Top 5 insights of 2022

 1.  My Happy Losar insight. Taking refuge and becomming a Tibetan Buddhist creates the conditions of being "locked in."  Like RRSPs, like marriage, like any lifetime or longterm committment, there is an accumulation of resources and rewards. Having a Sadhana practice bears emotional fruit, and strengthens the subtle body in ways that a more variable practice probably doesn't. But the real driver is devotion. The increasing sense of inseperablity between my essence and that of all the buddahs, gurus, and deities, is what created the condition for sustained non-duality. 

2.  The paradox in the Way of the Bodhissatva of the something that doesn not exist, and yet is not nothing, creates the conditions for rest.  The result is the ground of wisdom and an understanding of the true nature of mind. 

When something and its nonexistence

Both are absent from before the mind 

No other option does the latter have.

It comes to perfect rest from concepts free  

3. The mind is not a thing, but an event.   If we can see it this way then we can see feelings as events, and "clarity as an infinitely expansive state of awareness." This helps us see the mind as a flow, not a fixed thing.  And as a result everything is simply part of this flow. 

4.  It is a very powerful practice to remember a dream and ask "who is dreaming this dream?" Stay with it and any sense of integrated self soon dissolves.

5.  If the key to sustaining wisdom seeing yourself as pure, or purifiying how you see yourself?.  Or maybe both.  During Tantra immersion I will toggle with both these insights.  

Tantra Retreat: The Three Points

Whether one meditates on an elaborate or concise version of creation stage, there are three main points: Clarity of form purifies attachment to the appearing object, recollecting the purity frees one from clinging to corporeality, and maintaining pride vanquishes clinging to ordinary self.

Important takeaway:  "recollecting  purity" does not mean remember some kind of pristine energy or identity.  It means being able to see  the conceptual models as conceptual models and purifying attachment to these concepts.  E.g. "I hate myself,"  I can see that this self I believe is solid and object of entrenched aversion is actually empty.  Also the "I" that is doing the hating is empty.  This becomes clearer still when I develop a counterpoint vision of a self as a deity. 

Tara visualization helps to develop that recognition of the fundamenta emptiness of all mental models. 

Jenn Dream

 I have serendipitously booked a room that is in a home owned by Mark and Angela.  It is on a pretty peninsula, like Fortune's Rocks.  Jenn is there. 

She is still dead, but a new, eternal version of her has spawned. She's essentially what she always was, delightful, warm, fun to be around. Her life force is undiminished. 

I  worry that we don't have much time together, but the day also feels open and infinitely stretched out. We have all the tme in the world to be loving, dear friends. 

Tantric Mahamudra

 

From "Meditating on the Mind itself" by Traleg Rinpoche

Identity

It struck me yesterday the impact of our sense of identity on our habit energy.  When I quit smoking that happened because I stopped seeing myself as a smoker. If I'm going to quit suffering, I need to stop seeing myself as a sufferer. 

I need to stop seeing myself as someone who is trapped, helpless, unable to transfer my knowledge and strength to others. I need to stop seeing myself as weak, vulnerable and isolated. I need to stop seeing myself as inconsequential to others. 

And then to thrive, I need to start seeing myself as what I am, buddah nature. I need to trust that nature to lead me to where I can lead.  I need to embody this sense of self. And I need to let myself transform as a result of this embodiment. 

This embodiement can be my default. 

Pure Perception retreaat

Day 1 7:49 a.m. 

Morning

I start this retreat feeling distracted and unsettled.

A week of attending the Canadian Tennis Open, rooting for the local hopeful Felix Auger Alliassime.  He's into the quarter finals. But I have committed to this retreat.  If I'm watching tennis scores all weekend, I will not create the causes and conditions I want to put in place for a real transformation.

Good.  This gives a lot of craving and impulsiveness to meditate on.  I am not going to watch those matches.  He doesn't need me.  I need me and Ben needs me and the infinite number of sentient beings need me.  And maybe FAA needs me praying for him. But time to let him go. 

Morning teaching

We re-visit breathing exercises, but add visualization. Reminds me of chi kung practice.  This is how I am going to bring it back in. 

In right nostril we breath out all the old past trauma and anxiety.  In left nostril all anxiety about future.  Through both the present stagnant energy. 

With vase breathing we are bringing in the five elements.  As we breath out the abdomen naturally constrict like the ocean crashing against the mountain (spine).  

And then the shaking ha to get everything going. 

We do an exercise that informs what we are trying to accomplish here.  Imagine the perfect strawberry. Hold it in your hand, smell it, imagine eating it.

We produce saliva just through that image.

Through Tara practice we produce the feeling of enlightenment and transform through that. 

Afternoon

Struggling with my attatchment to the outcome of that game.  But wondering, what if I could put the intense energy of this devotion to tennis to my guru practice? What impact would that have on my life? 

Evening 

It's all about stability.  Learning from Felix (I gave in and looked at the score) He suffered worst defeat of his career on home turf.  The embodied confidence of stability really does mean something. You can't maintain success if you don't have embodied confidence.

Day 2

Feeling great this morning. Went out for a run.  Had a very meaningful nectar of the path practice.  Starting to feel many strands weaving together with this practice. Going back to the first image of Indra Devi when I was a teenager. 

Afternoon:

Tranformative practice with Khenpo Kunga.  Tara as emptiness, all being a Tara, dissolving into a light before all beings do likewise, dissolving into me, and I dissolve into them. 

Indescribably liberating 

Evening:

Another amazing practice. 

Tennis.  Happy for Carrena Busta!  But I slept too late. Consequences of unhealthy self. 

Day 3

Morning:

Practice steps. 

1. Open awareness
2. Imagine White Tara as manifestation of emptiness, wisdom, compassion
3. Dedication and sing mantra
4. Imagine White Tara as healing light touching you and everyone
5. Recite mantra
6. Become white Tara
7. Dedication
8. Dissolve White Tara
9. Dissolve self
10. Rest

Teaching 

It's not enough to simply recite and go through the motions. To transform you need to be with phenomena, see the pieces, and eventually see the emptiness. 

You can have 100 deities and not tranform. Or one deity and know the essence. 

Tara practice allows us to see the emptiness of this unhealthy fearful self we've created. To create a stronger, more compassionate and impactful sense of self through devotion to a constructed deity.

I take refuge in Tara and feel the saliva. 

Insight:

Om Taré Tutaré Ture So Ha

The tongue hits the palate and natural morphine makes its way down the channel.

Fear dissolves. Pure perception settles in. 

micro-dosing on non-duality

Day 2 of a self-directed retreat. 

Life keeps interrupting, so I'm struggling to stay motivated. Doing short times many times, dropping effort, dropping into timeless knowing.  Keeping in mind parts of Tsoknyi Rinpoche's book, Fearless Simplicity: 

I'm letting my mind get distracted, but then I just let Rigpa take the wheel.  Going back to the knowing that I don't own. 

I get these little moments of emptiness and I rest in them, like micro doses.  I wonder if they will get longer.

Later, after listening to Michael Taft's podcast with Dan Brown, I had a sustained full feeling of awakening, a sense of how spacious rigpa really can be.  

I am coming home.