Kye Ma Ho!

Just as the suffering of burns

Can be alleviated by applying heat,

So can someone burnt by the fire of desire

Be pacified by the fire of desire.

Hevajra-tantra

From Dakpo Tashi Namgyal “Mahamudra, The Quintessence of Mind and Meditation” P 345

posted 11/22/09 comments (0) Like it? ReTweet it! Share This!

Don’t fixate on my words, beginners;

Reflect on their meaning.

If you practice the essence of this,

It is certain that you will gradually discover the

      path of dharma.

Terchen Barway Dorje

posted 10/28/09 comments (0) Like it? ReTweet it! Share This!

From the beginning, rely on a guru who has good experience

    and realization.

And whose being has blessing.

Through that, experience will arise in you.

Terchen Barway Dorje

posted 10/27/09 comments (0) Like it? ReTweet it! Share This!

Taking Appearances To The Path

When I'm going, I take appearances to the path
Going with six consciousnesses free all by themselves

When I'm resting, I rest in uncontrived naturalness
This is the way to rest in the heart essence

When I'm eating, I eat within emptiness
This is the way to eat without perceiver or perceived

When I'm drinking, I drink from the river of mindfulness
This is the way to drink that never, ever ends

Going, wandering, sleeping, resting---I look at mind
This is virtuous practice without sessions or breaks!

Milarepa

posted 10/21/09 comments (0) Like it? ReTweet it! Share This!

Happiness And Misery, Drawing The Line

Someone who rests in the act of self-recognition
And is therefore in contact with basic reality
This is a yogi and happy at any time
Someone like this is a yogi and always content

A dharma practitioner chasing after delusion
Caught up in creating a welter of suffering
This is a person unhappy at any time
This is a person who's always miserable

Someone who rests in a state which is not artificial
Is unchanging and pure in the midst of whatever occurs
This is a yogi and happy at any time
Someone like this is a yogi and always content

For a dharma practitioner caught in events and reacting
Both likes and dislikes pile up all by themselves
This is a person unhappy at any time
This is a person who's always miserable

Someone who's realized appearance as dharmakaya
Has cut through the hopes and the fears and the hesitations
This is a yogi and happy at any time
Someone like this is a yogi and always content

A dharma practitioner careless and full of pretenses
And not on top of the eight worldly dharmas at all
This is a person unhappy at any time
This is a person who's always miserable

Someone who knows that everything is mind
Is able to use whatever appears as a resource
This is a yogi and happy at any time
Someone like this is a yogi and always content

A dharma practitioner lost in this life's distractions
Will find a great deal to regret at the time of death
This is a person unhappy at any time
This is a person who's always miserable

Someone who's mastered a measure of realization
Can settle in a natural mind's natural presence
This is a yogi and happy at any time
Someone like this is a yogi and always content

A dharma practitioner shackled in lots of desires
who is self-indulgent and scrounging for attention
This is a person unhappy at any time
This is a person who's always miserable

The one for whom labels are freed on the spot where they're
      forming
Has an unbroken flow of insightful experiences
This is a yogi and happy at any time
Someone like this is a yogi and always content

A dharma practitioner caught in conventional terms
Will not gain conclusive discernment applying to mind
This is a person unhappy at any time
This is a person who's always miserable

Someone who's given up worldly pursuits and involvements
Is free of self-interest and narrow-minded objectives
This is a yogi and happy at any time
Someone like this is a yogi and always content

A dharma person whose struggle is geared to provisions
Whose only perspective is caring for family and friends
This is a person unhappy at any time
This is a person who's always miserable

Someone who's turned from attachment from within
With the realization that everything is illusion
This is a yogi and happy at any time
Someone like this is a yogi and always content

A dharma practitioner taking a path of distraction
Sells his own body and speech into slavery
This is a person unhappy at any time
This is a person who's always miserable

Someone who rides on the horse of diligence
Will go through the levels and travel all freedom's paths
This is a yogi and happy at any time
Someone like this is a yogi and always content

A dharma practitioner shackled in laziness
Will sink like an anchor into the brine of samsara
This is a person unhappy at any time
This is a person whose always miserable

Someone who's listened, reflected and cut hesitation
Then contemplates the panorama of mind
This is a yogi and happy at any time
Someone like this is a yogi and always content

A dharma practitioner claiming to practice the dharma
Whose way of behaving is really a case of wrongdoing
This is a person unhappy at any time
This is a person who's always miserable

Someone who's cut through the hoping and fearing and
       doubting
And rests in the natural state without interruption
This is a yogi and happy at any time
Someone like this is a yogi and always content

A dharma practitioner led by the nose by others
Who flatters and humors them just to get their applause
This is a person unhappy at any time
This is a person who's always miserable

Someone who's left the cares of this life behind
And is always engaged in practicing excellent dharma
This is a yogi and happy at any time
Someone like this is a yogi and always content

---Milarepa

posted 10/19/09 comments (0) Like it? ReTweet it! Share This!

Ten Stanzas On True Reality

I pay homage to and salute suchness,
Bereft of any dealings with existence or nonexistence,
Since its very stainlessness
Is the nature of enlightenment as realization.

Those who wish to realize suchness
Do so neither with aspects nor without aspects.
Not adorned with the guru's words,
Even the middle is just middling.

This entity is indeed enlightenment,
Which is due to having the nature of nonattachment.
Attachment is born from mistakenness,
And mistakenness is held to be held without basis.

What is true reality? It is the actual form of entities,
While form is what lacks form,
Since the lack of form is surely also form
In terms of the nature of result and cause.

Thus, phenomena are of one taste,
Unhindered, and nonabiding.
Through the meditative concentration of reality as it is,
they are all luminosity.

The meditative concentration of reality as it is
Comes about through the engaging mind,
Since true reality dawns ceaselessly
For those who are aware of its ground.

In being free from cognition and what is cognized,
This very world is held to be nondual.
Even the vain presumptuousness of being free from duality,
In like manner, is luminosity.

Through having realized this true reality,
By any means and in whatever manner,
The yogin whose eyes are wide open
Roams everywhere, just like a lion.

Whoever has thus abandoned the worldly dharma
and relies on the lifestyle of a madman
Does everything without a reference point,
while being adorned with self-blessing.

As for true reality, which has been taught as stainless
And is said to be nondual,
Those with great insight are worthy of realizing it,
Once they have eliminated equality and nonequality from it.

---Maitripa

posted 10/06/09 comments (1) Like it? ReTweet it! Share This!

Self-appearing Illusion

All these forms---appearance emptiness
Like a rainbow with its shining glow
In the reaches of appearance emptiness
Just let go and go where no mind goes

Every sound is sound and emptiness
Like the sound of an echo's roll
In the reaches of sound and emptiness
Just let go and go where no mind goes

Every feeling is bliss and emptiness
Way beyond what words can show
In the reaches of bliss and emptiness
Just let go and go where no mind goes

All awareness---awareness emptiness
Way beyond what thought can know
In the reaches of awareness emptiness
Let awareness go---oh, where no mind goes

posted 09/02/09 comments (0) Like it? ReTweet it! Share This!

Five Perfections of The Definitive Meaning

The support is the three precious jewels
They're present primordially
Perfect in natural awareness
I don't need to supplicate them
I am the blissful yogi
Ain't doing no recitation!

The yidams, bestowers of siddhis
Both common and supreme
Are not something you can create
They're perfect within clear light mind
So I do not need to practice
The deity's creation stage
I am the blissful yogi
My own body is the deity!

The host of sky flying dakinis
Who clear bad conditions
Are perfect in natural being
No need to offer them torma
This blissful yogi is resting
In six consciousnesses so relaxed!

posted 09/02/09 comments (0) Like it? ReTweet it! Share This!

Identifying A Capable Student

To the guru who has realized basic selflessness
I pray in awe with body, speech and mind.
Please bless us, me and all my students to come,
That we too realize basic selflessness.

Please hold us in compassion's steady grip
That keeps our skandhas free of ego-idea,
Of everything that idea's feeding on;
Now we've prayed, oh watchful shepherd, listen to this.

This consciousness conceiving I and me,
I look at it but know not how to see;
If you can meditate on mahamudra,
your seeing will be one where nothing is seen.

To do this mahamudra meditation
The basics: faith, respect and great resolve;
While on the path, causality please know and heed;
To get the fruit directly to emerge
You need the guru's wang and lung and guiding words;
To be a vessel for instructions like these
The student has to have the merit it takes
And must keep going right through good times and bad,
Persevering even in the face of death;
Oh young apprentice, can you practice like that?

If so, it's through your training lives before;
If not, then there is no point in saying more.

You got the picture when you said it like this,
"What I think is me I cannot find."
You're done with personal lack of self---
You want phenomena's lack of it to?

Then follow me throughout the next twelve years
And then you'll recognize your mind itself.
So then to recognize your mind itself
Oh young apprentice, work with mind like this.

---Milarepa, “Songs of Realization” P 36-37

posted 08/27/09 comments (0) Like it? ReTweet it! Share This!

In general, people have a tendency to believe that being mistaken and being unmistaken, being right and being wrong, are real. People conceive of right and wrong as being opposites that truly exist. If we are not able to reverse this tendency to think that right and wrong are truly existent, it will be impossible for us to realize emptiness. This is why it is very important for us to analyze mistakes and determine their nature.

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, “The Sun of Wisdom” 148

posted 06/18/09 comments (2) Like it? ReTweet it! Share This!