HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche - Dzogchen Practice in Everyday Life

The everyday practice of dzogchen is simply to develop a complete carefree acceptance, an openness to all situations without limit.
We should realize openness as the playground of our emotions and relate to people without artificiality, manipulation or strategy.
We should experience everything totally, never withdrawing into ourselves as a marmot hides in its hole. This practice releases
tremendous energy which is usually constricted by the process of maintaining fixed reference points. Referentiality is the process by
which we retreat from the direct experience of everyday life.
Being present in the moment may initially trigger fear. But by welcoming the sensation of fear with complete openness, we cut through the barriers created by habitual emotional patterns.
When we engage in the practice of discovering space, we should develop the feeling of opening ourselves out completely to the entire universe. We should open ourselves with absolute simplicity and nakedness of mind. This is the powerful and ordinary practice of dropping the mask of self-protection.
We shouldn't make a division in our meditation between perception and field of perception. We shouldn't become like a cat watching a mouse. We should realize that the purpose of meditation is not to go "deeply into ourselves" or withdraw from the world. Practice should be free and non-conceptual, unconstrained by introspection and concentration.
Vast unoriginated self-luminous wisdom space is the ground of being - the beginning and the end of confusion. The presence of awareness in the primordial state has no bias toward enlightenment or non-enlightenment. This ground of being which is known as pure or original mind is the source from which all phenomena arise. It is known as the great mother, as the womb of potentiality in which all things arise and dissolve in natural self-perfectedness and absolute spontaneity.
All aspects of phenomena are completely clear and lucid. The whole universe is open and unobstructed - everything is mutually interpenetrating.
Seeing all things as naked, clear and free from obscurations, there is nothing to attain or realize. The nature of phenomena appears naturally and is naturally present in time-transcending awareness. Everything is naturally perfect just as it is. All phenomena appear in their uniqueness as part of the continually changing pattern. These patterns are vibrant with meaning and significance at every moment; yet there is no significance to attach to such meanings beyond the moment in which they present themselves.
This is the dance of the five elements in which matter is a symbol of energy and energy a symbol of emptiness. We are a symbol of our own enlightenment. With no effort or practice whatsoever, liberation or enlightenment is already here.
The everyday practice of dzogchen is just everyday life itself. Since the undeveloped state does not exist, there is no need to behave in any special way or attempt to attain anything above and beyond what you actually are. There should be no feeling of striving to reach some "amazing goal" or "advanced state."
To strive for such a state is a neurosis which only conditions us and serves to obstruct the free flow of Mind. We should also avoid thinking of ourselves as worthless persons - we are naturally free and unconditioned. We are intrinsically enlightened and lack nothing.
When engaging in meditation practice, we should feel it to be as natural as eating, breathing and defecating. It should not become a specialized or formal event, bloated with seriousness and solemnity. We should realize that meditation transcends effort, practice, aims, goals and the duality of liberation and non-liberation. Meditation is always ideal; there is no need to correct anything. Since everything that arises is simply the play of mind as such, there is no unsatisfactory meditation and no need to judge thoughts as good or bad.
Therefore we should simply sit. Simply stay in your own place, in your own condition just as it is. Forgetting self-conscious feelings, we do not have to think "I am meditating." Our practice should be without effort, without strain, without attempts to control or force and without trying to become "peaceful."
If we find that we are disturbing ourselves in any of these ways, we stop meditating and simply rest or relax for a while. Then we resume our meditation. If we have "interesting experiences" either during or after meditation, we should avoid making anything special of them. To spend time thinking about experiences is simply a distraction and an attempt to become unnatural. These experiences are simply signs of practice and should be regarded as transient events. We should not attempt to re-experience them because to do so only serves to distort the natural spontaneity of mind.
All phenomena are completely new and fresh, absolutely unique and entirely free from all concepts of past, present and future. They are
experienced in timelessness.
The continual stream of new discovery, revelation and inspiration which arises at every moment is the manifestation of our clarity. We should learn to see everyday life as mandala - the luminous fringes of experience which radiate spontaneously from the empty nature of our being. The aspects of our mandala are the day-to-day objects of our life experience moving in the dance or play of the universe. By this symbolism the inner teacher reveals the profound and ultimate significance of being. Therefore we should be natural and spontaneous, accepting and learning from everything. This enables us to see the ironic and amusing side of events that usually irritate us.
In meditation we can see through the illusion of past, present and future - our experience becomes the continuity of nowness. The past is
only an unreliable memory held in the present. The future is only a projection of our present conceptions. The present itself vanishes as
soon as we try to grasp it. So why bother with attempting to establish an illusion of solid ground?
We should free ourselves from our past memories and preconceptions of meditation. Each moment of meditation is completely unique and full of potentiality. In such moments, we will be incapable of judging our meditation in terms of past experience, dry theory or hollow rhetoric.
Simply plunging directly into meditation in the moment now, with our whole being, free from hesitation, boredom or excitement, is enlightenment.

Adyashanti - This Amazing Opportunity

Art: http://www.jungle-eye.com/

Let’s remember why we’re here at retreat: for this amazing opportunity to really look into the core of our own existence, the core of life itself that is so easy to overlook. It’s so easy not to pay attention to it, because it’s not noisy and it’s not clamoring for attention like all the other aspects of the human mind. Egoic consciousness is always pretending to be the most important thing that is happening.

And yet there’s this thread, this sense of something other than, deeper than, more real than, more essential than this scattered and divided noise that so many human beings live in, in their minds. And right in the midst of all that, there is a presence, there is an awareness, an unconditioned awareness, an unconditioned consciousness. Right in the middle of this conditioned mind, conditioned consciousness, is this shining, unconditioned essence. Essence doesn’t mean a little part hidden somewhere in us, the little teeny kernel of essence. Essence means the totality, the whole thing. Essence means the truth of you as opposed to the untruth of you.

Essence isn’t a small thing, essence is an immense thing. The essence of you is everything you ever see, taste, touch, and experience. Everywhere you go, every step you take, every breath you take is actually happening by the essence, of the essence, in the essence, and to the essence. All the rest is noise and chatter.

So we come here to give our attention, our affection, our time. Our most highly prized commodity is our time. Anything or anyone you give your time to shows immediately what is most important. And I want to remind everyone that what you really are, what the person next to you is, what the children in Africa scraping up the little grains of rice are, this timeless essence, is not hidden. It’s not hidden at all. It’s in plain view. Everywhere you look, that’s the essence. And the mind would say, “Where? Where? I don’t see it. All I see is a car, a billboard, a tree, the person in front of me, the funny man on the stage. Where is this essence?”

It’s easy to grasp for it, isn’t it? “Where is it? What is it? I want to understand it. I want to know about it. How can it work for me? How can I utilize it?” But it doesn’t come upon us through the grasping of it, through the striving for it, and through the struggling for it. There’s no merit gained through wasted effort, through excess struggle. There are no merit points for the people who drove themselves the craziest along the way to self-realization. For most people it’s so obscure that it seems very intuitive to grasp and to struggle instead of relaxing, not grasping, letting something come to you, letting the truth of your being reveal itself to you on its terms, in its way, letting it happen.

It will happen. It’s always happening. It’s always trying to show itself.

http://www.adyashanti.org/ 

Shivaratri

OM NAMAH SHIVAYA

The space of your own consciousness is the boundless sky of Shiva-tatva. Every photon of your body is the infinite light of Shiva-tatva. This wondrous world-mirage, this cloud temple in emptiness, this incomprehensible dream of duality, appearing in Shiva just for the sake of play, ecstatic dance, and fullness of love, is none other than the scintillating body of the Goddess, Kundalini Shakti, in all her veils of enchantment. She too is Shiva, and He is She. Bow down in astonishment, and be whole!

Shiva and Shakti unite as the energies of "Ha" and "Tha," the solar and the lunar forces, in a serpentine double-helix dance around the spine of the human body. Through this dance, they attain union, "Yoga." This is the real meaning and purpose of Hatha Yoga. In the Bhakti tradition, they are Radha and Krishna uniting in the kunj of your heart, under the tree of life, your spine, at the center of the garden of Vrindavan, your sacred body.

In the Christian mystical tradition, this is the garden of the resurrection, where Jesus meets the Magdalene at first light. The Gnostic Gospel of Philip calls this union the sacrament of "the Bridal Chamber." It was the final initiation, the supreme sacrament, where embodied individual offers the whole Magdalenic body-soul to Christ-Consciousness.

Shiva is the unmanifest, uncreated, divine consciousness. He is the silent Witness of creation. Shakti is the manifest garden of creation. She is the sacred body. Shivaratri is their wedding: a merging of subject and object in the bliss of non-duality, where the integrity of the Two is maintained, while their boundaries are out-shined by the light of the One. 

Contrary to the false "advaita" often portrayed by Western teachers, this union is not cool and imperious detachment, but an ecstatic dance.
"For your lips are sweeter than wine, and your name is perfume poured out." ~Song of Solomon 4:10, the Holy Bible. 

"Om Namah Shivaya Guruve Sat Chit Ananda Murtaye!" I bow down to the divine Shiva, the Guru whose light removes darkness, the very form of Truth, Consciousness, and Bliss. 

source: Uradiance

Brother Theophyle

source: http://www.zoofence.com.

Ilie Cioara - I Am Boundlessness/Uniqueness

I Am Boundlessness

I am spontaneous simplicity,
Mind, heart and feeling,
A whole being, absolute fullness,
Love in action.

This state
Reveals itself naturally;
When the mind is awakened,
All becomes One.

The past melts away
In the light of all-encompassing Attention;
In emptiness, the Sacred reveals itself
In its natural brilliance.

Experiencing the moment,
The personal mind is dissipated,
Expanding into Infinity
As Universal Mind.

Each such encounter
Transforms us radically,
For in each sparkle of consciousness
We are newness, Divinity, Reality!

✿•*¨`*•.༺♥༻ .•*¨`*•✿ 

Bliss is a state of complete happiness, free from any cause or motivation. 

It cannot be planted or cultivated, 

 such as a flower, by the self-interested “ego”, in any circumstance. It cannot be the fruit of imagination, nor can it be attained through persistent effort or will. 

It cannot be negotiated, for it is priceless.

No prayers – no matter how persistent and passionate – can help us attain it, for all these are nothing but egoistic endeavors, whose author is none other than the “personal self”, always pursuing its self-interest. Its activity cannot go beyond the dimension and the limits of its time-space structure.

This bliss or boundless Happiness ensues spontaneously, as soon as the ego becomes humble and silent, as it has understood its powerlessness. In the unforced and undesired silence, any ideal, goal or purpose is completely absent and our being expands into Infinity. In a state of truly Pure Energy, we are perfectly conscious of an immense joy, united with Eternity.

Every human being who has understood – through a direct experience – the great mystery of inner harmony and equilibrium has access to this holy fulfillment. Each reaction of the mind is a wonderful opportunity to attain the state of bliss. Try to encounter the movement of the "ego" right now, in this very moment. The flame of Attention dissipates it instantly, and your being is integrated, in union with the Sublime. Do not content yourselves with a mere intellectual understanding of the phenomenon!

✿•*¨`*•.༺♥༻ .•*¨`*•✿

Uniqueness

I am here as well as everywhere in the Immense Infinite,
I permeate everything.
All is within Me, I Am present in All,
There is nothing outside of Me, seen or unseen.

I have no cause and no Source of creation,
I have always been and I will always be, endlessly,
For what has no beginning will have no end,
In Essence and form, I Am a perfect Whole.

Uniqueness – as Unity – encompasses all,
It is within each of us, eternally revealing itself.
Attention is the accompanying Light,
Its intrinsic value is similar to the Sun,
Dissipating darkness, illusions and anomalies,
Offering priceless jewels of Joy.

source: http://www.zoofence.com.

Rumi - Love's garden

From deep within my heart
I always catch
the scent of my Beloved.
How can I help but
follow that fragrance?

Last night
I was walking through Love's garden
where a glimmer of my soul
became a teeming river of light!

Laughing roses sprang up along the banks.
Dazzling waters rolled past the thorns of being
with speed enough to elude the sword of death.
Every tree and blade of grass danced in the meadow.

But to an eye without this vision,
all seemed plain and ordinary.

Suddenly a great cypress shot up from the ground!
The whole garden roared with delight
the jasmines exploded,
the broad-leafed trees clapped their hands.

A beautiful blog: Love

Sri Ramana Maharshi - Lakshmi

A villager had a dream in which he was told to offer his next calf to Ramanasramam. He brought his cow and the calf to Bhagavan. The jungle around the Ashram was thick at that time and there were cheetahs. The Ashram people were perplexed and refused the offer, but the villager was taking his dream seriously and would not take the calf away. The mother cow had to remain with the calf to feed her. Finally, the cow and the calf were entrusted to a devotee in the town. The calf became the famous cow Lakshmi. She grew up and had three calves within a few years. She would come daily to the Ashram to have her meals, graze on the Ashram land, enter the Hall and sit contentedly near Bhagavan. In the evening, she would go back to the town as other women did.
Once Lakshmi came into the Hall. She was pregnant at that time. It was after lunch time when Bhagavan was reading the newspapers. Lakshmi came near and started licking the papers. Bhagavan looked up and said: “Wait a little, Lakshmi.” But Lakshmi went on licking. Bhagavan laid his paper aside, put his hands behind Lakshmi’s horns and his head against hers. Like this they stayed for quite a long time. I stood nearby looking at the wonderful scene. After some ten minutes or so, Bhagavan turned to me and said: “Do you know what Lakshmi is doing? She is in Samadhi.”

I looked at her and tears were flowing in streams down her broad cheeks. Her breathing had stopped and her eyes were fixed on Bhagavan. After some time Bhagavan changed his position and asked: “Lakshmi, how do you feel now?” Lakshmi moved backward, as if reluctant to turn her tail towards Bhagavan, walked round the Hall and went out.

ૐ

Shantammal, Eternal Bhagavan

Jean Klein - Simply aware

“Don’t project an idea of reality, of freedom, be simply aware of the facts of your existence without wanting change. Seeing things in this way will bring you to a state of deep relaxation both physical and psychological. “

“Being it is proof. But I can tell you how to discover it. So trust me! It will be secondhand information at first but don’t remain in belief. Make it your own.“
“You will become aware of a host of energies never dreamed of before. Your relationship with those around you will be perfectly harmonious and you will no longer be seeking a result or expecting anything in return.“

“There is nothing passive in the not-doing. It is supremely alert, a mental and physical readiness, a whole-hearted welcoming of life as it comes to you.“

“Be knowingly silent as often as you can and you will no longer fall prey to the desire to be this or that. You will discover in the everyday events of life the meaning behind the fulfillment of the whole, for the ego is totally absent.“

“Sooner or later, this clarified ego must resort into its essence and homeground which is lucid presence. It only appears when called for and never again steals life for itself.“

“If the ego is in the slightest way separated from its source, it yearns to find it again. This search comes from the remembrance of unity and plenitude. As every experience emanates from the non-experience which is our real being, the me also bears the scent of its source. This remembering is awakened through those moments of desirelessness and in deep sleep.“

“The ego is thus in permanent conflict, at once longing for its own oblivion in oneness and at the same time habitually fighting for its very existence.”

Lao Tzu - Nonsense

Some say my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.

But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.

And those who put it into practice
this loftiness has roots that go deep.

I have just three things to teach:

Simplicity, patience, compassion.

These three are your greatest treasures.

Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies
You accord with the way things are,

Compassionate towards yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.

Ulla AllU - The Dream

 The Dream!

 

When ONE gets dreamy, 

Things have a tendency to get hot and steamy. 

 

Dreaming away of a you and me, 

And how we forever together can be. 

 

Dreaming that the true lover is in the other! 

 

Then the roles reverse, 

And once again, alone ONE traverse, 

Feeling lonely and that life is a curse, 

Over and over this dream we rehearse.

  

What is hidden in this poem or verse? 

What was present before the curse? 

 

The question rehearse, 

And ONE may find there is no curse.

 

 

read on line Here

Play of Duality!

Once upon a time, there was NONE,
Spontaneously giving rise to ONE.

Out of which TWO was born,
When ONE in pieces was torn.

The play of duality began,
When two or more onto the stage ran.

The play set upon the backdrop of space,
Given duration in time to uphold each species and race.

Unity of ONE is to see how all this begun.
Separation fades away, and ONE to NONE returns to stay.

- See more at: http://www.beyondpoetry.com/#sthash.qmCnRlp1.dpuf

Play of Duality!

Once upon a time, there was NONE,
Spontaneously giving rise to ONE.

Out of which TWO was born,
When ONE in pieces was torn.

The play of duality began,
When two or more onto the stage ran.

The play set upon the backdrop of space,
Given duration in time to uphold each species and race.

Unity of ONE is to see how all this begun.
Separation fades away, and ONE to NONE returns to stay.

- See more at: http://www.beyondpoetry.com/#sthash.qmCnRlp1.dpuf

Play of Duality!

Once upon a time, there was NONE,
Spontaneously giving rise to ONE.

Out of which TWO was born,
When ONE in pieces was torn.

The play of duality began,
When two or more onto the stage ran.

The play set upon the backdrop of space,
Given duration in time to uphold each species and race.

Unity of ONE is to see how all this begun.
Separation fades away, and ONE to NONE returns to stay.

- See more at: http://www.beyondpoetry.com/#sthash.qmCnRlp1.dpuf

Play of Duality!

Once upon a time, there was NONE,
Spontaneously giving rise to ONE.

Out of which TWO was born,
When ONE in pieces was torn.

The play of duality began,
When two or more onto the stage ran.

The play set upon the backdrop of space,
Given duration in time to uphold each species and race.

Unity of ONE is to see how all this begun.
Separation fades away, and ONE to NONE returns to stay.

- See more at: http://www.beyondpoetry.com/#sthash.qmCnRlp1.dpuf

Ajahn Chah - non-self

Once
you
understand
non-self,
then
the
burden
of
life
is
gone.
You'll
be
at
peace
with
the
world.
When
we
see
beyond
self,
we
no
longer
cling
to
happiness
and
we
can
truly
be
happy.
Learn
to
let
go
without
struggle,
simply
let
go,
to
be
just
as
you
are.
no
holding
on,
no
attachment,
free.

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