taken from the first point of the Ninth Karmapa’s vipashyana instructions, which state that guru and disciple must examine together and that the teacher should question the student repeatedly. Tilopa’s Ganges Mahāmudrā, an Indian source for the tradition preserved in the Tengyur, supplies the image of mind as beyond colour and shape. The support is the textual tradition. (anecdotal)

The effect of this inquiry has not been studied. Searching for the mind and not finding it can occasionally feel disorienting — if it does, stop, return to the senses and ordinary activity, and see the meditation-related-challenges page.

Sources

• Wangchug Dorje, Ninth Karmapa. Mahamudra: Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance, Part 3: Mahamudra Vipashyana Meditation. Trans. Alexander Berzin (1977, rev. 2008). Study Buddhism.
• Tilopa. The Ganges Mahāmudrā Instructions (Mahāmudrā Upadeśa, Toh 2303). Trans. Ina Bieler, ed. Kay Candler (2017, rev. 2021 & 2023). Lotsawa House.

Common mistake

Answering with ideas — “the mind is empty”, “it has no shape” — instead of looking. The Karmapa’s text warns that claiming realisations you have only heard about is self-deception.

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