Luminous Emptiness – a Dzogchen / Mahamudra blog

Dharma Song (excerpt) from Kalu Rinpoche

On 28/05/2010

I was reading and meditating on this Dharma song from Kalu Rinpoche last night, and thought I’d share the beginning of it.

Rinpoche’s description of Mahamudra meditation comes from the Shangpa Kagyu tradition, but is no different to the Kagyu teachings I’ve received. Rest in awareness, without trying to do anything – and mind will free itself, all of itself.

E Ma Ho!
How wonderful!

Remain relaxed, without clinging or contrivance
Within mind’s nature, like space,
Free from any reference point
And with the vigor of vivid, mindful awareness.

Whatever outward or inward movement of thought arises,
Don’t lose hold of the vital inner glow of the expanse of mindfulness.
Don’t fabricate [mental states].
Rest your mind as it is –
It will be liberated into the absolute expanse.
Kalu Rinpoche

Kalu Rinpoche and his Mahamudra Dharma song — Kalu Rinpoche

Don’t take this or that as a vantage point, as a frame of reference, and indulge in comparisons. Don’t strive after this or that. Just rest in awareness, just as it is. However it is – is fine. It’s ok. It doesn’t need to be anything else.

Whatever thoughts arise – it’s fine. Whatever experiences arise – it’s fine. Whatever arises that appears as outer experience – stuff seemingly going on ‘out there’ in the world, or as inner experience – stuff seemingly happening ‘in here’ – this dreamlike mirage of experience – just rest in that experience.

Kalu Rinpoche describes beautifully the difference between the resting and doing nothing of Mahamudra or Dzogchen, and the doing nothing of just zoning out, or being lost in thought. It’s easy to imagine that you are doing Mahamudra by thinking I don’t need to do anything – whatever it is, however it is …. that’s Mahamudra. But what’s missing there, in that not-doing?

Awareness.

… and resting in that.

Don’t do anything in meditation – that’s for sure. Don’t try to fabricate anything, and make this or that experience arise, or try to get away from or transform this or that experience. But without awareness you are just lost. Lost in dualism and caught up in your ‘normal’ daydreaming state. This isn’t ‘ordinary mind’.

Just rest in whatever is – whatever is – without losing hold of the vital inner glow of the expanse of mindfulness – as Rinpoche calls it.

Rest in whatever is – and knowing will arise, and liberation is right there.

E Ma Ho!

How wonderful!

Simply Wait – Franz Kafka

By Chodpa

On 25/05/2010

In Other

I love this quotation from Franz Kafka – it really speaks to me about how easy it is to do something in meditation, to try to fabricate experience. It speaks so well of how I can let go of a sense of effort, of a sense of goal, or even of something to evaluate the meditation by, and how underneath that letting go there’s often something else which I’m clinging to which in turn can be let go of.

You do not need to leave your room.

Remain sitting at the table and listen.

Do not even listen, simply wait.

Do not even wait, be still and solitary.

The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice.

It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

Franz Kafka and his poem: The world will freely offer itself to you — Franz Kafka

The path to effortless meditation is often for me a shedding of onion layers. I see something clearly once my mind relaxes and rests in a seeing, and then I’m in a position to simply let go. Not a ‘doing’ let go – just a ‘letting go’ which happens of itself.

Only then can I hope to see a more subtle clinging, or a more subtle fabrication.

I can’t just drop it all at once, I find. And that too is part of the letting go.

Kafta describes beautifully the reorientation away from needing experiences ‘out there’ – the constant search for stimulation and meaning and resolution ‘in the world’, towards contemplation, towards knowing the nature of all that arises in experience. Instead of being transfixed by the seemingly dazzling variety of solid experiences, we find a dreamlike nature to experience itself, and of ourselves. And then, strangely enough, a fascination arises at this utter emptiness, yet play of appearances.

And Kafka’s punchline here? That the nature of things will reveal itself, all of itself – it has no choice. Let go and be. Let go and allow experience to unfold. Let go and know.

You don’t have to strive after a goal, of enlightenment, of freedom from suffering, as it will come to you on its own, effortlessly. Trust in that, and let go.

Rehearsing my life

By Chodpa

On 19/02/2010

In General Buddhism

I was just reflecting on just how much time I spend rehearsing my life, rather than, in a sense, just living it directly.

By this I mean …. how much time do I spend thinking about what I should do in the future? How much time is caught up in going through various scenarios of what should happen, what could happen, what might happen …. in myriad detail?

Compulsively these thoughts churn, end on end … tumbling in my mind.

Me trying to get ahead of the game. Me trying to get on top, me trying to beat someone else in some way.

Trying to visualise better outcomes. Trying to get it ‘right’.

And all of it imagined experiences, imagines scenarios of what might be.

Rehearsing my life image - wearing many masks — Rehearsing my life

So why am I doing this, out of control, compulsively spawning these versions of what could transpire?

Why am I not simply experiencing what is, right here?

Is the discomfort of sensations I don’t fully want to experience the driving force? Is it that I can’t fully allow these things to entirely permeate my awareness and allow myself to fully dwell in these things, however uncomfortable, however dull, is it this which compels me to spawn imaginary futures in which I rehearse life?

Of course being in the present and just experiencing life could mean just = fully experiencing these thoughts as *they* are what is right now as much as any bodily sensation, any feeling, any visual or auditory sensation, would be. Mahamudra has no enemies, especially not though.

Yet I tend not to experience it this way, at times. Thoughts are so seductive that I lose the open aspect of experience, the sense of thoughts in awareness, alongside all other sensations of being at that moment … and just get sucking into the content of the thought, losing all else to awareness.

And so it goes on, rehearsing, rehearsing, instead of opening to life as it is …..

Sometimes it’s like this ……