Introduction to Tibetan Heart Yoga

Introduction to Tibetan Heart Yoga

by Kim Katami

Open Heart, www.openheart.fi

• Man has three bodies:
  1. physical body
  2. energetic body/mind and
  3. awareness.
  Physical and energetic bodies are three-dimensional, awareness is non-dimensional.

• Practice of dharma is centered on removing dukkha or unsatisfactory and confused existence, as is taught in the Four Noble Truths. Existential confusion means perceiving our life in dualistic fashion. Because we perceive ourselves as individual entities or selves, we get confused and suffer. When this self-based dualistic perception does not arise, even momentarily, that is a moment free of suffering. 
  
  

  Introduction to Tibetan Heart Yoga: Lecture about the Principles: 

  
  

   

• Selfing is spread over the energetic body or mind. It can be removed according to the laws, functions and mechanisms of the mind. Selfing cannot be removed by denying it or by disregarding the way how the mind works. Selfing cannot be thoroughly removed by physical exercises or by the means of plain awareness approach alone, although both are very relevant. Psychology cannot be bypassed. If profound transformation or realisation is attained it is through the delusion stored in your mind, not in any other way. 
  
  

  Tibetan Heart Yoga: Guided Practice:

  
  

  
  
   
• When samsaric mind is ”seen through” by sutra or tantra practices, it gets transformed into wisdom mind. Seeing through refers to the principle of vipashyana meditation which means ”seeing clearly”. Seeing clearly or vipashyana is a principle that can be applied in sutric or tantric fashion. When a mental element, such as a thought is seen through, it means that the self-charge in it is released. Thereafter it has no binding power that causes selfing. In this way, our sense of self is seen through and released by piercing through it, not by transcending it. As vipashyana practices are applied, the practitioner's mind becomes growingly more lucid, while one's true self, selfless awareness, becomes the dominant mode of living. 
   
• Samsaric mind, in other terms, the psychology of man, has four main aspects:
  1. subject-self
  2. object-selves referring to thoughts and emotions
  3. subconscious mind (energetics inside the physical body, bhumis 1-6) and
  4. substrate consciousness (energetics outside the body, bhumis 7-10, skt. alaya vijnana).
  All aspects of the mind correlate directly to energy channels (nadi) and energy centers (chakra). The ”mind” consists of numerous energy channels and centers. Having a samsaric mind that goes round and round in thoughts, emotions, fantasies and dreams means that the channels and centers are filled with junk, junk that is our selves with all the habits, tendencies, needs and drives. 
   
• By tantra practice, all of samsaric mind is transformed into wisdom mind. This means that the self-charge, self-delusion, is released from the mind elements. This is the outcome of vipashyana practice. ”Wisdom mind” means that all the thoughtforms and formless energies of the subconscious mind (numbers 3. and 4. together) become embodiments of awareness itself. When the self-charge is released from mental elements, their true nature is experienced. True nature refers to qualities such as sense of freedom, openness, lucidity, clarity, lightness, elation, naturalness, aliveness and utter ordinariness. All these are qualities of awareness or buddha nature.
  
  
• In tantra, the self-charge is removed with the help of a guru and buddha-deities, that the master or guru has assigned for practice. In Open Heart we ask blessings and meditate many different masters of the Mahasiddha Family, but the main masters are Guru Padmasambhava and Guru Ma Yeshe Tsogyal. Buddha-deities are cultivated through singing and repeating mantras, verbal sounds, which are the main technique of tantric yoga. Also Guru Yoga is one of our central practices where master's presence is invoked and felt in one's own bodymind. 
   
• Deities are always learned or received through empowerment given by the guru or his representative so that the practitioner gets the deity or deities correctly. 
   
• In Tibetan Heart Yoga, there are over 20 different buddha-deities. The list can be found from the website.
  
  
• By using mantras relating to buddhas, the practitioner's mind goes through a transformation where the self-charges are released from all mentioned areas of the mind systematically. While some effects can be instantly experienced, thorough transformation takes time and committed effort because selfing is so deeply ingrained in the channels and centers of the energy body. 
   
• In addition to mantras, the practices include mudras (hand gestures), visualisations and breathing techniques. 
   
• Open Heart-method includes three approaches: sutra, tantra and dzogchen. Tantra is recommended to householders because it is easy to learn and practice, and it gives fast results. Results of Tibetan Heart Yoga can be observed from publicly released bhumi studies from the Open Heart-blog and Open Heart-YouTube-channel. 
   
• In Open Heart, progress in practice is measured with Open Heart Bhumi Model. 
   
• The first task in practice is to open the bhumis, all the way up to the 11^th bhumi which is the first ”mahasiddha bhumi”. Throughout this process one has glimpses and insights into the selfless nature of the mind and also grows in experiencing natural awareness. 
   
• When the 11^th, 12^th and 13^th bhumis open up, awareness becomes one's default mode. Opening of the 11^th bhumi brings an important paradigm shift as one mostly rests in the natural state. There is no need to ”get back to it” anymore. From this point onwards, tantric and dzogchen practice is continued for the reason of removing all habits, tendencies and karmas which in other words is perfecting the bhumis.
  
  
• First (of three) stages of buddhahood is attained when the whole energetic body, including all channels and centers, relating to the four aspects of the mind, and the first 10 bhumis, is fully purified. After this there are no impulsive actions in one's mind at all. Being a ”buddha” means being free of one's mind while still having it. This is what the famous line from the Heart Sutra means: ”Form is emptiness, emptiness of form. Form is form, emptiness is emptiness”. A buddha does not experience selfing at all and because of this is no longer a samsaric being. The first stage of buddhahood could be described as ”mental nonduality” while the latter two stages, referring to 12^th and 13^th bhumis concern ”physical nonduality” and the so called ”light body” or ”rainbow body”. 
   
• In Open Heart, attaining the first stage of buddhahood where all of psychology has dissolved into awareness, is seen as a realistic goal to be achieved in this body and life. It is not something that should be postponed because that is what we truly are.

Open Heart

www.openheart.fi

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May be freely copied and quoted with mentioning the source

Copyright Kim Katami 2017

Dalai Lama Speaks About His Awakening

Dalai Lama Speaks About His Awakening

The Dalai Lama talks about his awakening at the age of 35 years. The quote is from his book, "How to see yourself as you really are".

"When I was about thirty-five years old, I was reflecting on the
meaning of a passage by Tsongkhapa about how the “I” cannot be found
either within or separate from the mind-body complex and how the “I”
depends for its existence on conceptuality. Here is the passage:
'A coiled rope’s speckled color and coiled form are similar to those of a
snake, and when the rope is perceived in a dim area, the thought
arises, “This is a snake.” As for the rope, at that time when it is seen
to be a snake, the collection and parts of the rope are not even in the
slightest way a snake. Therefore, that snake is merely set up by
conceptuality. In the same way, when the thought “I” arises in
dependence upon mind and body, nothing within mind and body—neither the collection that is a continuum of earlier and later moments, nor the
collection of the parts at one time, nor the separate parts, nor the
continuum of any of the separate parts—is in even the slightest way the
“I.” Also there is not even the slightest something that is a different
entity from mind and body that is apprehendable as the “I.”
Consequently, the “I” is merely set up by conceptuality in dependence
upon mind and body; it is not established by way of its own entity.'
Suddenly, it was as if lightning moved through my chest. I was so
awestruck that, over the next few weeks, whenever I saw people, they
seemed like a magician’s illusions in that they appeared to inherently
exist but I knew that they actually did not. This is when I began to
understand that it is truly possible to stop the process of creating
destructive emotions by no longer assenting to the way “I” and other
phenomena appear to exist. Every morning I meditate on emptiness, and I
recall that experience in order to bring it into the day’s activities.
Just thinking or saying “I,” as in “I will do such-and-such,” will often
trigger that feeling. But still I cannot claim full understanding of
emptiness."

In 2020, His Holiness the Dalai Lama said in a speech, 

"His Holiness disclosed that 50 years ago he was reading Jé Tsongkhapa’s commentary to ‘Entering into the Middle Way’, ‘Illumination of the Thought’ and when he read that a person is neither one with the psycho-physical aggregates, nor separate from them, but exists in name only, he felt as if he’d been struck by lightning. Subsequently he was able to see that self and others are like illusions, but later realized that he had had an insight into a coarse form of selflessness. Nagarjuna refers to this selflessness in his ‘Precious Garland’:

A person is not earth, not water,
Not fire, not wind, not space,
Not consciousness, and not all of them.
What else is a person other than these?

Source: https://www.dalailama.com/news/2020/teachings-for-the-nalanda-shiksha-first-day