Wendy

Longing for Limitless Light-by C.R. Lama and James Low. New audio recordings – 6 and 7

It’s always there!

Six and seven figure in the title of this post…and the world is at ‘sixes and sevens’!
The meaning of this phrase has changed through time but currently ‘at sixes and sevens’ refers to a state of confusion, disorder or disagreement…

Thinking of climate change, fiscal policy, food supply, political alliances, the price of petrol at the pump, availability of ambulances, the situation in Sri Lanka, species extinction… just a few random examples …the world we inhabit is clearly changing very rapidly and heating up in different ways.

With this, the world we knew, what we once had taken for granted as ‘structurally sound’ and reliably so… is ever more obviously revealed as lacking inherent stability, loosely supported by a wooden wobbly wood-wormy scaffolding woven from beliefs, hopes, fears — founded in ignorance of how things actually are.

Without realisation of the dharma there is a driven-ness to behaviours. This is predicated on karma – previous activity performed while deluded as to the nature of the ‘self’ – and so what seems to be a freely chosen behaviour is really not so.

The Bodhisattva Vow, the subject of these two recordings, starts with a conscious intention which is so vast, so unlimited in scope, that if taken seriously, rattles at egoic-attachment and begins to shake our limiting self-beliefs.
This idea could provoke anxiety but taking this Vow as a path is a way that may eventually lead to a genuine stability, that of indestructible integrity…no matter what the circumstances!

In inviting association and alliance with, and support from, those who have trodden this path before us –some to its completion of realisation of Buddhahood – our lives can be immeasurably enriched with deepening profundity through practice… through engagement…

…and all the tensions of being at ‘sixes and sevens’ are resolved in the universal common denominator of 0, of emptiness or openness… as is explained in the perfection of wisdom of the Heart Sutra*.

Different paths lead up mountain Everest to the site of the (now non-existent) ‘Hillary step’, the once formidable challenge or crux faced by mountaineers just before the summit*….each path offers different challenges and a different appreciation of the mountain and it’s environment.
Just so different pathways lead us deeper into the dharma and to an appreciation of the rich variety of dharma teachings… all point towards the absolute – 0… which whilst underlying, non-dual, with everything… is beyond or without paths, fixed-ropes, striving or any thing.

*If you are looking to deepen your understanding of the Heart Sutra I can recommend  Macclesfield talk 13    The Illusory nature of Experience which you can find from this index – audio and video available
and also the The Heart Sutra Emerson College 2014 audio recordings.

* The placing of fixed ropes diminished the extreme hazard of climbing this section;
it’s near vertical slope was destroyed in the 2015 Nepal earthquake.

Buddha Shows the Way…latest book and review

This latest book from James Low is available from Amazon where, currently, the price is £16.81 – with the Kindle edition greatly discounted to £5.60…

So the Kindle edition, if this format works for you, is an inexpensive way to check whether or not you agree with my review, included below!
James hoped that ‘its enthusiasm will encourage at least a few people to look deeper into their lives’
….and if you do agree with me… you’ll find you have downloaded a genuine treasure-bargain.

I’m still a fan of a ‘book in the hand’ and reading this while recovering has been a particular pleasure.
I can imagine we’ll enjoy having a go at exploring its deep but relatively easily accessible content in our little group.

Here’s details of the book… and review!

This book contains a selection of edited public talks given by James Low.
They cover a wide range of topics yet share a common theme: how to apply Buddhist teachings in our complex engagement with the modern world.
We are all faced with ever increasing tasks of life maintenance as we struggle to cope with the profound impact of climate change, conflict, economic chaos, environmental and political instabilities. Moreover our own inner life is prey to habitual tendencies, impulses and blind spots so that our sense of the world is often more muddled than we imagine it to be.

The Buddhist view encourages us to see the ungraspable illusory nature of every situation in order that we might avoid being buffeted by samsara’s waves of hopes and fears. With this clarity our own potential can be turned towards the benefit of the many rather than towards individual selfish pursuits.

The Buddha shows the way contains eighteen short chapters which can be read in any order so it is a book that can be dipped into according to your mood and time available.

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to relate to, with stunningly clear explanations…Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 June 2022Verified Purchase

I would give this book a sky-full of stars if I could.
This is much more than a collection of what has already been said.
James has transformed these talks – with a diamond-cutters precision and a heart which is writing for us as we are – into what is, to my mind, the most widely accessible and easily digestible yet comprehensive book that he has offered us thus far.
Each of his books is radiant with truth, some rich as peonies , others fresh as daisies…each may appeal more to some than others…
But i would recommend this book to all, without reservation, for its simple clarity in explaining the profundity of the truth of us all in a way that we may recognise and realise…
and how we can live from that truth in easeful connectivity with the appearances of our increasingly turbulent world.

‘Ear today and gone tomorrow!’… Living with impermanence, gratitude, love and respect.

Carving reminiscent of Gautama Buddha’s statue in Parinirvana, at the Mahaparinirvana Temple Kushinagar

Once, in a Macclesfield talk, James said to us …’If you are so anxious about this, how will you be if you get a cancer diagnosis?’

Recent experience gave me the opportunity to find this out…and the answer is ‘very different with the dharma than without.’

I’ve a bit of a medical background and had a strong sense that, despite the certainty of the dermatologist that it was benign, the tumour on my ear was a melanoma.

Happily, despite confirming her initial opinion by checking through her dermatoscope, our discussion did eventually lead to a biopsy (Trust your intuition and work with the circumstances… which included that the dermatologist had been covering for those off sick and was exhausted).

In the weeks before the result came back I did some research…(not ‘just a wee stookie’ standing immobile in the face of changing circumstances but saying …’this is coming, so what’s wise to do?’)

With a melanoma, best practice for best result would be for one excision, done correctly – to clear the tumour, and a.s.a.p.

The head and neck are particularly problematic sites where recurrence is not uncommon and this is not good news. Tumours on the ear are asymmetrical with often a high degree of sub-clinical spread. It’s a site where the ‘in-need-of-review yet nationally applied’ wide margin excision guide-lines may well be inadequate and, in practice, frequently not achieved.

I found out…a lot!… and when the biopsy result confirmed my intuition, this helped me to make the moves which I felt were most likely to achieve the best chance of complete recovery. What the ear would look like afterwards was inconsequential…though ears are surprisingly useful – enhancing hearing and sound-locating ability…and for hanging glasses, hearing aids and masks over!

Thanks to the dharma this research did leave space for practice and connection so my world didn’t completely shrink to the size of my ear for a couple of months…and, although i could see a tendency to grasp at definite knowledge for reassurance, the more I looked the more i could see it’s insubstantial nature…in practice the world opens as it does and with there is plenty of self-liberating weird shit (to borrow a phrase) and plenty of curved balls in the mix!

I’m just now happily working my way through the infections, and antibiotics which followed the surgeries…
There are no certainties but a very good chance of a complete recovery…from this…
but not perhaps other sicknesses, and certainly not old age and death.

Death is surely coming, so what’s wise to do?
Being able to recognise and work with the circumstances of death requires prior knowledge not to found in PubMed!… and a different relationship to the body from that which currently prevails.

So if you can…do listen as James * teaches on the Bardos this weekend.
*Link takes you to the text and translations of it.
Update –the recordings of this weekend of teaching are now available to listen to/ listen again here.

Knowing impermanence as truth and that this body is a vulnerable and complex little shell…although i have been very healthy and healed well in the past.. the dharma whispers in my ear ‘not always so’ ‘do not assume, take nothing for granted’.

Just now the body is maybe a bit useful, so some effort to maintain it seems right…but in knowing that it’s an expression of, rather than being entire truth of ‘me’…anxiety is diminished.

Knowing how much other beings are suffering…i share in that, this little drama is insignificant.
And being composed of an inexpressible numbers of uniquely and inexpressible vanishing moments…there is freshness. So living with the ‘lasagne effect’ of: ‘there was this! on top of that! on top of that!’ is avoided.

It is only in staying present as presence that the richness is revealed…otherwise it’s masked by the falsity and staleness of presenting a conceptualised ‘me’…and all that goes with that…

The dharma teachings, bringing lightness freedom and connectivity, are so precious and have come to us through lineages of teachers… each embodying and teaching from wisdom with a profound commitment to the welfare, to enlightenment, for all beings.
Without their help we would be, and I would have been, and as my sat. nav. says in Billy Conolly’s voice…’Completely lost!’

June 14th, this Tuesday, is Saga Dawa Duchen, Paravirvana day… a day to reflect on the teachings of the historical buddha, of C.R.Lama and all the teachers of the lineage… this was James’ suggestion.
He also suggested that we take the time to appreciate and reflect on the precious connection we have with each other, in the dharma. I’ll be doing that : ) and the repelling all obstacles and…

wearing a sun-hat, in the shade and, soon, sun cream on the ears as well!

Working with change and impermanence. Macclesfield  talk 11 – video… and Index

This was the concluding talk given at what was, at the time, the Khandro Ling Centre in Macclesfield, England and the recording of this talk is the last of the outstanding! recordings which, over time, have filtered through from the generous sponsor of the centre out to you the wider audience.

Although at the time, due to causes and conditions, his own interest had waned… as the wider interest in them became clear, Chris Coppock who created the earlier recordings, got them out of storage in his garage and, as time was available, made archive quality copies from the Master DVDs …sending the copies over to me for Barbara, or later Pedro, to publish…

This video is comprised of the three recordings, but he was only able to send me copies of the first two as the third was compromised in some way.

I asked around to see whether anyone had a copy they could lend me…but none was forthcoming. Most of us were buying the CD sets at the time, ten to twenty years ago.

Looking on the web it seemed that although the Master couldn’t be copied it might still be possible to extract the information from the disc onto a lap-top. So I asked Chris and he entrusted the master to the post. Happily it survived the journey intact despite without the protection of a box…and it ‘ripped’ ok!
So I was, at last, able to send all three over to Pedro who has presented it for you.

Just a flavour of some of the factors upon which the availability of this recording depended – that a little group formed to study buddhism. At the point i joined we met in a room above Pizza Hut and different teachers were invited to come and speak. That’s where some of us first met James.

As the numbers grew we then met for ‘James weekends’ in local buildings, in a hut in the local hospital and in a park.
James expressed his ease with this light way of meeting – like the gars in Tibet where students would gather for some time in the summer to receive teachings then disperse back into the hills to practice… Then the idea of a dedicated centre arose for the teacher of the group, and then a sponsor…and a lot of work for those involved. When teachers were invited to the centre the sponsor then made audio recordings of their talks… then as interest increased he bought a video camera…and then…and then…

Along with much else, James explains in this video…as he did in the first talk from the centre…the nature of relative reality – that ‘this’ appearance arises due to a multiplicity of causes and conditions, that due to impermanence this centre will be here whilst the factors for its maintenance are in play and then….and then…other factors arise and…it’s no longer a dharma centre
yet here we are connected in the dharma!

And i’m happy to say that here also is the complete index to all the 21 recordings from Macclesfield 2003 to 2020

P.S. On finding relevant videos on YouTube:

If you are looking to find particular James Low videos on YouTube it can be a bit of a maze. 
Using the playlists which have been created might help with this.

Go to YouTube  enter  james low dzogchen   in the search box…this brings them up
Then click ‘filters’ (to the right of the Home symbol)
The second column contains ‘playlist’ …select that.

Included in the revealed selection you’ll find playlists where teachings in a particular language and translations are grouped together, also playlists where you’ll find all the translations of a particular video. Also, playlists of excerpts and single episode teachings …

n.b. If the playlist doesn’t have   James Low – Dzogchen and Buddhist teachings   next to it,  you’ve  instead found the playlist of the person whose name is shown. This will include a JL video among their personal recommendations!’

Lotus Source by C.R.Lama &James Low: book review

In case you’ve been thinking of buying this book the review below, which I wrote for Amazon, might convince you!

Lotus Source…well what is that??? 
If you’re drawn towards this book don’t hesitate… buy it!
Then – through inhaling imbibing and digesting, becoming at home 
with the rare clarity of the explanations prayers and practices therein – 
you’ll find it leads to what you seek. 

The intellect and observation take us so far in the dharma… but as our hearts and minds open wider this rainbow-bridge appears leading from our deluded assumptions about the nature of our ‘self’ and other ‘things’ towards recognition of the unchanging ground of all.

In the introduction, James explains precisely how our mistaken identifications arise and the consequences of this miss-take.
How liberation from confusion can occur at death or before…and how the Buddhas, here primarily Padmasambhava, function to assist our re-solution and re-alignment – as inseparable from and an expression of buddha.

Really??? Have a look…and you will see!

James was teaching ‘Waking up to Impermanence’ 7/8 May expounding the Mi Tag Gyud Kul prayer that is in this book pp 280-285… currently the book is reduced in price at Blackwell’s bookshop…by £8.31 from £25 to £16.69.
For such a precious and beautiful book this seems an extraordinary bargain……

The teaching was recorded as usual and will shortly be found on his YouTube channel…more in the next post about that.

Sweet Simplicity: Book review

You can read more about the book and its contents, and find out about dohas here

Below is my review for browsers on Amazon:

‘It’s a heart’s delight to read, speak and resonate with these Songs of Realisation… and to appreciate the integrity of their expression.

It seems to me that translating these songs requires facility in both of the languages  used – for accuracy, a poetic appreciation and expression – for flavour and flow, and ideally realisation of the actual for the feeling tone – to reflect most fully the truth which is being gestured towards.

There is no doubt in my mind that the dohas and texts in this book are a clear and true representations of the original expression of the Mahasiddhas… and James Low’s introduction, with its advice on how to approach the contents, is invaluable – a plain-song doha – key to receiving the treasures within.

With this, having left our intellectual glasses at the gate, we are welcomed as though into an exquisite garden where images of great beauty… and variegated blooms of profound truth, shimmering and radiant with clarity… manifest with each turn of the page. Their scent, rare yet pervasive, is of cloyless emptiness…

This book costs about £16, enough for a gorgeous bunch of flowers…which will eventually decay, smell rank, and fade away.
Whereas the blooms in the book open… whenever you open to them…
it’s more than a bargain!’

‘Me First’ : book review

‘This early Buddhist account of the rise of a demonic dictator helps to illuminate how the will to power can bring misery to many as with the current political situation in the Ukraine’.
This is the introduction on the simply being.co.uk website. 
The book compellingly draws us into a portrayal of  the originating factors for the resultant mayhem and the arising of buddhas… manifesting as required and as requested, to overcome the destructive power of ignorance.

This is an extraordinary book. Having read the account as given by James in a teaching some twenty years ago and more recently the full translation of the text from the Tibetan – which is found in the book  ‘This is it’ – I was unprepared for the impact of this presentation… which takes it to another dimension! 

James’ absorbing re-telling powerfully grips the attention and the illustrations by Diana Collins are a perfect counterpart. Ranging from the grotesque to the sublime they give shape to the words and transform the book into an immersive and visceral experience.

The wrathful power of the buddhas is situationally evoked by the escalating horrors perpetrated though a self-serving misunderstanding of profound teaching.

Resting in awareness there is no grasping, but in ignoring awareness and relying on thoughts – which relate to the falsity of ‘me’ as the central referent – there is grasping and no rest…
…and this grasping does not ease the anxious tension which arises with the false position…but exacerbates it!
As with compulsively scratching an itch…eventually inflammation, infection, and poisoning radiate from this… and when systemic – ignorance – the source of this, won’t be cured by easing balms and lotions…

A ‘tour de force’…an expression from the heart of the buddhas!

Proud Little Cloud:Letting in the light… review

This book… with its enchanting images by Amanda Lebus and story by James Low… is now available to purchase. So I bought two copies and gave one to two happy ‘cloud sisters’ who live near me…ages one and five… a perfect fit for the suggested age range …
but it’s so lovely that you might like a copy for yourself : )

It’s available from Blackwells Amazon and others… and i wrote these words the day I read it.

~ softly kissed clouds ~

Today snow falls
on wind-whipped blackthorn
and the blackbird with a damaged wing
rests on the little table

The sky’s a wash,
awash with different forms
whitish defined, and diffuse grey
shot through with opaque rays
and touched with rainbow light

This resonates as wordless poetry
like pages of the ‘Proud Cloud’ book
gently caressing anxiety
from feeling separate –
‘just me’…

…and perhaps ‘Me!’,
more special than the rest…
with flip-side – disconnected
loneliness!

The words in the book are so well chosen, few and beautifully simple. You can take them as they are or as ‘light as a cloud’ gestures inviting exploration…

as the description says
‘This attractively illustrated book invites children to see how the sea and the sun and the clouds are all collaborating together to make our bright and variegated world. They all need each other and so the key theme is that none of us is alone and we all get along better with friendly and appreciative participation. The idea is that adults read the book aloud and talk about the images and themes with the child.’

The text on the back cover explains,
Proud Little Cloud felt very happy to be bright and shining in the vast blue sky: “There is no one like me.” she thought proudly. “I’m so special!” However the eclipse of the sun came as a big surprise to her: “Oh, so it is not my own light that makes me bright!” “I need the sun so I can shine and children need my rain so they have puddles to splash in.”  “Now I’m proud to be part of everything.” [Proper pride w]

Each illustration has many fascinating details for children to explore.’

No finger wagging here, this is a caress on the cheek of the child…
I don’t know what older readers will see…maybe themes of impermanence as opposed to eternalism,  anxiety and ease, dependant co-origination, inclusivity exclusivity, joy…perhaps even the source of luminosity… : )

The final pages, of wordless poetry, are expressions of great delicacy – evoking spacious openness and calm…for this little cloud anyway! The thought…’where are the words’? … was … blown away

Much Ado About No-thing!

This evening James was inviting us to engage with the dohas in his new publication ‘Sweet Simplicity’ * translations of songs of realisation from such great wisdom-beings as Saraha Virupa and Tilopa

Yesterday I was attempting to clarify the meaning of some words in ‘This is it’ with a fellow student…
and this morning some words came together…

I don’t know if they’ll be helpful but i know that even a little candle glow may illuminate a unseen obstacle from a slightly different angle…and that your take – whatever is evoked, will be a unique and empty experience… : )

Homage to the Guru:

What, in truth, is this?

– a showing; radiance of your empty mind

What makes this radiance appear?

– nothing…it’s natural, always here

How does it seem?

– ah…that depends…

Depends on what?

depends largely on the degree
to which the looker dualistically
identifies as solid – ‘Me’
with all that brings
to the party!

If, fully, I identify as Me
‘my’ shadows shade the true
and, unaware… it’s consciousness
that mediates the view

and so there’s ‘I know this’ and ‘that’
and also ‘me’ and ‘you’

Each seems an individual thing…
about which, other things are ‘known’
… ethereal pots
and their embellishment …
each seeming-thing’s mind-thrown!

arisings – transient and yet…
deluded ‘potter-Me’
– forms, fires, invests, imagined pots
with self-substantiality!

N.B.
The creativity of the mind does not hold water!!!

All that effort…huh! unreliable display!
each moments flown……
but don’t despair
awareness has not gone away

With this, as this, there is
no ‘thing’ to gain
no ‘thing’ to loose
… egoic grasping was confused!

Interest without investment* –
better!… that way we’ll be
resting in equanimity

open relaxed
with minds at ease
no ‘thing’ to do
no ‘thing’ to seize

Hands freed from shaping
of the ‘clay’
gestures arise as flow

and fade away

as they do

naturally

👐🏻………………

* This is an amazing idea…outside the dharma, who’s heard of interest without investment, without inflation?
Just playing around : ) – it’s a bare interest that’s meant…a simple open co-presencing with, and appreciation of the revelation of the display.
This is not available at the Bank of Consciousness…don’t use them if you can help it… their vitality rates are dire!

*As an alternative to the ubiquitous Az … in the U.K. Blackwell’s bookshop stocks many of James’ books. N.B. In their search engine just entering the book title may not bring up the book you are after. You do need to enter James Low after the title or from the selection offered you may conclude it’s not available. If you create an account with them before ordering it is tracked. Waterstones also have a selection. Watkins bookshop (phone them) and Shambhala bookshop have some of the earlier books in stock.


Clarity and Equanimity in a time of provocation

There is a poem about devotion in Dzogchen, which was posted last night on the simplybeing.co.uk website.

James composed this on the final night of the retreat entitled ‘Clarity and equanimity in a time of provocation’ at Emerson college in 2019. In the post there is an invitation to click if you would like to listen to James read the poem.

I invite you to take up that invitation in quite a big way. You can of course just listen to the poem which is at the beginning of the last recording however I really recommend that you continue to the end of that recording and then… Begin at the beginning : )

There is more than enough in that set of recordings to help us to take up ‘the burden of putting things right’ in a way far removed from what Hamlet does in reactivity to his horror at his own imagined situation…

What’s Hamlet got to do with this?

Well, just below the poem on the website you’ll find another post entitled:
Establishing Balance and Harmony do take a look.

In that post referring to the requirement for us respond to the turbulence in the world James references Hamlet with this quote:
The time is out of joint―O cursèd spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
                          Hamlet 1.5.188

The post goes on to invite – having taken refuge and generated bodhicitta – the creation of tsa-tsas whilst the recitation of Padmashambhava’s mantra or the Seven Line Prayer is running through your heart-mind. Any merit generated in the process is then dedicated to the relief of suffering in all the six realms.

What a beautiful, inclusive, peaceful activity… full of the highest intentions and connected with wisdom and compassion of the highest order. 

This energetic engagement, linked with spaciousness ease and the truth of impermanence, inevitably changes the environment and modulates our own tensions and distortions; changing our way of being through our way of participating.

This is far removed from the prevailing deeply egoic desire to ‘tool up and mobilise in'(JL!) to improve things  or being completely absorbed in and fascinated and depleted by the suffering in the world in the spotlight today. First thing to do in the morning need not be, as it is for many, check Twitter feed for developments in the drama! Fine if it would help…but it doesn’t and is not a great starting point from which to engage with the day’s complexities.

Returning to the Hamlet reference. I don’t know if you know Shakespeare’s story of Hamlet but in fact, having taken the burden of putting things right upon his shoulders, he made a right mess of things!

You see, he had watched his mother become close to another man around the time of his father’s death. Some thoughts arose around how his dad died. He put two and two thoughts together and these thoughts became certainties. With his dualistic simplistic right/wrong good/bad thinking there were bad people whose bad deeds should be exposed. He decided to expose this ‘certainty’ in publicly…giving those involved no room to manoeuvre, or explain…

That way his father’s death would be avenged as people would then know the (his) truth – which was that, that driven by desire for the ‘new man’, his mother had killed his father.
He formed his story line into a play and arranged for this drama to be acted out in front of his mother, step-father and their assembled court … this would inescapably ‘set things right’!

So we begin the play with a son’s grief and one man’s death. Then in the son’s ignorance, jealousy and aversion arise… and stewing in his own juicy thoughts…aversion becomes hatred…a force which drives him into what he sees as righteous activity. 

He follows though with his idea to ‘put things right’ as he sees it, and his play begins before the assembled protagonists and the rest of the court.
However, when his play ends…guess what? Rather than there being some magical resolution of all his tension as ‘evil’ is exposed… overt madness and death is the consequence for most of the main protagonists …the play ends with  bodies everywhere and misery heaped upon misery!

I once saw an unusual version of the play which suggested he could have just thought ‘well my Mum is a bit of a slapper…but anyway’ Whatever you might think about that : ) …with a more spacious perspective other thoughts were possible…and his and other lives could have moved on…

Unlike Hamlet we, happily, have the good fortune to bring whatever level of Dharma understanding we have into every situation that we encounter, with the potential to avoid fixation on a story-line with all the rigidity and judgment that goes with that.
From that different basis…rather than believing in our thoughts as veridical…what can we bring to the world in our everyday interactions?
Maybe… a peaceful heart, goodwill, wisdom, absence of judgment, openness, receptivity, tolerance, clarity…Calmness and Equanimity… Harmony and Balance!?

Maybe other qualities?

Certainly our way of being…

May we be whatever is needed! 

p.s. Twenty years or so ago I came across, in the Buddhist scriptures, a story of a bird at the edge of a lake having a drink of the water. The bird noticed much increased noise and clamour, screams and agitation coming from the birds animals and other life in the nearby forest and realised that the crackling was of a huge forest fire.

Being just a small bird the options to help were limited but the bird decided to fill its beak with water and fly fast as possible to the fire and spit the water out onto the fire. Then return to the lake and repeat the process over and over again. Eventually the fire went out… the bird died of exhaustion.

I loved that bird… and then thought maybe I can do that? Maybe direct my energy to bring whatever small benefit i could into the world in the second half of this life. 

Clearly the fire did not go out just from the volume of water carried in the birds beak yet that strong intention to help set up the conditions for the bird to later speed along the path to enlightenment.

The dharma offers so many methods to revise our views and release from our confusion …we are fortunate, through the practice, to be able to become freer and wiser in the choices we make over how we spend our time. Noticing the pull of old habits – unhelpful ‘thinking about’, the hunger to gather ‘information/deformation about’, the desire to have things be as our ego wishes – and hanging out there long enough without fusing for such, or any, thoughts to vanish so we can rebalance…as openness/ emptiness…the great common denominator!


A dharma bowlful of helpful teachings: practices and resources, particularly helpful for now

I was putting this post together at the same as the preceding post about the availability of the audio recording of the Introduction to Longing for Limitless Light… because engaging with the explanation you’ll find there… reveals the profound benefits of engagement with the different practices in the book. The healthy and healing re-orientation they provide is clearly explained…and the need for the benefit of the result of practice, offering the resolution of tension and confusion, is ever present.

James has composed a prayer for the current situation… and noticing he had also offered a helpful practice to do at this time …to put them together in a post, with some other teachings which might also be calming and clearing, made sense.

Then James wrote:

“The tragedy engulfing the Ukraine is so awful for all the people there and also upsets so many others.

I have put up a Prayer for Peace and a short practice on the Simply Being website. 

I think it is a time for prayer and heartfelt connection.
https://simplybeing.co.uk/

Warm regards
James

So the practice he refers to is ‘Repelling all troubles’

Last week he talked through this practice on-line, giving a commentary which was recorded.
The quality is improved now, so it’s a bit easier on the ears : )
You can listen to or download the recording … the video will soon be available on simplybeing.co.uk.

You’ll find the text of the practice from these links:

https://simplybeing.co.uk/texts/repelling-all-troubles/ – for links to translations and short introduction.

Click to access Repelling-all-Troubles-Dok-Dokpa-01-03-2022.pdf – for text and practice in English.

and here’s the profound Prayer for Peace which he wrote:

I’m hoping you also will find something helpful among the suggested talks below …
What i’d written about staying truly alive, present and connected, working with the circumstances…you’ll find from yesterdays post!

This index is a useful way to see what’s available from the Macclesfield Talks archive…….you’ll find your own way but talks:
3. Living with Anxiety and Doubt

14. Integrating openness and presence ( below)

16. Staying Open to Life as it is 

20.  Balance in Turbulent times 

21. Kindness, Fellow Feeling and the Common Weal  

might be particularly helpful…audios are available for all, videos for most

This week a few of us practised some of the activity of tong-len as given in talk 14, below, and it was appreciated with a big smile, as removing all the held tension : )

If tension is strongly running, a physical practice like this is beneficial and maybe easier to do than other practices.

Making the big ‘A’ sound opens the chest, the breathing improves with the regular repetition, adrenaline levels drop. The impact of the sound which removes the tension of samsara’s divisions… dissolving the reification…is tangible…. and the inclusion of all beings without exception! softens and tenderises the encapsulating judgment and opens the heart. This love arises from the ground of our being rather than the ego…and the suffering dissolves into the openness of that same ground.

Without a sense of the openness at the heart of all, its probably best just to do the radiating. Otherwise taking in the suffering of all beings is problematic. It seems very compacted heavy vast and contaminating. This overwhelms the wobbly ego’s cup, and misery spills over everywhere!

the link is below

14.    Integrating openness and presence                                        Feb 2013

Explaining how wisdom and compassion can be activated in our own existence.

Seeing that the compassion which arises from through understanding the illusory nature of phenomena is not artificial…

that the openness, the radiance,  and the arising gesture are integrated.

This talk includes the  practice of tong-len

audio     

‘Longing for Limitless Light’ by C. R. Lama and James Low Audio: 2. Introduction’ 

The Introduction to the book

is now ready to listen to…

So…

as within the Lotus buds in Dewachen ,

we may delight to listen to

the dharma

which facilitates

our blossoming….

our opening,

in life

to light

as light

You’ll find it, with other recordings, under the Audio and Video tab at the top of the page… or go directly to the recordings page : )

James writes in the Introduction ‘At this time of great change and increasing anxiety the calming clarity of Dharma could be of great benefit to many…’
May that great benefit be realised by many in this New Year!
Fascination with what’s depicted in the news and on social media is absorbing the life energy and vitality of many people I know. The dharma teachings are not known so in shouting at the telly, not sleeping well, and filling up with judgment, hatred and fear…their on-going upset also impacts those with whom they live and interact. It’s so sad.

In the attraction to, and absorption into, a particular dramatic presentation both eyes are mesmerised, both ears are filled with the commentary and opinions of others… and, in the time away from that, ‘thinking about’ all this stuff takes over… as if such activity were helpful or would lead to some veridical conclusion.

In this way life’s energy follows and flows with attention, binding into a blinding and exhausting vortex of limited and limiting thoughts and feelings…
And with that level of preoccupation the capacity to receive and respond to those with whom we interact in attuned way is blocked……we are already ‘filled to bursting’… our sense of connectivity with our actual lived situation is minimal.
The sun has gone in, the senses ignored in favour of thoughts…there seems no way out…

The tension in this distressed isolation can build to levels where it is manifestly harmful, whether turned inwards or outwardly and radiates dis-ease.
So often, despite inhabiting relatively fortunate external circumstances, lives which have so much potential can vanish miserably – tuned into samsara hour after hour.
The decompression of spaciousness, openness awareness, emptiness, is sorely needed.

Although different distractions are available and many activities can bring a sense of healthy connectivity and ease provided we can relax enough to become available to open and participate…
making a shift to listening, even with just one ear to the dharma and the other to samsara, cracks open a window so that…
playing through the staleness…
this different tune, of freshness, can be also be heard…
and then maybe we listen 50% to dharma and 50% to samsara – this is progress…and we can check… Which feels like it does us more good ? Which seems to help us be with life as it presents?
and turn up the volume appropriately.
Old habits die hard, but freedom is worth the effort…for ourselves and others.

In the Dhammapada, hatred is addressed by the wise words of the good Buddha, doctor to our troubles, thus:
‘In this world hatred is never pacified by hatred. It is by the absence of hatred that hatred is pacified.’ Around 500 years B.C he explained this as ‘the ancient truth’…so for thousand of years access to this truth has been available but now, as then, not so many listen to the truth and take it to heart.

For those who do the pacification of hatred is possible. The equanimity required for this arises from wisdom and is an achievable fruit of dharma practice.
This ‘equanimity’ does not at all mean to become oblivious to the many impactful and ongoing conflicts and problems in the world. Quite the contrary as having a different and wider perspective – not caught in bias and reactivity – it allows for seeing and fully appreciating the poignancy of situations without becoming overwhelmed and submerged.


The dharma’s many methods invite us in different ways towards this radical re-orientation… away from duality’s push-pull of aversion and desire… towards the wisdom of the truth of all of us which holds no tension, and a connectivity which is intrinsically and inclusively compassionate…

So opening wide the window… and immersing ourselves in the deep and encouraging wisdom of this Introduction and the texts, which will follow as completed…is a method for breathing increasingly pure air… as we follow this ‘progressive path for freeing ourselves from the sorrow-inducing delusions of being a separate entity burdened with inherent existence’.

‘Even as beginners our love and kindness can fuel the flames of Dharma which burn up all obscurations.’ … and this, for a change, is very very good news!
These words are found in the Introduction, along with an explanation of the deep value, depth, and scope of the texts. It’s a treasure imho!




‘Longing for Limitless Light’ – by C. R. Lama and James Low Audio:1. Preface

From the book ‘Longing for Limitless Light’ – by C. R. Lama and James Low Letting in the Light of Amitabha’s Love

These recordings are being made available here, you’ll find them under Audio/Video at the top of the page.
I will create a post as each new section is added…to let you know….

Currently you’ll find the preface … and there is a link to recording of James giving an introduction to the book.
The ‘Introduction’ and ‘Refuge and Bodhicitta’ sections from the book will be published very shortly : )

If, as a student or practitioner of a particular dharma view, you are thinking ‘ Oh no, this is of not for me… it will be too high/too low/too elaborate…’ whatever you may imagine….then clicking the included link which takes you to James’ introduction to the book may well open you to another view….vast and deep as the dharma is…

Collected Works of C. R. Lama by James Low – Chapter 10 ‘Brief Teachings’ audio

This comes with love… at the turning of the year, towards light and joy…
and with gratitude for the innumerable gestures of wisdom and connectivity through time which are linked with
this chapter of brief teachings. You can now listen to the audio recording of this chapter from the book here
or via the drop-down menu under Audio/Video.

When an oyster finds a piece of grit inside its shell-house it is stimulated to produce an exudate called nacre as protection from the irritation. This covers the grit , softening its sharpness and gradually enclosing it.
So pearls are formed from a build up of these layers around a tiny piece of grit – or some other particle which has been artificially introduced.
Pearls come in different sizes and, to our human eyes in the light of day, they may seem to have an alluring lustre and colouration… and corresponding, perhaps enduring, value…

But the ‘pearl’ is a construct and is soft and liable to change… Degradation occurs quickly if there is insufficient humidity… if conditions are not right they lose their lustre or may even disintegrate.

Our bodies are similarly unstable… and our thoughts are inherently unreliable…nothing reliable there!
We can check this out…
There is a saying in English ‘nothing ever is or was but thinking makes it so’. Yet although thinking can make something seem so… it does not make it truly so.

Thankfully the buddha taught… teachings which lead and gesture, as all roads once led to Rome, towards the realisation our true nature… the unchanging basis of our existence – uncompounded, unconstructed
– and encouraged awakening to this.
But this true nature is not to be found in the ‘obvious’ places where we usually seek stability…not in self, others, control, riches, the world, not in any thing…

So while the rarest most lustrous of pearls has a high material value, teachings which help us wake up from the confusion of duality are priceless.

Some teachings gently help to see more clearly… encouraging curiosity, others come as a blast of wisdom which blows holes in the ephemeral shaky cover-up of our egoic constraints and certainties, exposing the lack of self-nature of the ‘grit’, of the grasper.
With grasping released, the residual tatters fall away and with them the suffering and irritation which arose from the mistaken belief in duality.

Hoping you enjoy the teachings in the recording… and life : )

Winter solstice 2021