Post retreat

Slept well last night. First deep sleep in a while. Listening to YMR every night is a 2 minute habit I want to develop. 

I feel re-committed to the foundational practices. In particular I've found a new curiosity and interest about the third thought, the consequences of karma. 

I feel so clearly the positive results of extended mediation. Less action, less thought feels better. I feel like I have a wisdom body to rest in. 

But there are still emotional challenges. I'm going through a very stressful family situation. 

I feel the stress as empty lucidity vibrating through my body. I want to remember to add compassion to it.

Otherwise it's just old stale karmic imprints 

Self directed retreat Day 2

Slept well last night. For the first time in a while. Body scan slows down the thoughts, which increases the conditions for sleep. Listening to YMR sleep meditation instructions establishes the view. Also wonderful to wake and listen the gong on YMR waking instructions. I really feel like I'm in retreat. 

Meditation on the 3rd thought (dreamlike nature of samsara)

Essentially this is a contemplation of the reality that there is suffering.  But in directly contemplating the suffering, there is an untangling, and ideally recognition of the causes of the suffering being painful habits built on delusions. 

It's though our friends have been chasing us around in tiger costumes, and they might as well be tigers, because we are traumatized and will see tigers even when we know they aren't really tigers. 

The only way out is to gently let the trauma loosen. Recognize the feeling of recognizing reality and relax in that regularly enough that it starts to become it own habit energy.  That is the wisdom body.  The habit energy that develops from recognizing truth. 

Self directed retreat

Alongside the empliness and clarity I tap into when I feel my self hatred, I have to recognize my innate compassion.

When I do this, I see how wise action can be triggered. 

Today I did a self-directed retreat in the foundational practices, the four thoughts, the three jewels, some guru yoga. I am supposed to do this before I do my next level of path of liberation. But I also need it because I'm facing a stressful situation with my family. 

Or maybe I'm facing the stressful situation because it's been such a long time since I did a full day of meditation.  My retreats recently have been mosty dharma talks with a few hours of meditation. 

At the end of the day today, I feel the impact. There were some times during the day when I felt the suffering. Particularly when I was contemplating karma. I felt deeply the results of bad actions and poor decisions, patterns of addiction I've had since childhood.  There was a full hour today when I felt like the embodiment of a hungry ghost. 

But this evening my belly feels full of strong magnetic vitality. 

I came across a concept today "joyful remorse." That seems like such a contradiction, but there is joy in seeing reality clearly, seeing where we are creating suffering with our automatic habits. 

There is also joy in seeing the wisest action we can take, preparing for rest. 

Tiger transformation

Re-watching the Song of Liberation retreat videos.

YMR ended on a teaching that is a golden nugget. 

If your friend hides outside your house in a tiger costume, scares you, and then reveals the prank, you will be less likely to be fooled by other friends in tiger costumes. 

Same things with emotion.  In Nature of Mind practice we learn to see the empty clarity in an emotion. This is a progression from Joy of Living, where we simply looked at emotion.   If you see the empty clarity in one emotion, all the other emotions will transform. 

Trust the clarity.

Song of Realization wrap up

 It's hard to put my finger on what feels different. 

Maybe it's having that different understanding of clarity.  Yes there is luminosity, the clarity is in the recognition of the luminosity.  You don't have to shine a flashlight on the candle to see it, but you do have to open your eyes. 

Today I rest comfortably in the awareness that there are things I can't find, myself, my mind, a thinker, a dreamer, a hater.  I see that I can be comfortable in reality. The bonds loosen. 

Teaching:

Interesting that over 90% of people taking this course say they learned something different from other pointing out experience. 

Mingyur Rinpoche teaches exactly what I experienced in my practice.  Feel the clarity in one difficult emotion, trust it and allow it to transform all negative emotions. 

I have mine. Self hatred. My best, best friend. 

The message that resonates with me. "Trust the clarity."

Song of realization Day 3

Transformational meditation last night. 

I sat with my self hatred and saw, as if for the first time, how solid it felt.  But also how clear. If I can dissolve the illusion of solidity then my self hatred is the gateway to Mahamudra (the union of emptiness and clarity).  

I dissolve it by resting in the knowing. 

I'm going to ask a question today. 

"I grew up with a lot of emotional violence. Last night while practicing, the habit energy of self hatred felt very solid in me, but also very clear and lucid. I felt that if I could dissolve this energy, my chronic self hatred could be my friend, bringing me closer to Mahamudra.  Like anxiety did for you.  This solution seems so simple, but I'm aware that I live with complex trauma.  Is there anything I should be careful of?" 

Teaching:

Emptiness is the fact of no self.  Clarity is the recognition of this fact. 

So look for self that I hate, or that hates me.  I won't find either. Recognizing this non-existence of self is clarity. 

Rest in this and the mind becomes a safe place. 

Mingyur Rinpoche answered my question! Thumbs up. Lots of nodding.  Says I'm on the right track on the path to transfromation. . If I get overwhelmed do some physical exercise.  Will wait for recording and get exact quote. 

Interesting to go back to my insights from the "Difficult Emotions" retreat of two years ago

Practice:

Cortland Dhal leading us through a practice in which we see the nature of mind as a huge container that can never be improved on or corrupted by our experience, dharma, thoughts.

Q&A

Cortland makes an interesting distinction between the experience of clarity as a meditative state, which is impermanent, and clarity of recognition of the NOM. 

This is my takeaway for the day. 

Song of Realization Day 2

 

7 a.m. 

Morning meditation.  Feeling the flow of repulsion and attraction.  Surf this for a while and gradually it becomes balance and stillness. 

This is a precious few days where I get to just hang out in my mind.  I get to feel its power, and its entanglements. I let it sing its own song. 

2 pm.

You can try to know phenomena by knowing the nature of each and everything in the world.  Or you can know the mind, which is that by which we know each and every thing. 

4 pm. 

We practiced the three styles: 

1. Body style, which is a light looking at what is happening in the mind when thoughts arise.
2. Speech style, which is like a combination of analytical and noting. We name what kind of knowing or response is happening, and ask who the "worder" is. 
3. Heart or mind style.  We tap into the experience of simply knowing. 

I resonate strongly with last type. I felt very at ease just resting in the knowing. 

7 pm. 

Many reminders of the dangers of getting attached to blissful, clear and non-conceptual states. And reminders that the rough times are part of the process.

Tim spoke about the wisdom that is at the core of each of the three afflictions.  Craving = discrimation. Aversion = clarity.  Ignorance = non-conceptual. 

So I guess we can allow these to unfold naturally.  

Song of Realization retreat Day 1

Day 1:  

8 am.

I prepare.  This is a momentous event in the unfolding event that is the mind. I want to put into place the conditions that allow me to have a recognition that is going to take, a direct experience of clarity that is a tipping point.  

For this weekend I renounce all my wordly concerns and obsessions. I feel the craving, fear, resistance as support. Cloudy, muddy waters that over the course of the weekend will settle. Causes have outcomes. Non meditation will open the mind to clarity. 

But I need to stay devoted.

5:30 pm

Using space as a metaphor for the nature of mind, everything inside as well as outside feels empty. 

Earlier in the day I am reminded of my first lucid dream, and that sudden shock of total clarity and luminosity.  This is more subtle and gradual. 

At the end of the meditation self hatred rises up.  But as I explore it, I realize there is no real boundary. The heart is just space too. 

6:30

How do I live in this freedom? I want to be careful that I'm not asking "how do I keep living in this freedom." Yes, I want to sustain it, but I don't want to become fixated on maintaining states.  Just see this as a gentle exploration of the world outside the tiny box my mind has been shut up in. 

Open Awareness

 The moment you realize how tired your thoughts are making you. 

Truth body

The wisdom or truth body is the union of emptiness and clarity. The dharmakaya.

I am feeling the flow of this grounded groundlessness more and more every morning.  I feel the gentle urge to clean so that I can see the natural purity of my mind reflected back to me. 

But I feel the resitance. I worry that I'll lose my old, wordly self. I feel a certain nostalgia for my confusion. 

This week I turned 60.  I'm entering my golden years. 

I know what I want to feel: joyful wisdom.  Happy for no reason.

Maybe one path to the dharmakaya is being able to look back on our past confusion with gentle affection. Like being our own grandparent.