Audio/Video

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 ~

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!

Love and Impermanence Part (ii)…the Open door of Emptiness

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The recording of Part (ii) of the chapter Love and impermanence is now available from the Audio/Video tab above, in The Open Door of Emptiness series.

If you were listening on Saturday 1st March to James’ teaching on ‘Effortful Selectivity and effortless non-selectivity’ you’ll maybe find the contents unconsciously resonating with the themes he explored.
If you didn’t get to see that live, then you might find that video complements this teaching and vice versa.
Each time a fresh expression …

In my experience these ripples of dharma act like the sea on my egoic sandcastle… a form built of and from the open sea’s shore …
As the tide comes in…each little ripple of arriving water has an impact on the apparently given stability of the structure…

At first the sand gets wet.. then dries as the water retreats…
But gradually, as ripple follows ripple…
the outer ramparts, rigid constructs… soften… and then slide into the sea…

Then the inner structures strictures or constrictions…the grasping at, and that which is grasped at…
give way to the truth… and all releases…

and freshly emergent experiences, in openness, arise and dissolve naturally…like the waves of the sea

P.s. There’s also a new post about being crocussed! …which comes and goes with this…

Love and Impermanence Part (i)… The Open door of Emptiness

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Happy Valentine’s Day!





So maybe it’s a good day to say that:
The second chapter of the book ‘The Open Door of Emptiness’ is called ‘Love and impermanence‘
…and the recording of the first part of the chapter is ready to listen to now…
If you look under Audio, you’ll find it at the bottom of this set…

Here, in a kindly way, without judgment, we are invited to look very precisely at what we get up to…
What are we assuming?…What are we ignoring?…What is the basis for our beliefs?…Who are we?

If we were to just sit there and think…
What am I assuming? What am I ignoring? On what are my beliefs based? Who am I?…
it’s not likely that we’d get very close to the heart of the matter.
Not because we are stupid… but because we begin the investigation with a squint which distorts our perspective…

However when the squint… our tinted view, in the recording… is recognised as such and its causal factors are explained, then the possibility of seeing clearly, without any wool over our eyes, opens up.
We have been given a chance, with skilful methods to help us…

‘Old habits die hard’ as the saying goes…and ‘patterns insist’, as I have learned… but the key and most unusual question is raised… about their ownership…and this can help to dissolve the dualistic glue…

The bit in the introduction ‘About the book’ gives a sense of the great love behind all this …
Arising from the good heart energy – from the teachings themselves to their reproduction in different ways – as the work of many…evoked by many…for the benefit and freedom of us all

I am humbly and profoundly grateful…
For without this dharma, and these many explanations…then what???








The Open door of Emptiness: Getting to know how we are ~ part (iii)

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i) The shining moon of wisdom…the clarity, or energy of the mind’s display… inseparable from open emptiness

ii) and this?

Below image i) there are some shapes that we call ‘letters’, arranged in groupings we call ‘words’ …
They don’t say anything from their own side…but as we attend to them, the concepts that we apply make them meaningful for us (or not) in different ways… according to our conditioning.

If we have a dharmic orientation they may resonate…but how to attune with the truth that they gesture towards and live from that?
This book offers a way in…and it’s first chapter ‘Getting to know how we are’ is, in my opinion, so very helpful with this.
Part (iii) the final part, is now available to listen to… illuminating how to practise the middle way, beyond extremes…(too tight is at 3’52 and too loose at 11’58)

The creativity of the mind shows itself continuously…
As I look at image i) …the central whiteness of the ‘moon’ seems more brilliant than the whiteness of the ‘page’ on which its set…
…and if I look a while longer, this white disc becomes grey with a white ring around it…

Image ii) could be another visual metaphor…perhaps for wisdom and its absence…
A vision of ice shelves fissuring and melting into the seas….with, just below the centre, a radiant peacock, its extravagant tail hanging down…
Above and to the left of that… Padmasambhava…surrounded by many beings, some enshrouded by their beliefs, others awake or awakening to how it is…and becoming lighter…

But both images are the same, in nature – the showing of no-thing…

Samsaric ignorance or stupidity is not innate but is an on-going ignoring… not looking to see, not opening to receive, ‘how it is’…
Instead we trust in our blind beliefs that ‘how I think it is’… ‘how I imagine it to be’…is how it actually is
So we are pixilated – bemused, bewildered, slightly crazy, intoxicated – as we take the product of our egoic con-fusion of concepts and pixels of light … to be veridical ; )

As we heard in one of James’ teachings, many yeas ago…light + concept equals pseudo-entity…
Image (i) is of the full moon November 2024, (ii) is of the residue left in a grey washing-up bowl…a few days after emptying out the clothes-soaking water! : )



The Open Door of Emptiness Getting to know how we are… Part (ii)

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Rookery, autumn…leaf fall exposé : )

Part (ii) is now published and includes Finding a method that works for you, Deconstructing our assumptions, and… Seeing things as real and being attached to them.

As dharma birds in the dharma tree

…this branch suits you

and this suits me

temporarily…

we may find some stability

nested

symbolically…

as a prelude to flying

invisibly

free


As we come into connection with the truth of emptiness …what happens to the fig-leaves of identification that, in taking ourselves to be some’thing’, we firmly hold in place?

If we gently examine this seemingly essential and definitional ‘clothing’ in the light of wisdom…its unsubstantial, non-essential nature becomes clear.

We do the same with the ‘self’, the one who is the wearer of the clothes…who is attached to these gossamer web-like ‘threads’ of mental clothing…

And we can see that… as the energy that flows with our attention is invested in particular beliefs… the shapings or ways of relating, that we adopt… become habitual… limited and limiting.
Yet ordinarily these views are assiduously strengthened and bolstered by linking them with associated arising thoughts of a similar ilk…and then, like the cuckoo… our sense of self, our identity, settles down to sit in that nest we made…our ‘home sweet home’ !

Unless we are fortunate we won’t leave its, in time foetid, cosiness.
But if we are, we get to turn around a bit and see that, inadvertently… we’ve turned our back on our unshaped, unborn naked awareness…within which both the nest and cuckoo rest!

If we see that our true home is awareness then we can see that putting on different ‘clothing’ that’s fitting to the situation, like an actor in a particular rôle…just as and when appropriate…is not so difficult. If the no-thingness of everything is clear then no clothes /’threads’/thoughts are special… true, our very own …

The 5th and final part of the Introduction to Sharp Weapon Wheel , including the Foreword to the text by C.R Lama

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This recording is now available from the audio/video tab

As I edit these recordings I pay particular attention to different aspects of the wave-form – the amplitude, which indicates the variation in loudness…the clarity…the clicks, crackles, plosives and also the speed of delivery and length of spaces.
Knowing that the content is challenging enough in itself to engage with. . . I can modify all of these, or re-record words or phrases in an attempt to make it as clear, and ‘easy on the ear’, for you as possible.

This time, within the wave-form of the words with which James concludes his introduction to the text, I noticed (my mind construed from lines of different lengths) some particular patterns or shape-formations within the wave. For me, they evoked stupas resounding, and prayer-wheels resonating . . .
So I abstracted them, and turned them on their sides…adapting them, to better fit my projection and for this post! : )

The first is an image of the words ‘C.R. Lama opened the dazzling field of dharma to our world-weary eyes’
The words that come before that are ‘Giving everything… and asking for nothing except our own efforts on the path’. . .
The second image is of the words which follow that …’The kindness of the Guru can never be repaid!’

In this recording James explains how applying ourselves to these Mahayana teachings can help us to move to the ‘third stage of peaceful equanimity free of attraction and aversion’…and how this third stage may be ripened into full fruition…

Amaryllis flowering, recording completed, with infinite gratitude Saga Dawa 2024

Part 4 & Saga Dawa Düchen resounding ~ an invitation

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All compounded phenomena are unreliable and subject to change… garden ornament ‘buddhas’ are no exception !…but the absolute truth at the heart of the dharma teachings is uncompounded, satisfying and reliable in it’s unchanging nature…

The 84000 group is a non-profit organisation which translates the words of the Buddha.
They recently translated a very brief sutra, the Gold Sutra … and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche is including a one hour teaching on that, entitled ‘Pure Gold’, in a session (as part of a longer teaching on Sadhana Practice) starting at 5pm IST on 22nd May (12.30 UK, I think).
This will be followed by a short resounding…where all who would like to, can join from wherever they are to recite the sutra together, no registration is necessary
I’ve participated in this in the past and found it a lovely thing to do. If you’re interested you can read the sutra and find out more about their work, and about resoundings on their website… 84000: Translating the words of the Buddha.

Contributing to the celebrations, the fourth part of James ‘Introduction to Sharp Weapon Wheel’ is now published here, under Audio/Video. The fifth and final section is recorded and will be available very soon.

Also, in case you haven’t noticed, the Commentary to Repelling all troubles is now published here with James blessing…and links to the text etc.
In Mahayana practice, what we do for one …we do for all. So, as troubles abound, this is a wonderful practice to have …and to practice for one and all.

Macclesfield talk 14 Integrating openness and presence (audio only) includes the practice of Tong Len, another way to work with the suffering of the world which can be very physical as explained there, or more subtly using just the breath as explained in Part 4 of the Introduction to Sharp Weapon Wheel.

Many different groups are working to bring about benefit to the world, in different ways… and with these and other practises, without becoming biased and judgmental in reification, we can be actively supportive of their efforts… and the welfare of all beings without exception.

Part 3 of 5 of Mistaken Identities – the Introduction to Sharp Weapon wheel

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‘Appreciation of all’

The dharma-medicine which enables us to free ourselves from samsaric suffering does not taste good to the ego-self with its notions of ‘I’m special, central, know what’s what…know good from bad … this story-line is true my identity ‘


However if we take the medicine, applying ourselves to it and it to us… we shine a light onto the beliefs upon which its apparent existence is founded… and begin to examine these and put their apparently inherent validity into question.

That any activity enacted within the duality of relative reality is ‘karmic activity’ is rarely heard in our world… nor are the consequences understood …

Happily, as we engage with the course of treatment, egoic-identification is deflated by wisdom… and the inflammation and irritation arising from the karmic provocations of the ‘Sharp Weapon’ in the text, diminish.
As an ’empty wheel’ among other ’empty wheels’… absent the five poisons concomitant with karmic intentionality, activity is also free… illusory.

With depth and clarity James explains how the medicine offered in the text can help to open us to our non-dual presence.

This section of the introduction is now available under audio/video on the menu > Finding Freedom (2) bar or here…

Maybe you’ll get it in one reading/listening …but for me it took time, and many readings for it to begin to sink in!

Thanks to Jean for the photo …

You’ve found a dharma easter-egg… of form and emptiness… the basis for ‘Repelling all troubles’

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When the post about the value of this text, Repelling all Troubles, was published back in October 2022 not everyone reading this post would have seen it.
When, later, James gave a commentary – a teaching on this ……some of you may have heard that… but others weren’t able to be there…or didn’t know about it.
Some who did have the luck to listen to the teaching live, may not be aware of the commentary which James gave a bit later on….and this is key for engaging effectively with the text.
Without this we may be merely reading, then repeating it like parrots.

Hearing a text like this can be a bit like being given a beautiful variegated lemon, which has yellow skin with green stripes.
Whilst we might appreciate the aesthetic beauty of the lemon and the generosity of the gift … unless we know something about this kind of lemon… it’s qualities and uses… we may just stick it in the fridge and use the ones we’re used to instead… or put it in the fruit-bowl or on a shelf where it will slowly moulder away.

This lemon with yellow skin with green stripes is a kind of Eureka lemon with pink flesh, perfect for making pink lemonade…but to do this, as with fully connecting with the text, we firstly have to squeeze the lemon!
If we approach it like a child might when being invited to squeeze the lemon…there’ll be a bit of a connection, the lemon will get warmer and maybe a bit softer, but no juice will come from it.

An adult might say ‘Ah we’ll need to use the lemon-squeezer to get the juice out… but first we have to cut the lemon in half, so I’ll help you with that bit. Good, now we have to push down and twist it onto this lemon-squeezer.’
The child pushes down but not much juice comes … but the adult applies more torsion and pressure and lots of juice comes out …and then a bit more as the skins are squeezed together by hand.
When the child tastes the neat juice it thinks ‘Yuk, I won’t bother doing that again! ‘…but then when the juice is sugared to taste and diluted think’s ‘Ok, I get it now…I see why we bothered, it’s delicious…’

The text, inviting equanimity on the basis of wisdom, is short but includes the Introductory prayers, Refuge and bodhicitta, the Seven branch prayer, the ‘Prayer of Aspiration for Happiness in the World’, the ‘Four Immeasurables’, and the Heart Sutra.
James’ commentary covers a vast amount of ground, so he is unpacking the meaning at speed…
yet though still condensed it is precise and clear and literally elucidates – brings light to it.
So as we engage with it as a vital adjunct to the text, the essential understanding of the non-duality of emptiness and form… and the orientation and efficacy of the text becomes clear.
With this we can extract the juice and use it beneficially… in our life and for all life.

James ends by hoping that we will practice the text …and enjoy practising the text! with a big smile!
I hope that bringing the different modes of accessing the text and commentary together here will make this easier to do.

Here’s a link to the Practice text – Repelling all troubles
Here’s the link to the video of the teaching Commentary on text – Repelling all troubles– zoom video
Here’s a link to the Transcription of the zoom commentary – Repelling all troubles by Paula Arinibar…revised and enlarged by James Low
Here’s the link to the original audio of Commentary on text – Repelling all Troubles I created this on the fly then edited it… but it was done quickly, and a better version is below.
Here’s the link to the Commentary to ‘Repelling all Troubles’…… the content is the same but I have made it easier to follow…by improving the sound and the spacing and rescuing some unclear words.

Introduction to ‘Sharp Weapon Wheel’ from the book Finding Freedom ~ Audio recordings

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Spring 2024

The book ‘Finding Freedom’ contains texts from the Theravadin Mahayana and Dzogchen traditions, translated by James Low. 

Each text is  preceded by a comprehensive introduction wherein James elucidates the depth and value inherent in these three approaches….
opening up access to the text itself, the richness of the view to which they relate…and also their connection.

This set of recordings is of the Introduction to the text ‘Sharp Weapon Wheel’  from  the middle Mahayana section, of  the book…
It is in five parts and followed by C.R. Lama’s foreword…as hopefully this will make it easier to engage with than one long recording.

Each of us finds our own way deeper into the dharma… in the foreword to this text C.R. Lama says   ‘the main teaching it gives is the cutting of the ego desire ignorance and so on’ …

How to  develop the necessary availability and insightfulness for the meaning to ‘seep into the marrow of our bones’?… this Introduction explains.

The final paragraph is ‘With this we can move to the third stage of peaceful equanimity free of attraction and aversion. For this to ripen into fruition we must plant the seed of enlightenment in the ever-available, ever-fecund ground of emptiness and water it daily with our loving heart.’

Blooming marvellous… !

A Description of Zangdropalri…

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This recording completes the series of recordings from the book…Lotus Source…
It’s number 21… at the bottom of the series, which you’ll find with other recordings under audio/video from the menu bar

The text is an arrangement by James Low, adapted for this representation as an audio-recording …

It seems very wonderful to me that those who are engaged with this aspect of dharma, and hold the wisdom of the earlier chapters in their hearts, will be able to benefit from access to this practice – treasure.

Dharma can evoke rather different responses to events … than the usual worldly ones.
Nearly twenty years ago, when the consultant in the hospital’s emergency department was trying to lower my alarmingly high heart rate… he explained that, as he was going to use a chemical to actually stop my heart, I would shortly have a feeling of impending doom!
However my very happy thought was… oh wow! Great…what a perfect opportunity for practice…

I did so…and experienced the absolute opposite of doom!
I returned… to a lot of shouting … not with more faith… as that was a given, but having tried it in earnest, with complete confidence in that practice…

This completing text is now published, on this first day of this new year… of the wood-dragon

You probably know that there are dragons of many kinds…
I saw one once – this is a ‘true-story’ – and it’s out-breath was most unusual…a little bit like steam but not hot or damp, nor dense like smoke.
More like incense… ethereal, nebulous…very light textured, soft but not bright…ungraspable….yet refined and precious in quality.
This happened many years ago… I’d see this as a wisdom-dragon…and the out-breath…the breath of dharma flowing out into this troubled world…

So wishing you a Happy New Year, Happy Losar…. and Happy new you, Happy new me, Happy new moment. May we have the blessing of many more happy new years, giving us time to deepen our practice, before it’s our time to go. And may our wise teachers…long keep breathing out…and in, the freshness of the dharma!

Aspiration for Zangdopalri

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This recording, no.20 in the Lotus Source recordings, is now available for you to listen to.

The place, evoked in the mind by this text, is free of samsaric taints…it is so very beautiful and delightful …

It’s a place where all the difficulties which impede our awakening no longer function… and where all the factors which can ease our awakening are present…in infinite abundance.

As it says in the text ‘to hear of it awakens great happiness in the mind’ ‘even to think of it is to be freed from suffering’ ‘when you see it, you will wish to go there’

From whence arises this description? Some dharma travel guide?
Is the invitation to go there a casual one… just some words written by someone, in a book…?
The profound links of compassionate connectivity with the openness at their heart, are revealed within this text…

Errata: There are three small slips from the text within the reading… which I may be able to rectify later:
‘there is a GREAT wish-granting tree’; Amitabha is surrounded by ‘hosts of deities’, omit the ‘the’ currently preceding ‘hosts’; ‘there are many, many spheres of light’ not just many! : )

The evocative clip was abstracted from a painting by Stewart Edmondson a local artist…

The immediacy and freshness of his work done outside, en plein air, working in and with the elements, resonated with me when I first saw it….
And… looking at the patch of light in a relaxed way… maybe we see-envision differently…
As James points out the eyes of the heart see differently from the eyes of the intellect.