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

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

Physical Dynamic Concentration in Other Traditions

Physical Dynamic Concentration

in Other Traditions

Dynamic Concentration

The idea of Dynamic Concentration (DC), as has been explained in the previous chapter of this book, is to cut through all layers of the self-based mind and in consequence access one's pure wakeful nature. This type of yogic exercise is done with sudden explosive yet purposeful and controlled force. It can be done solely on the level of the mind but easiest way to apply it is through shout, often as repeated shouts.

Physical Dynamic Concentration

Dynamic Concentration can also be done physically. In Pemako Buddhism this is known as Physical Dynamic Concentration (PDC). Find Physical Dynamic Concentration with simple tantric mantra of Guru Rinpoche and Yeshe Tsogyal taught in this video, under the name of Vajra Body-exercise.

The idea of Physical Dynamic Concentration is to tense all muscles of the body at once in a controlled yet forceful manner while being fully aware of it. Because tensing of the muscles is so engaging, during this type of concentration it is very difficult for the mind to start drifting and therefore PDC also accomplishes very well what the practitioner intends to do, which is to access and establish one's wakeful nature. Flexing is kept for few seconds, usually while holding the breath, with tantric elements such as mantras and visualisations, and then relaxed. As in the above video instruction, PDC should be done at least few times before a brief pause (half a minute or a minute) before second (-third-fourth) series of repetitions. Same idea of several repetitions (up to 100 in one series) and few sets (usually 2-4) is used with both DC and PDC in Pemako Buddhist practice. This is because many repetitions and sets works more effectively and accomplishes the task splendidly in comparison to just few repetitions.

Physical Dynamic Concentration in Other Traditions

Yogananda

Probably the most widely practiced form of PDC, is Paramahamsa Yogananda's Energisation Exercises. Yogananda is famous through his Autobiography of A Yogi. He is one of those who brought a type of hindu tantra called Kriya Yoga to the West beginning in 1920's. See from this video how he formulated PDC, together with prayer and breathing practices.

According to Swami Satyananda, Yogananda's childhood friend and dharma brother, Yogananda got the idea of PDC from a book on gymnastics by a German physical educator in the early 1900's. According to Swami Kriyananda, Yogananda's close disciple, Yogananda practiced Energisation Exercises twice every day of his life until his passing. See a photo of Yogananda taken just an hour before his passing in 1952, at the age of 59. I find his energy and appearance quite impressive.

Goswami

Another, though much less known, tradition of hindu yoga that uses PDC is the lineage of Shyam Sunder Goswami. Goswami published few books and was the founder of the Sweden-based Goswami Yoga Institute. His Advanced Hatha Yoga introduces PDC as ”Carana Yoga”. See these pictures of Goswami students practicing ”yogic bodybuilding”.

Shaolin

The only buddhist tradition that uses PDC exactly in the same way as Pemako Buddhism and the other examples is the Shaolin-tradition from China. Shaolin monastery is considered to have been founded by Bodhidharma, the yogi who brought Zen from India to China.

Over the past 1500 years, the training system of Shaolin temple has developed into a three-way system: 1. kung fu, 2. chi gong and 3. meditation (c. chan). Roughly speaking, kung fu refers to martial arts training, chi gong refers to conditioning of the body, focusing of the mind and cultivation of breath energy (c. qi) and meditation refers to cultivation of mindfulness. These three can also be explained as physical cultivation (c. jing), cultivation of breath energy through intention (c. yi) and cultivation of wakeful nature (c. shen). 

https://www.shaolinshixingmi.com/

The Gift of Physical Dynamic Concentration

People arrive and have glimpses of the natural state accidentally, as a side-effect and purposefully. The point of DC and PDC is to have a reliable and mechanical tool that enables recognition of one's wakeful nature anywhere and anytime to anyone, with or without a tantric empowerment.

Thank you for reading and many blessings,

-Kim Rinpoche, 16 of July 2020

Pemako Buddhism, www.pemakobuddhism.com

* This text is additional material to What's Next? On Post-Awakening Practice

* See also this video playlist of Dynamic Concentration and Physical Dynamic Concentration

How to Receive the Greatest Gift of Reality

How to Receive

the Greatest Gift of Reality

In this text, I will discuss mahasiddha bhumis, lit. grounds of great accomplishment, and their importance in yogic practice. I have written a book entitled What's Next? On Post-Awakening Practice that I recommend for new readers.

Biographical Note: First Glimpses

As a little boy, growing up in a family that was shadowed by my father's alcoholism, I began to pray and meditate spontaneously. I often went to my room, sat down on the bedside, and suddenly the room would be filled with immense peace and light, that entirely dispersed any anxiety I had. At the time I had no idea what happened but since they gave me great relief, I kept doing it. In retrospect, I have learned that I experienced both visitations of past mahasiddhas, masters of great accomplishment, as well as a descent of grace from my own mahasiddha bhumis, as they are called in Open Heart. I have discussed these experiences in some detail in this interview.

After 4 years of arduous training in Zen Buddhism in Japan and Finland, my health forced me to find a different path. As a young samurai-spirited fool who was desperately in love with zen, I would never have thought I would leave zen but I needed to and within few months my path took an unexpected turn towards sanatana dharma, or more commonly, hinduism, and its tantric methods, kriya yoga in particular. In December of 2006, I received my first empowerment of kriya yoga and I am not exaggerating when saying that after the first practice session of kriya pranayama spiced with strong guru devotion, my life wasn't the same anymore. I am neither exaggerating when saying that the clarity and depth of mind after 30 minutes kriya yoga practice, equaled a weeklong zen retreat where one sits in quiet meditation for over 12 hours a day. For those 4 years that I trained in zen, I had sat for 8 or more hours everyday without exceptions, following instructions of my teachers to the letter, so it wasn't like I hadn't tried.

Kriya Yoga and Paravastha

Nowadays there are many kinds of kriya yoga and not all of them have to do with Babaji, the modern time founder of kriya yoga, who is mentioned in Paramahamsa Yogananda's autobiography. I started kriya yoga in a lineage that had been passed from Babaji to Lahiri Mahasaya in 1860's, to Swami Sriyukteswar (d. 1936) and Paramahamsa Hariharananda (d. 2002), and finally to the yogi who initiated me, Paramahamsa Prajnanananda. In kriya yoga, I learned something called paravastha, which is short for turiyavastha or paraturiyavastha. Paravastha literally means state beyond mind. In kriya yoga this is done after magnetisation of the central channel with deep breathing, equipped with the emotion of loving devotion. To go into paravastha, the practitioner catapults her or his attention high above one's head. I do not recall what they told beginners about the energetic principles behind this exercise but nevertheless this exercise together with sweet devotion changed my life overnight. After finding kriya yoga, I still kept practicing 8 or more hours a day. 

 

Tibetan buddhist monk visualises tantric deity, Vajrasattva, above his head.

Sivakami

I followed that lineage for about a year until I found Sivakami Om Anandi's website. We started emailing and I received initiation from her. Over time and many emails, she became my teacher and very dear dharma friend for 3 years until she passed away in late 2010. Before she passed, she asked me to continue her lineage.

Sivakami was unusual among teachers. She was an American grandmother who had retired some years before from a lifelong career breeding dogs. By the time I got in touch with her, she had moved to the island of Kauai, which is one of the main islands of Hawaii, due to very severe form of arthritis. She never allowed any of her students to meet her in person, so I never met her in person. Back then I couldn't understand or appreciate her choice but now I do. All communication was done through email or telephone calls. My emails with her add up to 600 pages.

Sivakami was a mystic and a bhakta, not a yogi. She had excellent karmic connections with nonphysical masters who taught her during her countless night time astral travels (sleep yoga) and meditation. She also met and learned many physical teachers but never clicked with them enough to become a student, which now that I think of it, is exactly how I have come to feel. When one gets a hang of tantric guru yoga with a mahasiddha, it is not an option to settle for less. That's how I feel, anyway.

One of the nonphysical teachers Sivakami met was Lama Thubten Yeshe, who at the time (1984-1985) was in between two reincarnations. Lama Yeshe offered her his teachings but she kindly refused because she was never attracted by the buddhist vibe. She had immense devotion towards Yogananda in whose organisation she started practicing in 1976. Later she got connected with widely known masters, Babaji and Thirumular, who I also worked closely with for several years.

Thirumular and Sivakami had been together in previous lives, so their connection was unique. I, by the way, never believed a word of any of the mystical stories she told me, until I checked them through my own meditation. I verified the brief connection with Lama Yeshe and her connection with Thirumular, for example, through my own meditation, and that I did, made her satisfied because I wasn't blindly accepting whatever she told me.

Riding the Mahasiddha Bhumis

I had been visited by nonphysical mahasiddhas since I was a boy and in 2007, they started to make themselves known to me in a more personal than before. I began to receive teachings, visit subtle planes and had many mystical visions. Sivakami's guidance in understanding them was immensely helpful and now I believe that not many people in the whole world would have been capable of providing such advice based on their own first hand experience.

She also taught paravastha or what in Amrita Mandala are called mahasiddha bhumis. Connecting with these subtle centers had a central role in her teaching. In 13 Bhumi Model, which is one of the teachings I have received and taught, there are 7 centers above the head. These 7 can be split into two main groups: bhumis 7-10 and bhumis 11-13. That's how she taught them and called them 8^th and 9^th centers above the 7 chakras within the subtle system inside the body, from root center (skt. muladhara chakra) to crown center (skt. sahasrara chakra). She also called mahasiddha bhumis by the names of High Self and Oversoul, which I also used until 2013 when Amrita Mandala switched from Sundara Kriya Yoga to buddhist tantra.

”There are two chakras beyond the crown of the head.

The 8^th is that part of one's soul that never incarnates.

The 9^th is our connection to the Oversoul, wisdom and love.

These are not spoken about, and yet they are very important

at this time in humanity's spiritual unfoldment.”

- Sivakami Om Anandi (27.6.2008)

”I believe in the next 30 years, there is going to be a push

by these Siddhas to bring back High Self... 8th and 9th chakra understanding among disciples that are ready for it.”

- Sivakami Om Anandi, (3.3.2009)

What she says in the latter quote about mahasiddhas pushing to bring mahasiddha bhumis back is interesting. As far as I know, they are taught in some forms of kriya yoga (not all) and hindu tantra, few forms of Taoism, few forms of reiki and new age healing. In Tibetan buddhist phowa, which is the technique of exiting the body at death and aiming for Amitabha Buddha's Pure Land Sukhavati (tib. dewachen), and some other visualisations where one visualises buddhas or gurus above one's head, it is taught although I have never seen it explained why exactly they are imagined above one's head. In Rainbow Body Yoga mahasiddha bhumis are exercised a lot, through pillars above and below the body. In a simple form, this is taught already in the Introductory Practice, under Jewel Visualisation.

Getting Back to Basic Principles

In Rainbow Body Yoga connection between the reincarnated bodymind and one's mahasiddha bhumis is done extensively because this is the most direct way in which our pure nature and its energy can be brought to the tainted mind. In RBY this is further fortified with breathing exercises, deity mantras and mudras. This is a highly efficient way to generate purification of mind, in our terminology, opening and perfection of bhumis.

Mahasiddha bhumis can be accessed within one's body and aura as well, through certain channels and secret centers, such as those taught in Vimalamitra's Wisdom Meditations. With specific instructions from a tantric lama this can be taken as a valid path but it is my observation that practitioners of various sutrayana paths do not systematically access this inner potential, the ground of being. Mahasiddha bhumis are also cultivated through common buddhist practices such as Refuge, Bodhicitta and Lineage Prayers but since the energetic charge accompanied with prayers almost always goes unnoticed and is not pointed out by lamas, I think it can be said that the students are not learning a correct way of practice. This is very unfortunate, of course.

”These are not spoken about, and yet they are very important at this time in humanity's spiritual unfoldment”, Sivakami said. I think the reason why she said that these centers are very important at this time, is because we are in the midst of the most destructive period according to the yuga-theory. Our time in the history of mankind is marked by technological advancement but because ethics, clarity of mind, and love and compassion for others are missing, a lot of technological advancement turns against us and as a matter of fact, against the whole planet we are living on. Since the illness of mankind is strong, humanity needs strong medicine to heal. I really wish more people would be ready for the medicine I discuss here.

From what I have witnessed in my own practice and that of my students, I can say that this type of yogic exercise, connecting directly to one's own buddhanature, emulating the grounds of these attainments in one's daily practice, is undoubtedly the greatest gift there is. There is no way to remain crooked with this medicine, nor there are side effects.

Thank you for reading,

A BA HU MANI PEME HUNG HRI*,

- Baba, 21.5.2019

Amrita Mandala

*A - Seed syllable of 11^th bhumi

BA - Seed syllable of 12^th bhumi

HU - Seed syllable of 13^th bhumi

MANI PEME – Mantric formula of the Buddha of Compassion, Avalokiteshvara/Chenresig

HUNG - Seed syllable of the karmic body, i.e. bhumis 1-10

HRI - Seed syllable of enlightened heart