Seeing, Recognising & Maintaining One's Enlightening Potential

[C T]

"Although in Dzogchen meditation there is no distinction between the practice of sitting meditation and post-meditation, if at first you have not grasped sitting meditation on its own ground then you cannot integrate the insight of meditative experiences with the post-meditation experience. Even if you strive to turn the stream of daily activities to the spiritual path, you may deviate into 'losing the natural disposition in the general proliferation.' Therefore:

 

Divide meditation into sessions.

 

Dividing the practice into sessions this way, you may have the kind of practice where you feel certain that you can sustain the essence in the meditation state. But if you don't know how to integrate this with activities in post-meditation and then maintain that state continuously, the remedy will not work under all circumstances. And if an incidence of discursive thinking prevails, you will be consigned to the usual rut. So it is most important to maintain the transparent wakefulness in post-meditation. At all times and in all situations. 

 

At that time there is no need to look for some other meditation subject. In the meditation state imbued with this very dharmakaya view, vagrantly take no account of all the activities and thoughts, neither inhibiting nor indulging them, and maintain that with uncluttered immediacy."

 

~ Venerable Khenpo Rinpoches
    Lion's Gaze (pgs 90-91)

 

Edited November 2, 2015 by C T

[C T]

The Middle Way ~ Ajahn Brahm

 

Edited November 2, 2015 by C T

[C T]

Whilst those refined states of meditative consciousness have a seeming height and sharp, discriminating focus, natural awareness has an unspannable breadth and profound depth that effortlessly encompasses all, without bias or exclusion.

 

~ Paramito Ladakh

[C T]

Free Perception ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
 

To be attached to the reality of phenomena, tormented by attraction and repulsion, and obsessed by the eight worldly preoccupations is what causes the mind to freeze. Melt the ice of your concepts so that the fluid water of free perception can flow.

 

[C T]

Because we don't recognize our essential nature, we don't realize that although appearances arise unceasingly, nothing is really there.

 

We invest with solidity and reality the seeming truth of self, other, and actions between self and others.

 

This intellectual obscuration gives rise to attachment and aversion, followed by actions and reactions that create karma, solidify into habit, and perpetuate the cycles of suffering. This entire process needs to be purified.

 

~ Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

 

[C T]

The Three Kayas

According to the Mahayana view, nothing tangible or intangible can affect great emptiness, which is always unobscured and pure. This is called the essential permanence of Dharmakaya. Dharmakaya is completely pure formless form.

 

The nature of Dharmakaya is unobstructed like stainless sky, so any wisdom qualities and aspects can manifest from its unobscured spontaneity. Since Dharmakaya is pure, whatever appearances radiate from it are self-adornments and always pure. This pure appearance is called the continuous permanence of Sambhogakaya. Sambhogakaya is immeasureable qualities of flawless, inconceivable, desireless exaltation form.

 

Infinite manifestations, whether they seem to be objective or subjective, can spontaneously and unendingly manifest from the pure appearance of Sambhogakaya to benefit beings. These reflections can manifest as many impure aspects to connect with the impure phenomena of sentient beings to guide them to pure phenomena, and as many pure aspects to connect with the pure tangible phenomena of sentient beings to guide them to pure intangible phenomena. Although the occurrence of these appearances is definite, their aspects are an indefinite emanation of effortless compassion to the indefinite faculties of countless sentient beings, arising in any form, at any time, and in any direction. This is called the indefinite permanence of Nirmanakaya. Nirmanakaya is unobstructed, miraculous emanation form.

 

The quality of Dharmakaya is stainless, great emptiness. Since it does not have the permanence of an object, it never remains in the somethingness extreme of eternalism. Yet because of its  unobstructed nature, pure wisdom appearances unendingly manifest so that it never remains in the nothingness extreme of nihilism.

 

Even ordinary karmic phenomena are obscured, impure manifestations of the three kayas. For example, the state of deep sleep is the impure manifestation of Dharmakaya, beyond tangible and intangible material appearances. Dreams are the impure manifestation of Sambhogakaya, arising as intangible, subtle appearances beyond daytime’s tangible, gross appearances. Waking phenomena are the impure manifestation of Nirmanakaya, arising as tangible emanations of appearance. Through practice, these impure manifestations become the pure manifestations of the three kayas as they naturally are.

 

~ Thinley Norbu Rinpoche

[C T]

Attempts are made to develop awareness through awareness of body, awareness of surroundings, and also through group work of various kinds. But there’s a problem if we are unable to relate with and appreciate the insignificant details of our everyday life. Doing special body awareness practices might seem extraordinarily fruitful and liberating. Nevertheless, there’s still a dichotomy in your life. You feel the importance and the seriousness of the awareness practice in which you’re involved, but in fact, the more you feel that the whole thing is important and serious, the more your development of awareness is going to be destroyed. Real awareness cannot develop if you are trying to chop your experience into categories and put it into pigeonholes.

 

~ Chögyam Trungpa

 

[C T]

The Insight That Brings Us to the Other Shore
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"The insight of prajñaparamita, the perfection of wisdom as taught in the Heart Sutra, is the ultimate truth, transcending of all conventional truths. It is the highest vision of the Buddha.
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Prajñaparamita is the liberating insight that helps us to overcome all pairs of opposites, such as birth and death, being and non-being, defilement and immaculacy, increasing and decreasing, subject and object, and so on. All phenomena are products of dependent arising: that is the main point of the prajñaparamita teaching. This helps us to get in touch with the true nature of no birth/no death, no being/no non-being, etc., which is the true nature of all phenomena.
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This is a state of coolness, peace, and non-fear that can be experienced in this very life, in your own body and in your own five skandhas. It is nirvana. As it is said in a very beautiful sentence in the nirvana chapter of the Chinese Dharmapada, “Just as the birds enjoy the sky, and the deer enjoy the meadow, so do the wise enjoy dwelling in nirvana.”
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~ Thich Nhat Hanh

[C T]

the Thangka painter...

 

https://vimeo.com/102653054

[C T]

Stirring up your life
 

Never think that you will be able to settle your life down by practicing the Dharma. The Dharma is not therapy. In fact, it is just the opposite. The purpose of the Dharma is to really stir up your life. It is meant to turn your life upside down. If that is what you asked for, why complain? If it is not turning your life upside down, on the other hand, the Dharma is not working. That kind of dharma is just another one of these New Age methods; the Dharma should really disturb you.

 

~ Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

 

[C T]

In the bitter coldness of Yachen Gar, Tibet, several nuns are practicing Dzogchen with a simple shelter.

 

[Geof Nanto]

I was a Zen monk who didn’t know Zen

so I chose the woods for the years I had left

a robe made of patches over my body

a belt of bamboo around my waist

mountains and streams explain the Patriarch’s meaning

flower smiles and birdsongs reveal the hidden key

sometimes I sit on a flat-topped rock

late cloudless nights once a month

 

- from The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse (14^th century China) translated by Red Pine.

[C T]

Three kinds of dharma practitioners

........................
 

 

There are three kinds of dharma practitioners: firstly, there are those who look like practitioners outwardly, but inwardly they are not real practitioners; secondly, there are those who talk very high, but have no realization at all; thirdly there are those who do not look like practitioners outwardly, but who are in fact genuine practitioners inside.

 

~ Chatral Rinpoche

 

[C T]

A mere indescribable luminosity 

 

If what appears to be apprehended does not exist by its very own essence apart from

that which apprehends it, then what appears to be the apprehender does not exist either.

The reason, here, is that the apprehender exists in relation to the apprehended, 

not in isolation.

 

Therefore, awareness is devoid of both apprehender and apprehended,

in all their various forms.

Free from subject and object, by its very own nature

awareness is a mere indescribable luminosity.

 

~ Maitreya

Edited November 23, 2015 by C T

[C T]

Once bodhicitta has been aroused in you, whatever Dharma practices that you do will lead to the attainment of perfect enlightenment.  

 

~ Patrul Rinpoche

[C T]

Though we're conditioned to identify with the thoughts that pass through our awareness

rather than with awareness itself, the awareness that is our true nature is infinitely flexible.

It is capable of any and every sort of experience - even misconceptions about itself as limited,

trapped, ugly, anxious, lonely, or afraid.

 

When we begin to identify with that timeless, pristine awareness

rather than with the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that pass through it,

we've taken the first step toward facing the freedom of our true nature.

 

~ Mingyur Rinpoche

[C T]

The mind is not just 'oneness' or a singular entity because it manifests in manifold ways.

It is not a plurality or many things, either, because these numerous manifestations all have one essence.

No one can describe its nature saying, "It is exactly like this!" It is indescribable, unutterable, inconceivable, nonarising, unceasing, and nondwelling, like the essence of space.

 

~ Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche

 

[C T]

When you focus on praying with the heart of total devotion and trust in the Buddha by enjoying his loving-kindness, then before long, unconditional love—the Buddha’s blessings and loving-kindness—will take birth in you. You become what you are seeing, hearing, and feeling. As a popular proverb has it, “When you see the face of a laughing person,

you too will start laughing.When you see the face of a crying person,

you too will start crying.”

 

As an indication of developing loving-kindness in your mindstream, you could suddenly experience an indescribable heat with joyfulness or blissfulness. Tears of joy might stream from your eyes.You could feel every hair of your body rising with a sense of celebrating

the new birth of bodhicitta in you.

 

~ Tulku Thondup

 

Edited November 26, 2015 by C T

[C T]

Becoming friends with thoughts 
 

People with a misconception about meditation believe that all thoughts should cease. We cannot, in fact, establish ourselves in a state devoid of thoughts. The fruit of meditation is not the absence of thoughts, but the fact that thoughts cease to harm us. Once enemies, they become friends.

 

~ Bokar Rinpoche

 

[C T]

Suffering is of the Nature of Bliss 
 

The Buddha taught many times in the Mahayana sutras that the five aggregates, and the suffering that goes along with them, are of the nature of original and perfect purity. There is not the tiniest bit of impurity anywhere within them that needs to be abandoned.

 

Therefore, Mahayana practitioners do not want to be rid of their samsaric existence, but rather they aspire to take birth in samsara in as many bodies, in as many lifetimes as possible to be of benefit to sentient beings.

 

In Vajrayana practice, one cultivates the understanding that the five aggregates are of the nature of the five buddha families and that suffering is of the nature of bliss. Since that is the case, why would one ever want to abandon them? They are of the very essence of enlightenment.

 

~ Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche

[steve]

In actual reality, there is no Buddha apart from the mind, and you should not seek it anywhere other than in the realization of the nature of mind.

 

9th Karmapa

 

[Brian]

 

 

Suffering is of the Nature of Bliss

 

The Buddha taught many times in the Mahayana sutras that the five aggregates, and the suffering that goes along with them, are of the nature of original and perfect purity. There is not the tiniest bit of impurity anywhere within them that needs to be abandoned.

 

Therefore, Mahayana practitioners do not want to be rid of their samsaric existence, but rather they aspire to take birth in samsara in as many bodies, in as many lifetimes as possible to be of benefit to sentient beings.

In Vajrayana practice, one cultivates the understanding that the five aggregates are of the nature of the five buddha families and that suffering is of the nature of bliss. Since that is the case, why would one ever want to abandon them? They are of the very essence of enlightenment.

~ Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche

This resonates with me, CT. Thank you.

[C T]

Through being partial towards our lama, lineage and practice, we believe we are upholding them.

But to praise our own side whilst disparaging others is the source of attachment and aversion.

 

'To give all this up' is my heart advice.

 

~ Longchenpa

[Tibetan_Ice]

 

 

Suffering is of the Nature of Bliss

 

The Buddha taught many times in the Mahayana sutras that the five aggregates, and the suffering that goes along with them, are of the nature of original and perfect purity. There is not the tiniest bit of impurity anywhere within them that needs to be abandoned.

 

Therefore, Mahayana practitioners do not want to be rid of their samsaric existence, but rather they aspire to take birth in samsara in as many bodies, in as many lifetimes as possible to be of benefit to sentient beings.

In Vajrayana practice, one cultivates the understanding that the five aggregates are of the nature of the five buddha families and that suffering is of the nature of bliss. Since that is the case, why would one ever want to abandon them? They are of the very essence of enlightenment.

~ Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche

Why?

 

From Pure and Simple

 

http://www.amazon.com/Pure-Simple-Extraordinary-Teachings-Buddhist/dp/086171492X

 

If you can contemplate purely in these terms—that the five aggregates are inconstant, stressful, and not-self—you won’t enter into them and latch onto them as “you” or “yours.” If you don’t analyze them in this way, you’ll be trapped in dying. Even your bones, skin, flesh, and so forth will become “yours.” This is why we’re taught to contemplate death—so that we can make ourselves aware that death doesn’t mean that we die. You have to contemplate until you really know this. Otherwise, you’ll stay trapped right there. You must make yourself sensitive in a way that sees clearly how your bones, flesh, and skin are empty of any self. That way you won’t latch onto them. If you still latch onto them, you haven’t really seen into their inconstancy, stress, and not-selfness.

 

[C T]

Even the most erudite of teachers with vast scriptural learning can repeat words like a parrot without taking them to heart. But when death suddenly arrives, this will bring only pangs of regret. So rely on the essential meaning of the teachings, my heart-friends!

 

All the countless teachings of the Buddhas, so vast in number, are imparted purely as a means to subdue our own minds. Don't put your faith in words alone! I urge you once again - Let the key points of the deeper meaning seep into your hearts!

 

~ Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche

 

Edited December 4, 2015 by C T