Chapter 2 of “There Is No Enemy”
[…] get into serious trouble. In the Mahayana you have such stories as buddha nature, and awakened mind, and transcendent awareness and so forth. Because one of the primary aims of all religions up to the modern times has been to transcend the human condition. And because in people’s experience sometimes people experience really horrific […]
Chapter 7 of “Chö: Cutting Through the Thickets of Thinking”
[…] seems that she’s talking about these things as external forces, but listen to it very carefully in terms of internal processes. Troubled by your peaceful or other primary absorption, the spirits that live in that same haunted area cannot bear the overwhelming brilliance of the yogin’s power of reality, and they become agitated. In […]
Chapter 15 of “Mind Training in Seven Points”
[…] when it works, attention moves deeper in you. And when attention moves deeper in you, reactive patterns arise in order to dissipate that attention. That is the primary function—-the only function of reactive patterns. They arise to dissipate attention. And so by the third time, they’ve learned how to do this. And that’s where […]
Chapter 36 of “Then and Now: A Commentary on The Jewel Ornament of Liberation”
[…] the different aspects to awakening, these things would be subjects of study and training. And you’ll see that they are also highly idealized. At this level, the primary practice is one of generosity. It’s the first of the six perfections, and you see we just go through the perfections here. And if we look at […]
Chapter 1 of “Mind Training in Seven Points”
[…] and Khyentse Ozer were all very important teachers in Eastern Tibet in the late 19th, early 20th centuries. Norbu Dondrup was the teacher of Kalu Rinpoche, his primary teacher. And Rangjung Kunchab is the actual name of Kalu Rinpoche, my own teacher. And I received this teaching primarily from Kalu Rinpoche, but also from […]
Chapter 21 of “Then and Now: A Commentary on The Jewel Ornament of Liberation”
[…] quality to it. So, Konchog Gyaltsen’s translation may be a little bit of a gloss. Okay? The notion of truth Ken: Now, this next bit—the classification by primary characteristics—this is really quite important, and also is the basis for a lot of confusion for people. The first division basically reflects compassion and emptiness. Now, […]
Chapter 1 of “Living Awake: Making Things Happen”
[…] just sheer strength, and that’s the capacity here. So these are typically the things that fall under capacity. Time, okay? Money. In organizational settings these are the primary things. Thinking too much. The reason I’ve put this under capacity is, one needs a certain capacity in attention. So you can actually stay present in […]
Chapter 7 of “There Is No Enemy”
[…] And I said there were several techniques which could be used for that. One’s the five-step practice, which allows us to open more deeply. Another is the primary practice, which works both broadly and deeply. Student: Did you give us the primary? Ken: I gave it in previous retreats and we’ll be putting something up […]
Chapter 4 of “Five Elements Five Dakinis”
[…] they’re really thinking, and so forth. Okay. But everybody has all five elements, they aren’t personality types. What I typically find is that most people have a primary relationship with one element, a secondary relationship with another, and often not a very good relationship with the others, which limits their range of responses. I […]
Chapter 3 of “Living Awake: Making Things Happen”
[…] Student: Squished. Ken: Squished. Some English words really work, you know. [Laughter] Squished. Microphone over here please. There you go. Student: Primitive. Ken: Primitive. Student: A very primary process if you’ll excuse the therapy language there, but primitive will cover it. Ken: Primitive. [Ken writes on board] Okay. Anybody else? Student: Revealing. Ken: Revealing. […]
Chapter 1 of “Living Awake: Surviving Stressful Times”
[…] things affecting you? I’m not going to go around and do a poll—just anybody who wants to volunteer, just in a sentence or two. Sharon: Well, the primary effect at the moment has been stock market loss, which there has been, so far, enough cushion that it hasn’t had a major negative impact yet, […]
Chapter 3 of “Stand-Alone Talks”
[…] the retreat, everybody worked on everything. But once those names went up on the doors, then it was about 50/50. Fifty percent of the people put their primary effort into fixing up their room, and their spare time into working on everything [else]. And then some of us, and I was in this group, […]
Chapter 4 of “Meditating on the Four Immeasurables”
[…] had to do with joy, and now I see. Ken: Okay, good. Okay. Are you okay with this? Joe: Yes. One final thing. [Laughter] When I’m doing primary practice, I suppose what I was looking for when I’m trying to just experience everything I’m experiencing, and drop the distinction between inside and outside … never […]
Chapter 2 of “Living Awake: Who Am I?”
[…] arrive at very, very quickly through any kind of logic or analysis, runs smack into all of that conditioning, that habit. And that is one of the primary tensions in spiritual practice. And we address that tension by developing a capacity of experience, a capacity in attention, so that we actually can open to […]
