Sacred West

This may sound like ordinary words, but I see recently that I’m in a trap of my own making.

And so it occurs to me that I must also be in the freedom of my own making.

Read the Full Story...

I think many of us when we start mindfulness meditation with a focus on the breath have some initial work to do just finding the breath, sorting it out from the waterfall of thoughts in our minds.

Dharma practitioner Chodpa, after some time with a more formless meditation and now practicing Shamatha again with focus on the breath, has the opposite problem. He can find the breath okay, but it doesn’t seem to be anything.

Read the Full Story...

This morning I pondered the rightness of having a strong back, and of having a soft front. Shambhala teaches as a foundational instruction having a “good head and shoulders”, and the notion is accompanied by having an open front.

The strength of our uprightness doesn’t belong in our fronts. When we assert ourselves too harshly, our strength leaves our backbone, and comes to our face, our mouth, our heart, and manifests unbalanced, as passion or anger or fear or shouting or discourtesy.

Read the Full Story...

His Holiness the Seventeenth Karmapa, the leader of the Kagyu lineage, is in America as this is written.

Acharya Eric Speigel, of the Shambhala lineage – and once a teacher of mine in Austin for a weekend class on death and dying – sent us a lovely and touching account of the Karmapa’s landing and teachings in New York.

Read the Full Story...

I started reading The Time Falling Bodies Take To Light, a classic on mythology, which I had never read. I was struck first by William Irwin Thompson’s awesome power of writing, and then very soon into the Prologue by these 111 words:

The Fall is not only once and long ago; it is recapitulated in each instant of consciousness. The unfallen world beyond time remains as a background to the figured beats of the heart in our world of serial progression. Like the white page that surrounds the darkness of each letter you are reading here, eternity surrounds each heartbeat, and as the contemplative watches his breath, he can move out of time through the doorway which opens in the interval between each heartbeat. Each open space is a spiritualization, each beat a materialization; and both are sacred, for in one is the spiritualization of matter; in the other, the materialization of spirit.

Read the Full Story...

Can the self be found? Is the self even necessary? A beginning practitioner in the Buddhist methods of inquiry relates his first experience of looking for the self, and watching it shy away from discovery, seeming to flee from the present moment. He notes with surprise the giant claim of ownership that we assume to be ourselves.

But what does this feel like? How do we experience this? As a practitioner of buddhist meditation, and a student of the Dharma, this is how one looks for the self – read on.

Read the Full Story...

A friend sent this over:

There is only one thing, from the very beginning,
infinitely bright and mysterious by nature.

It was never born, and it never dies. It cannot be
described or given a name.

What is this “one thing”?

An eminent teacher wrote,
Even before the ancient Buddhas were born,
One thing was already perfectly complete.
Even Shakyamuni Buddha could not understand it.
How could he transmit it to Mahakashyapa?

There is one “thing” that is never born, and never
dies. For this reason it cannot be named in any way,
or expressed, or depicted.

The Sixth Patriarch of Zen once addressed the assembly
thus: “I have something that has no name and no form.
Do any of you see it?”

Zen Master Shen-hui immediately replied, “It is the
essence of all Buddhas, and also my buddha nature.”

Due to this answer, Shen-hui cannot be considered a
legitimate heir and descendant of the Sixth Patriarch.

- Zen Master So Sahn (1520-1604)

Read the Full Story...

All beings, everywhere, suffer; let your heart go out to them all in
spontaneous and immeasurable compassion.
-Sogyal Rinpoche

And who is Sogyal Rinpoche? Read on, and watch this clip on meditation…

Read the Full Story...

Tibetan Buddhist Teachings
In Austin, Texas
with:
Tulku Orgyen Zangpo Rinpoche

Friday, November 30th, 7PM – 9PM (registration at 6PM)

Saturday & Sunday, December 1st and 2nd – 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM

“From My Heart”
A Hymn on Discovering the Sacredness of Life

In this lyrical work, His Holiness Jigmed Puntsok offers a complete vision of the innate sanctity of life. His poem describes every detail of how one can live in the true heart of purity each moment, with each breath, with every thought. “From My Heart” is His Holiness’ melody of exaltation, celebrating the wonder of eternal liberation. Tulku Orgyen Zangpo Rinpoche will explain the underlying significance of His Holiness’ poem and how it applies to each of us as we remember our true essence as awakened beings.

Read the Full Story...

Here’s a quote from a Mary Oliver poem:
And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Read the Full Story...