In the traditional presentation of Mahamudra, signs of progress are spoken of with great care, always accompanied by the warning not to cling to them. Early on, the mind begins to settle: distraction lessens, thoughts arise but no longer carry awareness away so completely, and there is a growing continuity of mindfulness both in formal practice and in daily life. This settling is not a dull blankness; rather, there is a relaxed clarity, a sense that calm and vividness can coexist. Emotional reactivity softens, with anger, craving, and anxiety losing some of their force and duration, and there is a natural increase in ethical sensitivity and concern for others. These changes are not dramatic fireworks but a quiet reordering of how experience is met.

As insight into the nature of mind develops, thoughts are increasingly recognized as empty appearances that self-liberate when left alone. A wider gap opens between stimulus and reaction, allowing habitual patterns to be seen before they solidify into speech or action. The sense of a solid, central “me” begins to loosen, and moments of non-dual taste appear, in which the split between observer and observed feels less absolute. Suffering is more clearly seen as constructed by clinging, aversion, and conceptual fixation, and this understanding brings a measure of joy and contentment that is less dependent on circumstances. Actions begin to arise more spontaneously from this clarity rather than from compulsion.

This maturation is often framed through the four yogas of Mahamudra. In one-pointedness, attention can rest with relative ease on the nature of mind, and distraction or dullness are quickly recognized. In simplicity or freedom from elaboration, conceptual fabrications about self and world lose their grip, and thoughts and emotions are experienced more as ornamentation of awareness than as solid realities. With one taste, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral experiences share the same flavor of empty, luminous awareness, and samsara and nirvana are no longer felt as fundamentally separate domains. In non-meditation, the division between meditating and not meditating collapses, and recognition of mind’s nature becomes spontaneous and continuous, without the sense of “doing” a technique.

Authentic progress is most clearly reflected in character and conduct. Compassion and patience become more stable, extending even toward difficult people, while humility and a reduced sense of self-importance naturally emerge. There is less fear of loss and change, greater acceptance of impermanence, and a spontaneous tendency toward ethical behavior, as harmful actions feel increasingly unthinkable. At more subtle levels, non-dual awareness may remain unbroken even amid strong emotions, pain, or the transitions of sleep and dream, and doubt about the path diminishes in light of repeated direct experience. Throughout, traditional teachings caution against mistaking visions, lights, blissful states, or an inflated sense of being advanced for genuine realization; the more reliable measures are the stability of non-conceptual awareness, the reduction of grasping, and the deepening of compassion and sanity in everyday life.