Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Six Nails
Drop every fabricating activity of mind — recollection, anticipation, conceptualising, analysis, control — and rest, bare and uncontrived, in the natural state of mind (mahāmudrā).
Tilopa’s Six Nails: Don’t recall (release the past), don’t imagine (release the future), don’t think (release commentary on now), don’t examine (drop analysis), don’t control (stop steering the mind) — and rest, letting mind settle uncontrived in its own natural state. Light touch, short sessions, often.
What it is
The Six Words of Advice (Tibetan gnad kyi gzer drug, literally the “six nails” that pin down the key points) are the most compressed Mahāmudrā instruction in the Kagyü tradition, given by the mahāsiddha Tilopa (c.
988–1069) to his disciple Nāropa. In six negative imperatives they remove, one by one, every way the mind fabricates its experience — and what is left, when all six fabricating activities cease, is the natural, uncontrived state of mind itself: open, lucid, present, and at rest.
Where most meditation adds an object or effort, Tilopa’s instruction is purely subtractive — it nails down what not to do, and lets the natural state reveal itself.
The Method
The classic rendering of the six (after Ken McLeod’s widely-used translation): > Don’t recall. Don’t imagine. Don’t think. Don’t examine. Don’t control. Rest. Taken as a practice, in order:
- Don’t recall — let go of what has passed. Do not chase memories or replay the past.
- Don’t imagine — let go of what may come. Do not lean into anticipation, planning, fantasy of the future.
- Don’t think — let go of what is happening now. Do not elaborate the present moment into commentary.
- Don’t examine — don’t try to figure anything out. Drop analysis, inspection, the search for meaning about the experience.
- Don’t control — don’t try to make anything happen. Stop steering, correcting, or manipulating the mind toward a desired state.
- Rest — relax, right now, and let the mind settle in its own natural condition, uncontrived and at ease. The instruction is to apply all six lightly and continuously: the moment any of the first five activities starts up, simply notice and release it, and return to the sixth — resting. It is practised in short, fresh sessions repeated often rather than long forced sittings, and gradually carried into daily activity. (Sourcing note: a faithful rendering of the publicly-taught instruction; in the living tradition it is given alongside Mahāmudrā pointing-out and is not merely figured out from the words.)
Source & Lineage
Tilopa, an Indian mahāsiddha, is the human source of the Kagyü Mahāmudrā lineage; he transmitted to Nāropa, who transmitted to Marpa, and so to Milarepa and Gampopa.
The six words are traditionally paired with Tilopa’s Mahāmudrā Upadeśa (the “Ganges Mahāmudrā”), the song of instruction he is said to have sung to Nāropa on the banks of the Ganges. → author node (also ).
Common refinements
Hearing “rest” as “go blank.” Resting is vividly aware and natural, not dull or sleepy.
- Turning the six into effort. “Don’t control” includes not controlling your not-controlling; the touch is feather-light.
- Treating them as sequential steps to complete. They are six simultaneous releases, re-applied whenever fabrication restarts.
- Long strained sittings. Freshness stabilises this, not duration — many short clear moments.
- Words without transmission. Like trekchö, it matures best with a teacher’s pointing-out; on its own it can drift into vague relaxation.