If you listen, I got you - Training Teachers and Instructors of Mahasiddha-style Yoga and Tantra

 

If you listen, I got you

Training Teachers and Instructors

of Mahasiddha-style Yoga and Tantra

"If you listen, I got you". -Eubie Blake, jazz pianist

What Eubie Blake means is that if he gets the listener's attention, he will catch the listener through his music. Catching the listener means to get the listener disappear in the direct nonconceptual experience of music. We've all experienced getting lost in music where the sense of small self disappears and authentic enjoyment comes forth. We begin to sing and dance, we begin to enjoy. I heard Carlos Santana say this about Miles Davis, and instantly thought about Pemako and our teachers in training.

Becoming and serving as a Pemako teacher has few important requirements. First, one has to know the method through first hand experience. Two, one has to have stable recognition of one's buddhanature, i.e. at least all bhumis open. Three, one has to be suitable to be a teacher in terms of social and organisational skills. All three make one fit to begin one's service as a teacher. At the moment we have nearly ten people doing their training.

Over the years I've discussed other traditions, their teachers and teaching styles, their pros and cons. There is the path of scholars and there is the path of yogis. Ours is the latter type. I recall Dr Nida calling this the "mahasiddha style".

I want our teachers to be able to "get you", like Eubie Blake. I train teachers who know what people look for and know how to give it to them, so that they don't leave our training sessions "belly empty", without real experience, or head spinning with fancy, scary or uninteresting concepts. I've always emphasised direct experience and tantric or atiyoga transmissions which is the mahasiddha style. I confess (gladly!) that I haven't even opened the suttas, recordings of Shakyamuni's teachings except maybe twice in my life, for a brief moment. I haven't read books, sutras and tantras, because that way didn't speak to me but nevertheless, looking at my students, I feel confident to say that I've been able to "get them" as so many of them grow into the recognition of themselves as buddhas so fast and effectively. During my days of traditional training I couldn't even dream of the pace of progress my students have. I yearned, dreamed and busted my ass for 8½ years for the first bhumi opening! I'm actually glad it all didn't work for me either because it lead to even greater dissatisfaction and disillusionment about the establishment. When that happened, time was ripe for me to begin receiving teachings from past masters.

I have used this methodology of direct transmission and introduction because that is how my masters have taught me. I remember Guru Rinpoche telling me few times to read some of the teachings he'd given to some past tertons but I just never got around to it. I bought the books but chose to use the time of reading to hanging out with my guru, him, instead. I will always choose to spend time with my guru (through tantric guru yoga), instead of reading. Seekers seek to find the truth of existence or to know themselves because they feel they are lost in life. Seekers are entangled in the net of their self-delusion. Someone who has stable recognition of buddhanature (all bhumis open) lives most of the time freely and happily because 13 major breakthroughs through the bhumi chakras enables that. When such a person knows what introduction into the nature of mind is and how it happens, there is no way avoiding directly helping or pointing out the nature of mind to others, and that is "getting them". This is an instant relief and discovery for seekers.

What is transmitted and pointed out is our effortlessly satisfied nature, so fresh, spontaneous and free of fixations, where there is no existential confusion and neither solutions to remove it. What is pointed out and transmitted is the vision of reality. That is how I'm training our teachers.

I am also training 15 people as Pemako acharyas (pron. uh-chuh-ryuh) or instructors, who once they finish their training in the Spring of 2021, can give extensive introductions, short courses and retreats to newcomers, hopefully mostly at live locations rather than the internet. These people are from Scandinavian countries, central Europe, UK, Russia and United States. Out of these 15 trainees most have stable recognition and some of them lead sessions at our main Facebook page which all are welcome to join, https://www.facebook.com/groups/pemakobuddhism/

May all beings be free and happy,

-Kim, 27.2.2021

Wrathful Expression of the Nature of Mind

Wrathful Expression

of the Nature of Mind

When we think of the Buddha, we think of a serene figure, sitting in peace with an etheric smile on his or her face. However, not all buddhas and mahasiddhas, or masters, are peaceful, many of them are wrathful. Wrathful means dynamic.

If we are used to thinking that mahasiddha is someone who just remains in peace and never raises his voice, it is perhaps shocking to know that someone fully realized would use harsh words and seemingly aggressive behaviour, like overthrow tables of the moneychangers, as Jesus did, or shoot arrows to kill enemies of dharma, like a disciple of Guru Rinpoche did.

Christ Driving the Money Changers out of the Temple by Valentin de Boulogne

To think of mahasiddhas as people who keep distance to society, not acting when action is needed, is false and immature. The freer one becomes of being self-charged, the richer the expression of the nature of mind becomes. This means that someone who is liberated, lives his or her persona in full. Personality is not lost, though selfing is. The realisation of emptiness removes our sense of self, if one's training is complete. Empty nature of mind is not a state of mental blankness but the exact opposite, birth of oneself as fully aware and awake, including the range of emotions in their selfless mode. Buddhahood is abound with ornaments, in some cases soft grace and showering of lotuses, and furious flames and sharp daggers in others. A mahasiddha can not be solely peaceful or solely wrathful because the range of human emotion takes both forms.

Wrathful expression of the nature of mind is a controversial topic because the history of buddhism and spirituality in general, is full of abuse and hurt caused by teachers who were far from being fully realized, that is, mahasiddhas. The so called ”gurus” have caused harm and pain because their training has been incomplete. This is extremely regrettable for there is no sin greater than making people lose their faith towards teaching of liberation which basically is loosing faith in themselves. That people, with or without lineage, set themselves up as realized and convince their students that their reactions of anger and confusion are enlightened wrath, when all it is is display of their delusion, attachment and perverted motivations, is both appalling and wrong.

Wrathful expression can take many forms, just like it does in art. This is a difficult topic and cannot be thoroughly explained in few lines. Perhaps it is enough to say that there are wrathful buddhas and mahasiddhas, and that the scope of enlightened expression is not limited to peacefulness. Hopefully that is helpful.

”Although my view is higher than the sky,

My respect for the cause and effect of actions

is as fine as grains of flour.”

- Padmasambhava, Guru Rinpoche

May all beings be free,

- Kim Katami, 6.1.2019

Not even a scrap of Tibetan culture by Keith Dowman

Not even a scrap of Tibetan culture

by Keith Dowman

”I don't think we need even a scrap of Tibetan culture, including vajrayana buddhism, in order to recognise the nature of mind. If somebody walks in of the street here who never heard of Tibet or Tibetan buddhism and has a natural antipathy to anything other than American culture, is given the essence of dzogchen, there's no reason why that person should not attain immediately the same state that we have reached, having gone through that whole circuit of oriental culture and Tibetan buddhism.” - Keith Dowman

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLRbC0aNvtY

An Illiterate Attains Rainbow Body

An Illiterate Attains Rainbow Body

When I went to my master Changchub Dorje, I was educated up to the hilt in the intellectual sense. My mind was filled with everything I'd learned in the monastic colleges. I thought that to receive transmission of the teachings, elaborate ritual initiations were essential and I asked Changchub Dorje to give me a certain initiation. I asked him every day for days and days, but he always refused.

'What's the use?' he'd say. 'You've already received so many of those initiations from your other masters; initiations like that are not the principle of the Dzogchen teachings. Transmission isn't only received in formal initiations.' But no matter what he said, I remained fixed on the kind of perfectly performed ritual initiations other masters had always given me. I wasn't satisfied with his replies, and I wanted him to put on a special hat, prepare a mandala, and pour a little water on my head, or something like that. That was what I really, sincerely wanted; but he always continued to refuse.

Finally, I insisted so much that he at last agreed. He promised that about two months later, on the day of Padmasambhava, the tenth day of the Tibetan lunar month1, he would give me the initiation I wanted, the empowerment of Samantabhadra and the peaceful and wrathful divinities of the Bardo. This initiation is actually not very complicated, and a master skilled in such things

could have completed it very quickly. But Changchub Dorje had never received a formal education, and he was not used to giving initiations. When the long-awaited day finally came, the initiation took him from about nine in the morning till midnight. To begin with, he had to prepare himself by performing a rite of self-initiation. This took him until mid-day to complete. Then he began the initiation for me. But, not being formally educated, not only couldn't he read the text himself, but on top of that I could see that he didn't know how to do all the ritual things he was supposed to do. He wasn't that kind of a master.

So Changchub Dorje had a disciple present as an assistant who was himself an expert teacher, and it was he who prepared all the mandalas and ritual objects. Then this disciple began to read the text to tell the master what he had to do next. But when he read out that a certain mudra, or gesture, should be done by the master giving the initiation, Changchub Dorje didn't know how to do it, so they had to stop while he learned it. Then there was a whole long invocation that was supposed to be chanted, invoking all the masters of the lineage, and while chanting it, the master is supposed to sound a bell and a damaru, or small drum. Someone who is used to rituals can perform all this very quickly, but Changchub Dorje wasn't used to such things, and the whole situation became outrageous, a complete farce.

First of all he worked out with his assistant what was written in the notes to the text. 'Ah!' he said. 'It says here that you have to sound the bell!' So he took the bell, and for about five minutes all he did was sound it over and over again. Then it was read out to him that you have to sound the damaru. So he sounded the little drum over and over for about another five minutes. Then he suddenly said: 'Oh, now I see! You have to sound the bell and damaru together!' So he did that. But by then he had forgotten what it was that he was supposed to chant, so he had to go through it all again with the help of the disciple who could read.

Changchub Dorje himself hadn't had the kind of education that involves study, but was a practitioner who had manifested wisdom and clarity through the development of his practice, and it was because of this wisdom and clarity that he was considered to be a master. So he hadn't received the kind of monastic training that would have prepared him to give all the various kinds of formal empowerment, and he stumbled through the initiation he gave me taking all day and a good deal of the evening to do it. By the time he had finished, I was almost in a state of shock, as, given my own background, I knew very well how an initiation should be done, and it was nothing like this.

But by then it was nearly midnight, and we were all very hungry. We sang the Song of the Vajra together many times. This is a short, slow, anthemic chant, characteristic of the way Dzogchen works with ritual, that leads the practitioner into contemplation through integration with its actual sound, the structure of its syllables and melody ensuring deep, relaxed breathing. Then we recited a short Gana Puja offering, and we ate. After the meal the master gave me a real explanation of the true meaning of initiation and transmission, and I realized that despite all the formal initiations I had received at my college, I had never understood or entered into the true meaning of them.

Then, without interruption, for about three or four hours, Changchub Dorje gave me a real explanation of Dzogchen, not teaching me in an intellectual style, but talking to me in a very straightforward and relaxed, friendly, conversational way. Despite all my education, this was the first time a master had really made such a direct attempt to get me to understand something. What he said, and the way that he said it, was exactly like a tantra of Dzogchen, spoken spontaneously, continuously aloud, and I knew that even a very learned scholar would not be able to speak like that. Changchub Dorje was speaking from clarity and not just from an intellectual understanding.

Copied from Crystal and the Way of Light by Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche.

Nyala Changchub Dorje was Dzogchen master renowned as the teacher of Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. He was born in the Nyarong region of Kham and studied with Adzom Drukpa, Nyala Pema Dündul, his student Nyala Rangrik Dorje and the Bön master Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen (1859-1935).
Nyala Rinpoche led a community of Dzogchen practitioners in Nyalagar in the Dedrol area of Kham. He attained the rainbow body. Copied from here.

Nature of Mind: It's A Secret!

Nature of Mind: It's A Secret!

I recently joined a weeklong retreat with a well known Tibetan buddhist lama in England. I have read books of this rinpoche and find his style of teaching dzogchen refreshing among the larger field of vajrayana buddhism where only few seem to yogically mature as well as proficient in communicating the natural state to others through their own living experience.

The retreat was attended by 160 people and was well organised. I joined the retreat because I wanted to take a breather from hectic family and work life, and also to do my own practice and perhaps to learn something new. All in all it was a nice experience and I will probably join it again next year.

Rinpoche spent the first couple of days talking about shamatha and vipashyana meditations. He also taught some tummo breathwork. These sessions were recorded on video by volunteers.

On the 4^th day of the retreat he started giving pointing out instructions. For those who don't know what pointing out instructions are they are verbal and nonverbal ways that the teacher uses for the students to have a recognition of their natural state, also called buddhanature. I give pointers such as finding knowingness, shaking (rushen) of the body and speech, shouting short syllables and many others. Even though I highly appreciate pointing out instructions and see the necessity of them, I do not think there is anything special to them. From the perspective of samsaric mind the natural state is more profound than anything else. But it still is the simple and direct awareness that each of us have which is more or less familiar to all of us already. Instructions by the teacher can be very helpful but having said that it is all very simple.

One thing that I find strange is that rinpoche's teachings were filmed up until he started giving pointing out instructions. Then he told the technical staff to ”Stop the recording” when he started giving instructions about the nature of mind. I have thought about this in retrospect and find it quite problematic for obvious reasons. The students who joined and paid a notable sum for the retreat could not get the recorded instructions that were the heart and soul of the whole event.

I think that the custom of not recording ”dzogchen” instructions comes from the medieval habit. This prevents the instructions from getting available to millions of seekers worldwide. I find that restricting pointing out instructions only to those present is wrong and actually in conflict with the view of compassion. I think this is unhealthy and merely serves the religious establishment as it keeps the business in motion.

I am happy to say that I do not belong to the vajrayana establishment. The elderly vajrayana is like a dying dinosaur with many ancient counterproductive habits with little to offer for the modern population.

I wonder how it is always so difficult for teachers, religous or otherwise, to prioritise the needs of the people instead of the needs of the establishment.

- Kim Katami, 16^th May 2018.

Find many pointing out instructions from Open Heart YouTube-channel for free.

Pointing the Staff at The Old Man's Heart by Padmasambhava

POINTING THE STAFF AT THE OLD MAN'S HEART

by PADMASAMBHAVA

While the great master Padmasambhava was staying at Great Rock Hermitage at Samye, Sherab Gyalpo of Ngog, an uneducated 61 year old man who had the highest faith and strong devotion to the master, served him for one year. All this while Ngog didn't ask for any teachings, nor did the master give him any. When after a year the master intended to leave, Ngog offered a mandala plate upon which he placed a flower of one ounce of gold.



Then he said, Great Master, think of me with kindness. First of all, I am uneducated. Second, my intelligence is small. Third, I am old, so my elements are worn down. I beg you to give a teaching to an old man on the verge of death that is simple to understand, can thoroughly cut through doubt, is easy to realize and apply, has an effective view, and will help me in future lives.
The Master pointed his walking staff at the old man's heart and gave this instruction:

Listen here old man! Look into the awakened mind of your own awareness! It has neither form nor color, neither center nor edge. At first, it has no origin but is empty. Next, it has no dwelling place but is empty. At the end, it has no destination but is empty. This emptiness is not made of anything and is clear and cognizant. When you see this and recognize it, you know your natural face. You understand the nature of things. You have then seen the nature of mind, resolved the basic state of reality and cut through doubts about topics of knowledge.
This awakened mind of awareness is not made out of any material substance; it is self-existing and inherent in yourself. This is the nature of things that is easy to realize because it is not to be sought for elsewhere. This is the nature of mind that does not consist of a concrete perceiver and something perceived to fixate on. It defies the limitations of permanence and annihilation. In it there is no thing to awaken; the awakened state of enlightenment is your own awareness that is naturally awake. In it there is no thing that goes to the hells; awareness is naturally pure. In it there is no practice to carry out; its nature is naturally cognizant. This great view of the natural state is present in yourself: resolve that it is not to be sought for elsewhere.
When you understand the view in this way and want to apply it in your experience, wherever you stay is the mountain retreat of your body. Whatever external appearance you perceive is a naturally occurring appearance and a naturally empty emptiness; let it be, free from mental constructs. Naturally freed appearances become your helpers, and you can practice while taking appearances as the path.

Within, whatever moves in your mind, whatever you think, has no essence but is empty. Thought occurrences are naturally freed. When remembering your mind essence you can take thoughts as the path and the practice is easy.
As for the innermost advice: no matter what kind of disturbing emotion you feel, look into the emotion and it tracelessly subsides. The disturbing emotion is thus naturally freed. This is simple to practice.

When you can practice in this way, your meditation training is not confined to sessions. Knowing that everything is a helper, your meditation experience is unchanging, the innate nature is unceasing, and your conduct is unshackled. Wherever you stay, you are never apart from the innate nature.



Once you realize this, your material body may be old, but awakened mind doesn't age. It knows no difference between young and old. The innate nature is beyond bias and partiality. When you recognize that awareness, innate wakefulness, is present in yourself, there is no difference between sharp and dull faculties. When you understand the innate nature, free from bias and partiality, is present within yourself, there is no difference between great and small learning. Even though your body, the support for the mind, falls apart, the dharmakaya of awareness wisdom is unceasing. When you gain stability in this unchanging state, there is no difference between a long and a short life-span.

Old man, practice the true meaning! Take the practice to heart! Don't mistake words and meaning! Don't depart from your friend, diligence! Embrace everything with mindfulness! Don't indulge in idle talk and pointless gossip! Don't become involved in common aims! Don't disturb yourself with worry of offspring! Don't excessively crave food and drink! Intend to die an ordinary man! Your life is running out, so be diligent! Practice this instruction for an old man on the verge of death!



Because of pointing the staff at Sherab Gyalpo's heart, this is called 'The Instruction of Pointing the Staff at the Old Man.' Sherab Gyalpo of Ngog was liberated and attained accomplishment.



This was written down by the Princess of Kharchen, Yeshe Tsogyal, for the sake of future generations. It is known under the name 'The Instruction of Pointing the Staff.'



*TRANSLATED BY ERIK PEMA KUNSANG, RANGJUNG YESHE PUBLICATIONS