Do we have to abandon rational thinking? A conversation about thinking, intuition and faith
Sane people think – rational people think. So why do you say we have to abandon rational thinking? I would say we need to abandon clinging to views, opinions and intellectual conclusions when opening to the true nature of reality… Continue reading Do we have to abandon rational thinking? A conversation about thinking, intuition and faith
If there were no objects for awareness to illuminate what is known, would there just be pure being?
Something has to happen in the way we look at everything – we are so used to either dividing everything up into seer and seen or to just blanking out and becoming vague about everything. Something quite different from both needs to happen Continue reading If there were no objects for awareness to illuminate what is known, would there just be pure being?
Three Ordinary Ideas Called into Question by Karma in Buddhism
There are three ordinary ideas that we have that make karma seem particularly strange but which are ultimately called into question in Buddhism. The first is that people are very separate from the material world; the second is that the present and the future are very separate; the third is that different beings and different locations in space are very separate. Continue reading Three Ordinary Ideas Called into Question by Karma in Buddhism
How do we balance ‘doing’ and ‘not-doing’ in our meditation practice?
To find that way of being we have to make some kind of effort to recognise what is blocking us and setting ourselves up to let those blockages dissolve. Continue reading How do we balance ‘doing’ and ‘not-doing’ in our meditation practice?
Invitation to make a dana offering on Lhabab Duchen on Sat 7th November
On this special day where it is said that positive and negative actions are magnified ten million times, we are inviting donations to the Shrimala Trust, the charitable organisation that supports the Awakened Heart Sangha and the activity of Lama Shenpen. Continue reading Invitation to make a dana offering on Lhabab Duchen on Sat 7th November
What’s the difference between passing experiences (nyams) and stable realisation?
There is no need to worry about having gained stability of full realisation or not because it does itself in its own time, and the signs of it are obvious – the important thing is to notice any instability and use it as a trigger of awareness. There are so many Dharma teachings to help with this. Continue reading What’s the difference between passing experiences (nyams) and stable realisation?
How can we use our imaginative faculty to good effect in Dharma practice?
Lama Shenpen: I find myself wondering what exactly we mean by ‘imagination’. We use the term in various ways. To start with we use it for a faculty we have, the faculty that intelligence has to create – to be creative and to explore possibilities just because we can imagine them – and then come up with something more as if from nowhere. It is … Continue reading How can we use our imaginative faculty to good effect in Dharma practice?
The Apramanas and the Five Buddha Families
Love and compassion express themselves differently in different situations and we all need all of them both in ourselves and in others and as a society. Furthermore they all contain within themselves the other four energies/qualities in different measure. Any of one of them becomes distorted if not combined sufficiently with all the others. Continue reading The Apramanas and the Five Buddha Families
Pure Lands Part 2: Mantra and Pure Lands
Saying their name, it’s as if we are invoking them and then recognising that they have a power to connect to you. If it’s an Enlightened Being, they have the power to connect you to your own Awakening, the Mandala of Awakening. You could call it the ‘Samadhi of Awakening’. The Pure Lands are a special kind if samadhis created by Awakened beings for other beings to enter. So they are actually a special kind of shamatha and vipassana. Continue reading Pure Lands Part 2: Mantra and Pure Lands
Our life story as our path to Awakening: How does our story go from life to life?
The story passes from life to life in the sense that it is still your story however you tell it. You are the person and the story is basically your path to Awakening be it fast or slow. The stories we tell ourselves all fit into the whole in some way or another – the whole thing is not in time or space Continue reading Our life story as our path to Awakening: How does our story go from life to life?