Chapter 7 of “Five Elements Five Dakinis”
Develop a relationship with each element Ken: … getting in touch with the elements. There are a lot of other ways you can use this. Another exercise I often do with people is have them tell a story—the same story—in each of the five elements. And different points will be emphasized. Another exercise is to […]
Chapter 7 of “Mahayana Mind Training”
Ethics in the service of waking up Ken: Today we begin the discussion of ethics associated with taking and sending. Now, there are a couple of points that are probably worth noting about ethics in general and Buddhist ethics in particular. And maybe a few other things too. I think in the larger picture the […]
Chapter 7 of “Pointing Out Instructions”
Ways into experience Ken: In all honesty I’m not quite sure what to talk about this evening. Chances are I’ll find something. My main concern in this retreat is—I think some of you have come to suspect—is to show you to the best I can a way into experience, not learning more things about mahamudra, […]
Chapter 7 of “The Warrior’s Solution”
A review Ken: A lot of you expressed varying degrees of discomfort with the exercise we just did, most often verbalized as, “I hated it!”. [Laughter] I understand. This work is profoundly uncomfortable because it seeks to bring into conscious awareness what we are doing all the time under the influence of—or driven by—patterns. Everyone […]
Chapter 7 of “Death: Friend or Foe?”
A reflection on the retreat experience Ken: A number of people have expressed their concern about, “This was a very nice experience, Ken, but what am I going to do in the rest of my life? How do I take this back?” And this is a question that often comes up in retreat settings. Retreats […]
Chapter 7 of “Buddhahood Without Meditation”
The story of tea Ken: I guess we should start off with the story which some of you know, actually two stories on this subject. But we’ll just use one. Maybe we will use the other one. Here we are. Ah, this is better. The Story of Tea. In ancient times tea was not known […]
Chapter 7 of “There Is No Enemy”
The four steps of standing up: a review Ken: Saturday, October the 24th, There Is No Enemy. Afternoon session. There are a good number of loose ends to tidy up, and I think the first one will be from this morning. We were going through the four stages, but I was going through the four […]
Chapter 7 of “A Trackless Path II”
Working with emotional energy in practice Ken: A Trackless Path II, Sunday August 8th morning session. Why do I think it’s April all the time? Going to spend a little time reviewing this working with some emotional energy in practice. As I noted yesterday the way that meditation is usually presented is in terms of […]
Chapter 7 of “Karma: Awakening From Belief”
Reactive patterns are mechanical Ken: Several people have asked, “How do you recognize a reactive pattern?” Well, one of the features of a reactive pattern, as I mentioned, is that they’re mechanical in nature. What’s one of the characteristics of a mechanical system? Student: No variation. Ken: No variation. It just runs one way. So, […]
Chapter 7 of “Finding the Way”
Motivating your practice Ken: As you know from the schedule, this is our last teaching. If you can call what we’ve been doing teaching. That’s a discussion for another day. Main reason is that over the years we gradually came to realize that giving people more information on Sunday morning didn’t really allow much absorption, […]
Chapter 7 of “Guru, Deity, Protector”
Mahakala Ken: The pictures in the retreat booklet. This is in the Shangpa tradition. In the center Mahakala. Mahakala actually is a generic term for a lot of Mahakalas. There is the Two-Armed Mahakala, Bernakchen that’s the Black Coat; there’s the Four-Armed Mahakala which is the principal protector in the Trikung and Drukpa Kagyu and […]
Chapter 7 of “Being Mahamudra”
Deep internal quiet Ken: I’m going to try to build on our experience from this afternoon. At the end of our work with sky-gazing, I talked about a deep internal quiet. One way to get in touch with that, actually fairly quickly, is through sky-gazing. Some of you may well have been able to touch […]
Chapter 7 of “37 Practices in Four Parts”
Student feedback on meditation Ken: What’s it like in your meditation practice when you don’t fight as much? Student: It’s more peaceful, but after a while, I went towards dullness and I got sleepy. I was trying to be a little bit more awake, but thinking about resting in silence was less conflicted or negative […]
Chapter 7 of “37 Practices of a Bodhisattva”
Dealing with extremes in experience Ken: As we’ve done in the past with these two verses, let’s take a look at the conceptual understanding and any translation points that you want to ask about. Any questions out there? Okay. Then we move on to, what was it like to reflect on this? Anybody got anything […]
Chapter 7 of “Power and Presence”
Communication and movement Jeff: What I’m hearing in a lot of in the interviews is that it’s of great interest how you apply this stuff to your life and use it in ways that help you do what you want to do. A big part of our lives is communication, right? And the studies—I can’t […]
