Wisdom air and other secrets

Wisdom air and other secrets

Clarity of mind, or in other words recognition of rigpa, is in direct connection with channels and energies, or traditionally "winds" that blow through the channels. Channels which number up to many hundreds of thousands (I do not think it is possible to count them all, they are so many) are the energetic representation of our being. This energetic representation is the same as "mind" or energy body. In this short text I won't go into channels and centers but wish to mention a few things of the connection between the physical body-to-mind-to-rigpa. Several bits that I am going to say are held secrets of a couple of distinguished meditation traditions. Personally I do not think there is need for over-protecting secrecy.

Wisdom air

A friend of mine mentioned that one of his Tibetan lamas, said to keep one's mouth open during atiyoga. The lama had said that keeping mouth open makes it "wisdom air". What this actually means was not explained. Here's my take on this.
Dzogchen atiyoga is the king and queen of all samadhis and meditation practices. To really "get it" one has to have a lot of "battle experience". By battle experience I refer to calmness and clarity of mind, insights to selfless nature of self and mind content, as well as valid practical conceptual knowledge of the structure and different functions of the mind. 
 
Atiyoga is rigpa practice. Rigpa refers to knowing awareness, knowingness that is not self-based. Rigpa is not an experience, nor it is perceived. I hate to use such a foreign term like ”rigpa” because peoples minds, such as mine, are so easily caught by such attractive designations, but I use it because it really refers to something distinct. Mind is so multilayered and obscured. I do not think anyone really knows oneself as rigpa without extensive training.

Rigpa-genic areas of the body

The word ”erogenic” is used for areas of the physical body which when stimulated cause sexual arousal. In a similar way there are areas in the physical body which are helpful in making our minds clear. Ultimately the whole body is a ”rigpa-genic” area but it's not that obvious to have this insight. I've seen many not so experienced meditators glimpse this but due to their limited practice history and conceptual orientation they usually are not able to understand the core of it. So, some areas a more helpful than others in silencing our minds and in recognising rigpa. Breathing through the mouth can also be helpful.

Central channels

In general, breathing through ones mouth while meditating, abiding as sky (three dimensional sky gazing, shamatha meditation without concretic support), has the effect of activating one or several of the central channels. The central channel which runs from the pelvic floor, though the spine to the top of the head has several layers. It's like an electrical wire with an outer, middle, inner and innermost layers. When any of the central channels becomes active it instantly affects the mind. To a beginner of meditation these moments are precious discoveries. He or she may think, ”Now I found it!” And in one sense this is valid, even though he didn't get to the innermost core. So, keeping one's mouth open can and does directly stimulate the central channel. The same can be done by a bunch of different means.

Just by being aware of the central channel, by doing deity practices, breathing practices, mudras, bandhas and so on. This can also be done by sensing the centers above the crown.

If you wish to get to the innermost of them, you can visualise the channel of hair's width made of transparent jewel. When you do this, *subtly pay attention*. If you have the battle experience, you will notice the difference. If you don't have it, you will not notice anything.

Master glands

Many years ago, when my teacher Sara Sivakami was still alive she taught me a secret practice that she gave only to a few close disciples. She'd be fine me talking about this on a general level.

Sara was really skilled in mystical skills. She was a master of astral projection and lucid dreaming. She met and received many teachings like that from many teachers, including Lama Thubten Yeshe, a famous gelugpa lama, who at the time was in between reincarnations.

Once, she told me, when she had lied down for the night's rest, when she was subtly picked up by a particular mahasiddha who took her to a cave in the Himalayas. She recognised this cave as her abode of a previous life. She went inside the cave, or a network of caves, and was re-initiated into a very specific type of spiritual practice by gulping down a few drops of potion that was hidden. She knew where to look for the drink. When she drank these drops, she remembered these particular teachings again that she had practiced before. This happened during an astral projection.

This practice has to do with master glands inside the head, the pituitary and pineal glands and the tube connecting the two.

Now. At the back of the mouth there is something called ”soft palate”. Check it up to see what it means. By feeling the breath touching the soft palate, the pituitary gland becomes activated. When pituitary gland becomes active, the mind becomes clear and there is a possibility to recognise open awareness (rigpa) and abide as rigpa. When the activation of pituitary gland is joined with the activation of the pineal gland, it is hard to miss rigpa. The mind, with all it's layers becomes so thin and weak, while transparent rigpa-awareness becomes dominant. I am not talking about dharmakaya (body of all kinds of mind phenomena) only rigpa.

Interestingly I've heard of orthodox dzogchen practice called ”yangti” which is very secret. It is clear to me that an essential part of this practice has to do with pineal gland.

So, when the lama said that keeping mouth open makes it ”wisdom air”, it might have something to do with this. And even if it doesn't, what I have said above is valid in regards to recognition of rigpa.

Turning off the radio

Another point that came to my mind about keeping one's mouth open has to do with ”releasing body, speech and mind” as taught in Tibetan buddhism meditation. Inner speech refers to that part of our mind that is like a radio with a constant program on it: stories, ideas, comments, music, memories... This involuntary radio can be turned off simply relaxing the area of the mouth and jaws. If you keep your mouth relaxed and slightly open with a floating tongue, the radio-function stays off. This doesn't concern breathing through the mouth but it is useful and meaningful when calming the mind and when recognising rigpa. This can also be called ”wisdom air”, in my opinion.

These are some of my thoughts on this topic, mouth, breathing, rigpa and ”wisdom air”.

Cheers,

Kim Katami

Posture of Meditation, Part 2: Standing

Posture of Meditation, Part 2:

Standing

Posture of Meditation Series:

Posture of Meditation, Part 1: Sitting

Posture of Meditation, Part 2: Standing

Posture of Meditation, Part 3: Eyes

Standing meditation

Considering that standing posture is one of the four main postures of buddhist meditation, it has not been widely practiced as main method of it's own in other buddhist countries than China. It comes as a bit of a surprise when you think of it. Why not? In China both taoists and buddhists have practiced it throughout the centuries, and still today, although often from purely secular point of view, separated from larger philosophical context which may or may not be a good thing. In China standing meditation, often in connection with inner martial arts and self-healing, is known by many different names. Here, I'll refer to it simply by ”standing meditation”.

Meditation is a multilayered practice. Considering all the things that happen in the mind space, it is comparable to juggling. A beginning juggler is able to juggle for a brief moment until due to limited skills, balls fall to the ground. To manage all the different elements of the mind, such as thoughts, ideas, emotions and energies together with sensory information of the physical body, including the possibility of becoming distracted or subconscious, is not that easy and simple.

When meditation is practiced in a standing position or positions, it is an art of it's own. It is different from sitting meditation for the obvious reason that the body is an active element of the meditation. In sitting meditation, body is also central but in this case body has a more passive role in the meditative process.

Personally I think that standing meditation can be a great help in one's meditation when one has 1. recognised open awareness and has become familiar with it, 2. when one wishes to put more emphasis on how open awareness is embodied and 3. how the abstract mind-awareness functions relate to the structure of the physical body.

Of course standing practices can be done to begin with, without nondualistic insights and without any physical preparation such as rushen, but pursuing standing meditation as a primary method from the beginning, is hindered by many problems. I don't recommend it.

Perhaps this is the reason why the yogic traditions of India or Tibet never dove deep in standing meditation, although their traditions of sitting meditation have been exemplary. Perhaps masters and yogis didn't see it that important after advancing in their sitting practice.

The view from the top of the mountain

What is essential in all forms of meditation, is to recognise knowing awareness (first gear). By knowing awareness I refer to open awareness. It is our mind without dualistic content, without the sense of separation. Please refer to many texts on awakening and purification of the mind found from this blog, if you are not familiar with what this means.

So, whatever type of meditation we are talking about, it is the recognition of knowing awareness what makes the practice a ”meditation”. Concentration practice where intention is cultivated to attend the body-space, or the movement of the breath or made to act according to a mental image, is not really meditation.

So, the principle of open awareness should be clearly understood.

Training of standing meditation

When the recognition of open awareness is effortless and common, it is possible for the practitioner to put more emphasis on the embodying aspect of meditation. This is the meeting point of the third and fourth gears of ”Four Gears of Open Awareness”.

In sitting posture, the third gear, where open awareness (related to the primary sense organ) is met with the heart-space and the whole body, can already be thoroughly studied. However, when this is applied in standing posture, it takes on a different, physically more concretical spin. The connection of awareness in relation to action (based on intention/focus) can be studied and realised in a ”fleshy” way. Mind and awareness becomes flesh and bones. It becomes concretic because our physical bodies made of physical elements, are more actively looked as a central theme of our meditation. Here the dualism between non-physical absolute, open awareness, and physical relative body evaporates. ”Form is emptiness, emptiness is form”, as the Heart sutra says.

I find that it is absolutely crucial to stick with the panorama that opens from ”the top of the mountain”, referring to the first gear, because it is that open mind space, also termed as attention, bare attention or naked awareness which puts the whole practice and the method in a context that it actually is.

Nearly all inner martial artists have deficiency regarding this essential requirement. Without the first gear, and nonduality, standing meditation cannot and does not result in thorough understanding, traditionally called as wisdom and compassion.

- Kim Katami, 26.6.2016

Open Heart,

www.openheart.fi

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

Cutting through Samsara

and entering Nirvana,

Part 1:

Cutting through

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

Cutting through Samsara and entering Nirvana, Part 1-guided practice

Samsara means being caught up by a mind that goes around in cycles. Samsaric mind refers to thoughts, feelings and subtle energy where thoughts and feelings are born from. This includes the sense of separate self or the sense of ”I” or ”me”. Actually all thoughts and feelings are charged with some sense of me-ness.

When the samsaric mind is too busy and makes one go crazy because the mind is so scattered, there is a need to cut this cyclical function of the mind that thinks and feels.

This cutting has to be thorough, a thorough cut through all levels of the samsaric mind. The talkative mind can be silenced simply by relaxing the jaws and the surface of the subconscious mind can be calmed down by relaxing the belly and the physical body but to cut through through all levels of the samsaric mind, we also have to cut through the subtle energy that is beyond the form of thought and emotion. This subtle energy is dormant and has no form. That is why it is not easy for meditators to perceive. However, this is a way to cut through through that as well. And when this is achieved, a stateless state of open awareness, where the mind has been completely blown out, is entered. The meaning of nirvana is literally ”blown out” as in candle's flame that is blown out.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche says in his book Ground, Path and Fruition:

The practice of the Thorough Cut is like taking a great big knife and just cutting the snake of solidified confusion. You take a machete to all the thoughts of the past and the future, to the whole complex of confusion about what is real and what is not, and just hack them down in one fell swoop. There is no visualization. Do not think about it. Just cut it. Drop it. It is very energetic. It is not like having a nice meditation.

There are many methods to help with this and one whole class of those methods is the one called Parting Samsara and Nirvana. In it, you get your body moving-active, walking, anything-and then stop and look, immediately, and in that moment completely cut through all of the thoughts-conceptual, intellectual, gross, subtle, whatever.

You can shake your body violently or you can shout or whatever; just work for four or five minutes and suddenly drop everything.

In terms of the traditional methods of parting samsara and nirvana, practitioners would go to the jungle, take off all their clothes, and just jump, jump, jump, shout, shout, shout, and do crazy things to cause a real breakdown. Or they would jump into icy water. By these methods you can intoxicate all the small states of mind and really stay in rigpa.

Four Gears of Open Awareness

Four Gears of Open Awareness

Four Gears of Open Awareness-guided practice

1. Open awareness, related to the primary sensory organ*

• Disengaging one's attention from internal objects such as thought and emotion, as well as from external objects perceived through the senses (eyes) and
• Resting as non-three-dimensional open space
• Awareness being aware of itself, without a self-entity

Leads to:

• Recognition of oneself as conscious awareness, both through sudden awakening (cessation, nirodha) and mind purification (vipashyana, also known as gradual enlightenment) =>
• Cuts down all sense of localisation as a self located in space and time, deconstruction of the self =>
• Calming of the mind (shamatha) =>
• Experiential understanding of both mindfulness (intention) and open awareness (attention)

This can be called the first gear, the first and foremost step, of awareness training.

*Eyes are the primary sensory organ of man. This practice is known as ati yoga, Ati-meditation, Space Gazing or open awareness meditation in Open Heart-teachings and by same or similar names in other advanced teachings.

2. Open awareness centered at the heart

Open awareness recognised through the primary sense organ (eyes) is connected with the heart/chest area of man. This connection is revealed through training in open awareness meditation. This is subtle connection of the energy body (skt. amrita nadi, tib. kati, engl. chrystal channel), not related to common human emotions, although open awareness centered at the heart gives self-cognisant awareness a flavour of warm heartfulness. In the heart open awareness becomes embodied as love and compassion.

This can be called the second gear of awareness training.

3. Open awareness embodied by the whole bodymind

When the recognition of the natural state takes place properly and one trains in it, open awareness not only comes to encompass the abstract mind and it's various aspects, but also penetrates the flesh of the body. The self-created mind of man becomes replaced with the ”spirit of God” which is free and open but also free of freedom, openness and divinity.

This can be called the third gear of awareness training.

4. Open awareness in action

Here, open awareness is fully embodied and presented through action, speech and thought, and also through non-action, non-speech and non-thought. Here further training of awareness looses it's meaning. Compassionate action, both in it's peaceful and wrathful forms, is naturally delivered. This is the stage of the mahasiddhas* or buddhas. When open awareness is embodied in full bloom like this, all beings in all forms reap subtle nondual benefits from it as the presence of a mahasiddha reverberates through all realms** simultaneously. The wow to become a buddha, a fully enlightened being for the sake of all beings has been fulfilled and hence is forgotten.

This can be called the fourth gear and final stage of awareness training.

*Open Heart Bhumi Model, bhumis 11.-13.

**All realms refer to 21 main realms related to the subtle body of man, that is, chakras. See a diagram of these centers here.

Comments

The above mapping is one way to explain the aspects and stages of the path of awareness training. This training can be pursued by anyone. It is recommended to be conducted in the guidance of a master (here referring to a mahasiddha) or at least with a person who has attained the level of a bodhisattva.

All should remember that open awareness is the enlightened mind of all beings. Potentially this can be attained by all men who receive valid instruction and who have correct compassionate motivation.

This instruction should not be kept from sincere, honest and open hearted seekers who wish to blow out the flame of their dualistic ignorance and embody their natural, truthful, original mind among men and other beings. This is their right.

It should be kept in mind that this knowledge is not the property of any person, any sect or a group. In case a known dishonest or a morally corrupt person seeks to receive instruction from a teacher, the teacher should make sure that the relationship is based on honesty and mutual trust. If this requirement is not met the teacher is allowed to refrain from giving guidance to such person.

May all beings realise their freedom.

Thank you for reading.

- Baba Kim Katami, 4/2016

Open Heart,

www.openheart.fi