‘Question and answer’ oral instructions of the Wisdom Ḍākinī to Tilopa Shrī vajraḍākinī namo! Tilopa asked the wisdom Ḍākinī: what is awakening [Buddha]? The wisdom Ḍākinī responded: Tilopa! When the mind looks at mind, the ‘looker’ is mind, the ‘looked at’ is also mind. Like space gazing at space, both the ‘gazer’ and the ‘gazed […]
Severing the Bardo ‘Once and for All’ Read Post »
This Rigpa which is pointed to is nothing like the words used to point to it. Yet beings cannot help trying to point to it with words! No matter that any concept that forms in your mind is not ‘it’ in ‘itself’. Any object, any subject, any this or that is not it. Beyond all
Pointing Out the Nature of Mind – Dudjom Rinpoche Read Post »
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
Reflections on Verse 13 – Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness Read Post »
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
Sufi Mystic Al-Hallaj’s Beautiful Poem: Stillness Read Post »
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 –
Mary Oliver’s Profound Poem ‘The Summer Day’ Read Post »
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
The Life and Liberation of the Mind – Patrul Rinpoche Read Post »
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
Life’s Fleeting Nature: Kiba’s Poignant Jisei Death Poem Read Post »
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
Nobody is Running this Show Read Post »
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,
Li Bai / Li Po – The Birds Have Vanished Into The Sky Read Post »
I bow down at the feet of the supreme lama! It’s the mind fixated on objects that causes samsara.If you recognize as spontaneousThe luminous self-awareness, free of fixation,You’ll taste the fruit of the first yoga, one-pointedness. Some talk and talk about union, yet their meditation is all conceptual,They talk and talk about cause and effect,
Reflections on Milarepa – The Song of Distinguishing the Four Yogas Read Post »
