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In our quest to be free we have to look and discover that part of ourselves that isn't. We discover with investigation that so much of our thinking and functioning in life is simply following what we are familiar with, like a machine that we hide behind because we feel we are safe and unchallenged. What we need is to bring natural spontaneity into these situations and so step beyond that safety bubble out into the unknown. This is the path of the unconditioned and the chance to break the shackles that cause us to experience all of our suffering.
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This talk given at the London Buddhist Society focuses on an issue that could be said to be the most important feature of dharma training but also the most important feature of all spiritual training that all religions, indeed all spiritual aspirants pursue. Without it access to the source of your quest is not possible, and this is the cultivation of silence of mind supported by physical stillness. This is a major challenge that demands we examine the reasons why we can't pull this off. Discover that a busy life without seeking precious spacious moments to relax and do nothing thus to become the master of your life, rather that its victim, is a major impediment in finding the mental platform to developing silence of mind on the meditation cushion, and discovering liberation from suffering.
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Silent- Illumination is an ancient Chan practice that can be difficult to understand and put into practice. This talk attempts to unpack this ancient practice and make it accessible to us here in the west so we can identify with it and take it not just to our meditation, but crucially also into our everyday ordinary life. Discover how to grow into this profound form that will not just awaken us to our habits and attachments that create the suffering of samsara, but open the door beyond this self-made creation into the uncreated, and return us to our true nature and liberation.
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In the last talk the subject of finding your natural stillness and where the dharma abides was discussed, it is for us to now acknowledge this truth and take to the centre of our training. This talk focuses more specifically on how we go about bringing about that stillness that paradoxically is always with us anyway. The need to fulfill this aspiration can only be pulled off when we learn to take this training into our everyday lives and to all the ordinary mundane activities most of us engage with. When we do begin to tame that restless mind through committed training in this way, we can then bring that new familiarity to the cushion and so open ourselves to where the dharma is waiting to rise and transform.
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Buddhism is a vast and expansive religion created by traditions and cultures that stretch back 2500 years to the time of Shakyamuni buddha. If you wish to study it you could easily spend your life exploring its philosophy, history and its many teachings. But if you are someone who wants to get to the bottom of your suffering and extinguish it you have to be very careful you don't get lost in its perfusion of endless concepts. However attractive these teachings are you need to focus and find the central principle that unites them all, and that is creating a still, empty and silent mind. For it is from this experience can you truly begin the journey with all the techniques on offer to understand and go beyond your suffering. Without making this your primary focus your desire to be free that is the promise of all schools will not be fulfilled.
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The second day of questions focus on the remainder of the principles covered in the talks. After comments on how the dharma subtily changes the personality when you commit to practice. The questions focus on service, which many of us find challenging to our sense of self. The virtue of forgiveness can be the great healer both for yourself and others. Learning to let go of negative emotions is to become human, and rise to the challenge of not to taking ourselves so seriously. Finally, finding your inner guru.
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With the principles covered over the first three days the group are now invited to comment and ask questions on a subject that can be a very personal feature of training. This video on the 4th day of recording covers questions on how to distinguish the difference between willfulness and wholehearted commitment to training. Nurturing humility in daily life and working with a strong sex drive that many of us sometimes feel we are possessed by.
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This talk completes the trilogy on the principles of the spiritual path with some emphasis on meditation, and the need to always be cultivating the ability to get to know yourself with insight in the context of a spacious mind that points continually to your true nature. There is also attention given to two features that are often seen as controversial in modern western buddhism - surrender and service. These features have shown to be have been exploited by some teachers who want control and power over their students. This danger needs to be guarded against with utmost diligence, but to dismiss these two principles as not being necessary for the cultivation of the spiritual path runs the danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
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This second talk focuses primarily on learning to 'Trust your Inner Guru' which means for us buddhists to make contact with and recognise buddha nature. This along with our type of meditation defines this path as being both spiritual and buddhist. All other features of this path can be assigned to the universal pursuit of the spiritual path and other practices too. Many buddhists in the west these days are marginalising the concept of buddha nature as being irrelevant but by doing this how can what we practice be then said to be a spiritual path? It is only when we open to and embrace our own inner nature beyond the conditioning that we are familiar with do we find the bridge to the unconditioned, true liberation from birth and death and our eternal divine nature.
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What is the spiritual path and how should it be defined? In these talks this path although common to all those with spiritual aspirations is viewed from a dharmic training viewpoint with it's unique perspective on self and buddha nature. Each of the 12 principles is investigated with only 2 of those principles seen as being uniquely Buddhist. After an introduction, the first principle to be looked at is 'Acceptance of life's Vicissitudes' and how to find the middle way and equanimity in the midst of the up's and down's of everyday living.
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To engage with this type of dharma training it is important to know the correct spirit that should always be with you. This training is not a cerebral exercise but much of one that takes place in the body and the emotions. It is important therefore to consider that you are not so much on a path with a sense of duality but rather engaging directly with an adventure. An adventure is something that you can never be certain of its outcome yet retail the excitement of alway going into what will always be the unknown. Step outside of the comfort zone you've created for yourself that houses the dukkha you experience into something that may evoke fear but step into it anyway. Take a chance, and see how it works out, This is the spirit of our training.
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Yesterday in the talk recorded at Anybodys Barn there was the focus on the reality of death which comes to all living things. Today the talk focuses on the logic that if some living thing dies it therefore means that at some point it must have come into being or been born. This notion of being born and dying needs to be seen as a creation of a mind that misunderstands what it is actually experiencing with this idea of a beginning and an end. When we learn to see this we can return to the truth in that everything is not broken up in this way but is rather in a state of flux and so see that nothing actually dies because it was never born in the first place.
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Life comes to an end for all of us, this we all know. Because of this reality it should be seen that it is very important to prepare yourself for that event because expectations of this will have a profound impact on life as you now experience it, and also what follows. We learn through thinking and reinforcing a sense of self to create our experiences as a world of mental dharmas and objects all separate, independent and always changing. This way of seeing things creates the notion that everything is born, lives and dies. We too along with our body are a part of that apparent reality. Yet, there is part of ourselves to be discovered that is not a part of that cycle of birth and death. When we discover that part as being our true reality we discover that the event of death is just a play of the mind and a myth that has possessed us all of our lives. Take refuge there in the silent stillness of who you really are and you will live life without fear.
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We all come to this practice because we don't feel satisfied or fulfilled with life as it is, so us practitioners are inevitably draw to the experiences of dukkha and see them as the cause of our malaise. This is what is seen to need to change if we are to achieve our desire for fulfillment. The problem with this is that we can so easily focus almost exclusively on this negative side of ourselves to the exclusion of the positive side that we all have, and the positive side of this wonderful and mysterious world that we all live in. So to change we need to turn ourselves not exclusively to the negative but also to the positive, and include life itself, to create an antidote that will help disempower and counterbalance dukkha so allowing it to fade and fall away.
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On this the final day of the ninth Snowdonia retreat at Trigonos we continue with a richly diverse question and answer session started the day before covering the extensive teachings of the DharmaMind group. These teachings embrace every aspect of training from the basic understanding of meditation to the direct discovery of your true nature. These teachings point to what is needed to grow into and embrace with a wholehearted spirit the commitment needed to break free of the conditioned nature that diminish human potential, and discover that part of ourselves that is not touched by this conditioning and so return to who we really are - a true warm-hearted human being, mysterious and eternal.
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After 4 talks that focused on the main features of the DharmaMind practice, the students of the group now have the opportunity with this session the opportunity to clarify aspects of the training through the first of 2 question and answer periods - For example: What are the tools we use for developing insight? How do I let go of insight? Are dreams significant on the path?
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Vipaśyanā is a Sanskrit word translated means insight which is the instigator of transformation; and in this fourth talk we go deeply into this important feature of the Buddha's path. For us in our group we don't follow insight formulas but rather have without picking and choosing an open forum to all of our experiences both on and off the meditation cushion. When we come to discover our innate 'blue sky' of stillness we learn to bring the insight tools of investigation characterised by the 'white cloud' to our practice. Here we discover the ancient practice of 'silent illumination' which for us is the pinnacle of our commitment and which when cultivated can take us like an arrow to complete liberation.
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This talk starts with the first steps of the insight path, and the features of the 'white cloud' that we often refer to in our practice. This talk explains that the insight path isn't something narrow that can only be pursued with defined insight methods and tools, Developing familiarity with insight can begin in the most unstructured way in any circumstances. From this growing familiarity you can then take yourself into the deeper and more refined practice that will eat away at the root of your ignorance.
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An overview of the five pillars is followed by an introduction to the blue sky. Pursuing the pillars as the centre of training will naturally bring you to your open limitless blue sky that can now begin to become a significant aspect of your vision of what is beyond the dualistic world. The blue sky is the natural stillness and limitlessness of who you really are. From here you can begin to come alive to that which is not of the created world of the mind. Changes can be significant here but it is not the end of the path. There is still the white cloud of insightful investigation to integrate with the blue sky, it is then you can really begin to cut the bonds of ignorance.
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These talks cover the complete spectrum of the teachings on offer from the DharmaMind approach to the dharma with its focus on liberation from the self, and nurturing the path to becoming a complete warm-hearted human being. This first talk draws together what are essentially two perspectives that could be seen as separate but are of a complete form of training.
