I had a bit of an answer recently during a Sunday morning sit at Shambhala. After working really hard for three hours and making some headway, as it were, I perceived that my ordinary self was struggling to catch up to the tastes of liberation experienced, and was very tired.

So it’s really perhaps just as simple as one has always perceived since starting to meditate: it’s not the being in the moment that takes energy, it’s having to start over again an instant later. It’s the firing up of the motor again. It’s the sadness at seeing ourselves cover the moment over with glue. The stickiness of our grasping. Seeing this again and again.

~~

Duality, duality. All answers to questions such as these must come in relative truths. And as Anam Thubten Rinpoche has made clear to us, we’ll have our ego with us every step of the way towards enlightenment – the ego is very spiritual, always ready to buy more time outside of liberation, with answers that keep the ego intact.

Even so, to share this or even consider it I have to use relative terms. As practitioners we have to think in terms of making progress, and even sometimes in terms of experiencing setbacks, although we don’t let such things hinder our practice. These are all just the appearances that arise and give us the material of realization. And as is taught, we use relative truth continually to switch our grasping away from samsara and towards liberation.

~~

The Shambhala Sunday sit for me is when I work the hardest all week. I really enjoy these three hours of meditating every week, I’ve been going since I started meditating four years ago. They help my practice through the rest of the week, and the longer sessions let me build a focus for things I don’t always attempt during my shorter sessions at home: things like guru yoga, contemplation of karma, death or compassion, and dwelling briefly in more subtle experiences perhaps.

In recent months during these longer sessions I’ve been working harder, raising windhorse frequently, supplicating Guru Rinpoche, really aiming for the clear mind of the master. I’ve found in certain blessed moments that I can experience a mind that is mine, yes, but which I can only approach through the mind of Guru Rinpoche. The great ones lift us higher I think, and I’ve heard it said that only the rain of blessings from them enables any of us to progress along the path.

~~

But I wonder if I should be so weary after this practice. I wonder what I’m doing wrong. Am I going anywhere, or just digging a deep groove in the wrong place? This seems to be the thing to do, to chase after objectives, to aim for practice targets. But shouldn’t more energy flow into me? Shouldn’t there be less striving, more surrender?

Ah, practice. I don’t know these answers. It seems we move from one set of answers to a new set of mysteries.

And I call this a glad thing.

Anam Thubten Rinpoche is a maverick: despite his robes he discourages much ceremony, and goes straight to the teachings of Lord Buddha. He is relentless. He doesn’t stop expounding the teachings, gently hammering home the key point of the Dharma, which is to drop attachment.

He seems almost to be repeating himself, but actually he spent a whole weekend saying different things, and they were all the same thing, again and again. And this was because this is the Dharma, and though vast and profound it’s also really simple, so simple that it takes constant repetition to get through to us.

He explained that he himself was being very disciplined, in a practice mode of speaking only the Buddha’s message to us, he himself getting out of the way.

He doesn’t seem to tire, especially. I was greatly tired by the constant stripping away of my accumulated beliefs, those “cosy” beliefs, as he called them, rightly. In the end, I was worn down, and in the blessing line at the end of the retreat I told him, “I’ll do everything you said.”

I’m pretty new to this game, less than two years before the mast as a practitioner on the path, and yet I could survey quite a tidy inventory of thoughts that were already congealing into patterns and maybe habitual judgments – storylines. Rinpoche tore them away, gently, gradually, irresistibly.

So all that’s left really is the message of the Buddha, the Heart Sutra transmitted orally to us by Rinpoche, the prajnaparamita teaching that formed the theme of the retreat. We sang again and again:

om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha

~~~

And now the weekend has passed away, and I am left changed.

I thought he said the same thing endlessly, and yet I have over two dozen points I noted down, each one a teaching, each one to be practiced, to be learned continually, each a way to keep my head up and stay clearly on the path.

I am deep in Shantideva’s Way of the Bodhisattva, for the first time, working my way to chapter nine, the Wisdom chapter that Rinpoche recommended we study. Shantideva, too, I find, has a way of hammering home certain points relentlessly, tirelessly, inescapably. Thank goodness.

Obviously this text must be my lifetime companion.

~~~

There are also pictures of the retreat – my picture here is hotlinked from the flickr set, please and thank you

July Retreat:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/watermoon/sets/72157601123334312/

So now it’s on with life then, and he’ll be coming back in half a year or so.

Meanwhile there is much practice and study to perform, as I said I would.

If you’ve never experienced Anam Thubten Rinpoche, well, maybe you should. You can’t help but love the man, his spirit is so warm, and he’s so positive. His particular thing is wakefulness, he wants us to wake up now. He makes it seem possible.

The last time Anam Thubten Rinpoche was in town I went to the Friday evening talk; I didn’t think I could spare the whole weekend. It was my first encounter with him, the first time I’d even heard his voice. We sat for a while, and then he talked. I remember only that he said he was confident that each one of us would have some kind of breakthough, some kind of awakening. This was nice, and later in that weekend I had some kind of breakthough, some kind of awakening. A few hours after the experience I remembered what he’d said.

Some months later I was sitting with his Austin sangha during their Sunday morning puja, and we were listening to one of Anam Thubten Rinpoche’s talks on disc, as they always do every week. Rinpoche was talking about awakening, and at the end he encouraged us to meditate, saying, almost casually it seemed, that we would experience an awakening. When I went home I thought about this. Even though I had meditated for the day, I decided to sit again and give it twenty minutes. Sure enough, an awakening.

Call me superstitious, but two out of two is one hundred percent. What is it they used to say in the old James Bond world? Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence – and third is my going back next weekend, and this time I’m down for the whole weekend.

Maybe I’ll see you there

Full details are here:
Anam Thubten Rinpoche Retreat Weekend in Austin

If you’ve never experienced Anam Thubten Rinpoche you should at least come for the talk on Friday, and if your experience is like mine and others you’ll take away an enduring gift of power. Anam Thubten Rinpoche is a gift giver, and his focus is on awakening now.

Full Details

Anam Thubten will lead this meditation retreat with teachings and guided meditations. The emphasis of this retreat is to have a glimpse of experience of our true nature, which is already perfect without having the need to be improved or changed. When this realization happens, all notions of previous suffering and conflict lose their tight grasp along with all egoic identities. Anam Thubten will teach methods that help us to stabilize and carry this new understanding of true reality into our everyday lives.

Location: Clear Spring Studio – 605 Copeland St., Austin, Texas 78704 http://www.clearspringstudio.com/

Retreat schedule: Friday evening, July 27 – 7:00 pm;
Saturday & Sunday, July 28-29 – 10:00 am-5:30 pm

Cost: Friday Evening: Donations ~ Entire weekend: $125

To register, contact: Debi Vanwey dkvanwey@sbcglobal.net (512) 926-6167

I believe that everyone is capable of realizing their true nature which is already perfect. Only then can we be truly happy and become a blessing to others. Let’s allow ourselves to go beyond all resistance and experience the inexpressible nature of our true being.

- Anam Thubten.

Dharmata Foundation is a non-profit organization, dedicated to providing spiritual seekers the opportunity to embrace the Holy Dharma, which is a true path to inner freedom. Such freedom will come into being by engaging in the enlightened realm of Dharma, and is available to everyone, regardless of background. In order to fulfill this vision, Dharmata offers intensive retreats, workshops and discourse classes, under the guidance of Dharma teachers such as Anam Thubten.

For more information, visit http://www.dharmatafoundation.org

local: http://www.dharmata-austin.org/2007.html