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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

"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

https://realworldrecords.com/release/118/rain-of-blessings/

Lyrics to 'Offering Chant' only on Lyricsbox Medicine Buddha mantra/Prayer to Sangye Menla easy enough to get on the net. The others you may need to search a bit. Or just listen repeatedly and it'll register in the mindstream.

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

The nature of phenomena is nondual, but each one, in its own state, is beyond the limits of the mind. There is no concept that can define the condition of "what is" but vision nevertheless manifests: all is good. Everything has already been accomplished, and so, having overcome the sickness of effort, one finds oneself in the self-perfected state: this is contemplation. ~ Garab Dorje

"Dzogchen is the Buddha’s highest teaching of the absolute truth. It introduces the nature of the mind directly, without any sidetracks or detours. In order to realize the Dzogchen teaching, first cultivate bodhichitta, devotion, and the other skillful means practices. Then, when you practice Dzogchen meditation itself, you identify and relax into your own natural state of mind, by your mind. When you relax into the natural state there is nothing substantially existing that you are relaxing into. It is beyond subject and object, beyond actor and action. All these merge into a single state—the natural state. Even though we use the word ‘merged,’ there is no “merger” and there is no “merging.” Once you have a glimpse of this state, you have to maintain it with joyful effort; otherwise this realization can easily become blurred with conceptions. But when conceptions come, do not see them as obstacles. Simply maintain awareness. You will observe that conceptions naturally dissolve by themselves." ~ Venerable Khenpo Rinpoches Pointing Out the Nature of Mind (pg 106)

If anyone's interested https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dhamma_Chart_in_English.gif#/media/File:Dhamma_Chart_in_English.gif

Heavily laden with the weight of worldly concern, the minds of ordinary sentient beings are weighed down by the wearisome bulk of those lamentable woes. Realising the potential to relinquish that self-fabricated load, simply by recognising that we alone have long chosen to burden ourselves with it, the bodhisattva, with fleet of foot, agile mind, and brimful of vim and vigour, is released to work tirelessly for the benefit of all those who continue to labour on under the heavy weight of their convincing delusions, which manifest as the gross, subtle and extremely subtle afflictions that blight all ordinary sentient beings. ~ Paramito Ladakh

at the gross level, male & female in union gives rise to fleeting, physical bliss. at the subtle level, heart (wisdom) & mind (compassionate activity) in union gives rise to transcended bliss, manifesting in countless degrees of intensity, albeit this is still on the relative level. Within this level exists countless means by which humans attempt to escape the rounds of old habits (aka samsara aka spiritual paths aka awakening paths). But here, there is always that recognition and a yearning for something more than what exists on the gross plane of existence. the innermost 'secret' phase, surpassing all relative phenomena, which is already a seed present in the above two, but is completely unrecognizable at the gross level, and can gradually be glimpsed (sensed) at the subtle level, arises from the merging of relative activity (in Vajrayana parlance known as 'Method', which covers all conventional forms of practice vis a vis the preliminaries, or any other activity aimed at transcending mundane existence) with uninterrupted, incorruptible prajna (which is Wisdom realizing emptiness). Without prajna most if not all attempts at transcendence will not reach ultimate fruition. With Prajna even incomplete Method or insufficient activity quickly transforms into great realization. Thats why some paths are quicker to bear fruit, while in some others, practitioners need to do more hard grafting. Hence, in terms of the Buddhist Yanas, the Mahayana is known as the Great Path because its followers enter the path through training, albeit beginning at the relative level, in both conceptual wisdom practices and bodhicitta activity. Because it begins there at the conceptual level, often these followers are known (in literature) as fortunate sons and daughters... they train in order to mature their conceptual understanding while having already recognized the ultimate nature (rigpa). This is important because the goal becomes clear, and there will be no mistake of what ultimate fruition is.

SEVEN CORRUPTIONS Master Padmasambhava said: When practicing the Dharma there are seven types of corruption. The lady asked: What are they? The master said: if your faith is small while your intelligence is great, you become corrupted by considering yourself a teacher. If you have many listeners while your self-regard is high, you become corrupted by considering yourself a spiritual friend. If you assume superior qualities while not having taken the Dharma to heart, you become corrupted by considering yourself a leader. If you give oral instructions while not practicing them yourself, you become corrupted by being an insensitive "Dharma expert." If you are fond of senseless babble while lacking the Dharma in your heart, you become corrupted by being a craving charlatan yogi. If you have little learning while lacking the oral instructions, you become corrupted by being a commoner though your faith may be great. A genuine practitioner who acts in accordance with the true teachings should liberate his being with intelligence, tame his mind with faith, cut misconceptions with listening to teachings, cast away social concerns, mingle his mind with the Dharma, perfect his knowledge with learning and reflecting, resolve his mind with the oral instructions, and gain final certainty through the view and meditation. That, however, is difficult.

Dharmakaya = Unstainable nature (or ground) of awareness - purity without beginning or end - original perfection - Big Mind Sambhogakaya = The radiance, warmth & spontaneous compassion that arises in recognition of Dharmakaya's original perfection Nirmanakaya = Manifesting/emanating selfless, altruistic activities that result from the above recognition Thats the gist of it (in my understanding) - hope it helps a litte

Without any duality of perceiver and per­ceived, there is no way a normal thought can survive; it vanishes. The phrase ‘single sphere of dharmakaya’ refers simply to this original wakefulness. It is called single or sole, meaning not a duality, whereas the normal thinking mind is dualistic, and is never called single. If this holding onto duality is not dissolved from within, there is the per­petuation of subject and object, perceiver and perceived. ~ Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

Having control over appearances does not mean jumping off buildings and flying. Rather, it means that you do not cling to appearances as they seem to be in the usual worldly way of relating to them. Such appearances will not cause you suffering or tie you up once you have gained mastery over them through not clinging. It is prajna realising selflessness that frees you from samsara. Through knowing appearances to be inseparable from emptiness, you have mastery over them. It is not necessary to engage in behavior that is contrary to a mundane way of seeing things. ~ Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche

'Enlightenment' in some sense is a measure of one's altruistic heart. Therein lies the purpose (in answer to your last question). Im surprised this quality of enlightenment is so overlooked. The more altruistic your heartmind, the more people will acknowledge your 'status'. Those around you are the measure of your devotion, wisdom and level of inner freedom, expressed from your action, speech and mental composure. Its not something you can ponder and conclude on your own im afraid.

"The beauty of practicing refuge is that it requires us to put our moods and feelings in a less central place in our lives than practice. We practice every day, regardless of how we are feeling. On days when no obstacles are obvious, we practice because we understand that they are there nonetheless. We know that they will reappear in their illusory fashion because we are not yet free of delusion. The essence of refuge is that we put the practices in a central place in our lives and move all of our delusion to the periphery. We know it is there - we still see it - but we are more attracted to the bliss and joy of the Yidams than by the tedious, repetitive and destructive habits of our deluded emotions." ~ Tsochen Khandro

Thank you, Nikolai. I can relate to what you are sharing here. There is value in even the smallest transformation. Please don't misunderstand my motive - i am merely putting forward thoughts for consideration. Its not my intention to undermine anybody's process.

In my understanding, awakening will only be complete where there is an overflowing of compassion arising from, and not limited to, an amplified recognition that others are just as in need of the freedom (& the resulting fruits thereof) that one has glimpsed, and realising the immediacy of this, one will swiftly engage, rather than disengage and withdraw, from those things that one considers 'mundane', because the reality is, 'mundane' and 'extraordinary' are not two things. When one can bring 'magic' to the mundane, so that others who are experiencing it can sense the extraordinary in their mundaneness thru your realisation that is the mark or yardstick of a truly awakening process. Does it make sense to say one is experiencing awakening when others, being honest, will say they are not being supported by it? There is a level of refinement of the senses in the awakening process, where awareness becomes more inclusive (self) and expansive (others) simultaneously, and not just 'inclusive'. It is definitely not a dullish process.

Im sorry too, Nikolai.

The point i would like to put forward is that true awakening, in my understanding, enlarges one's field of awareness, not narrow it in such a way as to segregate between mundane and extraordinary activities. Is it helpful to have left the teacher waiting? What is the impression left on your son's mind thru such an oversight? While it may seem insignificant to you, it raises the question: Does awakening allow one to make more space for peripheral activities, or narrows one vision to such an extent as to ignore the state of other beings' welfare, and mistaking that for non-attachment? There is a big difference between the two.

then dont label it 'awakening', call it something like 'adjustment period', or 'spacing out'. Acknowledging experiences or stages of uncertainty for what they are truthfully could help save one from wasting years sitting on a park bench unsure what to do.

I would count then such experiences as having failed to complete the experiencer.

Boy is right. Bliss (as understood in Eastern spiritual contexts) cannot be confined to a 'self'.