Wendy

The Open Door of Emptiness ~ Ch 3. Open to life… the heart of awareness part (v) and other good news…!

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Work of Art by Hiroshige from an exhibition at the British Museum

This recording is now available…from the Audio/Video tab…
If you hover over the down arrow you’ll find lots of other recordings there…from James’ commentary to and translation of The Dhammapada, up through a staircase of other books and teachings.
The Open Door of Emptiness is at the top, and if that’s your current interest you can just click here for that set.

The contact form is now working again thanks to the vital efforts and skills of the singer song-writer sound engineer who’s been keeping this site in shape and working on the recordings, for over a decade… and latterly also working with a serious health condition…

A lady with whom I was very happy to spend some time with in India, when I did a retreat and pilgrimage back in 2010, got back in touch today after gap of nearly fifteen years…

We were both helpful to each other in different ways…and I know that any help I was able to give was possible because of other helpful connections I’d encountered…and so it goes… in this astonishing illusory display of life…

Our first names are the same now they were then but ‘how we are’ now … cannot possibly be.
There have been billions of different displays of energy called ‘Wendy’ and called ‘Alicia’ during this long time…showing these particular qualities sometimes, others other times, to a greater or lesser degree…depending on causes and conditions (and the interpreter’s perspective)… all going under the same name!
Are these impostors of the real Alicia or Wendy? : ) well no, as we know, there isn’t one…but each has a common denominator of openness or emptiness… and with spaciousness as the basis the greatest possibility for connection becomes available …
Fifteen years makes a difference to the body for sure, but the potential for freshness of connection is unchanged…

However much the disconnection and dislocation around us increases …movements of warm, and sometimes surprising connection, outside the box of assumptions, continue to blossom in the world …

The other good news relates to recent James Low’s book publications, Natural Freedom and The Deep and Vast Freedom of the Dharma which deserved their own post…


Books: ‘Natural Freedom’ and ‘The Deep and Vast Freedom of the Dharma’

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If you haven’t yet come across this selection of teachings, edited by Barbara Terris and compiled by Divya Gupta… I’ve recommended this book in a review on Amazon .
I think you’ll find it worth a lot more than every penny it costs!

The amount of work from beginning to end involved in the production of these works for our benefit is not necessarily obvious…but the number of hours and the attention to detail…with writing and re-writing typing and retyping… editing and re-editng recording transcribing design /layout selection of material management of printing , working with Amazon and other sellers …and other aspects involved in making these books available… is a staggering…display of love!

And so it is that… the long awaited ‘Deep and Vast Freedom of the Dharma’ is now available … my copy is on it’s way ; currently there are a few others available with more in the pipeline.
I’m sure many of us will share in the enjoyment of the fruit of these labours! : )

The Dzogchen View is clear and bright, dimness is not intrinsic …

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Whether glowing dimly or brightly there’s nothing wrong with our lamps!

If you know that a dimly glowing lamp is connected to a dimmer-switch …which operates by offering variable resistance to current…then you can simply turn the knob to decrease the resistance…and increase the current so that the lamp gives full brightness.

To allow the dharma current to flow freely through us… it would be lovely to find some secret knob and turn it in the right direction. Would that it were so easy!
Yet the egoic, karmic ‘self-sealed’ resistance… which limits our view and responsivity is not intrinsic,
not an integral part of who we are…but formed from accretions picked up through time and incorporated into our constructed sense of self.

There’s a great excerpt on the Simply Being homepage at the moment ‘The construction Industry‘ from a talk in Barcelona 2018 where James precisely explains… how we are truly….and it’s truly different from how we think we are….!

When I heard James teaching The view of Dzogchen , the first Macclesfield talk back in 2003, much of what he was saying floated straight through me… but I knew that it was true… and deeply wanted to have that truth as the basis for my being…
So like others, with close attention to the guidance offered by dharma teachers and their teachings..through reading… reflecting… questioning…and practice… old ideas about what’s true about ‘Me’ and it’s primacy diminishes.
The grip on thoughts of what I need for satisfaction loosens …so that we become more and more open and aligned with how we actually are…

All the dharma views have the most profound truth as their basis and it’s a matter of our luck or karma as to what we encounter and how able we are to make the best use of what comes our way.

Some of these, the ego-syntonic ones…build up our sense of being a ‘good self/buddhist’.
Others – the ego-dystonic ones, don’t taste so sweet but, as with less sugar…can be very helpful to us if we are willing and able to engage with them correctly – without grasping or misunderstanding.

If the Dzogchen teachings taste sweet to us, that may be due the good fortune of ripeness …
Alternatively the teachings may have been misunderstood – warped by a glancing engagement with their depth… through lenses clouded by samsaric finger-prints.

A superficial view of Dzogchen can be very attractive to the wobbly ego, which grasps at and interprets concepts in its own peculiar way, as giving a laissez-passer to ego-centric behaviours …but, as is graphically indicated in the book ‘Me First’ ( the link is to details, zoom talk and animation), the consequences of engaging from a distorted view can be profoundly detrimental to the one making the mistake…and to any who give credence to their expressions of misinterpretation.

Someone recently was surprised when I suggested we would do well to be a bit suspicious of what we are up to…and also that ‘the other comes first’… because it did not fit with their understanding of Dzogchen as spontaneous expressivity… acting however feels right in the moment…and this post is an elaboration of my response…

Some dharma views may be understood intellectually, but this kind of knowledge is not so highly rated… it’s considered to be like a patch covering a hole in a garment…
It hides the hole but it’s an add-on, not integral, not part of the fabric, and easily comes off with wear in daily life…
However the view of Dzogchen is primordial…and so cannot be grasped by thought, cannot be realised by any kind of thinking…

With this view, spontaneity is an energetic movement or gesture which arises directly from the openness and potential of emptiness … in connectivity with others, in the manner of a dream.
So ethics are inherent and the spontaneity which arises is radically different – it has a different root – from the impulsivity, drivenness, and other dualistic movements arising from the inflated egoic nexus…which are inevitably tinged, to a greater or lesser extent, by the poisons arising from ignorance.

If this difference is not deeply realised …then reading about Dzogchen or hearing the words…may lead to the belief that ‘Now I’ve got the deepest truth… so I can act, at will, from that…’
But this belief will blind us to the truth itself and also to alternative, more accessible, yet helpful dharma views which could prevent us from harming others and ourselves.

If the depth of the view of Dzogchen is contemplated… even if not realised…the contradistinction with a superficial view may throw a spanner in the ego works and be illuminating.
So… if…and it’s a very big ‘if‘… the mind is resting in openness, at ease and settled in itself, and open without effort…free of the dualism of subject-object…then compassion is inclusive… and it never separates from emptiness!
If that’s how it is for you… then noticing what we are up to, in the way I suggested, would clearly be redundant….
But until then… whilst Dzogchen is just an idea of freedom….there is much to relax out of…and let go…

It’s so easy to get lost in samsaric confirmations and entanglements, mixing them with dharma as cloak to hide our shakiness…
… to realise, and practice never separating from the naked truth of ourselves, is hard.
So kindly noticing to what we are up to, how we tend to position ourselves, is useful…we are not defined by what we see but in seeing, but we can then begin loosen out of our habit formations.

A ‘me first’, ‘what I want is most important’,’ I know what’s best’ ego-centric entitled positioning, blocks the receptivity of ethical connectivity… so that would be a particularly good position to loosen out of!
If free from that, gradually moving towards a more nuanced and attuned intuitive responsivity, within the shared experiential field, becomes more of a possibility….

As James has said ‘we have to have the humility to know that this practice is very difficult…’
And if the view does not become increasingly clear and accessible, deepening wisdom and compassion en route… then another dharma route with clearer tracks is a wise engagement … all are expressions arising for the benefit of beings…tending to their source.

If we have some grounding in a different view …say of tantra or general Mahayana practice… in this or other lives… then our mind has been worked in such a way that we are less likely to grasp onto a mistaken view of Dzogchen as a validation for impulsivity and entitlement, with limited or absent compassion…
Slipping from the view, if we cannot return directly, with a dharma safety-net, we may return more easily….and more readily accept that other views are also good and may be a better fit for our particular flourishing at this time.

In short: engagement with Dzogchen teachings invites us relax a bit and look without judgment at what we get up to… so that we can see through our defensive smoke-screen and feel all the tension and friction that comes with the falsity of grasping at identity as our ‘touch-stone’ and ‘home-base’ within a thought-formed dualistic framework… and then relax a bit more …easing our grip on that entanglement… and so on until our hands relax completely…and the rest…

As the ego shrinks back to it’s proper size, resistance to ‘how it is’ as opposed to ‘how I think it is’ decreases… helping us to bring all of ourselves, with trust and faith, into connection with the infinity of truth’s heart-call…and alignment with openness …
The brightness of the unmediated connection between the infinite source and the lamp… allows it to shine like the undimmed sun…

Simply sitting Sun-days….

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In response to James suggestion, and with his encouragement and advice on the meditation program …
on the first Sunday of each month, any of us who… whilst bodily separated … would like to come together as we are – like a flock of birds, settling into sitting practice… can meet for some sustained mediation practice together on-line.

At 9.45 UK time, a brief introductory explanation/revision is followed by five meditation sessions between 10am and 4pm:

Introduction … 9.45 -10.00

Session 1 …  10 ~ 10.35         
Session 2 … 10.55 ~ 11.40           
Session 3 … 12.05 ~ 1.00   

Session 4 … 2.00 ~ 2.45  
Session 5 … 3.05 ~ 4.05

Each session starts with about 3 minutes practice of the Guru yoga of the white ‘A’, followed by shamatha meditation…
There is no bell to indicate the end of the three minutes…the suggestion is to get a sense of how it feels to practice this for just 3mins on your own …before joining the Sunday meditation…

As soon as you notice fusion with thoughts has occurred, just relax and…on the out-breath… return  to openness… 

Try this once…or  twice…then  shift to the shamatha meditation for the rest of the session …  with eyes open, inclusive of the panoramic field of experience, but lightly resting your attention on the sensations accompanying the flow of the breath up and down the groove connecting the base of the nose with the upper lip. 

 As soon as ‘loss’ is noted… simply return to this light focus again and again …without comment…or judgment     

Continue with this practice for the rest of the session…  

If your situation is such that these sensations seem too ephemeral for you to maintain attention… then shifting the focus to staying with the flow of breath … from the infinite – into the body– and  back into the infinite – is a valuable alternative.

Rather than wasting time in a session fruitlessly struggling to regain any initial openness…just start afresh with the 3 ‘A’s  in the next session…

The sessions length increases (except for the sleepy after lunch shift!) throughout the day… until the final sit is for an hour.

The intention is to maintain the energetic connection of the group throughout the day if possible…but people are free to join and leave as they need…so people in different time zones are welcome to join in when they can…

You will hear some noises from my end, as part of your experiential  field, but the feedback from different microphones is of another order!                                                                                                                               So if you can remember to join with your microphone off – and ideally at the beginning of a session so that the 3 A’s are in synch – that would be a kindness to participants…

Also, if you’re new to this and the time seems too long …maybe just have a go…and see how it is…
You can always leave when you need and build up gradually… struggling isn’t helpful…but stretching might be …and relaxing into it, out of limiting thoughts certainly will be !

There is an invitation, if you find this beneficial, to consider how you can weave more of this into daily  life.

If you’d like to join us … or have particular questions before or afterwards …just send me a message via ‘Contact Me’ … top right on the home page…

Happy meditating… Sunday…and everyday!

~ *~

When I heard James say, back in 2003, that many people didn’t know themselves very well…
I was thinking of brain damage…memory loss after car accidents… and also wondering about being ‘more myself’ – what might that look like?

‘You belong in awareness…’ ‘Your mother is awareness….’

Oh…my goodness!!!
Realising that the mother that I think of as ‘mine’ in this life, is also considered to be ‘my mother’ by each of my siblings … and that we all see her differently…
That how we see her is not ‘the truth’ of her, for herself…and that all of these ‘mothers’ were constructs of our selective attentions, was a step in the right direction…
But the givenness of our relationship to awareness… as the mother of all phenomena – the mother we’ve forgotten in our shaky ego’s ungrounded efforts to stabilise the unstabilisable, in our grasping at the vanishing – was much more than one step beyond that…!

Yet although all this was astonishing and incomprehensible to me at the time, it was somehow comforting to hear.
I think that encountering news with truth at it’s heart, is a very rare and wonderful surprise … however strange it may seem…
and in sensing that’s the case, the journey out of confusion begins…

There’s a vast amount of teachings now freely available to read/listen to/ explore.. to help us put our habitual views and actions into question…and relax out of identifying with transient arisings as if these movements were the main event.

In meditation, as we relax out of continuous involvement with arising thoughts feelings and sensations … we start to become more at ease…at home with being settled as presence with awareness as our abiding continuity…
Gradually the movements that we’d habitually grasp at seem less tasty… as more of ‘how it is’…of how we actually are, is revealed.

The previous post the Open door of Emptiness Ch.3 part (ii) is a gesture towards that exploration… (iii) and (iv) continue it…

The Open Door of Emptiness-Ch.3 part (ii)

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The recording of the next section of the book is now published and inspired what’s below:

This image might make you go ‘Wow’…because to me ‘how it is’ is impactful…
The variations in colour and shape, are startling……
There’s nothing to be done with this…we can just receive it, be at one with it as it is…
If we stay relaxed and open…with this…we get the revelation of its fullness …
Then… the moment’s display refreshes…

But it’s rare to for us to engage with appearances in this way… We’re not used to tasting the freshness of experience and finding that enough…so our interest in this first and direct appreciation is very brief…
We ignore the unspoken invitation it gives to ‘Mind the gap’… stay open, don’t go abstract … and we step onto the ‘thinking about’ train of dualising consciousness… and straight back into samsara.

Separating in duality to… there’s ‘it’ there, a special something in the experiential field… and there’s ‘me’ here… We get busy…adding, and and then relating to, an overlaying web of thoughts…
These thoughts have little to do with what’s actually there…and a lot to do with ‘me’ and what I can bring to the party. ‘Me’ can be like a big handbag full of intoxicating spray – cans of dry knowledge, of biases, beliefs, stories, memories and opinions… which will surely help the party go with a swing!

Psst…Maybe not…and anyway… there is no party!…the image did not send out an invitation…
Never mind!… here I come ; )…mobilising in with my conceptual elaborations…
And as we shift to relating on that secondary and relative level… any freshness that the image offered is ignored… in favour of its potential utility as a springboard for whatever flavours of mentation come to mind.

Starting with ‘I like’ or ‘I don’t like’ as a feeling tone… we can divide the image it up into different parts.
There’s foreground and background depending on our interest… Our attention might be caught by what is central… we are used to that being the position for what’s most important.
We can label…naming the colours and shapes and separate with words like ‘flower’ and ‘wood’ and
We can dissect and label each part of the flower – as in a biology exam… …
We can classify – ‘it’s a nasturtium’ – though it doesn’t know it! As far as we know, flowers do not use human language to communicate among themselves.. or they would turn their heads in recognition : )
We can compare and contrast ‘this’ type with another…and know the conditions of soil water nutrients and sunlight that the plant might find ideal…
We can discover whether it’s an annual or perennial, whether it’s frost-hardy or not…
…and we can know that ‘its’s edible’.
We can drift into memories of grandma’s garden…or be glad that their leaves provided food for the butterflies…
And then there’s the wood. … the relationship between the wood and the flower– seeming brighter on a darker background…and on and on..

Does any of this thinking bring us closer to the showing… or does it distance us, enshrouding the freshness with a dusty veil?

The me-goic aspect of ourselves is however more than happy to engage in all this busyness …’I exist as someone who can add value… who knows what’s what… and can explain….’Yay – go me!”
And, having told myself what’s interesting and true about this… comes …’Let me tell you how it is…!’
Puff… puff… puff…the seemingly individuated self-bubble inflates…whilst at the same time, investing an air of importance and truth into… whatever is expressed!

None of this is a problem in itself…knowledge has its function, as does thinking…but all this agitated and agitating movement is occurring on the non-stop train… moving through awareness with the windows closed and the blinds down…
‘I know….’ chuff chuff chuff…
‘It is…’ chuff chuff chuff…
‘I think…’ chuff chuff chuff…
‘I think…therefore I AM….’ chuff chuff chuff!

The value of Descartes’ statement seemed obscure when I first heard it…a self-validating sealed loop of an idea, offering no useful insight… later seeing how this conclusion precludes any enquiry as to the nature of the thought, or the mind… the one who is thinking…or how it is to ‘be’?
It was later critiqued by Pierre Gassendi…with a response that makes more sense to me, and dharma before that would agree… that the most he could honestly conclude is that ‘thinking is occurring’.
And that is far from proof that there is an individual who is thinking!

As we can see it’s so easy to fall asleep into our soup of ‘knowing about’
However our interpretation is not what is in front of our eyes …

The dharma offers the possibility of being awake and present as presence… which doesn’t tangle with arising thoughts…nor reject them… they dance as petals in the breeze. As a petals we can dance with them or not, within the openness..

The invitation of ‘a flower’ to be simply received is unspoken…and direct reception is without words…
The dharma transmission from Shakyamuni buddha was received by Mahakasyapa in that way, with a smile.

So, maybe the lily/nasturtium/ petal-thought arising turd… is fine just as it is… without my gold or lead or other colour of spray paint?

Well, what do you think?

Could it be that varnishing these self-liberating expressions of the truth is…err…both unnecessary and problematic?

The stale megoic automaticity of thought-engagement can diminish…as the freshness of the open spacious of the truth of ourselves as home-base… becomes more familiar and wonderfully easing to us.

Then ‘My bag’ can shrink… as the spray’s sticky and condensing effect is realised… that the hand of the sprayer is caught in the act…entrapped….not free to be…

There is a lot to engage with in this twenty-five minute recording…and it’s my experience that listening and reflecting, again and again and again, may be necessary to the allow the message to penetrate deeply… rather than just be some words that we heard or read, that bounced off…like a down-pour of rain onto bone-dry soil.

That’s really not because we are stupid… but because we become stupefied – made stupid or senseless – by our attachment to unexamined beliefs. Beleifs which seem foundational… but have no basis in truth.

It invites us to look at beliefs that we take completely for granted… beliefs that, without these teachings, we would never dream of questioning in a million years.

Beliefs about who we are – such as that I am ‘Me’ …. a self-existent, individual, with autonomy – can be put into question and their falsity appreciated.

Hearing that the experiential field is panoramic and undivided.. inclusive of what we take to be self and other… and that there is a direct unmediated response to that which arises… prior to interpretation…
can put into question the value and function of all the interpretations that we make….and challenge the unwitting privileging of this second-order activity.
So we might become curious as to how to desist…or relax out of this …

The dharma teachings shine a light on how we disguise ‘how it is’ from ourselves in so many ways ……but old habits die hard.
Living the samsaric dream/nightmare lifetime after lifetime as a ‘thing’ amongst other ‘things’ with the five poisons running wild… is no picnic, and if we’re clear about how it is construed, we can see that trying to ‘think our way out’ is a impossible task…
and the invitation to mediation practice makes more and more sense…

We’ve had many…and one more follows …
in the Simply sitting Sun-days post

Open Door of Emptiness – Open to Life (i)… road-runner!

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Road-runner… nose to nose with Wyle E. Coyote…
from the Warner Brothers film To Beep or not to Beep !

Sentences from James’ teachings have often – thankfully – ‘stopped me in my tracks’… and caused me to reflect…sometimes for a long time, acting like a koan…

‘Stopped me in my tracks’ is rather a telling phrase … it’s as if we have train-tracks underneath our feet… that we are unwittingly running on until we shift tracks, the tracks shifts… or something shifts us!

The audio-recording of the Introduction to Chapter 3 of the book, the Open Door of Emptiness is now published… and I was struck by this sentence referring to the construction of the different stories that we tell to different kinds of people: ‘The stories may seem quite true as we tell them, yet we can’t quite escape the knowledge that they are constructs, that in the telling of them we are creating the ground we are standing on.’

As I was unpacking that…as I see it … that the ‘ground’ we create in this way acts as a temporary platform, or jumping off point, for further expression and is, of course, not the self-existing ground… but more a moment by moment investment in selected aspects of the of the mind’s creativity … yet how in a confused way, as we busily link one thought-formation with another, we imbue the result… (which, if one were to give shape etc. to it… would have the all the integrity and strength of home-made polystyrene tile)… with stability validity and credibility … some vivid imagery arose – of a new scenario for a Looney Tunes cartoon!

I watched these cartoons a very long time ago!
There was Road-runner… the very tall ‘chicken’ who was such an incredibly fast runner…
So amazingly fast that he left a trail of smoke behind him as he happily sped through the Arizona desert…often fanatically pursued by the hapless Wyle E. Coyote…who was intent on destroying him.

As humans we are a bit like Wyle E. Coyote…with a plan to fulfil our desires by deploying a special dualistic conditioning kit bought cheaply from the Acme store (don’t buy from them – believe me, they never work!).

When Road-runner comes to an obstacle, like a canyon…no problem… down… and then up the other side he would go… quick as a flash.
So in this imaginary scenario Wyle Coyote plans to catch him as he shoots back up the other side of the canyon… by getting across the canyon before him, crossing directly… in a straight line – through the air… After all, the fastest way between two points is a straight line, isn’t it?
(Some wiser ones will know that this is not always so…it would depend on the terrain and many other factors… and also be thinking, look before you leap…but anyway…!)
So he buys an ‘air-suspension-bridge’ kit from Acme.
On delivery, he discovers the kit is comprised of a generous supply of short wooden planks in a bag … and the instructions for their effective deployment.
The instructions tell him to carry the bag under one arm and run very very fast towards the canyons edge… then use the other arm to start laying out the track, throwing the pieces out in front of him so quickly that, letting momentum carry him forward … he would be able to run onto the next piece before it fell to the ground.
So much quicker than going down one side and up the other…he thought!!!

Maybe you can picture the scene as he runs onto the track… as it briefly extends towards the other side … through the air across the chasm…
before panning down to a coyote-shaped depression in the canyon floor…as road-runner passes going ‘Beep Beep!

Life in samsara ; )

If he had turned the plan over, perhaps he would have found its deconstruction…another sentence from the introduction… and given up the dualistic chase, for:
‘To locate a moment in the arc of time, you have to apply an interpretive structure…which disguises the immediate actuality of the moment’
…and finding his way to the truth of that, would surely be a less painful and more satisfying way of spending his days!

Screenshot–image thanks to Wikipedia…under fair use policy…



Wisdom and Compassion (2) …perfectly balanced in space, drinking the nectar

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This beautiful picture, accompanied by the words below…invites engagement with the recently published video of the talk which James gave in Macclesfield in spring this year…

‘Wisdom and Compassion are often said to be like the two wings of a bird. With their collaboration, we can fly free of the snares of samsara and its false dualism. We will integrate the wisdom of emptiness, which reveals how all our experience is like an illusion, with the kind compassion, which brings us into authentic contact.’

Bringing our confusion into direct connection with dharma James Low illuminates it’s profound truth using very relatable examples… from life’s experiences and world events…
With it’s relevance allied to the meditation practice he invites… life can open up as we lighten up…

There is also an audio recording of this talk prepared with great care by Gareth Williams if you’d like the option to listen.
You’ll find the audio and video listed as talk 23. on the Index to these talks (it’s also on the home page introduction)… along with all the others.
Talk 4, from back in 2006 has the same title – the same topic…but a different flavour which you might also enjoy!

A tsa-tsa with prayers… on the moor…

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A peaceful place for practice…. and placing of a tsa-tsa …

These images of the photos I took there may evoke the peace of stillness … yet they are dynamic, continuously reproduced every moment on the screen in front of you…
And the place itself was full of movement… … the shiffling leaves…the watching heads of the sheep…the clouds changing form…all, as the mind’s movements, arising and… dissolving
…..but the basis for all movement, the heart of all manifestations, is not another movement of the mind.

No words can put a handle on this because it isn’t encompassable by our vocabulary…yet it is that from which, for us, these movements arise.
And responsivity from openness arises feely as the dynamic aspect of non-duality with this…
It’s available whatever the location or situation … as James and others with this realisation have through time displayed…

Some of us are lucky enough to go on retreat this summer, and we may experience a bit of a shift out of our habitual fascination with whatever arises in the mind.
As we relax and open we can have a clearer sense of how we are… as the energy involved in that fusion releases a little bit.

However there can be a sense discombobulation after a retreat as we re-engage with the increasing turbulence of worldly affairs…Sometimes one of the five poisons pops up its head…you know the one… ‘aversion’….
If we get into that, rather than letting it move through, it brings rigidity and an increasing sense of solidity and separation, defined by opposition, as we react to dualistic ego-driven behaviour…in a dualistic ego-driven judgmental way…
With this we loose touch with the inclusive hospitality of openness to how others are showing… and act from a defensively limited position.

We are always in truth bigger than the event which catches us…or rather we get caught in as we catch…and however we respond has an impact on others ourselves and our world.
In samsara, karmic activity drives behaviour, choices are not free…
but the dharma invites us to the realisation of the the unchanging, uncompounded absolute at the heart of our being… and with that, comes freedom from suffering and…
if we can be as we truly are… seeing clearly both how it seems, relatively speaking… and how it is in truth, which brings equanimity… our momentary impact will be beneficial …and ungraspable.

If it were easy the world would not be as is it…but we can following the scent of openness from the retreat …with practicing and studying…there’s two new books just published (check the simplybeing website)… along with so much else…there to encourage our journey of dharma discovery and relating in the middle way…
Not nothing at all empty, empty – nihilisn… not strongly real – eternalism

Many of us have planted Earth pots and placed tsa-tsas, around the world …spreading out in a web of connectivity… invoking the compassionate aspect of wisdom to shine forth for the benefit of all sentient beings, illuminating the way out of delusion.

I came across this lovely spot by chance, and placed a tsa-tsa at the foot of this tree with the prayers James gave us… and reciting the last prayer in his book Aspiration for Happinesss in the World. (No.32 in the audio series of the book Longing for Limitless light under Audio/Video on this website)….and, as an echo of the profound wishes of so many prayers, prayed …
‘May we all realise our true nature….so that the tensions which distort views and close hearts are resolved in openness…as presence, free from free of dualistic judgment’


Open Door of Emptiness~Love and Impermanence (vi) ~ completion

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‘The approach offered in Dzogchen is helpful in its depth…
it is helpful in its radiance…
and it helps to make us more aware of our intrinsic connectivity…’
James Low

These words are from the closing paragraph of this section of the book…which is published as an audio recording, this new-moon day in May.

At this time it is as if the sun and moon come quietly together…
and from this darkness, through the lunar month, brightness increases to a peak, …followed by diminution to darkness with just a little light…

The life of the body… and many systems both within and without it… parallel this cyclical display, over a shorter or longer time frame…
and so it is for all compounded phenomena…for all constructs, as the Buddha noted…

His final exhortation… to keep going until the truth of the uncompounded was realised… was given to the monks around him at the time …
That which does not wax or wane, that which does not change, is the basis for the expressions of both wisdom and confusion.
Through time teachers with that same realisation have arisen, who show, indicate, and invite us to look in such a way that we also might find freedom from the constrictions and suffering which flows from taking the unreal to be strongly real…and with that release, the realisation of our full potential

There is a big difference between how it actually is, and what I think it is … but this is medicine that our egoic attachment makes difficult to swallow.
However, if trust in ‘my certainties’ diminishes as trust in the teachings of openness or emptiness increases…and I keep looking with a gentle eye… then the invitations in this text to ‘relax and open’… and ‘doing non-doing’ may help us see more clearly how it is before… my ‘doing’ casts a shadow …

…perhaps so that, in the dusty and deserted mid-west town…… moved by the wind that’s passing through… the one remaining door of the ego-saloon bar creaks a little as it swings listlessly… back and forth… hanging from it’s bent hinge
doing no harm, no-one inside…no-one outside, blocking no-thing…

Sounds like crap to your dualising consciousness? That’s ok …just relax back into spaciousness…it’s gone… : )
But we can enjoy /appreciate the flavour of ‘crappy prose’ without judgment …and however emptiness arises as the mind’s display, as our experiential field…trust that will vanish by itself…then there’s this…

….so how is ‘this’ before I appropriate it into consciousness, into my labelling value systems, and put my stamp on it?

Photo credit : I’m not recommending, nor have I looked at the content of the site but appreciating the sense of numinous radiance evoked by this photo – thanks to Lifereader.co.nz.

Open Door of Emptiness…Ch.2 Love and Impermanence (v)… ‘Yes, we have no bananas…

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Trying to ‘inwardly digest’ James’ writings has been an education for me in different ways…
Sometimes I’ve followed unfamiliar threads of connection….out and back…trying to look from the different perspectives of connectivity with the teachings that journey invited.

Early on I came across an image of a buddha underneath which,
referencing the words in René Magritte’s famous painting ‘This is not a pipe’… , he had written ‘this is not a buddha’.

I puzzled over it for quite a while…thinking… umm…well, it looks like one to me!
But I was curious to know… in what way was I mistaken?
So then I found an image of Magritte’s painting of the pipe and pattern-matched it, like in a game for young children, with the pipe my dad used to smoke.
This one has a curved stem, his had a straight stem…but surely both were pipes…?

Eventually …as my view was put into question…the penny dropped

So, in a similar vein…is this… a ‘banana’?

Part (v), the penultimate recording of the second chapter of the book the Open door of emptiness, has just joined the others in the series.
You’ll find them all under the audio/video tab… along with other book recordings …
Depending on how you hover/ click you may also come across the introductions to them.
If it’s just this series that interests you at present, you’ll find part (v) at the very bottom of the page.

When you’ve engaged with this you may never look at a ‘banana’ in the same way again…for it’s a great exposé … not just about bananas but also every other ‘some thing’ …

If you can find the time, i think there is also great value in listening to the original recordings which form the basis for the text ‘Love and Impermanence’, both in the book and this recording.
These are, necessarily, abridged…and you may find that your appreciation deepens if you listen to the full length originals…where James expounds and circles around a topic…such as representation!…to help us get the point.

May these ‘wisdom massages’ … help us and all sentient beings, retire from our full-time jobs as mental construction-workers… so that our dancing together in space is free…fresh… light… and easy…

~ completed on the full moon day of May ~

Machig’s Way, the Book…. text by James Low with images by Diana Collins

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Full moon… in the early hours, Sunday April 13th

I bought this book, Machig’s Way, to read on my birthday…
it was so very moving…
I’ve just got around to writing a review of it on Amazon…and thought I’d also publish it here so more people might have the pleasure and appreciation of this work of art and heart, with it’s invitation to us all…

‘About twenty years ago I read a book which had a profound impact on the course of my life…
It was ‘The Yogins of Ladakh’… by John Crook and James Low…

It offered many extraordinary insights, including a sense of  the depth of James’ wisdom and capacity… which, as a student, deepened and confirmed my confidence…

It also introduced me the story of how, despite the many obstacles in her way…  the great dakini Machig Labdron persisted until her goal… of a life of dharma practice… was attained.

Her example illuminated that possibility, and stayed with me  …

She had inexorable determination and courage… and although In our day and age, we may have much more freedom to follow the dharma path than she had, these qualities are vital if we want to to use our freedom wisely… and do as she did – responding to the dharma’s heart call and ‘walking the walk’, freeing ourselves from samsaric snares as we go…

This wonderful book, arising as the flower of warm collaboration, is a vivid re-telling of her life. 
It brings together Diana’s beautifully evocative images… and James’ expression of Machig Labdron’s words of wisdom…into a dance  with us…
so as we immerse ourselves in this, we may resonate with their truth…

She was an inspiration to practitioners of long ago …. and still is, through time, today.
The invitation  offered by the dharma, by Machig Labdron, by this book (buy this book!!!) is, as James writes is…

~ to be returned to our own simplicity… and set our own lamp of awareness ablaze ~ ‘

Wonderful indeed!

The happy easter-egg… of Love and Impermanence (iv)

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This dharma ‘easter egg’ is now added to the other recordings from the book ‘The Open Door of Emptiness’.
You’ll find it, with other book recordings, by clicking on the Audio /video tab.

As James has explained, the dharma is here to help us in our life.
Maintaining a dharma view as we engage with the day to day turbulence of the world…not getting lost in the nonsense…is no easy task…
Yet if we make full use of the help that’s been offered so freely… it surely will get easier…

The teachings are provided… whether in person…in books…recordings – in whatever form the dharma shows up for us…so we can absorb what we need from them
Then contemplating, as we massage them into us over and over again and again… our rigidities will gradually soften… so that their deep meaning can in time, sink into our heart…

When this occurs so completely that dharma-wisdom becomes the basis for expression…then compassion will be every-ready, at our finger tips – the fulfilment of our potential…

I can remember unwrapping an egg, as a little girl, one Easter Sunday …peeling off the shiny foil…and breaking in with a cracking bite. Also the slightly disappointed feeling ‘oh there’s nothing inside this one’ on finding it was hollow.

I hope you’ll feel no lack in the empty-ness of this particular egg…paradoxically it’s both empty and satisfying!
With zero calories, no artificial additives…and absolutely no saccharine …it can be eaten again and again…
As each mouthful re-minds us of the truth of us… unlike with a chocolate egg, we get healthier and lighter with every bite!

Love and Impermanence…part (iii) – Happy Mothers’ Day every day!

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Offerings….
an eyeful, a heart full, a mind full of blossoms…

Blossoms arising for every mother…
springing directly as love from the heart …

For ours, in this life-time…
and each who is sharing
life in this world, although feeling… apart

For all sentient beings…
in every direction
our mothers of life-times,
where gratitude starts…

Blossoms of wisdom showing as teachings
Blossoms…of love… for each wandering child
to find peace and ease in truth’s generous welcome…
always an aspect, and never apart…

not weighed in the balance…
The mother we share as the basis for being
shows perfect reflections,
and never departs….

In one Macclesfield teaching James said to us ‘you’re fine as you are’…’you could be more you’… offering us the possibility of acceptance with an invitation to be curious…
and… ‘Your nature is completely pure’…’
Really!?… Yep, the buddhas are not liars… that is how it is…
But in ignorance of this, our dualising consciousness will be working with whatever concepts of ‘our nature’ and ‘pure vs impure’ bring to mind… in a vain attempt to try to match our sense of self with some extraordinary words…

And as we reify, attribute value by comparing and contrasting, and define ourselves and others according to ideas and activities….
all this ‘normal human’ activity acts like an on-going smoke-screen, obscuring the truth of the statement.

On becoming a mother I had the luck to come across a book by Penelope Leach which suggested that when the behaviour of a toddler seems problematic the disliked behaviour can be worked with… without interrupting love for the child.
It seemed that the invitation was for the parent to see that the child is in need of a creatively helpful response…to collaborate with them as they are, in the specific situation… rather than allowing judgment to trigger an automatic behaviour which may be familiar from their own childhood as a means of exerting control. Maybe instead of withdrawal of affection or some other punishment, to hang in there and be curious as to ‘how best to be for them’ at that time.

Similarly we can treat ourselves with this kindness and be curious and non-judgmental about what we are up to.
As we explore the talks we find that ‘being more you’ did not mean being more authentic to our notion of the truth of ourselves…and indulging this. Acting out onto others an impulsive expression of whatever arises in the mind is clearly not the height of our potential…but rather, ‘being more you’ is about coming closer to how we actually are.
And this opens us to the possibility of acting skilfully, ‘with finesse’, into the situation.

There are many dharma methods which may be helpful in re-parenting our anxious little orphan ego-selves… these transient shapings formed by linking constructs…the patternings with which we habitual identify as ‘Me’.
Each method, if applied correctly, produces a result….some may act as temporarily beneficial ‘holding patterns’ but all tend towards the Buddha’s realisation of the uncompounded the uncreated…the absolute truth of ourselves.
All unhelpful tension-driven activity may relaxed out of…in the arms of Prajnaparamita, in the wisdom of openness… from whence arises the true love of ultimate compassion.
With the teachings so generously perpetuated and carefully transmitted through time we have encountered what we need to be at home wherever we find ourselves, non-dual with the generously spacious hospitality of awareness and emptiness.
May we make good use of our rare opportunity…

Flowers for Mothers day and everyday:
The audio of Love and impermanence part (iii) is now published
The latest writings by James 23rd and 25th of March are essential for keep our boats on course and afloat in the increasing turbulence of this time.
In our time  the Radio 4 program (9am thurs 27th march) was about Maurice Merleau-Ponty…who was part of the movement known as phenomenology. The Phenomenology of Perception is one of the books he wrote…and ‘Wonder in the face of the world’ is a beautiful quote from that…
James once described the practice as ‘applied phenomenology’… you might find it an interesting program.
However his book ‘Love your Mother’ would be today’s recommendation : ) … the fund set up for anyone needing help to purchase books is still open.

The wishes were made in the morning…but posted in the evening!