Taking Refuge

Tonight I am taking refuge with Kilung Jigme Rinpoche. When I was first asked if I would be interested in doing so, I said I already had taken refuge. Meaning, I thought it was a one time event. Lo and behold, I can take refuge with any teacher I want a connection with. And wanting to become a student of Rinpoche, well, it just makes sense. Yet what does it mean?

Every morning we wake up and take refuge in something. The money we make, the things we have, the food or firewood or vehicle to get us to work, our charming good looks (for those of you that have them), charisma, sense of humor, or any other myriad of things. It also includes spiritual beliefs, be they dogmatic kinds or karmatic kinds. We all take refuge in something.

In taking refuge, we place our trust in the Three Jewels, which in Buddhism are the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. What does that mean? Well, taking refuge in the Buddha means that I take refuge in the Buddha as a role model. We all have the potential for enlightenment, and so it means we take refuge in that aspect of ourselves as well, utilizing the Budhha and many other human beings who have become enlightened as role models. Taking refuge in the dharma means taking refuge in the teachings that have explained not only that nature, that vibrant, full emptiness which is reality, it also means the techniques and methods of learning that reality, mostly through meditation. And because there are people who are oriented certain ways, there are many forms of teachings. The end result is the same, the techniques just vary. And third, we take refuge in the sangha, the like-minded community. There is a saying of the monk Thogme, "When friendship with someone causes the three poisons (ignorance, passion, and anger) to increase, and degrades the activities of listening, reflecting, and meditating, and destroys lovingkindness and compassion, to dissociate from bad friends is the practice of a Bodhisattva." The sangha is that group of friends that keep you practicing is the best way to say it.

They also have fun with you. When I asked what was involved, they said I needed to cut my hair. Right now I have a bit of it. Did cut mean "cut," or did "cut" mean shave bald? They had some rather good poker faces. Rinpoche has fairly short hair, and I could go with that. Yea, my wife likes it longer, and I like her to like the way I look. And it keeps my head warmer during these rainy cool months. They actually let me hang on that for a couple days before telling me they were teasing me.  

All told, it sounds like I learn to trust in myself and my fellow humans. I can't think of anything more worthwhile. There are no false hopes to throw myself on, no false messiahs, just myself. My enlightenment doesn't count on anyone other than myself. It's called a practice for a reason. If you do it, you get results. No one can do it for me, no one can discover me for me, they can only offer tools that have helped them and I can see if it works for me. Which again reflects back to the many varied teachings of Buddhism: they are a whole bunch of different tools if you will. Some tools will work for me, and not others.

So when I wake up every morning, and when you wake up, whay will we put our trust in?

The Impetus of Suffering

Today I am beleagured by news of shootings. A guman in Texas kills 12, a gunman in Florida kills a former co-worker. I have known for a while that this sort of news makes a great way to sharpen some Buddhist practices. It opens the heart if we allow it.

For phowa practitioners, it's an opportunity to practice. The same goes for those who practice tonglen, and those doing the Chernrezig ngondro. These circumstances allow us to see that the shooter is a victim of their own choices, and that beyond those they simply kill, there are a host of other victims. There are those that are injured. There are the families of those slain: the parents, the  children, the spouses, grandparents, and siblings. There are uninjured witnesses. And then the community at large that. Will they all react to this sort of irrational violence with compassion? Not likely. Some will move a step closer to the anger and confusion that has driven these two shooters to do what they did: make a poor choice.

It isn't exactly easy to allow oneself to enter into this kind of practicing. It is in my mind though, what learning compassion is all about. In days gone by, we might never have heard about either. But these days, with instant news acceess, we do. Are we as people any different than our predecessors? I sometimes think so. Not necessarily better, but we are different.And the fact that Buddhism as we vajrayana practitioners know it has slipped out of the Tibetan high lands to grace the West leads me to believe that there is definitely something changing. Maybe it is the Age of Aqaurius dawning. I'm not too inclined to think it's the 2012 end of the world. A lot of negativity has been functioning in this world for a long time. It seems the positive energies are beginning to emerge in definite grassroots ways.

And we can help, just by practicing.

A New Direction

I was fortunate enough to be there when Rinpoche arrived at his new home. I'm sure there is some auspiciousness in that, but frankly I was mostly imitating everyone else in waving a tanka. I'm rather ignorant of customs, to be sure!

What really excites me though is that this man no sooner hit the ground then he jumped into the retreat we had, and then boogied off for more teachings across the country.  Now, I jumped over myself there. During the retreat, it was announced that the Rinpoche wanted to develop a new way of fund raising. This guy is responsible for a village in Tibet, where he still holds some kind of council seat, the monastic college and temple there, and most likely several other things. Which has required that he spend some his time raising the money for these responsibilities. 

Well, he wants to change that. He wants to figure out a new way to raise money so he can be more accessible to his students. New direction! What that means is his change can mean a change for all of us who are connected to him. Already, right here in Langley, not a mile from my house, he'll be teaching to the general public about meditation. I've never been taught from a teacher about that. Everything I know came from a book. Yes, watching your breathe as you sit and not think doesn't require rocket science to figure out. But there are other ways to meditate apparently. Then later this month there are three sangha meetings where we will all gather and figure out how to make this new direction flow smoothly and still meet the needs of fund raising and student accessibility. 

Is it any wonder I am feeling this desire to plug in? To have a living teacher, a Rinpoche no less, living 6 miles away? This could definitely mean new directions for my life as well as my practice.

Phowa Retreat

Here's the gang. Lene and Preben, Rinpoche students from Denmark. Micheal is from Maryland. Lucille is a woman from Canada. Diane from Oregon, a couple of Seattlites, Tracy and Gwen, Therese from the peninsula, and Barb from Bainbridge, and the rest from Langley, except for Rinpoche, new to Clinton, and his assistant Rigdzin Chodron.

I was thoroughly blessed having spent 8 days getting to know these people. We spent a lot of time together, and some are neighbors, like Bruce, the man standing on the right. I see him at Island Coffee House almost every weekend. He and I hung prayer flags and erected flag poles on the new property.  I see Mully walking around town, and Shanti, and Lynn on occasion. And I will run into others at various teachings.

So what did I walk away with? Well, a much clearer understanding of what phowa practice is. It's a term one can Google, so I won't define it here. I'll say that it's a great practice for eliminating negativities, and for transferring the consciousness into Dewachen at the time of death. The reason I pursued going was because the amount of deaths around me for the last 2 years. And I crossed paths with the Great Liberation Upon Hearing, otherwise known as the Tibetan Book Of The Dead. So it seemed a fit. Of course, I learned far more than I expected.

Our day began at 8:30, doing a morning fire, as depicted in the photo. The first two days we got 5 inches of rain, so that happened under the gazebo behind the retreat house. The offering ceremony was then followed up by the first group practice session, which sometimes included a couple of questions. The first session was followed by a tea break, then session number two, and then lunch. Lunch was followed by personal interviews with Rinpoche, and extended practice time as individuals. That's where the tents came in. Those are our little temples as it were. I got a chuckle the first time we retreated to our temples. Phowa can be a vocal practice. And not all people vocalize the same...so out in this field were at least 6 different tents, and some folk just parked in the grass. Or their cars. So the sounds of these different vocalizings drifted across the field at various times. After a couple days though, with the realization of the connections to consciousness and Amitabha that were occurring, I was more pleased than humored.

At 4:30 then we would assemble for group session number 2, and a little twist was added. Rinpoche picked a name from the basket, and that person was the chant leader for the session. What?! I get to lead?! Ha! You'll have a hard time finding the microphone I ever shied away from. However, it would have been a whole lot more frightening had we been required to do the melody or Tibetan versions. Rinpoche led the Tibetan version in the melody, and we then led the English version in simple reading. Everyone jumps in then. But I like doing that sort of thing. The verses can be rather lyric, and pregnant with meaning, such as, "In the Pure Land of Dharmadhatu, free from elaboration...." Free from elaboration? I emphasized that. I love it. Or a few lines later, "...compassionate, without partiality, like the sky...." Wow! My mind was exploding with pictures of pristine days and thunderous storms, all of which happen in the sky, the blue sky mind with no end, and holding that without partiality. No judgment on the storms that happen, or the beautifual days. Just the realization that it will all change until we reach the all-knowing place where it doesn't matter anymore. And this line, "May all achieve the throne of the Dharmakaya realm." Is that not a picture worth a thousand words?

Then we had dinner at 6, followed by an evening group session. All told, roughly 8 to 9 hours of practice a day. The first night was the intro and teaching of the practice, and the last day was ended with a transmission, but the 6 in-between were as I described.

So there's the shell of what I existed in during this retreat. So consider learning a practice that is useful for dispelling negativities. Care to guess what might pop up? Mmmm, yea. Which is fine. It's what we do to learn ourselves. It further reinforced the idea that in being compassionate to all sentient beings means I am compassionate to myself as well. So along the way I kept a few notes. I have discarded the notion that I need to capture every word. I look for those moments that resonate, and capture those. Others occur spontaneously anyway. Ideas for poems popped up, and onto the paper they went. Things to research more on, books Rinpoche might have mentioned, or new lingo in the text that I wanted more detail on. And this iwas new lingo. I was in new waters here. Rinpoche is a Nyingma man, I'm a Kagyu man, and so the lineage was new, and some of the terminology, the mandalas, and so forth. So I'd sit and write at times, but mostly it was practicing, and boy howdy, there is a bit to practice.

Most Vajrayana teaching seem to involve visualizations, and this one was no different. It is rather detailed actually, and really the intent was to develop connection to Amitabha. So Rinpoche stated that 8 days wasn't really enough time to learn it all, but a very good starting place. He said we wouldn't be pros at this any time soon. But practice makes for increased skill. This is just the first level so....Just the first level!? Wow. My mind is sometimes in awe of how rich and deep the mind is, and that Buddhism has evolved to reflect that. I se that reflected in the practices, and the shrines, and the multitudes of colors and sounds and scents and movements and texts that all are meant to reach out to people who respond to sounds and smells and sights and touch. So practice, practice, practice!

Rinpoche did say that this practice could be done for others, even in emergency situations. Say like, a car accident. It takes a while to learn to distill all the actions down, and get tit to a point where one can effectively brfing up the visualizations, effectively involve another consciousness, and do it all in a moment. So guess what he suggested? Pracxtice, practice, practice......


Which I discovered is quite well suited to the "news." For example. Sunday night, rolling home after the day. For a reality check I turn on the radio, and I learn a college football player, meaning young, just after a game, was stabbed to death. Apparently stabbed the day before, and had just died. Whoa! Sounds like a candidate for bardo practices to me, so I launched in. His name also went onto our group prayer list which each chant leader read before every group session. There was also an accident on the Olympic peninsula where a grandma and grandson were killed and the couple they hit seriously injured. Oh man. Suffering reverberating all over the place in these stories. And then yesterday I learned that a former co-worker has been in a motorcycle accident and is in critical condition. So the "news" is a great prompter for opening the heart and mind. One of our retreatants is a death mid-wife, and I was very impressed by the work she does, and the opportunities for utilizing this practice.

Otherwise, it can be used to deal with negativities. And they do happen don't they? Judgmental attitudes, well, what are the ten unvirtuous actions? Killing, lying, sexaul misconduct, stealing, divisive speech, gossip, slander, coveting, wrong views, and malice. Consider the political arena for some of these. I'm guilty. And what flows from these non virtues? Attachemnts, ego, and all the rest of the layers in which we bury ourselves. Part of the visualization involves a damaru and a knife. The damaru is a drum which awakens the mind to bodhichitta, and the knife symbolizes cutting off these negative aspects. All with compassion. Hug yourself everyone!

Anyway, I'll wrap this post up here. If any one has questions, shoo them along, and I'll answer to the best of my ability.

Om Ah Hung!

Off To See The Wizard!

Well, I committed myself to this post by referring to it over on Word Wright so I guess I should finish this.

I'm going on a phowa retreat. Phowa is a ngondro practice, where one learns to "instantly eject negativity," and according to Wikipedia and The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen, to cast off the consciousness at death into a Buddha-land of one's choosing. So dare I call learning this sort of practice fun? Intense yes, it likely won't be "fun."

Apparently this is the first time in six years that Kilung Jigme Rinpoche has done this retreat. I feel rather honored actually, as people are coming from over seas to learn this practice. My "interest" as it were, is that I have in the last several years been with dying people, and I have been reading The Great Liberation Upon Hearing, commonly referred to as the Tibetan Book Of The Dead. For some reason this teaching resonates with me. And believe me, I want to be ready when death comes to me.

I have been blessed to help prepare the retreat site, since it's right here on Whidbey Island where Rinpoche now lives. I helped move the Rinpoche and his assistant into their new home, and then prepare the place for the retreat to some extent. And it starts later today! It's different than I expected. For one thing, I have to bring a tent. So "in tents" is also an appropriate description...ha ha. Anyway, there are three sessions a day, for a total of 9.5 hours. Gulp.

I'm used to my 1 hour a day practice. So I get the idea that the tent will be my temple of sorts. The Rinpoche will give us some teaching, and then we will practice it. My guess is 3 hours of teaching a day, 6.5 of practicing it. For 8 days. Wow. This will definitely alter my life, and in that perspective, will be quite exciting. Cast off negativity instantly?! Right freakin on! Transfer the consciousness?! Yeah! Help others in their most important time? You bet!

So for the next week I will be incommunicado. I'll come home every night, but the first session is at 8:30 AM and the last ends at 9:30 PM. So home by 10, into bed, up for my morning practice, and then back to the retreat. I have goosey bumps just thinking about it.

The Stream Of Being

"To this meditator who arises in unceasing play,
may I realize the inseparability between samsara and nirvana."

There is movement in a meditative state. The preceding verse of the Supplication To The Takpo Kagyu mentions "resting" without altering what is, and then in this verse speaks of arising. There is a movement, and I like the picture of the stream of being.

Meditation wasn't meant to be a static function. What we accomplish there in our sit is supposed to go with us when we arise. Our thoughts, or no thoughts, should flow like a stream, not becoming fixed on any thing. Part of that stream is realizing that both samsara and nirvana exist in the mind. I have read in one place that some say that nirvana and samsara are the same, one just being the virtuous example. I suppose that's moot. What matters is that we attain a flexibility and that our meditative state not be fixed to the cushion.

The play will be unceasing, it is the nature of the stream. What shape it takes, whether samsara or nirvana, evil or virtue, is entirely up to us.

Everything From "Nothing"

"The essence of thought is dharmakaya, as is taught,
nothing whatever, but everything arises from it."

So states the Supplication to the Takpo Kagyu. A nice concise little statement that to the untrained ear sounds a lot like mumbo-jumbo you don't want to wrap your hear around. But a funny thing happens when you say this Supplication every day. You start to understand it.

My first question always was, what the hell is dharmakaya? As it turns out though, the question is answered by the verse itself, in a poetic form actually where the second statement restates the first. The essence of thought is nothing whatever.

Oh really? "Why, yes," the yogin replies. Really.

The essence of your thoughts, and in fact, their existence is actually nothing. If I asked you to show me the thought you had Thursday last, at 9:00 AM, I am willing to bet you couldn't do it. As a matter of fact, I bet you couldn't tell me where it is right now. Where did that thought go? Where in your body do your thoughts come from? Where do they go? Where does memory reside? All of these questions have answers today that are constantly changing as we continue to learn about the human existence we share. It seems that cells themselves store memories. Which is far different than just thinking it's a region of our brain that does that. And even knowing precisely where it is, still does not allow one to actually show me that thought as anything concrete. It's essential nature is emptiness, but obviously not in the void understanding. Well, maybe not all the time.

The idea for the keyboard I utilize at this moment didn't exist 60 years or so ago. Back during WW2, the Turing Machine was the first computer. Input was done by making binary code marks on tape in one form or another, and the machine read the instructions and complied. Then somebody got the idea, "Hey, let's figure out a way to marry the Machine with a Royal Typewriter, and skip the whole tape thing." I think it was one of the Guiness Brothers. The other shouted out, "Brilliant," and raised his glass.

And so, seventy years later, we can sit at this amalgamation of plastic and steel, maybe some gold and silver, and type out the letters, numbers, punctuations we want, and they instantly appear all housed in a box just bigger than a notebook. All that power in computing and shrinking from a thought that has no solidity to it at all.

Nothing whatever, but from it arises all things.

So what is dharmakaya? Well, that essential nature which is the nature of everything. By extension then, I share in the energy put into making this keyboard. The oil may have come from Venezuela to make the plastic. So imagine all the energies of all those Venezuelans to make the barrel of oil that was shipped somewhere by other people to a place where it was converted by still more people to plastic, then shipped to some other place to be heated and pressed into the shapes we tap on, and then paint, a whole new set of people, added to the tops of metal posts, yet another group of people who mine the ore and smelt, ship, shape, cut, and then the people who make the machines who make the plastic, paint, oil, boats, trucks; those people living and dead, all those energies are following that keyboard.

Amazing isn't it?

And if I took out all the empty space of all the atoms that make up the cells that make up the keyboard, it's total mass might not even be visible. The essential nature of all things is emptiness. The same goes for you and I. Our nature is perhaps best reflected by the essence of our thoughts. What a mirror that is at times, huh?

What do you want to see arise from you?