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!

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.

Happily the next audio recording (19) from the book Lotus Source, is now available…
It is of James Low’s introduction and translation of the practice treasure-text…

Once, when talking with James, I went into a bit of a riff of gratitude…
He listened and responded with… ‘Merry Christmas!!!’
It wasn’t Christmas time : )… but humility that spoke to me.

So many beneficial interactions have occurred to bring this book into our hands and facilitated our ability to appreciate and make use of its contents…
If this is our path then in time …through open-heartedly engaging with the practice… the profound truth, of which this is a direct expression, can reveal itself…like the moon coming out from behind the clouds. So our appreciation widens and deeps…as tension resolves in openness.

The beautiful flowers in the photo have brought delight each year since Sarah Allen ( whose input you’ll come across in connection with books and on the web-site) gave me some seeds from her ‘Morning Glory’ plant.

Opening from a cream furled-umbrella shaped bud, each flower last for just one day before changing shape and colour – from blue to mauve – and falling from the vine….
But there are many flowers even, this year, in December…

So may our Christmas-time be fruitful…maybe if you haven’t yet read James last two posts perhaps there’ll be time… to metabolise them, taking their wisdom deeper… as I will.
And may we flourish and flower in the New Year and on…inseparable from the dharma-vine, with it’s root of truth… until the end of time

P.S. Cracking two audio Christmas Crackers with you!

– of sound and silence…there was both, with dharma surprise and enjoyment in performance artist Marina Abramović’s selection Desert Island Discs on BBC radio 4 on 3rd December
– and movement and silence…in Marcel Marceau’s story told by his daughters…on Saturday 9th December

(you’d need to access BBC Sounds to find these)

image (wikipedia)

A month or so ago I was working on the recording of the prayer by Padmasambhava ‘Removing Obstacles’ … it’s no. 12 in the Lotus source series of recordings.
James explained that the Tibetan word ‘jamtrin’ on P.153 meant soft clouds… and I thought
‘Oh how beautiful.. and light.. and like that……… is this dharma’s-lamas blessing!’

So called ‘precious stones’ are more dense and more highly valued by many in this world.
All that may go along with them… in the lives of the miners, and those who employ them…the pride desire and the envy and the deals that are done …are like unseen shadows to their brilliance.

But these prayers, are part of our inheritance … and are jewels untainted by any of those shading factors.
They come down to us through the lineage as A Great Cloud of Blessing from the Fifth Dalai Lama… and Imploring Padmasambhava by Dudjom Rinpoche…with an explanatory orientation, facilitating our connection with them, from James Low
…and arrive on the page for us as a gift, freely given for our use.
Many beings and much beneficial effort is connected with their current availability.

Even prayers such as these may evoke consternation, a shadowing, in some…but their source is pure, as are our intentions.
As we engage with them, their profound energetic heritage can flow though us…and the value of our inheritance reveals itself.
They connect us in time with profound expressions of realisation, offering highly effective ways of understanding, responding to, or working with the energetic movements of the world/our mind.

I was recently asked whether reading the prayers silently is as beneficial as saying them out loud.
As I have learned from our teacher ‘it depends’ is often the most helpful answer.
I used to wonder ‘depends on what ???’… trusting that the answer would eventually arise.
‘The circumstances’… I realised eventually, was the unspoken answer… : )

Recently I’ve had to read, rather than say aloud …and so I noticed that for me, there is a deeper quality of engagement as I speak them …
And this quality deepens, not necessarily by repetition, but by slowly savouring words and lines so that their meaning and impact sinks deeper…
The words put onto the page by the love and hard work of others through time, flows though my eyes into my heart… then out into the world…
So as I say it I become more fully aligned with it….when reading silently I can just be reading… or not.
However we engage, may it be beneficial

The recording of this text was added to the series a couple of weeks ago but some repair work to the aging skeleton means I am only now flagging it up!

Perhaps you found it anyway… but if not then listening to this treasure text regarding the truth of phenomena – no.15 in the series– may resonate with your intrinsic wisdom.

In his introduction James indicates that text this offers a description of how Padmasambhava’s potential manifested – how he responded to different situations …including when he encountered an interest (or disinterest) in the pure dharma.

The text was revealed not so long ago by Sera Khandro, an emanation of one of his close disciples.
It is not simply a biography of Padmadsambhava. As a revelation of his apparitional speech, what we encounter here is part of his legacy to us.

It includes instructions on behaviour … as with the earlier recording of Dudjom Rinpoche’s prayer ‘Pure Discernment’, enjoining us to make no mistake about what is to be adopted and what is to be abandoned. Also a prayer of aspiration …with which we can engage.

In the book there are seventy ‘note-worthy’ notes which James has offered to assist us in unpacking and engaging with the text, including the nature of the obstacles mentioned in those prayers. So if you are following this path it would be very helpful for study and practice if you are able to access the book.

Some notes are deeply telling…’Profound dharma is not a set of standard issue practices to be followed but an invitation into a deeper relationship with the ground of one’s own presence. There are many paths, all helpful, but we each must find our way.’ JL