Compassion as technology

Krista Tipett TED talk on the launch of the Charter of Compassion.  Calling compassion "the technology we need." 

Body Appreciation

 I did this guided meditation today and ended crying like a baby, feeling so vicerally how little appreciation I have felt towards my body for so long. 

It's part of a trauma sensitive approach to mindfulness that I want to bring into my teaching practice

Intention for effortless stability

Cortland Dahl led a group of dharma geeks in a great meditation this week to explore effortlessness in the context of Mahamudra. 

We looked at the way that breathing meditation changed in the context of object oriented meditation, awarness meditation with no focus, and awareness meditation where intention was the reference point. 

It was clear that intention was the goldilocks level of awareness, not too tight, not too loose.  I will try to remember to put the recording here when it comes up. 

Meditation Teacher Program Week 1

1. Competencies and Assesments:

Envision yourself as a meditation teacher. What distinct qualities, characteristics, or values do you aspire to bring forward in your teaching approach? How do you believe these qualities will contribute to your effectiveness as a meditation teacher?

At the core of my approach to teaching is the belief that the role of the teacher is to create the conditions for creating knowledge, and be more than just a provider of ready-made knowledge.  This takes generosity, patience and joyful effort and the willingness to see oneself honestly. 

As one's meditation practice progresses, it becomes easier to tell the difference between a concept and the kind of knowledge that we've really made our own, through our experiential learning, through having put in the time in a wide range of situations, through the insights that have changed our beliefs, and the work it takes to test those beliefs until we are certain they reflect reality.

The challenge in teaching awareness mediation is not just to provide knowledge of what  awareness meditation is and about how to practice it, but to help people experience, early on,  the potential of small shifts to create huge impact. The first shift is for them to see meditation as something they can enjoy, that can be woven into their life effortlessly. The next is to experience those moments of liberation that drive and develop enthusiasm, and that will  turn those small shifts into positive behaviours and ultimately the wisdom and fruition of a mature meditation practice. But the most profound shift of all is the one in which the meditator sees themselves differently. A good teacher is a catalyst for that shift. 

I would hope to be able to embody the joyfulness, the light touch, the charm and the humour that we've all seen in Mingyur Rinpoche.  I would also hope to convey the confidence and stable energy of someone with a strong meditation practice. I would want to help people to discover a sense of calm, openess, and optimism based on an embodied experience of presence that is there for them, and will allways be there for them, whether they realize it or not. Above all, I would want them to tap into and sustain the qualities of loving kindness, compassion and wisdom that are their birthright. 

2. Self Care:

What are the top 3 strategies you will apply to ensure that you prioritize your well-being while adding the demands of the MTP program in your daily life?

First and foremost is to bring awareness into my informal practice, applying it to those self care routines that are essential for building and maintatining energy, eating, exercising,  housework, etc.   

Next, work on my sleeping meditation practice  to ensure that I'm getting enough good quality sleep. 

Finally, schedule self care into my day, prioritizing whatever areas might seem at risk of slipping, be it exercise, creative learning, or just finding time to have fun. 

3 Motivation: 

Reflect on the initial reasons that motivated you to embark on this path. Considering the significant investment of time and energy demanded by this MTP, what do you think are the underlying values that continue to drive your commitment? How do these core values align with your aspirations as a meditation teacher, and how do they contribute to your resilience in the face of the program's challenges?

I've been a Tergar student since 2013, about a year before I embarked on a new career and helped to build a new company that from the ground up that eventually employed over 50 people across Canada.  The program and these teachings have supported me through so many challenging periods. Through good times and sad. Through COVID, through my father's diagnosis of late stage lung cancer and death in August 2021.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yCfPbceIZ_T-vz8oogN6EgojqJVI3RMb/view?usp=share_link

Reflection 3 (video recorded response):  Motivation

Reflect on the initial reasons that motivated you to embark on this path. Considering the significant investment of time and energy demanded by this MTP, what do you think are the underlying values that continue to drive your commitment? How do these core values align with your aspirations as a meditation teacher, and how do they contribute to your resilience in the face of the program's challenges?

Reflection 2: Self-Care

What are the top 3 strategies you will apply to ensure that you prioritize your well-being while adding the demands of the MTP program in your daily life? 

More self liberation

 Rinpoche: Self-liberation and liberation upon arising are not characteristics of thought: they are what happens when the nature of thought is recognized. So it’s not the case that you either recognize the self-liberation or don’t; self-liberation is the result of recognition. Normally, thoughts are anything but self-liberated. A thought arises, and it takes us over, and that produces another thought, and so on. On the basis of these thoughts, we generate further confused projections, on the basis of which we experience pleasure and pain. Now, when the nature of a thought is recognized, what happens to thought is very much like, as is traditionally said, what happens when a snake untangles or unties the knots it's tied itself into. The snake does it itself; no one has to come along and help the snake out. In the same way, when you look at the thought directly, for example, a thought of anger, and you see its nature, then the thought does not generate a further thought; the anger is not prolonged. As soon as the nature is seen, at that moment, the poisonous quality of the anger just disappears and dissolves; and that is self-liberation or liberation upon arising.

Thrangu Rinpoche

“Pointing Out The Dharmakaya: Teachings on the Ninth Karmapa's Text," p. 110

Self Liberation

In the essence of Mahamudra course that I'm talking YMR explains the three levels of transformation, the view (cognitive), meditation (emotional), and application (habitual). 

We first approach the idea of buddah nature with the intellect.  Then through meditation we bring develop an emotional relationship with it, sometimes enjoying it, sometimes not. Finally, through application in life, to our problems, we have the kind of direct realization that is self-generating. We become one with Mahamudra. 

That is transformation.

When eating, cleaning, living, sleeping become Mahamudra, that is retirement from Samsara. 

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