steve

One

I sometimes cannot relate to things you post, but I can say that about every person here. I love our idiosyncrasies and our collective weirdness. I for one hope you stick around. It just wouldn't be quite as interesting or exotic without you!

Someone asked me this question about a year ago and, without thinking much about it, what came out was... I am practicing for my death. It sort of surprised me, and them as well. My practice has become mostly informal, meaning not just on the cushion but in my day to day life, as often and consistently as possible. It's wonderful to sit in a quite, comfortable room and practice but if my practice is not there for me when I am challenged and stressed, when I am suffering; if it is not enriching my life, and the lives of those around me in the moment, making me more kind, flexible, resilient, resourceful, creative... what is the point? (that is a rhetorical question, I am only speaking for myself - everyone has their own path and objectives). So my point is that I continue to practice so that I can be supported to show up fully in my life and to be able to access and bring all available resources to any and every given situation to the best of my ability. Death is likely to present the biggest challenge in my life. How to let go of everything I have, everything and everyone I've known, and everything that I am? And how to do it without too much suffering for myself and for those around me? Of course, it's nice to say things like - I am God, I am the universe, I am the non-local awareness, Buddha, the Nature of Mind. I am birthless, deathless... I have no fear of death. But they are all words... the test comes when there is extreme pain, illness, when the body and mind are close to the end and loved ones are waiting and suffering. What will it be like then? I watched my father die not too long ago and there was so much pain, so much fear. It was excruciating for him and those around him in the last few days. Wouldn't it be interesting to navigate that with some peace, some confidence, some equanimity and directly experience that transition and what lies beyond with as much clarity as possible? Rather than be heavily drugged and hooked up to all sorts of high tech garbage? I think so... at the moment. And of course, circumstances may change my mind when it's my turn. Time will tell! In the tradition I follow, it's said that we should be able to bring all life's experiences onto the path. Life itself becomes the practice. So for me, at this moment, practice really has no endpoint, I guess I can say I am practicing to live and to die.

I would say that for the practitioner, it is very much of time. There is a very distinct before and after.

Your method for dream work is very similar to the method in my tradition for working with any experience, including dreams. Just as you recreate and embody the dream in your mind and feelings, we do the same with any experience or person that generates reactivity. These can be very recent experiences, alive in us at this very moment. They can be remote memories, dreams, people who generate reactivity, future worries, any life experience. We turn to the experience if it is active in the moment, or recreate whatever it is we want to work with as vividly as possible in body, speech, and mind. We sit with that for as long as it is fresh and alive. While we don't engage with it intellectually, we are often taken to earlier times and other experiences that may have some connection, often a connection we were not aware of. The one thing that may be a bit different is that we are working with the sense of a "me" who is being affected by the experience rather than hosting the experience itself. It's a very subtle but important difference in our paradigm. And we rest in the stillness, silence, and spaciousness. This is referred to as hosting pain identities. . It's a wonderful and powerful practice and one way we avoid the bypassing that can so easily happen to practitioners.

I can't see how anything I described is evolution. Feel free to explain. The perfect and pure mind, otherwise known as Buddha-mind, does not evolve. People like to say things like 'only the Self knows the Self,' in my tradition it is often referred to as "Self-awareness," but nevertheless the ones writing and talking about this stuff, teaching others, having realization, traversing the bardos, and engaging in practice are people. They are manifestations, expressions of the Self, not equivalent to the Self. My teacher's teacher used to say, "Remember, we are not dzogchen, we are dzogchen-pa," -pa- referring to practitioner. Seeing yourself as "the Self" or the pure nature of mind, is an error, it denies our human form and related imperfections which color our experience, though they can be extremely subtle at times. This conflation leads to deviations in practice and understanding. This is just my experience and understanding of the tradition I study and practice. Others may experience and understand things differently. ...or to a vacation rental on Deep Creek Lake. At least I had a few days off work to adjust. It was a wild ride!

I agree, it is an apparent and passing identity. Nevertheless, it is how we experience life from birth to death, defined by this human form and sensory apparatus. It is what we have to practice and realize with. Realization does not mean that our human form vanishes, at least that is my experience. It persists until death or rainbow body (in the dzogchen tradition). Consequently, it is important for me to be aware that I am not the pure and perfect mind itself, i am a practitioner - which is an expression of that pure and perfect mind. Conflating the two leads to errors in understanding and practice in the teachings I follow.

Expensive poison!

Yes, but one can have one hell of an argument! DaoBums for the win!

I've not spent much time on the path of renunciation so I can't really comment much. Not saying it would not be effective, even for me maybe, but I'm glad I found an alternative. I do think it is a difficult path to tread for a householder. Not sure where or if an "if" would fit in there, do you have a suggestion?

Anonymous internet intercourse is always tricky... don't ya think?

The synchronicity of the DaoBums provides... a brief description of working with the tsa, lung, and thigles in the Bön tradition, recently posted on FB by a young practitioner from Menri monastery in Himachal Pradesh for any curious -

Agreed, one mistake is to take it as a goal, per se, another to consider it a separate state. While it is a valuable skill to cultivate, once there is some level of success and stability it should no longer be treated as final goal. It is more of a tool. The goal becomes total integration in all states of human experience. For sure the method is prone to abstraction and disconnection. This is why expert guidance and a close relationship with a lineage and teacher are so important. I very much agree. The work must address everything in human experience, from the coarsest to the most subtle. There is work at each level. In the dzogchen tradition I follow, every formal practice session includes elements from sutra, tantra, and dzogchen. At a minimum prayers, energetic cleansing, and guru yoga. In life, one must attend to the physical body, the subtle body, and mind's nature. I think it is a mistake to fault mahamudra or dzogchen, per se. The fault lies with the teacher and/or the practitioner. That is where misleading and misunderstanding occur. In these vehicles, there is a common tendency to conflate the practitioner with the inherent perfection of the primordially pure essence. It is not surprising, given that this is the very essence of the practitioner herself. It is my contention that in the living being, there is never complete and perfect union with / resting in pristine consciousness. Any experience we have of "that" is actually an experience of the release of an obstacle that was previously limiting our openness, our spaciousness, our warmth in some way. This is in part because in life we are always limited by our human form and in part because what we are pointing to in these teachings is not "a state" of any sort in the way we can envision what that means. We remain human and it is the human mind that experiences and recollects the release of limitations as some special state. That in and of itself is a bit of an error. Yes, there can be a lot of talk, particularly by anonymous folks online and in teaching sessions especially when beginner and intermediate practitioners are involved, but the talk and study are released and become less interesting as the path is understood. There was a time when I couldn't get enough of reading and listening to the teachings. I would read before, during, and after work, and on the weekends. I would listen to recordings whenever driving. Now these rarely hold my attention any longer. It is the resting and the integration that are most fascinating and engaging for the most part.

Nungali is like life. Sometimes they will slap you in the face, sometimes tickle you with joy, sometimes you feel like you just need a break, and at other times they will surprise you with the unexpected. I have ignored some people here on occasion (never Nungali though) when not modding. One of the downsides of being a mod/admin - you can't ignore people. I haven't felt the need to do so in a long time, probably not since the great right wing expulsion. The people who irritate me the most are pointing to something in me that is worthy of acknowledgement, recognition, and reconciliation. It's a bit like forgiveness in that it is more for the one offering than for the one receiving, though both can ultimately benefit. Now that I've spouted off some wise sounding words, someone will probably piss me off enough to put them on ignore any time now!

Curiosity is most wonderful and is the motivating factor for both my interest in meditation and my interest in science. Each is a valid and valuable avenue of exploration of the nature of me, which is not separate from the nature of the universe. I would feel incomplete if I didn't give some of my attention to each. For me, both are inextricably connected.