[From a teaching on the Songs of Barway Dorje, Part 3, by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche given at Kunzang Palchen Ling in March 2015. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso.]
How do you rest the mind in this immediate or present awareness? By not being distracted from the continuity of mere presence. Distraction from the continuity of mere presence occurs when we think about what is happening. Instead of merely experiencing what is happening in the mind, we start thinking about it. Therefore he [Terchen Barway Dorje] writes, “Cultivate it without fixation.” Fixation means without any kind of hope or fear about what happens in the mind. There is a certain goal orientation here. You are meditating because you want to recognize your mind’s nature. You therefore might find yourself, while meditating, thinking, “I must recognize my mind’s nature.” Or, “Oh, I’m afraid I’m not going to recognize my mind’s nature.” Or, “I think I just recognized my mind’s nature.” Or, “That definitely was not recognition of my mind’s nature.” This is all fixation. And it’s all distraction because it‘s distracting you from direct experience. Direct experience must by definition be devoid of preference. As soon as you become preferential in meditation you are attempting to form or skew the meditation to your expectations.