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78 THE TIBETAN BOOK OF LIVING AND DYINGwhat they intrinsically are—the radiance of the nature of yourmind—then your thoughts become the seed of confusion. Sohave a spacious, open, and compassionate attitude towardyour thoughts and emotions, because in fact your thoughts areyour family, the family of your mind. Before them, as DudjomRinpoche used to say: "Be like an old wise man, watching achild play."We often wonder what to do about negativity or certaintroubling emotions. In the spaciousness of meditation, you canview your thoughts and emotions with a totally unbiased attitude.When your attitude changes, then the whole atmosphereof your mind changes, even the very nature of your thoughtsand emotions. When you become more agreeable, then theydo; if you have no difficulty with them, they will have no difficultywith you either.So whatever thoughts and emotions arise, allow them torise and settle, like the waves in the ocean. Whatever you findyourself thinking, let that thought rise and settle, without anyconstraint. Don't grasp at it, feed it, or indulge it; don't cling toit and don't try to solidify it. Neither follow thoughts norinvite them; be like the ocean looking at its own waves, or thesky gazing down on the clouds that pass through it.You will soon find that thoughts are like the wind; theycome and go. The secret is not to "think" about thoughts, butto allow them to flow through the mind, while keeping yourmind free of afterthoughts.In the ordinary mind, we perceive the stream of thoughts ascontinuous; but in reality this is not the case. You will discoverfor yourself that there is a gap between each thought. Whenthe past thought is past and the future thought not yet arisen,you will always find a gap in which the Rigpa, the nature ofmind, is revealed. So the work of meditation is to allowthoughts to slow down, to make that gap become more andmore apparent.My master had a student called Apa Pant, a distinguishedIndian diplomat and author, who served as Indian ambassadorin a number of capital cities around the world. He had evenbeen the representative of the Government of India in Tibet,in Lhasa, and for a time he was their representative in Sikkim.He was also a practitioner of meditation and yoga, and eachtime he saw my master, he would always ask him "how tomeditate." He was following an Eastern tradition, where the