Realising the five aggregates of my personality to be the expressive dance of five buddhas – my body is happy.

Reciting the essential mantra of the meditation deity and singing his praise – my speech is happy.

Merging present awareness with luminous emptiness – my mind is happy.

Happy in body, speech and mind in this life as the two accumulations grow – in the next life, too, I will be happy.

Your beliefs become your thoughts,

Your thoughts become your words,

Your words become your actions,

Your actions become your habits,

Your habits become your values,

Your values become your destiny.  

The ground is the essential nature of all things – spacious, open and free.   The path is the spontaneous unfolding of creativity – free of bias – and the result is joyful awareness – a realisation devoid of defilement.   Although these are indivisibly present in each moment, they may remain unrecognised like the hoard of treasure in the house of a poor man.   Or, being recognised by a fleeting glance, the unsustained natural state is immediately spoiled by habitual clinging and the ceaseless confusion of ideas. 

Pay attention now!   Remain undistracted in the presence of whatever arises by leaving the mind to rest in its own place.   Do not become fettered by the rigid structures of contrived meditation but just watch as solidity dissolves, and feel the fresh breeze on your face!

The nature of meditative absorption is to support miraculous activity. 

Completely abandoning all mistaken factors without any attachment, appearances arise as virtue and grow increasingly beneficial.

Your own natural awareness being primordially liberated, there is no other basis for awakening – so why look elsewhere?

Natural awakening being self-liberated, there are no antidotes to illusory appearances – so why dig around in the realm of deception?

Illusory appearances being spontaneously liberated, they vanish as soon as they are seen – so leave them just where they are.

This liberation being complete and perfect, there is no need for exertion.
Relax!

Just as a bird with undeveloped wings cannot fly in the sky, so, too, those who lack the power of higher perception cannot accomplish the welfare of living beings.

The merit gained in a single day by one who possesses higher perception cannot be gained even in a hundred lifetimes by one in whom the faculty of higher perception is absent.

One who wishes to quickly gather the accumulations of merit and wisdom for perfect enlightenment will strive with enthusiasm to reach a higher perception, but, without the attainment of calm abiding, no higher perception will be gained.

Therefore one should strive again and again to accomplish calm abiding ...

 Tower of London- Commemorating the Blood of the Fallen - World War I Memorial 2014.

We confess all the sins and obscurations that we have accumulated until now.

We generate compassion, and maintain this aspiration in order to bring all beings to maturity. 

May the clear light of emptiness encompass us all, and may we be free of all extremes.  

In the morning, we should visualise the gracious root guru in the sky in front of ourselves, just above the level of the forehead. He appears in the form of a heruka, wearing the ornaments of an enlightened wisdom holder.

With his two hands he plays a bell and drum, and countless numbers of vīra and dākinī surround him, filling the whole sky. 

As we become conscious, we hear the sound of their tinkling bells and rattling drums and then the guru utters the mantric syllable PHAT, and says to us, 

"Oh, child of the buddhas, wake up!" 

Hearing him say this, we become fully conscious.

"Kye ma! From time immemorial until this moment, 
You have been wandering in samsāra because of your ignorance.
 You don't know the real meaning of the Dharma, 
And so you have been wandering in samsāra for aeons.
Due to your ignorance, you have been sleeping here all this time.
Why are you still sleeping like this? 
Why don't you wake up now? 
It is time to turn your mind from sleep and wake up! 
Turning your thoughts toward liberation, 
It is time for you to practise Dharma!"

The yogin’s vow:

Then, in a solitary place of power,
In order to stabilise your body, speech, and mind... 

[You should consider this:]  

"Up until now,
All that I have done and all my thoughts
Have been the habitual patterns of the five poisons.
Sweeping them away, as hailstones overcome flowers,
Henceforth I will follow them no further but cut off all connection.
From this moment on, all those deeds of the five poisons
And whatever defiled thoughts arise
I will treat as an enemy who tries to lead me astray!
How can I remain without carefully thinking this through?
Just now, my mind is insufficiently clear
And I am stupidly foolish and dull,
With a head full of doubts, hopes and fears.
Thoughts arise in my mind like clouds of dust –
Oh, these mental fabrications must cease! Must come to an end!
I will let no thoughts at all arise in my mind!
All appearances, I will recognise as emptiness
And I will understand emptiness in all forms.
Knowing the inseparable unity of appearance and emptiness,
I will see no difference between buddhas and sentient beings.
Until my discursive thoughts have come to an end
I will remain in this solitary place."

The Buddha taught us to take a close look at our minds.  
“The mind,” he said, “is the true agent of all our deeds.”  

When we take a close look we see that the desire for happiness is deeply rooted in the mind.  We do not want to suffer.  

But the funny thing is — this universal desire for happiness expresses itself through ignorance as greed and craving, and our aversion to the notion of suffering gives rise to hatred and anger, and the only thing we achieve is suffering!  

How perverse is that?
So, when the Buddha instructed us to be mindful, he was offering us the opportunity to reverse this negative trend and move toward the liberating light of insight ...

If you are depressed you are living in the past. 

If you are anxious you are living in the future.

If you are at peace you are living in the present.

―Lao Tzu 

Song of the yogin Vajrakrodha —

This body of dependent arising which manifests as form, 
how could it be expressed in words?

These blessings that enter the mind, 
how could they be represented by speech?

This great bliss that blazes within,
how could it be shown outside?

This cessation of grasping at phenomena,

how could that be experienced through strenuous effort? 

Song of the Divine Madman —

In the garland of my many lives
I have taken the form of every creature.
I remember it only darkly
But I feel it was something like this:

Because now I thrive on drinking beer,
At one time I must have been a bee.

Because now I am filled with so much lust,
At one time I must have been a rooster.

Because now I am so angry,
At one time I must have been a snake.

Because now I am so lazy,
At one time I must have been a pig.

Because now I am so mean and stingy,
At one time I must have had much wealth.

Because now I am so shameless,
At one time I must have been a madman.

Because now I am such a liar,
At one time I must have been an actor.

Because now my manners are so rude,
At one time I must have been a monkey.

Because now I crave the taste of meat,
At one time I must have been a wolf in the wild.

But I am not really sure ...  What do you think?

It was a crisp autumn day in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.   

A group of  Cherokee children had gathered around their grandfather and they were filled with intense curiosity and excitement.  

A few hours earlier, a fight had broken out between two men and the village elder had been called upon to settle the dispute. 

The children were keen to know what the elder had to say about it.

“Why do people fight?”   asked the youngest child.  

“Well", the elder replied.  “We all have two wolves inside us and they constantly do battle with each other.”

"It is a terrible fight.  One wolf, the grey wolf, is filled with evil and he is bitter, angry, full of fear, he is envious, full of sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity,  resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, guilt, shame and ego."

"The other wolf, the white wolf, is good and honest, he is full of joy, peace, love, hope, goodwill, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, courage, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.”

The child responded, “These wolves are in all of us?”

“Yes, they are, and these two wolves fight constantly."

The youngster thought about it for a minute and then asked the elder, 

“Which wolf will win?"

The old chief simply replied, 

"The one you feed."

My second posting for today is to draw your attention to this new film:

"Journey to the Source of the Khordong Byangter Lineage"

This film will take you from the Khordong Byangter Monastery, established in India by my root guru H.H Chhimed Rigdzin Rinpoche, to the source of the Khordong Lineage — the sacred sites of Chhimed Rigdzin Rinpoche’s childhood and places visited by Padmasambhava, from where Terchen Tulku Nuden Dorje Drophan Lingpa subsequently revealed his terma teachings.  

May this film revive your connection with our teacher and his lineage!

May this film connect you with the holy places from which the Khordong Byangter Lineage arose!  May all be auspicious!

http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=TKnPymhQc0o

There was once a poverty-stricken woodsman who dreamed of riches night and day.  He had no other thought in his mind but wealth and how to acquire it.  As he sat in the woods one day, tormented by this obsession, a wandering yogin called out to him:

Hey, woodcutter!  What is to be gained by desire?

Desire is like the son of a barren woman 
— so cast it out from your mind!

Visualise your body as the heavens
And your thoughts as stars in the sky.
Then the God of Wealth himself will appear
And all your desires will be fulfilled
In the vast expanse of non-grasping ...

Oh, friends, do not be deceived by illusory appearances. 

Even the one who resembles a child of the gods whilst alive with youth and beauty, will become in death more frightful than a demon.

This is nothing but a scarecrow, conjured up by magic and sure to fall down soon, so remain ever-mindful of the effects that will follow your deeds.

Do not follow an inferior way,

Don't live with negligence,

Do not follow a wrong view,

Do not be engrossed in the world. 

Rouse yourself!  Don't be negligent!

Live the Dharma, a life of good conduct.

One who lives the Dharma is happy in this world and in the next.  

If one sees the world as a bubble,

If one sees it as a mirage,

One will not be seen by the Lord of Death.  

— The Dhammapada

A variety of flowers
In the full bloom of youth
Sway like seductive maidens.

Young bees come,
Humming their songs,
To embrace the blossoms with kisses.

The bees’ wings thrum
And seem to say, 
“When staying in solitude,  sing like this.”

With delightful melodies they sing,
“Wondrous is the yogin who dwells in sacred places!”

Enlightenment is perfectly realised neither by the body nor by the mind. 

Enlightenment is the eradication of all marks.

Enlightenment is free of presumptions concerning all objects.

Enlightenment is free of the functioning of all intentional thoughts.

Enlightenment is the annihilation of all convictions.

Enlightenment is free from all discriminative constructions.

Enlightenment is the arrival at detachment, through freedom from all habitual attitudes.

The ground of enlightenment is the ultimate realm.

Enlightenment is realisation of reality.

Enlightenment abides at the limit of reality.

—Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra

Although these flesh and bones have come together now in this present bodily form, in the end they must part and go their separate ways.  

Therefore seek the best of countries, the stable land of the natural state where there is no transition or change.  

Enjoy the best of wealth, the treasure of the natural mind that can never be depleted, and relish the supreme food, the exquisite taste of meditation that abolishes the pangs of hunger.  

Drink the most excellent nectar of mindfulness from the ever-flowing stream and rely upon the wisdom of primordial awareness as your constant companion – the friend from whom you can never be parted.

Whoever recovers from evil deeds by doing something wholesome,
Illuminates the world like the moon set free from behind the clouds. 

Is perfect liberation not the abandonment of desire, anger and ignorance, and all passions in order to be liberated? 

Those who think that perfect liberation is having abandoned desire, anger and ignorance are those with pride.

Whoever has no self will naturally liberate desire, anger, and ignorance.  

— The Sūtra Revealing Stainless Renown

The true nature of the Awakened One is empty space.

In response to causes and conditions, however, it manifests with form — just like the reflection of the moon upon the water.