C T

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Everything posted by C T

  1. Haiku Chain

    just farting away oblivious to fallen souls from the stench of old
  2. This is only a tiny aspect of Dzogchen, Jonesboy. For those who ardently devote themselves to the authentic path, the clearance of chakras are seen as secondary in the sense that they will clear effortlessly.
  3. The whole purpose of meditation is to see the nature of mind, which is peaceful, compassionate, pure, and free of all concepts. Always remind yourself: a mind filled with judgement, comparison, expectation, hope and fear cannot see its true nature. It takes bravery to let go of what is familiar, but this is the bravery the Buddha has. ~ Phakchok Rinpoche
  4. Without compassion, there is no entry into Dzogchen, let alone progress. Compassion is the 'sword', the only one in fact, that can cut the chains of samsara. Read up on the Four Immeasurables. Plenty of material on this, and how it forms the basis for the practice of Dzogchen. Especially good are the writings of Jigme Lingpa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigme_Lingpa This is what Jigme Lingpa wrote: Compassion is a powerful state of mind, An inability to tolerate the fact that others suffer. Beings in the six realms are entrapped by sorrow and its cause, And seeing this brings tears to one’s eyes. Joy is to delight in other’s pleasure and success; It is to cultivate the wish that all have happiness. It is a joy one feels when they achieve it for themselves And is the wish that they should never be deprived of it. Impartiality is freedom from attachment and hostility, When sides and factions are all seen as equal, When enemy and friend and neither – Are all treated with an evenhanded kindness. We should practice these four attitudes, remembering That all is without true existence. If anyone presumes the impotency of the cultivation of compassion within the scope of Dzogchen, its a mistake, and one hard to rectify because only a cold heart will disregard the exhortations made by all the authentic and kind masters. However, never be under the mistaken impression that Compassion is all about softness. It can sometimes be very very hard too, but when the teacher is skillful, the hardness will yield the right fruit, which is lasting liberation.
  5. I have never heard of any Dzogchen master encouraging practitioners to 'concentrate' on emptiness. Doing so yields nothing of substance because emptiness is not a state of anything, yet it is the underlying ground of everything, so its not really a matter of needing to make it become more tangible thru practice in the sense that one does not gradually become emptier as progress is made with practice. Its entirely not like that at all. Being shown the nature of mind by the guru does not mean that one walks away knowing emptiness. Moreover, Tibetan teachers combine the focus of both the cultivation of compassion and wisdom, in equal doses, to guide one's path so as to yield the correct fruit. Understanding what Emptiness is (within the Buddhist context) is like having a chair to sit on in class rather than having to endure prolonged standing while the teacher is teaching, is all.
  6. Life after Awakening

    Sounds like you have entered the theme park where 'mountains are sometimes mountains and sometimes not', awaiting entry into 'mountains are once again mountains'. The key is to see behind all the arising and falling away of fleeting states, and recognise the ground, the womb. Once tasted, all oceans share the same taste. An equanimous poise will slowly pervade your being. Then be of service to others. This is the secret meaning of true awakening.
  7. The location of the truth of the Great Perfection is the unfabricated mind of the present moment, this naked radiant awareness itself, not a hair of which has been forced into relaxation. Maintaining this at all times, just through not forgetting it even in the states of eating, sleeping, walking, and sitting, is called meditation. However, until you are free from the obscurations of cognition, it is impossible for this not to be mixed with the experiences of bliss, clarity, and non-conceptualisation. Nevertheless, just by not forgetting the nature of one’s own awareness — the kind that is not a tangled mindfulness that gets more tangled in order to be mindful — at some point the unelaborated ultimate truth, transcending terms and examples, will appear. ~ Jigme Lingpa
  8. Life and Practice as One "At all times, do not lose courage in your inner awareness; uplift yourself, while assuming a humble position in your outer demeanor. Follow the example of the life and complete liberation of previous accomplished masters (siddhas). Do not blame your past karma; instead, be someone who purely and flawlessly practices the Dharma. Do not blame temporary negative circumstances; instead, be someone who remains steadfast in the face of whatever circumstances may arise. In brief, taking your own mind as witness, make your life and practice one, and at the time of death, with no thought of anything left undone, do not be ashamed of yourself. This itself is the pith instruction of all practices. Eventually, when the time of death arrives, completely give up whatever wealth you possess, and do not cling to even one needle. Moreover, at death, practitioners of highest faculty will be joyful; practitioners of middling faculty will be without apprehension; and practitioners of the lowest faculty will have no regrets. When realization's clear light becomes continuous day and night, there is no intermediate state (bardo): death is just breaking the enclosure of the body. If this is not the case, but if you have confidence that you will be liberated in the intermediate state, whatever you have done in preparation for death will suffice. Without such confidence, when death arrives, you can send your consciousness to whichever pure land you wish and there traverse the remaining paths and stages to become enlightened." ~ His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche
  9. Pretending enlightenment Our basic nature is in no way different from that of a buddha. It's like pure space, which, whether it is obscured by clouds or is a cloudless and clear sky, remains the same in its basic, essential nature. But if you pretend that your nature is already enlightened and don't progress along the path of removing the obscurations, then your enlightened nature doesn't become realized. Therefore, we must truly consider what is actual, what the facts are. Do we have obscurations or not? If you see that there still are obscurations, there is no way to avoid having to remove them by gathering the two accumulations. ~ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
  10. Ever seen the movie The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly? Who is what is entirely dependent on which camp you sit with.
  11. as far as i can see, nothing much was said. Not that there is much that can be said about it, to be honest. But habits dictate that words appear so as to bring some sort of order to an otherwise inexpressibly profound exercise that takes place beyond the limits of the faculties of thought and perception.
  12. "It’s said repeatedly in the Dzogchen teachings—Guru Padmasambhava himself said this many times—the Dzogchen view is vast and open and does not negate. If you say no to bodhichitta, no to refuge and devotion, no to visualization, and say yes only to emptiness practice, how is that a vast and open view? The Dzogchen view includes appearance and emptiness. To unveil the true nature of appearance, perform the Visualization Stage practices. To unveil the true nature of emptiness, perform the Completion Stage practices. Both are needed. Of course, emptiness and appearance are inseparable; the same is true of Visualization and Completion Stages. But until you fully realize this, it’s important and necessary to practice them sequentially." ~ Venerable Khenpo Rinpoches The Beauty of Awakened Mind (pg 100)
  13. You've traveled up ten thousand steps in search of the Dharma. So many long days in the archives, copying, copying. The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Sung make heavy baggage. Here! I've picked you a bunch of wildflowers. Their meaning is the same but they're much easier to carry. ~ Master Hsu Yun
  14. Sesame oil is the essence. Although the ignorant know that it is in the sesame seed, they do not understand the way of cause, effect and becoming, and therefore are not able to extract the essence, the sesame oil. Although innate coemergent wisdom abides in the heart of all beings, if it is not shown by the guru, it cannot be realized. Just like sesame oil that remains in the seed, it does not appear. One removes the husk by beating the sesame, and the sesame oil, the essence appears. In the same way, the guru shows the truth of tathata, and all phenomena become indivisible in one essence. Kye ho! The far-reaching, unfathomable meaning is apparent at this very moment. O how wondrous!" ~ Tilopa
  15. Precisely because of emptiness can there be the accumulation of merit. If things were fixed and unchangeable, then beings have no chance to be buddhas. This is one way to understand. Merit accumulation occurs within the realm of the relative. This is another way to understand. Because of emptiness there is the possibility and endless potential for transformation. There are endless ways in which merit is accumulated. And its not all about doing good and being virtuous. Sometimes its the darkest thoughts and cruellest deeds that bring forth the most profound change. How strange and wonderful.
  16. Experiences and Merit How we interpret information and our experiences of the world depends entirely on how much merit we have accumulated. For example, what does the word impermanent mean? On the grossest possible level, those who have very little merit believe that 'impermanent' means decay and death, or the changing seasons. Once we start to accumulate merit, though, our understanding becomes more subtle. Imagine you are experiencing a moment of happiness. If you have a little merit you will be able, to a certain degree, to interpret and understand 'impermanence' and watch your mood change from unhappiness to happiness and back again, making any disappointment or hope you might feel less intense. ~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
  17. Tantra practice a fool-proof process? If only. The methodologies may be fool-proof, but the fools that think methodologies alone are enough, are not, unfortunately. The union of wisdom & compassion, in balance, is what will ensure a smooth continuity on the path. The key word is continuity. Progression... Integration. Basically whats required of tantric and Ati yoga. Without this continuity its only a shadow play.
  18. Timeless awareness Rely on timeless awareness, which is free of elaboration, without identity, and the very essence of being; do not rely on ordinary consciousness, which is a mind fixated on characteristics and concepts. Timeless awareness entails {a} understanding that the way in which phenomena actually abide is, from the ultimate perspective, free of all limitations imposed by elaborations of origination, cessation, and so forth; {b} realization of the nonexistence of the two kinds of identity; and {c} unerring knowledge of sugatagarbha as utter lucidity, the way in which things actually abide, beyond any context of speculative value judgments. It is on this awareness that one should rely. Ordinary consciousness entails {a} belief that what one immediately perceives constitutes something truly existent; {b} conceptualization in terms of characteristics, such as the sense of personal identity and the mind-body aggregates; and {c} mental states that are conditioned, for example, by attitudes of naively fixating on the pleasures of the senses. One should not rely on such consciousness. ~ Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye
  19. Beyond the spiritual heart

    Berzin Archives: Its not so much merging with a deity as in dissolving mundane traits so as to gradually reveal transcendent qualities within oneself. As each individual is unique, practitioners of Tantrayana either pick a particular yidam they feel an affinity with and through practice gradually adopt the qualities of that yidam, initially via conceptualized means with the hope that as the practice matures, those qualities will begin to manifest more and more spontaneously, OR if one is unsure, a teacher will sort of indicate which yidam practice to follow. There can of course be more than one over time. It depends. This explains quite well what yidam practice is in Tantrayana http://www.khenpo.eu/yidam.pdf
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  21. Do not investigate phenomena, but investigate the mind. If you investigate the mind, you will know the one thing which resolves all. ~ Guru Rinpoche
  22. We awaken to enlightenment by recognizing and fully realizing the primordially pure essence already present as our nature. That's how to be an awakened buddha. Even though the enlightened state is actually already present, imagining or forming a thought construct of enlightenment doesn't make you enlightened. It's the same as when you are really hungry and you look at a plate of food and try to imagine what it taste like. Does it work to then imagine, "Mmmmm, I'm eating the food, I'm no longer hungry." You can think this for a very long time – forever, in fact – but it still doesn't dispel your hunger. Once you actually put the food in your mouth, it tastes delicious, and your hunger is satiated. It's also the same with experience. Experience only occurs in a direct way, in practical reality, not through a theory about taste. If your meditation practice is merely an exercise in imagining and keeping something in mind, it is only a theory, and not direct experience. ~ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
  23. It is difficult to learn the names of the vows, let alone observe them. So at least you should strive to be loving to people, especially those who are close to you such as friends, relatives, Dharma brothers and sisters, and neighbours. Try to avoid harming them. Be respectful to them, as all are enlightened in their true nature. Then, in a simple way, you are moving towards fulfilling the pratimoksha vow of not harming others, the bodhisattvas' vow of being loving to others, and the tantric vow of pure perception. ~ Dodrupchen Rinpoche