Mahamudra Retreat Notes

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Notes for the 2015 8-week Retreat on Mahamudr
Prayers and Mantra
REFUGE
NAMO LA MA DE SHEG DÜ PAI K
NAMO In the lama who is the embodiment of
KÖN CHOG SUM GYI RANG ZHIN L
the Sugatas, of the nature of the Three Jewels
DAG DANG DRO DRUG SEM CHEN NA
I, together with the beings of the six realms
CHANG CHUB BAR DU KYAB SU CH
take refuge until our enlightenment.
(Repeat three times
BODHICITT
SEM KYED DRO WA KÜN DÖN T
For the sake of all beings, I generate the spirit of awakening an
LA MA SANGYE DRUB NEI N
Cultivate the realization of the lama as Buddha
GANG LA GANG DÜL TRIN LEI KY
By means of enlightened activity I shall train each being according to their
needs
DRO WA DRÖL WAR DAM CHA
And I vow to liberate the world. (Repeat three times
The Seven Line Prayer and Mantra
HUNG ORGYEN YUL GYI NUP JANG TSA
HUNG In the northwest frontier of Oddiyana,
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PEMA GE SAR DONG PO L
In the heart of a lotu
YAM TSEN CHOG GI NGÖ DRUP NYEY
Sits the one renowned as Padmasambhava,
PEMA JUNG NEY ZHEY SU DRAK
Who achieved the wondrous supreme siddhi,
KHOR DU KHAN DRO MANG PÖ KOR
And is surrounded by a host of many dakinis.
KYED KYI JE SU DAK DRUP KY
Following in your footsteps, I devote myself to practice.
JIN GYI LAP CHIR SHEK SU SÖL
Please come forth and bestow your blessings.
GURU PEMA SIDDHI HUNG
Guru Rinpoche Mantras (class 13 explains
OM ĀḤ HŪṂ VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HŪṂ
OṂ ĀḤ HŪṂ VAJRA GURU PADMA TÖTRENG TSÄL VAJRA
SAMAYAJAḤ SIDDHI PHALA HŪṂ
Excerpt from The Foolish Dharma of an Idiot Clothed in Mud and Feathers, by Düdjom
Lingpa, translated by B. Alan Wallac
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In my opinion, if you don’t submit your own snout to the hook and rope of selfcenteredness, [463] but rather aspire for the hereafter by thinking of de nitely reaping a
harvest for all future lives, free of deception, then if you don’t do something meaningful
in this present, precious human rebirth with its leisure and opportunity, it will be dif cult
to obtain such an opportunity repeatedly in the future. This occasion—of circumstances
aligning and nding freedom—is no more than a dream, so if you pointlessly squander it,
when you lose such freedom what will you do? Carefully re ect on this and know your
own situation for yourself. This is the rst point
On this occasion when you have such a bounty of opportunities in terms of your body,
environment, friends, spiritual mentors, time, and practical instructions, without
procrastinating until tomorrow and the next day, arouse a sense of urgency, as if a spark
landed on your body or a grain of sand fell in your eye. If you have not swiftly applied
yourself to practice, examine the births and deaths of other beings and re ect again and
again on the unpredictability of your lifespan and the time of your death, and on the
uncertainty of your own situation. Meditate on this until you have de nitively integrated
it with your mind. This is the second point.1
Now on the delusive, vast, illusory plain of emanations and transformations, reckless
lunatics ride [464] the blind, wild steed of spiritual sloth, and, lacking the reins to control
it, they lash it again and again with the whip of negligence. Thus, although there was a
time when they could have sown a perennial harvest for all their lifetimes, from this life
onward they are relentlessly impaled on the sharp spokes of the wheel of saṃsāra and the
miserable states of existence. Fierce karmic energies bind them, they have nowhere to
escape, and they are cast from one life to another. When that time comes [for you], you
will have no freedom. Rather than wondering whether there is anyone who can protect
you when you arrive in such a great re pit of suffering, put off human pretense and the
pursuit of this life’s affairs. This is the third point
These [three points] are the eld of sublime Dharma, the exhortation to achieve
liberation, and the sole guide, guardian, and spiritual mentor to turn you away from the
paths that descend into the dungeon of suffering of saṃsāra and the miserable states of
existence. The spirit of emergence and spiritual zeal of those who lack these three points
are like dew in the summertime
Having established those teachings as your foundation, with constant devotion
offer prayers of supplication to your guru. Outwardly, imagine your guru on the crown of
your head. Inwardly, visualize your own body as the guru. Secretly, again and again
transfer your own vital energies, mind, and consciousness, and nondually merge them
with the nonconceptual primordial consciousness of your guru’s mind. This is the rst
point
With devotion and affection, visualize your companions as being of the nature of
vīras and ḍākinīs, and see the ne qualities of your guru and Dharma siblings rather than
looking at their faults. This is the second point
In this limitless realm of saṃsāra, [466] among all sentient beings, who are tormented
and bound by unbearable suffering, there is not even one who has not been your father or
mother. In other times, like your present father and mother, they cared for you with food
and comfortable clothing and bene ted you in countless ways. Having protected you
from immeasurable fears and miseries, they have all been enormously kind. What they all
desire is happiness, but in terms of their behavior, these poor fools engage in the causes
and sow the seeds of suffering. Feeling compassion for each one, constantly re ect on
this until heartfelt compassion causes tears to ow from your eyes and your mindstream
is subdued. Beyond that, make the resolution, “I shall bring them to the state of
omniscient, unsurpassed, authentic, perfect buddhahood,” and apply yourself to the
practice of the sublime, profound Dharma. Whatever Dharma you perform, dedicate it to
all sentient beings, with no partiality toward those near or far. This is the third point
These three are the essential nature of all Dharmas, the root of all Dharmas, the
source of all Dharmas, and the eyes and limbs of all Dharmas. Without them, whatever
Dharma you perform will be like a corpse with no head or limbs
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Shantideva (III: 11) “As a result of surrendering everything, there is nirvāṇa, [and] my
mind seeks nirvāṇa. Surrendering everything at once--this is the greatest gift to
sentient beings.”
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William James (1842–1910): Where preferences are powerless to modify or
produce things, faith is totally inappropriate, he wrote, but for the class of truths
that depend on personal preference, trust, or loyalty for actualization, “faith is not
only licit and pertinent, but essential and indispensable. [Such] truths cannot
become true till our faith has made them so.”3
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William James: “In what manner do we espouse and hold fast to visions? By
thinking a conception might be true somewhere, it may be true even here and
now; it is t to be true and it ought to be true; it must be true; it shall be true for
me.”4
At the Western Dharma Teachers Conference in Dharmsala, His Holiness the
Dalai Lama categorically stated that the only quali cation of a Buddhist teacher
that matters is the bene t to the students, their development of realization, and
their personal transformation. He said that all titles, certi cates, lineages, and
presumed attainments were irrelevant if the teacher’s students did not progress. If
on top of that the teachers behaved badly, treated their students harshly, etc., the
students should make such conduct publicly known
“Religion is the opium of the people.
o Karl Marx: “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the
expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is
the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the
soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of
religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real
happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition
is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The
criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of
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A Pluralistic Universe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), 48.
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William James, The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Psychology (New
York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1898), 96.
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William Kingdon Clifford, Lectures and Essays, ed. Leslie Stephen and Frederick
Pollack, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1879), 2:183.
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English mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879)
expressed the ideal of many scientists when he wrote, “It is wrong always,
everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insuf cient evidence.”2
Gestalt Therapy Verbatim by Frederick S. Perls: “As Albert Einstein once said to
me: “Two things are in nite: the universe and human stupidity.” But what is much
more widespread than the actual stupidity is the playing stupid, turning off your
ear, not listening, not seeing.
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tears of which religion is the halo.”5
o Is śamatha the opium of the contemplatives
“Materialism is the datura of the intelligensia.
o Arthur K. Shapiro: “A placebo is de ned as any therapeutic procedure . . .
[that is] objectively without speci c activity for the condition being
treated. . . . The placebo effect is de ned as the changes produced by a
placebo.”6
o Daniel Dennett: “With consciousness...we are still in a terrible muddle.
Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the
most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused.”7
o John Searle: “In spite of our modern arrogance about how much we know,
in spite of the assurance and universality of our science, where the mind is
concerned we are characteristically confused and in disagreement.”8
o Sigmund Freud: “The problem of a world constitution that takes no
account of the mental apparatus by which we perceive it is an empty
abstraction, of no practical interest…No, our science is not an illusion.
What would be an illusion would be to think that we might obtain
elsewhere that which science cannot give us.”9
o Sigmund Freud: “I nd another advantage of religious doctrine in one of
its peculiarities, to which you seem to take particular exception. It admits
of an ideatiorial re nement and sublimation, by which it can be divested
of most of those traces of a primitive and infantile way of thinking which
it bears. What is then left is a body of ideas which science no longer
contradicts and which it cannot disprove. These modi cations of religious
doctrine, which you have condemned as half-measures and compromises,
make it possible to bridge the gap between the uneducated masses and the
philosophical thinker, and to preserve that common bond between them
which is so important for the protection of culture.”10
o Buddha: “Monks, just as the wise accept gold after testing it by heating,
cutting, and rubbing it, so are my words to be accepted after examining
Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Written:
December 1843-January 1844; First published: in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher,
7 & 10 February 1844 in Paris.
6 Arthur
K. Shapiro, “Etiological Factors in Placebo Effect,” JAMA 187, no. 10 (1964):
712–14.
7
Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown and Co (1991),
21-22.
8
John R. Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994), 247.
9
The Future of an Illusion, in Mass Psychology and Other Writings (Penguin, 1927/
2004).
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The Future of an Illusion
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them, but not out of respect for me.
o Dalai Lama: “A general basic stance of Buddhism is that it is inappropriate
to hold a view that is logically inconsistent. This is taboo. But even more
taboo than holding a view that is logically inconsistent is holding a view
that goes against direct experience.
o William James: “Evidently, then, the science and the religion are both of
them genuine keys for unlocking the world’s treasure-house to him who
can use either of them practically. Just as evidently neither is exhaustive or
conclusive of the other’s simultaneous use. On this view religion and
science, each veri ed in its own way from hour to hour and from life to
life, would be coeternal.11
o Max Planck: “Religion and natural science are ghting a joint battle in an
incessant, never relaxing crusade against skepticism and against
dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition... [and therefore] ‘On to
God!’”12
Buddha: “In the seen there is only the seen; in the heard, there is only the heard;
in the sensed, there is only the sensed; in the cognized, there is only the cognized.
Thus you should see that indeed there is no thing here; this Bāhiya, is how you
should train yourself. Since, Bāhiya, there is for you in the seen, only the seen, in
the heard, only the heard, in the sensed, only the sensed, in the cognized, only the
cognized, and you see that there is no thing here, you will therefore see that
indeed there is no thing there. As you see that there is no thing there, you will see
that you are therefore located neither in the world of this, nor in the world of that,
nor in any place between the two. This alone is the end of suffering.” Udāna I, 10
The Dhammapada: “The mind is the basis for everything. Everything is created
by my mind, and is ruled by my mind.
Ratnameghasūtra: “All phenomena are preceded by the mind. When the mind is
comprehended, all phenomena are comprehended. By bringing the mind under
control, all things are brought under control.
Excerpt from The Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra by Düdjom Lingp
Examine the body, speech, and mind, and among them recognize the one that is primary
as the all-creating sovereign
The shape and color of the all-creating sovereign
as well as its origin, location, and destination, are objectless openness
This is the spontaneous actualization of the essential nature of the path of cutting through
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Religion and Natural Science (1937). Originally entitled Religion und
Naturwissenschaft. Complete translation into English found in Max Planck: Scienti c
Autobiography and Other Papers, 1968.
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The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York: Penguin,
1902/1985), 122-3. The italics are mine.
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Simultaneous individuals enter the path with no basis and no root
Others should come to rest in space
and within three weeks they will certainly awaken and enter the path
Those of the class with inferior facultie
identify stillness and movement
and by taking the mind as the path, they are led to the absolute space of pristine
awareness
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Einstein: “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is
comprehensible.” from “Physics and Reality” (1936), in Ideas and Opinions,
trans. Sonja Bargmann (New York: Bonanza, 1954), 292
Stanford University cosmologist Andre Linde
o “The standard assumption is that consciousness, just like space-time
before the invention of general relativity, plays a secondary, subservient
role, being just a function of matter and a tool for the description of the
truly existing material world. But let us remember that our knowledge of
the world begins not with matter but with perceptions… We are
substituting the reality of our feelings by the successfully working theory
of an independently existing material world. And the theory is so
successful that we almost never think about its possible limitations.”13
o He then hypothesizes that consciousness, like space-time, might have its
own characteristics independent of matter, and that neglecting this will
lead to a description of the universe that is fundamentally incomplete and
misleading. “Is it possible,” he asks, “to introduce a ‘space of elements of
consciousness,’ and investigate a possibility that consciousness may exist
by itself, even in the absence of matter, just like gravitational waves,
excitations of space, may exist in the absence of protons and electrons?”14
He hypothesizes that with the further development of science, the study of
the universe and the study of consciousness will be found to be
inseparably linked, and that ultimate progress in the one will be impossible
without progress in the other
o “The universe becomes alive (time-dependent) only when one divides it
into two parts: an observer and the rest of the universe. Then the wave
function of the rest of the universe depends on the time measured by the
observer. In other words, evolution is possible only with respect to the
observer. Without an observer, the universe is dead.”15
13 Andrei
Linde, “In ation, Quantum Cosmology and the Anthropic Principle,” in
Science and Ultimate Reality: Quantum Theory, Cosmology and Complexity,
honoring John Wheeler’s 90th birthday, ed. John D. Barrow, Paul C. W. Davies, and
Charles L. Harper, Jr. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 450-451.
Ibid. 451.
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Linde, “Choose Your Own Universe” In Spiritual Information: 100 Perspectives
on Science and Religion, edited by Charles L. Harper, Jr., 137-141. West
Conshohocken, PA, 2005, p. 139.
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15 Andre
Georgia Tech physicist David Ritz Finkelstein16
o “An idol, in the language of Francis Bacon (1620),17 is a false absolute
resulting from rei cation. ‘Idols of the tribe’ are those common to a whole
community, such as those resulting from innate propensities to reify.
``Idols of the theater’’ are those erected within a particular theory. If my
usage differs from Bacon’s, it is because I regard idols as inevitable and
useful products of the same theory-making process that breaks them.
o “The Galilean compound space/time forms from the Aristotelian simple
time and simple space when time “swallows” space. That is, in Galilean
thought there is no space separate from time; we cannot recognize the
same place at a different time, and to speak of it has no meaning; but there
is still time within space-time, and still a unique space at each time, a
time-slice of the tree of history. Galileo has absolute time and absolute
space/time but no absolute space.… Such one-way coupling is a sure sign
of a compound and is circumstantial evidence that the unresponsive
partner in the coupling is what Francis Bacon (1620) called an idol, a false
absolute.
o “Galileo had shown that space was an invalid rei cation. Einstein’s
development showed that time was too. Aristotle’s two uncoupled
absolutes, space and time, had evolved through the compound space/time
of Galileo into the one symmetrically coupled absolute space-time of
Einstein.
o “In classical physics since Descartes… Physicists took for granted that
there was a special variable of the system called its state (of being,
implicitly), independent of the experimenter, and completely describing
the system… When an ideal experimenter determines the state, the state
couples to the experimenter, who learns something, but the experimenter
does not couple to the state, which is xed. Here the state is the absolute,
like the time of Galileo or the space-time of special relativity.
o “In quantum physics… Learning (something about the system) and doing
(something to the system) are no longer fantasized as fundamentally
different kinds of action. The act of determining a property is an
interaction between experimenter and system that now has signi cant
consequences for both… The idea of visualizing anything completely and
exactly, a goal of some mental practices, is renounced by Bohr and is alien
to quantum mechanics. Since illuminating the system disturbs it
unpredictably, completely visualizing anything ‘as it is’ is selfcontradictory. ‘As it is’ means without external intervention, in which
case the system is sitting alone in the dark, unperceived.
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Novum Organum. Translated and edited by P. Urbach and J. Gibson, Peru, Illinois:
Open Court Publishing Company, 1620/1994.
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17
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“Emptiness and Relativity” in Buddhism & Science: Breaking New Ground, edited by
B. Alan Wallace (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 365-386.
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De Motu, in Berkeley, George, and Jessop, T.E. The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop
of Cloyne. London: Thomas Nelson and Son Ltd., 1948–1957, 4:36–37
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o “When the question arose whether concepts like a variable matter-spacetime-law unity had been expressed in the Sanskrit or Tibetan Buddhist
literature, verses from Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka treatise The
Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way… can indeed be read as saying
that space, time, matter and causation are interactive, with no permanent
essence, and that this is inferred from the very fact that we perceive them.
Critical steps in the evolution of physics have required us both to break
prior idols and to form appropriate new ones. The Madhyamaka appears
to focus on the rst part of this process, the emptying of concepts, and not
on the formation of new idols…
o “Laplace and Einstein believed in the existence of an absolute law and
took it as the supreme goal of physics. But other Western scientists and
philosophers, including Newton, Mach and Whitehead, like some
Buddhist and Hindu philosophers, declared that there is no xed absolute
law of nature, and that it makes sense to speak of a varying law. Bohm’s
(1965) expression of this philosophy especially in uenced me. He views a
scienti c theory as a specialized extension of normal human discourse. A
theory is something that we tell one another. A nal all-inclusive theory is
as likely as a nal all-inclusive story.”
Dualism, subjective idealism, and materialis
o René Descartes (1596 – 1650) his Passions of the Soul and The
Description of the Human Body suggested that the body works like a
machine having material properties. The mind (or soul), on the other hand,
is nonmaterial and does not follow the laws of nature. This form of
dualism proposes that the mind controls the body, but that the body can
also in uence the otherwise rational mind, such as when people act out of
passion, but he was never able to provide a compelling explanation of how
the “ghost” of the mind and the “machine” of the body causally interact
o Anglo-Irish philosopher Bishop George Berkeley, a priest of the Church of
Ireland, (1685 – 1753) advanced a theory he called “immaterialism,” later
referred to as “subjective idealism.” He argued that forces and gravity, as
de ned by Newton, refer to nothing in any objective existing
independently from the mind, and that those who posited “something
unknown in a body of which they have no idea and which they call the
principle of motion, are in fact simply stating that the principle of motion
is unknown.” Therefore, those who “af rm that active force, action, and
the principle of motion are really in bodies are adopting an opinion not
based on experience.”18 Forces and gravity existed nowhere in the
phenomenal world. On the other hand, if they resided in the category of
‘soul’ or ‘incorporeal thing,’ they ‘do not properly belong to physics’ as a
matter. Berkeley thus concluded that forces lay beyond any kind of
20
John B. Watson, Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist (London: Frances
Pinter, 1983), 3.
21
John B. Watson, “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It,” Psych. Rev. XX (1913):
166.
22
John B. Watson, Behaviorism (New York: Norton & Co., 1913/1970)
23
Victor A. F. Lamme, “Towards a true neural stance on consciousness” TRENDS in
Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 10, no. 11, Nov. 2006, 494.
24
Daniel M. Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003),
341–42.
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Downing, Lisa. “Berkeley’s Case Against Realism About Dynamics.” In Robert G.
Muehlmann (ed.), Berkeley's Metaphysics: Structural, Interpretive, and Critical
Essays. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995
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empirical observation and could not be a part of proper science.19 He
proposed his theory of signs as a means to explain motion and matter
without reference to the ‘occult qualities’ of force and gravity.
o The American behaviorist John B. Watson (1878–1958) argued that
psychology must “bury subjective subject matter [and] introspective
method,”20 and that it must “never use the terms consciousness, mental
states, mind, content, introspectively veri able, imagery, and the like.”21
He further declared that mental processes in general and consciousness in
particular did not exist at all—precisely because they had no physical
attributes!22
o Dutch neuroscientist Victor A. F. Lamme: “We need to let go of our
intuitive or psychological notions of conscious experience and let the
neuroscience arguments have their way. Only by moving our notion of
mind towards that of brain can progress be made.”23
o Psychologist Daniel Wegner: “it seems to each of us that we have
conscious will. It seems we have selves. It seems we have minds. It seems
we are agents. It seems we cause what we do … it is sobering and
ultimately accurate to call all this an illusion.”24 This is because all human
actions are caused solely by neurobiological events operating according to
the laws of physics and chemistry
Idols, old and ne
o Exodus 32: 1 – 4: “When the people saw that Moses was so long in
coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said,
‘Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who
brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’
Aaron answered them, ‘Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your
sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.’ So all the
people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what
they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf,
fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who
brought you up out of Egypt.’”
o Bull worship was common in many ancient cultures. The Israelites took
their most valued possession, gold, and shaped it into a calf as a symbol of
the ultimate good and the source of their freedom. Likewise capitalists
today symbolize their ideal of the ultimate good and of freedom in front of
the New York Stock Exchange as a charging bull
o Much as Aristotle conceived of two idols, space and time, Descartes
conceived of two idols, mind and matter. Berkeley cast out the idol of
matter but retained the idol of mind; Watson cast out the idol of mind, but
retained the idol of matter. Whenever anything is rei ed, or turned into an
idol, it become impossible to cogently explain how it can causally interact
with anything else.
o Nāgārjuna cast out all idols, explaining that it is only because all
phenomena are empty of inherent existence that they can causal interact as
dependently related events (pratītyasamutpāda)
o Philosopher Patricia Churchland: “there is an appearance of a mind, or of
a self, but there is no such thing. There is an appearance of a at earth, but
it is no such thing.”25
o Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano: “How does the brain go
beyond processing information to become subjectively aware of
information? The answer is: It doesn’t… there is no subjective impression;
there is only information in a data-processing device.”26
o American philosopher, mathematician, and computer scientist Hilary
Putnam (1926 -) (who adopted Judaism in midlife after years as an atheist)
argues that our words and concepts so deeply in uence our experience of
what we call “reality,” that it is impossible for humans ever to observe or
represent the universe as it exists independent of our own conceptual
frameworks.27 However, once we have chosen a language and a
conceptual framework by which to make sense of the world, we can
discover facts about the world that are not simply gments of our
imagination or artifacts of our methods of observation. In other words, the
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Hilary Putnam, Realism with a Human Face, ed. James Conant (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1990), 28.
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27
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“Are We Really Conscious?” New York Times, Oct. 10, 2014.
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Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain
Science and Buddhism, ed. Zara Houshmand, Robert B. Livingston, and B. Alan
Wallace (Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 1999), 139.
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methods we choose to observe the world and the ideas we choose to make
our observations intelligible to us restrict what we can know about reality,
but they do not predetermine the answers to our questions. The world as
we experience and conceive of it is therefore a product of our perceptions
and thoughts, so we are like characters in a novel who are writing our own
story
o “Invictus” by William Earnest Henle
“It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.
o Buddha: “You are your own refuge,
Who else, indeed, could be your refuge?
By good training of yourself,
You gain a refuge hard to nd.” Dhammapada 12: 16
Francis Bacon: “I would address one general admonition to all; that they consider
what are the true ends of knowledge, and that they seek it not either for pleasure
of the mind, or for contention, or for superiority to others, or for pro t, or fame, or
power, or any of these inferior things; but for the bene t and use of life; and that
they perfect and govern it in charity. For it was from the lust of power that the
angels fell, from lust of knowledge that man fell; but of charity there can be no
excess, neither did angel or man ever come in danger by it.” (Bacon IV [1901],
20f: Instauratio Magna, Preface)
Max Planck:
o “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from
consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we
talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates
consciousness.” (The Observer, January, 25 1931
o Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scienti c work of any kind
realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are
written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist
cannot dispense with. [Where Is Science Going? (1932)
Five of the 46 secondary infractions of the bodhisattva vow
o Not seeking the means for gaining samādh
o Not abandoning the ve obscurations of dhyān
o being addicted to the joy of meditative absorptio
o Not using paranormal abilities we have achieved to be of service to others
o Not using paranormal abilities, if one has them, in order to stop others
from doing unwholesome actions
Vimuttiimagga (by Arhat Upatissa, 1st c. C.E.): the standing and walking postures
are particularly suitable for lustful natured personalities, while sitting and
reclining are more appropriate for anger-natured personalities. [Ehara, N.R.M. et
al. tr., The Path of Freedom (Vimuttimagga), Kandy: BPS, 1995, 61]
Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga (430 C.E.): Whichever posture is effective for
developing concentration is the one to be adopted. (128)
•
•
•
Ibid. 99
30
Ibid. 48-9
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29
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John R. Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994), 3-4
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28
”
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”
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The Vajra Essence: “Leaving your body, speech, and mind in a state of inactivity
is the unsurpassed, supreme technique for inserting the vital energy and mind into
the central channel.
The Vajra Essence: “Motionlessly relax your body in whatever way is
comfortable, like an unthinking corpse in a charnel ground. Let your voice be
silent like a lute with its strings cut. Rest your mind in an unmodi ed state, like
the primordial presence of space. Remain for a long time in these three ways of
resting. This paci es all illnesses due to disturbances of the elements and
unfavorable circumstances, and your body, speech, and mind naturally calm
down. The ultimate purpose of this practice is to experience the dharmakāya, free
of activity.
H. H. the Dalai Lama (Dzogchen): “When you rest the mind, putting it out of
work, the vital energies naturally become re ned, and solely by non-conceptual
meditation, you slip into the clear light with the mind and vital energies. This
requires settling in complete inactivity, which is not easy!”
John R. Searle:
o “Acceptance of the current views is motivated not so much by an
independent conviction of their truth as by a terror of what are apparently
the only alternatives. That is, the choice we are tacitly presented with is
between a “scienti c” approach, as represented by one or another of the
current versions of “materialism,” and an “antiscienti c” approach, as
represented by Cartesianism or some other traditional religious conception
of the mind.28
o “We might summarize these points by saying that our modern model of
reality and of the relation between reality and observation cannot
accommodate the phenomenon of subjectivity. The model is one of
objective (in the epistemic sense) observers observing an objectively (in
the ontological sense) existing reality. But there is no way on that model to
observe the act of observing itself. For the act of observing is the
subjective (ontological sense) access to objective reality.”29
o “Earlier materialists argued that there aren’t any such things as separate
mental phenomena, because mental phenomena are identical with brain
states. More recent materialists argue that there aren’t any such things as
separate mental phenomena because they are not identical with brain
states. I nd this pattern very revealing, and what it reveals is an urge to
get rid of mental phenomena at any cost.”30
o “If one had to describe the deepest motivation for materialism, one might
say that it is simply a terror of consciousness...The deepest reason for the
fear of consciousness is that consciousness has the essentially terrifying
feature of subjectivity. Materialists are reluctant to accept that feature
because they believe that to accept the existence of subjective
consciousness would be inconsistent with their conception of what the
world must be like.”31
The Nine Steps to Attentional Balance
1
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Directed attentio
What is achieved: One is able to direct the attention to the chosen objec
The power by which that is achieved: Learning the instruction
What problems persist: There is no attentional continuity on the objec
Attentional imbalances: Coarse excitatio
The type of mental engagement: Focuse
The quality of the experience: Movemen
The ow of involuntary thought is like a cascading waterfal
2
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•
•
•
•
•
•
Continuous attention
What is achieved: Attentional continuity on the chosen object up to a minut
The power by which that is achieved: Thinking about the practic
What problems persist: Most of the time the attention is not on the objec
Attentional imbalances: Coarse excitatio
The type of mental engagement: Focuse
The quality of the experience: Movemen
The ow of involuntary thought is like a cascading waterfal
3
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Resurgent attentio
What is achieved: Swift recovery of distracted attention, mostly on the objec
The power by which that is achieved: Mindfulnes
What problems persist: One still forgets the object entirely for brief period
Attentional imbalances: Coarse excitatio
The type of mental engagement: Interrupte
The quality of the experience: Movemen
The ow of involuntary thought is like a cascading waterfal
4
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•
•
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Close attentio
What is achieved: One no longer completely forgets the chosen objec
The power by which that is achieved: Mindfulness, which is now stron
What problems persist: Some degree of complacency concerning samādh
Attentional imbalances: Coarse laxity and medium excitatio
The type of mental engagement: Interrupte
The quality of the experience: Achievemen
Involuntary thoughts are like river quickly owing through a gorg
5
•
Tamed attentio
What is achieved: One takes satisfaction in samādhi
t
e
s
i
t
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g
t
t
e
e
s
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Ibid. 55
31
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Coarse excitation: The attention completely disengages from the meditative object.
Medium excitation: Involuntary thoughts occupy the center of attention, while the
meditative object is displaced to the periphery. Subtle excitation: The meditative
d
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d
Attentional balanc
What is achieved: Flawless samādhi is long sustained effortlessl
The power by which that is achieved: Familiarit
What problems persist: Attentional imbalances may recur in the futur
Attentional imbalances: The causes of those imbalances are still laten
The type of mental engagement: Effortles
The quality of the experience: Perfectio
The conceptually discursive mind is still like Mount Meru, King of Mountain
s
9
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•
•
•
•
•
•
y
Single-pointed attentio
What is achieved: Samādhi is long sustained without any excitation or laxit
The power by which that is achieved: Enthusias
What problems persist: It still takes effort to ward off excitation and laxit
Attentional imbalances: Latent impulses for subtle excitation and laxit
The type of mental engagement: Uninterrupte
The quality of the experience: Stillnes
The conceptually discursive mind is calm like an ocean unmoved by wave
n
8
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•
•
•
•
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s
Fully paci ed attention
What is achieved: Paci cation of attachment, melancholy, and letharg
The power by which that is achieved: Enthusias
What problems persist: Subtle imbalances of the attention, swiftly recti e
Attentional imbalances: Subtle laxity and excitatio
The type of mental engagement: Interrupte
The quality of the experience: Familiarit
Involuntary thoughts are like a river slowly owing through a valle
7
•
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•
•
•
•
•
n
Paci ed attentio
What is achieved: No resistance to training the attentio
The power by which that is achieved: Introspectio
What problems persist: Desire, depression, lethargy, and drowsines
Attentional imbalances: Medium laxity and subtle excitatio
The type of mental engagement: Interrupte
The quality of the experience: Achievemen
Involuntary thoughts are like a river slowly owing through a valle
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6
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•
•
•
•
•
•
e
The power by which that is achieved: Introspectio
What problems persist: Some resistance to samādhi
Attentional imbalances: Medium laxity and medium excitatio
The type of mental engagement: Interrupte
The quality of the experience: Achievemen
Involuntary thoughts are like river quickly owing through a gorg
n
fi
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.
.
.
.
•
•
•
•
•
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•
The Achievement of Śamath
•
You experience a sense of heaviness and numbness on the top of the head, which
signals freedom from mental dysfunction and the achievement of mental pliancy and
mental tness
Vital energies that cause physical pliancy then course through the body. When those
energies have pervasively coursed through all parts of the body, you are freed of
physical dysfunction and physical pliancy arises, which is the remedy for physical
dysfunction. Once these saturate the entire body, there is an experience as if you were
lled with the power of this dynamic energy
When physical pliancy initially arises, due to the power of the vital energies a great
sense of bliss arises in the body, and in dependence upon that an extraordinary degree
of bliss also arises in the mind
Once the rapturous pleasure of the mind has disappeared, the attention is sustained
rmly upon the meditative object; and you achieve śamatha that is freed from the
turbulence caused by great pleasure
•
•
•
The Substrate Consciousness
Excerpted from The Vajra Essenc
Revealed by Düdjom Lingpa, translated by B. Alan Wallac
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“O Vajra of Mind, the rope of mindfulness and rmly maintained attention is
dissolved by the power of meditative experience, until nally the ordinary mind
of an ordinary being disappears, as it were. Consequently, compulsive thinking
subsides and roving thoughts vanish into the space of awareness. You then slip
into the vacuity of the substrate, in which self, others, and objects disappear. By
clinging to the experiences of vacuity and luminosity while looking inward, the
appearances of self, others, and objects vanish. This is the substrate
consciousness. Some teachers say that the substrate to which you descend is
‘freedom from conceptual elaboration’ or the ‘one taste,’ but others say it is
ethically neutral. Whatever they call it, in truth you have come to the essential
nature [of the mind]
When you fall asleep, all objective appearances of waking reality—including the
physical worlds, their sentient inhabitants, and all the objects that appear to the
ve senses—dissolve into the vacuity of the substrate, which is of the nature of
space, and they in nitely pervade that vacuity. Once again, self-grasping
consciousness is aroused by the apparitions of the movements of karmic energies.
Consequently, from the appearance of the self, as before, all inner and outer
.
•
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object remains at the center of attention, but involuntary thoughts emerge at the
periphery of attention
Coarse laxity: The attention mostly disengages from the object due to insuf cient
vividness. Medium laxity: The object appears, but not with much vividness. Subtle
laxity: The object appears vividly, but the attention is slightly slack
phenomena—including the physical worlds, their sentient inhabitants, and sensory
objects—emerge as dream appearances within the ground space of awareness.
Joy, sorrow, and indifference are held close and clung to as being truly existent.
This is delusion, so recognize it!
State-effects of Śamath
•
•
•
•
Any thoughts that arise naturally subside, without proliferating
There is no sensory awareness of your body or environment
You have a sense as if your mind has become indivisible with space
You achieve a state of attention belonging to the dimension of pure form (threshold
concentration in the rst meditative stabilization), physical pliancy, mental pliancy,
and single-pointedness
You experience mental bliss to such a degree that you do not wish to arise from
meditation
You experience non-conceptuality such that you feel you could remain in meditation
uninterruptedly for months or even years
The mind becomes still in an un uctuating state, in which you experience bliss like
the warmth of a re, luminosity like the dawn, and nonconceptuality like an ocean
unmoved by waves
•
•
•
Trait-effects of Śamath
•
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”
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.
When arising from meditation, you have a sense as if the body has suddenly come
into being
The occurrence of af ictive thoughts and emotions such as hatred is feeble and of
brief duration
For the most part, the ve obscurations—(1) sensual craving, (2) malice, (3) laxity
and dullness, (4) excitation and anxiety, and (5) uncertainty—do not arise
The sense of attentional clarity is so great that you feel that you could count the atoms
of the pillars and walls of your house
Due to deep attentional stability, you feel as if your sleep was suffused with samādhi,
and many pure dream appearances take place
When the attention is settled inwardly, meditative equipoise and physical and mental
pliancy arise very swiftly
When you rise from meditative equipoise, you still possess some degree of physical
and mental pliancy
Your attention is highly focused throughout all your daily activities
When you are inactive, the mind slips into a space-like state of awareness
You experience an unprecedented tness of body and mind, such that you are
naturally inclined toward virtue
•
•
•
Due to bodily tness, there is no feeling of physical heaviness or discomfort, the
spine becomes straight like a golden pillar, and the body feels blissful as if it were
bathed with warm milk
Due to mental tness, you are now fully in control of the mind, so you are virtually
free of sadness and grief and continuously experience a state of wellbeing
The tness of the body and mind is coarse at rst, but then becomes subtle, which is
superior, for you are now perfectly prepared for more advanced levels of
contemplative training
Amitabh
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Hilary Putnam, Realism with a Human Face, ed. James Conant (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1990), 30.
.
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32
/
•
.
•
On forgiveness, compassion, and loving-kindness: http://www.salon.com/
2015/08/23/
the_science_of_forgiveness_when_you_dont_forgive_you_release_all_the_chemicals
_of_the_stress_response
The nal four perfections are: skillful means, aspirational prayer, spiritual power, and
primordial consciousness
Metaphysical realism asserts that (1) the world consists of mind-independent objects;
(2) there is exactly one true and complete description of the way the world is; and (3)
truth involves some sort of correspondence between an independently existent world
and a description of it.32 For scientists, this means that the objects of scienti c inquiry
are describable in principle in and of themselves; and they are believed to exist
.
•
•
•
•
35
Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, trans. Marian Evans [pen name
George Eliot] (New York: Calvin Blanchard, 1855), 52–53.
fl
George Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. Colin M. Turbayne,
ed. (London: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1713/1988).
.
34
.
Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 33-34.
.
33
)
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objectively—independently of any descriptions or interpretations imputed upon them
by any subjects.33
Protagoras of Abdera (ca. 490-ca.420 BCE): “Of all things the measure is Man, of the
things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not.” (DK
80B1
Plato: “If what each man believes to be true through sensation is true for him - and no
man can judge of another's experience better than the man himself, and no man is in a
better position to consider whether another’s opinion is true or false than the man
himself, but...each man is to have his own opinions for himself alone, and all of them
are to be right and true - then how, my friend, was Protagoras so wise that he should
consider himself worthy to teach others and for huge fees? And how are we so
ignorant that we should go to school to him, if each of us is the measure of his own
wisdom?” (Theatetus, 161B).
George Berkeley (1685-1754):
o God generates appearances of physical objects to our minds without ever
creating any physical objects at all.34 According to this view, one’s
perception of the tree is an idea that God generates in one’s mind, while
the tree continues to exist in God’s omniscient mind when you are not
there to witness it. In short, the mind of God directly generates all our
experiences of the world, without ever creating an absolutely objective
physical world as the basis for sensory perceptions
o Three fundamental assertions provide the framework of his philosophy:
(1) Any knowledge we have of the world is to be obtained only through
direct perception; (2) false ideas about the world are a result of thinking
about what we perceive; and (3) our knowledge of the world may be
puri ed and perfected simply by stripping away all thought, and with it
language, from our pure perceptions
German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872): “Man—this is the mystery of
religion—projects his being into objectivity, and then again makes himself an object
to this projected image of himself thus converted into a subject.”35 Humans
unconsciously project their desire for meaning and immortality onto the universe,
giving the name “God” to what they themselves have projected. By the end of his
career in 1871, Feuerbach considered himself to be an atheist, materialist, and
communist. His projection theory had an immense impact on the development of
European atheism in the nineteenth century, deeply in uencing the thinking and
writing of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who catalyzed more confusion and human
misery than any other intellectuals in modern times
•
•
•
•
.
David N. Spergel, “The dark side of cosmology: Dark matter and dark energy” URL:
www.sciencemag.org on April 22, 2015.
fi
38
.
Ever Since Darwin: Re ections in Natural History, (New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1980/1992), 14
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37
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Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the
Universe (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1993), 154.
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36
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Physicist Steven Weinberg in his book The First Three Minutes: “The more the
universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”36 But that
universe, which purportedly exists independently of all systems of measurement,
exists nowhere but in the imaginations of the scientists who conceive it. It’s their
brainchild, but they have to live with it only as long as they believe it’s real
Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould: “Evolution is purposeless, nonprogressive,
and materialistic.”37
From Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic: “At the birth of modern science in the
seventeenth century, natural philosophers relied upon the authority of two sources: (1)
the book of divine revelation, the Bible, and (2) the Book of Nature, God’s creation.
…In the twentieth century, science became fused as never before with the state; and
like the union of the Christian Church with the Roman Empire, great wealth, power,
and prestige were at stake. Those in power needed to determine which kinds of
phenomena were to be included in the Book of Nature, and the Church Scienti c
emphatically insisted that only physical phenomena were to be included. Experience
was still central to scienti c inquiry, but only the experiences, or data, derived from
objective scienti c measurements. Nonscienti c experiences—especially concerning
anything that was not physical—were invalidated in principle, and claims of
nonphysical discoveries in nature were deemed heretical, illogical, and delusional
According to modern cosmology, the universe consists of 5% atomic matter, 25%
dark matter, and 69% dark energy (with 1% consisting of neutrinos, photons, and
black holes. “Although general relativity is now a hundred year-old theory, it remains
a powerful, and controversial, idea in cosmology. It is one of the basic assumptions
behind our current cosmological model: a model that is both very successful in
matching observations, but implies the existence of both dark matter and dark energy.
These signify that our understanding of physics is incomplete. We will likely need a
new idea as profound as general relativity to explain these mysteries and require more
powerful observations and experiments to light the path toward our new insights.”38
Post-modernist philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer: “The text that is understood
historically is forced to abandon its claim that it is uttering something true. We think
we understand when we see the past from a historical perspective, i.e. place ourselves
in the historical situation and seek to reconstruct the historical horizon. In fact,
however, we have given up the claim to nd, in the past, any truth valid and
intelligible for ourselves. Thus this acknowledgment of the otherness of the other,
•
See Paul Feyerabend, “Has the scienti c view of the world a special status compared
with other views?” in Jan Hilgevoord, ed. Physics and Our View of the World.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 135-145.
41
.
B. Alan Wallace, “Methodological Perspectives” in Balancing the Mind: A Tibetan
Buddhist Approach to Re ning Attention. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications 2005.
fl
40
fi
Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method. Garrett Barden & John Cumming, trans.
(New York. Reprint, 1988), p. 270. Cited in C. W. Huntington, The Emptiness of
Emptiness: An Introduction to Early Indian Mādhyamika, p. 13.
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39
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4
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•
which makes him the object of objective knowledge, involves the fundamental
suspension of his claim to truth.”39
o “The…limitation of Gadamer’s historical treatment of texts, however, is
that his own works are written in ‘disappearing ink’: that is, as soon as his
hermeneutical criteria are applied by others to his writings, his own texts
are forced to abandon their claim to utter anything that is true. On the
other hand, if advocates of his viewpoint wish to claim a privileged
perspective, superior to and unlike all others, they must stand at the end of
a long line of earlier proponents of all manner of religious, philosophical,
and scienti c theories who make the same claim.”40
Various versions of post-modernism, anti-realism, instrumentalism, constructivism,
and subjective relativism propose that all accounts of the world are so fundamentally
subjective, that equal credibility must be attributed to widely divergent views,
including those of Creationists.41
Joaquin Pérez-Remón, Self and Non-Self in Early Buddhism, (New York: Mouton,
1980), 263o Buddha: “Prepossessed by two speculative views, bhikkhus, among both
gods and men, some stick fast, some go too far; and those who have eyes
see. And how, bhikkhus, do some stick fast? Gods and men, bhikkhus, are
fond of becoming, in love with becoming, utterly pleased with becoming;
when the dhamma is explained for the stopping of becoming their mind
does not jump at it, does not nd satisfaction in it, does not settle on it,
does not give itself up to it. Thus, bhikkhus, some people stick fast
o And how, bhikkhus, some go too far? Some, af icted by becoming, vexed
by becoming, disgusted with becoming, welcome non-becoming, saying,
‘Since, friend, after the dissolution of the body, after death, this self (ayaṃ
attā) is annihilated, is destroyed, does not exist after death, this is what is
real, this is what is excellent, this is the true view. Thus, bhikkhus, some
go too far
o And how, bhikkhus, does one who has got eyes see? Herein, bhikkhus, one
regards what has become as having become, regarding what has become
as something that has become he attains to revulsion, to detachment, to
cessation of what has become. Thus, bhikkhus, one who has got eyes sees.
o Those who regard what has become as having become, and go beyond
what has become, they are released in what really is, by the destruction of
•
•
craving for becoming. One who truly knows what has become, free of
craving for becoming or non-becoming, that bhikkhu, by the cessation of
what has become, does not proceed to any further existence.”42
o Joaquin Pérez-Remón: “Can anyone deny that in saying that one is
released in what is real the reality of the true self is implicitly asserted?
Otherwise what is the connection between the one that is released and that
reality into which he is released?...The eternalist is wrong due to his
attachment to becoming, the annihilationist is wrong due to his attachment
to non-becoming, the one who has got eyes to see steers a middle way by
detaching himself from becoming and non-becoming and thereby
transcending both and attaining liberation.
Lerab Lingpa: “Due to settling the mind in its natural state, there may arise sensations
such as physical and mental wellbeing, a sense of lucid consciousness, the appearance
of empty form, and a non-conceptual sense that nothing can harm the mind,
regardless of whether or not ideation has ceased.”43
Ludwig Wittgenstei
o A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely
of jokes.44
o The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of
language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of
my world.45
o To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather
one must nd the path from error to truth.46
o So in the end when one is doing philosophy one gets to the point where
one would like just to emit an inarticulate sound.47
o There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make
themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.48
o Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.49
42
Khuddakanikāya Vol. I, pp. 211, 212, Itivuttaka 2, 22.
43
His commentary on The Heart Essence of Vimalamitra
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922, 5.62
46
Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951 (1993), Ch. 7: Remarks on Frazer's Golden
Bough, p. 119
47
Philosophical Investigations (1953), § 261
48
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) (6.522)
49
Ibid. (7)
”
45
n
quoted in “A View from the Asylum” in Philosophical Investigations from the
Sanctity of the Press (2004), by Henry Dribble, p. 87
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44 As
•
•
50
Leonard Bernstein: “You see what happened: those musical protons and electrons
—the separate notes that is — have combined together forming atoms, which then
combined into molecules, which nally combined into recognizable matter, like
this wood or this hair, or that Blue Danube Waltz. So it turns out that an atom of
music is not a single note at all, as you might think, but at least two notes; and that
two-note relationship is called an INTERVAL. A very important word, ‘interval,’
because it's the heart and soul of music. You see music is not made out of notes by
themselves, but out of the intervals between one note and another. That's why it's
so necessary for us to understand this word, interval.”50
Śāntideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, Ch.
o 7
May I be the medicine and the physician for the sick. May I be
their nurse until their illness never recurs.51
o 8
With showers of food and drink may I overcome the af ictions of
hunger and thirst. May I become food and drink during times of famine
o 9
May I be an inexhaustible treasury for the destitute. With various
forms of assistance may I remain in their presence
o 10
For the sake of accomplishing the welfare of all sentient beings, I
freely give up my body, enjoyments, and all my virtues of the three times
o 11
Surrendering everything is nirvāṇa, and my mind seeks nirvāṇa. If
I must surrender everything, it is better that I give it to sentient beings.52
o 17
May I be a protector for those who are without protectors, a guide
for travelers, and a boat, a bridge, and a ship for those who wish to cross
over
o 18
May I be a lamp for those who seek light, a bed for those who seek
rest, and may I be a servant for all beings who desire a servant.53
o 19
To all sentient beings may I be a wish-ful lling gem, a vase of
good fortune, an ef cacious mantra, a great medication, a wish-ful lling
tree, and a wish-granting cow
o 20-21 Just as earth and other elements are useful in various ways to
innumerable sentient beings dwelling throughout in nite space,54 So may I
be in various ways a source of life for the sentient beings present
throughout space until they are all liberated
http://www.leonardbernstein.com/ypc_script_musical_atoms.htm
51Tibetan:
“For as long as beings are ill and until their illnesses are cured, may I be their
physician and their medicine and their nurse.”
52Tibetan:
“As a result of surrendering everything, there is nirvāṇa, [and] my mind seeks
nirvāṇa. Surrendering everything at once--this is the greatest gift to sentient beings.”
53Tibetan:
“May I be an island for those seeking an island, a lamp for those seeking light,
a bed for those seeking repose, and a servant for all those beings desiring a servant.”
.
.
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3
fi
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fi
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fi
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fi
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“Like the great elements such as earth and space, may I always serve as the
basis of the various requisites of life for innumerable sentient beings.”
.
54Tibetan:
•
o 22-23 Just as the Sugatas of old adopted the Spirit of Awakening, and just
as they properly conformed to the practice of the Bodhisattvas, so I myself
shall generate the Spirit of Awakening for the sake of the world; and so I
myself shall properly engage in those practices
o 24
Upon gladly adopting the Spirit of Awakening in this way, an
intelligent person should thus nurture the Spirit in order to ful ll his
wish.55
o 25
Now my life is fruitful. Human existence is well obtained. Today I
have been born into the family of the Buddhas. Now I am a Child of the
Buddha
o 26
Thus, whatever I do now should accord with [the Bodhisattvas’]
family, and it should not be like a stain on this pure family.56
o 27
Just as a blind man might nd a jewel amongst heaps of rubbish, so
this Spirit of Awakening has somehow arisen in me
o 28
It is the elixir of life produced to vanquish death in the world.57 It
is an inexhaustible treasure eliminating the poverty of the world
o 29
It is the supreme medicine that alleviates the illness of the world. It
is the tree of rest for beings exhausted from wandering on the pathways of
mundane existence
o 30
It is the universal bridge for all travelers on their crossing over
miserable states of existence.58 It is the rising moon of the mind that
soothes the mental af ictions of the world
o 31
It is the great sun dispelling the darkness of the world’s ignorance.
It is the fresh butter formed from churning the milk of Dharma
o 32
For the caravan of beings traveling on the path of mundane
existence and starving for the meal of happiness, it is the feast of
happiness that satis es all sentient beings who have come as guests.59
o 33
Today I invite the world to Sugatahood and temporal happiness.
May the gods, asuras, and others rejoice in the presence of all the
Protectors
The venerable Domang Gyatrul Rinpoche (1924-) (Naked Awareness): the stage
of the yoga of single-pointedness is as follows: “the rst stage of single-
55Tibetan:
“Having joyfully adopted the Spirit of Awakening, in order to apply and
increase it, an intelligent person should exalt this mind like this.”
56Tibetan:
“Now, by every means, I shall behave in accordance with this family, and it
should not be as if I have contaminated this awless noble heritage.”
57Tibetan:
“It is the supreme elixir of life that conquers the Lord of Death.”
58Tibetan:
“It is the universal bridge that liberates all beings from miserable states of
existence.”
.
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fi
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“For the caravan of beings traveling on the path of mundane existence and
longing to experience the bounties of happiness, this is the immanent supreme joy
that satis es sentient beings who have come as guests.”
.
59Tibetan:
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pointedness occurs with the accomplishment of śamatha, wherein one singlepointedly attends to one’s own awareness, which is primordially unceasing and
luminous.
The Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorjé (1284–1339) (The Great Instructions)
associates the small stage of the yoga of single-pointedness with the Mahāyana
Path of Accumulation, the rst of the ve paths culminating in perfect
enlightenment
Karma Chakmé (1613-78) (Naked Awareness): “Up until single-pointedness,
primordial consciousness that realizes the path has not arisen, so that is not
genuine meditative equipoise. Thus, as subsequent appearances do not appear as
illusions, there is no genuine post-meditative state.
Mahāmudrā: The Ocean of De nitive Meaning by the Ninth Karmapa, Wangchuk
Dorjé (1556–1603): “How then should one seek to realize śamatha? It is highly
praiseworthy for someone to achieve śamatha at the threshold to the rst dhyāna
[within the form realm], as stated before. Failing that, one would do well to
realize a single-pointed concentration in the desire realm.
The Lamp of Mahāmudrā by Tselé Natsok Rangdröl (Tselé Gotsangpa) (b. 1608):
“One-pointedness, the rst yoga of Mahāmudrā, has three levels: small, medium
and great. One-pointedness, for the most part, consists of śamatha and the gradual
progression through the stages of śamatha with support, without support, and
nally to the śamatha that delights the tathāgatas. During that process, grasping
gradually diminishes.
According to Jé Gyaré as cited by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal (1512/3-1587)
(Moonlight of Mahāmudrā)
o One-pointedness: paths of accumulation and applicatio
o Freedom from elaboration: path of preparatio
o One taste: path of seeing ( rst bhūmi
o One taste: paths of meditation and part of the path no-more-learning
(bhūmis two through eight
o Non-meditation: rest of path of no-more-learning, buddhahood (bhūmis
nine through thirteen)
The ve dhyāna factors remove the ve obscuration
1.
The factor of single-pointed attention removes the obscuration of
sensual craving
2.
The factor of well-being removes the obscuration of malice
3.
The factor of coarse examination removes the obscurations of
laxity and dullness
4.
The factor of bliss removes the obscurations of excitation and
anxiet
5.
The factor of precise investigation removes the obscuration of
uncertainty
Water similes of the ve obscurations
1.
Sensual craving is like water mixed with various colors
2.
Malice is like boiling water
3.
Laxity and dullness are like water covered over by moss
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6
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.
•
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Excitation and anxiety are like agitated water whipped by the
wind
5.
Uncertainty is like turbid, muddy water
Buddha: “So long as these ve obscurations are not abandoned one considers
oneself as indebted, sick, in bonds, enslaved and lost in a desert track.”
(Sāmaññaphala Sutta in Dīgha Nikāya I 73
“As above, so below.
o The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus: “That which is Below
corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above corresponds
to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracle of the One Thing.”
o This principle, however, is more often used in the sense of the microcosm
and macrocosm. The microcosm is oneself, and the macrocosm is the
universe. The macrocosm is as the microcosm and vice versa; within each
lies the other, and through understanding one (usually the microcosm) a
man may understand the other
o Buddha: “It is in this fathom-long body with its perceptions and its mind
that I describe the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the
world, and the way leading to the cessation of the world.” Saṃyutta
Nikāya II 3
o See H. H. the Dalai Lama’s book The Universe in a Single Atom: The
Convergence of Science and Spirituality
Buddha: “Here, monks, a disciple dwells pervading one direction with his heart
lled with loving-kindness, likewise the second, the third, and the fourth
direction; so above, below and around; he dwells pervading the entire world
everywhere and equally with his heart lled with loving-kindness, abundant,
grown great, measureless, free from enmity and free from distress.” [Dīgha
Nikāya 13
Padmasambhava in Natural Liberation: “Now alternately sharply focus your
attention, wholly concentrating it without wavering, and then gently release it,
evenly resting it in openness. Again concentrate, and again release. In that way,
meditate with alternating focus and release. At times, steadily direct your attention
up into the sky. Steadily focus your awareness with the desire to be without
anything on which to meditate. Relax again. At times, steadily, unwaveringly,
direct your awareness into the space on your right; at times, direct it to the left;
and at times, direct it downwards. During each session, rotate the gaze around in
those directions. Occasionally inquire, “What is that awareness of the one who is
focusing the interest?” Let the awareness itself steadily observe itself. At times, let
your mind come to rest in the center of your heart, and evenly leave it there. At
times, evenly bring your mind into the expanse of space and leave it there. Thus,
by shifting the gaze in various, alternating ways, the mind settles in its natural
state. As indications of this, if awareness remains evenly, lucidly, and steadily
wherever it is placed, śamatha has arisen.
First ve of the 12 links of dependent originatio
o Ignorance (avidyā
o Karmic formations (saṃskāra) by way of the body, speech, and mind
o Consciousness (vijñāna
•
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4.
o Naming and form: (nama-rūpa): Nama (naming) is experience seen
subjectively as the mental process of identifying an object, and rupa
(appearance) is experience seen objectively as an entity that is perceived
and conceived through the mental processes of identi cation. The term
mano, translated here as “mentation,” integrates and makes meaning out of
the different percepts brought in through the various senses. In short, this
meaningful totality of “experience” is viewed subjectively as
“identi cation of an entity” (nama) and objectively as “the entity
identi ed” (rūpa).60
o Six sense bases (ṣaḍāyatana): six sense faculties
The Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra, revealed by Düdjom Lingpa:
“Thus, as for the emergence of impure appearances and mindsets of saṃsāra,from
the displays of great original purity, subtle self-concepts obscure wisdom and
primordial consciousness, and due to the subsiding of the inner glow and radiance
of the ground into the womb, the luminosity of its outer radiance, the ethically
neutral substrate of saṃsāra, manifests from immaterial space, and the
consciousness of grasping at the “I” serves as the basis from which appearances
and mindsets emerge. With mentation alone established as the basis from which
appearances arise, from the movements of the six kinds of conditioned
consciousness manifest indeterminate phenomena, like hallucinations.
The Flight of the Garuda, by Shabkar Rinpoche:
“Now, fortunate children of the mind, listen
This is how the dharmakāya Samantabhadra is rst liberated
Without performing the slightest bit of meditation
And how the six classes of sentient beings wander in saṃsāra
Without committing the slightest bit of virtue or vice
In the primordial, rst beginning before everything, one rests i
The primordial ground, devoid of the words saṃsāra and nirvāṇa.
Then this is how pristine awareness arises from the ground
Just as the light of a crystal shines outwards when it is struck by sunlight
Vital energies of primordial consciousness, pristine awareness, are aroused
Shattering the youthful vase kāya
And, like the sun in the sky, the spontaneously actualized clear light
Shines forth as the kāyas, facets of primordial consciousness, and buddha- elds
Then the dharmakāya Samantabhadra recognizes them as its own appearances
The outwardly illuminated kāyas and facets of primordial consciousness
dissolve within
And one is awakened in the originally pure, primordial ground
By failing to recognize the appearances of that as being of the nature of
Spontaneous actualizations as one’s own radiance
That muddled, unmindful consciousnes
Is called connate ignorance
•
•
.
,
,
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,
”
.
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.
.
,
,
fi
fi
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,
.
Ven. Weragoda Sarada Thero, Treasury of Truth Illustrated Dhammapada. (Taipei,
Taiwan: The Corporate Body of the Buddha Education Foundation, 1993), 61
fi
,
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60
Then the arising of consciousness that dualistically grasp
To the clear light of the appearances of the groun
Is called imaginative ignorance
Then one is trapped inside the sphere of the two kinds of ignorance
Then habitual propensities gradually proliferate
And all these activities of saṃsāra occur.”
From Mind in the Balance:
o Many physicists believe that the universe began in a perfectly symmetrical
but unstable vacuum, in which all the forces of nature were
undifferentiated. The potential energy of the initial state was like being on
top of a hill and the potential energy of the true vacuum was the energy of
being at the bottom of the hill. The difference in energy led to the creation
of photons, particles, and antiparticles and the reheating of the universe to
a very high temperature. As the universe further expanded, it went through
several symmetry-breaking phase transitions, which led to the distinction
of the forces into gravitational, weak, electromagnetic and strong forces.
The nal vacuum we see has much less symmetry than the original, hightemperature vacuum, much as liquid water is more symmetric than ice. As
the universe cooled down, transitioning from the state of the “melted
vacuum” to the current “frozen vacuum,” the initial symmetry was broken
in various ways
o According to M.I.T. cosmologist Alan Guth, the theory of an in ationary
universe leaves open the possibility that the big bang was not a singular
event, but was more like the biological process of cell division. According
to this view, the universe is a process that may never have started and will
almost certainly never stop. If so, we are dwelling in an eternally selfreproducing universe, with our current universe originating from an earlier
universe. Likewise, according to Andre Linde, our universe is just one of
countless self-reproducing universes, or “bubbles,” in each of which, the
initial conditions differ and diverse kinds of elementary particles interact
in different ways. The entire universe may be likened to a cluster of
bubbles attached to each other, with each universe emerging from its own
big bang involving a uctuation of the vacuum followed by in ation. This
vision of the world we see around us is, as physicist Steven Weinberg has
put it, “only an imperfect re ection of a deeper and more beautiful
reality.”61
Düdjom Lingpa in The Vajra Essence: “This ground is present in the
mindstreams of all sentient beings, but it is tightly constricted by dualistic
grasping; and it is regarded as external, rm, and solid. This is like water in its
natural, uid state freezing in a cold wind. It is due to dualistic grasping onto
subjects and objects that the ground, which is naturally free, becomes frozen into
the appearances of things.
Robert Browning, from the poem “Andrea del Sarto”:
“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
•
•
•
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s
fl
fl
d
,
fi
.
fl
”
Jim Holt, “Where Protons Will Play,” New York Times, Jan. 14, 2007.
fl
.
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61
•
Or what's a heaven for?
A world of informatio
o Physicists Časlav Brukner and Anton Zeilinger: “In quantum physics the
notion of the total information of the system emerges as a primary
concept, independent of the particular complete set of complementary
experimental procedures the observer might choose, and a property
becomes a secondary concept, a speci c representation of the information
of the system that is created spontaneously in the measurement itself.”62
o John Archibald Wheeler (1911–2008): The universe consists of a “strange
loop,” in which physics gives rise to observers and observers give rise to
at least part of physics. The conventional view of the relationship between
observers and the objective world is that matter yields information, and
information makes it possible for observers to be aware of matter by way
of measurements, which could be depicted as follows: matter !
information ! observers. Wheeler, on the contrary, proposes that the
presence of observers makes it possible for information to arise, for there
is no information without someone who is informed. Thus, matter is a
category constructed out of information, and Wheeler inverts the
sequence: observers ! information ! matter.63
o Wheeler: “It is wrong to think of that past as “already existing” in all
detail. The ‘past’ is theory. The past has no existence except as it is
recorded in the present. By deciding what questions our quantumregistering equipment shall put in the present we have an undeniable
choice in what we have the right to say about the past.”64
o William James: Everyone is “prone to claim that his conclusions are the
only logical ones, that they are necessities of universal reason, they being
all the while, at bottom, accidents more or less of personal vision which
had far better be avowed as such.”65
o “At Sāvatthī. Now the bhikkhunī Vajirā, having robed herself and taken
her bowl and upper robe, entered Saavatthii before noon to collect food.
Paul C. W. Davies, “An Overview of the Contributions of John Archibald Wheeler,” In
Science and Ultimate Reality: Quantum Theory, Cosmology and Complexity,
Honoring John Wheeler’s 90th Birthday, ed. John D. Barrow, Paul C. W. Davies, and
Charles L. Harper Jr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 3–26. p. 10.
64
John Archibald Wheeler, “Law without Law,” in Quantum Theory and
Measurement, ed. John Archibald Wheeler and Wojciech Hubert Zurek
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 194.
65
William James, A Pluralistic Universe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996),
10.
fi
63
”
Časlav Brukner and Anton Zeilinger, “Information and Fundamental Elements of the
Structure of Quantum Theory,” in Time, Quantum and Information, ed. Lutz Castell
and Otfried Ischebeck (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2003), 352.
n
62
Having wandered through Sāvatthī and returned after her meal, she
entered the Andha Grove and sat down at the foot of a certain tree to rest
during the heat of midday. Then Māra, the evil one, approached the
bhikkhunii Vajirā and, desiring to cause fear and consternation, to make
her hair stand on end and cause her to fall away from concentration of
mind, addressed her with this verse: ‘By whom was this being made?
Where is the maker of the being? From where does a being arise? Where
does a being cease?’ Then the bhikkhunī Vajirā thought, ‘Who is this
human or non-human being who speaks this verse?’ And then she thought,
‘It is Māra, the evil one, desiring to cause me fear and consternation, to
make my hair stand on end and cause me to fall away from concentration
of mind.’ So the bhikkhunī Vajirā, realizing that it was Māra, the evil one,
replied to him in verse: ‘A being! Why seize upon this word? A wrong
view Māra surely has? A mere heap of conditions this, Where no ‘being’
can be found. As when, with all its parts assembled, ‘Chariot’ is the word
then used. So when the aggregates exist, one speaks of ‘being’ by
convention. It is just suffering that arises, suffering that stays and
disappears. Nothing but suffering arises, suffering ceases and nothing
else.’ And Māra, the evil one, thinking, "The bhikkhunī Vajirā recognizes
me," vanished away, grieved and dejected.66
o From the Milindapañhā, 25
Then the venerable Nāgasena spoke to Milinda the king as follows:—
2
9
“Your majesty, you are a delicate prince, an exceedingly delicate prince; and if,
your majesty, you walk in the middle of the day on hot sandy ground, and you tread
on rough grit, gravel, and sand, your feet become sore, your body tired, the mind is
oppressed, and the body-consciousness suffers. Pray, did you come afoot, or
“Bhante, I do not go afoot: I came in a chariot.”
3
0
“Your majesty, if you came in a chariot, declare to me the chariot. Pray, your
majesty, is the pole the chariot?”
3
2
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
3
3
“Is the axle the chariot?”
3
4
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
3
5
“Are the wheels the chariot?”
3
6
Saṃyutta Nikāya 5.10; http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/ireland/
wheel107.html
:
66
3
1
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
3
7
“Is the chariot-body the chariot?”
3
8
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
3
9
“Is the banner-staff the chariot?”
4
0
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
4
1
“Is the yoke the chariot?”
4
2
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
4
3
“Are the reins the chariot?”
4
4
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
4
5
“Is the goading-stick the chariot?”
4
6
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
4
7
“Pray, your majesty, are pole, axle, wheels, chariot-body, bannerstaff, yoke, reins,
and goad unitedly the chariot?”
4
8
4
9
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
“Is it, then, your majesty, something else besides pole, axle, wheels, chariot-body,
banner-staff, yoke, reins and goad which is the chariot?”
5
0
5
1
“Nay, verily, bhante.”
fi
“Your majesty, although I question you very closely, I fail to discover any chariot.
Verily now, your majesty, the word chariot is a mere empty sound. What chariot is
there here? Your majesty, you speak a falsehood, a lie: there is no chariot. Your
majesty, you are the chief king in all the continent of India; of whom are you afraid
that you speak a lie? Listen to me, my lords, ye ve hundred Yonakas, and ye eighty
thousand priests! Milinda the king here says thus: ‘I came in a chariot;’ and being
requested, ‘Your majesty, if you came in a chariot, declare to me the chariot,’ he
John R. Searle, Consciousness and Language (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002), 34.
fl
68
fl
Stephen W. Hawking and Thomas Hertog, “Populating the landscape: A top-down
approach” Physical Review 3 73, 123527 (2006); Martin Bojowald, “Unique or not
unique?” Nature, Vol. 442, Aug. 31, 2006, 988-990.
fi
67
fi
fi
”
o Mind in the Balance: “Since the dawn of modern science, physicists have
been trying to understand the evolution of the universe ‘ the bottom up,’
starting with the initial conditions. Today the beginning of the universe is
conceived in terms of the Big Bang. But Hawking and Hertog challenge
this entire approach, declaring that like the surface of a sphere, our
universe has no de nable starting point, no de ned initial state. And if you
can’t know the initial state of the universe, you can’t take a ‘bottom-up’
approach, working forward from the beginning. The only alternative is to
take a top-down approach, starting from current observations and working
backwards. But how you work backwards depends entirely on the
questions you ask and the methods of inquiry you adopt in the present…
According to Hawking, every possible version of a single universe exists
simultaneously in a state of quantum superposition. When you choose to
make a measurement, you select from this range of possibilities a subset of
histories that share the speci c features measured. The history of the
universe as you conceive of it is derived from that subset of histories. In
other words, you choose your past.”67
o Philosopher John Searle rightly counters, “the information in the computer
is in the eye of the beholder, it is not intrinsic to the computational system.
. . . The electrical state transitions of a computer are symbol manipulations
only relative to the attachment of a symbolic interpretation by some
designer, programmer or user.”68
o Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic: “According to Buddhism, the ow of
experience includes both the arising of appearances, made possible by the
“luminous” aspect of consciousness, as well as the cognizance of those
appearances, by way of the “cognizant” aspect of consciousness. This ow
of experience may then be regarded as a continuum of three elements: (1)
objective appearances arising, (2) knowledge of their nature, and (3) a
subject who knows. When treating illness, in addition to the brute force of
physical, pharmaceutical, or surgical interventions, the transference of
meaningful information may prove therapeutic. Physical interventions
commonly include detrimental side effects, which are far less prevalent
with information-based interventions, such as talk therapy and cultivation
of positive subject expectancy. The Buddhist hypothesis suggests that
meaningful information, rather than the brain, is primary; and as a result of
the transference of meaningful information, the corresponding
physiological mechanisms are activated to achieve the desired or expected
outcome.
•
69
The meaning of informatio
o Buddhist de nition of a human being: “One who knows how to speak and
understands the meaning.
o “Human communication is concerned with meaning derived from content
embedded in physical objects called symbols that serve as the base units in
narratives, programs, and codes called messages.”69
o Marcia [Professor Emerita of Information Studies in the Graduate School
of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los
Angeles] distinguishes between quantitative and qualitative de nitions of
information as ‘information 1’ and ‘information 2’ where the former is
de ned as the “pattern of organization of matter and energy” and the latter
as “some pattern of organization and matter and energy given meaning by
a living being (or its constituent parts).”70
o Marcia Bates: “the only thing in the universe that does not contain
information is total entropy.
o Physicist Hans Christian von Baeyer con ate “information 1” and
“information 2” in the following assertions, which is a very common
source of confusion within the materialist paradigm: “All empirical
evidence in science is collected through the mediation of the senses. We
learn about atoms by peering through scanning tunneling microscopes, by
translating their random motion, revealed to the touch as warmth, into
thermometer readings, by converting invisible nuclear events into the
audible clicks of Geiger counters…[Information] is the strange,
compressible stuff that ows out of a tangible object, be it an atom, a DNA
molecule, a book or a piano, and, after a complex series of transformations
involving the senses, lodges in the conscious brain. Information mediates
between the material and the abstract, between the real and the ideal…
Knowledge of the world is information; and since information is naturally
quantized into bits, the world also appears quantized. If it didn’t we
wouldn’t be able to understand it.”71
Newhagen, John, “Interactivity, Dynamic Symbol Processing, and the Emergence of
Content in Human Communication” The Information Society (20) (Taylor and Francis
Inc, 2004), p. 395.
Bates, Marcia “Fundamental Forms of Information” Journal of the American Society
for Information and Technology [Volume 57, Issue 8], pp. 1033–1045, June 2006].
70
fi
fl
”
n
”
Von Baeyer, Hans Christian. Information: The New Language of Science (Phoenix,
2003). pp. 15, 17, and 229.
fl
fi
fi
71
”
fi
.
”
http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/v-Ch.14.html
.
73
fi
The qubit was rst introduced by Anton Zeilinger in 1999 [see “A Foundational
Principle for Quantum Mechanics.” Foundations of Physics (29:4) (Kluwer, 1999)].
For a very readable introduction to this concept see Von Baeyer, Hans Christian. “In
the Beginning Was the Bit” New Scientist (2278: February 17, 2001) [last accessed on
January 29, 2007].
.
72
.
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o Quantum physics has introduced the concept of qubits, essentially
quantum bits of information, as being the fundamental building block of
the knowable world instead of matter, atoms or the quantum eld.72
o Roger Penrose, “Consciousness Involves Noncomputable Ingredients
▪ Gödel’s theorem: you can produce statements that you can’t prove
using any system of rules you’ve laid down ahead of time
▪ But what was now being made clear to me was that as long as you
believe in the rules you’re using in the rst place, then you must
also believe in the truth of this proposition whose truth lies beyond
those rules… Thus, I’m claiming, there’s something in our
conscious understanding that simply isn’t computational; it’s
something different
▪ A lot of what the brain does you could do on a computer. I’m not
saying that all the brain’s action is completely different from what
you do on a computer. I am claiming that the actions of
consciousness are something different. I’m not saying that
consciousness is beyond physics, either — although I’m saying
that it’s beyond the physics we know now
▪ There doesn’t seem to be any place for conscious phenomena in
the science that we understand today. On the other hand, people
nowadays often seem to believe that if you can’t put something on
a computer, it’s not science
▪ Current physics ideas will survive as limiting behavior, in the same
sense that Newtonian mechanics survives relativity. Relativity
modi es Newtonian mechanics, but it doesn’t really supplant it.
Newtonian mechanics is still there as a limit. In the same sense,
quantum theory, as we now use it, and classical physics, which
includes Einstein’s general theory, are limits of some theory we
don’t yet have. My claim is that the theory we don’t yet have will
contain noncomputational ingredients. It must play its role when
you magnify something from a quantum level to a classical level,
which is what’s involved in “measurement.
The conservation of information73
o The rewall problem posed by Stephen Hawking in the 1970s: What
happens to information that falls into a black hole? The rules of quantum
mechanics require that information can never be lost. Even burning a book
doesn't destroy the information inside—it just scrambles it up. But black
o
o
o
o
o
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“Our Universe May Be a Giant Hologram,” August 04, 2011: http://
discovermagazine.com/2011/jun/03-our-universe-may-be-a-giant-hologram
.
75
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Don Lincoln, “Has Stephen Hawking solved the mystery of black holes?” September
3, 2015: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/03/opinions/lincoln-hawking-black-holes/
index.html
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holes do seem to destroy information, sucking it past the event horizon, a
point of no return.
Black holes exert such a strong gravitational force that not even light can
escape, and they are able to distort the very fabric of space and slow the
passage of time. These are very real objects. Black holes are said to absorb
matter and never let it go. The matter simply disappears inside the black
hole. But matter also entails information. For instance, in a single atom of
hydrogen, there are a proton and electron. That’s matter. But there is also
information in how they are connected. Are they near one another, or far
apart? On a macro level, in an apple there are protons, neutrons and
electrons. Without the information tells you how they arranged, it
wouldn’t have the apple’s tart taste. In fact, it wouldn’t be an apple at all.
Ultimately, it is information that is at the heart of the mystery.74
According to the rules of quantum mechanics, information should never
be lost, not even if it gets sucked inside the black hole. This is because of
two premises: causality and reversibility. Taken together, it means that
effects have causes, and those causes can be undone. But information is
permanently and irreversibly lost as it enters a classical black hole
In the 1970s, Hawking postulated what is now called Hawking radiation,
which in principle, causes black holes eventually to evaporate as the
radiation carries away energy. However, Hawking radiation should be
completely independent of the matter absorbed by a black hole. So,
information really does appear to be lost, in complete contradiction of
quantum theory
Very recently Hawking countered the claim that the black hole gobbles
and destroys the information by positing that the information never
actually falls into the black hole. Instead, the information is held on the
black hole’s surface—the event horizon. An event horizon is a wall of re
that prevents Hawking radiation on the outside from remaining
intertwined on a quantum level with material inside
This is an intriguing thought and is analogous to how holograms are made.
Holograms are two-dimensional sheets of, for example, plastic that can
make three-dimensional images. All of the information of three
dimensions is encoded in the two dimensional plastic. (By the way, there
are some who hypothesize that our entire universe is a hologram!
Physicist Brian Greene75:
▪ There was a time when the word universe meant “all there is. The
notion of more than one universe, more than one everything, would
seemingly be a contradiction in terms. Yet a range of theoretical
▪
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Five Families of Jina
Vairocan
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Five Facets of Primordial Consciousness
Primordial consciousness of the absolute space of
phenomen
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developments has gradually quali ed the interpretation of universe.
The word’s meaning now depends on context.
The strangest version of all parallel universe proposals is one that
emerged gradually over 30 years of theoretical studies on the
quantum properties of black holes. The work culminated in the last
decade, and it suggests, remarkably, that all we experience is
nothing but a holographic projection of processes taking place on
some distant surface that surrounds us… Reality… may be akin to
a hologram. Or, really, a holographic movie. The journey to this
peculiar possibility combines developments deep and far- ung—
insights from general relativity; from research on black holes; from
thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and, most recently string
theory. The thread linking these diverse areas is the nature of
information in a quantum universe
Is a black hole’s surface where the information is actually stored?
“It’s a deep issue and has been pursued for decades by some of the
most renowned physicists. The answer depends on whether you
view the black hole from the outside or from the inside—and from
the outside, there’s good reason to believe that information is
indeed stored at the event horizon. This doesn’t merely highlight a
peculiar feature of black holes. Black holes don’t just tell us about
how black holes store information.
Black holes inform us about information storage
in any context.
Physicists Leonard Susskind and Gerard ’t Hooft: “Since the
information required to describe physical phenomena within any
given region of space can be fully encoded by data on a surface
that surrounds the region, then there’s reason to think that the
surface is where the fundamental physical processes actually
happen. Our familiar three-dimensional reality, these bold thinkers
suggest, would then be likened to a holographic projection of those
distant two-dimensional
physical processes.
If this line of reasoning is correct, then there are physical processes
taking place on some distant surface that, much as a puppeteer
pulls strings, are fully linked to the processes taking place in my
ngers, arms, and brain as I type these words at my desk. Our
experiences here and that distant reality there would form the most
interlocked of parallel worlds. Phenomena in the two—I’ll call
them Holographic Parallel Universes—would be so fully joined
that their respective evolutions would be as connected as me and
my shadow
Amitābh
Akṣobhy
Ratnasambhav
Amoghasiddh
Five Poison
Delusio
Attachmen
Hatre
Pride
Env
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Information, Mind, and Karm
o Freud: “in mental life nothing which has once been formed can
perish...everything is somehow preserved and...in suitable circumstances...
it can once more be brought to light.”76
o Information 1 is physical information and is physically measurable, while
information 2 is semantic, or meaningful, information, and it has no
physical properties and is not physically measurable
o Physical information is stored in the brain, and at death it is conserved as
it reverts to nonliving matter-energy. Semantic information is stored in the
mind (accessed by way of brain activation), and at death is conserved as
the coarse mind reverts to the substrate consciousness
o One of the four laws of karma is that if karmic seeds are not puri ed (like
the collision of matter and antimatter), they will certainly germinate, no
matter how long this may take, so that “information” is conserved and
does not evaporate through a kind of karmic entropy
o To account for the transference of birthmarks from one body to the next
incarnation, Ian Stevenson postulated the existence of a “ eld” that retains
memories and dispositional characteristics of the deceased. He called this
hypothetical eld a “psychophore.”77
o According to the Kālacakra Tantra, the jiva, or “life force,” is an energetic
continuum that is of the same nature as the subtle continuum of
consciousness that carries on from life to life, and it is the actual
repository of memories, mental traits, behavioral patterns, and even
physical marks from one life to the next
o According to Dzogchen, the substrate consciousness is the subtle
continuum of consciousness that carries on from lifetime to lifetime,
indivisibly with the life force, which is subtly “physical” but not material.
This subtle energy-mind continuum carries the information of memories
and karmic propensities in a way similar to the way information is
Primordial consciousness of discernmen
Mirror-like primordial consciousness
Primordial consciousness of equalit
Primordial consciousness of accomplishmen
Five Places
Crow
Throa
Hear
Nave
Genital
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Ian Stevenson, Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of
Birthmarks and Birth Defects, 2 vols. (New York: Praeger, 1997), 2: 2083–92.
n
77
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Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents. James Strachey, trans. & ed. (New
York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1961), 16.
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Acintita Sutta, Aṅguttara Nikāya 4.77
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contained in electromagnetic waves transmitted from one computer to
another
Beliefs and theorie
o Religious beliefs characteristically are based on divine authority, without
necessarily relying on logical reasoning or empirical evidenc
o Philosophical speculations are derived using logical reasoning, without
necessarily lending themselves to empirical corroboration or repudiation
o Scienti c theories are based on empirical evidence and logical reasoning,
and they do lend themselves to empirical corroboration or repudiation
o Buddhism includes (1) assertions pertaining to “very hidden” phenomena
that can be corroborated only by a Buddha, who is viewed as a divine
authority, so their validity is known by inference based on authority, (2)
assertions pertaining to “slightly hidden phenomena,” the truth of which
that can be known using logical reasoning, and (3) assertions pertaining to
“evident phenomena,” the truth of which can be known with direct
perception, including mental and yogic perception. Progress along the path
to enlightenment entails progression from the rst to the second to the
third modes of knowing, until the third is all that remains
The Limits of Though
o The four imponderables:78
▪ The range of powers a Buddha develops as a result of becoming a
Buddh
▪ The range of powers that one may obtain while absorbed in dyān
▪ The precise working out of the results of karm
▪ The origin the cosmo
o We are unaware of the rst moment of a wandering, non-lucid mind, of a
wandering, non-lucid dream, and of a wandering, non-lucid rebirth. This is
unawareness, the root of saṃsāra. We cannot recall that of which we were
unaware in the rst place, so the rst moment of each is unknowable. It
makes no sense to attribute existence to that which is unknowable.
o The Vajra Essence: “Due to excellent karmic connections from the past,
now you have obtained a precious human life with freedom and
opportunity, and you have encountered the most sublime of dharmas, the
secret mantra, Vajrayāna. This is no time to hold on to the hope of
accumulating merit over a long period until you nally attain
enlightenment. Rather, you must apprehend the ground of your own being
for yourself, by experiencing the intrinsic nature of the sugatagarbha, the
primordial ground that is the path to liberation in this lifetime. Apart from
this, the teachings that say that the state of liberation arises from
accumulating much karma from one life to another are effective for
bringing about temporary happiness in the minds of beings, but
enlightenment in this way is extremely dif cult. Consider that such
teachings may have a merely provisional meaning.
Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic:
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o “In the scienti c worldview, the universe began with the emergence of
lifeless, unconscious con gurations of matter and energy; over the course
of billions of years, this gave rise to living organisms, which gradually
evolved into conscious, sentient beings. While many fundamental
questions remain concerning the origins of life and of consciousness,
scientists take a “matter-of-the-gaps” approach, assuming that any future
discoveries will necessarily take place within their familiar, materialistic
framework. Anything else is unthinkable. The general assumption seems
to be that it’s simply a coincidence that the evolution of the cosmos has
followed the exact same sequence as did the evolution of modern science
since the sixteenth century. Was it a logical necessity that the rst great
discoveries within the natural sciences took place in physics and were
followed by discoveries in the life sciences? Or do members of the Church
Scienti c believe that it was the hand of Nature that caused the rst
pioneers of modern science to be physicists and caused them to be
followed by biologists and nally by psychologists
o The materialists’ belief—that the entire universe, as it exists independently
of the human mind, consists solely of physical entities—entails a wild leap
of anthropocentric faith. They are avowing that reality, as it exists
independently of human concepts, ts neatly within the human, conceptual
construct of “physical,” as we de ne this term in the twenty- rst century.
This is an expression of blind faith in something that can never be veri ed
or even put to the test of experience. If the term ‘metaphysical’ denotes
‘the transcendent, or a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses,’
then the physical world as it exists independent of all systems of
measurement is metaphysical and therefore ‘supernatural.
The gist of [John Wheeler, Stephen Hawking, and Thomas Hertog’s] theory is that
there is no absolutely objective history of the universe as it exists independently
of all systems of measurement and conceptual modes of inquiry. Rather, there are
many possible histories, among which scientists select one or more based on their
speci c methods of inquiry. If we apply this insight from contemporary physics,
we are led to a remarkable conclusion, similar to Ludwig Feuerbach’s projection
view of Christian doctrine. In essence, quantum cosmology can be interpreted to
imply that the current scienti c, materialistic view of the origins and evolution of
the universe is a projection of the origins and evolution of modern science over
the past four hundred years. This may be called the “true or anthropological
essence of scienti c materialism.” It points to a “false or materialistic essence of
scienti c materialism,” namely, the view of Nature, as we experience it and
conceive of it, as having an existence separate from and independent of humanity.
We alienate ourselves when we project human history onto the physical universe,
and the very act of attributing human qualities to the brain alone necessarily
withdraws these same qualities from the human species. Materialists
unconsciously project their desire for meaning and immortality onto the universe,
giving the name “Nature” to what they themselves have projected. History repeats
itself, from one Church to another
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Ajahn Poh, an account by Andrea Capellai: “Ajahn Poh, ex-abbot of Wat Suan
Mokkh in Suratthani and present abbot of Wat Dipabavan of Kho Samui, is the
closest disciple of Ajahn Buddhadasa, and I attended several retreats where he
meditated with us and gave instructions. He is 82 years old but as agile and supple
as a 30-year-old person. He enters meditative equipoise in less than 3minutes and
sits in meditation, not moving and without signs of discomfort for hours. He
explains the nimitta and form and formless realm states of mind from direct
experience. He surely achieved shamatha long ago
He uses the breath as his object of meditation, and he’s pretty much in line
with Ajahn Buddhadasa’s instruction. A lot of teachers in Thailand and in Burma
tend not to be so strict about developing nimitta, saying that it could be a stage
you might not need to reach before going into the remaining three applications of
mindfulness. You can sense their uncertainty regarding the possibility of
achieving that stage. In contrast, Ajahn Poh has a natural con dence about
reaching nimitta and a sense of ease in understanding the “symptoms” indicating a
certain person’s stage, getting into very detailed explanations on how to reach
different levels. Moreover, he gets into exceptionally detailed explanations of the
form and formless realm consciousness perspectives, clairvoyance, or the Divine
Eye, which reminded me a lot of my studies of the “Concentration and Form”
section of Abhisamaya or Abhidharma. Moreover when he explains the view of
reality naturally rising from the close attendance of the 5 skandhas, he goes again
into a very natural, spontaneous, clear, detailed account of how ALL phenomena
appear to the perceiving mind due to a mere mental labeling process and that the
mind itself disappears when ultimately analyzed. Again, he explains the resulting
perspective of the pure mind in a way very similar to Mahamudra and Dzogchen
teachings
There are no remaining western Sangha from the students of Ajhan
Buddhadasa (who died in 1993), and when Ajhan Poh took over as abbot of Wat
Suan Mokkh, all of them had already left. He’s very highly respected among the
Thai Forest Sangha, but nowadays all of the westerners following the Forest
Tradition are related to Ajahn Chah’s tradition.
The Buddha’s description of the universe appears to be fundamentally
incompatible with that of mainstream physics and astronomy.
o For example, in the Anguttara Nikāya 3:80 (Numerical Discourses pp.
313–14), the Buddha gives a description of the universe in which there is
no mention that the moon is particular to planet earth and that other
planets have their own moons. It assumes that each “world system,” which
may be equivalent to a planet inhabited by sentient beings has one sun and
one moon. Each world system has Mount Sineru at its center, surrounded
by the same four continents described by the Buddha in the fth century
BCE. Buddhist tradition and modern astronomy both present the universe
as vast in time and space, with countless planets, or “world systems”
capable of supporting living, conscious organisms. But the differences
between the detailed descriptions of planets are obvious
o A second area of incongruity between Buddhism and science has to do
with the causes of natural phenomena. To take just one example, in the
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Samyutta Nikāya one nds the question asked, ”Why does the weather
become warm, why does it become cold, why are there storms, why does
it become windy, why does it rain?” The Buddha answers that these
phenomena are each caused by a particular class of devas (see Connected
Discourses pp. 1028–29). This answer could hardly be more different than
the explanations presented by modern meteorology
o A third area of incompatibility between Buddhist and scienti c
descriptions of the physical world has to do with history of our world and
other worlds as explained in discourses attributed to the Buddha.The early
canonical texts speak of past buddhas, three of whom are said to have
lived in northern India in the very same region where Gotama lived and
taught. Their lifespans were remarkably long. Kakusandha had a lifespan
of 40,000 years, Konāgamana of 30,000 years, and Kassapa of 20,000
years. Our Buddha, Gotama, who volunteered to appear in our world at a
time of spiritual degeneration, lived for only 80 years. For the clearest
statement of this, see Dīgha Nikāya sutta no. 14 (Long Discourses pp.
199–200). In stark contrast to all such Buddhist accounts, contemporary
archaeology, anthropology, and paleontology give us a remarkably precise
and accurate account of the history of humankind and human civilizations,
and one conclusion we can draw from their investigations, with near
certainty, is that there were never any advanced Buddhist civilizations in
India preceding Gotama Buddha. And there is certainly no scienti c basis
to support the hypothesis that humans in earlier civilizations had lifespans
of up to 40,000 years
o Moreover, evolutionary biologists claim that if the earth were to start off
from the same initial conditions with which it actually started, but was
subjected to different in uences such as bombardment by cosmic rays and
the choices made by evolving organisms, the evolution of life on earth
would probably have been completely different from the course it took.
Given different circumstances over the course of biological evolution on
our planet, if intelligent beings were to emerge they would be utterly
different from human beings as we have evolved to this day
o Buddha: “Whatever the Tathāgata says is just so and not otherwise”
(Anguttara 4:23), and “Whatever is seen, heard, sensed, and cognized, all
that I know, all that I have directly known” (Anguttara 4:24). This means
that when he made such statements about past buddhas and their lifetimes,
he was doing so on the basis of direct experience—his own direct
experience—most likely in advanced states of meditative consciousness
The teachings of Shambhala, a pure land on this earth, but invisible to those with
impure vision
The Lotus-Born: The Life Story of Padmasambhava by Yeshe Tsogyal (Author),
Erik Pema Kunsang (Translator
The Vajra Essence: “Only those who have stored vast collections of merit in many
ways, over incalculable eons, will encounter this path. They will have aspired
repeatedly and extensively to reach the state of perfect enlightenment, and they
will have previously sought the path through other yānas, establishing
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propensities to reach this path. No others will encounter it. Why not? Although
people lacking such fortune may be present where this yāna is being explained
and heard, because they are under the in uence of their negative deeds and the
strength of the powerful, devious māras of mental af ictions, their minds will be
in a wilderness ve hundred yojanas away.
Psychologist Jerome Bruner: “Perception is to some unspeci able degree an
instrument of the world as we have structured it by our expectancies. Moreover, it
is characteristic of complex perceptual processes that they tend where possible to
assimilate whatever is seen or heard to what is expected.79
Cognitive scientist J. M. Wilding: “We conclude that the appropriate description
for a given input is highly dependent on the way the perceiver chooses to process
it, which may vary qualitatively in the way information is interpreted and the
degree to which information in memory is tapped, and quantitatively in the
number of features extracted from the stimulus and from information in memory
associated with it.”80
Einstein commented to Heisenberg: “But on principle, it is quite wrong to try
founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality the very opposite
happens. It is the theory which decides what we can observe.”81
Niels Bohr: “As our knowledge becomes wider, we must always be prepared,
therefore, to expect alterations in the points of view best suited for the ordering of
our experience. In this connection we must remember, above all, that, as a matter
of course, all new experience makes its appearance within the frame of our
customary points of view and forms of perception.”82
Franklin Merrell-Wolff (1887 – 1985): 83
o In the transcendent state, the dualism between subject and object
disappears, so that one experiences a sense of unity with whatever is
experienced in that state. One’s own sense of personal identity dissolves
into a sense of space without the presence of any subject-object
distinctions. He experienced a sense of depth, abstraction, and great
universality in the thoughts that arose while in that state, beyond which
there was an “impenetrable Darkness,” which he knew to be the “essence
79
Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press, 1986), 46.
80
Perception From Sense to Object (London: Hutchison, 1982), 100.
81
Cited in Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations (New
fi
http://www.merrell-wolff.org/biography
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83
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Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (London: Cambridge University Press,
1961), 1.
fl
82
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York: Harper & Row, 1971), 63.
Ibid. 269.
86
Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Franklin Merrell-Wolff’s Experience and Philosophy (Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 2003), 284.
87
http://www.jacobboehmeonline.com/quotes
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85
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Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Franklin Merrell-Wolff's Experience and Philosophy (Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 2003), 265.
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of Light.”84 The lingering effects of this realization were a profound sense
of contentment and serenity in the face of adversity, joy, and
benevolence.85
o His compassionate motivation led to an unexpected second Realization
that resolved the tension between nondual consciousness and the
phenomenal world. This realization resulted in a sense of perfect
equilibrium between relative and ultimate levels of consciousness, without
his being attached to either one. In this state of pristine awareness he no
longer valued transcendent, nondual awareness over the experience of the
phenomenal world, for he recognized that ultimately there was no
difference between the two. Wolff called this realization “High
Indifference,” in which he experienced a complete resolution of tension
between all opposites... This entailed the complete transcendence of all
distinctions, including the distinction between the transcendent and the
relative. At this point he had relinquished all sense of personal identity, in
terms of a lower sense of an ego as well as the highest sense of a
transcendent Self
o During this awakening, which lasted several hours, Wolff felt a sense of
identity with both a primordial “unlimited and abstract Space,” as well as
a “subject-object and self-analyzing consciousness” that had a “sort of
point-presence within that Space.”86 This entailed a shift of consciousness
away from individual identity toward a ground of consciousness that gives
rise to the manifested world. Here he identi ed with a universal substrate
in which he felt he knew the objects of the world through having become
one with them, and this brought with it an extraordinary state of bliss
Jakob Böhme (1575-1624) had a number of mystical experiences throughout his
youth, culminating in a vision in 1600 as one day he focused his attention onto the
exquisite beauty of a beam of sunlight re ected in a pewter dish.87
o “If you want to know about Heaven and what Heaven is and where it is,
you do not need to cast your thoughts many thousands of miles off, for
that place, that heaven thousands of miles away, is not your Heaven. The
true Heaven is not a created place but an uncreated place, and it is not
found in a particular place but everywhere, even in the very place where
you are standing and going. For when your spirit within yourself is able to
penetrate inward through and beyond your own esh and life, and is able
to catch hold of the innermost moving of God, then you are clearly in
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Heaven. Moreover, if your eyes were but opened, you should see God
everywhere in His Heaven, for Heaven is found everywhere.
o “Moreover, this unity is found throughout the universe, for all that there is
both here and throughout the universe is, in essence, one Person
manifesting Himself. This seemingly outward universe is nothing more
than the Godhead playing the joyous melody of His life through His
creative instruments which are all of the varied physical forms found
throughout the universe, especially the form known as man which He
always intended to be His highest song of praise to His eternal and
uncreated glory! So you see that wherever you are in this world, you are in
Heaven.
o “And so little children, if you now want and desire to draw near by faith to
the Life of God, Listen! You must enter inward to the depths within
yourselves wherein Christ dwells — not without. For within you there
exists an eternity, even as there is an eternity within Him. So you must go
in to the depths of the hidden secret place within you, to the very depths of
the abyss of the Eternal Willing in the Father, which is God's Desire and
the source of all things.
Taking the Bodhisattva vow (Chapter three of Śāntideva:
o 22-23 Just as the Sugatas of old adopted bodhicitta, and just as they
authentically conformed to the practice of the Bodhisattvas, so shall I, too,
generate bodhicitta for the sake of the world and engage in those practices
o 24-26 Having joyfully adopted bodhicitta, in order to apply and increase
it, an intelligent person should inspire this mind like this: “Now my life is
fruitful. Human existence is well obtained. Today I have been born into
the family of the buddhas. Now I am a Child of the Buddha. Now, by
every means, I shall behave in accordance with this family, without ever
contaminating this awless, noble heritage.
Buddha: “Just as in the last month of the hot season, when a mass of dust and dirt
has swirled up, a great rain cloud out of season disperses it and quells it on the
spot, so too concentration by mindfulness of breathing, when developed and
cultivated, is peaceful, sublime, an ambrosial dwelling, and it disperses and quells
on the spot unwholesome states whenever they arise.
Düdjom Lingpa from The Essence of Clear Meaning: A Short Commentary on
the Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra: "Whether or not people have
identi ed pristine awareness within themselves, those who become muddled due
to distraction and sloth should rst mount their discursive mind, which is like a
cripple, onto their breath, which is like a blind, wild stallion. By tethering it with
meditative experience and sustained attention so that they can meditate
uninterruptedly, eventually all coarse and subtle obsessive thoughts will seem to
be puri ed—and uncontrived, primordially present consciousness will manifest.
When one alights upon the great nonmeditation of pristine awareness, it is easy
for the guru’s introduction to pristine awareness to strike home."
A Parable from Karma Chagme’s Naked Awareness
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“These are the profound practical instructions of Avalokiteśvara. This is an
introduction to parables in conjunction with their meanings for the purpose of
identifying your own mind-itself as the dharmakāya
While giving the complete, combined empowerments and teachings on all
the secret peaceful and wrathful deities, Orgyan Rinpoche [Padmasambhava]
taught the following [parable]: It is said that long ago in Go Phodrang Phardey in
the land of India, in the center of the region of Orgyan, there was a structure built
of precious substances, with ve doors and inexhaustible wealth, a palace wherein
dwelled King Ākāśagarbha. With 84,000 districts, he ruled over many subjects.
His queen was named Vimalaprabhinimanojñā and his son, Prince Kiraṇa, had not
come into his strength and was foolish. [611] His wise minister was named
Suryanaśim. In short, he possessed a splendid entourage, realm, subjects, and
wealth
Once near the King’s palace there was a great festival held in a
marketplace, and Prince Kiraṇa, together with his entourage, went to see the
show. The prince went to watch the various spectacles displayed by an illusionist,
and he was carried away by them. After getting separated from his companions,
he became confused about the way back to the palace and lost his way. The prince
wandered by foot in lands of people of more than one race and became a vagrant.
He forgot his homeland and wandered from the gates of one city to another, eating
beggars’ food [612] and wearing beggars’ rags. Living in the company of foolish
derelicts, he found nowhere to sleep but on doorsteps and experienced great
misery.
Many months and years went by, and the kingdom, having lost its princely
heir, was on the verge of collapse; and there was fear that the royal line of King
Ākāśagarbha had come to an end. At that time, the young beggar-prince, in roving
about among all the city-states, happened to arrive at the door of the wise minister
Suryanaśim. The minister, recognizing him as the prince, exclaimed, “Oh, our
prince who was previously lost has returned! You need not beg. Come to the
palace!” and he began to lead him there
The beggar-prince replied, “I’m no prince. When I search my memory, I
recall being only a vagrant. You may bring me to the palace, but I’m not t to be
king. So I shall not go.
The minister replied, “As a young, foolish prince, not come into your
strength, you went to watch an illusionist’s show in the marketplace. Getting
caught up in the spectacle, you left the domain of the palace and went wandering.
Now, even though you live as a vagabond, you [613] are indeed the prince. So
you will be given the seat of royalty. If you persist in your doubts about being the
prince, I ask you: What was your original homeland? What was the palace? What
was the city? What was your home? What was your class? Who was your father?
Who was your mother? Who were your companions? What was your
occupation?
The beggar found he had nothing to say, and he was stunned. “Well then,”
he requested, “Tell me in detail about all these things and grant them to me.
The minister gave names to the realities and pointed out his homeland; and
he likewise told the prince everything about his district, palace, city, home,
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sleeping quarters, family, and parents. The wise brahmin then bathed the prince,
took him outside, placed him on the throne, and established him in the palace.
There he was crowned, with the diadem placed upon his head, and clothed in
royal garb. All at once he was offered the wealth of his domain, a coronation
ceremony was held, and he was given the kingdom and the royal palace. He
became like his father. In an instant, even though he did not discard his identity as
a beggar, he did no longer lived in the manner of a beggar. The misery of being a
vagrant disappeared by itself, and the kingdom and [614] all his subjects without
exception came under his rule. And they lived in great joy and happiness.”88
88It
is especially important to note that the prince did not have to lose his identity as a
beggar, or have to continue living as a beggar.