Wendy’s Writings

‘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!

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!




The Four Foundations of Mindfulness – video

Well…I had imagined that the next post would be an audio-recording of a chapter from C.R. Lama Collected Works.
However Peter, who does the technical work on this website, is not well and is currently in hospital.
His treatment is working well but he is wisely pacing his work…and it seems that recording will be published very soon.

In the meantime, working with circumstances, like the ‘Potter’s Wheel’ film that used to fill the space between the main feature and the supplementary film at the cinema back in the day when reels of film had to be changed over between features…we can now offer you the Video recording of The Four Foundations of Mindfulness – Macclesfield talk 11 from 2010
on Vimeo…. on Youtube… as an audio recording

In this weekend of teaching: “Mindfulness is explored from different perspectives including psychotherapy, theravada and dzogchen. With mindfulness we can become intentionally attentive and careful so we are no longer at the mercy of whatever is happening. From the view of dzogchen we can be in the movement of the world as it changes and re-mind ourselves to relax back into integration.”

Those few sentences can’t encapsulate the breadth of the teaching but gesture towards its invitation into mindfulness of the body, of feeling, of the mind, and of dharmas.
Towards a deep investigation into how our belief in the veridical nature of thoughts has us inhabiting a world of knowable ‘things’ as a ‘certain thing’.
Towards seeing how and why fusion with and addiction to thoughts arises.. what we loose in this confusion and how to begin to ease out of the habit.
So hopefully you will find this rather more precious and useful than a ‘time-filling’ film…yet the potters’s wheel analogy is somehow fitting.
There’s a wheel, clay, movement, involvement…shaping…Some ‘thing’ seems to arise….something that can go back into the mass of clay…or we can become more involved in shaping… finally, using a wire, we cut this ‘some thing’ off from the base then ‘hard bake’ it.
Ok with clay…. but are we are doing this with thoughts… take a look : )

Thanks to Chris Coppock who made the original recording and to Pedro for making this widely available…and wishing good health to all!

The list of currently available ‘Macclesfield teachings , both audio and video, since 2003 can be viewed here

Halloween reflections 2

Illuminating wisdom

A very precious jewel to reflect and reflect upon…
one which illuminates the deep heart of the previous post…
is offered in James’ teachings entitled Vulnerability as Hope.

If you’ve already watched this perhaps you may remember the ‘ghost’ explanation/connection which comes around mid-way!

But even if you have, and certainly if you haven’t, do take a (nother) look and listen.

These teaching are so rich that it’s unlikely that we are able to digest and incorporate them sufficiently well – to be able to reflect upon what this means for us, and become more aligned with the truths expressed – in just one sitting.

In the little group i facilitate the first fifteen minutes brings more than enough to the table to fill the stomach…
And fifteen minutes chunks may be a very helpful way to try listening or re-listening…
With space for the words to sink in… drop by drop…if we are very dry, otherwise so much just runs off us.

Walking in the desert, being so hot and tired and thirsty…
then coming across a waterfall of clear cool water flowing over the rim of a rocky outcrop
How amazing and wonderful it is to just stand underneath and let it flow over us…

As the words wash over us… we know they are good and refreshing…and,
amidst the aridity of much that is around us,
such relief…

But it’s on opening the mouth to drink,
gently… gulp by gulp,
that satisfaction’s found…

beyond belief!

Welcome ghosts :) Halloween reflections! 1

Look closely and what do you see.. . ‘You’ see…whatever ‘you’ take it to be… to mean….A face or two? ?Symbolic, Some leaves, hearts? From shape and colour our conceptual imagination can conceive … ‘ten thousand’ seeming things!!!…How amazing!

Some years ago on Halloween, some children came to the door and demanded ‘Trick-or-Treat’.
I smiled and said ‘Trick’ … they were so surprised they did not know what to do or say…

Our selective attention, our expectations and projections, our assumptions our beliefs… are all ingredients with which a trickster or illusionist can work to manipulate and affect how we are likely to interpret our experience.

In a projector or ‘magic lantern’ a concave mirror, placed behind the light source, is used to focus the light from a source in the lantern… through a slide – a piece of glass with an image on it – placed in front of the light source… onto a lens at the front of the lantern.
This lens can be altered to change the distance at which the magnified image became clear when focussed onto a screen.

If a slide with a suitable image is used, and the result is projected onto smoke
then the resting appearances, observed in a darkened room by gullible observers, may be assumed to be ‘spectral.’
One definition of spectral is – ‘of or like a ghost’…
another is – ‘of or concerning the spectrum, the band of colours of light’.

The second more accurate definition of what actually occurs is taken to be the first – ‘it’s a ghost!’ – when we bring all the interpretive ingredients on our side into the mix!
Illusionists who forget their own hand in creating the shapes and shadows they project, and then believe that the illusion they created is real, are deluded… and well on the way to the kind of madness prevalent in the world.

Maybe a bit interesting, but what has this to do with me?
Well, quite a lot because as the dharma explains, we live in an illusory, ungraspable world and how we actually manifest (notwithstanding our story-lines) is also illusory and ungraspable.
It’s hard to see the truth of this… it doesn’t seem like this to us because we are ignorant of the karmically coloured lenses in the glasses we wear; ignorant of the mediating filters in our ears, our noses…all our senses…
and while repeatedly singing, or sighing, the ‘song of me’ we are deaf to the truth of the way in which we and ‘others’ actually exist.

So we in samsara are illusionists…projectionists… who become delusional as we attribute a self-existence to the appearances which arise for us, imbuing them with our beliefs.
We miss-take nature of these appearances, assuming solidity continuity and reliability and in misprisioning their true nature we delude ourselves and take them to be truly real.
Lacking curiosity – the wobbly little ego seeks stability in certainty – this leads quickly to ‘I know it is so because I think so’… ‘whatever it, or they, seem to be (for me!)… has the ring of truth about it ‘….

The ‘ghosts’ of ourselves, the shadow-shades of our past confusion, patterns of relating… to which the ego-thoughts attach in insecurity… attribute solidity and give certainty of definition and value to colour shape and movement.
In low-lighting ‘this’… and high-lighting ‘that’ aspect of experience – imputing, forming a particular perspective – and then taking the resultant con-fusion… that juxtaposition, brought togetherness, or compounding… as an accurate reading giving us the truth of the arising…
we make it ‘real’ for us, although we cannot really…and believe in the products of our creativity….

and then…
Oh! No!… Snap!
We are trapped ….by our beliefs… into one of many possibilities of formation… including ghosts!

What nonsense!…you might say.
But humans have the potential to experience many different states from heavenly to hellish, for a while…which may seem like a very long time!
Can I rest, as presence, and move from that responsively?
If not maybe there is something ghostly in the way of false identity getting in the way…acting as a limited shadow of my potential.

Without the dharma we wouldn’t have a ghost (ha! ha!) of a chance of realising any of this but happily, as with card tricks and the illusionists ‘magical display’… once we know for ourselves how the trick works we’re no longer so easily taken in, no longer so certain about and believing in the truth of our earlier conditioned interpretations.

With our deep habits – reliance on our thoughts and our beliefs, the patterns with which we identify… of thinking and activity, patterns which feel so much to be the truth of ‘me’… it can take much time and application or attention, listening study and meditation, to shrug ourselves free of these limitations…or maybe not so long depending on the students desire or aspiration and the teachers realisation and capacity*.

Maybe the little ‘ego-me’ tends to take things a bit too seriously…
you must get it right! you mustn’t lose! or break or….
whatever the wraith we snag with energetically…

Spaciousness and kindness – the truth of us, can say
‘Aw c’mon, sweetie its o.k.
relax… and relax more…it’s your display…
tension, with humour, fades away…’

So ‘Welcome sweet ghosts…
Here, have a chocolate finger
… yes, have some more : ) ‘
Happily, sharing, dissolving
becoming free-er
than before….

Believe in ghosts?…

Perhaps we do unwittingly…

the thoughts that tell us how we ought to be
echoes from the past
arising presently

Believed in,
tangled with these, our lived reality
is shaped by ghosts

defining the truth for me,
and you, and all that we can take to be
‘just as it seems to us’…

and we are lost…

Happily, a chink of wisdom’s light
illuminates, reveals, explains
our own birthright

and the innate integrity
of all within
mind’s pristine reality

As the Budhha said, of experienced phenomena, ‘mind is their chief and they are mind-made’

* there’s more to this…. and much else besides… in The Collected Works of C.R. Lama by James Low.
Some audio recordings of the ‘Brief Teachings’ from this will be posted here soon.








Summer 2021 – Audio recordings are ready

The audio recordings of the summer camping retreat, now entitled ‘Letting nature show the way’,

are ready to listen to … this link will take you to them…   Simplybeing.co.uk

Meeting together in a field in England was not possible for many of us this year… but happily Gareth made audio –recordings of the teachings and prepared them that so we can enjoy the sharing nonetheless…

Flowers!
…Maha-Kashyapa smiles

Summer retreat 2021


As summer moved to autumn time

there gathered,
briefly,
in a field

mind-birds

of different hues
and raiment

Open and  engaged
they heard

what they were glad to hear –

re-minders,

prompts…

gestures of inclusivity

inviting them to be
at ease with non-duality 

to realise the basis of

the non-defining 
difference


of their radiant display …

as openness  –

the sameness
of their nature…

Bathed in the warmth
of wisdom’s 

self-arisen 

sun

– like morning mist

the lostness of
‘as-if’ beliefs

vanishes…

revealing  the ‘how’
of now-ness –

actuality

perfect

just ‘as it is’!

Meeting together in a field in England was not so easy for many of us this year… but happily Gareth made audio recordings of the teachings and has prepared them for us to share. Here is the link to find them on Simplybeing.co.uk

Being Right Here…wherever you are : )

I sent the email below to the little group I facilitate, then thought to widen the connection

Hi,
Maybe you’re not coming on the retreat this year
but there is a connection we share…wherever we are…on retreat, at work, at home
and the words below
from the book ‘Being Right Here’ …which the retreat organiser just sent round
are words you could give…
well, how much time would you feel is right to give… to contemplate their profundity?
Especially given how much time we spend contemplating the non-sense aspect of the world!
Your own mini-retreat with contemplation and meditation, at some point during this period, could be a possibility…?

Compassion without wisdom is limited partial biased, 
but if arising from wisdom it is inclusive and effort-free
We all have this as our potential to manifest
and these words below point to how that might be realised

Hope you enjoy them, the easing they invite
and the summer-time
xx wendy

Verse 34. from Being Right Here the book by James Low.
A Dzogchen treasure text of Nuden Dorje. 
The mirror of clear meaning.

” Maintain emptiness and compassion without distraction. Always free of effort and struggle, contemplate the flow of awareness”
The key thing is to be kind to yourself. The barriers we have to entering into presence are already hard enough. If we try to become great heroes and push our way through we will make the resistance even greater. Tenderness and love are always important. Being tender towards ourselves, being very finely attuned to what is going on. We are simply being present to whatever occurs, here and now.If somebody comes to us and tells us they have done terrible things and they are really upset by it, we are touched by that and we want to help them. All the stupid or bad things that we feel that we have done, the things that we feel ashamed about, we have only ever done them out of confusion or pain, out of ignorance.
The path to integration is not through punishment but through tenderly accepting ourselves as we are, so we can come close to ourselves. And if we come close to ourselves then the most subtle breach of subject and object as two entities is gradually collapsed. And through the moment of loving ourselves very deeply and profoundly, which is at the heart of true meditation, we make this primary integration into our true nature.If we take up this tender attention it will take us into the depths of meditative evenness, which means the state in which the mind is not disturbed by anything that arises. And that will naturally integrate into our daily lives, where we find ourselves in the world with other people. If we can be relaxed, open and at ease in these two states, that is said to be awake.
The natural condition is not against you, other people are not against you in your nature, primarily we against ourselves. When we get on the same side as ourselves, the world turns around and we start to feel this flow of energy flowing through us. And we start to awaken to the fact that we are nothing but this non dual integrated manifestation of presence.”

H.H.CHIMED RIGDZIN RINPOCHE …

Rare and precious…a Jewel of a book – THIS IS IT

I have reviewed this most recently published book by James Low on Amazon, below.

Happily, currently it is also available at Waterstones… and via independent bookshops.

Words don’t really ‘cut the mustard’ for this book but anyway I wrote:

The flawless facets of this jewel are luminous with wisdom, radiating the truth…and the setting is gorgeous!

Each facet displays a different aspect of the dharma teachings without any clouding by extraneous inclusions.

With consummate skill born of a lifetime’s study and practice, firmly rooted in tradition, the related texts are expounded by James in a way which can clarify satisfy and delight… bringing ease in this time of turbulence.

The exquisite illustrations perfectly illuminate and reflect the text, as does the feel and lay-out of the book.

‘This is it’ is a rare and precious jewel of wisdom set perfectly in this engagement ring of the dharma’s compassionate communication. The fruit of the heart-work of many through time – it is both a joy and liberating privilege to engage with ‘this’…

I hope you may also enjoy the great pleasure of ‘this’

The Seven Line Prayer of Guru Rinpoche

On the Simplybeing website there is,  under News,  coming from India, a request for prayers –   link to this
with James’ recommendation for the recitation of the Seven Line Prayer ‘dedicating the merit for the wellbeing of all, especially those suffering in India now , in India’s hot season’ …and with that there is a link to the text.

This is a powerful prayer ‘manifesting spontaneously as the natural resonance of indestructible reality’*.

This prayer is not familiar to everyone and the question of how to pronounce it has arisen… so I have put together a couple recordings.

This 1. is of James Low singing the prayer

This 2. is a combination of me reciting and singing it followed by 1.

James’ pronunciation is spot on of course, and mine derived from that less so…but i don’t have a version with James reciting to offer.

You will hear how James takes good time in his recording… mine’s a bit faster…may they be useful and the benefit of the recitations vastly multiplied!

* White Lotus, translated by the diligent and very reliable Padmakara Translation Group, contains an explanation of this prayer, given by Jamgon Mipham, and is recommended if you have an interest in this. The different depths of the prayer are revealed, being less or more accessible depending on our openness and engagement through time.

The translators introduction is very good, and includes an invitation to open the eyes to see how and why our initial engagement with this aspect of the dharma, often approaching from a reductionist or modernist level, may be softened…and so the profundity is more and more revealed.

Lama Chetsangpa’s text…reading, engaging, questioning and absorbing

Happy cows chewing the dharma cud!

Cows digest grass. It’s not so easy to break down the cellulose to get the nutrients they need. In order to facilitate this they have four stomach compartments, and they chew the cud…(see below)

We humans just chew our food a bit then swallow it…down to the stomach where most digestion occurs.

However , we are not so used to digesting the very healthy kind of food found in this text and need to keep at it, with it, over time…chewing more diligently than a cow chewing grass!

James, i think, said he had made eighteen different translations of this…That’s going to provide a qualitatively different  level of nourishment from the casual  ‘Oh yes I’ve read that’ (My ego-driven quick response on mire than one occasion!)

Following on from the advice he gave, mentioned in the previous post, on how to listen to the talks…in the latest, third, weekend’s teachings, James suggested how we might engage with the texts to maximise our receptivity to the depth of wisdom from which they originate.

He invited us to write the text out by hand. This will deepen our relationship with it… and at the same time we can make a note of anything which is not clear to us. Then checking this with the commentary which opens out the text making it more accessible.
If queries remain then answers are available…!

Repeated engagement will surely effect incremental or perhaps, through time, sudden changes.

Simply Being (1998 edition) was the first Dharma Book I read and, despite the teachers encouragement to take it really slowly, line by line, I could not do that.
From a young age I was addicted to reading – the next page, the next page the next chapter – devouring without any reflection.
This habitual way of reading has taken many years to change… to slow down and really engage whole-heartedly… has not come quickly or easily.

At the beginning I would read through the texts and the notes that went with them a few times but found them hard to digest. Lacking ease and familiarity with the concepts and vocabulary i could not unlock them, and mostly happily engaged with part 2 The Talks instead!
Even there I skated over the second paragraph where it suggests that the ideas presented are to be engaged with and struggled with for the maximum benefit to be obtained. I was just struggling to engage…

The more recent edition was a revelation and, for me, much easier to engage with, so if you haven’t updated you might well find that worthwhile…
But even then the texts were challenging…but opening up a bit, and becoming more ‘relatable to’.
For me this was largely thanks to the Macclesfield teachings where there was time for James to expound the different aspects of the dharma tree in a way which engaged directly with our conditioning… and also through reading and engaging with other dharma writings by James and many others.

Surely some of the headaches from trying to engage with this text, as given in the book, will be much eased by the commentary that he has been giving over these four sessions…

Gradually the words and their meaning and our alignment with them come together… the blurred and cloudy vision clears…
Then the import and impact are such that giving time to receive becomes the only way that’s fitting.

Read a bit, reflect, meditate… repeat…this can become a fully satisfying engagement rather than an onerous task to be completed

Here’s the  link to the third video ( most recent, March 13/14) in the series of four Lama Chetsangpa talks.

If you scroll down below that you will find the previous two.

Question: Why do cows have three stomachs?

Answer: Cows are true ruminants, which means they have four stomachs, the first of which is the rumen. When a cow takes a bite of grass, it chews it briefly, mixing it with a large amount of saliva. The grass then passes to the rumen, which is a large pouch. The rumen does not produce digestive juices. Instead, it is a fermentation chamber that contains millions of bacteria. These microbes produce digestive enzymes that break down the cellulose in the plants. When a cow “chews its cud,” it returns a small lump, or bolus, of food from the rumen to the mouth, where it is thoroughly chewed. When the cow swallows the bolus for the second time, it is finer and settles at the bottom of the rumen. The rumen contracts, forcing some of this well-chewed food into the second stomach, or reticulum. From there it passes to the omasum (third stomach), where water is extracted. It then enters the true, or fourth, stomach, the abomasum, where gastric juices (containing hydrochloric acid) are added to the food. This kills and disintegrates the microbes from the rumen, making the nutrients in the microbes available for later digestion and absorption.

Source of info on cows stomachs!

photo:Jim Champion / Cattle ruminating at Latchmore Bottom, New Forest

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cattle_ruminating_at_Latchmore_Bottom,New_Forestgeograph.org.uk-_157259.jpg

Do you like to eat the food you’ve pissed on? Fresh food from the Lama.

‘Like hospital food… do yer?’

I remember hearing this phrase from my youth!

It is really saying ‘If you don’t do what I would like you to do then I will hurt you so badly you will end up in hospital… and suffer the limitations and constraints –  relating to nutritional understanding, financial, logistical, and so on – which operate in trying to feed the variety of people who turn up and are cared for in our hospitals.

This seems bad but hopefully, if the worst came to the worst,  you’d recover and continue to enjoy the kind of food you eat prior to the hospital visit!

There are some resonances with what James said in his teaching this Sunday –

‘Do you like to eat food you’ve pissed on?’ 

No…’cos it taste of piss 

‘Well, of course it will, if you keep pissing on it!’

James has been explaining how to ‘not to make it stale’ in a series of teachings on a text he translated many years ago written by a great Yogi – Lama Chetsangpa Sri Buddha.

While his tone was light, he was pointing to the more critical consequences of ignoring, or not attending to and realising the teachings of/on the truth – and continuing to opacifying the simple givenness of ‘what is’ with our non-sense. 

This is, in a way, much more grave and serious than an injury necessitating a temporary stay in hospital – it is a chronic condition whereby we live in a deadened life of deprivation and limitation.

Falling out of the ease of abiding as the innate and inalienable integrity of our openness, and with that loosing the facility to manifest freshly in each moment as appropriate to the moment, rather in relation to an idea about it – we misconstrue and solidify… depriving others and ourselves of vitality and spacious connectivity.

This dis-ease, arising from ignoring the actual, although a chronic and pervasive process is completely curable… by attending and ‘wising-up.’

Now that we know that the symptoms need not just be endured or masked… we are happy to conduct an in-depth examination of the situation. 

If we meditate we can closely examine and see the way in which we engage our life energy with arisings in the mind.

These arisings are patternings of energy that the thought patterns with which we mistakenly identify – take to be true, valid, fascinating and fully worthy of in-vestment (geddit?– clothing, wrapping, Emperor’s new clothes ; ) – and spiral into…

In giving a spuriously heightened reality to impermanent phenomena we become a-mazed – confused and enmeshed in our own creativity.
And until this issue is resolved through practice we will continue to obscure, distort and falsify the truth…and suffer as a consequence.

James Low has been explaining so clearly how we get lost and how to return in the simplest way for so many years now… and has recently been teaching on this text by Chetsagpa Ratna Sri Buddha you’ll find in the book Simply Being. The texts are also available here.

The first and second recordings are now available to watch … with further teachings on March 13 and 14… concluding on 17 18 April.

I once heard a Sikh teacher trying to teach children who were fizzing with energy. He was quite fierce and he just shouted at them ‘Listen up…’ and they did!

James was lightly saying the same thing towards the end of the teaching and suggesting how we should do this: 

1.First time: just listen… allowing the teachings, mood and flavour to flow through you.

2.Then listen again a second time. This time make your own notes of  what seem to be a critical point or a point for further clarification.

[We can discussion in the group or 1 to 1, though maybe check with the text first, it may help…]

3.Then go to the text and see if your understanding matches what’s written…is it clear ?

If still not clear …just ask. Then…see next post…

When I first started teaching James suggested that I gave homework… but not so many bothered with completing it!

There were a few things going on with that – the quicksand pull-back of samsara, the apparent primacy of friends family and worldly duties and involvements…seeing the dharma as an ‘add-on’, like bridge or golf with a particular ring fenced time and place… plus an unwillingness of the egoic structure to rock the relatively comfortable though temporary, apple-cart – or, as an adult, to follow instructions ; ). 

I’m not judging, I have felt subject to, and worked with the same restrictions…but the struggle for freedom, including from my own non-sense, is unquestionably worthwhile in my experience.

In my little group we have been exploring the introduction to the Dhammapada – the text found in Finding Freedom with James’ commentary… as well as anything arising from the Q and A and other sessions.

However a good number have been listening or are hoping to listen to James’ teaching. So I think it is worth putting aside the Dhammapada for a bit and engaging as much as possible with this profound text and explanation … We have time to do this… catching up now with the first if you missed it. 

Approaching it, and the second, in the way James suggests… there is hopefully more alignment and attunement as we come into connection with the third and fourth sessions.

As has been said ‘the key to your enlightenment or realisation is already in the palm of our hand’… but we do have to put it in the lock and turn it!

For many the door is like a secret door…although it’s always open if you don’t know how to look (or that it even exists) how you would find it?

So for these teachings, explanations and much else… deep gratitude to those who have realised and passed this on through time. Let’s make the most of this precious opportunity. 

I was writing this for my group initially but thought others may find it helpful!

*** See next post on further advice for how to engage with this text from James’ teaching weekend 13 14 March.

Photo of Devon Violets: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Devon_Violets._Viola_odorata_(33624079715).jpg