[…] but very little chance, if any, of doing anything with it. Then you have the people of uncertain potential. It depends who they run into and which direction they go. Then you have the shravaka potential and the pratyekabuddha potential. And then some people have the bodhisattva potential. And for whatever reason I just […]

[…] lot to do. The power of practice comes through resting Ken: What has become clear to me over the years is that mahamudra and all of the direct awareness practices consist of making lots of relatively subtle effort to bring the mind—or attention, or you, whatever you want to say—into some form of presence […]

[…] life is more or less half over, and maybe much more than half over, you don’t know. But you know that things are going in a certain direction, and you can’t avoid it anymore. So, one often sees people making significant changes in their lives, commonly known as mid-life crisis, which I think is […]

[…] he’s saying because it validates in the following way: by forming an intention, we actually start the process of aligning different parts of ourselves in a certain direction, and then actions start to happen, which is a manifestation of that. Cara: I mean, what about, not so much the grocery store scenario, because I […]

[…] work very well.   The key in Buddhism is this quality we call attention. And one way of thinking about attention is that it’s the ability to direct energy. There’s energy in our system and it’s going all over the place usually. And when we sit and rest in the experience of breathing we’re […]

[…] true. There is actually a very important dialogue that goes on between a group of people and their leader. Because if the leader takes them in a direction which is harmful or against what is called for, then everything goes to hell. So if the leader doesn’t listen, he or she gets into trouble […]

[…] and directness of both Zen and Theravadan traditions. But one can say quite definitely that all of these different approaches are really concerned with moving into the direct experience of what is. In the Theravadan approach they have a very straightforward way of doing it. You just do it. Whatever comes up—as a colleague […]

[…] [Laughter] Student: [Sighs] Oh. Ken: Let’s start all over again, okay? And just scratch the last five minutes—it didn’t happen. What’s your question? Student: Where do we direct attention from? Ken: Ah. [Laughter] Oh, we’ll do it a different way, okay? Student: Please stop. It was a simple question. Ken: I’m giving you extremely […]

[…] symbolic expression, in the dakinis and protectors. There’s awareness, which knows exactly what to do. It doesn’t depend on deduction or inference. There’s just that very, very, direct knowing that’s at the very heart of all of us. The two aims here: Good fortune: may the two aims come about naturally. The two aims are […]

[…] about that. And then he’d say, “But what do I do about the pain?” And he just couldn’t understand what Rinpoche was talking about, or trying to direct his attention to. It’s because he had a very fixed conceptual understanding which wouldn’t allow anything else in. So that’s what Jigme Lingpa is pointing to […]

[…] about—that this is being done for your benefit. A friend of mine studies with another friend of mine and he’s pretty rough. I mean he’s really, really direct and not particularly gentle, but extremely effective. And she reported on one interaction, which was really hard, but she said, “I saw in his eyes that […]

[…] being a doer. You make lists. You’re highly organized. You know when things need to be done, and you get them done. And I brought that doing directly into my practice. Give me the syllabus, give me the outline, tell me what to do. And then I worked really, really hard at it. And […]

[…] it’s objectified. If instead, saying it one way, I speak directly from the experience, or saying it another way, the experience speaks or expresses, then it’s absolutely direct. And in the pointing out instructions, that’s what the teacher’s actually looking for. It’s the same in koan practice in Zen, that you’re given these things […]

[…] frameworks. You’re letting go of all of that stuff and it’s simply a natural action. That’s what the Perfection of Wisdom is: it’s acting completely naturally as direct knowing’s response to what is arising. And it’s dressed up in all this mythic language. It makes it seem like this terribly unattainable thing. But it’s actually […]

[…] prevent that from actually being the case, are gradually, really dissolved in the effort that you are making. Do you follow? Now, it’s regarded as a more direct path than this nurturing. There’s a huge amount of propaganda that says how much better the Vajrayana is. Rinpoche used to use the similes of transportation […]