This is the practice.

This morning as I was in the midst of doing a hundred prostrations as part of our 100 day practice intensive, the thought occurred to me, "I should stop and just meditate."

Which was followed by, "This is the practice."

There was so much freedom in that realization. I was no longer pushing myself to finish my prostrations, no longer worried about doing other 'more important' practices.

I simply did prostrations.

I laid my own body, speech and mind down again and again. Offered my own body, speech and mind as the basis for the practice to unfold, the basis for achieving liberation, and the basis for bringing benefit to others.

Namo Manjushri. Namo Sushri. Namo Uttamshri, Soha.

Namo Manjushri: I prostrate to the ever-youthful, awakened body.
Namo Sushri: I prostrate to glorious, virtuous speech.
Namo Uttamshri: I prostrate to authentic, awakened mind.
Soha: So it is. 

Our practice is embodied. It isn't just the meditation cushion, everything is included. Even the struggle.

Experience versus realization.

Experience is temporary, fleeting, easily lost.
Realization is unchanging, seen, known, directly recognized.

Nyam is the Tibetan for experience. We have all kinds of experiences.
Bliss, clarity, non-conceptuality.
Visions, sounds, feelings.
Physical sensations, thoughts, emotions.
Sometimes we feel energetic and focused, sometimes tired and sleepy.
We get confused, then a moment of being awake.

We have all kinds of nyam, the point is to realize that they are illusory and to not become attached to them. We create all kinds of problems for ourselves once we try to recreate nyam, or always try to get back to a particular mental state, a particular feeling tone or perspective.

Tokpa is the Tibetan for realization. It is seeing directly free from concepts. You know and understand without an intermediary.  It is direct recognition.

Tokpa is recognizing your friend in a crowd. There is no question of whether it is, or is not. 
It is knowing fire is hot, water is wet. Realization is embodied and informed by the senses, we see things as they truly are. We see our own face, directly. 

The danger with tokpa is confusing conceptual understanding with actual realization.  Conceptual understanding can seem very certain and logically refined, but it is all thoughts and words.  We need to constantly recreate and reinforce our story to confirm our realization.

If you find yourself scrambling, feeling your realization slipping from you and trying to conceptualize your way back to that state, then you are holding onto a nyam that you are calling tokpa. Be careful, ego and grasping can create a very precipitous path. 

Lit up.

The living practice tradition of the Buddha's teachings survives to this day because of two types of transmission- transmission of scripture and transmission of realization.

Transmission of scripture is the living transmission of the repository of Dharma from generation to generation. It is teaching, discussing and practicing the root and practice texts. The transmission of scripture should be wide spread and joyfully given to those who seek it out. 

The transmission of realization occurs between teacher and student. It is the lighting of a torch. Once lit, it burns just as bright and luminous as its source. The source doesn't lose anything, and the newly lit torch has nothing further to gain. 

This transmission of realization is the essence of the practice lineage (sgrub rgyud). It is the transmission of the awakened mind, the direct recognition of our innate buddha heart. In Dzogchen it is the direct realization of our own nature, rigpa as the natural great perfection. 

This lighting of the torch is not easy. It takes time, dedication, effort. It depends on a genuine connection, commitment and karma.

The source torch burns bright and without discrimination, but few torches can really be lit because they don't come prepared.  They are too loose, unkept, or waver once they get close.  Some, being lit, lack the merit to sustain the blaze and burnout. 

You should seek out the transmission of scripture widely and with great enthusiasm.  But for the transmission of realization, you need to get to work.

The 3 Nails.

Namo Samantabhadra.

1. The nail of perfect determination.
2. The nail of great confidence.
3. The nail of remaining with the result.

Persevere in your meditation, through it will come a pure and perfect experience free from all doubt.  Recognize the view, meditation and realization all have the same nature.  When you are free of all doubt, you will realize there is no nail to drive and nothing to drive into.  Awareness is groundless, completely transparent.

If you meditate, everything becomes a reflection of awareness.  If not, your experience will be bound by concepts and elaboration.

Remaining with the result is the union of transparent awareness and unobstructed wisdom.

This upadesha of the Three Nails was given by Younge Khachab Rinpoche in February 2010. 

Essence of the Madhyamaka.

Everything that appears and exists is dependently arisen.
Not realizing this true nature, we grasp at phenomena as real.
This confusion ties us to the churning of samsara.

Confused mind and appearances have not an atom of true existence,
they are but relative phenomena.
Mind is the creator of all appearances, the basis for all things arising.
All that appears and exists is merely mentally established!

Without realizing the primordial emptiness of whatever arises,
we remain trapped in a web of confusion.
Realizing the true nature of phenomena,
all phenomena are naturally liberated in their own place!

Form is not other than emptiness-
confused appearances are not other than the emptiness of our own mind.
Emptiness is not other than form-
The emptiness of our own mind is not other than the nature of confused appearances.
Our confused mind is naturally liberated in its own place!

This is the essence of the Madhyamaka.
This is the stepping stone to the Dzogchen view.

Rest in movement.

I think we all have an impulse to see rest as state without movement.  It's a gap in your day, a day off of work or a moment of connecting with the breath. 

We see rest as stillness.  Peace and quiet. 

We struggle to reconcile movement with rest.  When we are busy, we long for the moment when we are not.  When we are at work, we long for the moment we are done.  Movement becomes our adversary and our days are lost in spite of ourselves. 

What if we learned to rest in the dance?  What if we could rest with the dynamic display that manifests around us and through our day?  What if movement didn't pull us away, but rather reinforced our awareness. 

What if we no longer had to fight against 'busy', but took 'busy' along with us on the path of realization?

If we no longer had to divide our days between busy or restful, how would we live them?

Transforming poison.

It is easy to focus on all the poison in our lives and the world around us.  To see all of the anger and injustice in the world.  To witness unfairness and outright manipulation by those in power.  It is easy to get caught up in the busyness of our days, the pointlessness of what we are doing.  At times we all feel helpless and lost, that we have no control over all of the problems in our life.

The practitioner doesn't get caught up in the highs and lows of their day.  The don't get caught up in what is right or wrong, what to accept and what to reject.  Everything is applied to their practice.  Everything is an opportunity to practice.

Anger is poison, use it to practice patience.
Attachment is poison, use it to practice impermanence.
Fear is poison, use it to look deeper and examine your fixation.
Anxiety is poison, use it as a catalyst to train your mind.
Resistance is poison, use it to persevere.
Jealousy is poison, use it to rejoice in the happiness and success of others.
Looking outside yourself is poison, recognize and look within and to your own practice.
Death is the ultimate poison, use it to express gratitude and a profound appreciation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

We get to do this.

We get to transform suffering into the path of realization.
We get to transform our problems and obstacles into growth and accomplishment.
We get to dig deeper and experience everything as the path of liberation.

Knowledge isn't enough.  It is not enough to simply know this.
Practice is important.  The lived experience is what counts.

The Practice.

Your practice can take many forms, but it should be a practice that lends itself to profound depth.

As you go deeper, layers of meaning unfold.
As you go deeper, certainty dawns.

It should be a practice that lends itself to vast subtlety.

As you become more aware, connections are made.
As you become more aware, implications are realized.

To train in a practice that has depth and subtlety is to train in becoming an ocean of wisdom.