doc benway

I just returned from a retreat on sleep yoga. I've also had training in dream yoga in the past. Our dreams and sleeping patterns are a reflection of what is occurring in our daily life. A day filled with anxiety, stress, exposure to electronic media, violent news, and so forth means a night of expression of all of that input. A few tips that could help your sleep experience - Prioritize basic healthy living including adequate hydration, wholesome nutrition, regular exercise, breathing exercises. Consider integrating a daily meditation practice - practice upon awakening and prior to retiring to sleep. Throughout your day, take frequent breaks in whatever you are doing. Sit (or stand) comfortably and quietly. Connect with your body and allow it to deeply rest in its stillness. Connect with your inner voice and allow it to deeply rest, listening only to the silence from which it arises. Connect with your heart/mind and allow it to open, resting deeply in the open space that allows all possibilities. Do this as often as possible. Do it particularly anytime something stimulates any sense of fear, anxiety, irritation, or desire. The idea is that the more we are able to abide during the day in a restful, quiet place, the more likely we are to bring that to our sleep and dreams. All of the advanced sleep and dream yoga practices are recommended to be done in a remote, quiet, and isolated setting for this reason. As the evening begins to descend, pay careful attention to how you feel in your body and mind. Notice the natural onset of fatigue, the feeling that you've done enough for the day. Avoid the temptation to ignore that and keep pushing yourself to do, think, and say more. Let go of all electronic media and stimulation when that initial fatigue descends. Avoid eating after this time, avoid vigorous exercise, drugs, and alcohol. Allow yourself to gradually wind down and feel openness in your body, speech, and mind. Create a sacred place to sleep. Remove all electronic devices from the room, if possible. If not possible, put them as far from your sleeping place as possible. Maybe decorate the room with images that are loving, supportive, and evoke a feeling of comfort and security if that feels right. Light a small night light if that helps or burn a little incense. As you retire for the night, feel the support and comfort of the sacred space. Feel that there are beings or forces that are there to offer their protection and will watch over you throughout the night. This could be beloved ancestors, deities, goddesses, anything that feels right to you. If you are one for prayer, say a prayer before bed. Ask for help in clearing obstacles to a restful sleep. Ask that you may be blessed with clear and supportive dreams. Ask that you may be relieved of the trials and tribulations of the day so that your sleep may be rejuvenating. As you lay in bed, continue to maintain a feeling of prayer and resting in a sacred space. Generate a sincere feeling of inner warmth, contentedness, and gratitude. As the endless thoughts arise, notice them, know that they will still be there and can be attended to when the time is right, and remind yourself that now is the time for freedom and rest. Allow yourself to gently enter into sleep with a feeling of stillness, silence, and spaciousness. I think one of the biggest obstacles to restful sleep is carrying all of our daily baggage into sleep with us. The above are just some suggestions, modify them in whatever way works for you. The key is to feel open, protected, and to let go of the daily and worldly troubles as we enter that time of our day when we, to use a mundane analogy, recharge our battery and reboot the system. May you be blessed with restful sleep and pleasant dreams. _/\_

I really enjoy this little refuge of authenticity and devotion. _/\_

We are conditioned from earliest childhood to be addicted to the approval of others. As long as you buy in to this hypnosis, you will feel inadequate. As long as you link your happiness to things or others' expectations, you will be unhappy. It is your choice.

And if you want to splurge! http://www.wisdompubs.org/book/dudjom-lingpas-visions-great-perfection

Traditionally, by the time a practitioner received dzogchen teachings, the sutric and tantric views were already well established. The dzogchen view transcends the mind that understands, hence the comment that there is nothing more to understand.

"Almost every practice is a method to develop, not to understand. In Dzogchen the principle is that there is nothing more to understand." - from the Nail of Innate Awareness Emerging from Within - The Twenty-One Nails: Oral Commentaries by Lopon Tenzin Namdak and Tenzin Wangyal RInpoche

they will not harm you transform them into support, snake is delicious

Changing a pattern that has plagued us for decades... These methods are truly victorious! A HO!

Yes I've also met a handful in the past year who have and many more who haven't. And what is it that determines the difference? Surely not knowledge, devotion, or effort. Tell those who are waiting and searching how easy it is!

It is difficult until it happens... I still think it's relatively rare.

I'd like to offer my perspective - We do not need new religions. You do not need to create a religion. I think that is a waste of effort. We need loving and authentic people. If you can create that in yourself, you may be able to share that with others. You have the opportunity to look deeply into yourself and become your most authentic self. You have the opportunity to help those less fortunate, or more fortunate, than you. If you master these things, you may perhaps find a way to do it that others find accessible and appealing. If that happens, you may even have created a new religion. Start with yourself... Anything else is a waste of time, imo. Blessings to you, you seem sincere

I'd like to expand on Rigdzin Trinley's earlier comments. I would like to express my hope that we all look at ourselves a little more closely and nakedly and be a little more realistic and grounded. Of course we all have our own words, that's what we're typing. They may be an illusion but that is irrelevant, they are how we communicate, they impact our lives and emotions. The chance of any of us experiencing rainbow body is so far fetched as to be a joke. It's fine to work towards it but there are so many steps along the way that can enrich our lives and the lives of others it is sad to see folks ignore the beauty of the path. Of course we all experience localized mind and awareness. It's fine to speak and dream of the absolute and those of us fortunate enough even get glimpses of it from time to time. But to deny our relative, day to day life is to live in a fantasy - that is not what spirituality is about. These practices are absolutely marvelous and transformative when we practice them and apply them in concrete and practical ways in our daily lives; but when we get wrapped up in our intellectual projections and ego games like I see happening here, they're worse than doing nothing. This is precisely why they were kept secret for so long. Sorry for the rant but we need to get off of our ego trips and be real people and relate to one another with respect and compassion. Otherwise this is all a complete waste of time and energy. And don't think I consider myself better than anyone else - I'm guilty of all of the above but I am aware and working on it. I hope you will join me. Peace

as the mind concludes the door is slammed shut on truth seek only questions

I think that point is valid from the absolute perspective. From the relative perspective, I clearly experience a local and limited mind with both beginning and end. That mind is a filter for all of our experience, including our experience of the natural state in this life. I think that is what Jeff was referring to.

PS - if you have interest in cultivating a deeper relationship with the natural state there are no better exercises, IMO, than the three doors practices as taught by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. I have links to teachings on that subject in my PPF.

I will disagree - spiritual training has unique characteristics that are unlike training in other realms, at least for me. We are all different and I don't mean to negate your experience. I'm happy to expand on the three characteristics. The Bönpo teachings are what I'm most familiar with regarding the natural state. They describe three aspects of the natural state. One cannot adequately describe the natural state without incorporating all three. The Nyingmapas take a similar approach although IME the Bönpos perhaps emphasize the warmth aspect a bit more. These aspects are not independent of one another, they are said to be inseparable, and yet it is useful to look at each separately for the purpose of deeper understanding and recognition. The first characteristic of the natural state is that it is like space - the descriptive terms used to show that it is like space are things like empty, unborn, clear, undying, indestructible, without a center, without boundary, unstained, and so forth. If one does not incorporate this feeling of "like space" in one's understanding of the natural state then the understanding is incomplete. Useful practices for recognizing and stabilizing the state are practices that open up a feeling of space inside like tsa lung, trul khor, and the 9 breathings of purification. It is important to know that understanding the natural state must go beyond the intellect. One must feel the emptiness and spaciousness. The second characteristic is that it is illuminated - the terms used in this regard are knowing, awareness, presence, light, clarity, and this is the aspect you are describing in your earlier post. Many translators hesitate to use the word awareness for this because awareness is so strongly linked to the sensory functions and this fundamental awareness you mention (rigpa) is not, it is independent of sensory stimulus or receptor. It is independent of object or subject. It is an important aspect of the natural state but to say it IS the natural state is inaccurate and incomplete. This characteristic is particularly well displayed in the sleep yoga practices. If one has the experience of the sleep of clear light that illumination is very acutely experienced as it contrasts brilliantly with the unbounded space with which it is inseparable and within which it rests. As always, hard to put into words. A very good method to help us recognize this aspect is zhine with an object. The Bönpos traditionally use the Tibetan letter A: . The third characteristic is that it is great bliss - the terms used for this aspect are things like warmth, love, union, connection, joy, unconditional, and so forth. A common error is to think that this refers solely to an overwhelming feeling of immense bliss or happiness. While that certainly can occur, that is simply one way in which we may experience it. It can also be subtle, such as the feeling you get when you look someone in the eye and there is that connection, that knowing - I am alive, you are alive, we see each other, we are connected, there is something flowing between us. There is something there that cannot be put into words. This characteristic also has to do with how our connection with the natural state manifests. When we recognize that state and develop some stability, there is a spontaneous and natural feeling of warmth for oneself, for others, a connection to life, and this manifests as kind and loving speech and activity. I think that's enough. I hope that's useful. If not, please disregard it.

What we think of the natural state, any of us, is not it. If we want to describe it with words we need to describe three inseparable aspects - space, clarity, and warmth.

I don't really subscribe to a particular view of what occurs or is present after death and before life. I would like to share, however, that I have had experiences in sleep and dream that correspond quite accurately to states and experiences that are described by the Bönpos and Buddhists as occurring in the Bardo. While I still tend not to say I believe this or that about what is present beyond this life, I find it very interesting and compelling and it has reinforced for me the value of sleep and dream work in my personal practices.

Local ends and nonlocal begins with rang ngo rang rig - self recognition.

I disagree on two points- 1. Primordially pure innate self-awareness has no gradation, only our experience of it can be said to have gradation 2. I don't see that quotation as direct introduction, just a description. Introduction uses methods to elicit the naked, non-verbal, non-conceptual experience

Yes - you are right in pointing out that these are potentially deceptive and confusing comments. I could try to clarify my interpretation and response to Wells' observation but I doubt it would be of much value to anyone. Less talk and more practice for me! Thanks for the response.

I'm not quite sure what specifically you are referring to as visual/symbolic introduction but I assume you are referring to the various pointing out instructions for the nature of mind? Please elaborate if you care to. I fully agree that the vast majority of thinking and discussion is of relatively little practical value. The Bönpos use a variety of methods to introduce the nature of mind, one of the mosts common and effective being zhiné practice with the letter ཨ This method is used in both the A-khrid and Zhangzhung Nyengyüd Dzogchen cycles. It's pretty much the same as shamatha and vipassana practice although the visual sense is so much more powerful than the tactile so that I think the method of the ཨ is much more rapidly effective, at least in my experience. It's shocking how powerful it is. Anyone truly interested in the meaning of things like the natural state and rigpa would get a lot more mileage out of zhiné than discussion and debate, IMO.

That's an excellent question and I would say that yes, every sort of consciousness or awareness is an awareness of self. The question is whether or not it is recognized as such. If that knowing or recognizing aspect (rigpa) is not present sounds, lights, and rays are seen as other and that is the basis for ignorance - ma rigpa. If visions are recognized as self, that is the knowing denoted by the word rigpa. And it is not simply an intellectual knowing, it is a direct experience of the knowing or recognition itself - very hard for me to put into words. For me, this is the better usage of the term rigpa - I think it is very misleading to use the word rigpa when what we are really referring to is the natural state. Anyone interested in this thread would probably enjoy subscribing to Jean Luc Achard's newsletter Khyung Mkhar if you don't already - http://khyungmkhar.blogspot.com/. The latest publication is a translation of the Explanation of the Water Lamp of the Far Reaching Lasso which relates to this idea of vision being a projection of self. His prices are very reasonable and he's an excellent translator of Tibetan.

Yes - provided that one is able to be and reside with certainty and stability. When that supreme blessing is elusive, there are many things that can help - prayer, mantra, mudra, ritual, and so forth. If we have no need of these things we are indeed fortunate!