Path of Liberation Level 3-4

I am doing path of liberation level 3 & f Spontaneous Presence and Liberation. Interesting that YMR characterizes the recognitions achieved in these levels as retirement from Samsara. I am semi retiring from my job and retiring from suffering in the same weekend. Do I have enough spiritual wealth to retire?

Wouldn't that be nice.  If only I weren't still struggling financially.  But I've made progress.  Not as much as I'd like, but I'm going in a better direction than I was before. 

Some notes from Day 1: 

• Horizontal is seeing the gap, seeing stillness.  Vertical is seeing the river. Even if you are overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings as long as you are conscious that you are seeing them you are in awareness. Resting in awareness doesn't have to be horizontal. 
• Recognition of emptiness dispels ignorance. When ignorance is gone, grasping, fixating, craving dissolves.  As does hatred. 
• Level 1-2 is inward looking (movement, stillness) 3 -4 is outward looking.

Day 2:

Last night for the first time that I'm aware of I had an almost dreamless sleep.  It feels pretty good!

Big takeaway.  In Kagyu there is no energy out there from which we draw because energy doesn't actually exist.  It's all manifestation and emptiness. 

Innate clarity is:

•  beyond 6 conscioueness, always open through the ten directions
•  the truth that dispels ignorance, grasping
• not the thing that is reflected in it.  
• not the anger, or the sadness, or the fear.   It remains when those things dissolve. 
• not the energy. It's what the energy arises from and dissolves into.  It's not even the light. 

George: Englightenment happens in the present moment. 

Day 3:

How do we know that we are seeing union of emptiness and clarity? Being with it after we have familiarized through analysis (JOL 3) and 1 & 2 we experience it beyond concept. 

Anger can't exist without object. Innate clarity can exist without object.

Emotions, negative and positive need an object. But innate clarity doesn't need an object to be sustained. 

If you are conscious you are in innate clarity.  No need to do anything, no need to create anything.  

Sleep by resting in nature of mind, luminous clarity. 

after transformation

grasping become loving kindness

aversion becomes compassion

Day 4

Two ways to deal with kleishas:

• resting in the lucidity
• hosting the kleisha until it dissolves into lucidity

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.