Luminous Emptiness

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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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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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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Other

Simply Wait – Franz Kafka

25/05/2010 | 3 Comments

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

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Mahamudra

All Experience is Mind

05/03/2009 | 2 Comments

All experience is mind is probably a misleading title for this post. It seems to suggest that experiences are ‘something’, and that this something is ‘mind’ – a thing. It’s as if there is this thing called mind which exists, and our job is to discover it, to reveal it. But actually, it doesn’t! Instead,

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Zen

Reflections on Niutou Farong – Song of Mind (Xin Ming)

15/02/2009 | 5 Comments

Some drowsy reflections on Niutou Farong’s Song of Mind (Xin Ming) when unable to sleep whilst ill … The nature of the mind is non-arising,What need is there of knowledge and views?Originally there is not a single dharma;Why discuss inspiration and training? Niutou Farong begins with the view, a view which includes the need to

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Mahamudra

Nobody is Running this Show

12/11/2008 | 1 Comment

One thing that’s been coming into view lately in meditation is how my common sense notions that ‘I’ am somehow taking the decisions and choices and thereby the active agent of my life is not actually backed up by experience. My conventional notion is that, for example, when I decide to switch my focus in

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Zen

Li Bai / Li Po – The Birds Have Vanished Into The Sky

22/07/2008 | 1 Comment

The birds have vanished into the sky,and now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me,until only the mountain remains. from Endless River: Li Po and Tu Fu: A Friendship in Poetry, Translated by Sam Hami. This is so evocative. A truly beautiful image, of Li Po sitting *with* the mountain,

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Mahamudra

Reflections on Maitripa – Essential Mahamudra Verses

09/07/2008 | Leave a Comment

To innermost bliss, I pay homage! Were I to explain Mahamudra, I would say—All phenomena? Your own mind!If you look outside for meaning, you’ll get confused.Phenomena are like a dream, empty of true nature,And mind is merely the flux of awareness,No self nature: just energy flow.No true nature: just like the sky.All phenomena are alike,

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Mahamudra

Reflections on Milarepa – Song of Six Essential Points

08/07/2008 | 2 Comments

Mental projections way outnumber the dust motes you see in the sunlight;A great yogi knows what appears for what it is. At bottom, the nature of things isn’t a product of causes, nor of conditionsA great yogi cuts to the core of the issue. Even a hundred men with spears couldn’t stop the thought-bubbles of

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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!