Practices of Emptiness and the Lightbody

 

Practice of Emptiness, Practice of the Lightbody

(from a facebook post)

Dealing with trauma ain't no funny business. That's what you're left with after purifying bhumis, (if one has proper trauma). It can make one feel infested with strong negativity, just very negative world view. And the difficulty is not that you can't "purify" it but because the whole way of seeing the world is distorted. This means that the energy system where the trauma is stored is broken. That's psychic injury or trauma.

I am not sure if the past generations of masters understood trauma the way our generation experiences it. It is logical that they did and there are many central practices like smiling meditation, shamatha, loving-kindness or jhanas (skt. dhyana) that are excellent for healing trauma and have been practiced for millennia but I'm still not sure. I've met a few lineage holders who had no clue about trauma though. They just thought it was a form of compelling self-delusion.

In Amrita Mandala we dive deep into the world of emptiness insight (skt shunyata) from the beginning. We do this because our primary concern is to remove self-delusion that gives brth to existential confusion (skt duhkha). Our method is built to get one from ignorance to wisdom (skt prajna) very quickly because the priority of dharma is to awaken. We don't have a period of shamatha/calm abiding meditation to prepare and no mandatory preliminaries, apart from doing 1 year of Rainbow Body Yoga Lite before taking up the full version of Rainbow Body Yoga. In traditional systems, new students would practice simple calm abiding or do preliminaries at least for one year before even giving them empowerments and practices like RBYL/RBY.

Amrita Sundari

I have built the method in this way purposefully because removing of dukkha needs to be a priority. You can't get true relief from shamatha if you're very much troubled by the sense of self. I know that from experience, having started with lots of shamatha practice leading to a dead end of sorts where I was existentially as miserable as I was before I started practicing. Same happened to Shakyamuni who practiced jhanas for 6 years. My point is that from the purely dharmic perspective the sense of self with all its friends and buddies needs to go first, i.e. emptiness or wisdom needs to be established first.

Traditional methods start differently. They start with calm abiding (skt shamatha), preliminaries, jhanas or such and usually don't give instructions of emptiness insight from the start. There are exceptions but this is how it usually is. The reason why these kind of practices can be extremely frustrating to someone whose hair is on fire due to existential discomfort is because shamatha and jhana meditations work on the subtle body made of meridians which is not where self-delusion is even located. The good side of these practices is that one purifies the meridian system but the bad side is that one's existential issues remain intact.

I think that most lineages and traditions don't even know that there are two different types of subtle bodies: 1. one made of nadis and 2. other made of meridians. These two systems are closely related but are different and have different laws.

If we practice shamatha or jhanas, the cultivation happens in the body or field of meridians which is the subtle system closest to the physical body and its organs. The sense of self as defined in buddhadharma and doctrines of awakening is not there so from the perspective of wisdom awakening these practices are utterly pointless and useless. They just prolong one's existential pain. But, and this is very important, from the perspective of healing of trauma these practices can be golden. I say can be because I also know many people who practiced shamatha for years and still had huge traumas. 

 

Something that I do not understand and do not agree is when shamatha or jhanas are marketed as techniques that develop concentration. I don't think developing concentration is that important when compared to healing. In my zen days I developed concentration to very high degree that I could burn holes into sheets of paper, figuratively speaking, but that skill is quite useless. I wish shamatha had been presented to me as a way to heal but because it wasn't I missed a huge opportunity to heal my traumas because my teachers didn't even know that sphere of human issues and I also didn't even get awakened which is what I had come for. What a miserable sorry ass pancake. 

 

If we look at the human subtle bodies from a different perspective after one has purified the body of nadis (bhumis), which is where the self-delusion is stored, one can be fully and completely awake and yet still have lots of trauma stored in the body of meridians. In traditional systems this doesn't happen, or ideally shouldn't happen because the meridian system should by that time be already purified. But in our system it is the opposite way, the traumas and echoes of the former samsaric mind are still there because the body of meridians hasn't yet been adressed.

During the past few years I have given empowerments and teachings of the Ten Wisdom Goddesses (skt Dasha Mahavidya) and various hingu guru yogas that adress the meridian system but I am just now about to really get the engines started regarding this matter.

I have been working on this question in my lab day and night for over a year now and I am glad to say that my work has produced results. I have given trauma healing teachings before but the best is yet to come. I found that an excellently effective way to adress the meridian system and get the traumas washed out from there is in my old old friend - kriya yoga. For those who don't know I used to teach a form of kriya yoga called Sundara Kriya Yoga until about 10 years ago before switching over to buddhist tantra.

These years and the constant experimenting with various tantric practices have been both very fruitful but to me also very frustrating at times because I haven't been given ready-made answers by my gurus. I had to dive deep into my system and contemplate my butt off to come with solutions and results. An example of this is figuring out whatboth myself and my students were experiencing after bhumi perfection stage when they started feeling distant echoes of the former samsaric mind or still had the same psychic injury they had before. It took me a while to figure out that they are coming from a *different energy system*. Then I had to find out *how to adress* them effectively. This investigation has been a massive undertaking but I am finished with the processing now and have everything my students need. 

 

So just to be clear when it comes to wisdom we have RBYL and RBY, guru yoga with Yeshe Tsogyal and Guru Rinpoche, vipashyana instructions, bodhicitta, basic prayers and so on. No change there. I will, however, introduce a different set of hindu tantric exercises side of these buddhist tantric exercises. The name for this set of exercises of Amrita Kriya Yoga.

Our sangha members have seen glimpses of this already. Few weeks ago I posted an image of Amrita Sundari, which is a form of Tripura Sundari given by mahasiddha Agastya. Amrita Sundari is the main deity of Amrita Kriya Yoga. There are other supplementary practices such as Amrita Sundari Astottara Shata Namavali or 108 names of Amrita Sundari. Like Rainbow Body Yoga, Amrita Kriya Yoga is a program that consists of different yogic exercises.

When Rainbow Body Yoga results in realization of emptiness of all phenomena, Amrita Kriya Yoga results in lightbody, healing traumas and removing old samsaric imprints from the meridians along the way.

Monsoon blessings your way,

Baba, 23 Jan 23

Lightbody is not an accident anymore

 

Lightbody is not an accident anymore

I have studied many arts with many teachers over the years, and in the process of revising the method we have now, I have sometimes wondered where this or that, some skill that I have learned over the years, belongs to or if some of these bits and pieces from my skill bank are useless in Amrita Mandala. Skills that I've acquired from shiatsu and yiquan, that have been collecting dust on the shelf are examples of this... But they were exactly that filled the remaining blanks of lightbody cultivation. Now I am certain I have everything down and gladly have solid instructions for you, my students when you are ready for them.

8 years ago I wrote a text entitled "awakening is not an accident anymore", that years later was followed by "emptiness is not an accident anymore". The third part of the opus, the finale, "lightbody is not an accident anymore" shall be out in due time.

May blessings fall.

Baba, 4.1.2023

Deathless Body of Light and Why Getting Fully Enlightened Isn't That Simple

Deathless Body of Light and 

Why Getting Fully Enlightened Isn't That Simple

Sketch from my upcoming book "Life As A Buddha.

I think there is lots of confusion and mistakes in presentations about "full enlightenment" or the most refined type of buddhahood. In everyday discussions I also use the term full enlightenment for less refined states that nevertheless are states of perfect liberation of the mind (emptiness of all phenomena, bhumis 1-10). However if we think about this in binary fashion there is really only one kind of full enlightenment and this most traditions do not know about.

When a fully enlightened human being dies, there are no physical remains at all. This is because the physical body has been integrated and made a continuation of the enlightened mind. If the body has not been made a continuation, then there will be a physical corpse. What actually happens at death when a fully enlightened master leaves the body is that as the physical body is seamlessly connected to the subtle body, the physical body gets sucked into the subtle body. It is as if the enlightened subtle body pulls or vacuums the physical body into it and in consequence no remains will be left. This has been exemplified by legendary buddhist masters like Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra but also by Jesus, Ramalinga from Tamil Nadu (in 1874) and Du Xin Ling, a taoist master from China, in 1989 (see link below). These masters left no remains at all. Both Ramalinga's and Du Xin Ling's cases have been documented and reported by officials. Also the orthodox christian tradition of desert fathers knows this phenomena well though it is difficult to acquire information from their highly secretive tradition. A technical term for this full enlightenment is "full rainbow body" or just "light body".

People might think all this is crazy talk but even over the past decade there has been written and photographic accounts (see photos from the links below) from Tibet where some highly accomplished practitioners attained "small rainbow body". In small rainbow body, where the physical body and its cells are not completely integrated with the enlightened mind, the body shrinks over the next few days after the heart stops beating. It is as if the body was scaled back to the size of babies body with the exception that also the head shrinks with the rest of the body. This is a sign that the practitioner has reached a point in her/his practice where the smallest building particles (I just call them cells) of the physical body are included and cleaned in the purification process. I will explain this in more detail in my upcoming book about buddhahood.

Anyhow, if we think about the various doctrines and practices of yoga, meditation, dharma and tantra we come to see that most traditions don't even mention this phenomena. In most systems even masters leave corpses to be buried or burned but it simply is a fact that the process can go much further than that and most importantly, if we have the fortune to meet and study with genuine masters, learn highly effective practices and have the readiness and eagerness to go all the way, we - you and I - we all, can actually go all the way to full rainbow body.

In my view this does not require special circumstances like having to become mountain recluses or having to do long retreats. In my experience, as a householder myself, this can be done in the midst of 21st century city living.

-Kim Rinpoche, 4.5.2022

http://openheartopenheart.blogspot.com/2018/06/taoist-master-attains-rainbow-body.html

http://openheartopenheart.blogspot.com/2019/10/god-took-him-with-body-by-lama-ivo.html

https://openheartopenheart.blogspot.com/2019/10/bodily-dissolution-in-dzogchen-by-fr.html

We are Pure, Sober and Holy

We are Pure, Sober and Holy

 

Each one of us has tremendous spiritual potential. Essentially and basically, we are pure, sober and holy. After purification, we can perceive ourselves as bright balls of light that radiates joy and blessings all around us, at all times. This ball of light, our subtle body, is pure and clean, without the slightest dirt of selfishness in it. The same goes for our physical body. It is basically holy, pure and divine, every cell and muscle of it. We can glimpse that this is a fact and we can actualise this basic nature of ours through proper practice. All we need to do is remove the dirt that hides it.

-Kim, 2.6.2021

Bringing Joy Back to Buddhism

Bringing Joy Back to Buddhism

Every now and then I feel like writing reviews about what has been going on with Open Heart. This is one of those reports. I'll be talking about Guru Rinpoche's recent instructions and guidelines along with how our method is taking new (actually old) steps in it's evolution.

Several years ago a dear friend and one of my gurus, mahasiddha Babaji, told me:

”This is one and the same yoga. There is no this or that yoga. There is only that which is according to the great tradition of yoga and that which is outside of it. At the moment much yogic knowledge is scattered around the world. It is your work to bring it all together.”

For the last 3-4 years Open Heart has taken a very buddhist tone. Along with studying scriptural sources and lectures, Pau and I received a long list of empowerments of buddhist deities, pointing out instructions and practices that has been the main cause to increase my understanding about the basic principles of sutra, tantra and dzogchen. During this time I have sometimes looked back into earlier times with hindu deities, Shaivite tantras, kundalini kriya yoga and bhakti yoga, feeling that those days have passed while wondering whether some of that, greatly powerful and beneficial style of practice will ever be integrated into Open Heart. For a long time I couldn't see how this could be done.

Head

Buddhism is a wisdom (skt. prajna) and knowledge tradition. By wisdom and knowledge I refer to the principles of seeing, knowing, thinking, analysing and understanding. Buddhism and it's many schools from theravada to mahayana and vajrayana are known for it's detailed analyses and maps. I think that having a clear and understandable map is an essential requirement in seeking our way out of cyclical existence. Without a map and direction it's very difficult to find a way out from a foreign place.

Having said that, I feel that buddhism overemphasises the masculine feature of analysis and wisdom with the expense of intuition and heartfulness, which corresponds to the feminine principle. As buddhism has mostly been transmitted and molded by men, especially monastics, it is no surprise that this is the case. This gives buddhism a very distinct feel and energy. I completely understand why some people are not attracted by buddhism because of this and choose other approaches, my teacher Sivakami was one of them.

If we look at the way buddhist practices and training systems from the vast majority of it's schools are formulated and how they are cultivated, we can see that they are the creations of men. To exaggerate it, we can observe formality, seriousness, emotional coldness, hardness, rigidity and desire to be utterly transparent. If we consider these features according to our psychology, we can see that they relate to the head space. Wisdom of the head without heart is like this. We can be very sharp, clear and discriminative in our thoughts and actions but if we lack warmth and openness of the heart, we will not feel well. Any system created by men, like buddhism, can be very lopsided and this of course, is a problem.

I have often asked the challenging question: If vajrayana's potential is to fully liberate it's practitioners in this life and body, where are all the living buddhas? It is a legitimate question. I think a great part of the problem, that extremely few buddhists of all schools actually attain full enlightenment, lies in this question.

Heart

Being heartful, open minded, a receiver (instead of a transmitter) and being intuitive are feminine features. When we become ”open minded” or are in the receiving mode, we can feel that our heart space opens and softens up, and the mind shuts down very thoroughly. We become kind and mother-like, and it is wonderful. If we overdo feminine features, for example follow our intuition without thinking what we intuit, we become onesided. If we only follow our hearts and leave the head out of the picture, we become unrealistic dreamers. Both clarity and warmth are needed because, after all, we all have heads and hearts.

As a side note I would like to add something about lack of intuition among buddhists in relation to OHBM. For a couple of years I've tried to tell buddhists of various schools about it and how wonderful and exceptional tool it is. Potentially it could solve a lot of problems in buddhism today.

I have wondered why most buddhists have hard time accepting that attainments, closed, opened or perfected bhumis, could be sensed from other person whether present physically or from distance. Although mahayana buddhism talks about bhumis and attainments, they do not have another way to measure attainments except through long term relationship and verbal exchange between a teacher and student. Of course, there is nothing wrong in this but this leaves us utterly ignorant about the attainments of others, and actually often ourselves too. Verbal communication can never be as precise as direct exchange of living experience.

I have heard buddhist teachers say that one's attainment can be detected from the gaze but it never gets more specific than that. Why not? At some point it dawned on me that while for some who consider themselves buddhists understanding OHBM is easy, to most it is hard because they lack intuition. A buddhist who follows a system that is said to have worked for generations, has no need for intuition and hence might not even know what it is. Anyway.

Misleading Joy

While blissful and ecstatic states can also be relatively helpful, from the point of view of dzogchen, the ultimate nonduality, exalted states are pitfalls. This is very common in religions other than buddhism, namely hinduism and christianity in their many forms. I have talked about this here.

Intoxicating states are caused by 1. kundalini movements in the energybody of an unawakened person and/or 2. mental-emotional impurities, i.e. karmic traces stored in the subtle body. As far as I am aware only buddhism has a clear view and ways of dealing with both of these factors, so that the practitioners don't get stuck with heavenly experiences and realms.

In short, kundalini is resolved by awakening and all the many karmic traces are purified through distinct sutra or tantra methods that cover the full scope of human psychology. In the calm state, it is the deep subconscious mind (skt. alaya vijnana), in it's self-deluded mode, that causes strong bliss and ecstasy. Therefore thinking that exalted bliss is ”the” thing, is false.

It is interesting to note that great yogis and mahasiddhas who have greatly or fully nullified their deep mind, do not get intoxicated by over-emotional bhakti yoga, drugs or alcohol. A few glasses of whiskey, an easy way to test (some) one's attainment.

Joy

To know true joy, we first need to recognise and integrate it's basis which is awareness (tib. rigpa) or ”nature of mind”. While many traditions of nondualism point to this basis, as a rule in the history only tantric buddhists and dzogchenpas seem to be the only ones who manage to neutralise all karmas and hence attain the first stage of full enlightenment (OHBM, perfection of bhumis 1-10) or buddhahood.

The main point is that if we know how to avoid and remove the common pitfalls of the devotional approach, the feminine way of using emotional opening and loving surrender, it can be faster and more powerful way for getting into the natural state in it's profoundest meaning. Through emotional opening, the natural state is easily accessed and more pronounced than through mental or analytical means. That is my experience. True joy comes through uniting clarity of awareness of the head and warmth-aliveness of the heart. Together they make a whole.

Pure Land Buddhists

Recently I have corresponded with Pure Land Buddhists who have a wonderfully light and carefree spirit. Their main practice is remembrance and devotion towards Amitabha Buddha, through singing his name. This makes their apporach unique among buddhist schools because their main principle is devotion and surrender, instead of willpower and analysis.

Dharmavidya David Brazier, Pure Land Buddhist teacher:

”It does seem that traditionally in India there was a strong buddhist tradition of buddhist music until quite late on. Much of the music which style you now associate with hinduism, like Hare Krishna chanting, that sort of tambourine banging: Haa-ree Raa-maa!, that sort of thing was buddhist originally. It was a buddhist style. As India became hindu rather than buddhist again, the music continued.” (link to video)

Fujita Kotatsu in Genshi Jodo Shiso No Kenkyu about sound use of emotion in Pure Land Buddhism:

”In Hinduism, the idea of faith is expressed as bhakti. Bhakti is regarded as the highest path of interface with the gods and also implies the deepest reverence for gods. On the other hand, Pure Land prasada differs in that it appears less emotional and more serene and subtle due to its relation to prajna (wisdom) and samadhi (concentration).” (copied from here)

So it is also important to have wisdom because it naturally combines with emotional warmth.

Guidance of the masters

A few months ago Guru Rinpoche told me to,

”Bring joy back to buddhism”.

When he told me this I knew it would be another task and challenge in my work. An obvious point about his request is that I cannot bring joy back into all of buddhism, just to Pemako Buddhism, bring another bit of yogic knowledge to make our path whole and balanced. After having pondered the question of over-masculinity and emotional coldness of buddhism for some time, I understood master's request and agreed. At that point I remembered what I had heard David Brazier say in his talk quoted above and started remembering the ways and melodies we used to sing and chant back in the kriya yoga days. Those sessions were a blast!

After this year's annual Summer Retreat, in early July, Guru Rinpoche and mahasiddha Thirumular, started to introduce me to further options.

To inform those who do not know of Thirumular, he was the main guru of Open Heart before. He is one of the main founders of tantric Shaivism and a great mahasiddha who attained light body many centuries ago. A wonderful, jolly and joyful persona whose presence is felt in the physical body and it's tissues very palpably and concretely, not merely as plain awareness and subtle aliveness of the energy body, as is the case with the vast majority of buddhist masters. You can invite him over to feel him yourself. I am sure he is happy to come.

The further option they introduced me to was the option that ”the practitioner can dissolve his or her body into the Light Body (Tib. འོད་སྐུ་, ö ku), where the body transforms into light and disappears completely into space. This was done by Garab Dorje, Manjushrimitra, Shri Singha, Jnanasutra and Vairotsana.” (from RigpaWiki)

My understanding is that also Jesus and Ramalinga from Tamil Nadu attained this option of the light bodies. Interestingly, both Jesus and Ramalinga, who I consider to be reincarnations of the same person, greatly emphasised love and devotion, the feminine approach of the heart, towards the highest ideal.

Easiest Way to the Light Body

Guru Rinpoche and Thirumular asked me how I felt about mixing these two approaches, 1. emptiness/selflessness and 2. devotion of the heart to strike at the light body attainment of great perfection (tib. dzogchen). Since thogal-practices require a lot of time and specific practice circumstances for attaining light body and therefore is not a reasonable option for householders, I instantly felt this was a good and creative idea, as well as an interesting way to join different approaches, so I agreed.

Since Padmasambhava's attainment, his presence and vibration, emphasises transparency (emptiness) and subtle aliveness (and therefore doesn't concretely connect with the physical tissues), they demonstrated to me how both of their vibrations could be joined together. For this reason the vibration and transmission through Namo Guru Rinpoche-mantra has been different for a few weeks now. Now, it is very different compared to the common buddhist vibe. One can easily feel joy and lightness, together with penetrativeness (emptiness) through chanting it. Such a delight!

In case someone is new to this mantra, it does not require an empowerment, you can just start using it and plug into Guru Padmasambhava directly, he will take care of the rest. If you used this mantra before or if you have done other Guru Rinpoche'mantras from other lineages, you can easily feel that the charge reaches your physical body, soft and hard tissues, in a solid manner. This is a huge blessing from the gurus, so cherish it with sincerity and love. This guru yoga is one of the two ways to activate this particular vibration.

Another way to do this is through a particular mantra which is the seed mantra (skt. bija) of the 13th bhumi within ones own bodymind. It corresponds to the light body attainment and when used, starts to make it a reality. According to Guru Rinpoche's will, there is no need for an empowerment of this mantra either but you can ask him a blessing for it and you will receive it.

This mantra is HU. English speakers can get the correct pronounciation by considering ”Whooo?”. It can be chanted a few times or longer duration-wise, according to the situation and it will do the trick.

Bringing Joy Back

Beautiful and unique developments. I invite anyone to try out the mentioned mantras. That's how we will bring joy back to buddhism, at least to Pemako Buddhism.

Thank you for reading.

Yours in dharma.

• Orgyen Pema, 21.8.2017

Open Heart, www.openheart.fi