An introduction to Tong-Len, probably the easiest and single most useful Tibetan Buddhist mediation practice for westerners. Here is an easy-to-learn practice that we can do off-the-cushion as well as on, a technique that we can do all day long while we are working or just walking around. Among other things, Tong-Len focuses on what we hate and fear, and how to make friends with them or at least neutralize them and stop recording karma of that type.

Here are the details of dharma practice, in particular learning to meditate. Sections of when to mediate, how long sessions should me, our expectations, and the various experiences that come with meditation practice. Also included is how to allow the mind rest, include the Seven Point Posture of Vairocana (emptiness), point by point.

A discussion of dharma practice with Michael Erlewine, including reminiscence and stories of his own history of practice with emphasis on what the nature of practice of any kind involves, learning the muscle-memory and waiting for the pulse of spiritual surges in the cycles of our daily life. 

The great Patrul Rinpoche, the 19th Century Tibetan master, said "Don't Prolong the Past" and "Don't Invite the Future," two rules of meditation practice is the theme for this ten-minute segment on meditation and meditation practice, both on and off the cushion.  

How does mind-training cope with conflicting emotions, especially anger? Presented here is an ancient (but easy to do) technique for handling anger and various upsets that life presents us. It involves resolving past traumas and mistakes from the present, including learning not to record karma.

Buddhist practitioners call what they do "dharma practice"  or "meditation practice" and that is just what it is, practice, as opposed to actual meditation. How is dharma practice difference from actual meditation and what things should we be aware of and keep in mind?

The word "meditation" in the west covers a wide variety of New-Age practices. How are they different from the methods of meditation taught by the historical Buddha some 2500 years ago? 

It is one thing to have a meditation session each day, but quite another to carry our meditation technique into daily life, so that we can learn to practice in whatever we are doing. Also, if learning meditation is difficult or tedious, another approach is presented here using methods that you already know and care about. And finally there is a section on the Buddhist approach to trauma and trying to get therapy for whatever has happened to us in the past, a much easier way to let the past go.

If you really want to understand what the Self is, like 'your' self, just grab a few of old scrapbooks or photobooks and look through them. Of course you will see yourself grow older physically, but probably you can also see yourself grow psychologically and perhaps even spiritually, or at least change. But what I am pointing out here is what you surround yourself with, what we could call your "persona." Our person changes too, and what makes up our persona over the years can give us a glimpse of what the self is like, how it changes as we change not only by years, but by taste and style. 

This is just kind of a fun read, not anything too serious, if that is OK. It has to do with how we deal with the discrepancy between our aging body and how it looks, you know, who or what that is looking back at us in the mirror each morning and the fact that inside that old body we feel much younger than we are. How is that possible?

As a young person I certainly always thought that as I aged physically I would also age psychologically and spiritually, but there seems to be general agreement that most old folks still feel young inside their aging bodies. I know I do.

If you resonate to this solar flare information I have been posting, if it makes sense to you and you feel like internalizing it a bit, there is one major step you can take, if you can realize it. Understanding it is not hard, experiencing it consciously is a little harder, and realizing it can be difficult. It is worth the effort, so I will describe it to you.

To begin, I would like to share a few experiences and thoughts concerning the structure in space beyond our solar system and how it might be of value personally (or astrologically if you are an astrologer) for learning more about who we are and what on Earth we might be here for.

"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," a quote from the historian John Dalberg-Acton. No, I am not talking about the U.S. Congress, but if the shoe fits… Rather I am pointing to an esoteric principle that I was introduced to years ago, and that I ignore at my peril. It has to do with how we are attracted to people and why. I wish I had understood this principle when I was younger because I would not have been taken in by what appeared as attraction to this or that supposed teacher or "guru."

In the abstract, the idea is that when it comes to finding and identifying life teachers, the power of attraction itself to someone like a would-be teacher is a sign of a purely 'local' phenomenon, rather than to someone with knowledge that can actually help us. And this is as true in celestial objects like planets and galaxies as it is for those of us down here walking around on Earth. In other words, this is about the influence of others on us in our life, plus how we can learn to tell if a teacher or life-guide will be workable or helpful.

In the long history of Tibetan Buddhism, in both beginning and advanced practices, we find the analogy of waves and water, again and again. The Tibetans point out that our thoughts are like waves on the ocean of mind; both are water. Thoughts, they say, are just examples of the mind in movement, call it the motion of the ocean. Thoughts are equally mind -- water to water.

I have watched how the Tibetans gently brush mosquitoes from their arms. In Tibetan Buddhist meditation, thoughts, like mosquitoes, are not slapped down or suppressed. Thoughts are as natural to the mind as waves are to the ocean. In fact thoughts are the most common appearance of the mind to us. Thoughts are literally our own mind appearing. Without them many of the more advanced mind practices would be impossible.

I have always been intrigued by Tibetan Buddhist comments on what they call the "Three Times," the past, present, and future. Two of these which I have often presented in blogs are:

Don't Prolong the Past

Don't Invite the Future

I get that, but it is the third one I have been considering for a while, which is.

Don't Alter the Present

I remember spending time with Ram Das (Richard Alpert) years ago and his imperative was "Be Here Now," but this is not what the Tibetans are pointing out. What they say is to not alter the present, but to allow it to be just as it is. 

I want to say something about creativity and where it comes from. Of course there are all kinds of ways to be creative, and each of us knows what that feels like for ourselves. At the same time, we may wish to be more creative or creative all the time. How is that possible?

I want to say something about creativity and where it comes from. Of course there are all kinds of ways to be creative, and each of us knows what that feels like for ourselves. At the same time, we may wish to be more creative or creative all the time. How is that possible?

I am not talking here about the Ageless Wisdom, the Wisdom of the Ages, or even the Age of Wisdom, but rather just the wisdom that comes with age, with growing older. And it's not what you might think.

Realization is everything. Intellectualization, what we 'think' and what Shakespeare called the "pale cast of thought" is often but a sad second-hand reflection of the reality, as I will try to point out here. And I had help, so perhaps I will start there.

One of the more intriguing areas of Tibetan Buddhism (especially for me) are what is called "terma," which are precious dharma treasures that are hidden (and waiting to be found) in the earth and also right in the mind itself. These terma or mind treasures come to light and are found only when the world is ready to receive them.

The Tibetans have so many areas of life where they have done something really elegant, while the equivalent approach has never occurred to those of us here in the West, although we have the same opportunities. No one ever pointed it out to us. Terma is one of these topics that should interest us and I will attempt to explain why.

Any technique is the remainder of a full-blown realization, the final result of something lived through, the "Aha!" experience of someone else, and not our own. We would have to make it our own. After all, the dharma that Shakyamuni Buddha left us is nothing more than a method or technique, a way to enlighten ourselves which we are left to figure out. Vajrayana Buddhism is all about working with a guide or teacher to make sure we get it right. We can't always trust ourselves, especially starting out.

Learning any technique by rote, and not experiencing it, much less realizing it fully, is not only useless, it is dangerous, one more obscuration on top of all our other obscurations. It can poison our mind for the topic, whatever that is.

I suppose I should say something about how things last, an enduring topic that has fascinated me for decades. And I am not talking about ordinary memories, although some of them do indeed persist. I am talking about the mind itself and the half-life of what's in it.

As we all know, the mind can be amorphous, even cloudy. Not everything in the mind is clear and shining. There are dark areas too, of course. But there are also things that shine like the sun in the firmament of mind. How does that work? What lasts and what is lasting?

If we read even a little Tibetan Buddhism, we can't get away from its focus on the present moment. As mentioned in earlier blogs, the Buddhists are not so worried about "Being Here Now" as Baba Ram Das pointed out, as with not altering the present in any way. Ultimately the Tibetan Buddhists are interested in recognizing the true nature of the mind (past, present, or future) and resting in that nature.  And of course they rule out the past and the future as just something seen from the present darkly. They only really say one thing.

Allow the mind to rest in the present, just as it is.

I have heard from a number of you asking for more comments on substances that I have known. After nicotine, alcohol was next on my list of bad habits to come to terms with. And although cigarettes and tobacco are pretty much guaranteed to kill you in the end, alcohol comes damn close and is, in my experience, a lot more destructive emotionally and psychologically. While tobacco definitely harmed me big-time and is also in the process of killing many people I care for, alcohol has been far more destructive to friends and extended family in actuality. Let me start out with a side-effect of alcohol that I discovered for myself, one that few drinkers are aware of, but most are subject to. 

The clinical definition of a sadist is someone who derives pleasure out of hurting others, and a masochist as one who enjoys being hurt. I am going to dispense with all of that, including the combination of the two which is called sadomasochism. Instead what interests me is how we can use this concept in dharma practice, not only with others, but especially with ourselves.

When it comes to sensitive subjects, one of them has to be our own "worthiness." If I ask for a show of hands of those of you who are working toward enlightenment, many of you reading this would respond. However, if I ask how many of you feel you are worthy of enlightenment, the response could be much less. Why is that? Why do we tend to not feel worthy?

I talked dharma back in the late 1950s, and played at meditation in the 1960s, but it was not until the 1970s that that the dharma really got hold of me. That would be when I met the great siddha Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche at Ann Arbor in February of 1974. I got to be his chauffeur for a time. It was clear to me on contact with Trungpa that here was an authentic supramundane being, and this was not my first rodeo.

All of this time I may have been focusing on understanding the emptiness side of the equation (i.e. being is empty), when perhaps it makes more sense to consider being "AND" emptiness and note that our being may be running on empty, as in: "being" is not (and never has been) there really that much, if at all. That's a twist.

When I came on the scene there were two approaches to learning Tibetan Buddhism in North America, students who practice traditional texts in English and those of us who do it in Tibetan.

Early on I had a brush with those who advocated English when I met the great siddha, the Ven. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, but as it turned out my own root lama was more conservative, the Ven. Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, and he had us do our dharma practice in Tibetan.

text

"In for a penny, in for a pound." is an old saying about getting involved. Anyway, getting involved with the dharma and our monastery (Karma Triyana Dharmachakra) in the mountains high above Woodstock, New York was for me not quite a hop, skip, and a jump. It took time and it took encouragement. And we were newbies. I love the dharma, but I also had some thoughts about joining a dharma organization. Here is my story.

I am sensitive to religious proselytizing, yet I am very enthused about the dharma, as readers of this blog must know. I am sure the Christians feel the same way about their message. I wonder how my enthusiasm compares to the message of Christian evangelism.

"Have your heard the 'Good News'" is what the Christians say. As a dharma practitioner and enthusiast, I feel that the dharma is also good news, and that if folks have not heard about the dharma, they might be interested. So what's the difference between my view and the Christians in my neighborhood who go around door-to-door? There is a difference.

There are a few key or very important terms in Tibetan Buddhism and the concept of "emptiness" is one of them, but it can be hard to define. In addition, there are several distinct ways the concept of emptiness is used in the teachings, and they can be confusing. Let's just start with how the Buddha defined emptiness and go from there

I can see that this going to be fun, like walking a tightrope, but the concept of Dakini is an important one in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, one often avoided because it has subtle (and not so subtle) sexual connotations attached to it, i.e. dakinis are often said to be the physical consorts of gurus, and vice versa. I can't speak to that, but we can sort through some of the ideas surrounding dakini lore.

I'm not referring to ecology, the environment, whole and organic foods, and all those endeavors that many of us are already involved in. Young people here in Northern Michigan are right at the forefront of all that. What I am referring to is something different and I don't even know what to call it, so "Organic Mind" is close enough for now, and the premise is simple.

Basic meditation involves learning how to allow our mind to just relax. The Tibetan Buddhists have a slogan (as translated by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche) that reads "Relax as it is" and another traditional admonition "Don't alter the present," which both essentially are saying the same thing. My point here is that beginning meditation involves learning to just allow our mind rest, and the accent here is on resting. "Resting" means ordinary rest like we do at the end of a hard day's work when we plop down on the couch and take a deep sigh. It is the same thing. Rest is rest.

I blogged recently about intuition and how to make it a constant part of our life-process, instead of just a sometimes thing. I don't want to beat a dead horse, as they say, but it may help those of you interested in all of this if I drill down a little bit more. I am referring to our being more in the moment and what is called Insight Meditation.

The freshness of the moment reminds me of when my wife and I used to raise dogs (by accident of course), and here were all these little fat puppies lined up on their mom nursing, about as content as anyone could be. That is kind of how I feel about being in the present moment – authentically content.

Some years ago I had the opportunity to take a number of trips into the Florida Everglades and, as a naturalist, totally loved it. But one thing that worried me down there was how shallow the groundwater in Florida is and how easily polluted. For some reason the pollution there sticks in my mind as the archetype for the following mini-rant.

The analogy is that our mind, at least our mental "surface" water, is also easily polluted. As a kid I grew up with five-and-ten-cent stores all around. There were also expensive things, of course, but all of the little stuff was priced low. Those days are gone. Everything today is offered at a premium price, as if it were the keystone or missing ingredient, the pearl of great price. The obvious result is that now it is much more expensive just to live. There are no five-and-ten-cent stores and even the dollar-stores that replaced them often have things that cost more than a dollar.

Ignoring the actual nature of the mind is what spiritual ignorance is all about. This blog is about what are called the Three Poisons, of which the root poison is Ignorance. Looking at what we ignore, and becoming aware of what we distract ourselves with instead, leads us to the deconstruction of the Self, and true transmigration, the transference of our identification from self-related concerns to actual true nature of the mind itself.

This blog is about those stones in our pathway that we call doubts. I have talked a lot about obscurations, mostly referring to self-imposed blinders that make it difficult to intuitively see, and these are, of course, obstacles to our spiritual development. But we also have plain-old "obstacles," external obstructions (events, conditions, or whatever) that appear in our life-path seemingly from the outside, and these can be harder to internalize, much less realize; they are something we can't do much about, except in our response to them.

This is a blog, with some personal rambling, on ostensibly what is called that Fourth Thought of the "Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind to the Dharma," a classic Tibetan Buddhist concept. The Fourth Thought is sometimes called the "shortcomings of Samsara," the basic undependability of this cyclic world of up and down that we all live in. The rambling part of it has to do with resting in the present moment and not wanting to take action other than allowing the mind to rest, i.e. not altering the mind. 

The actual technique of sitting meditation practice is only part of the story. Equally important is our intent and attitude both going into a meditation session and how we seal or close a session when we are done. The importance of aspirations before practice and the dedication of merit after practice are explained, along with the key concept of what are called the "Two Accumulations," that of merit and awareness or wisdom"

The physical posture and mind-training technique necessary to learn basic meditation. This includes finding the correct object of meditation, and then learning the actual sitting posture, which is called The Seven Point Posture of Vairochana (emptiness). Then the seven points are explained, as well as how long sessions should be, care in not staining the practice, consistency, learning to relax as it is, and what is called the "wish-fulfilling jewel."

This is an introduction to basic Shamata practice as used by Tibetan Buddhists to learn to allow the mind to rest naturally.