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