The thought of extraordinary individuals has the power to shift what we conceive of as possible in this human realm. It also changes what we think of our teachers, ourselves, and our brothers and sisters. A saint, both in the East and in Western traditions, is something more than a good person, or someone of exemplary character. Moving past this mundane conception, we enter into a supernatural framework for understanding the lives and influence of a saintly person.
These pure lands are self-arisen due to the blessing of the truth of the nature of reality and of the transcendent ones’ compassion; they are sublime and amazing.
~ Jamgon Kongtrul
The tendency to take life for granted is an obstacle not only for spiritual practice, but actually stands in the way of being happy in our situation right now. We think life is no big deal, we do it everyday, and everybody is doing it, and the fact that we will surely die is taboo, we don’t think about, we don’t talk about it. But our life actually is a big deal, it could end any moment. When we look at the great miracle of creation; the wonders of the earth, our own human body and the sacred mystery of the universe around us and within us, we can not help but being inspired and feeling blessed to be part of it.
The lack of what might be called, as Jung suggested, soul connectedness, to the deeper aspects of our interior world, has become replaced instead with endless distraction and continuous, immediate, bombastic stimulation, and it is exhausting. We are not only constantly struggling with what assaults us daily, by the minute, in fact, but, instead of seeking out another with whom to commiserate, or a field of others to simply enjoy some real human connectedness, we are now trained to seek further stimulation and excitement, only to find it as empty of substance and dry of human touch.
Dance of three Vajras
Practice on three vajras
Mind body and speech
Revealing the three mysteries
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.
While working with techniques to release sexual energies in a healing manner, it is important to support this work with a healthy diet. The first step towards a healthy diet is not just the choice of what to eat, or to follow particular instructions from different health experts. It is actually to make oneself aware that the unfortunate condition of today’s society is that the primary goal of big businesses is to create profit. This means that food companies do not primarily focus upon the benefits of their products on the human body. They focus upon ways in which they can make people buy their products, and continue to buy their product, no matter if they are healthy or not.
Who is this that suffers now? A me that never was, or ever meant to be? So what is this you suffer? That you exist,… Read More »WHO
Know this labyrinth, Friend. Know this dream. Know its luminous, transparent, liquid, holographic nature. Gnothe seauton, know thyself, as the Greek formula went, and know the dream. Feel its texture, for nowhere is its nature and mystery revealed but in the electricity of its experience. Feel the rainbow in whatever color or shape you see, whatever sound, texture, taste, smell. Whatever emotion, whatever thought, even sadness and pain.
Below in the green pastures and valleys,
The shepherds roam, taking all hardships on them,
Singing alone in the mountains,
Songs of sorrow, songs of renunciation.
According to Tibetan medicine everything has its origin in the mind which is the creator of the internal and external phenomena and the five elements which constitute physical reality. According to Buddhism, the mind is like a pure crystal which is obscured by temporary ignorance of its own original primordially pure state and by the subsequent karmic formations.
The transmission of the Kriyayoga Tantra, part of the esoteric Buddhist teachings that came directly from India to China. The transmission took a while. At the end his lama gave him all the ritual objects, crowns, tangkhas, vajras, bells, mandalas, his kashira (robe), and at that point Kukai became a vajra master. Of all these objects nothing was more sacred than the anointment, the transmission of the secret teacher-to-disciple teachings of the ancient Kriyayoga.
Mind’s ultimate nature, emptiness endowed with vividness, I was told is the real Buddha. Recognizing this should help me Not to be stuck with thoughts of… Read More »MIND’S ULTIMATE NATURE: POEM BY DZONGSAR KHYENTSE RINPOCHE
As the body crumbles, the soul awakens. This is why dying people always tell the living to follow your dreams. Don’t wait for sickness or death. Do it while there is still time. But now, here is the mystery. There is no path because everything is the path; and inside of that everything, there are two important distinctions: our master path and our secondary path. The master path is our inner path, our path of meaning. The secondary path is our outer path, where we put that meaning into action out in the world. The master path is about being and the secondary path is about doing.
A poetic diary from a three months retreat, by Pilar González Basteris, the award-winning Mexican poet.
We are not alone. We do not exist alone and we cannot create alone. What this world needs is a humanistic awakening of the desire to raise one’s life condition to a place where our actions are rooted in altruism and compassion. You cannot hide behind a profession or instrument; you have to be human. Focus your energy on becoming the best human you can be. Focus on developing empathy and compassion. Through the process you’ll tap into a wealth of inspiration rooted in the complexity and curiosity of what it means to simply exist on this planet. Music is but a drop in the ocean of life.
One mahatma asked Swami Muktananda for a certificate of enlightenment. Swami Muktananda just laughed. When you live in integrity and your heart and soul are stable in that integrity, that’s what you cherish more than anything in the world. These are poetic terms and it’s not necessarily like that, but we have to use words. When you reach an awareness within yourself that is undeluded, there is no reason that you want to put a rock in your heart or dualistically split anything through an idea, because it’s not possible.
Studies find that people in more diverse countries, countries with great numbers of immigrants, rely on smiling to build trust and to build cooperation. A simple reason for this is the fact that we don’t all speak the same language. But there is a different, and I think, more meaningful reason for smiling in countries with more immigrants, and that is that smiling is a way to bond socially. A smile is a rather universally understood thing. Surely we can recognize a fake smile, a genuine smile, a wicked smile, a forced or sarcastic smile. But we know a smile when we see it.
Why do we allow this daily rampage to go on and on? Changing the law, by itself, won’t entirely solve the problem. But praying for peace and wishing for all others to renounce their violent habits and tendencies also will not soon solve the problem. This problem is not solely within our minds, and not solely environmental and cultural, or legal. It is the interplay of all of these: it is our collective karma to live in a society that glorifies the ability to violently defeat others.
Om Svasti The delightful myriad phenomena constantly come and go And free of grasping to any of it One’s mind, That doesn’t exist as any… Read More »THE OPEN EXPANSE OF AWARENESS
In Vajrayana Buddhism, we learn to see ourselves and all others like this, as essentially divine, transparent beings of light. We interact continually with others and this world, receiving blessings and responding compassionately as needed. At first we do this as an act of imagination, but gradually we learn to see that this is how things actually are, all by themselves. At that time, what we call prayer, in thought, word, and action are entirely natural.