stillness – 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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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

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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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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Theravada

One Who Is Awake

28/11/2009 | 5 Comments

I came across this today, an excerpt from Karen Armstrong’s upcoming book – The Case for God. It was such a beautiful piece of writing about the extraordinariness of One who is Awake that I thought I’d reproduce it here: From almost the very beginning, men and women have repeatedly engaged in strenuous and committed

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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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General Buddhism

Simple Pleasure

08/05/2008 | Leave a Comment

I’ve found myself experiencing some wonderment recently, at how pleasurable simply sitting still is, and doing absolutely nothing, (other than remaining in awareness). Doing nothing? How much of my life is caught up in doing? How much of it is to do with getting somewhere, achieving something, or trying to somehow alter what actually is?

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Vajrayana

The Blessings of Meditation

03/11/2004 | 1 Comment

There are some beautiful changes in my meditation at present which I thought I’d share. A month or so ago I switched to doing my daily meditation out in the open again, having spent much of the last 6 months meditating indoors. It’s been such a joy to meditate under the open sky, regardless of

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Mahamudra

The Ocean and Waves of Mind

08/09/2004 | Leave a Comment

Response to a question on a List: How do you access your mind. Thoughts are like waves and the mind is like the ocean. How do you access the ocean? Looking at your question, I will respond in three parts: – How do you access your mind? – Thoughts are like waves and the mind

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Thanks Cosette. I'm happy to hear you found a statue of White Tara. The deities feel like different coloured reflections…

This post is beautiful; thank you for sharing. I understand your observation about the scarcity of images of Prajnaparamita. I,…

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…