Basic Goodness – The Root of All Religions

 

Basic Goodness –

The Root of All Religions

What is common to all major religions is the element of worship of some higher, more profound or spiritual ideal. Christians, hindus and buddhists all have their objects of prayer, worship and meditation. In this way, practitioners of religion put themselves near to their spiritual idols and gain benefits from doing that. Typically these benefits include the sense of becoming peaceful, sober-minded, patient, tolerant and loving. It is fascinating that regardless of religious orientation, contemplatives of all religions are known by these same marks. From this perspective all paths seem to lead to same or very similar transformation and maturation of the human mind and heart.

What is also fascinating is the similarity of descriptions of inner experience among advanced contemplatives of different religions. They all describe unification with their chosen ideals, and therefore, transcendence of it. Christian mystics describe being unified with God or Christ and buddhist adepts describe realising the buddha within. Hindus and taoists describe the same thing. Isn't it extremely enchanting that based on their accounts, advanced contemplatives seem to go beyond the differences in doctrine but also seem to discover a common bedrock of pure radiance and its many positive expressions, that is beyond all and any of their former spiritual idols? This is transcendence of paths, stages, religious doctrine and idols of worship. The number of contemplatives who talk in this manner is low but nevertheless exists.

I never believed that there would be only one path or one way to existential freedom, that comes through transcendence of particulars. I never believed it because it didn't make sense to me.

All beings have pure and divine nature that cannot be given or taken away but goes undiscovered. That is the very reason why we live our lives in emotional pain and existential confusion, not knowing who we really are. Below the chaos and confusion of thoughts and emotions, there is incredible peace and clarity that is common to all beings. You are basically good! Utterly good! Discover this good in yourself and become an embodiment of it.

In this way, by becoming aware of who we really are, we tap into the common bedrock of all religions that is already in us.

Kim, 18.6.2021

Yogas With or Without Knowledge

 

Yogas With or Without Knowledge

I don't think that emptiness teaching is or was meant to start a new religion that we now know as buddhism. I think it was meant to fix the central problem in hinduism but then things went otherwise and a new religion was developed. It is a whole another discussion how is it possibe that there is so many basic misconceptions and misunderstandings in hinduism, considering that jnana yoga is one of the most basic forms of hindu yogas. There cannot be any other knowledge or jnana than knowledge of one's true nature. All other jnanas come far second and yet, it is these secondary knowledges that most hindu practitioners spend their lives with, left ignorant of one's true nature. That is a tragedy.

The way I see it is that both self-delusion and its removal through the teaching of shunyata are both universal. We have to reset the karmic counter back to zero (shunya) to be able to have the primary knowledge of our existence. However, considering that this teaching isn't available to that many people and it comes together with the religious packaging of buddhism, so people associate the teaching of emptiness with buddhism, Asia and so on, are signs that many things went wrong along the way for various reasons. If we look at great founders like Jesus and Buddha, I think what they meant to do was to offer and bring medicine for the humanity, not start their own groups for the sake of having a group. Although I feel that I'm a buddhist, often when looking at what goes on in buddhism, I feel like a complete stranger to it. It is just what Babaji told me years ago, that there is no this or that yoga, you could say no this or that religion. There is only that which works and that which doesn't in terms of existential confusion. People get so confused when faith and belief come into the picture and loose sight of what is truly important. To me there cannot be other type of dharma than dharma that releases dualistic (plus or minus) confusion into zero. And this was always the real meaning of yoga.

Kim, 11.6.2021

Cessation

Cessation

What I always liked about photos taken right after shifts is how people's faces, like Ugi's here, look as if they've just been thrown with a bucket of cold water. There's kind of a shock there. That's how cessation looks like.

If you are not familiar with the word cessation, that is a hot word in buddhist yoga :) Cessation refers to ceasing of notions and impressions, or ceasing of all self-based mind processes. It is discussed and described everywhere in both buddhist and hindu scriptures. In Sanskrit words such as nirvana, nirodha and nirodha samapatti are used to refer to this experience which actually is an opposite of experience because cessation is rather ceasing of all kinds of experiences. 

 

Tibetan word trekcho, that is frequently used in dzogchen is samapatti in sanskrit which means "correct recognition of reality" or "correct recognition of truth". There are different interpretations of its meaning and there are short and extensive commentaries that discuss it. By all means, study those sources.

Long story short, all bhumi openings and perfections are cessations, so you already know its meaning and profundity of it. When selfing ceases, be it for 1 second, for a day or for good, yourself as a buddha shows up. This is what buddhahood means: to be free of selfing (gross and subtle) that happens in time and place. The first stage of buddhahood is a complete cessation, as the whole karmic body (bhumis 1-10) ceases to spin the dualistic notions and conceptions of me, other and all kind of phenomena. 

 

Yup. Have a nice day all and remember that each one of us is the source of blessings. We are already what we seek. 　

Kim

Sex and Sexual Art

Sex and Sexual Art

Q: I write this partly as a response to your recent sexual art works but also it’s been something that’s been on my mind for ages and actually something I have been meaning to write to you about.

When you posted about your sexual art I read it at work and only the night before I had been very consumed by sexual desire. Hence sex was strongly on my mind when I read your email. Basically my sexual desire has nowhere to go. I know understand how frustrated and blocked this aspect of myself is.

Any advice in this area would be appreciated as I have experienced first hand the pain of cutting off the sex drive. I want to be a normal human being and not some spiritual seeker who cuts off the sex drive in an attempt to be holy.

Kim: Do what you can to help yourself. Suppression and ignoring sexuality makes people strange, if not batshit crazy. Once Babaji told me, ”Be yourself. Find your own way”. You got to find your own way. It is important not to pretend saintliness. Besides, saints are often psychopaths. Tantrics don’t play with fire, we use it as wisely as we can. 

 

Close up from one of Kim's works.

Q: That was a lovely reply thank you I really needed to hear that. Yes there is no post office form for how it should work out. I hadn’t really clocked how important sexual relationships are because it’s just not really spoken about in the Buddhist circles. My previous teacher didn’t go there that’s for sure. People don’t talk about it openly and I didn’t get any advice from my parents at all which I think is neglectful parenting, but that’s just my opinion.

Kim: Few traditions speak openly about sex and sexuality. I have the impression that Taoists from China, at least some lineages, have been most openminded about it. In buddhism and hinduism that I am most familiar with, it's like people had an empty hole in the place of their sexual organs. They don't exist and they never go there. Even the chakra, subtle energy center close to the genitals is called ”secret center”.

Looking at the record of sexual harrassment and abuse in buddhism tells me that whatever the tradition says or doesn't say about sexuality, needs to change because it is such a big part of being a human. If you ignore it or don't understand it, how could you ever truly know yourself?

People should not feel more uncomfortable about their genitals and sex than they are about their hands and feet. Shame and guilt that religions have connected with sexuality is completely unnatural, crazy really, and we see constantly how it affects people's lives in negative manner. If I can do something about it through my art and simply by talking about it openly, I feel I should.

I have received only few positive feedbacks about my art works but much more clicks than any of my other posts. Thanks.

See Kim's art work here: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=683282842173444&id=621644005003995

Infinite Love and Perfection of Wisdom

Infinite Love and Perfection of Wisdom

In opening and openness of heart there are typical signs. Some people get so high on love and bliss that they stop caring about everything else and stop using their mental discrimination. In terms of the three basic characteristics this means overdoing aliveness/love with the expense of knowing quality. Then there is a subtler form of this which I have a story of.

Couple of years back we had a special guest at our center in Finland. He was American lama who had really extensive training in vajrayana and hinduism but in the last 15 years had really diven deep into heart through teachings of Irmansyah Effendi. He spoke much the same way like Alex, "Top and bottom collapsed together, and exploded with infinite love in the heart.". 

I was really impressed by our lama friend's energetic skills. He had been a direct stdent of Dudjom Rinpoche and was trained since the age of 7 by him, so he got his skills down... but he was impossible to talk to. He would go on and on and on for hours on end, until people literally walked away. He was completely convinced that the heart path he followed was significantly better than any buddhist path he knew, and he knew all of them, though had not perfected his vajrayana practice. Listening him, I was like, "Oh really? And how many buddhas and rainbow bodies this path has produced...".

The problem was that he kept bypassing his emotions, always going back to his safe place in the heart when his own emotions started coming up. He had gotten really good at that, like the moment some dirt started showing up he had already shifted back to his safe place of immense and infinite love. It was nice and cute but completely pretentious, an ego trip. We had planned a course that he would teach at our place but the situation was so bad that I had to cancel it. He had mahasiddha bhumis open too.

I understand from my own experience of many years of professional kriya yoga practice which had really strong flavour of love, how great love feels for someone whose heart has been kicked in by the world and people who were supposed to love you. It is amazing and useful to a degree... but that's not the whole story of our mind/psyche and neither it is the whole story of practices.

The three characteristics are excellent guideposts.

It is curious that buddhist dharma describes perfection of wisdom or prajna paramita as a mark of buddhahood. Perfection of wisdom is born out of completing the whole vipashyana process, that is, realising emptiness of all phenomena. This is the first stage of buddhahood, perfection of the first 10 bhumis, hence arriving or abiding on the 11th bhumi, if you will.

Vajrayana buddhism is very particular about different bodies, like nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya and dharmakaya. In hinduism they never really made such divisions even if they discuss Shiva (dharmakaya) and Shakti (sambhogakaya) principles. Buddhism is very insistent on this point and it has both pros and cons. The con is that because most practitioners are unable to stabilise knowing awareness (rigpa), they misunderstand the meaning of emptiness. You know, mosts buddhists don't look like they enjoyd life very much. Ha. I think the constant discussion about the empty nature of this and that, and me and other makes buddhists go a bit lifeless and boring. But, emptiness itself is far from lifeless and boring. Good side of separating bodies is that at least theoretically it brings much more clarity than without the separation. I think that it is because of this very emphasis why buddhist practitioners are much more succesful in their practice than hindus are, at least based on what I know. And having said that the division between bodies from the point of view of big picture or dzogchen is completely artificial. I see it as a pedagogical tool because it helps with the learning of it but purity of emptiness is not all there is to buddhanature. There is also light and colours, like there is in all life. This is something that only dzogchen teachings talk about.

So, again speaking of three basic characteristics of the natural state, there is a good reason why clarity or knowingness of given more emphasis in the beginning until rigpa become stable with the opening of the 11th bhumi. Looking at our lama friend's and Alex's cases, even such advanced practitioners who have all bhumis open can apparently be mislead by the samsaric experience of infinite love. It is precisely because of this why buddhism is so much more successful in yoga. I base my statements about success and failure of paths on bhumi analyses (OHBM).

Heart and it's ability to feel love is very meaningful but without clarity it leads astray. Again, buddhahood comes through perfection of wisdom, not through perfection of emotion, such as love.

-Kim Katami, 4.9.2019

Open Heart Sangha,

www.en.openheart.fi