Seeing, Recognising & Maintaining One's Enlightening Potential

[C T]

Ignorance is a fundamental inability to recognize the infinite potential, clarity, and power of our own minds, as if we were looking at the world through colored glasses: Whatever we see is disguised or distorted by the colors of the glass. On the most essential level, ignorance distorts the basically open experience of awareness into dualistic distinctions between inherently existing categories of "self" and "other".

 

~ Mingyur Rinpoche

[C T]

[C T]

"Everything the Buddha taught is designed to remove the suffering of living beings and to usher us into full awakening. We suffer because we create, we are fascinated, and we misled by our mental and emotional fabrications. The Buddha’s teaching shows us how to recognize and disengage from this process. Beyond these fabrications is the natural state, which is boundless love, compassion, and wisdom. His teaching shows us how to reveal and abide in the natural state, which is not outside, but within ourselves.

 

The Buddha also taught that everything is interdependent. This means that everything arises from causes and conditions—nothing arises by itself. We all want happiness and to be free from suffering. Yet time after time we avoid the causes that bring happiness, and pursue the causes that bring suffering. For this reason, the Buddha taught us how to discipline our minds. This means to avoid the negative mental states, and to cultivate the positive. When the mind is fully disciplined, it is free of all negativity. When the mind is free of all negativity, it radiates happiness within and without. Disciplining the mind is therefore the single medicine that cures a myriad of diseases."

 

~ Venerable Khenpo Rinpoches

 The Beauty of Awakened Mind

[C T]

O great being, listen!
 

We strive in meditation because we desire excellence,
 

but any striving precludes attainment;
 

excellence resides only in timeless, self-sprung awareness.

 

~ Longchenpa

[idiot_stimpy]

 

O great being, listen!

 

We strive in meditation because we desire excellence,

 

but any striving precludes attainment;

 

excellence resides only in timeless, self-sprung awareness.

 

~ Longchenpa

 

Something so short but so powerful.

[C T]

The Truth of Rebirth -- Thanissaro Bhikkhu

 

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/truth_of_rebirth.html

[C T]

In the Upajjhatthana Sutta the Buddha directly taught to be mindful of subjects most people would rather avoid thinking about, and have great aversion to. The purpose of reflecting on these subjects is to develop an understanding of these unavoidable aspect of dukkha and to see the impermanence in all objects, views, and ideas. They are all simply a part of human existence. Aversion to them arises due to a clinging mind influenced by an (impermanent) ego-personality.

 

The Buddha teaches: “there are these five facts that one should be mindful of and reflect on often:

 

1. I am subject to aging and I have not gone beyond aging.
2. I am subject to illness and I have not gone beyond illness.
3. I am subject to death and I have not gone beyond death.
 

4. I am subject to impermanence and the suffering of being separated from all that I hold dear and appealing and I have not gone beyond separation-disappointment.
 

5. I am the owner of my actions. I receive the results of my actions. Dukkha arises through my actions and I am associated to my actions. Whatever I do I will inherit.

 

“These are the five facts one should be mindful of and reflect upon."

 

Then the Buddha describes how to reflect on these subjects. This is important in order to keep these five subjects in context and not form even more confused views. How to think and what to be mindful of is an aspect of Right Mindfulness:

 

“Reflecting on being subject to ageing and not (yet) having gone beyond ageing be mindful that there are those that are intoxicated with youth and due to this intoxication are unskillful in thought, word, and deed."

 

“Reflecting on being subject to illness and not (yet) having gone beyond illness be mindful that being intoxicated with health one acts unskillfully in thought, word, and deed."

 

“Reflecting on being subject to death and not (yet) having gone beyond death be mindful that being intoxicated with life one acts in unskillful ways in thought, word, and deed."

 

“Reflecting on being subject to impermanence and being separated from what is held dear and appealing, and not (yet) having gone beyond separation-disappointment, be mindful that clinging through desire and passion one acts in unskillful ways in thought, word, and deed."

 

“Reflecting on being subject to being the owner of one’s action (karma) and not (yet) having gone beyond being the owner of one’s action (extinguishing karma) be mindful that it is in thought, word, and deeds that I can go beyond being subject to my actions."

 

“Further, consider that as a follower of the Eightfold Path one is not the only one subject to ageing, illness, death, separation disappointment, or mindless actions. All (deluded) beings are subject to ageing, illness, death, separation-disappointment, and the results of their actions. When one is mindful of these facts and reflects often on these facts the entire Eightfold Path is given life. Being mindful of these facts one will maintain the (Eightfold) Path, develop it and cultivate it. All distractions are abandoned and all obsessions are destroyed.”

 

 

The Buddha referred to himself as the Tathagata, the rightly self-awakened one, and taught a dhamma that anyone could engage with directly and achieve the awakened human state of an arahant.

 

Rather than requiring an exorcism from a guru, the Buddha’s direct teachings bring the profound understanding that each individual is responsible for wandering in samsara, as well as having the inner resources to follow the Dhamma and exorcise demons (namely, the 5 poisons & 8 worldly concerns). All that is needed is whole-hearted engagement with the Eightfold Path.

 

The last words of the Buddha, spoken moments before his death, point to the immediacy to develop understanding directly:

“Impermanence is relentless, decay inevitable. I have taught you all that is needed. Work diligently for your own salvation. Mindful you should dwell, clearly comprehending. This I exhort you.”

 

~ John Haspel

[C T]

Form and Emptiness in the Stream of Consciousness

 

Our most common experience of non-thought or emptiness is the appearance of little gaps between our thoughts -- which are continually occurring, though normally overlooked. For instance, after speaking a sentence, there is a natural pause, marked by a punctuation mark when written out, which allows a split-second return to undifferentiated awareness. Or between the words of the sentence itself, there may be halts and gaps (often covered verbally by "hm" or "ah") that allow split-second attention to a preverbal sense of what we wish to say.

 

As one of the first Western explorers of consciousness, William James was particularly interested in these undifferentiated moments in the mindstream -- which he called the "transitive parts," in contrast to the more substantial moments of formal thought and perception. James also understood the impossibility of using focal attention to try to observe these diffuse transitional spaces that occur between more substantive mind-moments.

 

Now it is very difficult, introspectively, to see the transitive parts for what they really are. If they are but flights to a conclusion, stopping them to look at them before the conclusion is reached is really annihilating them. . . . The attempt at introspective analysis in these cases is in fact like seizing a spinning top to catch its motion, or trying to turn up the gaslight quickly enough to see how the darkness looks.

 

The difficulty of apprehending these undifferentiated moments through focal attention has led Western psychology to disregard or deny them as having any importance in the stream of consciousness, an error that James  called the "psychologist’s fallacy".

 

If to hold fast and observe the transitive parts of thought’s stream be so hard, then the great blunder to which all schools are liable must be the failure to register them, and the undue emphasizing of the more substantive parts of the stream.

 

The mind’s tendency to hold onto solid forms is like a bird in flight always looking for the next branch to land on. And this narrow focus prevents us from appreciating what it is like to sail through space, to experience what one Hasidic master called the "between-stage" (*or Bardo to the Tibetans) -- a primal state of potentiality that gives birth to new possibilities. Continually looking for a belief, attitude, identity, or emotional reaction to hold onto for dear life, we fail to recognize the interplay of form and emptiness in the mindstream -- out of which all creativity arises.

 

Beauty itself is a function of this interplay. Things stand out as beautiful only in relation to the space surrounding them. The loveliest antiques mean nothing in a cluttered room. A sudden clap of thunder is awesome not just because of the sound, but because of the silence it has interrupted, as James (1890, 240) points out:

 

Into the awareness of the thunder itself the awareness of the previous silence creeps and continues; for what we hear when the thunder crashes is not thunder pure, but thunder-breaking-upon-silence-and-contrasting-with-it. . . . The feeling of the thunder is also a feeling of the silence as just gone.

 

Similarly, in music, the contour, meaning, and beauty of a melody derive from the intervals between the notes. Recognizing this, the great pianist Artur Schnabel once wrote, "The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes -- ah, that is where the art resides." A single tone by itself has little meaning, and as soon as two tones are sounded they are instantly related by the shape of the space or interval between them. The interval of a third conveys a totally different feeling-quality than does a fifth. Since any pair of tones the same interval apart will sound rather similar, the sequences of intervals are what give a melody its particular quality, rather than the particular tones themselves.

 

Thus music provides an interesting analogy for the interplay between form and emptiness within the larger ecology of mind. Form is emptiness: the melody is actually a pattern of intervals between the tones. Although a melody is usually thought of as a sequence of notes, it is equally, if not more so, a sequence of spaces that the tones simply serve to mark off. Emptiness is form: nonetheless, this pattern of intervals does make up a definite, unique melodic progression that can be sung and remembered. And the ground of both the tones and the intervals is the larger silence that encompasses the melody and allows it to stand out and be heard.

 

Our usual addiction to the grasping tendency of mind causes us to overlook the spaces around thoughts, the felt penumbra that gives our experience its subtle beauty and meaning. Neglecting these fluid spaces within the mindstream contributes to a general tendency to over-identify with the contents of our mind and to assume that we are the originator and custodian of them. The troublesome equation "I = my thoughts about reality" creates a narrowed self-sense, along with an anxiety about our thoughts as territory we have to defend.

 

~ John Welwood

 

 

"In the gap between thoughts, nonconceptual wisdom shines continuously." ~ Milarepa

[C T]

"On the relative level, we exist in samsaric suffering because of our delusion. By not seeing our true nature and being deluded when the physical elements come together, our illusory body is created. This illusory body seems very real until we see the true nature of things. Until we are completely free from delusion, the body exists, suffering exists, and the Three Jewels exist as a source of refuge from suffering.

 

So, Ngondro practice begins with taking refuge in the three precious ones—the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Externally, the Buddha is the guide, the source of the Dharma; the Dharma is the path that Buddha showed; and the Sangha members are the people whose minds are turned toward the Dharma.

 

The Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha also exist internally and symbolically as a profound and skillful way to lead us out of samsara. From the point of view of absolute truth, even the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha are within us. Our mind is empty, radiant and aware, and that is the precious Buddha. Externally, the Dharma manifests as words and meaning that are heard and practiced, but internally the Dharma is the empty, unobstructed and self-luminous display of rigpa, or nondual awareness. Externally, the followers of the Dharma are the Sangha, but internally the Sangha is the all-pervading, all-encompassing quality of the mind. The Three Jewels are inherent within us, but since we do not recognize this, we take refuge externally in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha with devotion. When you do Ngondro fully, you visualize the refuge tree with a fervent mind, do prostrations with a humble body, and recite the refuge prayer with meaningful speech.

 

At the end of the session, when you dissolve the visualization into yourself, you cultivate the realization that the practitioner, the objects of refuge, and the activity of taking refuge are merely reflections of your own rigpa. The refuge tree is your own creation. The instruction at that point is to simply remain in the nature of rigpa, because other than rigpa there is truly nothing to be found. The Buddha said in the Sutra of the Good Aeon:

 

"I manifested in a dreamlike way to dreamlike beings and gave dreamlike teachings, but in reality I never taught and never actually came."

 

From the ultimate point of view, the Buddha never came and the Dharma never came. All this is mere perception, existing only in the apparent sphere of things. In taking refuge, the relative aspect is the object of refuge to which you offer devotion, prostrations, and so on, and the absolute aspect is the natural, effortless state of mind."

 

Ngondro Practice According to the Dzogchen View
~ His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche 

[C T]

"When we act with our body, speech, and mind; who is doing that? Deep down we look, and we are pointing a finger at our mind or consciousness. Our consciousness is the engine, the creator. Who is spinning the wheel of samsara? Who is moving or wandering in samsara? Our consciousness. And who is traveling to nirvana, or is experiencing nirvana? It is consciousness. Who is confused? Who is in a state of curiosity about all this? Or who is in a joyful, kind of excited state? That too is mind. So, there is nothing else, but our own consciousness is spinning and spinning and spinning all the time.

 

In the Buddha’s basic teaching on the mind, the Abhidharma, he says, “Mind is the creator of karma.” So who made our karma? Nothing other than our mind. And what is karma? Karma is a Sanskrit word. In Tibetan it is ley and in English it is “action” or “activity.” When we hear the word “action,” we think of movement, doing something, working on something, or performing something. It’s in an active state, not slowed down or sleeping.

 

Karma, defined by our actions, is the net effect of those actions in one life that is transmitted to the next via rebirth. Karma’s principle is that every action is a cause, and every cause produces a result or fruit. The fruition may be immediate. It also may be delayed for many lifetimes.

 

There are many different karmas. But we can summarize those into the categories of good karma and bad karma. Both good karma and bad karma are performed by mind. What is the borderline between good karma and bad karma? What creates good karma and what creates bad karma? When mind is in the state of true love, compassion and wisdom reflecting as actions of speech and body, those activities are good or virtuous deeds or karma. Good karma is a reflection of positive mind. On the other hand, when mind is in states of anger, jealousy, attachment, arrogance, or hatred, that also will reflect in physical and verbal actions. Such deeds are negative or unvirtuous actions, known as bad karma. So bad karma and good karma are both equally produced by mind.

 

At the ultimate level of true nature, there is no substantially existing karma, good or bad. It is all like an illusion or magic. However, even though it is magic and illusion, it affects us, even though we too are in truth just magical illusory beings.

 

Why are some actions called good karma and others bad karma? When you do an activity that reflects love and compassionate action, it makes everyone involved happy, including yourself. That’s the simple explanation of good karma. It is action that is positive, comfortable, harmonious, peaceful, truthful and honest. Such action follows from the “package” of love, kindness, and compassionate thoughts.

 

Why are some karma bad? The same simple explanation works: because that type of action hurts others. It hurts you and it makes everyone around you uncomfortable. If it makes the whole environment unpleasant, it is bad karma. When we have those negative emotional thoughts, such as attachment, anger, and jealousy, then negative actions follow, such as deceit, cheating, and lying.

 

Now, when are we going to experience or bear the fruit of this karma? It depends; not always immediately. Buddha Shakyamuni taught on karma a great deal, and he said again and again: “Karmic results usually won’t happen immediately. Once in a while, if the karma is especially powerful it could happen immediately, but mostly it could take many years, many lifetimes, or even many eons to bear the fruit. But karma will never become lost. Karmic causes will inexorably bring their results.”

 

~ Venerable Khenpo Rinpoches
The Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind From Samsara (pgs 19-21)

[C T]

“The Buddha intended for us to be free of attachment to the five aggregates, to lay them down and give up involvement with them. We cannot give them up, however, because we don't really know them for what they are. We believe happiness to be ourselves; we see ourselves as happy. We believe suffering to be ourselves and see ourselves as unhappy. We can't pull the mind out of this view, which means we are not seeing nature. There isn't any self involved, but we are always thinking in terms of self. Thus it seems that happiness happens to us, suffering happens to us, elation happens to us, depression happens to us. The chain of self is constructed, and with this solid feeling that there is a self, everything seems to be happening to us.

So the Buddha said to destroy this conception, this block called self. When the concept of self is destroyed and finished, we are free of the belief that there is a self in the body, and then the condition of selflessness is naturally revealed. Believing that there is me and mine and living with selfishness, everything is understood as being a self or belonging to a self or somehow relating to a self. When the phenomena of nature are seen thus, there is no real understanding. If nature appears to be good, we laugh and rejoice over it; if phenomena appear to be bad, we cry and lament. Thinking of natural phenomena as constituting ourselves or something we own, we create a great burden of suffering to carry. If we realised the truth of things, we would not have all the drama of excitement, elation, grief and tears. It is said, 'Pacification is true happiness', and this comes when attachment is rooted out through seeing reality.”

~ Extract taken from “Being Dharma” (pp 166-7), by Venerable Ajahn Chah

[steve]

Telling You a Secret

 

The teachings we need most are those that will actually strengthen and inspire our practice. It is all very well to receive teachings as high as the sky, but the sky is not that easy to grasp.

 

Start with practices which you can truly assimilate – developing determination to be free of ordinary concerns, nurturing love and compassion – and as you gain stability in your practice you will eventually be able to master all the higher teachings.

 

H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

[C T]

BARDO SONG OF REMINDING ONESELF

 

Ema!
Now that while the bardo of this lifetime is unfolding,
I will not be lazy since there is no time to waste.
Enter nondistraction’s path of hearing, thinking, training,
While it is just now I have the precious human form.
Since this free and favored form ought to have real meaning,
Emotion and samsara shall no longer hold the reign.

 

Ema!
Now that while the bardo of the dreamstate is unfolding,
I will not sleep like a corpse, so careless, ignorant.
Knowing everything is self-display, with recognition,
Capture dreams, conjure, transform, train lucid wakefulness.
Instead of lying fast asleep like animals are sleeping,
I will use the Dharma just as in the waking state.

 

Ema!
Now that while the meditation bardo is unfolding,
I will set aside every deluded wandering.
Free of clinging, settled within boundless nondistraction,
I’ll be stable in completion and development.
As I’m yielding projects to the single-minded training,
Delusion and unknowing shall no longer hold the reign.

 

Ema!
Now that while the bardo of the death-state is unfolding,
I will cast away attachment, clinging to all things.
Enter undistractedly the state of lucid teachings,
Suspending as a vast expanse this nonarising mind.
Leaving this material form, my mortal human body,
I will see it as illusion and impermanent.

 

Ema!
Now that while the bardo of dharmata is unfolding,
I will hold no fear or dread or panic for it all.
Recognizing everything to be the bardo’s nature,
Now the time has come for mastering the vital point.
Colors, sounds and rays shine forth, self-radiance of knowing,
May I never fear the peaceful-wrathful self-display.

 

Ema!
Now that while the bardo of becoming is unfolding,
I will keep the lasting goal one-pointedly in mind.
Reconnecting firmly with the flow of noble action,
I will shut the womb-doors and remember to turn back.
Since this is the time for fortitude and pure perception,
I will shun wrong views and train the guru’s union-form.

If I keep this senseless mind that never thinks of dying,
And continue striving for the pointless aims of life,
Won’t I be deluded when I leave here empty handed?
Since I know the sacred Dharma is just what I need,
Shouldn’t I be living by the Dharma right this moment,
Giving up activities that are just for this life?

 

These are the instructions which the gracious guru told me.
If I do not keep the guru’s teachings in my heart,
How can this be other than myself fooling myself?

 

 

 

[Translated from Padmasambhava's precious teaching by Erik P Kunsang]

[C T]

"This variety of desirous and hateful thoughts
that strands us in the ocean of cyclic existence -
once realized to be without intrinsic nature,
makes everything a golden land, child.

 

If you meditate on the illusion-like nature
of illusion-like phenomena,
actual illusion-like buddhahood
will occur through the power of devotion."

 

~ Niguma

[C T]

"The Madhyamikas say that, on the ultimate level, there is neither an object nor an agent of compassion. 'Migrating beings are never ceasing and are never born.' If the state of mind beyond all reference is not perfected, compassion does not become completely pure and limitless. This is indeed the case.

 

All the same, for beings, who impute a self upon the aggregates and become fixated on it, it is undeniable that on the level of appearance, happiness and sorrow invariably arise. There is therefore a need to liberate beings into the expanse of non-abiding nirvana whereby the continuum of dreamlike appearances of suffering is severed. This is why we take the vow to liberate them.

 

And yet these beings, whose burden we assume, have no existence in an ultimate sense. They exist only insofar as they are imputed as selves, through the force of ignorance. Consequently, although the Bodhisattvas realize No-Self, they take as the object of their compassion all beings who do not have this realization and who incessantly and pointlessly experience the appearances of suffering, through their belief in selfhood.

 

Likewise, the Bodhisattvas have no regard for their own welfare. They see that others suffer meaninglessly, and the attitude of cherishing them more than themselves naturally arises in their minds. They perceive that the suffering of beings is like a deep sleep and that they are able to wake them from it."

 

~ Khenpo Kunpal 
"The Nectar of Manjushri's Speech"

 

[C T]

Why is the practice so difficult and arduous? Because of desires. As soon as we sit down to meditate we want to become peaceful. If we didn't want to find peace we wouldn't sit, we wouldn't practice. As soon as we sit down we want peace to be right there, but wanting the mind to be calm makes for confusion, and we feel restless. This is how it goes. 
.
So the Buddha says, ''Don't speak out of desire, don't sit out of desire, don't walk out of desire.... Whatever you do, don't do it with desire.'' 
.
Desire means wanting. If you don't want to do something you won't do it. If our practice reaches this point we can get quite discouraged. How can we practice? As soon as we sit down there is desire in the mind.
.
- Ajahn Chah -

[C T]

Some people think that Buddhism is a philosophy and not a religion; but Buddhism is neither a nihilist philosophy nor an eternalist religion. This is a complete deviation whose source is material judgment, made by people who try to find out about Buddhism but merely focus on its objective, material aspects out of their own material habit.

 

Through only paying attention to the outer appearances and activities of Buddhist organizations and scholars, they only see Buddhists studying and debating, without understanding that the purpose of their study is to lead to practice and to open wisdom. Then, deciding that what is studied and debated resembles the refined logic of some subtle, worldly philosophies, they speculate that the ultimate teaching of Buddhism must be philosophy. They do not see meditators who are practicing inconspicuously, and they do not see the development of the inconceivable, naturally secret, spiritual qualities which cannot be observed because they are intangible.

 

The Buddhist view is to recognize that we must not remain within ordinary phenomena by following a worldly philosophy limited to ordinary, substantial reasoning. We must decide to increase pure phenomena by following a spiritual philosophy which goes beyond ordinary reasoning and leads to enlightenment. Buddhist philosophy is entirely spiritual. Its purpose is to refute the views of the two extremes of nihilism and eternalism by the skillful means of wisdom, to release all beings to enlightenment.

 

~ Thinley Norbu Rinpoche

[steve]

Really wonderful passage, CT, referring to the entire post.

 

 

 

They do not see meditators who are practicing inconspicuously, and they do not see the development of the inconceivable, naturally secret, spiritual qualities which cannot be observed because they are intangible.

 

 

~ Thinley Norbu Rinpoche

About this small excerpt, when those "inconceivable, naturally secret, spiritual qualities" do truly develop, they certainly can be observed as they are manifested through the compassionate, confident, and open actions of these meditators.

Edited August 2, 2015 by steve

[C T]

If you want to totally free yourself from suffering, it is important to distinguish what to do from what not to do since you cannot hope to taste the fruit of beneficial actions that you have not done, nor escape the consequences of your own harmful actions. *After death, you will follow the course traced by your actions, good and bad. Now that you have a choice between two paths, one that leads up and one that leads down, do not act in a way opposed to your deepest wishes. Practice all possible beneficial actions, even the smallest. Doesn't the accumulation of little drops end up filling a large jar?

 

~ Jetsun Mingyur Paldrön (1699-1769)

 

 

*after death, good intentions during life do not matter; only done deeds are carried forth into the bardo as deciding factors in determining direction and rebirth. Hence the emphasis on karma (action). 

[Spotless]

If you want to totally free yourself from suffering, it is important to distinguish what to do from what not to do since you cannot hope to taste the fruit of beneficial actions that you have not done, nor escape the consequences of your own harmful actions. *After death, you will follow the course traced by your actions, good and bad. Now that you have a choice between two paths, one that leads up and one that leads down, do not act in a way opposed to your deepest wishes. Practice all possible beneficial actions, even the smallest. Doesn't the accumulation of little drops end up filling a large jar?

 

 

~ Jetsun Mingyur Paldrön (1699-1769)

 

 

 

*after death, good intentions during life do not matter; only done deeds are carried forth into the bardo as deciding factors in determining direction and rebirth. Hence the emphasis on karma (action). 

 

BS

[C T]

Sparkling discussion between Alan Wallace & Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

 

 

[C T]

BS

lol

[Spotless]

a lot of this stuff is Christian Science Buddhist Style.

 

[C T]

a lot of this stuff is Christian Science Buddhist Style.

many thanks for the feedback

[C T]

Link to free Buddhist ebooks

 

http://www.holybooks.com/category/buddhism/tibetan/