To Abide or Not to Abide, That is the Question

 

To Abide or Not to Abide,

That is the Question

Few days ago I heard of this man, Dhammarato, a former theravada monk and teacher in the Thai tradition of hinayana buddhism. I like his style and presentatioin very much but here, (video starts at 59:15) he says something interesting in reference to the four stages or paths leading up to arhathood which is the end point of hinayana buddhism. He says that even arhathood is temporary and that it needs to be kept up or it starts going back. I've heard the same thing from Daniel Ingram, who is also theravadin.

See Dhammarato at Guru Viking interview: https://youtu.be/istI9kK1cAg?t=3561

Technically speaking there are two main types of nirvana or liberation: 1) abiding nirvana that is attained by arhats and 2) nonabiding nirvana that is attained by buddhas/mahasiddhas. Nonabiding nirvana doesn't go backwards and there is no more practice to be kept up because all of selfing from gross to subtle to very subtle are liberated. In terms of the 13 Bhumi Model, the first type of nirvana is the perfection of bhumis 1-6, the second one is 1-10. Here you can directly see the difference between hinayana motivation which is self-liberation and mahayana motivation which is to attain full enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. In short, because of this difference in motivation, mahayana practice accesses layers of the mind/psyche that for hinayana practitioners goes unnoticed and because of this, they say that some sort of effort or vigilance is always needed or that cycling continues endlessly, like Ingram has said after his claims of arhathood.

People should know and have confidence that because all beings have buddhanature, pure ever-wakeful and fresh being within them, it is also possible to become one with it, in other words, to remove all of the self-based dirt of the layers of the mind (bhumis 1-10). We should have faith in the words of the past mahasiddhas and use our intelligence to remove all superstitious, grandiose or anxious ideas related to it. We should not let lesser views of either historical or present sources cloud the meaning of the past and present mahasiddhas. We need to take into our hearts the essential point that anyone has the potential to attain buddhahood, full enlightenment, in this body. No one except ourselves and the views we adopt can take that potential away from us.

I bow to all beings with joy and folded hands. I bow to samsaric beings of all types and forms. I bow to angels, gods, sages and beings of light. I bow to all who are making their journey through the four hinayana paths, and I bow to those who have reached abiding nirvana. I bow to mahasiddhas who abide not in nirvana and who have entirely dissolved their self-based karma, for the sake of all beings in samsara.

May all beings be free,

Kim, 26.2.2021 

 

Trevor: I don't know how hinayana practitioners can be satisfied with arhathood. The cycling is not only unpleasant, but it's literally an experience of confusion. It's also pretty damned obvious when it's happening if you're in the habit of paying attention, which they should be!

Devotion to all beings is so clearly the only permanent way out of the cycling, and feels waaaaay better.

Kim: I heard Bhikkhu Bodhi, a famous hinayana translator, shifted to mahayana some time ago, after a lifetime in theravada or started mahayana while still a theravada monk. So maybe some get it and change for a bigger gear but those who don't...

Well, like I wrote, view is everything. If you think it doesn't go farther than that and think that the cycling just continues even for noble arhats, and you don't have the merit to meet mahayana, well then you're happily and ignorantly stuck there, in the state of liberation/nirvana which remains separate from samsara. That being the case, you have no chance to advance in vipashyana to the end of one taste/same taste, the third stage of mahamudra meditation, which is the sameness of samsara and nirvana. That is the theoretical and practical difference of selflessness (anatman) and emptiness of all phenomena (shunyata). We are talking about extent here.

Abiding nirvana is entirely dualistic because of this but without bodhicitta the fact that both samsara and nirvana are empty will never dawn in the mind of an arhat. In a sense you could say that shravakas, those who pursue hinayana path, are taking a break of mahayana and the cost of this holiday is to not have the full vision of reality. Despite of this, you can sense from those who appear to be arhats that they have lots of confidence in their achievement.

Tantric yoga gives us a major blessing in the form of constantly making us feel like shit. Them wrathful deities keep digging out our painful and blind spots, while bodhicitta keeps stretching the subtle body open, like yoga postures do to the physical body. That's the way to buddhahood, if we practice well.

 

Cessation

Cessation

What I always liked about photos taken right after shifts is how people's faces, like Ugi's here, look as if they've just been thrown with a bucket of cold water. There's kind of a shock there. That's how cessation looks like.

If you are not familiar with the word cessation, that is a hot word in buddhist yoga :) Cessation refers to ceasing of notions and impressions, or ceasing of all self-based mind processes. It is discussed and described everywhere in both buddhist and hindu scriptures. In Sanskrit words such as nirvana, nirodha and nirodha samapatti are used to refer to this experience which actually is an opposite of experience because cessation is rather ceasing of all kinds of experiences. 

 

Tibetan word trekcho, that is frequently used in dzogchen is samapatti in sanskrit which means "correct recognition of reality" or "correct recognition of truth". There are different interpretations of its meaning and there are short and extensive commentaries that discuss it. By all means, study those sources.

Long story short, all bhumi openings and perfections are cessations, so you already know its meaning and profundity of it. When selfing ceases, be it for 1 second, for a day or for good, yourself as a buddha shows up. This is what buddhahood means: to be free of selfing (gross and subtle) that happens in time and place. The first stage of buddhahood is a complete cessation, as the whole karmic body (bhumis 1-10) ceases to spin the dualistic notions and conceptions of me, other and all kind of phenomena. 

 

Yup. Have a nice day all and remember that each one of us is the source of blessings. We are already what we seek. 　

Kim

Sameness of Yogic Practices

Sameness of Yogic Practices

I firmly believe that all yogic traditions like buddhism, hinduism, taoism and christianity have at some stages known and offered paths to full enlightenment. They still do in varying degree. One thing that enchants me is the similarity of practices in different traditions. 
 
For example, in this photo you can see me sitting in meditation, or to be exact nonmeditation (skt abhavana), as it is known in Great Seal of Natural Awareness tradition (skt mahamudra). To be specific, this is a photo of an upward gaze of Leaping Over to the Great Enjoyment (tib thogal long ku, vyutkrantaka sambhogakaya). 

 
In most buddhist meditations separation is made between clarity aspect and energy aspect. For example, vipashyana and metta or cutting through and leaping over (tib trekcho and thogal, samapatti and vyutkrantaka). Same principles are in shaiva tantra as Siva and Shakti where the former is masculine principle and the latter feminine. 
 
In many systems of hindu yoga, incl shaiva tantra that I’m familiar with, this gaze is known as Seal of the Divine Feminine (skt shambhavi mudra), or Seal of the Divine Energy. This mudra or meditation is practiced in both dzogchen of Tibet and tantra of Southern India, to realise the divine energy of enjoyment. To me, it is obvious that both traditions are referring to same principles and using the exact same practices... which I think is really cool. I do believe that there has been and still is, or at least could be, fully enlightened masters or mahasiddhas in all yogic traditions. 
 
However, it is also my experience that a lot of yogic knowledge is scattered and that it is very rare to find everything one needs to know in one place. To gather the foundational knowledge and practices together is something I was told to do many years ago by my masters and I have.

Love and blessings to all,

Kim

Cutting through Samsara and entering Nirvana, Part 2: Cessation/Nirodha

Cutting through Samsara

and entering Nirvana, Part 2:

Cessation/Nirodha

Cutting through Samsara and entering Nirvana, Part 2 - speech and guided practice.

Check also:

• Cutting through Samsara and entering Nirvana, Part 1: Cutting through-text and video
• Cutting through Samsara and entering Nirvana, Part 2: Cessation/Nirodha-text and video
• Cutting through Samsara and entering Nirvana, Part 3: Twist and Shout!-text

Feedback from Cutting through Samsara and entering Nirvana, Part 1:

S: ”After watching your latest video about the chanting, and doing it, something shifted and there was a clear seeing completely through thought, to the empty nature that is it, which has remained open.”

J: ”After 2 hours after the shouting session, my mind and perception kept flickering off and on. It was similar to lights being turned off and on, off and on, again and again, in a quick rhythm. These cessations lasted for a few seconds at a time. It kept happening again and again. Afterwards I felt very tired”.

You describe going "unconscious without going unconscious", awareness shifting and going through something that is new to you. This is called cessation or nirodha. It is like turning off the lights and electricity of the house but not becoming unconscious. These moments are like big leaps, in spiritual sense. This is so because cessation resets the mind momentarily. It's like if you have a big, noisy and messy engine going on and on, making noise, creating fumes, like the dualistic mind does. But when you take electricity plug out for a moment... The engine stops for a moment. This is a glimpse to the natural mind, natural awake awareness. There is nothing and no one there. Literally. This is the permanent mind state of a fully enlightened one, mind of a buddha. That's the mind of no-self. No self in any shape or form. In other words, That's emptiness.

When cessations start happening they might feel dramatic at first. When the lights come back on and the usual mind state resumes, you might feel, ”What was that!? Am I going insane?” Mind reacts like this, with fear and confusion, because it tries to figure out what happened. But it can't because cessation is non-conceptual and conceptual understanding only goes so far. So for some period of time cessation feels like a dramatic drop into the unknown and coming out of it also feels as dramatic, like a jump or something like that. There is this big threshold. If cessations are long, say minutes or hours, which are very rare, one is not able to be active and do things during cessation. Usually cessations are just a few seconds long, at a beginner stage. Later they can be for minuts and hours. People who wake up, have a short cessation and it has enough power to take the charge out of the subject-self.

In hindu dharma, this dramatic leap is called kevala nirvikalpa samadhi. It's a beginning stage of cessation. But with time and practice the drop into and jump back from cessation wears off. With practice, it becomes natural, it transforms. In hindu yoga this mature stage of cessation is called sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi. Sahaja means natural. This means that one's conditioned dualistic mind becomes permeated by no-self realisation. Here the dramaticity of it, is gone and one can do things in cessation. Eventually, cessation is not interrupted, it becomes natural. It grows on you and at some point you don't even notice it happening. Mahasiddhas and buddhas are in the state of natural cessation all the time, bodhisattvas aren't yet.

At first when you sit down and start meditating without doing anything, Ati-meditation, you might be self-aware, aware of sitting somehow, aware of the breath, aware of being there. But at some point a shift happens, a cessation takes place and knowing also disappears. In cessation there is no knowing at all. Nirodha is a stateless state of no body, no mind, no God, no buddha, no wisdom, no compassion. It is non-conceptual and without self-awareness. It is a complete stop, a full stop, complete disappearance. Cessation is a peak of meditative experience. And there is a good reason why all meditative traditions and texts have mentioned cessation as something very important. Cessation is sort of like a reset button of a meter, like there used to be in old video or tape players. Everything returns back to zero in cessation and therefore it has a significant impact on the mind and our psychological being.

In case you are wondering what sometimes happens in your meditation and especially Ati-meditation with open eyes, this is it. There is surely a relation between cessation and progress in bhumis as well. 

Have a nice day,

- Kim Katami, 11.5.2016