Natural Mind

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, with a friend. Photo by Matthieu Ricard

Late one afternoon, as the evening sun was sending its final shafts of golden light into the silent, incense filled air of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche's room, i found myself alone with the great Master.

Even though I was some distance away, nearer to the farthest end of his long carpet filled shrine, Khyentse Rinpoche had such an enormous presence that it felt as though he filled the entire room.

I was quietly fingering some beads and basking in the tremendous silence and sanctity that permeated this blessed space. The atmosphere felt utterly charged and in it i felt complete and whole.

This particular evening there were very few visitors around, something which was rather unusual. However before long there was a rustle of activity in the outer guest waiting hall and i looked over just in time to see a well known Lama enter with a handful of his western students.

Soon they appeared before Khyentse Rinpoche, bowing and offering scarves of welcome as He greeted each one. They seated themselves before Him and all fell into an expectant silence.

What can we Expect from an Authentic Guru?

Some years ago my Master Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, wrote down a verse in which he describes the qualities of a true Guru. I have not come across another writing that does this as well or with such poetic eloquence.

Re Claiming Our Inner Space

We are as wide as the sky...

Without limits, borders or endings...

All that we need to 're claim' the inner space that we
often feel we have lost, is to remember who and what we
really are.

We might think; 'how do we do this'?

But there is no how, no process, no distance between
who and what we really are and the actual 'being' of that...

People can hear and read these words and then think,
'how is it possible,' what do they mean, how is it done?

This is the great paradox of our existence.

We are every moment only 'that,' but the simplicity and
proximity of this confound us. Mind jumps in and stirs up
the still waters of our silent inner space and deludes us into
believing that we have to achieve, through some long and
drawn out process, what is already ours and inseparable from us.

May we swiftly re claim the inheritance of our un-contrived and natural awareness...

Polished Stainless Steel
David Harber

Ahead of the Game

Leunig

Does this remind you of someone...?

The mind creates all sorts of thoughts and often the
body has a tough time keeping up.
If we hang tenaciously onto every thought, allowing it to
proliferate into a multitude of new thoughts we soon find ourselves in the never-ending chambers of the mind.

There are no end to thoughts and the mind is capable of creating anything and everything.

Read on in Pieces of a Dream

Original Mind

I want to share with my readers a wonderful verse by the Poet

Gary Rosenthal. It is so lucidly written and so evocative of the simple awareness which is the true, but too often overlooked, source of glory, peace and happiness within each and every one of us...

Sunrise in Cairns

How many evenings have you turned away?

As if the life you really want

could only begin

once something else had happened, 

something else that was not yet here…

What Dreams May Come

There is an old and well aired fable that is often told by Tibetan Lamas on various occasions. I always enjoy hearing it as it brings up rather clear visual associations and instantly helps to shift my perspective on things. Here I offer my own slightly embellished version.

One evening, a farmer looked out over his fields as they shimmered in the golden sunshine. The gentle ripple of a breeze ruffled the laden bushels and cast a hazy sheen into the fading light.

The lone voice of a peasant woman singing rose and fell in the silent air. At that moment all felt right with the world and he was pleased; even joyful.

Looking out over his fields, he knew that this season would be unusually good. He would have an ample harvest and there would be money and food to spare.

This was a remote village so an abundant yield would be deemed very auspicious. He was almost certain that this harvest would bring double the income that he usually got.

The weather was idyllic and in the coming few days his crops would be in.

As he lingered there, warming himself in the pleasant final rays of the day he contemplated his good fortune and many happy thoughts arose in his mind.

Now, I can find a pretty wife, we will build a nice home. We will have several children. At least two boys... She will be fair-skinned and have eyes like shinning black obsidians. He mused quietly to himself.

She will be very devoted to me and she will also be a good mother to my children. She will take care of me in my old age and be a fond and loving companion.

My children will love me and be completely devoted to us, their parents. They will be healthy, intelligent and strong. They will make me proud with their achievements and in time they will have their own strong and sensible children.

Read on in Masters, Mice and Men
Volume Three from the Series Shades of Awareness

The More we Learn the Less we Know

I lived for a time with someone who did not function from the centre of rational thinking.  This does not mean that He was incapable of rational thinking, quite the opposite. In fact, i never met with anyone who was so practical, ingenious and down to earth, all in one. He tended to use rational thinking as a tool, He was not ruled by the rational mind. Someone who can live and function from an inner intuitive sense of spontaneous clarity will leave no footprints in the world and will move through life with spontaneous expressions of light and joy. Such a being lives with an intensity which is always fresh, completely un-contrived and uncompromisingly relevant.

To have had the chance to come within the orbit of someone who moves in complete harmony with the present moment is an extraordinary privilege and something rare and beautiful to behold.

We live in an age in which book learning and 'artificial' knowledge fill almost all of our waking hours. We are endlessly distracted and preoccupied with things which are not intrinsically important to our inner well being. In fact, our educational system is founded upon the very principles that remove us from the sacred inner knowledge which lies at the very heart of our existence.

Continue Reading in Return to Forever

The Mystery of Now

Photo Credit: Mandala Madness

In the early nineteen-nineties, I met an aged Tibetan Lama in the Himalayan foothills of the Kathmandu Valley. Back then He was already well into his eighties.

He looked like something out of a Santa Claus play or some magical mystery novel.

He had pure white hair and a long grey beard that seemed to extend into the four directions like tiny antennas. He wore an interesting array of clothing that often consisted of bloomers or a lungi, Birkenstock s, long fur-lined capes that reached all the way to His ankles, or, when duty called, red robes draped in an extensive white and red handwoven silk shawl.

Chadral Rinpoche, despite being a very venerable Lama, has absolutely no airs whatsoever about Him. He lives, breathes and moves in the ever-fresh atmosphere of the present moment. And yes, i use the present tense because He is still alive and well and now crossed the venerable age of 100.

For me, and many others who have had the good fortune to meet Him, He is the living example, par excellence, of a vital awareness that embraces everything, whatever it may be, in a completely spontaneous and uncontrived way.

During the years when I was privileged to live near Him, it never occurred to me to ask Him for formal teachings. I simply felt that every day and moment in His presence was in itself the highest possible teaching.

Continue Reading at Return to Forever

Perspective, Why it is so Important?

This is the reason why it is so important to take moments to stop and breath and by this i mean really letting go into the breath. This requires a certain letting things be. There is a natural rhythm in the cycle of our breathing which can easily convey us into a the place of silence.

Expand into the present moment which is un-contrived and effortless. This simple non-movement takes us instantly to the edge of infinity, the expanse of the true self.

We get so caught up in the little dramas going on in our lives and in our minds. When we stop for a moment and look up into the sky, be it day or night and let it touch us in that secret, silent place beyond thoughts and words, something happens...

In the flash of an eye our perspective can shift from petty self-involved preoccupations to the infinite mystery of the universe in which we live, move and have our being.

There is nothing fabricated in this shift of perspective, it requires nothing but an openness of heart and mind to reconnect with the profound mystery of our existence.

In doing this, we reconnect with the sacred, and the sacred is free, always available and unbelievably near.

Continue reading in Return to Forever

Why Not Be A Nobody

Leunig

Leunig has the magical and artist knack of being able to capture, with a single, simple drawing, the tragic self incarceration of individuals living in modern societies which revolve almost entirely around the attainment of money, goods and services.

Where there is no due consideration for the deep inner spiritual awareness and interconnection that permeates the entire fabric of life upon our planet, existence becomes artificial and meaningless.

It is little wonder that there is so much profound inner dissatisfaction, which in turn expresses itself in all manner of negative ways. The majority are locked into a system that compromises inner spiritual wealth for short term material gain. Such an orientation is bound to lead to frustration and imbalance in people's lives.

We may be able to dull our sense of growing inner 'dis-ease' by distracting ourselves with the endless calls to our attention, time and energy, but we can not make it go away...

Continue reading in Return to Forever

The Mystery of Awareness

Snoopy Wisdom

If your awareness comes knocking, will you hear it and will you take heed of its call?

When a friend of mine was very young, barely seven years old, the mystery of being jumped out right in front of him and looked him straight in the face. This moment of crisis; this merging into 'being,' was so utterly riveting and compelling that 'rediscovering it' shaped and moulded his life for the next three decades.

Once one has tasted the 'truth', (for want of a better word) there is no turning away from it. Truth follows you like a shadow. It will never leave your side. It will pull at your shirt sleeves, it will invade and permeate every single aspect of your waking life...

Continue reading in Return to Forever

The Power of Listening

What is it that connects us consciously to all life?

Listening...

This is not something that we generally give much thought to, but it is crucial in all sorts of ways.

Listening is all about generosity.
The generosity that can enable us to let go of self-clinging.
The generosity that can enable us to let be and allow the present moment to arise before our consciousness, just as it is...

The untapped and potential power inherent within our capacity to just 'listen' is immense and usually completely unrecognized

Continue reading in Return to Forever

Our Only Certainty in Life is Uncertainty

"That which is impermanent attracts compassion. That which is not provides wisdom."

Steven Levine

We may like to feel that we are in charge of our lives, that we are in full control, making our own decisions, going our own way. 

Yet that is all just a trick of the mind, a tweak of the ego. 

The only certainty we can ever have in this life is uncertainty.

That may seem frightening to many and yet it is an unavoidable fact. We can run away and try to hide from this all too evident truth for a while, but we can never escape it and whether we acknowledge this fact or not, somewhere deep inside, we all know that this is what we live with every moment of our lives.

We are in fact standing on a narrow ledge...

That ledge is the mind's belief system, which, if we care to look at a little more carefully, carries with it no certainties what so ever.

Learning to embrace the fact of uncertainty is one of the VERY important life skills with which we all need to arm ourselves. Without it, we face constant and daily disappointments of one kind or another.

We constantly swing like a pendulum between the two extremes of hope and fear, until and unless we can recognise this movement for what it is, we are completely at its mercy.

The solution to this seeming dilemma is not the acquiring of some new system of belief or the attainment of greater knowledge, it is not even something that we do not already know, intrinsically and intuitively within the infinitude of our own inmost nature. We have everything we need within us already, in order to cope to with the uncertainties of 'life,' if we could only know it and acknowledge what so very plainly stares us all right in the face.

Realised beings repeatedly tell us that the purpose of this life is to recognise who and what we REALLY are. The duality in which 'mind' flourishes and 'life' appears and disappears, is a transitory thing, dreamlike and illusory. 

Who and what we really are is not subject to change. It does not come and then go away, it is not made or created, it does not appear or disappear. It simply is...

And the only value in all that we think, say and do lies in recognising that.

Nothing else matters... 

Ordinary Happiness

Leunig

Ordinary happiness is an experience that is so close to each of us that we barely even notice it. Yet here we are, with this supreme opportunity to become 'aware' of what it is that is 'aware' in this present moment!

It has been said often enough, in 'spiritual' circles, that we create our own happiness or misery. As creatures of habit, locked into our 'perceptions' of 'reality', we can coast through an entire lifetime without ever stopping to question the premise upon which those 'perceptions' are based. If questioning does in fact arise, it is usually the direct result of some crisis; some confrontation with change and its associated loss or gain...

Continue reading in Return to Forever

Going With the Flowing

Thunder Down Under
The Barron Falls 

It's not always moving at this level of intensity, but isn't it true that at times life can be pretty damn full on!

When the flow is just too massive, we need to let go. Why resist the tumble, why resist whatever is happening? I guess 'resistance' is in our bones and our innate fear of change is instinctive...