From http://www.scribd.com/doc/14021456/Thrangu-RinpochePointing-Out-of-Dharmakaya-of-IX-Karmapa
....Although one recognizes the cognitive lucidity or the
lucidity of awareness within emptiness, there are different ways
that this might be recognized. For example, someone might find that
when they look at the nature of a thought, initially the thought
arises, and then as the thought dissolves, what it leaves in its
wake or what it leaves behind it is an experience or recognition of
the unity of cognitive lucidity and emptiness. Because this person
has recognized this cognitive lucidity and emptiness, there is some
degree of recognition, but because this can only occur for them or
has only occurred for them after the thought has subsided or
vanished, then they are still not really seeing the nature of
thought itself. For someone else, they might experience that from
the moment of the thought's arising, and for the entire presence of
that thought, it remains a unity of cognitive lucidity and
emptiness. This is a correct identification, because whenever there
is a thought present in the mind or when there is no thought
present in the mind, and whether or not that thought is being
viewed in this way or not, the nature of the mind and the nature of
every thought is always a unity of cognitive lucidity and
emptiness. It is not the case that thoughts only become that as
they vanish.
The word naked is used a great deal at this point in the text.
And the word naked here has a very specific and important meaning
because it is used to distinguish between understanding and
experience, that is to say, understanding and recognition. it is
very easy to confuse one's understanding for an experience or a
recognition. One might understand something about the mind and
therefore think that one had recognized it directly. Here, the use
of the term "naked" means "direct;" that is to say, something that
is experienced nakedly or directly in the sense that the experience
is free from the overlay of concepts.
Whereas normally we have the attitude that thought is something
we must get rid of, in this case it is made clear that it is
important not to get rid of thought, but to recognize its nature,
and indeed, not only the nature of thought but the nature of
stillness must be recognized. In particular, with regard to
thought, as long as we do not recognize its nature, of course
thought poses a threat to meditation and becomes an impediment. But
once the nature of thought has been correctly recognized, thought
itself becomes the meditative state and therefore it is often said
that "the root of meditation is recognizing the nature of
thought."
There lived in the eighteenth century a great Gelugpa teacher
named Changkya Rolpe Dorje, who from his early youth displayed the
signs of being an extraordinary person. He became particularly
learned and also very realized, and at one point he composed a song
called 'Recognizing Mother.' 'Mother' in his song is the word he
uses to refer to dharmata or the nature of one's mind. This song
was so extraordinary that a commentary was written about it by
Khenchen Mipam Rinpoche. In this song, Changkya Rolpe Dorje makes a
very clear distinction between recognizing and not recognizing the
nature of one's mind. In one part of the song he says, "Nowadays we
scholars of the Gelugpa tradition, in discarding these appearances
of the mind as the basis for the realization of emptiness and of
the basis for the negation of true existence, and in searching for
something beyond this to refute, something beyond this to negate in
order to realize emptiness, have left our old mother behind; in
other words, we have missed the point of emptiness."
Changkya Rolpe Dorje gives another image for this mistake that
we tend to make. he says that we are like a small child who is
sitting in his mother's lap but forgetting where he is, looks for
his mother everywhere; looks above, below, left and right and is
unable to see his mother and becomes quite agitated. Along comes
the child's older brother, and the image the older brother
represents is both the understanding of interdependence and the
recognition of the nature of thought. The older brother reminds the
child by saying, "Your mother is right here, you are in her lap."
In the same way, the nature of our mind or emptiness is with us all
the time, we tend to look for it indirectly; we look for it
somewhere outside ourselves, somewhere far away. And yet we do not
need to look far away if we simply view the nature of thought as it
is."...