Being Mahamudra
In this mahamudra retreat Ken weaves together traditional texts such as Aspirations for Mahamudra and Milarepa’s Song to Lady Paldarboom with practical guidance. He explores struggle as resistance to experience, encourages reflection on essential questions about life, and introduces deep listening as a way of engaging fully with experience. He demystifies Milarepa’s advice on practicing without limits, distortion, or hesitation, emphasizes the importance of openness, clarity, and stability in cultivating awareness, and explores ground, path, and result as a framework for the unfolding of mahamudra practice as it transforms how we experience life.
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1. Introducing Mahamudra
Ken introduces mahamudra as a way of approaching the four noble truths and being able to experience whatever arises. Reframing suffering he says, “You just have to be able to experience anything that arises; then you wouldn’t have any struggle, would you?” He emphasizes the importance of spiritual questions, outlines the supports needed for this exploration, and presents the foundational practice of letting body, breath, and mind settle naturally.
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2. Four Questions: Experience, Truth, Ethics, and Action
Ken frames this talk around four key questions: “How do I know what I experience? How do I know what is true? How do I know what is right? How do I know what to do?” He connects these questions to the traditional four reminders—precious human existence, impermanence, karma, and the shortcomings of samsara—and encourages participants to reflect deeply on their own lives. Highlighting the practical application of these teachings, Ken says, “Whatever energy we put out in the world is reflected back to us and shapes our experience.”
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3. Deep Listening: Being Awake in Experience
Ken contrasts observing experience with “deep listening,” a practice he describes as “patient curiosity.” He encourages retreat participants to listen to their body and emotions fully, not to control or direct them but to connect deeply. This talk offers insights into moving from observation to presence, opening the way to being awake in experience.
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4. Balancing Clarity and Stability
Ken focuses on building capacity in meditation, emphasizing the importance of balancing clarity and stability. He describes practice as learning to detect and correct imbalances, much like maintaining balance while riding a bicycle. Drawing on a key teaching from Suzuki Roshi, Ken says, “Our practice is absolute confidence in our fundamental nature.”
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5. Milarepa’s Song: Practicing Without Limit or Hesitation
Ken uses Milarepa’s Song to Lady Paldarboom to illustrate key principles of practice. Through metaphors of sky, sun and moon, mountain, and ocean, the song points to practicing without limit, distortion, distraction, or hesitation. Ken quotes Milarepa, “Waves are the ocean’s magical creations. Be the ocean itself.”
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6. Milarepa’s Song: Clouds, Waves, and Thoughts as Natural Expressions of Mind
Ken deepens his teaching on Milarepa’s Song to Lady Paldarboom, illustrating how clouds, waves, and thoughts point to dynamic and natural expressions of mind. He explains, “You’re not trying to control this at all. Let yourself feel the emotion, and to the extent that you’re able to, just breathe in it.” Topics covered include learning to rest in openness, balancing movement and stillness, and allowing experience to unfold naturally.
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7. Deep Internal Quiet and Dynamic Clarity
Ken discusses deep internal quiet as the beginning of the process that leads to direct awareness. He explains how the experience of dynamic clarity arises naturally when stability and openness are cultivated. Topics covered include the difference between stillness and awakening, resting in deep internal quiet, and how deep internal quiet supports further practice.
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8. Pointing Out Instructions: Resting and Knowing as the Basis of Mahamudra Practice
Ken gives pointing out instructions, starting with the inseparability of resting and knowing as the foundation for mahamudra practice. He explains, “The resting and the knowing—like heat and light—cannot be separated.” Topics covered include experiencing the resting mind, looking into experience to reveal insight, and cultivating stability.
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9. Aspirations for Mahamudra: Ground, Path, and Result
Ken examines the Aspirations for Mahamudra, using its structure of ground, path, and result to explore how mahamudra practice unfolds. He discusses the relationship between view, meditation, and result, noting how they reflect the progression of understanding and direct experience. Topics covered include the limitations of intellectual understanding, balancing energy in practice, and the transformative power of direct awareness.