Luminous Emptiness – a Dzogchen / Mahamudra blog

Reflections on Verse 13 – Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness

05/09/2024 | Leave a Comment

The Terton Karma Lingpa discovered the Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness on top of Mount Gampodar when aged 15, together with the text commonly known in the west as the Tibetan Book of the Dead – more correctly called Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State The Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness is […]

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Sufism

Sufi Mystic Al-Hallaj’s Beautiful Poem: Stillness

03/09/2024 | Leave a Comment

I thought I’d share a few reflections on a very beautiful poem by Mansur Hallaj. A brief biography of Mansour al-Hallaj Mansour al-Hallaj or Mansour Hallaj was a Persian mystic, poet, and teacher of Sufism. He was born 858 CE in Iran and died in 922 in Baghdad, Iraq. He is best known for his

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Dzogchen

Guide to the Three Statements of Garab Dorje

02/09/2024 | 4 Comments

I thought I’d write a guide to the The Three Statements of Garab Dorje. This teaching has been so fundamental for me in relation to Dzogchen. It’s extraordinarily concise, but in a way all of Dzogchen is contained there in essence. The whole Dzogchen path opens out from these statements. The Three Statements of Garab

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Other

Mary Oliver’s Profound Poem ‘The Summer Day’

31/08/2024 | Leave a Comment

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean – the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –

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Dzogchen

The Life and Liberation of the Mind – Patrul Rinpoche

30/08/2024 | Leave a Comment

I thought I’d reflect on Patrul Rinpoche’s profound Dzogchen teaching on the nature of mind, awareness, and emptiness. The wisdom of inseparable emptiness and clarity is so clearly and directly pointed out here in his ‘The Life and Liberation of the Mind’. Emaho!Mind itself has always been without substance.It is not seen by looking, but

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Dzogchen

Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness – Verse 10 – Karma Lingpa / Padmasambhava

16/08/2024 | Leave a Comment

These verses from Self-Liberation: Through Seeing with Naked Awareness are as if directly spoken face to face with me by Karma Lingpa. How potent! Mind’s nature is empty It is certain that the nature of the mind is empty and without any foundation whatsoever. Your own mind is insubstantial like the empty sky. You should

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Dzogchen

The Fourfold Resting – Chokgyur Lingpa

06/08/2024 | Leave a Comment

The fourfold resting is: Rest your body like a corpse in a charnel ground, without preference or fixed arrangement. Rest your voice like a broken waterwheel, in a state of stillness. Rest your eyes like a statue in a shrine room, without blinking, in a continuous, focused gaze. Rest your mind like a sea free

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Zen

Life’s Fleeting Nature: Kiba’s Poignant Jisei Death Poem

06/08/2024 | Leave a Comment

This Jisei, or death poem by the 19th century Japanese poet Kiba captures so poignantly the ephemeral effervescence that is a human life. Life is so fleeting. My old body: a drop of dew grown heavy at the leaf tip Kiba, 1868Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of DeathYoel

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Dzogchen

Mind Itself Is A Vast Expanse, The Realm Of Unchanging Space

31/07/2024 | Leave a Comment

Mind itself is a vast expanse, the realm of unchanging space. Its indeterminate display is the expanse of the magical expression of its responsiveness. Everything is the adornment of basic space and nothing else. Outwardly and inwardly, things proliferating and resolving are the dynamic energy of awakened mind. Because this is nothing whatsoever yet arises

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Zen

Empty-Handed I Entered The World – Kozan Ichikyo

26/07/2024 | Leave a Comment

There’s nothing to add to this Jisei (death poem). So profound. Empty-handed I entered the world Barefoot I leave it. My coming, my going — Two simple happenings That got entangled. Kozan IchikyoJapanese Death Poems Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of DeathYoel Hoffman Original source: Tuttle Publishing

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Thanks for this. I see this as pointing to two things: 1 - Recognising the nature of your mind -…

Thanks Ali, much appreciated. I've used a number of things to help with slipping back into the contraction of conceptual…

Well explained. I found that it is quite challanging to maintain recognition of rigpa because we are easily caught up…

Thanks Paulo, I appreciate it.

This post is excellent, thank you!