Introduction to Tibetan Heart Yoga

Introduction to Tibetan Heart Yoga

by Kim Katami

Open Heart, www.openheart.fi

• Man has three bodies:
  1. physical body
  2. energetic body/mind and
  3. awareness.
  Physical and energetic bodies are three-dimensional, awareness is non-dimensional.

• Practice of dharma is centered on removing dukkha or unsatisfactory and confused existence, as is taught in the Four Noble Truths. Existential confusion means perceiving our life in dualistic fashion. Because we perceive ourselves as individual entities or selves, we get confused and suffer. When this self-based dualistic perception does not arise, even momentarily, that is a moment free of suffering. 
  
  

  Introduction to Tibetan Heart Yoga: Lecture about the Principles: 

  
  

   

• Selfing is spread over the energetic body or mind. It can be removed according to the laws, functions and mechanisms of the mind. Selfing cannot be removed by denying it or by disregarding the way how the mind works. Selfing cannot be thoroughly removed by physical exercises or by the means of plain awareness approach alone, although both are very relevant. Psychology cannot be bypassed. If profound transformation or realisation is attained it is through the delusion stored in your mind, not in any other way. 
  
  

  Tibetan Heart Yoga: Guided Practice:

  
  

  
  
   
• When samsaric mind is ”seen through” by sutra or tantra practices, it gets transformed into wisdom mind. Seeing through refers to the principle of vipashyana meditation which means ”seeing clearly”. Seeing clearly or vipashyana is a principle that can be applied in sutric or tantric fashion. When a mental element, such as a thought is seen through, it means that the self-charge in it is released. Thereafter it has no binding power that causes selfing. In this way, our sense of self is seen through and released by piercing through it, not by transcending it. As vipashyana practices are applied, the practitioner's mind becomes growingly more lucid, while one's true self, selfless awareness, becomes the dominant mode of living. 
   
• Samsaric mind, in other terms, the psychology of man, has four main aspects:
  1. subject-self
  2. object-selves referring to thoughts and emotions
  3. subconscious mind (energetics inside the physical body, bhumis 1-6) and
  4. substrate consciousness (energetics outside the body, bhumis 7-10, skt. alaya vijnana).
  All aspects of the mind correlate directly to energy channels (nadi) and energy centers (chakra). The ”mind” consists of numerous energy channels and centers. Having a samsaric mind that goes round and round in thoughts, emotions, fantasies and dreams means that the channels and centers are filled with junk, junk that is our selves with all the habits, tendencies, needs and drives. 
   
• By tantra practice, all of samsaric mind is transformed into wisdom mind. This means that the self-charge, self-delusion, is released from the mind elements. This is the outcome of vipashyana practice. ”Wisdom mind” means that all the thoughtforms and formless energies of the subconscious mind (numbers 3. and 4. together) become embodiments of awareness itself. When the self-charge is released from mental elements, their true nature is experienced. True nature refers to qualities such as sense of freedom, openness, lucidity, clarity, lightness, elation, naturalness, aliveness and utter ordinariness. All these are qualities of awareness or buddha nature.
  
  
• In tantra, the self-charge is removed with the help of a guru and buddha-deities, that the master or guru has assigned for practice. In Open Heart we ask blessings and meditate many different masters of the Mahasiddha Family, but the main masters are Guru Padmasambhava and Guru Ma Yeshe Tsogyal. Buddha-deities are cultivated through singing and repeating mantras, verbal sounds, which are the main technique of tantric yoga. Also Guru Yoga is one of our central practices where master's presence is invoked and felt in one's own bodymind. 
   
• Deities are always learned or received through empowerment given by the guru or his representative so that the practitioner gets the deity or deities correctly. 
   
• In Tibetan Heart Yoga, there are over 20 different buddha-deities. The list can be found from the website.
  
  
• By using mantras relating to buddhas, the practitioner's mind goes through a transformation where the self-charges are released from all mentioned areas of the mind systematically. While some effects can be instantly experienced, thorough transformation takes time and committed effort because selfing is so deeply ingrained in the channels and centers of the energy body. 
   
• In addition to mantras, the practices include mudras (hand gestures), visualisations and breathing techniques. 
   
• Open Heart-method includes three approaches: sutra, tantra and dzogchen. Tantra is recommended to householders because it is easy to learn and practice, and it gives fast results. Results of Tibetan Heart Yoga can be observed from publicly released bhumi studies from the Open Heart-blog and Open Heart-YouTube-channel. 
   
• In Open Heart, progress in practice is measured with Open Heart Bhumi Model. 
   
• The first task in practice is to open the bhumis, all the way up to the 11^th bhumi which is the first ”mahasiddha bhumi”. Throughout this process one has glimpses and insights into the selfless nature of the mind and also grows in experiencing natural awareness. 
   
• When the 11^th, 12^th and 13^th bhumis open up, awareness becomes one's default mode. Opening of the 11^th bhumi brings an important paradigm shift as one mostly rests in the natural state. There is no need to ”get back to it” anymore. From this point onwards, tantric and dzogchen practice is continued for the reason of removing all habits, tendencies and karmas which in other words is perfecting the bhumis.
  
  
• First (of three) stages of buddhahood is attained when the whole energetic body, including all channels and centers, relating to the four aspects of the mind, and the first 10 bhumis, is fully purified. After this there are no impulsive actions in one's mind at all. Being a ”buddha” means being free of one's mind while still having it. This is what the famous line from the Heart Sutra means: ”Form is emptiness, emptiness of form. Form is form, emptiness is emptiness”. A buddha does not experience selfing at all and because of this is no longer a samsaric being. The first stage of buddhahood could be described as ”mental nonduality” while the latter two stages, referring to 12^th and 13^th bhumis concern ”physical nonduality” and the so called ”light body” or ”rainbow body”. 
   
• In Open Heart, attaining the first stage of buddhahood where all of psychology has dissolved into awareness, is seen as a realistic goal to be achieved in this body and life. It is not something that should be postponed because that is what we truly are.

Open Heart

www.openheart.fi

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May be freely copied and quoted with mentioning the source

Copyright Kim Katami 2017

Practice tantra instead of theravada

Practice tantra instead of theravada

Question: I do meditate in the morning and evening anapanasati or the body scan method of Goenka. Should i keep doing that? Is the technique as i use helpful or should i try a different technique witch you can point me to?

Baba: Body scanning and breath following are basic practices of most meditation traditions. I also teach the classic methods of shamatha and vipashyana in Wisdom Meditations of Vimalamitra. They are part of the Open Heart syllabus but only partially in a central role. We don't do these practices in the same way they do in Theravada but more from a dzogchen point of view (Vimalamitra was and still is one the greatest dzogchen masters ever). This means that we have some special tricks inside these commonly practiced techniques of anapanasati. But anyway, in our system we do these practices only as a "further study". At the moment we have a 3-year study group called "Bodhi" going on which focuses on studying Wisdom Meditations. These practices, as we do them, have a lot to do with ati yoga or Ati-meditation/Space Gazing about which I have written in the FB-groups.

- When it comes to purifying and clearing of the mind (object vipashyana, karmic purification) we use tantric practice called Tibetan Heart Yoga. We prefer tantric practices for vipashyana (tantric vipashyana) because they are easier and faster than the classic ways of vipassana practice. A proof of this is that there has been been no lay masters in the Theravadan tradition in ages. That's because their method requires full attention and a lot of time, that of a monastic monk, if one is to achieve complete purification of mind/karmic purity. The result of these both approaches are the same but the techniques vary in their effectiveness. I know because I've done both. So in regards to this matter of which practice you could or should do as an ordinary Western layman who has began his practices as a grown adult, I say, go for tantra so you get to the point and results much faster.

Baba Kim Katami,

Helsinki, Finland

Open Heart,

www.openheart.fi

About my masters and Sivakami

Kim wrote:

Hello D,

Traditions, yeah. I have a bit mixed feelings about long traditions these days. When thinking about the number of only buddhist lineages, not to mention others, existing today, which are numerous, I am not that convinced of their ability in keeping teachings alive. There is so much useless baggage.

I've studied with about 3 dozen teachers and masters, both in and out the physical body, but my main teacher who really got me started, after a number of years when I hit my head into patriarchal zen, was an American housewife, a liberated arhat and a mystic of very high caliber. Her name was Sara or Sivakami and she was very private person. She left her body  in 2010. She got her initial transmission from Yogananda's student back in 1976, when she was 36 or 37 years old. The second time she sat down to practice those techniques she had learned, she spent 10 hours in immersion and during the next 4 months that same kept happening everyday. It was tough on her body as her mind was completely transformed, all her personal karmas burned. So, she got her initiation from a physical teacher in a lineage (which by the way was started 3 generations earlier by a non-physical master called Babaji) but after that initial samadhi streak, she started having non-physical teachers and masters visit her both when awake and when asleep. Lama Thubten Yeshe, after he left his body the previous time, was one of them. He offered Sivakami to take his teachings but she kindly refused because she was never that keen about the buddhist vibe. She was pretty much a heavily meditating bhakta all her life. She also had the fortune to witness on two  non-physical masters appear in physical form to her. One of them was Babaji known from Yogananda's book, and the other one was a shaivite master called Thirumular, the author of the famous Thirumandiram, a shaiva classic. So, anyway through her initial contant through Yogananda's disciple, something clicked and she started meeting all these masters from many traditions in astral form. It sounds pretty wild... but to me what she later passed to me were of true quality... compared to teachings that I've received from many lamas or gurus alive today. Her mind and teaching was juicy and fresh, delicious. That freshness didn't come from a tradition that had been kept alive for centuries in a physical form but came from these non-physical mahasiddhas, mostly Babaji and Mular.

So it turned out later that I also had a karmic link to these masters who asked Sivakami to teach. It was her who re-initiated me into this congregation of masters which in turn enabled me to initiate my work, part of which is about helping people get awakened. Like I've said before I didn't learn the two part method that I use when guiding people from any living teacher. It came to me intuitively, a memory from past lives. Later I read they use the same formula in some lineage of dzogchen... So fast forward to this day... I've studied, worked and received transmission from many non-physical masters, yogis and buddhas. I felt for years that I wanted to find a rinpoche or some lama to study with but I don't feel like that anymore because buddhas in the physical are so extremely rare. So what all these traditions out there can offer is quite limited and rarely of superb quality, I feel.
I didn't mean to babble and sorry for keeping so long but I just wanted to say this as "traditions that keep the teachings alive" don't always mean "just physical".

Kim Katami
18.1.2016. 

Open Heart, www.openheart.fi