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INSIGHTS

LONELINESS AS PRACTICE

In this modern society, we try very hard to avoid being alone with ourselves, and when we have free time we fill it with texting or social media. We are so scared to face our neurosis. Practice is a training so we are more and more comfortable in our own company. It starts when we sit down on our butts to do practice the first time.

HOW TO GROW A BIGGER HEART

There is such a need for bigger hearts, vast minds, for more tolerance, kindness and attitudes that includes everyone. We have enough racism and so many other way to exclude each other. We all know how painful it is to be the left out, to be the excluded or even the suppressed minority. Sometimes for absolutely no reason.

BE LIKE A GOLDSMITH

Living in a world focused on what is outside us, and not looking within, we are taught from a young age that we need to become something more than we are right now. We are encouraged to always be doing: we must learn; we must buy; we must acquire and achieve. And for absolute certain we must become better than we are right now just sitting here doing nothing. The Buddha taught the opposite. He said that by learning to let the mind be, just as it is right now, all our good qualities can unfold from within.

BARDO OF REALITY

At the onset of the after-death experience, phenomena have no structure and no recognizable features whatsoever, but are a tremendous display, the ultimate acid trip. It’s unlike wide open space on a cloudless day: something happens within that space, called sounds, colors and lights. The sounds are, Tulku Urgyen said, like 100.000 simultaneous thunder cracks, from all directions, above, below, everywhere. The colors are all colors of the rainbow, but much more intense than we normally see in this life. The rays of light are like sharp needles or swords, piercing through everything.

YES TO POSSIBILITIES

We have the incredibly great fortune to have encountered the precious teachings of the Buddha as well as living teachers who offer us the opportunity to study those teachings and assist us in training in them. Such a situation is a source of rejoicing that fills my heart with gratitude. It doesn’t matter that the path is long and difficult; it is the journey itself that is important.

IN PRAISE OF DREAMS

Once lucid dreaming is mastered, simply start meditating in your dreams. The first time I practiced in a dream, I simply sat in the lotus position and floated in the room where the dream was happening. When someone in the dream asked me what I was doing, I told them I was busy, that they shouldn’t bother me; and, so, I kept meditating.

ABOUT TENDERNESS

Our geometric culture with its plethora of sensations but without deep experiences, with a fantastic accumulation of knowledge but with lack of wisdom, with too much vigor of bodybuilding, sexuality, the artifacts of destruction shown in serial killer but without tenderness, affection and the ability to care for each other, care about the Earth, care about our children and animals, for the common future of us all. Our invincible strength comes from the tenderness with which we surround, treat, love and respect all sentient beings without exception.

THE PRINCIPLE OF VIBRATION & SOUND IN TANTRA

In tantric Buddhism we find the principle of vibration or sound expressed in the inner practices of transformation where we imagine and develop a mandala, or a pure vision of the dimension of a particular deity or enlightened being. It’s a facsimile of the dimension of a deity, a spontaneous effulgent radiance of reality, in order to transform our limited dualistic vision of reality into the total vision of enlightenment and realize the qualities of enlightened wisdom through that particular deity.

SUJATA’S GIFT

These days, we wonder how we can be like Sujata. We strive to make a difference in the world. We reduce our carbon footprints and participate proactively in the democratic process. We educate ourselves and serve others. Yet despite our best efforts, as a whole our societies still seem to be starving for compassion, thirsty for equanimity, and emaciated by the onslaught of digital disconnections. We wonder, what is the bowl of rice and milk that we can give our world to help to bring it into balance?

THE PRINCIPLE OF POLARITY IN BUDDHISM & TANTRA

Shariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.

ABOUT VULNERABILITY

Every day we see people hiding their true feelings and living to fit in with external demands. People bury what really matters to them, their deepest values ​​in exchange for meeting the expectations of others, to be accepted and to feel superior in some way. So they miss the core of life: creating authentic and true connections.

INNERMOST AWARENESS

All that is subject to arising is subject to ceasing. All things that are conglomerations of the five elements, of earth, air, fire, water, and space; All things that are the phenomena of consciousness, thought, emotion, concept, interpretation, understanding, and misunderstanding; Even consciousness itself arises and then ceases. In this way, everything is the same.

MEDITATION AS SUSTENANCE FOR DEATH & DYING

For the dying process to not be painful and confusing, there must be preparation. Though we apply this common sense in most every area, death must be approached as natural, not eschewed as distasteful taboo. Masters of meditation experience death’s transition as a mere change of clothes, and have described it as best they can, motivated by great compassion. Yet crossing over is a solo journey, one we must each traverse alone.

CLUB NONDUALITÈ

The word root guru has a sacred meaning, that my teachers define in a very specific way: the person who not only tries, but succeeds in bringing about a complete change in your mind to such an extend that the grip of duality is loosened and that the nature of mind is totally laid bare in its naked state and can be accessed whenever remembered for the rest of your life. Perhaps the meditator only finds out many years later who the primary guru was.

THE COARSE AND THE SUBTLE MIND

We may like to think that we know what the mind is – we speak of it so casually, but how well do we really know this mind of ours? For some of us at times, our inner state can change, and moods can appear as if out of nowhere, but is it destined to be as random as that? What control can we have over our own experience? When it comes to the mind, I’m thinking now, some things should not be a complete mystery.

PLAYFULNESS

We trade one rigid, constricting way of being for another rigid, constricting way of being. And because we call the new way spiritual practice, we may tell ourselves and others that this is great, this is better, this is how and who we want to be in our practice and in our life.

THE SPACE BETWEEN THINGS

We usually find our orientation exclusively among designations and objects, considering that as reality, but eventually discover that such interaction doesn’t hold the key to real realization. It is the greatest paradox, because it is the mystery itself, as if moving, dancing, projecting light through a liquid. There is nothing that we have ever known, or ever been that is other that this mystery.

THE EMPOWERMENT OF COMPASSION

Where despair feels like surrender, compassion has no quit in it. The doubting mind is also closely tied to fear, and it is a small and contracted state, but the mind of compassion is broad and clear and fearless. It imagines great things, such as clean water, and people being fed and housed, and gets to work to get them done.

THE REASON TO RETREAT

People go on retreat because it enables them to have insight, and access to inner resources, of creativity, intelligence and love that they can’t reach as easily at home. This has proven itself from generation to generation, and in every culture where Buddhism has become established. When on retreat, we ‘dig a channel to the ocean’, so to speak, and then our daily practice is a matter of keeping this channel open, and drawing forth resources we all have available to use in our daily life, relationships, and social work.