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?

I DID WHAT?!

Not only did I do it, it was witnessed. I'm in a heap of trouble now. So what did I do that was so alarming, so incredibly horrible?

I welcomed sentient beings into my life.

Whoa!

Listen up folks. Many of us like to recite the Bodhisattva Vow from the Bodhicaryavatara. It really is quite a vow. The first several paragraphs are repeated three times. "Just as the earth, and the other elements, together with space...." Huh? Space...? "Eternally provide sustenance in many ways for countless sentient beings...to the limits of space...." Limits of space!? There are no limits to space that we know of!

That's a whopping lot of beings, some we can't even see!

And then we get to identify with the sugatas of old, the sages that went before. "Just as the sugatas of old...."Oh yes, that's good company. We get to number ourselves among the Guatamas, Tilopas, Naropas, Milarepas, Gampopas, and other great masters of Buddhism, who after all were humans just like us. Folk like them were the ones that wrote these vows after all. That's an ego stroker if ever there was one.

And the goal? To awaken bodhichitta. Yessiree, that great and wonderful enlightened mind, which is what "bodhichitta" means. It's likened to the moon and sun, dispelling the obstructions of our minds, and the kleshas, the shit that resides there. It's like medicine that cures the worlds sickness, it relieves the world's poverty, it provides rest, satisfaction like food, and bliss. And, it conquers death.

Holy dharma Batman! It conquers death?! Potent stuff this enlightened mind, and here I am sitting on my comfy little zazen bench, altar in front of me, with offerings and candles, and assorted statuary and posters and the like, being all Buddhist like and doing my practice which will create for me enlightenment. How cool is that?

A little while later you're downtown, needing to buy some eggs. Here comes a local who lives in the subsidized housing. He always stinks like he smokes 24/7 and doesn't shower, he buys cheap liquor, and goes on his way.

Quick, what's his name?

Or how about the incredibly obese woman, who pulls up in her little scooter because walking would kill her. She goes into the store and buys more shit to make her even heavier, and pays for it with food stamps which your tax money provide for her. She smells too.

Quick, what's her name?

Then we remember the last paragraph of the Bodhisattva vow: "Today, witnessed by all the protectors, I have welcomed sentient beings and sugatas.

Really? Did we?

Oh, we love the sugatas. Being around the teacher is a good thing no doubt, and welcoming him is good karma. And of course, welcoming the pretty ladies and gentlemen, or well off sentient beings that populate the area is worthwhile. I can chat with the Mayor, I'm known by the Fire Chief, I can talk with the police, the coffee shop owners, maybe even a local celebrity writer.

All of that means jack squat if I can't welcome the stinky guy and fat lady as well, and she isn't singing. She might be crying because like most others, we avoid her. We go the other way, we don't lend a helping hand, we don't make eye contact let alone say hello. We don't know their names.

But to welcome sentient beings, to actually have the temerity to say that I vow to be a source of sustenance for sentient beings to the limit of space, well, that includes this smelly guy and the overweight woman. Beings for whom I know nothing about their story, but judge incredibly on the basis of how the cover looks.

Yes, I went and did it. I welcomed sentient beings, right in front of all these protectors, to come and utilize me as a source of sustenance. And here they come.

So what to do when I find that I'm not really allowing myself to be a source of sustenance for all sentient beings? That's the $64,000 question isn't it? How about we make eye contact with them next time we see them, and say hello? Especially if they are locals. Find out what their names are. Next time we see them, maybe use that name. For me that's more appropriate. I'm an emergency responder. So knowing people just makes sense, because I will be there for all kinds of people on their worst day.

If our practice is going to be valid, we need to welcome these sentient beings as well as the ones that stroke our ego. Maybe more so in fact. because there we will find what the true essence of bodhichitta really is.

Then I can say, "Yes I did that."

Further Thought On The Being Of Meditation

I looked at an earlier post, and noticed I had referenced my political blog, which is of late rather dormant. Having changed consciousness, I can no longer indulge myself in the ramblings of my ego, and the expense of others, no matter how easy they make it to do so.

To the Being: I noticed this morning that the being of meditation, as I refer to it, has four distinct aspects. The head, the foot, the body, and the essence. For the first time I realized that the essence is what makes the being alive. And that what separates the foot and head is awareness. What I mean by that is that metaphorically, we can get stuck in doing, which is what the feet represent, or thinking, what the head represents. We can also go overboard on what they are in the verse themselves, the renunciations and/or devotion, which as an expression of ego becomes false humility. Aestheticism has been used as an escape device by many for centuries, if not millenia.

It's the body, awareness, that brings it all together for the foot and head. That daily awareness, that nowness of every moment in all it's mundaneness, it's ordinariness. Nothing seemingly sacred, or WOW! about it. It's just the moment by moment of living with the dish washing, folding laundry, buying groceries, going to work, and doing that work. For example, last night I was in class at Officer Academy. A former district volunteer has re-joined, and he was a former Lieutenant, which is what I am testing for. Technically, he's been in the district much longer, has the officer experience, and so for the most part stands a much better chance of being the next Lieutenant at our station than I do. So I caught myself thinking about the future I cannot predict as if it were a done deal already. The other guy might be trying for captain. He might move. He might a lot of things, and so might I. What I want you to see though, is that this mental predicting and calculating I was doing was brining me down, bumming me out. My emotional state was responding to my mental structures. I felt like this class was a colossal waste of time. All based on speculations of my mind. I wasn't being now, and I knew that it would affect my ability to learn the night's mundane lesson. Being now is my inner purpose, and will reveal my outer purpose, which may not involve the fire district at all. Honestly, it's a bit hard to wrap my head around that thought. My ego doesn't like that notion.

A paradox: this form world we refer to as reality, is quite empty. Not just if we hang our identity on it in what ever shape: a political identification, a religious identification, an identification around an illness, or a hobby, or a vocation. Take me for example. I could say I am a carpenter, a father, a husband, a firefighter/EMT, an event organizer, a writer, a Buddhist, a liberal, and drummer. All of that is nonsense if that is what we think makes us what we are. Another aspect that nature teaches us about reality reinforces this. Look into space tonight. What do you see? Lots and lots of stars. So many we say they outnumber the grains of sand, too many to count, whatever. And then visit the Hubble telescope web site and find out how many more thousands of galaxies have been discovered in the tiniest spots of space by focusing on one little area for 10 days. More stars! More galaxies! But wait a moment. What are those stars existing in, which is so much more vast than the number of stars? That's right: empty space. And what do all the little sub-atomic parts exist in that make up the atoms that make up the molecules that make up the cells that make up the organs that make up the you and me of this world? That's right.

Empty space.

If you removed the empty space from the uncountable atoms that make up our physical reality, we would be incredibly small. Most of this form reality, this physical world we live in, is empty space. And we focus a lot of attention on this physical world, which is the only reality that succumbs to degradation.

So we have a meditation body, complete, and the essence of it all, that life giving force is, well, something I really have yet to figure out. I do know, that it resides in the mind. The consciousness, that luminous reality beyond form. I like the phrase, "...the inseparability of samsara and nirvana."

Say wha? That's right. They are inseparable because they both occur in the same place: our consciousness, or mind. If we remove the obscurations from our mind, we have nirvana. We move from the state of obscuration, samsara, to nirvana. A journey of a thousand lifetimes and we may never take a step out of the home town! Realizing this in itself will be the first step in that journey. And one result of that journey will be significant changes in the physical reality of our lives. Some of this truth is explained in the movies The Secret and What The Bleep Do We Know?

To conclude, being all monkish, and aesthetic, or "humble," are not what we are after. Those become religious, or spiritual identifications, and egoic expressions. Without that ordinary dayness, that body of awareness in the mundane, brings the head and foot together, and adding that essence which sees the emptiness, metaphorically and literally, in the form reality, will bring your meditation being into a higher state.

Five Poisons Self-Liberated

Part of my daily practice involves certain supplications, which I tend to say out loud. Then when my session for the day draws to a close, I speed read through several pages of stuff that are not incorporated in my practice as of yet. However, they provide a wealth of instruction that over time and constant repetition, are making clear their wisdom. Such it is with the Five Poisons Self- Liberated by Dza Paltrul Rinpoche.

Let me first explain what they are, these five poisons, and then some aspects about them I have observed.
The five poisons are anger, pride, desire, jealousy, and stupidity. All of these poisons are self arisen, which makes me personally responsible for their existence, and being self-liberated, responsible for their non-existence as well. Which is my first observation. The ball is in my court with these five poisons.
Each of these five poisons, these five nouns, have a modifier that goes with it. The modifier accompanying anger is chase. "Do not chase after the object of your anger," the verse states. Note that it doesn't say chasing after anger, but the object of your anger. Be very clear on that.
The modifier accompanying pride is cling. "Do not cling to the object of your pride." Again, note the presence of the object.
The modifier accompanying desire is attach. Not being a student of the Tibetan language, the difference between the two in English is that attach means to join together, to fasten. Cling means to adhere closely to.
The modifier obsess attends to the noun jealousy. Again with the object. Again, we don't look at the object.
And the modifier mistaken escorts the noun stupidity. Once again....

I will comment on three of these poisons for now. Mainly because I have experienced the poisons profoundly throughout my life.
The first one is the anger. I need to look at the angry mind. So when my anger pops up, this is my flag. I can stop, and look at my angry mind. I can identify the object, and realize chasing it is futile. The object is not the problem. Anger is actually clarity-emptiness by nature, or, mirror-like wisdom. In other words, anger is really a polluted version of mirror-like wisdom. And what does a mirror do? See, now you're getting it. It reflects you, doesn't it? And specifically in this case, a part of you you need to see, not just for what we chase, but the wisdom we actually contain, the clarity that is there in us. It takes a bit of practice with this, and the willingness to be humble. Once my mind begins to unravel these delusions that are polluted forms of virtues, or I get glimpses of them, I recite the six syllable mantra, which is OM MA/NI PAD/ME HUM. This will be the antidotal mantra for all the poisons.

The second one is jealousy. The verse calls jealousy the "examining mind." I don't quite get that, I admit. Jealousy as I understand it is a resentment against someone because of their advantage, possessions, and so forth. The thing that makes me understand this is that the examining mind is nothing other than all accomplishing wisdom. All accomplishing? In other words, the nature to accomplish what someone else has accomplished resides in me. The question then is, is that what I really want to accomplish? The capability to accomplish is already within me. The road block is the polluted virtue of jealousy.

The third one is stupidity. Many people might feel this one, especially if they never went on to educational levels beyond high school. "Don't be mistaken about the object of your stupidity." Higher education won't necessarily make you smarter. I have in fact met doctorates that were alcoholics. Their education was doing nothing for them. So, stupidity. Look at the thoughts! Thoughts are awareness-emptiness by nature. Ah, the beginning of intelligence: awareness. If you ever end up in a circle of those who pride themselves on their intelligence and levels of education, you'll notice that they use a vocabulary you don't. But how tough is it to learn words? Not tough at all. Do you want to learn that vocabulary is the question. And, awareness often shows up how people utilize words as something to hide behind, and awareness can cut through that rather easily. So when it comes to discussing issues and the like, it isn't always necessary to know the Ph.D level vocabulary to discuss it. It is far better to be aware of the real nature of the issue, and being able to present it. Thoughts are self-arisen, and self-liberated. Go educate yourself.

That's three of them, and my ruminations about them. As I read over these verses, I finish with an OM MANI PADME HUM, and the constant re-reading of them usually uncovers something new. If you can't find them in Google search, let me know and I'll post them here.