Tag Archive for James Low

‘Longing for Limitless Light’ by C. R. Lama and James Low Audio: 2. Introduction’

by Wendy

The Introduction to the book

is now ready to listen to…

So…

as within the Lotus buds in Dewachen ,

we may delight to listen to

the dharma

which facilitates

our blossoming….

our opening,

in life

to light

as light

You’ll find it, with other recordings, under the Audio and Video tab at the top of the page… or go directly to the recordings page : )

James writes in the Introduction ‘At this time of great change and increasing anxiety the calming clarity of Dharma could be of great benefit to many…’
May that great benefit be realised by many in this New Year!
Fascination with what’s depicted in the news and on social media is absorbing the life energy and vitality of many people I know. The dharma teachings are not known so in shouting at the telly, not sleeping well, and filling up with judgment, hatred and fear…their on-going upset also impacts those with whom they live and interact. It’s so sad.

In the attraction to, and absorption into, a particular dramatic presentation both eyes are mesmerised, both ears are filled with the commentary and opinions of others… and, in the time away from that, ‘thinking about’ all this stuff takes over… as if such activity were helpful or would lead to some veridical conclusion.

In this way life’s energy follows and flows with attention, binding into a blinding and exhausting vortex of limited and limiting thoughts and feelings…
And with that level of preoccupation the capacity to receive and respond to those with whom we interact in attuned way is blocked……we are already ‘filled to bursting’… our sense of connectivity with our actual lived situation is minimal.
The sun has gone in, the senses ignored in favour of thoughts…there seems no way out…

The tension in this distressed isolation can build to levels where it is manifestly harmful, whether turned inwards or outwardly and radiates dis-ease.
So often, despite inhabiting relatively fortunate external circumstances, lives which have so much potential can vanish miserably – tuned into samsara hour after hour.
The decompression of spaciousness, openness awareness, emptiness, is sorely needed.

Although different distractions are available and many activities can bring a sense of healthy connectivity and ease provided we can relax enough to become available to open and participate…
making a shift to listening, even with just one ear to the dharma and the other to samsara, cracks open a window so that…
playing through the staleness…
this different tune, of freshness, can be also be heard…
and then maybe we listen 50% to dharma and 50% to samsara – this is progress…and we can check… Which feels like it does us more good ? Which seems to help us be with life as it presents?
and turn up the volume appropriately.
Old habits die hard, but freedom is worth the effort…for ourselves and others.

In the Dhammapada, hatred is addressed by the wise words of the good Buddha, doctor to our troubles, thus:
‘In this world hatred is never pacified by hatred. It is by the absence of hatred that hatred is pacified.’ Around 500 years B.C he explained this as ‘the ancient truth’…so for thousand of years access to this truth has been available but now, as then, not so many listen to the truth and take it to heart.

For those who do the pacification of hatred is possible. The equanimity required for this arises from wisdom and is an achievable fruit of dharma practice.
This ‘equanimity’ does not at all mean to become oblivious to the many impactful and ongoing conflicts and problems in the world. Quite the contrary as having a different and wider perspective – not caught in bias and reactivity – it allows for seeing and fully appreciating the poignancy of situations without becoming overwhelmed and submerged.

The dharma’s many methods invite us in different ways towards this radical re-orientation… away from duality’s push-pull of aversion and desire… towards the wisdom of the truth of all of us which holds no tension, and a connectivity which is intrinsically and inclusively compassionate…

So opening wide the window… and immersing ourselves in the deep and encouraging wisdom of this Introduction and the texts, which will follow as completed…is a method for breathing increasingly pure air… as we follow this ‘progressive path for freeing ourselves from the sorrow-inducing delusions of being a separate entity burdened with inherent existence’.

‘Even as beginners our love and kindness can fuel the flames of Dharma which burn up all obscurations.’ … and this, for a change, is very very good news!
These words are found in the Introduction, along with an explanation of the deep value, depth, and scope of the texts. It’s a treasure imho!

Revealing The Great Completion:

by Wendy

On the back cover of this book – ‘THIS IS IT’ – you’ll find James has written some explanations.

In the first paragraph he explains how the six distinct parts of the book offer key insights into the Buddhist understanding of how to free ourselves… whilst within the very situations which trap us.

Sounds good?

Then he explains the depth of the resource –
‘It offers diverse resources for study and practice.
Covering detailed analysis of phenomena, tragedies of blind arrogance transformed through tantra, and awakening in the presence of Dzogchen.’

and follows this with two paragraphs of truth to contemplate and realise…each infinitely more valuable than a king’s ransom:

‘The past is gone, the future never comes, and our present is obscured by echoes of our vanished past…
and dreams of our imagined future.
Living in the miasma of our own mental activity we are the pulsations of our thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions. We invent what we take to be occurring and then believe that life is what we imagine it to be.

The Buddha dharma offers us many ways to awaken from this delusion and bring us ever closer to the actual.
When we are present in and as our unchanging awareness the mistake of duality vanishes.
Resting in our non-dual presence, every moment is complete in itself and our anxious need to do something, anything, falls away.
No more make-believe, no more illusion, just ease and contentment in the simplicity that: THIS IS IT’

I have been engaging with this book for just a little while but would say, from my own experience, that opening to the variety of teachings therein…
and responding to the images – beautiful, symbolic, striking,
facilitates transformational connections outside of time and space with multiple manifestations of the truth of the buddha-dharma…not essentially different from those around us just now.

My own gratitude is deep, not just for the author’s wisdom but for all those who collaborated in bringing the book to life, applying their unique skills and loving energy… for our delight and ease-ing.’

* Paragraphs reproduced with James approval.

Links to Lama Chetsangpa videos

by Wendy

I have had a few emails about finding the videos relating to these talks so have updated the previous post about them (below) to include the link which worked for me…but if you’re in a hurry to get straight there.. here’s the link to the third video ( most recent, March 13/14) in the series of four Lama Chetsangpa talks.

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

Springing into life… at Emerson College and Oxford

by Wendy

I realise that it’s time to spring-clean and blow the dust off this website…various projects and a pilgrimage have intervened…and it’s so long since I wrote anything that it just taken me twenty minutes to find the password!

Someone sent me an email today asking when James was next teaching in England… so i can see that it’s good to have this up-to-date, supplementary to the Simplybeing.co.uk website.

Today it’s a pleasure to bring dharma spring, summer, autumn, and winter together in a paragraph or two.

Spring – new leaves will be showing on the Emerson recording tree with the completion of editing and sound improving the recordings from last summer. Hopefully these will be ready for posting in the audio section of the Simplybeing website ( you’ll find it under publications) in a week or two. It has taken a very long time to get this to spring back to life and you would be amazed at the amount of energy of various kinds… from buddhas and beings… have gone into this, from inception to delivery, all for our ease.

For various reasons I have listened to most of these recordings many times and, as usual, every time I listen different aspects sink in deeper.
A long time ago James alluded to a friend of his who just got a teaching from his teacher every six months… the friend made good progress – digesting, assimilating, and then attempting to apply what he had learnt before he met up again with his teacher for something more.
There is an enormous depth and richness to those few days of teaching and i would have liked you to have the full six months to enjoy this before we are meeting again… but it’s, as usual, a case of working with circumstances.

Summer – the time and date at Emerson College is now shown here, as well as on the Sb. website.

Autumn – well probably early winter really, but anyway… will see us meeting up back in Oxford on 8-10 Nov…details coming soon.

Winter – the Oxford recordings from last December are also now available. You can now listen to the public talk as well as the weekend teachings.

– James has agreed to teach again in Oxford 8-10 Dec. at Gio’s invitation. Further details will soon be available.

I once heard someone sing a song about the yogin Milarepa and his disciples… ‘their meeting and their parting mark the change of time’ …..and so it does for us

Photo credit

Sparks – a bonfire of the vanities, revealing….

by Wendy

Just an attention grabbing line, i hope…

in case you haven’t noticed this latest, very beautiful, publication… ‘Sparks’ by James Low.

Although one can dramatically ‘burn the vanities’… until the underlying sense of need for covering is gone, sooner or later, replacements will be sought.

By inspiring, allowing them right in, the marks on these pages can become heart-sparks… and then through repeatedly breathing onto them with tender attention, slowly or quickly, they will surely glow and then set fire to the soggy accumulated dead wood, so that the brilliance of the source of inherent warmth and wisdom can blaze forth unobstructed.

Mostly ‘though the fire aye burns,
we do not realise, because…
our smoke gets in our eyes!

I felt moved to write the review below for Amazon:

‘If I had to choose one book to take to a desert island,
one dharma book,
one book for all time,
one book to open the heart to…this is it.

With iridescent lucidity ….moving beyond words
using language which is precise, yet contemporary and very accessible,
with great warmth and encouragement, the wisdom shining through this great teacher of dzogchen illuminates the way from lostness and confusion to the ease of our being, both simply and directly.’

It’s also available through Abe books and, if in London, from Watkins book store.

Love and compassion, the sweet breath of non-duality.

by Wendy

Doggedly we grasp…and the consequence is?

by Wendy

We took this little dog, the one i mentioned in the previous post, down to the beach one day… his first trip to the seaside!

He was very very excited by this new environment…what with the waves and smells and sounds… so many new experiences….

And then a kind of game got going – stones were thrown… and, just like with a ball at home, the dog went chasing after them to retrieve them.

Of course he couldn’t…he would run after the stone very fast, tracking it through the air, but each stone landed among so many other stones.

You could see he didn’t know which one to pick up and bring back, he looked puzzled… but as the stone-throwers kept throwing there was always something new in the air for him to chase after.

I’m sure he very much enjoyed the running but I wasn’t so happy with the lack of completion… something maybe a bit unsatisfactory from the dog’s point of view…but it was ‘good fun, good excercise’ from another viewpoint.

The next morning I went to give the dog his breakfast… this dog enjoyed food and it would vanish in a flash… but on this day he looked very sad and didn’t eat anything.

Something was clearly wrong so I took him to the vet who also thought something was wrong… the dog wouldn’t let us open his mouth so that we could see inside to see if maybe he had picked up a piece of stick which had got stuck, or some other damage.

So that meant an examination under general anaesthetic was called for.

When I collected the dog afterwards, in the evening, the vet said that it was very strange. The dog felt pain, even under the anaesthetic, when he tried to open his jaws – and that was unusual – however he could find nothing wrong.

So the dog came home… and the next morning eat his breakfast as usual!

No further problems so ‘one of those mysteries’ I thought at the time.

Some of you meditators may be well ahead of me here… it was only years later when I started to directly feel the impact of fusing with thoughts, experiencing the effect in the body, that I gained an insight into the likely cause of the problem.

My guess is that each time the dog ran with the intention of grasping that stone between its jaws and bringing it back to the people who were throwing. It wasn’t just that his legs were moving when he was running… a whole set of occurrences in his body happened at the same time priming him, getting those jaws ready to catch… over and over again. The fact that he couldn’t actually catch the stones that were being thrown wasn’t being processed and I suspect that the clenching of muscles that would have gone on over many hours without a relaxation, rather a building of tension, eventually put the muscles into spasm.

Like us in the ordinary way, all kinds of movements are happening even before we are conscious of having ‘caught a thought’ (the work of the ‘sticky-hand’ egoic-thought)…and in fusing our attention into that we are taken for a ride.

So the jaws clamp on but nothing is actually caught and we don’t go anywhere…yet it’s exhausting…and can lead to spasms in the body.

All the anxiety, worry, lack of sleep… lead to more anxiety and all its bodily manifestations…no rest…

Whereas meditation – letting ‘things’ (thoughts, stones etc) be; relaxing out of grasping at these ungraspable showings – leads to…

well, take a look if you like (James Low – The sun of ungraspable awareness) – the ‘no-method’ and result…

the enjoyment…poised, relaxed and at ease… attunement arising from emptiness.

As do the movements of this ‘not-so-active’ dog

…. the dog that we create for ourselves by the application of our concepts to the colours in the shape on the left.

P.S. As you, and as the Buddha knew, the answer to question posed in the title is…. suffering!

Working with life and death

by Wendy

‘Dissolving conflict in life and death’ – James Low

by Wendy

Teacakes – well… softness with a somewhat cloying sweetness – high-calorie comfort-food.

These teachings, recorded this July at Emerson College, now available to listen or download – may be the perfect food for these troubled times – highly nutritious, softening, and… strangely slimming too!

(maybe click on the title of the post if the pictures below aren’t displayed in the right order!)

From this to this

with hidden…. to

Latest: Tunnock’s tea cake blasted into space; Emerson recordings travelling through cyberspace…

by Wendy

‘One of Scotland’s favourite snacks’ according to the Scottish Sun newspaper has been sent 36,000m into space…’and the nation waits’.

I used to enjoy these when I was younger – biscuit base, marshmallow topping, covered in chocolate – but i wouldn’t expect too much from a high-altitude tea-cake!

David Cameron tweeted that he ‘liked the shine on the foil…’

Viewers of this site will probably have more realistic expectations of satisfaction from the recordings of ‘Dissolving Conflict in Life and Death’, this year’s talk at Emerson College, which are currently travelling through cyberspace – ready for Chris to publish when he has a moment – carried on the tail of a hurricane-wind dragon!

Some other work (coming later) has gone on around these recordings so it’s taken longer than usual and i haven’t had time to post… and now need to catch up with other stuff! but i will let you know when this great feast is available on the simplybeing.co.uk website…

Audio glitch, videos and… live speech!

by Wendy

Just to let you know that the audio website is undergoing some remedial work which will take a few days…. Christian is onto it!

His update on 30th June….’the Macclesfield Talks are working again. Also most of the elder records.
The links from Oct. 2015 to Feb. 2017 are still out of order, but we’re working on it.’

In the meantime there are no issues with the videos….

…and at 9.30 until 11am on the morning of Wednesday, 12 July I’m giving a little talk at the Buddhafield Festival. It needed to be early this time as I’d like to be over at Emerson college by evening for James’ teaching.

The title of the festival this year is ‘Embracing Simplicity’ so i’m giving a talk called ‘The dance of becoming – simplicity and complexity’.

I have given a talk at this festival for many years (under the workshop umbrella rather than in the dharma parlour ) as ‘a round peg being offered a square hole’. Could be viewed as esoteric – not in the middle – but maybe just that ~ and appealing to some.
So if you are going to be there it would be a pleasure to see you in the little tent, otherwise maybe in East Sussex…anyway hope you enjoy whatever the summertime offers you!

Killing the right one…

by Wendy

I can remember James saying, relating a conversation with someone very troubled,’ Oh sister (or brother)… you are wanting to kill the wrong one!’

This was his unspoken response to someone who was so angry that they wanted to kill someone – the someone they saw as the creator of their suffering. Linked with this is the unexamined belief that the death of that person would make them happy healed whole again… that this death would be appropriate and perhaps the only way for them to move on through life.

I recently spent time with someone who now has quite wonderful circumstances compared with what they were when I first met him. However these improved circumstances have given space for the dominance in thinking about a wrong which was perpetrated in the past. This person strongly believes that they were cheated of what was rightfully theirs and now they are running this thought to the point where they’re using alcohol to get to sleep, to get some rest from thoughts. They are unable to enjoy the new circumstances and heading for further trouble… given a gun they would happily kill the perpetrator. It’s very sad.

A lady I met on the train told me she had been robbed both of her son’s life… she had assumed his would naturally extending past her own, and also by her sister on her mum’s death. These events had shocked her to the core as she saw it… and she was still shaking. She was heading off for some ‘retail therapy’ with a friend who understood her… and wouldn’t cheat her. I wonder…?

From my own experiences I know about the betrayal of expectations, the behaviour changes which can occur when money is at stake, and about projection.

Earlier in life I had experienced projection without understanding it, then later I knew it as a concept, but later still as an experience which I had to be with, until I could really be with it, unsurprised, undisturbed. There is no curiosity with projection… no space for the other person to be different from prior, held in mind, assumed certainties.Touch a sore spot and you get a sight of the whole undigested works, everything that has been slid into the shadow, spews out and then slides back into the deeps!

One question is Who is it that you want to kill, are killing – any idea?… when this person is in front of you what do you see?
Do you see their face, their hopes and fears, their potential, their buddhanature….. or do you just see your beliefs stuck onto their image…with the thought this person is ruining my life?
The latter view leads to a sense of entitlement to treat them as objects – bad objects…. the scapegoat for all that’s not gone well in life….and as someone else is putdown there’s a sense of going up, of power, becoming more important. Also as we tend to collect people around us who are thinking the same way (our ego likes that sense of confirmation) we find that the energy of the group can often take things further than one person on their own.

Hatred and the sense of injustice won’t be assuaged by killing… it won’t bring peace and ease and a release from tension… quite the contrary… but without looking to see the situation and consequences clearly there are no brakes on surrendering to highly cooked up, instinctive, reactive thought.

Little children can understand the effect of these thoughts…
In an assembly of primary school children if you ask them to think of someone they love, someone they care for, and let them sit with that for a minute or two… then ask how they feel in their body… they come up with words like soft warm comfy…
If you then ask them to think of someone who they want to thump, someone they are cross with, and then after a few minutes ask them how that feels in their body… you’re likely to get words like hot tight hard etc.
Mmm…hmmm…. So you see that these thoughts have an impact on you… the person suffering while you are thinking these angry thoughts is… Yourself, not them!

The angry thoughts may be perfectly appropriate and if they come and go quite quickly no harm is done but stewing over them, putting your life energy into them is really unhealthy…living in a stew!

In relative reality it is clear that all actions, arising from a belief in the true separate existence of ‘I’, have consequences, both now and through time,

Deep dharma, answering the question Who am I?, reveals the non-entitative nature of self and other…it reveals the nature of the would be killer…(who me? a killer??? … well, jailor if you like!…) and that investigation kills, with wisdom, the ‘I’ as something real and separate. This resolves the conflict…and frees the other from your own projections.
Form is not other than….

Image of morning glory flower : wikipedia taken by Koshy Koshy from Faridabad, Haryana, India

Untying karmic knots… dharma, love (1)

by Wendy

Following on from the previous post…. Understanding both the meaning and purpose of ‘ being tender towards your ‘self’ was a bit of struggle for me. Though our particular knots will surely be tied in different ways, perhaps sharing some thoughts on that struggle might be helpful.

in James’s commentary to the treasure text of Nuden Dorje in the book Being Right Here he speaks of a kindly investigation into the self.

He talks of making friends with yourself, kissing yourself, and tickling yourself until you start to relax… and then he says… if you become very good at it, you can make love with yourself and you will become all dissolved and then you don’t cause yourself any more trouble!

Blimey!!! I thought when i read that… I have no doubt that he knows exactly what he’s talking about; it sounds good but I haven’t a clue how to set about doing that. That was a paragraph I couldn’t make much sense of for years… It helped when I realised that the self he is referring to here is the wobbly ‘I am – ego-thought structure’ with which we are prone to identify…and it being taken care of by the hospitality of our true self. Gradually it came together around seeing how the karmic knots, from which the wobbly self-sense is formed, are created and how they can untie.

If someone is all knotted up and anxious…. how would you treat them? Would you tell them they are stupid? Would you order them to relax? Would you tell them that they are hopeless?
Say a child has badly hurt themselves but is so scared that they won’t let you look at the damage… how would you be with them? I think probably soothing, gentling and tender and giving confidence that, whatever the situation, fundamentally it will be ok, you can work through it for the best outcome. Firstly though you have to help them relax.

If you would naturally do this for someone else… would it be possible to consider applying the same kind of tenderness to your self? If not there’s something weird going on, isn’t there?

This weirdness might be to do with unconsidered false divisions and certainties – I am an individual and I deem myself worthy of this particular treatment, so this is how I will treat myself – you are also an individual who I consider worthy of that particular treatment, so that is how I will treat you. But in fact what is happening here is that I am imagining you, and imagining me (by applying my biased views to our unique revelations) and then I am bringing into the situation whatever I have learned, or just feel is suitable, from what I have picked up along the way. Within this view behaviour is dualistic, determined by concepts, and there is no understanding of dependent co-origination nor of the freshness which arises directly from openness.
But, in what is referred to as the ‘false relative’ in the book Simply Being, this is our normal, worldly, way of proceeding.

Overt habitual kindness is not the most attuned or beneficial way of being, but leaving that aside, if we are practising harshness with ourselves most of the time, as we switch into a different role with others and try to be kind it’s hard to see how that could be a genuinely responsive move. Maybe sometimes, but it is hardly flowing and innate, is it?

There is a Taoist saying about governing a large country ( which is rather what our ego-self resembles, with all its multiple states) it says… ‘like with frying small fish… too much poking spoils the meat.’
All the critical checking of behaviours causes more problems, more anxiety, more sense of being separate and ‘less than’… but in Dzogchen we’re not trying to govern, the practice is to dissolve or resolve these aspects within the infinity of openness. Softness and tenderness to yourself, rather than poking and prodding, are key to this profound relaxation.

If you can be tender then you will be able to get closer to yourself, the defences will drop a bit, and you’ll be able to see what kind of nonsense you’re up to. Being kind could be seeing “Oh there I go again – (repeating a karmically created pattern)… maybe not so useful, done this a few times before”… ” never mind; relax… open… begin again”… rather than the harsh attacking recriminations to which we often subject ourselves. With the softness and closeness comes the possibility of settling and relaxing the ego so it can let go into its proper place…with the harshness there is further reification of division and separation.

Mistakes are not so serious. if you can see them for what they are. After goodness knows how long of behaving in a certain way patterns are highly likely to recur, even with awareness, for some time – there is such a karmic/energetic charge behind them. They will release, given space humour and tolerance, but not if we crowd in and judge.

Not putting yourself on the hook, but not taking yourself off it either… is one way James speaks of this in one of the Macclesfield talks. It is perfectly possible to discriminate and see what’s helpful without being judgemental.
So we ourselves are the laboratory for this very interesting investigation – the opposite of a Frankenstein creation. And if we can show this tolerance for ourselves on an ongoing basis, than it’s possible to bring that forward as a way of relating to goings-on of the world.

P.S.There is now a Japanese robotic Sense-roid which is a torso and jacket which lets you hug yourself by returning the pressure and strokes which you give to it. I haven’t watched the video which is billed as disturbing…
The dharma teachings, if applied, do more than the business… but i think many robotics engineers would have trouble knowing what to make of them!

Macclesfield videos/audios – a great dharma tree to explore

by Wendy

From 2003 James taught in Macclesfield either once or twice a year. Originally when he came up he taught in a little room above pizza express, then in a park building and in a hospital out-building. After that the group of practitioners in Macclesfield had the use of a building which became a buddhist centre…

For about a decade Chris Coppock, who was a major contributor to this, made audio recordings of the talks which James gave… and also made (along with Charles Lomas) some video-recordings.

Thanks to Pedro and Barbara this set of recordings is now available within the complete collection on James’ YouTube channel .
(Videos posted prior to December 2002 are included are still available on the Vimeo collection)

Due to causes and conditions that buddhist centre eventually folded but happily James continued to journey north and teach in different venues, annually, since then.

Over two decades, James took us along in the dharma stream opening up and elucidating different aspects to us. Beginning with little knowledge of the dharma and what it offered we became able to follow and change and grow out of, at least some of, our limiting old ideas about how ‘things’ are.

Some people are using these audio and video teachings as a way to study so to make it easier to see and hear how the talks evolved as we did, I have grouped what’s available in this set of teachings together on this page.
I hope you enjoy the journey as much as i have done!

In this short and sweet video James offers an introductory explanation as to how we become confused… and the freedom of the view of Dzogchen, to which all his videos audios and texts relate.

In the Macclesfield set, we have so far :

1. View of Dzogchen Nov 2003

The beginning: explaining how the dzogchen view fits with the other teachings in buddhism. As you listen you may begin to sense how this right this engagement could be for you. The possibility of …’freedom is our birthright’…is scented in the air.

audio only

2. Focussing and Distraction – Dzogchen practice July 2004

Without realising and activating our capacity to choose whether or not to identify with arising thoughts we have little freedom.

Like preoccupied puppets we are pulled by the strings of internal forces and external triggers which drive us into reactivity.

Practices such as following the flow of the breath on the upper lip help develop a clear attention, and bring the calmness and perspective necessary for a more intentional and pro-active life.

audio only

3. Living with Anxiety and Doubt February 2005

Most of us have a lot of worries and anxiety in our lives. James explains the traditional Nyingmapa understanding of the nature of anxiety, the structures underpinning its development, and shows how meditation can help us cut through the root of that development.

In practicing different meditations, we can offer a more open precise and present attention to the complex circumstances of daily existence. We can then work more easily with everyday moments of anxiety and confusion.

audio only

4. Wisdom and Compassion May 2006

Explaining the two truths: how it appears…the imagined illusion, and how things are…the ultimate truth.

That real compassion arises from wisdom i.e. from realising the ultimate truth and then helping others realise their true nature.

So getting to know your own mind, letting go of the knot of dualism, and not being distracted is vital…

audio only

5. Lojong – Mind training Dec 2006

audio videos – YouTube vimeo (x3)

6. The Transmission of Flow and the Flow of Transmission June 2007

Considering the nature of lineage, its function and importance…and continuity
James refers to a short text by Saraha, ‘The Treasury of Songs’, which is included in his book ‘Simply Being’.

audio videos-YouTube or vimeo (x3)

7. Clearing the Clutter November 2007

audio video-YouTube or vimeo (x3)

8. Basic Buddhism practiced with a dzogchen view March 2008

audio videos – Youtube or vimeo videos (x3)

How the preliminary practices in Tibetan buddhism can be taken up and made use of within the dzogchen view

9. Refuge is Liberation Nov 2008

Teaching on Garab Dorje’s ‘Three Points’ as the essence of refuge

Using the three statements as a base for exploring dzogchen, view and practice…

the view shifts from fusion… to dualistic intention… to non-dual liberation

audio videos

10. Love, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity June 2009
– The Four Immeasurables

The deep meaning of the ‘Four Brahmaviharas’, which is found in all schools of buddhism, is expounded here… with the accompanying prayer.

Wishing for all beings to rest in the integration of their natural condition and that the obstacles to this may dissolve.

Then, seeing the equality and insubstantial nature of what our conditioning would denote as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, we practice remaining relaxed and open with whatever occurs.

audio video

11. Four Foundations of Mindfulness – a dzogchen perspective Jan 2010

Mindfulness is explored from different perspectives including psychotherapy, theravada and dzogchen. With mindfulness we can become intentionally attentive and careful so we are no longer at the mercy of whatever is happening. From the view of dzogchen we can be in the movement of the world as it changes… and remind ourselves to relax back into integration.

audio videos – YouTube or vimeo

12. Working with Change and Impermanence Nov 2010

Exploring how my behaviour is generated from the belief that I have a fixed internal ‘essence of me’
… and how my belief that there are self-existent ‘things’ in the world keeps me trapped in reactivity.

As we meditate, and thoughts feeling and sensations arise and pass, we experience that change is the basis of our existence.

If we can see that we are change – that who I am is co-created – then we can inhabit our existence freed from the trap of trying live to life on our own terms.

audio video

13. The Illusory nature of Experience March 2012

The text of the Heart Sutra, which is the basis for this talk, begins ‘Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness not other than form’.

It continues in is way expounding the true nature of all phenomena, including what we take to be ourselves.

This is so very other than we how habitually imagine it to be and James explains freshly, clearly, and accessibly.

audio video

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

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15. Balancing Relaxation and Effort in Buddhism Feb 2014

We can see how effortfully attempting to stabilise that which is inherently unstable will be exhausting and ineffective.

So, on retiring from that struggle, how do we make the appropriate shifts between agency – the assertion of energy… and plasticity – where we allow ourselves to be moulded by circumstances?

Looking at how space allows us to see clearly…and how, by relaxing into our potential, our potential can be activated into the situation with finesse.

audio only

16. Staying Open to Life as it is Feb 2015

The world impacts us and influences us as it flows into us through our sense organs…

and we influence the world by being part of it, like a stream of many potentials within a bigger river.

Exploring how observing yourself as you are, being kind to yourself and letting yourself reveal yourself… is the way to make life easy…

audio only

17. Buddhism and creativity Feb 2016

Buddhism would say that ethics is the basis for the forms of our experience…

That due to causes and conditions we inhabit a particular vision, a mental construct created from a configuration of many factors.

Exploring this and seeing how meditation brings the spaciousness and flexibility needed to respond easily in interaction with the world.

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18. Dissolving attachment in the openness of being Feb 2017

Dissolving attachment in the openness of being. Dzogchen practice focuses on avoiding hanging on to what we like and pushing away what we don’t like. This is supported by the mindfulness that helps us avoid falling asleep in the process of living. Being undistracted is simply talking with full attention when you are talking, walking with full attention when walking etc.

audio video

19. Working with Life and Death March 2018

Many different ideas exist about what happens at death which direct our intentionality in this life.

Here James explores what buddhism has to bring to these ideas and explains the traditional view of what the mind is and also what is consciousness.

Including the nature of the death process and how we might work with that.

audio

20. Balance in Turbulent times Feb 2019

Attempts to withdrawal from the turbulence or to control the mind are actions which increase our sense of separation.

With the Mahayana view we are looking at how our mind is rather than focusing on its impermanent contents.

Through meditation we are seeking to open to that which is stable…an invitation, explanation and practice.

audio

21. Kindness, Fellow Feeling and the Common Weal Feb 2020

Loving kindness, karuna, is the foundational attitude of Buddhism. Kindness sees all life as kind, as kin, as always-already-connected. With this view the barrier between self and other shrinks and we become inclusive in everything we do. This is deepened and supported by the wisdom of seeing our mind as it actually is.

audio video

22. Finding Refuge and Spreading Light Jan 2023

Finding enduring refuge in the intrinsic purity of our own mind.

audio video

Update on Emerson college recordings / “Courageous Compassion”

by Wendy

I WP_20160713_21_02_00_Pro said it would only take a week or so of free time to get the recordings ready… and this is true, but sometimes there’s more to it than that….

Emerson recordings update 22nd Aug…nearly complete. There have been lots of difficulties in getting hold of the final part of the good recording which Gaynor made…i’ve tried improving mine but the result’s not great… so thankfully a friend who is a sound engineer is going to have a bash today…so…. ready shortly!

The first week back different people i had not seen for years got in touch or visited. Last week I was away at the Buddhafield festival, which had the theme “Courageous Compassion” and gave a talk in a little tent on the need for wisdom – the wisdom of emptiness or openness – as the basis for the arising of sustainable compassion.

If you are interested here’s the gist of what the talk was based around.

Dualistic, false–relative, compassion… where I am going to act compassionately towards you – where I, you, and the action are all three seen as entitative – is a big step up from ‘I just care about me and mine’ but it maintains the sense of separation, of solidity, even superiority … and, because of its effortful nature, transient effect, and the desire (and often frustrated desire!) involved it can be exhausting. Jumping in to help a drowning man is great if you can swim and are strong enough to get him safely out without getting yourself into the same predicament…knowing the variable nature of your capacity and working within that is essential at this point.

So different dharma teachings gesture to the way through this via another approach to suffering.

If we take the bodhisattva vow, as in Mahayana Buddhism, then the intention is to ‘develop’ the mind of the buddha. Understanding that the compassion that goes with this intention involves a wish to attain enlightenment in order to benefit all ‘others’… to bring them happiness and freedom from suffering in the short term and enlightenment in the longer term…whilst accepting that this longer term may indeed be very, very long!

It seems likely that in the sustained and concentrated effort of altruistically attempting to attain the perfections of generosity, morality, vigour, patience, concentration and wisdom of a bodhisattva, somehow the custard–like skin of self-referential thoughts holding us in a particular shape thins to the point where there is an understanding of non-duality in the relative sense and perhaps the realisation of prajna as revealed in the Heart Sutra shines through. At this point compassion is fearless rather than courageous.

The view of Tantra is that of (an initially intentional) transformation of all that is manifesting by viewing it through the lens of the pure relative. Compassion then, as the liberation of all sentient beings, is that of not taking them prisoner, and relating to them as entities in the first place!

The encouragement is to practice until we have integrated the view. I think it was Gampopa who said to his students who wanted to bring their retreat to a premature conclusion in order to go and be helpful… ” Do you think there will be nobody left in need of your help down in the valley if you wait until completion of your practice?”

After the initial introduction, the practice of dzogchen is that of absolute compassion arising spontaneously… not being impulsively or thoughtfully contrived but arising naturally from the ground nature, freshly in each moment. So rather than using different strengths of detergent to eventually clean the window, or looking through a different window, its a matter of … throwing the window wide open!

If we overheat or get stuck in the practice of relative compassion we may not get to ask…What is the nature of this self, this other, these thoughts, this mind?… it is the answer to this that the buddha was seeking… and found and, in deep dharma, taught.

Of the different levels of compassion arising from the different views – false relative, pure relative and absolute… these are explained by Patrul Rinpoche in Chapter 7 in the book Simply Being by James Low.

Chapter 3 on the development of bodhicitta is also recommended.

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