Garchen Rinpoche About Bhumis + Kim's comment

Garchen Rinpoche About Bhumis 

+ Kim's comment

”As Milarepa has said: the empty clear mind just becomes increasingly clear as you keep meditating. That's what we call the Bhumis and the paths, the different stages. Even though they're given different names, it's just an increasing becoming clear of your natural state ...

So this is how the four yogas really are a gradual development of the realization of the mind. So even though we count and list different Bhumis and different paths and there's different teachings on that, this is really how we should see it.

This is also a very important teaching, the most important teaching by Milarepa where he said that the so-called Bhumis and the paths are the progressive realization or recognition of the clear and empty nature of the mind. The Bhumis and the paths are nothing but signs or road signs so you know where to go. You know where you're at. So practitioners need some kind of signs so they know they're on the right track.”

- From Garchen Rinpoche's introduction to the Four Yogas of Mahamudra (May 13th 2021), translated by Ina Bieler 

 

Kim: It is said here precisely how it is. All the grandiose and impossible-to-attain descriptions from commentaries and other texts are sheer nonsense that should be thrown away because the only thing they actually do is lead people astray. Old texts and traditions gather so much extra baggage and weird views that in the end it doesn't make any sense and has no relevance with the actual practice. Ignorant people should never not touch and alter the teachings of the masters.

The most important teaching of buddhism is gradual increase of clarity of mind, through emptiness of phenomena, that happens in stages just like is presented in Pemako teachings. Everything else comes far behind and pales next to this main point.

It is best to forget everything else and focus on realising empty mind that is loaded with compassion. If you do that wholeheartedly even for a year, your life will be different forever. If you take it all the way to completion, you'll change the lives of those you meet.

-Kim, 5.6.2021

 

 

Overlooking The Yogic Aspect of Vajrayana by Jon Norris

Overlooking The Yogic Aspect

of Vajrayana

By Jon Norris

”Here in the West, we Kagyupas are so immersed in the scholastic and political modalities of the lineage that we sometimes overlook the yogic or ‘repa’ aspect of Vajrayana. We pay homage to great yogins like Tilopa, Maitripa, and Milarepa, but we think of them more as historical supermen than as role models that we could emulate today. This was not how the first wave of Tibetan expatriate lamas saw things; most of them had spent some years in solitary retreat, and would gladly do even more if they could. Today, most lamas rightly perceive that only a small percentage of western students are prepared to undertake a three year retreat, let alone spend long years in a solitary retreat hut. Likewise, it is difficult to find logistical support for such long retreats in western countries. We have to wrestle with sanitation, property taxes, and zoning codes, as well as food and medicine. Such things are actually easier to set up in Tibet than they are in the US. So, the current generation of gurus has concentrated on ‘the View’ and ‘the Preliminaries’ and incorporating ‘the Path’ into the daily life of a householder. This is helping westerners to get a toehold on the Buddhist Path, but it’s not likely to produce many Milarepas.”



Read full text here.