Buddhahood! Will We Ever Get There!?!?

 

Buddhahood!

Will We Ever Get There!?!?

I took a long break of bhumi readings and therefore it seems discussion about bhumis has been very little during the past year or so. Let's bring it back! Nevertheless, people have been practicing diligently and making excellent progress. We have a number of sangha members who have opened all their bhumis and made significant progress in perfections which is also unique. One of the reasons why I took that break is that I wanted to have unoccupied time and space for my own practice to better understand the process of karmic purification in terms of the 13 bhumi model. Based on this, I gave specific instructions for perfection stage practice of Rainbow Body Yoga that are now available to all sangha members.

I cannot convey to you the joy and satisfaction I feel for being able to do this because what we are looking here are very precise and detailed instructions for purification of the whole karmic body, one layer or one bhumi after the other, until it is entirely dealt with. Together with genuine concern for the liberation of all sentient beings (bodhicitta), this is a purely mechanical and logical procession of tantric vipashyana leading to full enlightenment or buddhahood. I could not have done it without my gurus so my gratitude goes out to them again and again and again!

The thought of *our sangha members* attaining buddhahood is something that I've intentionally brought up many times in my talks since 1-2 years ago. Last time I did this was on the last retreat when I read a bit from Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, who said that in his lifetime he met "many men and women" who had attained buddhahood, that it is "not a fable or a fairytale" and that it is possible indeed for people "world over". These words can be found from his book Repeating the Words of the Buddha.

By talking and discussing this topic among our sangha I've wanted to bring the big, bad, great and unreachable "buddhahood" closer to us, to pop some of the imaginary bubbles we might have about it. There is so much fluff about it that I think this kind of demystifying discussion is very necessary. Just like we have absorbed values and views from christianity that we might not even be aware of, in the same way, and I think I can speak for all those who have been exposed to buddhist culture, we have absorbed ideas and limitations from it. The most harmful of them being the subconscious idea that buddhahood cannot *actually* be attained by any of us little people and that buddhahood is the property of only the most excellent practitioners living in the holy caves of the East. Even if masters such as Tulku Urgyen repeatedly tell to us that it is indeed possible, I don't think I've ever met anyone who would have really taken this seriously. Oh gosh... This brings back (limiting and absurd) memories! It's time to put an end to false views and ineffective and unsuitable practices.

So... We have the exact knowhow of purfying each karmic layer after the other... When will we get there then!?

Sivakami, who passed away 10 years ago this month, taught me many useful things and one of those was couple of different kinds of divination. I've used, should I call it perhaps "mahasiddha divination" many times over my career of practice on various things. I have for example used it for finding out when I or my students would reach a certain stage of practice. For example, when my first bhumi opened in 11/2011, I did a divination the same day finding out when the 6th would open. The result of the divination was July of 2013, about 2½ years after the first opening. It turned out correct 2½ years later.

Earlier this week I sent instruction of this type of divination to 11 sangha members who are in the process of perfecting bhumis. The nature of this exercise is to get an answer when one would reach buddhahood, coming up with a date for it. Half of the people haven't yet replied to me and couple of the answers I didn't feel were correct. However, 5 of them did. Based on this it looks like there will be 5 people reaching buddhahood during the next 5½ years, until the Summer of 2026. Three of those before the end of 2022.

One saying that I like is, "This life is not a rehearsal". To put it in this context, our practice is not a rehearsal. It is inevitable that all this stabilising of the natural state, that has been happening since 4 years ago, and quick progress of purification results in complete purification.

I guess we'll see when the time arrives.

May the sun of dharma shine on you, for the sake of all sentient beings.

Kim Rinpoche, 22.11.2020

Pemako Buddhism

www.pemakobuddhism.com

About Trauma, Therapy and Tantric Trauma Therapy

 

About Trauma, Therapy and

Tantric Trauma Therapy

Hi William. I went back to your first message to get a better understanding where you're coming from as you mention "psychological problems". You wrote,

"1) are you seeing a therapist? Do it if you are not. 2) This may be related to early life issues, so they may overlap. You have to feel them, but do feel them in the wisest way. It will take time-- feel your body and breath. 3) This is your work as a human, it sucks that it doesn't immediately go away, but this is what you have to work with."

So you are talking about trauma, right? You also say,

"Natural State is apart from us, we are it and it makes up the essence of the issues we have. But in of itself--it will not cure all our psychological problems".

I see where you're coming from and in most cases I agree with you that recognition of the natural state may not heal emotional trauma, just like it won't effect a full release of karmic tendencies (full enlightenment) but the methods vary greatly.

The natural state can be viewed in the context of trauma therapy. I know from my own teaching and practice experience. Traumas vary, some have big some small traumas, but for example when talking about human related trauma, the tantric meditational practice of applying the pure view to 1) oneself and 2) to those people who caused the trauma, maybe parents for example, is a very effective trauma healing.

Here you can find a simplified and secularised form of this exercise presented by Daniel Brown, mahamudra teacher: https://youtu.be/z2au4jtL0O4

As a dzogchen practitioner, you can probably see that he is applying pure view to one's parents.

On the same breath I would like to present this quote from Gary Van Warmerdam,from https://pathwaytohappiness.com/blog/podcast/66-trauma-symptoms-and-treatments/

"You may have been trying to change your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors through certain modalities of talk therapy or self help programs or meditation/mindfulness, and those are going to be ineffective if you have a trauma history. And surprisingly a lot of people have a lot more trauma history than just a small percentage. And so If you’ve been struggling with making changing in your thought process and negative thinking and emotional state and depression/anxiety, there may be other causes to that that need to be addressed in different ways. Because, if you have trauma in your history, talk therapy is not going to work; the general approaches of therapy don’t work; some do; but there are specific treatments for trauma that are effective. So if you have that as a source of these emotional, negative thinking and behavior patterns, to get the right tool to get to the source of the problem is what I’m hoping to convey. Someone that is working through a trauma history needs to do practices that address the nervous system more directly. Effects from trauma can lead to symptoms that look like ADHD, anger issues, anxiety/panic attacks, depression, OCD, strong self judgment, bipolar, anything that’s labeled with a disorder after it is often the result of trauma. People try to solve these issues or talk about theses issues, but they are not getting to the source of what is happening in the brain and nervous system so they end of going around in circles, not really solving it. You need a different tool set to solve this...[for example,] with sexual abuse, when triggered, your thinking is not going to solve it, your mindfulness meditation exercises aren't going to solve it, because what you do with your conscious awareness attention does not get deep enough into the layers to address these primal protective functions. You can't think your way out of overriding the limbic system. That's why there's very specific treatments for trauma.” - Gary Van Warmerdam

There are lots of pscyhologists and psychotherapists saying that talking therapies in many cases are ineffective and can cause retraumatisation.

So, when saying that the natural state doesn't heal one's emotional traumas, based on my experience, I disagree, but it is all about the application and context.

In case if you're interested in this I suggest you find a FB group called Pemako Buddhism.com. There will be some guided videos published about the Tantric Trauma Therapy that I mention, free of charge.

Kim