8/6/27
Dreamed I was dead last night and standing next to my lifeless form. A voice was telling me to get back into that form so I could really die. This because my conscious form still contained all the necessary elements for a real death to occur. This sounded odd to me because I was outside my body observing only that which could die but was being told by an omniscient voice that it was precisely that consciousness of death that needed to be inside the lifeless form to lose what was most important about the dying process. So I got back into my dead body and waited to lose that same consciousness in order for it to become real. Given I’d just been reading and researching Aryadeva’s 400 Verses, what does it say about his teachings and my understanding of them?
20/6
Thoughts about the harmful effects of early marijuana usage came to mind during puja this morning. A voice said, ‘it isolates the sweetness from memory.’ I later interpreted this as ‘one becomes less inclined to remember anything.’ While it’s been a long time, what I recall about being stoned was that when memories arose, they reverberated. This made them seem more profound because everything was being experienced in a heightened signification. But for me it may have meant I wasn’t taking anything in, or not downloading, but instead enjoying the ‘now’ because it was sweeter than when I was not stoned and experiencing the drudgery of remembering things.
Buddhist epistemology says we first have a perceptible formation of a person, place, or thing, then a sense perception consciousness of it, and then ‘some time later’ a memory of it. I believe sadhana practice assists one’s memory of something to happen much quicker—if not simultaneously. So it was a little ironic after my meditation that I left the house without my phone and later had to return. This is called a ‘stoner leave.’ Moreover, after having retrieved my phone I started to ride away on my motorcycle without my helmet. Classic. The Tibetan monastics have a saying that if you want to remember something just sit down and do your sadhana. But having remembered some of the mind altering effects of an intoxicant, weed, I repeated the behavior of it twice before successfully leaving the house. Later, leaving the cafe I wrote in for most of the day, I forgot the ciabatta and cheese bought at the French bakery, having left it just outside the bathroom. While I started smoking weed at fifteen not sure I’m exactly a candidate for ‘retarded brain growth’ as my father, within one year, nipped that illicit activity in the bud—with death threats, no less.
When I was six years old, my older brother by two years and I use to collect scrap metal at the bottom of what was later to become Lake Casitas in Ventura County, Southern California. We’d walk around our father’s worksite, noses to the ground, studiously looking for partially buried scraps of metal left from what was once a large metal workshop, likely attached to the sprawling Rancho Santa Ana. The family who held the grant: Rancho Santa Ana was given to Crisógono Ayala and Cosme Vanegas — Vanegas was Ayala’s father-in-law, so it was effectively held jointly by the Ayala family (with the Vanegas family by marriage). At one point I used to hangout with one of the Vanegas kids. The way my father said the name and spoke reverently about them was telling but I didn’t why until now.
This recreational area, supplementing the old water supply collected from Matilija Dam and reservoir northwest of Ojai Valley is on the ‘back way’ from Ojai to Santa Barbara by taking the Casitas Pass Road. Our father used to warn us, as he routinely scooped up skip-loader buckets of the finest silt top soil, releasing it into his three square yards dump truck bed, that one day torrents of water would come and plunge our precious collection under water. Our ultimate goal was for Father to place it in his dump truck and sell it to the foundry in Ventura.
We were not to be discouraged by his doomsday predictions, and all summer long unearthed squares, trapezoids, rods, circles, and variously other shaped assorted chunks of metal, dutifully placing them on a low-slung parapet wall, remnants of the deserted shop we pillaged. We were very attached to each piece and what accrued was something that abstractly resembles my Post Kampuchea Vajrayana shrine in my oversized studio apartment here in Siemreap. On my shrine I have also dutifully collected about fifty metal items, among them Buddhist images, miniatures to twelve or fifteen inches high, water bowls, kilayas, choppers, a small sword and so forth. I am equally attached to these objects, made of metal and other materials, that crowd collage-like my combination shrine-table and bookshelf structured hard wood shrine.
The sheer mass and weight of this shrine physically alone gives it a great strength. I believe this is an integral part of its ‘shrine power.’ I first heard this phrase, shrine power after being initiated into the Vajrasattva purification and vow restoration body, voice, and mind meditation. This is a necessary part of taking Bodhisattva Vows given most effectively from one’s Root Guru. In that practice one thing that happens is torrents of cleansing water comes down. And yes, within months of Father warning us the torrents would come, they came. We lost everything. The year, 1959.
22/6
While I’m sympathetic to social Buddha Dharma I’m not a proponent. Dharma on the internet can be helpful, same as Dharma events at Dharma Centers. But I remember Milarepa, in his Songs (or in another translated work), saying that the Chö Kang / ཆོས་སྒར (chos sgar), literally a “Dharma encampment,” were places of “confusion and bewilderment.’
Also, Milarepa chastised Rechungpa for the pride he brought back from his scholastic training in India, singing the song: "No one is more distracted and confused than he who ceases to meditate in solitude." And in the “Fourfold Warning,” he names the failure modes directly: 1) to prefer diversions to solitude, 2) to love pleasures and hate hardship, 3) to crave talk when urged to meditate, 4) to wallow arrogantly in the world — these four ways will never bring one to liberation.
There’s the famous exchange when Mila is asked where his temple is and he answers ‘an unnamed hermitage, one in which no one can tell whether I go or stay — in the caves where no man comes and the yogi is lost to view.’
I suppose my point is unless one’s sangha is ameliorative to one’s practice then it’s not really sangha. Milarepa seems to agree on this same point about ‘social’ Dharma assemblies being counter productive
Tales of Practicum: Recently, in the final dissolution of the Guyasamaja sadhana, a farthest, ever-reaching—beyond all agency event of will or conceptual extrapolation—took place, arising an ur familiarity not experienced since childhood—known at that time simply as ’God’—was buried until just now when, in the sadhana, all sentient beings throughout space in the form of the letter HUNG, by virtue of a supreme consecration from the Father and Mother, transform into Vajradhara and dissolve back into oneself. Amen and OM AH HUNG!!
I recently had a flash vision of my own Guru that resembles Shantideva’s dream of Manjushri. Here’s that dream:
“When at length the king, his father, died, it was decided that the royal power should be conferred on Shantivarman, and a great throne made of precious substances was duly set in place. But in his dreams that night, the prince saw Mañjushri sitting on the very throne that he was himself to ascend the following day. Mañjushri spoke to him and said: My dear and only son, this is my throne, And I, Mañjushri, am your spiritual friend. It is not right that you and I should take An equal place and sit upon one seat. With that, Shantivarman woke from his dream and understood that it would be wrong for him to assume the kingship. Feeling no desire for the great wealth of the realm, he departed and entered the glorious monastery of Nalanda where he received ordination from Jayadeva, the chief of its five hundred pandits, taking the name of Shantideva.” (BCA, Padmakara trans., 1997)
Only in my dream the throne was the seat of my motorcycle and the issue concerned an ongoing translation project of Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo’s commentary and polemical defense regarding the body mandalas of Hevajra and Chakrasamvara. My dream interpretation: With so much secret doctrine being translated, and at such a fast clip, how can its integrity be preserved?
26/6
“A man needs a little madness, or else...he’ll never dare cut the rope and be free.” — Zorba
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J ians • Zorba the Greek
Zorba the Greek (1964), directed by Michael Cacoyannis...
Ah, 62 years later I can see he was a role model the whole time. And then, like he said, I dared cut the rope. My ex called it ‘giving them enough rope and they’ll hang themself.’ But somehow I knew better—Zorba!
27/6
PISEO = Delusory experiences of and the need for 1) Preservation (to counter gain and loss vacillations), 2) Invincibility (to counter pleasure and pain vacillations), 3) Supremacy (to counter praise/blame vacillations), 4) Exclusivity (to counter fame and insignificance vacillations), are not only a sign of late stage alcohol addiction but also addiction to eight common activities—The Eight Worldly Dharmas—and are only leveled by Death or Wisdom. The belief in them and negative actions from them causes perpetual ‘cycling in the cycling’ of death and rebirth.
However, the one who sees through these false imaginings, just like the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and practices Seven Point Mind Training soon possesses Single Purpose: All teachings and practices merge into a single goal: overcoming your own self-centeredness and ego. Primary Witness: You rely on your own honest self-assessment of your mind rather than seeking the approval or praise of others. Constant Joy: You maintain a joyful mind and emotional stability, even when facing severe adversity, criticism, or sickness. Spontaneous Practice: The practice becomes effortless and automatic, even when you are caught off guard or distracted. Success yields Diminished Self-Importance: The intense preoccupation with your own comfort, reputation, and desires naturally fades away. Fearlessness: You lose the fear of difficult people, bad health, or challenging situations, viewing them as valuable spiritual fuel. Unconditional Compassion: Your empathy expands beyond loved ones to include strangers, difficult personalities, and even enemies. Mental Resilience: Your mind recovers rapidly from negative emotional triggers like anger, jealousy, or pride. Freedom from Expectations: You do good deeds purely for the benefit of others, without expecting gratitude, rewards, or recognition.
Such is found in the Lojong teachings of renowned 11th-century Indian Buddhist scholar Atiśa Dīpaṃkara in the 11th century (specifically around 1042 CE) after traveling “by ship for over 13 months across the ocean to the Indonesian island of Sumatra (historically known as Suvarnadvipa or the ‘Golden Island’) specifically to study bodhichitta (the mind of enlightenment).
Atiśa traveled to study under the great master Serlingpa (also known as Dharmakīrtiśrī), who was the spiritual advisor to the Srivijaya Kingdom in Sumatra. These teachings took place at the ancient Buddhist university and monastic complex located in Muara Jambi (modern-day Jambi province, Sumatra). Atiśa remained in Sumatra for 12 years studying the profound teachings of loving-kindness and compassion under Serlingpa's guidance. Upon returning to India and later traveling to Tibet, Atiśa held Serlingpa in such high regard that whenever his teacher's name was mentioned, he would weep and raise his joined hands above his head in deep reverence.”
The above Lojong Seven Point Mind Training teachings are the same as one of the first lamas to teach Sakya Dharma on a regular basis in America, taught. Only now do I realize, having mused for decades, why he chose Lojong instead of something more prominent in our school, like Nong Sum. He was immulating Atiśa coming to Tibet.
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