July 2023

I was reflecting on how often there are difficulties with family relationships in life…and death.
I worked in a hospice for some time and so experienced first-hand how variable the attitudes of the dying and their family members can be… to the the process of dying…to death…and to each other.

Death and funerals are often far from easy times… and although there may be healing around these events, emotional turbulence is likely and feelings of disconnection and judgment often persist.

My mother died last year, in Thailand. I only learned of her final illness after her death… and to me the circumstances in which she died were heart-breaking.
For the second time in my life, like many during covid times…and others…with a similar sadness, hearing belatedly of this, I was not able to say goodbye… nor take part in or attend the funeral.

Although I didn’t recite this sutra until well after her death it felt helpful and good to do this.
James’ advice about this was:

‘…reciting the golden hand sutra should be useful…and indeed any sutra that emphasises concern for others…a quality often lacking between family members.’

Our ideas about who is family and who is not… can widen in scope to an infinite inclusivity…
and softening, moving towards healing these apparent rifts is possible at any time
as the dharma… with this practice and others, offers the opportunity to reduce ‘The hatred implicit in duality [which] seems to be more manifest in the world [J.L.]’…


with love…

Thanks to my brother Sean for the gorgeous photo…

The recording of this amazing sutra is now published under audio/video.

As we are alway including all beings in our prayers this sutra is wonderfully helpful in expanding our imagination …from the restrictions of our conditioning with its habitually ego-human-centred view of the world…to include of all the different states and realms in which which sentient beings may find themselves.

Not forgetting ourselves! In the past…in the future… who knows in which direction the winds of karma will take us?
So we offer and connect as best we can, while we can… while we have this precious opportunity to fulfil our potential and be released from self-absorbtion, at this level of practice, into the most profound intention to benefit others

…and follow through with that….

So as we recite it… the power of our aspiration also expands the brilliance and intensity of the rays of light emanating from a candle, a butterlamp… as from our hearts… so that the different darknesses of each of the differently envisioned realms is removed.

All the occlusions or opacities arising from all delusions are lightened and vanish… resolving entrapment into the ineffable brilliance of its ground.

The sutra is short and poetically graphic, it can engage the whole of our being in beneficial activity if we allow it to…

~

Many years ago someone who was very unbalanced sent me an email full of different distresses… one of which was ‘what’s the the point of sending light to someone?’ I was happy to respond, in some way, to what seemed most pressing but dodged that one. I wasn’t too sure myself.

Although, at that point I’d had the luck to ‘be not other than what is to be known’… how to relate the truth of ‘what is’ to what ordinarily seems to be the truth was a mystery yet to be fathomed…
The ‘two truths’ seemed very separate.

There was a pointer in the book ‘Being Guru Rinpoche….’

and then many more came in the teachings and as more books became available…

There’s an early post on this website written around James’ words – ‘light plus concept equals pseudo-identity’…that was/ is a good low-calorie sweet to suck on!

We can become softer
~ through study…. by applying what we learn from the teachings to our lived existence. For as we examine the nature of, and our attachments to, concepts as if they had an inherent validity…we begin to appreciate how solidification and rigidity occurs, become alive to it’s occurrence and loosen out of that

and lighter
~ through different practises, engaging with light as if it was other… until it is not.

~

Thanks again to Pedro for the image!

Is the light of our mind blocked by the net of illusion…? or…. is the illusion the light of our mind?

Does how you look influence what you see, what seems to be so to you?

Well, I have a loosely woven cardigan…is this cardigan opaque or translucent?
Lying on the chair it looks opaque…
and if I hold it at a distance and try to look through it I can’t see the flowers in the sink outside.
So, as I cannot see through it – my cardigan is opaque.

However if bring it close to my eyes… the sink and flowers clearly appear.
I can see through it – so my cardigan is translucent.

Which is it… opaque or translucent?
As it can seem both it is neither… but can seem either, depending on your point of view

Sri Nisgargadatta said:
‘The real world is beyond our thoughts and ideas; we see it through the net of our desire, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and outer. To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net.
It is not hard to do, for the net is full of holes.’

William Blake wrote of ‘mind-forged manacles’….
and the realisation of the historical Buddha, as expressed in the Dhammapada, was:
‘Mind is the forerunner of all experience. Mind is their chief and they are mind-made’

Seeing this, its clear that our lack of freedom arises from substantialising both the ‘self’ and our ‘obstacles to freedom’…and it is from this ‘self-ish’ mental activity that we need to desist on order to realise the truth of who we are… beyond the stories we weave about ourselves.

Stretching the metaphor a bit … similar to stretching the cardigan… compassionate views and activity stretch the self-net…so that the holes become bigger and bigger – more light permeates both ways, and our view of the world changes becoming clearer and more luminous…

…and with the clearest view there is no need to stretch… for compassion arises naturally from the un-deluded mind. Arising from wisdom, the net is insubstantial and there is nothing to escape

From the Vajra Knot:
‘Whatever appears is forever inseparable from the ever-changing net of illusion….’

Linked with this prayer, in one of the Macclesfield Talks, James described the Great Net of Indra …where from each of the myriad interstices of this inconceivably vast net… a multifaceted and brilliant crystal hangs.
Each facet of each crystal shows reflections from all of the other facets…resulting in an entrancing, ever-changing mutually influencing illusion.
This display of the energy of the mind needs no interference, it is not a problem to be solved…

However if we are bedazzled by and fuse with display, as if it were real, our perspective narrows and excludes the on-going un-changing stillness and spaciousness within which these movements are occurring, forgetful of the source of the creativity.
In fusing into the movements as if they showed the actual truth of our situation … we forget our non-dual freedom, and take on the dualistic beliefs of a suffering sentient being wandering in samsara.

The introductions are now included in the recordings of The Aspiration of the Vajra knot and the Prayer of Aspiration which is a Wish-Fulfilling Jewel. The option to download or listen to them is now available.
I’d be glad if you would delete the earlier version, lacking the introduction… as they belong together, the introduction influencing the connection.
For these are not ‘just prayers to be said as a duty’ but can be a profound education, in the truest sense of the word…
…as we take in these words, their words… into our hearts, and release them out into the world on our breath…this brings us very close to the hearts vision and aspiration of those who have realised the deepest truth….from which the words arose…

These prayers are now available to listen to under the Audio/ Video tab… and now include the introductions you’ll find below.

If we’re trying to join two pieces of wood together… then hammering a screw into them is not likely to be effective…and likewise, we’d use a different approach and tools if joining steel plates.
The more we learn about the nature of the material … alongside that which tools to use and how to use them, the easier the task becomes.

And just as with the tangible tools of the world, each dharma tool or method we use has a particular function and an effective way to use it.

These prayers are like tools for opening… to the open…
The introductions James has written for them explains their function, their meaning, maybe their provenance…and so are invaluable for their effective use.
Some introductions, like these two, are like prayers in themselves …

The Aspiration of the Vajra Knot

This prayer is a brief summary of the path…emphasising our wish never to be separated from the dharma.

The fourth stanza points to the heart of our tantric practice:
Whatever appears is forever inseparable from the ever-changing net of illusion.
All sounds are the ungraspable sound of mantra.
The movements of our mind are actually our own uncreated awareness.
May we fully open to the infinite happiness which is neither gained nor lost.

The more frequently we can recite the precious words of this aspiration written by the great Mingling Terchen, the more the mutually collaborative aspects of our practices will become clear.

Through this aspiration the blessing of the path is absorbed through our body, voice and mind preparing us to meet the Lotus Born.

The Prayer of Aspiration Which is a Wish-Fulfilling Jewel

This is a treasure terma spoken by Padmasambhava, then hidden, and later revealed by Rigdzin Godem. It begins with the confessing of mistake made during practice.

When you recite it you can also add any other errors that you are conscious of in your practice.

The root of the many different ways we cannot fulfil our intention to practise correctly is set out in the seventh stanza:
“I and all sentient beings without exception, from the beginning of this great aeon until now have been drawn to the karmic activity of grasping at appearances as if they were substantial entities.
Due to this we have gone under the power of the five poisons, have broken our vows and insulted the Dharma.
We humbly confess these actions which have become obstacles to our liberation.”

All merit and demerit arises from the orientations of our mind.
Once we turn away from the actual, delusion corrupts our intention like sewage released into a river.
Until we are fully enlightened we need to be vigilant in purifying the errors and stains arising from reification and attachment.
Then, as Buddhas, the purification of all will be our ceaseless activity.
May we gain the merit and wisdom that will let us benefit others by our mere presence, just as Padmasambhava is able to do.

It comes to an end with the aspiration that we will purify the five poisons so that their true qualities of great happiness, great love, benign control, great peace, and helpful activity become effortlessly apparent.
By frequently reciting this prayer we immerse ourselves in the tantric Buddhist tradition and thereby soften our self-affirming ego-structure… so that we become sensitive, pliable and responsive in the service of others.

Once as a young child at school, one break-time as a punishment, I had to write out the lines…’I must not skip in line’ one hundred times. The line was a crocodile of children walking in pairs from the school to the church hall where we eat our lunch.
Though my typing is so much slower than my writing…typing this out was another good reminder…and writing it out or saying-praying it a hundred times, could be a good use of time…
Thanks to the dharma we may skip down the road… metaphorically if not physically, perhaps enjoying both…working with circumstances and easing out of fusion with constricting karmic knots…

Image…thanks to Pedro…an edited screen shot from one of his video introductions