Nyams - Mind Made Meditation Experiences

When looking for the natural state, don’t be looking for some wondrous experience. What do you think you're going to find? Something like that makes your eyes pop and your mouth drop open. No, it's not like that at all. It’s actually utterly ordinary. 

If you can say it is like something —it’s an experience we call nyams. Some people get the "Wow, that was cool" type of nyams, while others experience more subtle ones. There are four traditional nyams, but they’re not the only ones. They’re different types of meditative experiences: a bliss experience, a clarity experience, a sort of dull, sleep-like thought-free experience, and a grouch experience, where everything and everyone irritates you.

Generally, people cycle through these four categories, with subtle degrees in between. We categorize them this way because we’re Tibetan, and Tibetans like to categorize things to help remember them when teaching. It’s part of an oral tradition.

When we start to find or seek Tawa, we all get an experience of Tawa. It begins when you do this, and it ends when you become distracted. What does that tell you about it? It’s moving. It’s a subtle thought, feeling, perception form. So, it’s not the natural state of mind. Sometimes, it’s all bliss and reassurance. It’s not bad—it does help motivate you to keep going. Sometimes, it’s clarity and wisdom, and you feel like you’ve finally got all the answers. Sometimes, you just hate everyone and everything, and you don’t want to be there. Other times, it’s just an OM-like trance.

But all of these experiences are beginnings, not ends. They’re good because they don't happen unless you’re practicing. They only become a problem if you cling to them and think they’re the goal. If you try to grab and further them, all they’ll do is trap you in various god realms. The bliss experiences will dump you among the gods of desire. Clarity experiences will drop you among the gods of form. The "OM" zone-out will pull you into the formless realms. The grouch experience will place you among the asuras—kind of a god, but always fighting.

You don’t want to get stuck in these dead ends. It’s like being born as a bug or a person. It might be nice for a while, but something will inevitably kill you. It used to be tigers in Tibet, but now it’s more often bacteria or viruses that will kill you. 

Realize that the experiences you're having are signs you're on the right track. But you need to get past these “come and go” experiences. How do you recognize an experience? It begins and ends—like all experiences do.

Take eating a piece of chocolate. The experience begins when you look at it and think, "Mmm, this will be great." Eventually, the chocolate’s gone, and the experience ends. These meditative experiences are like signposts on the road, guiding you. For example, if you're driving to Miami and you come across a sign that says, "Miami 100 miles," that’s a good sign. But you don’t stop and hug the signpost because it says "Miami."

Nyams (meditative experiences) are going to happen. What you don't want to do is get attached to them. Wave as they pass by and keep moving forward with your practice. Reality doesn’t move. Your own enlightened nature, the reality of that, the spontaneously present innate nature of  Buddha-hood which is intrinsically in you as you, does not come and go. You can’t lose it by being bad, and you can’t acquire it by being good. It’s simply a matter of letting go of distractions.

For an advanced student, your meditative experiences are distractions you’ll eventually need to let go of. If left alone, they will dissipate on their own. If you ignore the cat, it’ll probably eventually get off your keyboard.

If the nyam doesn’t pass after a reasonable amount of time, there are methods to break through it. In Dzogchen, there’s a magic word that, if pronounced correctly, breaks the nyam –it pops it– and for a brief moment before anything else comes up, you can see “not a thing at all.”

The Magic Word of Dzogchen

Tibetans use magic words, called "seed syllables," to give rise to specific experiences. The magic word we will use here is spelled PHET (but pronunciation is key—it has to be exact). If you say it wrong, it won’t work. The pronunciation must be sudden, almost like sneaking up on yourself. It needs to be fierce—strong, not angry—and sharp, like throwing lightning. When it hits something, it shatters it. It is explosive—like a lightning bolt.

It begins down in your stomach. Start low, let it rise up, come all the way up—and it just pops right through the top of your head. Put your whole energy into it. It’s not from up in the head, but it comes up from the base through the whole body. It’s the whole embodied experience, and it’s forceful. Striking.

Usually we’re in the head—thinking, thinking. But this is like a grenade. It explodes. And then you just rest. No past. No future. No inside, no outside. All those characteristics, all those definitions gone. Just rest in your natural awareness.

Shout outloud “PHET” and then you're just going to feel & experience your mind. Notice how alive it is. There’s no “me,” no “you,” nothing—just this natural aliveness. This is the aliveness of your own mind revealed.

Once you do, with eyes wide open, hold it. Now, the thinking mind might want to tell you a story about it. Don’t pay any attention to it. Just clear. Bright. Present.

Now close your eyes. Relax. Let’s see if your mind still has a quality of wakefulness to it. We’re waking up the mind. Calm… relaxed… peaceful.  Smile. Everything’s good.

Now look directly into your mind. Does it have a top and a bottom? A back and a front? Does it have a beginning—where it starts—or an end—where it ends?

Can you see where it was born from? Where it’s going to die? Just look directly at it.  Look directly at your mind and see its true nature: Spacious. Vast. Beyond definition.

But it’s not an empty, dark void—because there is this incredible clarity of knowing. We know the empty nature of our mind. And this knowing—this is the radiance of the mind. Empty, yet aware. Knowing the clear light of our own minds.

Now, there are a few safety caveats:

1. This is a secret practice. Don’t discuss it casually, like in a bar or a social setting.
   
   

2. Do not practice it in public. It’s for your own personal space, on your cushion.
   
   

3. It's unsuitable for group meditation.

If you join group meditations, don’t use this practice. Why? Because it makes you sound like microwave popcorn, which is not the point. Use this only when you’re meditating on your own, not in group settings.

Some people get more nyams than others, sometimes very detailed ones. No matter what arises, "It’s a nyam. Hit it with PHET."

If you get stuck, PHET is one way to break through. But you must be focusing your attention directly on the experience when you say PHET. You can't just say it and expect it to work. For example, if you're in a blissful state, focus your attention directly on that experience, and then strike with PHET. For a moment, it will open, and you'll see what was behind it—no thing at all.

Please continue to nurture this mind awareness. This wakefulness. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing or where you are. Just maintain this mind in its natural, aware state. Let thoughts come and go. Let sounds come and go. Let all your experiences just let them come and go.

For those of us who have trained many years in mindfulness, we’ve been trained to be mindful of the objects. This is a deeper level. You’re learning to use your mindfulness to be mindful of your mind—your own natural awareness. We’re still practicing mindfulness. Still needing to be mindful of what we’re doing. But it’s mindfulness of the mind itself.