Rainer Maria Rilke in a portrait by Paula Modersohn-Becker

 

a short biography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Maria_Rilke

 

Rainer Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926) is generally considered the German language's greatest 20th century poet.  One of his most famous books of poetry, and the one thought to have been his favorite, is Duino Elegies, published in 1923.

 

 

 

We know nothing of this going away, that
shares nothing with us. We have no reason,
whether astonishment and love or hate,
to display Death, whom a fantastic mask

of tragic lament astonishingly disfigures.
Now the world is still full of roles which we play
as long as we make sure, that, like it or not,
Death plays, too, although he does not please us.

But when you left, a strip of reality broke
upon the stage through the very opening
through which you vanished: Green, true green,
true sunshine, true forest.

We continue our play. Picking up gestures
now and then, and anxiously reciting
that which was difficult to learn; but your far away,
removed out of our performance existence,

sometimes overcomes us, as an awareness
descending upon us of this very reality,
so that for a while we play Life
rapturously, not thinking of any applause.


Rainer Maria Rilke
(tr. Cliff Crego)

A collection of 60 of Rilke's most striking
poems. Print as 8 1/2" x 11" (A4), or
download as PDFs
http://picture-poems.com/rilke/rilkeposters.html

hear readings and more poems

http://picture-poems.com/rilke/index.html

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Buddha In Glory

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet--
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

–  Rainer Maria Rilke 

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This is John Reynolds’ site, for those who are interested.
 
http://www.vajranatha.com/
 
His latest book, “The oral tradition from the Zhan-Zhung” is going to become a “cornerstone” for the people that have an interest for this specific lineage, and in Dzogchen in general.
 
Beyond the books “officially” released, I highly suggest you to check John’s “private” publications here

http://www.vajranatha.com/publications.htm

The texts of the “Bonpo Translation Project” are simply priceless, in my opinion. Their limited circulation is intentional, as you will read in the web page.
 
Besides, having listened to some of his lectures on the Tibetan tradition, and after meeting him, I consider John Reynolds much more than a “simple” translator. Just check his rich commentaries and essays after the translations, to have an idea. This is my personal opinion at least.
 
Cheers
 
Andrea
 

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THE GOLDEN LETTERS:

In the nineteenth century in Eastern Tibet, the famous master Patrul Rinpoche wrote a brilliant commentary on these three statements, together with the contemplation practices relating to them, entiled "The Special Teachings of the Wise and Glorious King," (mKas-pa shri rgyal-po' khyad chos). In this volume these important Dzogchen texts of Garab Dorje and Patrul Rinpoche are translated from the Tibetan into contemporary English. Notes, commentaries, and glossary of Dzogchen terms are also included.

TRANSLATION OF THE LAST TESTAMENT OF GARAB DORJE:
The Last Testament of Garab Dorje: "The Three Statements that Strike the Essential Points<' from "The Posthumous Teachings of the Vidyadharas."

NAMO GURUVE!

Homage to that confidence deriving from understanding one's own state of immediate intrinsic Awareness!

This state of immediate intrisic Awareness (called Rigpa) is uncreated and self-existing. Its mode of being represents the essence that is the primordial Base. Everywhere the manner in which it arises in response to external appearences, which are themselves diverse, is uninterrupted and unobstructed. Moreover, all the phenomena that appear and that exist, arise (spontaneously self-perfected) within the field of the Dharmakaya. Whatever appearences may manifest therein are directly liberated after their arising due to the presence of one's own state of immediate Awareness (rig-pa).

As for the real meaning of this: All of the enlightened states, which consist of non-dual knowledge that is primordial awareness (ye-shes), present within the hears of all the Sugatas are, in fact,encompassed within this single unique state of immediate intrinsic Awareness found within every individual sentient being.

http://www.vajranatha.com/excerpt/GoldenLetters.htm

 

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ConsciousOneness@yahoogroups.com

 

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A short essay on light

 http://www.zenunbound.com/lightinenlightenment.html

 

excerpt:

 

 

Seeing Amber - A personal, spiritual encounter
by Olga Buttigieg

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift"
- Einstein

Bill Ferguson's exhibition Metaphors for the Invisible is about story, relationship and deep knowing. His paintings resonate. 'Every story you hear has an echo of an ancient story'. (Arnold Zable, 2005)

You enter these stories by being fully present and still.

This story connects to the Aboriginal way of knowing 'dadirri'. 'Dadirri is a special quality, a unique gift of the Aboriginal people, is inner deep listening and quiet still awareness. Dardirri recognises the deep spring that is inside us. It is something like what you call contemplation'. (Miriam Rose Ungenmerr-Baumann)

The meandering dots, as seen in a number of paintings, invite us to be co-companions on a journey and to question on what is "real" by reflecting on the invisible and visible, on "being and un-being". Bill Ferguson expresses this tension as a paradoxical state of matter as being pure energy. There is an 'uncluttered' deep song emerging from these "song lines" of meandering dots in his landscapes. The spaces between the dots is our invitation to enter and engage with stillness.

Bill Ferguson For a non secret ritual, 2005 Courtesy of the artist and Blacksphere Gallery

We have inherited an empirical, objectivist way of looking at reality. We demand answers, or a solution and to have certainty to every situation. We are rewarded when we produce the correct response, rather than when we create new possibilities.

The spaces give us 'space'. The "nothingness" renders the dots beautiful by giving to us the permission to be still and pause. The spaces give us silence and waiting. There is an intuitive awareness that cannot be adequately expressed in words

The spaces are metaphors for slowing down. We are constantly active and hypnotised by the "busyness of life". Our culture values 'the visible' and values experiences where there is an element of control.. Bill Ferguson challenges this Grand Narrative and offers us a new story.

He restores the balance to this dominant masculine worldview with a landscape filled with "humility, mystery, vulnerability, community and an authentic inclusive way of being in this world.

There is 'relationship' in this exhibition: the journey of the artist and art are authentic. The paintings demand our attention. You are engaged in something that you feel is part of your own story. There is a resonance and a rhythm as a result of our connectedness and moves you towards a wholeness of being.

The journey of the dots and spaces call us "to be", and that Being, not wanting, having and doing is what is the essence of spiritual life. The richness and simplicity of Being brings forth a liberating freedom. Bill Ferguson's work can be likened to Russian icons. The icon is sometimes referred to as a "window of eternity". A window is like a veil an invisible barrier that you can see through. It lets in light and you can experience the outer world. It is a bridge between two worlds.

The icon is ecclesial in nature. It is founded on the mysteries of Incarnation and Transfiguration. The incarnational foundation of the icon stresses the importance of the personal experience and enjoyment of creation. The deep connection and "relationship" with the outer world is a necessary element of the process of creating the icon. The icon is based on the tension between the earthliness experience of this world and eternity. The "purpose" of creating an icon is to be a meeting point or a window or door in which we can enter and meet God. At the base of every icon is a spiritual experience. It is an invitation to be caught up in the messiness and chaos of life to enter this world that is beyond our understanding. Richard Rohr (2002) defines these moments as liminal.

"It is a special psychic and spiritual place where all transformation happens. It is when we are betwixt and between, and therefore 'not in control'"

There is always a paradox, a tension that exists. You need to be part of this world to be part of the other world. To be transfigured is a sense is to be touched by this world.

The 'jewel' of this exhibition is the painting "For a Non Secret Ritual".

This painting dominates the exhibition and your attention.

Firstly the archetypal symbols of law, life, birth, male, female challenge your cognitive domain. Question emerges and activates within the viewer a journey towards meaning and connected knowing.

Silence and stillness before this "icon" enables you to enter into a deeper more ancient, intuitive way of knowing, that of the non-verbal. Being fully present, being open connects us to our feelings, emotions and affective ways of knowing. This way of knowing is not only as valid as the cognitive but enables our whole being to be "renewed". We 'see' and 'know' more holistically. There is interplay between verbal and non-verbal, and activation and an interconnection between the right and left sides of the brain. The non-verbal now becomes accessible. We have words or language that now connects both the verbal with the non-verbal.

The relationship between the verbal and non-verbal experiences brings forth a transfiguration. There is a new knowing, a new way of being and seeing. A new energy of sound emerges from within the painting that we can now hear. This spiritual experience takes us beyond ourselves at that moment of time and place and connects us to a larger story.

The sacred amber that is seen on the right hand side of the painting "For a Non Secret Ritual" hints and teases and 'calls' us. We recognise the call deep within us. It was never a secret, it has enabled us to see our "own inner nakedness" and that we are and have always been "spiritual beings having a human experience".

The precious amber, speaks not only of the divine but once again reaffirms, that in order for the spiritual experience to exist in the first place - like the precious amber stone we need to be fully bodily present within our environment which means to be covered at times (not knowing) with sediments of various layers that exert pressure and challenges.

It is only with the engagement with these layers and being part of the environment (our world), that transformation is possible.

Amber which once lay hidden in the depths of mud (in our mind) on the river bed has emerged and now glistens in the light.

For a Non Secret Ritual acts like a portal for our interior transformation, it enables the non verbal emotions, feelings, symbols, intuitions to connect with the verbal analytical and we have a new language to express our spiritual experience.

Bill Ferguson reminds us of this sacred gift.

© Olga Buttigieg, PhD student at A.C.U. (St. Patrick's Campus)

Bill Ferguson's exhibition Metaphors for the Invisible was at Blacksphere Gallery, 217 Swan St, Richmond VIC 3121 from 27 October - 13 November 2005. Photos from the exhibition: http://www.blacksphere.us/exhibitions/BillFerguson.htm

 

 

 

Today selections from 4 blogs. The bloggers are Charlie Hayes, whonowz, Jody Radzik, and Margaret Cho. Please let me know about other blogs.

 

--Jerry Katz

 

 

 

 

  http://charliehayes.blogspot.com/

As the inquiry completes, you know, beyond doubt, that "Right here right now all there is, is Aliveness, and I Am that." Click Here to hear "Introducing Your True Nature" (Audio, mp3 ... a bit staticy but hey, it's FREE!)

 

Here's your Daily Poem from the Poetry Chaikhana --

Praise Them By Li-Young Lee (1957 - ) The birds don't alter space. They reveal it. The sky never fills with any leftover flying. They leave nothing to trace. It is our own astonishment collects in chill air. Be glad. They equal their due moment never begging, and enter ours without parting day. See how three birds in a winter tree make the tree barer. Two fly away, and new rooms open in December. Give up what you guessed about a whirring heart, the little beaks and claws, their constant hunger. We're the nervous ones. If even one of our violent number could be gentle long enough that one of them found it safe inside our finally untroubled and untroubling gaze, who wouldn't hear what singing completes us?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#2341 - Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - Editor: Jerry Katz

 

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Surfing still hasn't seen the emergence of a nondual literature as have, to one degree or another, baseball, basketball, archery, boxing, running, the martial arts. However there is a spiritual literature associated with surfing and I've brought it to the Highlights over the  years. Here is another article on the spirituality of surfing.

From the article below:

"For Bethany, surfing is a form of prayer, a manifestation of faith. Cutting against the grain of the old surfing stereotype, she recently made an anti-drug commercial. She is a national hero, a latter-day angel, a synthesis of surfing, salvation, and cinema.

"But Bethany always was and remains a serious long-term wave-user. She is the real deal, unfazed by trauma or celebrity. She has recovered superbly from her brush with the apocalypse and, given a few years, could yet make an impact on the pro ranks. She doesn't really need to pitch any message: she is the message."

Bethany Hamilton's website is http://www.bethanyhamilton.com/

 

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Bethany Hamilton: Triumph of a free spirit

In 2003, 13-year-old Bethany Hamilton's arm was ripped off by a huge
shark. Weeks later she was back in the water. Now she's riding high.

Andrew Martin meets her Published: 14 December 2005

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article333121.ece

There is a warning sign along the sandy track leading down to the
beach: "LEAVE THIS SIDE CLEAR FOR EMERGENCY VEHICLES". Behind me,
steep serrated green crags are stacked up like immense teeth. This is
where it happened, I can't help thinking as I stroke out over the
disturbingly shallow reef. Here, at "Tunnels" on the Hawaiian island
of Kauai, about 8am on the morning of Halloween, 31 October 2003,
13-year-old Bethany Hamilton was floating on her board in the
crystal-clear waters of the Pacific, dreaming of the perfect wave,
when a 15ft tiger shark knifed up out of the water alongside her. The
great jaws opened then snapped shut. It swam away, having bitten off
a crescent-shaped chunk of her red, white, and blue board and 90 per
cent of Bethany Hamilton's left arm.

She was out surfing with her best friend, Alana Blanchard, and her
best friend's dad. Blanchard senior ripped off his vest and used it
as a tourniquet on what was left of the girl's arm and slowly,
agonisingly, they guided her to shore. In the ambulance that took
Bethany to the nearest hospital (nearly an hour away) the paramedics
thought she had lost so much blood that she was going to die.

By an uncanny coincidence, her own father was in the operating
theatre about to have surgery on his knee. He was wheeled out to make
way for a terribly injured girl who had been out surfing at Tunnels.

Tom Hamilton knew then it could only be Alana or his own daughter. It
was his worst nightmare come true, every father's worst nightmare,
everybody's worst nightmare: Jaws, The Beast, Little Red Riding Hood.
It struck a universal chord of horror: the next day a paper published
a picture of the surfboard with the chunk bitten out of it.

Fast forward to today and go a few miles east, to the breathtakingly
lovely Hanalei Bay. There are maybe a dozen guys out on a lazy 4ft
day at the break known as "Pine Trees". And a girl. She is quite
distinctive. As the woman who works at the Hanalei Surf Shop said to
me: "You can't miss her. She's 15, blonde, and has only one arm."

Added to which, even in the fearsomely competitive Hawaiian waters,
Bethany Hamilton is still the best surfer out there, grabbing more
than her fair share of waves, and carving radical, aggressive lines
into the face.

There's always something magical and mysterious about surfing:
walking on water, rising to your feet and staying on them even as the
wave is crashing down and trying to take you down with it. But to see
a girl with one arm doing all of the above is little short of
miraculous. She can still paddle after a fashion, using one arm and a
foot dropping off the back of the board. And she has developed a
technique of positioning herself right on the peak, in effect making
a late take-off every time, dropping down the face and levering
herself up by shoving down on a wooden handle strapped to the deck.

We have the kind of salty, halting, monosyllabic conversation,
punctuated by passing waves, that you have in the water:

Me: "Good wave."

Her: "Thanks."

Me: "Liked your book."

Her: "Cool."

The book I refer to is called Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith,
Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board. There are a couple of
other monosyllables I think about uttering: one of them is "shark",
the other, "God", and they both play a big part in the book. But one
way and another I can't quite spit them out.

 

link to Amazon.com: http://snipurl.com/krt0

 

Back on the beach, she's surrounded by a cordon sanitaire of
intimidating bodyguards: a crowd of other blonde 15-year-olds in
bikinis. It was lucky I was standing there in baggy shorts or I may
have been tempted to ask for an autograph. As it is, I awkwardly
shake her by the hand. I come within a whisker of bowing.

Bethany Hamilton is a classic girl-next-door, tall and slim, shy,
with streaky blonde hair, freckles on her face and braces on her
teeth. Her conversational staples are "yeah" and "uh-huh". She lives
with her parents, two brothers and a dog in a sprawling house with
banana trees in the garden in the secluded village of Princeville
that stands on the bluffs overlooking Hanalei Bay.

She likes to go to the cinema and one of her favourites is The
Passion of the Christ. And she is, so far as it is possible to make
out on the back of our brief encounter, stupendously unaffected by
either the shark or the subsequent wave - the tsunami of attention
she has received in America.

One of the first things she said, while recovering in hospital, was,
"When can I go surfing again?" One of the second was, "Does this mean
I'm going to lose my sponsorship?" Gary Dunne, team manager of the
surfing company Rip Curl, flew from Australia to reassure her on
that. Rip Curl has sponsored her since, at the age of 10, she started
winning nearly every title that a 10-year-old girl can win. "Our
ambition," he said, "is to see her surfing again just as well as she
would have done without the bloody shark."

She got back in the water a bare few weeks after the shark-attack.
Now she has her own coach, and she recently won an amateur National
Surfing Association title in California (although she also went out
early in the two pro-contests on Oahu, at Haleiwa and Sunset Beach).
As far as Rip Curl was concerned, she could go on just as before.

But Dunne was not the only bedside visitor. Among the swarm of
advisers and consultants who fell over themselves to offer their
services, Roy Hofstetter stood out. A "Hollywood agent", with an
office in Beverly Hills, he had white hair and a very smart suit. As
far as he was concerned, everything had changed. Bethany was no
longer a surfer, she was a potential "superstar". He went into
overdrive and engineered a feeding frenzy among competing television
shows. Soon the girl with true grit, the girl who never lost her
faith even if she lost her arm, was on screens coast-to-coast. She
was on Oprah. She was on Tonight and on a programme entitled
Fearless.

Soon Hofstetter, talking phone numbers, had sold the film rights to
her story to a major production company. And he even had her giving
speeches to the troops, marines wounded in Iraq (although in fact she
forgot her speech and took questions instead). "You could say that we
have been hired by George Bush," he announced.

In Hawaii for the Rip Curl Pipeline Masters, Dunne said this week,
"We didn't want to commodify her. We didn't want to go down the
merchandising road."

But Bethany Hamilton has become a commodity. Her name is attached to
merchandise. Already on sale is a "Bethany Fragrance" - with two
lines, "Wired" and "Stoked", enticingly presented in surfboard-shaped
bottles. Bethany jewellery is coming soon. Earlier this year her
autobiography was published. She engagingly admits that, "I never
wanted to write a book," but was talked into it.

Hofstetter was one of the persuaders. It took teamwork to get the job
done. First she poured out all her raw feelings to her pastor at the
Kauai Christian Fellowship, Rick Bundschuh; he then wrote down the
first draft, which was conveyed to Sheryl Berk in New York, who had
already ghosted the lives of Britney Spears (Stages) and Sopranos
star Jamie-Lynn DiScala (Wise Girl).

I really do - as I said - like her book. All those vicious surfing
metaphors - "rip", "carve", "shred" - are made shockingly literal.
It's a fairytale, a myth that happens to be true, of being swallowed
by the monster and making an amazing escape. It's little short of
resurrection story, rising from a watery grave. And it is a good news
story, of overcoming immense pain and suffering, of the inspirational
kind.

There is a lot about God in it, too. God is not an add-on in
Hamilton's young life, an embroidery stitched in by an over-zealous
pastor. God saw her through her troubles and gave her the strength to
get back on her board. The sceptical question I couldn't bring myself
to formulate out at Pine Trees was: if God was keeping such a
tremendously close and benevolent eye on you, how come he dozed off
that morning at Tunnels?

I already knew her answer: it was the trial she had to endure, like
Job, just as others, too, must endure theirs. In the US, in the 21st
century, it was a tremendously powerful message. Hamilton was taken
up by the evangelical lobby and put on show as a wounded born-again
icon at a rally of 50,000 believers in Washington. She won not only
an award for the best comeback but another for being "Most Inspiring
Person of the Year". She had become Saint Bethany.

The Bethany Hamilton story symbolises a metamorphosis within surfing.
In the 19th century, buttoned-up east-coast Puritan evangelists
sailed to Hawaii and denounced surfing as a pagan exercise in
idolatry only one notch below mass orgies and cannibalism. In the
20th century, surfing underwent a renaissance as the sport - not even
a sport, more a statement, graffiti on waves - of the rebel, the
anarchist, the outsider, a whole marginal subculture of alienated
youth. In the new millennium, Christianity has shrewdly reclaimed
surfing for itself.

Surfing has always been transcendental in spirit. But it had a
dreamy, mystic, Zen flavour. Shaun Thomson, South African 1970s world
champion, said: "Time slows down in the tube." Surfing was a
hallucinatory drug and surfers returned to the beach looking as if
they were still in a trance. But then it started to get mainstream
and wholesome. Surfers, instead of being stubbly, dedicated losers
from broken homes, became solid citizens with supportive parents.
With the rise of the surf industry, they became athletes.

Now, as the writer Cintra Wilson scathingly remarked in her article
"Jesus Christ, Personal Friend of Surfing": "Many [surfers] are big
Jesus freaks, in a real Old Testament, Book of Jeremiah, the
Apocalypse-cometh kind of way." There are Christian surfing contests.
And a lot of people in surfing want to be Jesus Christ. Ex-champ Tom
Curren has distributed Bibles on the beach (and, what's more
perplexing, he signed them).

For Bethany, surfing is a form of prayer, a manifestation of faith.
Cutting against the grain of the old surfing stereotype, she recently
made an anti-drug commercial. She is a national hero, a latter-day
angel, a synthesis of surfing, salvation, and cinema.

But Bethany always was and remains a serious long-term wave-user. She
is the real deal, unfazed by trauma or celebrity. She has recovered
superbly from her brush with the apocalypse and, given a few years,
could yet make an impact on the pro ranks. She doesn't really need to
pitch any message: she is the message.

They caught the beast that chewed off her arm and strung it up from a
hook, its once terrible jaws hanging slackly open. But there are
still plenty of sharks out there, not just in the water: especially
not in the water. I hope she can out-surf them, too.

#2343 - Friday, December 16, 2005 - Editor: Jerry Katz

 

 

David Godman: A few weeks ago in Satsang you said that the Guru gives his grace or his 'final teachings' to the one he is pleased with, not to anyone else. You used the example of a beggar going to President Clinton and asking for a million dollars. The president has the power to give a billion dollars, not just a million, to the right person, but he will not dispense funds to unworthy people who bang on his door and demand large amounts. So, asking is not enough. Worthiness must also be there. My question is, 'What pleases the Guru? What does he have to see in a devotee that would make him happy enough to hand over his billion dollars?'

 

Papaji: The man who needs that freedom, the man who wants it more than anything else, and to the exclusion of all else, he is given preference. Other people can sit with the Guru for years at a time, but they will not get the same benefit even if they repeatedly ask for it.

 

When I was at Ramanasramam in the 1940's, people were coming and going all the time. Some would sit with the Maharshi for a while. Then they would go outside and start performing a puja by the well. Some of them would even do their pujas in the hall itself, while Maharshi was giving satsang there. Even close devotees of the Maharshi would do this. If you want to run off and do a puja instead of sitting silently in the Master's presence, it means that you have some unfulfilled desire that is still pending, and while that desire is there, you will not get the full benefit of the Guru's grace.

 

In the dining room there was a wall between the brahmins and the non-brahmins. The brahmins would not eat with the non-brahmins, nor did they want to be seen by the non-brahmins while they ate. The Maharshi didn't follow rules like this. He sat by himself where he could be seen by both the brahmin and the non-brahmin diners. These people went to the Maharshi with a desire to be treated differently. They wanted to be treated as special people, so they insisted on maintaining caste differences, even in Maharshi's presence. People go to the Guru for grace, for freedom, but their old habits and desires soon reassert themselves. They eventually get lost in their lifestyle.

 

Not everyone was like that. There was a devotee called Muruganar whom I liked very much. Of all the people there, he was the only one who seemed able to keep his mind on the Maharshi all the time. Other people lost themselves in outside affairs and relationships, but Muruganar was always sitting quietly in the Maharshi's presence. If he spoke, his sole subject matter was the Maharshi. He never tired of telling other people how great the Maharshi was, and he wrote thousands of poems in praise of his Master.

 

I liked his attitude and his commitment, so when he got sick with low blood pressure, I used to visit him. I took him various herbal preparations and treated him myself because at that time there was nobody else looking after him.

 

Towards the end of his life, in the early 1970's, he became very sick, so sick he had to be admitted to the ashram dispensary. I happened to be in Tiruvannamalai at that time, so I went to see him. I stood in front of the room, but Dr. Rao, who was in charge of the dispensary, did not allow me to go into the room to speak to him. Muruganar saw me and tried to call me inside, but the doctor would not let me enter. He was so sick he wasn't able to speak, but when I looked in through the window, he looked back at me very affectionately.

 

Muruganar didn't get lost in desire-fulfilling rituals. He came, put his attention on Maharshi and kept it there.

 

If you are with an enlightened man, you don't need to perform any rituals or practices. You don't have to propiate the gods or ask favours from them. You don't need to go to a church or a temple in your spare time. Everything you need can be obtained by sitting quietly in the Guru's presence.

 

That reminds me of a story about a fakir who visited Akbar the Great, the emperor of India, a few hundred years ago. The emperor was a generous man who made liberal donations to people who needed money. One day a fakir visited him in the hope of getting a donation. He found Akbar performing his namaz prayers. The emperor was on his knees asking God for help with various matters. The fakir left the palace without waiting for the emperor to finish his prayers.

 

Later that day the emperor was told that a fakir had come to see him while he was saying his prayers, but had left without stating his business. Akbar sent for him, apologised for being busy during his first visit, and asked what he could do for him.

 

The fakir replied, 'I came here as a beggar to ask you for money, but when I arrived I saw that you also were on your knees, begging from God. I thought to myself, "This man is also a beggar. Why should I ask for anything from him? If I need anything, I will beg from the same person whom he is begging from. I will take all my requests to God Himself.'"

 

If you want freedom, if you want the grace of the Guru, go to him directly. Don't depend on any intermediaries. Propitiating to the gods will not help you. They themselves will have to go to a Guru sooner or later for their own enlightenment. How can they give you what they don't have themselves? When you go to the Guru you will not find him on his knees praying to God. He already has everything he needs, and he can pass it on to suitable people.

 

This brings us back to the original question: 'What does the Guru have to see in a devotee that would make him willing to hand over his entire treasure to him?'

 

Worthiness must be there. You cannot demand freedom and expect to get it if you are not worthy. If the worthiness is there, you will not even have to ask. If the Guru sees that you are worthy, automatically everything will be given to you. The Guru cannot pass it on to an unworthy person, and an unworthy person cannot get it by demanding it. You have to win the heart of the jnani, by your devotion and your desirelessness. Once you have won his heart, his whole kingdom, his whole treasure automatically become yours.

 

 

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   Kyeho! This self-knowing wakefulness
   Is not an object to be spoken of, nor is it an object of thought.
   It is not something that I,Tilopa, can show you.
   Understand that it is revealed to oneself by oneself.
       ---- Tilopa to Naropa

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He said:
 
‘I cannot understand how I understand.
It is not a thing I do; not something I can possibly comprehend. It is impossible.
I know it is there, like the rain and mist this morning—and that’s all I know of it.
That is all I know of it, though there is nothing in the world that touches me the

way this understanding does.
I do not deserve this kind of grace. How shall I put it?’

 

-- Ben Hassine

 

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Anyone who, even for a second, feels a pure, clear confidence on hearing the truth will experience immeasurable happiness. Why? Because, at that moment, that person is not caught up in the concept of a self or a living being or a life span. He is not caught up in concepts about the world, nor is he caught up in concepts about nothingness. He does not take any notice of the idea that this is a sign, or this or that is not a sign.

For if you are caught up in ideas, then you will be caught up in the self. And even if you are caught up in ideas about nothingness, you will still be caught up in the self. That's why we should not get attached to the belief that things either exist or do not exist. This is the hidden meaning when I say that my teachings are a raft to be abandoned when you see true being.

-Diamond Sutra
From "The Pocket Buddha Reader," edited by Anne Bancroft, 2001.

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Thanks to Gyan for this link

Avadhut Gita. bob.doc
Bob OHearn's version

 

 

 

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Dzogchen Practice in Everyday Life

by HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche


The everyday practice of Dzogchen is simply to develop a complete carefree acceptance, an openness to all situations without limit.

We should realise openness as the playground of our emotions and relate to people without artificiality, manipulation or strategy.

We should experience everything totally, never withdrawing into ourselves as a marmot hides in its hole.  This practice releases tremendous energy which is usually constricted by the process of maintaining fixed reference points.  Referentiality is the process by which we retreat from the direct experience of everyday life.

Being present in the moment may initially trigger fear.  But by welcoming the sensation of fear with complete openness, we cut through the barriers created by habitual emotional patterns.

When we engage in the practice of discovering space, we should develop the feeling of opening ourselves out completely to the entire universe. We should open ourselves with absolute simplicity and nakedness of mind. This is the powerful and ordinary practice of dropping the mask of self-protection.

We shouldn't make a division in our meditation between perception and field of perception.  We shouldn't become like a cat watching a mouse. We should realise that the purpose of meditation is not to go "deeply into ourselves" or withdraw from the world.  Practice should be free and non-conceptual, unconstrained by introspection and concentration.

Vast unoriginated self-luminous wisdom space is the ground of being - the beginning and the end of confusion.  The presence of awareness in the primordial state has no bias toward enlightenment or on-enlightenment.  This ground of being which is known as pure or original mind is the source from which all phenomena arise.  It is known as the great mother, as the womb of potentiality in which all things arise and dissolve in natural self-perfectedness and absolute spontaneity.

All aspects of phenomena are completely clear and lucid.  The whole universe is open and unobstructed - everything is mutually interpenetrating.

Seeing all things as naked, clear and free from obscurations, there is nothing to attain or realise.  The nature of phenomena appears naturally and is naturally present in time-transcending awareness.  Everything is naturally perfect just as it is.  All phenomena appear in their uniqueness as part of the continually changing pattern.  These patterns are vibrant with meaning and significance at every moment; yet there is no significance to attach to such meanings beyond the moment in which they present themselves.

This is the dance of the five elements in which matter is a symbol of energy and energy a symbol of emptiness.  We are a symbol of our own enlightenment.  With no effort or practice whatsoever, liberation or enlightenment is already here.

The everyday practice of Dzogchen is just everyday life itself.  Since the undeveloped state does not exist, there is no need to behave in any special way or attempt to attain anything above and beyond what you actually are.  There should be no feeling of striving to reach some "amazing goal" or "advanced state."

To strive for such a state is a neurosis which only conditions us and serves to obstruct the free flow of Mind.  We should also avoid thinking of ourselves as worthless persons - we are naturally free and unconditioned.  We are intrinsically enlightened and lack nothing.

When engaging in meditation practice, we should feel it to be as natural as eating, breathing and defecating.  It should not become a specialised or formal event, bloated with seriousness and solemnity.  We should realise that meditation transcends effort, practice, aims, goals and the duality of liberation and non-liberation.   Meditation is always ideal; there is no need to correct anything.  Since everything that arises is simply the play of mind as such, there is no unsatisfactory meditation and no need to judge thoughts as good or bad.

Therefore we should simply sit.  Simply stay in your own place, in your own condition just as it is.  Forgetting self-conscious feelings, we do not have to think "I am meditating."  Our practice should be without effort, without strain, without attempts to control or force and without trying to become "peaceful."

If we find that we are disturbing ourselves in any of these ways, we stop meditating and simply rest or relax for a while.  Then we resume our meditation.  If we have "interesting experiences" either during or after meditation,  we should avoid making anything special of them.  To spend time thinking about experiences is simply a distraction and an attempt to become unnatural.  These experiences are simply signs of practice and should be regarded as transient events.  We should not attempt to re-experience them because to do so only serves to distort the natural spontaneity of mind.

All phenomena are completely new and fresh, absolutely unique and entirely free from all concepts of past, present and future.  They are experienced in timelessness.

The continual stream of new discovery, revelation and inspiration which arises at every moment is the manifestation of our clarity.  We should learn to see everyday life as mandala - the luminous fringes of experience which radiate spontaneously from the empty nature of our being.  The aspects of our mandala are the day-to-day objects of our life experience moving in the dance or play of the universe.  By this symbolism the inner teacher reveals the profound and ultimate significance of being.  Therefore we should be natural and spontaneous, accepting and learning from everything.  This enables us to see the ironic and amusing side of events that usually irritate us.

In meditation we can see through the illusion of past, present and future - our experience becomes the continuity of nowness.  The past is only an unreliable memory held in the present.  The future is only a projection of our present conceptions.  The present itself vanishes as soon as we try to grasp it.  So why bother with attempting to establish an illusion of solid ground?

We should free ourselves from our past memories and preconceptions of meditation.   Each moment of meditation is completely unique and full of potentiality.  In such moments, we will be incapable of judging our meditation in terms of past experience, dry theory or hollow rhetoric.

Simply plunging directly into meditation in the moment now, with our whole being, free from hesitation, boredom or excitement, is enlightenment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around the globe today there is a new Buddhism. Its philosophies are being applied to mental and physical health therapies and to political and environmental reforms. Athletes use it to sharpen their game. It helps corporate executives handle stress better. Police arm themselves with it to defuse volatile situations. Chronic pain sufferers apply it as a coping salve. This contemporary relevance is triggering a renaissance of Buddhism—even in countries like India, where it had nearly vanished, and in China, where it has been suppressed.

Get the whole story in the pages of National Geographic magazine.

 

 

~    ~    ~

 

In major cities all over the United States, Americans are setting aside type A lifestyles and embracing the calming compassionate practices of Buddhism. Photographer Steve McCurry discusses his journey into a spiritual marriage of East and West.

 

 

Ed.note: includes great images!

 

 

 

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Wishing all of you spontaneously pure, self-refreshing,  temporary illusory
pristine awareness embodiments a festive absorption into the light as we
move closest to our parent star on Perihelion, January 4, 17 hrs Greenwich.

An explanation of these terms, derived from a quote by Roo from Kennard
Lipman's Commentary to Longchenpa's "A Precious Ship" in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DzogchenPractice/


Spontaneously: Because your naturally perfect state of buddhahood is
occurring to you right now, effortlessly, despite whatever flotsam and
jetsam may be impeding your view.

Pure: We all surf, consciously or not, on the wave of the NOW, while
thoughts of the past and future continually dissolve into the primordial
purity of total presence (the supreme ordering principle that fashions
everything in this universe).

Self-refreshing:  This very core of reality, pure and total presence, is
self- refreshing and primordially pure.

Temporary: Obviously our embodiment is temporary, at least in this body.

Embodiment: What we all currently are experiencing planetside as 'witness
selves in the flesh.'

Pristine: This awareness is untouched by cause and effect, good deed or bad.
It shines with the pure light of consciousness-love.

Awareness:  In the center of the embodiment is the witness self, watching
the passing show.

Illusory: Even this pristine witness self, although capable of evolving
through many levels of heavens and paradises, is ultimately illusory. Total
absorption in Nirvana (Source, the Unmanifest) remains the ultimate goal.

Perihelion: The earth's orbit is slightly eccentric, so every year a moment
arrives when we are thousands of miles closer to the Sun. The date of
Perihelion varies between Jan 2-5 depending on the year (Jan 4, 15 hours
Greenwich, this year). Christian Epiphany falls on or about this date (Jan
6), celebrating the Three Kings arrival in Bethlehem (esoteric symbolism yet
to be determined).

 

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http://radicalsages.com/sageblog_id.php?id=328 

 

Defining "Spiritual Action"

 

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In this issue are some excerpts from Leo Hartong's new book, From Self to Self.

 

The following is from the website which publishes and sells the book:

 

From Self to Self contains a compilation of expressions, questions and answers that came about in response to Leo’s highly praised first book ‘Awakening to the Dream’. Leo writes with characteristic insight and uses metaphor to illuminate the paradoxical and apparently confusing nature of non-dual reality.  

You may order From Self to Self, by Leo Hartong, at http://www.non-dualitybooks.com/

 

Leo's website is http://www.awakeningtothedream.com . His weekly newsletter, whose spirit is like that of the Highlights, is excellent: http://www.awakeningtothedream.com/newsletter/

 

 

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Excerpt from chapter 13

 

    As I am sitting at my computer writing these words, I become aware of the sensation of thirst. Simultaneously comes the thought, "A cup of tea would be nice." This all happens spontaneously without me first deciding to be thirsty and then to think of tea.

              If you watch your mind, you will see that thoughts arise of their own accord. Please, do not simply accept or reject this. When you honestly observe and investigate, it will become clear that you are not the thinker of your thoughts. What this chapter will try to show is that you are also not the doer of your deeds. This may go against your deepest convictions and beliefs, so I ask you to suspend the judgment that may come up as a reflex and see what is really being offered here.

              All apparent decisions and choices are thoughts. To act upon a thought feels like choice and is labeled choice by the language, but choice is really just the expression of whatever thought arises most predominantly. I did not choose my desire for tea, nor did I choose the stronger desire that I should finish the paragraph first, but that is what is spontaneously happening.

              This is not to say that I am an apparatus without free will. There is actually no individual here to be deprived of free will. The thought of "I" and the thoughts of tea and typing merely unfold as a manifestation of the animating energy of Pure Awareness.

              From this perspective, there is a sense that life is simply living, thinking, and acting through you and as you. The Taoists call this Wu Wei, which loosely translates as non-doing. This does not mean doing nothing in the sense of inertia, but rather that everything -including "your" thoughts and actions- is happening naturally and of its own accord. Lao Tsu describes it in the Tao Te Ching as follows:

 

        Tao, without doing anything,
        Leaves nothing undone (37)

 

        And again:
        Less and less is done,
        Till only non-action remains.
        Nothing is done, yet nothing is left undone. (48)

 

        In Buddha's words:
        Suffering exists, but none who suffer,
        The deed there is, but no doer thereof.

 

              We all know the feeling of being in the flow of things. At such times, we lose ourselves in our activity. Writers frequently have this experience when the words seem to simply pour onto the page and they have no idea what the next line is going to be until they write it. Most athletes also have moments when suddenly everything clicks and they manage to perform beyond their normal capacity. There are sometimes moments during lovemaking when lovers melt into a union that knows no separate individuality. Or what about narrowly averted accidents on the highway where you later wonder just who was steering the car? I'm sure if you think about it, you have had several such experiences in which you forgot yourself and everything seemed to magically fall into place.

              This forgetfulness is very different from forgetting your friend's birthday or where you put your glasses. Nor is it like the absentmindedness induced by too much booze or too many tranquilizers. It is a forgetfulness that is alert and alive. This losing oneself in the flow is a taste of what is meant by "the action of non-action."

 

        All works are being done by the Gunas (or the energy and power) of nature, but due to delusion of ego, people assume themselves to be the doer. (3.27)   *

 

              Although being in the flow feels wonderful, the idea of our actions happening by themselves instead of through our free will can be upsetting. This is especially true for the western mind, which tends to view free will as either an inherent quality of one's prized individuality or a gift/test from God to see if one is strong enough to do the right thing. For the atheist, his doing or failing to do the right thing may be a measure of his true character; for the religious person there is a lot more at stake, since for him it determines the quality of his after-life.

              From the free-will point of view, the idea that something is living through us can be quite objectionable. It seems to reduce us to mere marionettes, implying a helplessness, which is hard to accept. Furthermore, there arises a fear that if nothing we do is truly our own action, then people have an excuse for undesirable behavior. What is overlooked in such arguments is that all activity is of the one Self, appearing as the multiplicity of characters that apparently do the thinking, acting, and choosing. To excuse our undesirable behavior on these grounds does not work, for there will still be consequences. You may protest that the thought that led you to steal from your employer simply arose, and you are not responsible; but then neither is your employer responsible for the thought that led him to fire you and press charges.

              Ultimately, since the ego is an illusion, it cannot be deprived of free will nor can it be the victim of predestination. The ego is neither the doer nor the non-doer; it simply does not have an existence independent of the Self, any more than a character in a novel exists independently of the author who portrays him. He and all other characters in the story arise from the imagination of the writer.

 

    *  The Bhagavad-Gita Copyright 1988 by Dr. Ramanand Prasad

...reminded me of Leonard Cohen's
lyric:

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

 

 

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photo by Sam Pasiencier  http://home.hccnet.nl/sam.pas/Ruminotion.jpg

 

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Emptiness, then, is an adjectival quality of 'dharmas',
not a substance which composes them. It is neither a thing
nor is it nothingness; rather it refers to reality
as incapable of ultimately being pinned down
in concepts.

  - Nagarjuna

 

To understand that the whole of reality has no
nature of its own is to practice the perfection
of discriminating awareness.

  - Prajnaparamita

 

Since all unenlightened men discriminate with their
deluded minds from moment to moment, they are alienated
from Suchness, hence the the definition "empty" suggesting
some negating; but once they are free from their
deluded minds, they will find that there is nothing
to be negated...And also there are no particular marks
or signs to be noted in it, as it is the sphere that
transcends thoughts and is in harmony with enlightenment
alone.

  -Asvaghosa

...when appreciating emptiness, all the dualistic
possibilities (ear and sound, eye and sight etc) -
presupposing a split in experience between perceiver
and perceived - do not arise.

    "Therefore, Shariputra, in emptiness there is
no form, no feeling, no perception, no conception,
no mental formations, no consciousness, no eye, no
ear...no sight, no smell, no ignornance, no end
of ignorance, no suffering, no origin of suffering,
no cessation of suffering, no path, no wisdom,
no attachment, and no non-attainment."

 - Heart Sutra

 

There is nothing to be removed
And nothing to be posited.
It is seeing reality as reality
And when one sees thus one is liberated.
  - Tilopa

posted by Joyce Short to Dzogchen Practice

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With Experience You can Practice Even When Distracted

 

 

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"They speak in conventional terms for the world
Out of compassion for everyone,
Explaining things in provisional terms,
Not explaining even as they explain.”

“The Taoist classic Tao-te Ching says, “Ways can be articulated, but not a fixed path; names can be designated, but not fixed terms.” Mahayana Buddhist teaching emphasizes the conventional and provisional nature of spoken teachings so that the people will not quibble over external superficialities but use the words to direct their minds to the very heart of the matter. To explain without explaining means to use explanation as a means to something else, not as an end in itself. Religion is often associated, even unconsciously, with the holding and promulgating of certain doctrines, associated with specific verbal formulations. As noted earlier, this is what people argue and fight about; insight does not support this sort of religious or philosophical controversy.”
- Thomas Cleary, Zen and the Art of Insight, p. 27

 #2356- Tuesday, January 3, 2006 - Editor: Jerry Katz

 

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This issue features an excerpt from Healing with Qualities: The Essence of Time Therapy, by Manuel Schoch.

 

For more information about this book and the author, please visit http://www.sentientpublications.com/catalog/healing.php

 

This excerpt is typed from the book and unavailable elsewhere on the internet.

 

Other excerpts from this book have also appeared in the following Highlights:

 

 

 

 

 

However we might feel about our lives, whatever we may think about our capabilities or intelligence, these feelings of bliss, love and joy are totally independent of who we are. Getting into a state of bliss is just a question of whether we can cross the bridge from duality to nonduality, and the ability to do this is absolutely and totally independent of knowledge. All the slow feelings are not dependent on our efforts or on our intellectual understanding. This is why we fall in love with all our weaknesses intact; this is why while out walking in the countryside we can suddenly experience a feeling of bliss.

 

Our society is based on a competition and comparing process, even when it comes to spirituality. The only thing we need is ourselves, just as we are with our weaknesses and qualities. Love, bliss and joy have nothing to do with competition or comparing. So the first thing to remember is that you need nothing other than what you already have in order to cross the bridge of sadness to love.

 

Why then is it so difficult to cross this bridge? If I can be happy even with all my weaknesses, why is this so difficult to do? The mind, of course, will persist in trying to understand, but again it has nothing to do with understanding. Go down this route and we are once again in the trap of knowledge, learning, achieving and competition.

 

The only thing we really have to deal with is the fear of not being loved -- which is really the sadness at not being given the opportunity to express or demonstrate love, to share it, to bring out and manifest your potential, your qualities. Whenever we move away from knowledge or from the known, fear is naturally present. Once we see this, then suddenly fear is no longer an enemy. Instead, it is the first signal that we are really growing, that we are really moving away from attachment.

 

The Buddha said -- in a very beautiful statement, which many Buddhists try to avoid dealing with -- that it is quite easy to be detached from material things, but it is a little more difficult to be detached from our belief systems, from our thoughts, from our inside pictures.

 

The real step out of the wheel of birth and rebirth is when we are detached from our own consciousness. This is in complete contrast to everything we hear about how we have to gain consciousness or ourselves, and it takes courage to face stepping out of it.

 

 #2358- Friday, January 6, 2006 - Editor: Jerry Katz

Emaho!

posted by Tibetan Punk to Dzogchen Practice

 

 

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70

as flowing waters disappear into the mist
we lose all track of their passage
every heart is its own Buddha
ease off; become immortal

wake up: the world's a mote of dust
behold heaven's round mirror
turn loose: slip past shape and shadow
sit side by side with nothing-save Tao

From Stones and Trees: The Poetry of Shih-shu

(late 17th century-early 18th century)
Translations by James H. Sanford

 

 

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Buddhism is really quite simple to understand. Let me try:

 

In Buddhism, we discover within ourselves, a fundamental consciousness, that is perfect and pure from the very beginning of beginningless time. This pure and perfect consciousness is beyond our ordinary "thinking" or discursive mind. It is not something we create, attain or manufacture through meditative or religious practice. This pure and perfect consciousness is already fully present and complete right now... in you, as well as all sentient beings. The goal of Buddhist practice is to have the "experience" of this pure and perfect consciousness for yourself. Note "experience". You don't learn "about", but rather "taste" the presence of this pure and perfect consciousness to be your own true nature, your actual and authentic Being. Like jumping in the water directly, beyond reading and studying books or "thinking about" the topics of water and swimming.

 

A teacher is anyone who has had a thorough and unmistakable "experience" of their own pure and perfect consciousness, and now shares this "knowingness" with others. Hopefully, the teacher will be able to orient others to have this "experience" for themselves, if they are ready and open.

 

A very deep and thorough "experience" of one's own pure and perfect consciousness is known as "enlightenment"... coming to know one's own true nature as it is. We call this pure and perfect consciousness "Buddha-Mind" or "Zen-Mind" or in Tibetan Dzogchen: "Rigpa".

 

Once we have this "experience", we practice by immersing ourselves in this present pure and perfect consciousness more and more. Eventually, we are in this consciousness more often than we are in our ordinary "thinking mind". The problem is that our "thinking mind" has created a self-image of itself. This conceptual self- image is our sense of "me" or "I" in our "thinking mind". We call this false or fantasy self, "ego". Our true self, on the other hand, is the pure and perfect consciousness in contrast to our "ego". But interestingly, this "true self" has no concept of a "self" itself. It has no shape or form nor any material components that continue through time. It has no boundaries nor location in space and time. However, space and time and all things are included in it! See, I told you... simple!

 

Actually, this point is not that difficult to understand conceptually. Take the example of water and waves. All of reality is like one great ocean. One's Being has two aspects, figuratively speaking: open, infinite and vastly spacious Awareness and the Energy of that space-like Awareness. Get it? Ocean equals vast space-like Awareness and it's Energy is the waves within and upon the ocean. Kind of like in theological terminology: God and Creation. But don't get caught up in that analogy too much. In any event, the waves and the water are "one" thing... as you can't separate the waves from the water. In life, ALL that we "experience" is waves. The Awareness or Perceivingness (the pure and perfect consciousness i.e. Buddha-Mind) is the water. Since the water and it's waves are "one", we then can see that our Awareness(water) is "one" with it's field of perception (waves) or experience, internally or externally experienced, beyond any possibility of duality. Well, at any rate, you come to realize that too, as a first hand experience.

 

In Dzogchen, we say the pure, vast space-like quality of Awareness is "kadag" (primordial purity). At the same time, we call the spontaneously arising Energies (waves) "lhundrub" (spontaneous energy arisings). These two aspects, "kadag" and "lhundrub" are inseparable. Like water and waves. This inseparability of "kadag" and it's energy manifestations, "lhundrub" is known as "yermed" (inseparable). In Dzogchen, in all of reality, of all possible universes, there is nothing outside of this unified field of "kadag" and "lhundrub". Now here's the interesting part, your own, currently existing, pure and perfect consciousness is this very "kadag" Awareness! And all dimensions of your experience are (internal and external) this "lhundrub" Energy! And this complete reality is known the Great Perfection or in Tibetan "Dzogchen". We come to realize non conceptually, that we ARE Dzogchen, the Great Perfection!

 

Current Dzogchen practice is divided into two parts. The first corresponds to realizing the "kadag" aspect, known as "trekchod". The second part deals with realizing the "lhundrub" aspect, known as "thogel".

 

So there you go, Buddhism and Dzogchen in a nutshell.... and then some!

 

Hope that helps!

 

Jax, posted to Dzogchen Practice