Saturday, November 29, 2014

Lori Ann Lothian - Grace Under Pressure



What happens when the crack
appears in the wall, the fissure
that promises to loose the whole lake
of feeling, the damned damn bursting
from a line as fine as a hair,
or the look in your eyes.

 What happens when it breaks?

 Do I run for high ground, the place
where i am unreachable?
Or do I stand my ground
and let the wave carry me?

 There is asked of me, a willingness
to let the whole damned thing burst
wide open, to be swept by grace
into the arms of no-thing
so that everything
is mine and I am,
Everything.

 Do I dare give up the wall
that has kept me fearless
because I have hidden
from what is real
while pretending,
pretending, pretending.

 Do I dare open the gates
and say to the flood:
Drown me, now, I am
ready. Take me
to the promised
land, on the ark
of surrender.

 Take me, take me, take me

Home.


Healing by Autumn Skye Morrison

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Mirabai - Unbreakable


Unbreakable, O Lord,
Is the love
That binds me to You:
Like a diamond,
It breaks the hammer that strikes it.

My heart goes into You
As the polish goes into the gold.
As the lotus lives in its water,
I live in You.

Like the bird
That gazes all night
At the passing moon,
I have lost myself dwelling in You.

O my Beloved Return.



Taya Malakian - A Poem Without Words




I want to become a poem for the Beloved.

I want to set my pen aside
and give up the words
I have used to aim at my true lover.

With every aspect of my being,
I want to seduce the Divine.

Just like each moment
is filled with either sunshine,
or moonlight,
or darkness,
I want to fill myself with
whatever experience is being offered
and as a gift
reflect it back to my Beloved.

The delight of warm rain,
the silky cool of the mist that comes next,
the glow of the sun setting into the storm.

I want to take it all in
as you watch me experience it.

And instead of attempting
to capture all of this in words,
words that can only point
towards the truth,
I will become a poem for my Beloved.

Each aspect of my being a page on
which the Divine Poet
has written the most beautiful poem-
without using a single word.
~

(This poem appears the author's poem collection 'Sutra of Stars', available here
 
 
this poem appears Here
 
Taya on facebook 
 
Taya's website 

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Nukunu - Man himself is truth!




Man himself is truth!
In a moment of total presence, in a moment of silence,
in a moment of no grasping and rejecting - it is suddenly obvious.

It has been there all the time, silently waiting.
Truth is very respectful. It does not interfere. It can wait for eternity.
As long as we are busy “looking” for the truth, it waits until we are ready to dissolve and be it.

It is not a verbal, intellectual understanding; it is a shift in consciousness coming from the heart.
a change of reference point. Instead of living as a separate individual that is aware,
suddenly you realize that you are awareness itself.






Nisargadatta Maharaj - About practices


Many modern teachers have extracted quotes by Sri Nisargadatta to make it appear as though he taught no practice and nothing to do. This is an error and a distortion. The focus of this selection is to report essential teachings of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj that people often tend to overlook.

Instructions and Encouragement for Practice by

SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ

Nisargadatta's Teaching is that of practice, just as Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj (Nisargadatta's Guru), Sri Ramana Maharshi and Acharya Sankara's Teachings are of practice. For every one quote that might indicate no practice in the book I am That, you can easily find ten that explain the importance of practice and how to practice. The following quotes are presented in the order in which they appear in the book.
Nisargadatta said:

Go deep into the sense of 'I am' and you will find.
How do you find a thing you have mislaid or forgotton? You keep it in your mind until you recall it.
The sense of being, of 'I am' is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence it comes, or just watch it quietly.
When the mind stays in the 'I am', without moving, you enter a state that cannot be verbalized but can be experienced. All you need to do is to try and try again.

I see what you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong focus of your attention. You give no attention to your self. Your mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self.
Bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence.
See how you function, watch the motives and results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself, by inadvertence.

We discover it by being earnest, by searching, inquiring, questioning daily and hourly, by giving one's life to this discovery.

Look at the net [one's personal world] and its many contradictions. You do and undo at every step. You want peace, love, happiness and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and overeat, you want friendship and exploit. See your net as made of such contradictions and remove them - your very seeing will make them go.

How do you go about finding anything? By keeping your mind and heart on it. Interest there must be and steady remembrance. To remember what needs to be remembered is the secret of success. You come to it through earnestness.

What is supremely important is to be free from contradictions: the goal and the way must not be on different levels; life and light must not quarrel; behaviour must not betray belief.
Call it honesty, integrity, wholeness; you must not go back, undo, uproot, abandon the conquered ground. Tenacity of purpose and honesty in pursuit will bring you to your goal.

Take the first step first. All blessings come from within. Turn within. 'I am' you know. Be with it all the time you can spare, until you revert to it spontaneously. There is no simpler and easier way.

We know the outer world of sensations and actions, but of our inner world of thoughts and feelings we know very little. The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness.
Incidentally, practice of meditation affects deeply our character.
We are slaves to what we do not know; of what we know we are masters. Whatever vice or weakness in ourselves, we discover and understand its causes and its workings, we overcome it by the very knowing; the unconscious dissolves when brought into the conscious. The dissolution of the unconscious releases energy; the mind feels adequate and becomes quiet.

It is not so much the matter of levels as of gunas (qualities). Meditation is a sattvic (pure, true) activity and aims at complete elimination of tamas (inertia) and rajas (motivity, activity). Pure sattva (harmony) is perfect freedom from sloth and restlessness.

Questioner: Since I cannot improve sattva, am I to deal with tamas and rajas only? How do I deal with them?
Nisargadatta: By watching their influence in you and on you. Be aware of them in operation, watch their expression in your thoughts, words and deeds, and gradually their grip on you will lessen and the clear light of sattva will emerge.

Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought 'I am'. The mind will rebel in the beginning, but with patience and perserverance it will yield and keep quiet.

True happiness cannot be found in things that change and pass away. Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably. Happiness comes from the self and can be found in the self only. Find your real self (swarupa) and all else will come with it.

Every pleasure, physical or mental, needs an instrument. Both the physical and mental instruments are material, they get tired and worn out. The pleasure they yield is necessarily limited in its intensity and duration.
Pain is the background of all your pleasures. You want them because you suffer. On the other hand, the very search for pleasure is the cause of pain. It is a vicious circle.

Questioner: I can see the mechanism of my confusion, but I do not see my way out of it.
Nisargadatta: The very examination of the mechanism shows the way. After all, your confusion is only in your mind, which so far has never rebelled against confusion and never got to grips with it. It rebelled only against pain.

Be alert. Question, observe, investigate, learn all you can about confusion, how it operates, what it does to you and others. By being clear about confusion you become clear of confusion.

By elminating the intervals of inadvertance during the waking hours you will gradually eliminate the long interval of absent-mindedness, which you call sleep. You will be aware that you are asleep.

Nisargadatta: You can have for the asking all the peace you want.
Questioner: I am asking.
Nisargadatta: You must ask with an undivided heart and live an integrated life.
Questioner: How?
Nisargadatta: Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless. Renounce all that disturbs its peace. If you want peace, deserve it.
Questioner: Surely everybody deserves peace
Nisargadatta: Those only deserve it, who don't disturb it.
Questioner: In what way do I disturb peace?
Nisargadatta: By being a slave to your desires and fears.
Questioner: Even when they are justified?
Nisargadatta: Emotional reactions, born of ignorance or inadvertance, are never justified.
Seek a clear mind and a clean heart. All you need is to keep quietly alert, inquiring into the real nature of yourself. This is the only way to peace.

All these sufferings are man-made and it is within man's power to put an end to them.
God helps by facing man with the results of his actions and demanding that the balance be restored. Karma is the law that works for righteousness; it is the healing hand of God.

Use your mind. Remember. Observe.
You are not different from others. Most of their experiences are valid for you too.
Think clearly and deeply, go into the structure of your desires and their ramifications. They are a most important part of your mental and emotional make-up and powerfully affect your actions.
Remember, you cannot abandon what you do not know. To go beyond yourself, you must know yourself.

Purify yourself by a well-ordered and useful life. Watch over your thoughts, feelings, words and actions. This will clear your vision.

Questioner: Well, you told me that I am the Supreme Reality. I believe you. What next is there for me to do?
Nisargadatta: I told you already. Discover all that you are not. Body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, time, space, being and not-being, this or that - nothing concrete or abstract you can point out to is you. A mere verbal statement will not do - you may repeat a formula endlessly without any result whatsoever.
You must watch yourself continuously - particularly your mind - moment by moment, missing nothing. This witnessing is essential for the separation of the self from the not-self.

Questioner: What about witnessing the witness?
Nisargadatta: Putting words together will not take you far. Go within and discover what you are not. Nothing else matters.

Since it is awareness that makes consciousness possible, there is awareness in every state of consciousness. Therefore, the very consciousness of being conscious is already a movement in awareness. Interest in your stream of consciousness takes you to awareness.
It is not a new state. It is at once recognized as the original, basic existence, which is life itself, and also love and joy.

Realization is but the opposite of ignorance. To take the world as real and one's self as unreal is ignorance, the cause of sorrow. To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy.
It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also see yourself as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror.
The same mirror that shows you the world as it is, will also show you your own face. The thought 'I am' is the polishing cloth. Use it.

Devotion to your goal makes you live a clean and orderly life, given to the search for truth and to helping people. And realization makes noble virtue easy and spontaneous, by removing for good the obstacles in the shape of desires and fears and wrong ideas.

The entire purpose of a clean and well-ordered life is to liberate man from the thaldrom of chaos and the burden of sorrow.

In reality only the Ultimate is. The rest is a matter of name and form. And as long as you cling to the idea that only what has name and shape exists, the Supreme will appear to you non-existing.
When you understand that names and shapes are hollow shells without any content whatsoever, and what is real is nameless and formless, pure energy of life and light of consciousness, you will be at peace - immersed in the deep silence of reality.

All will happen as you want it, provided you really want it.

Within the prison of your world appears a man who tells you that the world of painful contradictions, which you have created, is neither continuous nor permanent and is based on a misaprehension.
He pleads with you to get out of it, by the same way by which you got into it. You got into it by forgetting what you are and you will get out of it by knowing yourself as you are.

Why not turn away from the experience to the experiencer and realize the full import of the only true statement you can make: 'I am'?
. Just keep in mind the feeling 'I am', merge in it, till your mind and feeling become one. By repeated attempts you will stumble on the right balance of attention and affection and your mind will be firmly established in the thought-feeling 'I am'.

CONTINUE READING  HERE



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Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Nagarjuna’s Seventy Verses



[1] Though the Buddhas have spoken of duration, origination, destruction, being, non-being, low, moderate, and excellent by force of worldly convention, [they] have not done [so] in an absolute sense.

[2] Designations are without significance, for self, non-self, and self-non-self do not exist.  [For] like nirvana, all expressible things are empty of own-being.

[3] Since all things altogether lack substance either in causes or conditions, [in their] totality, or separately — they are empty.

[4] Being does not arise, since it exists.  Non-being does not arise, since it does not exist.  Being and non-being [together] do not arise, due to [their] heterogeneity. Consequently they do not endure or vanish.

[5] That which has been born cannot be born, nor can that which is unborn be born. What is being born now, being [partly] born, [partly] unborn, cannot be born either.

[6] A cause has an effect when there is an effect, but when there is no [effect] the [cause] amounts to no cause. It is inconsistent that [the effect] neither exists nor does not exist. It is illogical that [the cause is active] in the three times.

[7] Without one, there are not many.  Without many, one is not possible. Whatever arises dependently is indeterminable.

[8] The twelve dependently arising members, which result in suffering, are unborn. They are possible neither in one mind nor in many.

[9] Permanent is not, impermanent is not, not-self is not, self is not, impure is not, pure is not, pleasure is not, and suffering is not.  Therefore the perverted views do not exist.

[10] Without these, ignorance based on the four bad views is not possible. Without this [ignorance], the formative forces do not arise.  The same [is true] for the [ten] remaining [dependently arising members].

[11] Ignorance does not occur without the formative forces [and] without it the formative forces do not arise.  Caused by one another, they are not established by own-being.

[12] How can that which is not established by own-being create others?  Conditions established by others cannot create others.

[13] A father is not a son, a son is not a father.  Neither exists except in correlation with the other.  Nor are they simultaneous.  Likewise for the twelve members.

[14] Just as pleasure and pain depending on an object in a dream do not have [a real] object, so neither that which arises dependently nor that which it arises in dependence on exists.

[15] Opponent: If things do not exist by own-being, then low, moderate, and excellent and the manifold world are not established and cannot be established, even through a cause.

[16] Reply: If own-being were established, dependently arising things would not occur. If [they were] unconditioned, how could own-being be lacking?  True being also does not vanish.

[17] How can the non-existing have own-being, other-being, or non-being? Consequently, own-being, other-being, and non-being [result from] perverted views.

[18] Opponent: If things were empty, origination and cessation would not occur.  That which is empty of own-being: How does it arise and how does it cease?

[19] Reply: Being and non-being are not simultaneous. Without non-being, no being. Being and non-being would always be.  There is no being independent of non-being.

[20] Without being there is no non-being. [Being] neither arises from itself nor from [something] else.  This being so, this [being] does not exist: So there is no being, and [therefore] no non-being.

[21] If there is being there is permanence; if there is non-being there is necessarily annihilation.  When there is being, these two [dogmas] occur. Therefore [one should] not accept being.

[22] Opponent: These [dogmas] do not occur due to continuity: Things cease after having caused [an effect]. Reply: As before [see v. 19], this [continuity] is unestablished.  It also follows that the continuity would be interrupted.

[23] Opponent: [No!] The Buddha’s teaching of the path aims at showing origination and cessation, not sunyata! Reply:  To experience the two as mutually exclusive is a mistake.

[24] Opponent: If there is no origination and cessation, then to the cessation of what is nirvana due? Reply: Is not liberation this: that by nature nothing arises and ceases?

[25] If nirvana [resulted] from cessation, [then there would be] destruction.  If the contrary, [there would be] permanence.  Therefore it is not logical that nirvana is being or non-being.

[26] If a definite cessation did abide, it would be independent of being.  It does not exist without being, nor does it exist without non-being.

[27] The marked is established through a mark different from the marked; it is not established by itself.  Nor are the [two] established by each other, [since what is] not established cannot establish the not-established.

[28] In this [way], cause, effect, feeling, feeler, and so forth, the seer, the visible, and so forth —whatever may be — all are explained, without exception.

[29] The three times do not exist (substantially) since they are unfixed and are mutually established, since they change [and] are not self-established, [and] since there is no being.  They are merely discriminations.

[30] Since the three marks of the conditioned – origination, duration, and cessation – —do not exist, there is not the slightest conditioned or unconditioned [phenomenon].

[31] The non-destroyed does not cease, nor does the destroyed. The abiding does not abide, nor does the non-abiding. The born is not born, nor is the unborn.

[32] Composite and non-composite are not many [and] not one; are not being [and] are not non-being; are not being-non-being. All [possibilities] are comprised within these limits.

[33] Opponent: The Bhagavat, the Teacher, has spoken of karma’s duration, of karma’s nature, and of karma’s result, and also of the personal karma of living beings and of the non-destruction of karma.

[34] Reply: Karma is said to lack own-being. [Karma] that is not born is not destroyed. From that again I-making is born.  But the belief that creates it is due to discrimination.

[35] If karma had own-being the body created by it would be permanent.  So karma would not result in suffering and would therefore be substantial.

[36] Karma is not born from conditions and by no means from non-conditions, for karma-formations are like an illusion, a city of gandharvas, and a mirage.

[37] Karma has klesas as its cause. [Being] klesas, the karma-formations are of impassioned nature (klesatmaka).  A body has karma as its cause. So [all] three are empty of own-being.

[38] Without karma, no agent. Without these two, no result. Without these, no enjoyer.  Therefore things are void.

[39] When —because the truth is seen —one correctly understands that karma is empty, karma does not arise.  When [karma] is no more, what arises from karma arises no more.

[40] Just as when the Lord Tathagata magically projects an apparition and this apparition again projects another apparition-

[41] In that case the Tathagata’s apparition is empty (not to mention the apparition [created] by the apparition!).  Both of them are but names, merely insignificant discriminations.

[42] Just so, the agent is like the apparition, and karma is like the apparition [created] by the apparition.  By nature [they are] without significance: mere discriminations.

[43] If karma possessed own-being, there would be no nirvana nor deeds [of an] agent. If [karma] does not exist, the pleasant or unpleasant result created by karma does not exist.

[44] ‘Is’ and ‘is not’ and also ‘is-is not’ have been stated by the Buddhas for a purpose. It is not easy to understand!

[45] If form is material (bhautika) in itself, it does not arise from the elements (bhuta). It is not derived from itself— – it does not exist, does it? – nor from anything else.  Therefore it does not exist [at all].

[46] The four [great elements] are not [found] in one [element], nor is one of them [found] in [any of] the four.  How can form be established with the four great elements as [its] cause?

[47] Since it is not conceived directly, [it seems form does] not exist.  But if [you maintain it to be conceived] through a mark, that mark, born from causes and conditions, does not exist.  And it would be illogical [if form could exist] without a mark.

[48] If mind could grasp form, it would grasp its own-being.  How could a [mind] that does not exist (since it is born from conditions) really conceive absence of form?

[49] Since one moment of mind cannot within [the very same] moment grasp a form born (as explained), how could it understand a past and a future form?

[50] Since color and shape never exist apart, they cannot be conceived apart.  Is form not acknowledged to be one?

[51] The sense of sight is not inside the eye, not inside form, and not in between. [Therefore] an image depending upon form and eye is false.

[52] If the eye does not see itself, how can it see form?  Therefore eye and form are without self.  The same [is true for the] remaining sense-fields.

[53] Eye is empty of its own self [and] of another’s self.  Form is also empty.  Likewise [for the] remaining sense-fields.

[54] When one [sense-field] occurs simultaneously with contact, the others are empty. Empty does not depend upon nonempty, nor does non-empty depend upon empty.

[55] Having no [independent] fixed nature, the three [namely, indriya, visaya, and vijnana] cannot come into contact.  Since there is no contact having this nature, feeling does not exist.

[56] Consciousness occurs in dependence on the internal and external sense-fields. Therefore consciousness is empty, like mirages and illusions.

[57] Since consciousness arises in dependence on a discernible object, the discernible does not exist [in itself].  Since [the conscious subject] does not exist without the discernible and consciousness, the conscious subject does not exist [by itself].

[58] [In a relative sense] everything is impermanent, but [in the absolute sense] nothing is permanent or impermanent.  [If there] were things, they would be either permanent or impermanent.  But how is that [possible]?

[59] Since the entities ‘desire’, ‘hatred’, and ‘delusion’ arise through perverted views about pleasant and unpleasant, desire, hatred, and delusion do not exist by own-being.

[60] Since one [may] desire, hate, and be deluded regarding the very same [thing], [the passions] are created by discrimination. And that discrimination is nothing real.

[61] That which is imagined does not exist.  Without an imagined object, how can there be imagination?  Since the imagined and the imagination are born from conditions, [they are] sunyata.

[62] Through understanding the truth, ignorance, which arises from the four perverted views, does not exist.  When this is no more, the karma-formations do not arise. The remaining [ten members vanish] likewise.

[63] The thing that arises in dependence upon this or that does not arise when that is absent.  Being and non-being, composite and non-composite are at peace.  This is nirvana.

[64] To imagine that things born through causes and conditions are real the teacher calls ignorance.  From that the twelve members arise.

[65] But when one has understood by seeing fully that things are empty, one is no longer deluded.  Ignorance ceases, and the twelve spokes [of the wheel] come to a halt.

[66] Karma-formations are like the city of gandharvas, illusions, mirages, nets of hair, foam, bubbles, phantoms, dreams, and wheels made with a firebrand.

[67] Nothing exists by virtue of own-being, nor is there any non-being here.  Being and non-being, born through causes and conditions, are empty.

[68] Since all things are empty of own-being, the incomparable Tathagata teaches dependent co-origination regarding things.

[69] The ultimate meaning consists in that!  The perfect Buddhas, the Bhagavats, have [only] conceived the entire multiplicity in reliance upon worldly convention.

[70] The worldly norms [dharmas] are not violated.  In reality [the Tathagata] has not taught the Dharma.  Not understanding the Tathagata’s words, [fools] fear this spotless discourse.

[71] The worldly principle, “This arises depending on that,” is not violated.  But since what is dependent lacks own-being, how can it exist? That is certain!

[72] One with faith who tries to seek the truth, one who considers this principle logically [and] relies [upon] the Dharma that is lacking all supports leaves behind existence and non-existence [and abides in] peace.

[73] When one understands that “This is a result of that,” the nets of bad views all vanish.  Undefiled, one abandons desire, delusion, and hatred and gains nirvana.

Translation by Christian Lindtner

source http://emptinesscafe.com/

 

 

Rumi - A star appears



Tonight,
I see the realm of joy and pleasure.

I've lost myself in it
and it has lost itself in me:
No religion,
No dogma,
No conformity,
No guilt,
No shame,
No fear,
No conviction,
No uncertainty remain.

In the middle of my heart,
a star appears,
and the seven heavens
are lost in its brilliance....


Monday, November 24, 2014

Ashtavakra Gita - Nothing outside of me








“In my unblemished nature there are no elements,
no body, no faculties, no mind.

There is no void and no despair.

For me, free from the sense of dualism, there are no
scriptures, no self-knowledge, no mind free from an
object, no satisfaction and no freedom from desire.

There is no knowledge or ignorance, no “me,” “this,”
or “mine,” no bondage, no liberation,
and no property of self-nature.

For him who is always free from individual
characteristics there is no antecedent causal action, no
liberation during life, and no fulfillment at death.

For me, free from individuality, there is no doer and no
reaper of the consequences, no cessation of action, no
arising of thought, no immediate object,
and no idea of results.

There is no world, no seeker for liberation, no yogi, no
seer, no one bound and no one liberated.

I remain in my own nondual nature.

There is no emanation or return, no goal, means, seeker
or achievement. I remain in my own nondual nature.

For me who am forever unblemished, there is no
assessor, no standard, nothing to assess,
and no assessment.

For me who am forever actionless, there is no
distraction or one-pointedness of mind, no lack of
understanding, no stupidity, no joy and no sorrow.

For me who am always free from deliberations there is
neither conventional truth nor absolute truth,
no happiness and no suffering.

For me who am forever pure there is no illusion, no
samsara, no attachment or detachment, no living
organism, and no God.

For me who am forever unmovable and indivisible,
established in myself, there is no activity or inactivity,
no liberation and no bondage.

For me who am blessed and without limitation, there is
no initiation or scripture, no disciple or teacher,
and no goal of human life.

There is no being or non-being,
no unity or dualism.

What more is there to say?

There is nothing outside of me.”



True Meditation: Recognizing Basic Sanity


“There is no need of training. Awareness is always with you. The same attention that you give to the outer, you turn to the inner. No new, or special kind of awareness is needed. What you need is to be aware of being aware. Don’t be misled by the simplicity of the advice. Very few are those who have the courage to trust the innocent and the simple.”





“To be aware is to be awake. Unaware means asleep. You are aware anyhow, you need not try to be. What you need is to be aware of being aware. Be aware deliberately and consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness. You are always conscious of the mind, but you are not aware of yourself as being conscious.
The mind produces thoughts ceaselessly, even when you do not look at them. When you know what is going on in your mind, you call it consciousness. This is your waking state — your consciousness shifts from sensation to sensation, from perception to perception, from idea to idea, in endless succession. Then comes awareness, the direct insight into the whole of consciousness, the totality of the mind. The mind is like a river, flowing ceaselessly in the bed of the body; you identify yourself for a moment with some particular ripple and call it: ‘my thought’. All you are conscious of is your mind; awareness is the cognisance of consciousness as a whole.”

~Nisargadatta Maharaj


 


“It is easy to recognize it. You just have to drop thinking and it is right there. There is not a lot to be done. You do not have to do this and that and the other. It is like the example of trying to touch space with your finger. To touch space, you do not have to move your finger at all, do you—it is already touching space, isn’t it?”
“It is as though your eyes are looking backwards instead of forwards as they usually do. You are looking out with your eyes but are looking back at the same time. Do not try too hard with this though, otherwise you will really make a big mistake. You just sort of look back at your mind and say, ‘Who am I? Where am I? What is this?’ When you do that, do you see the thing that is thinking? That is enough!”

 Dzogchen teacher Mingyur Rinpoche 


“What is this non-meditation? How do we meditate without meditating? Whatever situation mind is in, whether there are discursive thoughts of good, bad, clean, unclean, and so on, if you drop all of these so that you are without even a whisker of the conceptual activity of mind, the nature of mind will shine forth as non-stopped clarity and that is called self-arising rigpa. This does not need to be created or produced or purchased; when you let mind itself, just as it is, shine forth and stay in that, that is called self-arising rigpa. Someone who meditates using logical processes could never meditate on this, could never realize it.
To do this, you need to reverse your outwardly-directed attention inward and look hither towards the mind. This way of looking hither towards the mind means to rest self-settled in unhindered clarity. Having released all the bindings of passion, aggression, pride, and so on, abide in the state of this self-arising rigpa of non-stopped clarity, crystal clarity, like the sun shining in the sky. Not being caught by this and that but resting in the non-stopped clarity of whatever there is occurring in mind is called self-arising rigpa.”
“In fact, rigpa is coming all the time. It is always there so there is nothing to do. There is no meditation to do because it is there all the time. There is no need of mantra, no need to do anything in particular, no need to visualize something; it is just there.”

Contemporary Dzogchen master  Tsoknyi Rinpoche




“Do not contrive or elaborate the awareness of this very moment. Allow it to be just as it is. This is not established as existing, not existing, or having a direction. It does not discern between emptiness and appearances and does not have the characteristics of nihilism and eternalism. Within this state where nothing exists, it is unnecessary to exert effort through view or mediation. The great primordial liberation is not like being released from bondage. It is natural radiance uncontrived by the intellect, wisdom unsullied by concepts.
The nature of phenomena, not tainted by the view and meditation, is evenness without placement …without premeditation. It is clarity without characteristics and vastness not lost to uniformity. Although all sentient beings have never been separate from their own indwelling wisdom even for an instant, by failing to recognize this, it becomes like a natural flow of water solidifying into ice. With the inner grasping mind as the root cause and outer objective clinging as the contributing circumstance, beings wander in samsara indefinitely. Now, with the guru’s oral instructions, at the moment of encountering awareness–without any mental constructions– rest in the way things truly are, without wavering from or meditating on anything. This fully reveals the core wisdom intent of the primordial Buddha.”

 Rigpa from the Yeshe Lama by Jigmed Lingpa





“Buddhahood — the discovery of the Dharmakaya — is nothing other than the uncontrived and unadulterated essence of Awareness becoming evident. And because awareness is present in everyone without transition or change, I advise you to rest in the spontaneous presence of your uncontrived Awareness.”

~Longchenpa

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