Dharma If You Dare

"Lama Rinpoche, to you I supplicate." Even if you're fully awakened, you still say that.

Why?

To overcome pride, which is very subtle!

How do you live and move and recognize in your world? What are the patterns and structures of how the mind works, whether hunger/gatherer or food grower or living in the modern world?

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Doug Sensei gives an interview on an upcoming talk he will give on traditional wisdom in Australia in December 2013.

http://www.planetdharma.com/

The spiritual teachings are focused on drawing your attention to the awakened/awakening consciousness. The real purpose of awakening is it puts you in a position where it's just much easier to learn without a lot of baggage.

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From an interview conducted in October 2013 with Doug Duncan Sensei...

Well again, it's mapping, it's patterning. I won't go into those particularly, but pattern recognition. It's what the human consciousness is particularly good at. "Oh, winter's coming. Oh, nuts are under the snow. Hmmm…. let's build a shed, put the nuts in the shed. I can get to the shed. I can't get under the snow." It's a kind of pattern recognition.

So, cabbalistic teachings, Christian teachings, Islamic teachings, Buddhist teachings… it's all about pattern. It's all recognizing pattern, seeing how things work, how things tie together -- psychology, science, mysticism. It's all patterns. "Occult" means "hidden" -- that which is hidden -- so if you're an occultist, you're studying that which is hidden. Science is "anti-occultism." You're studying that which is apparent. Although, I suppose if you're a quantum physicist the distinction starts to (laughs)… starts to fall away.

So, everything is teaching. Everything is a potential teaching -- human relationships, psychology, marriage -- again, pattern. What kind of patterns evolve in relationship? Guru/student, teacher-guide/adept relationships. What's the patterning? How does that patterning work? Who gets the high seat? Who gets the low seat? What pattern is involved in that?

So, when one is hurt, one tends to see other people's patterns as being abusive. When one is in a state of loving-kindness, one tends to see other people's patterns as being abusive, but not so much to oneself as to others...well, to oneself and the person who is suffering.

So the idea is that as you become more and more conscious of patterns, you become more and more conscious of the interconnecting factors in those patterns. You see that more and more everything is a teaching -- science, art, music, relationship. The spiritual teachings are teachings that are focused particularly on trying to draw your attention to the awakened/awakening consciousness. And from many perspectives, the real purpose of awakening is it puts you in a position where it's just much easier to learn without a lot of baggage.

So, if you were going to take a shower, would you go in with your clothes on? Or would you go in naked? The idea is you go in naked, because it's much easier to get clean that way and much easier to have that experience. So, too, the transcendent nature is getting naked to life so that you can be washed or have the experience more fully. Having clothes on in the shower, you might get cleaner than you were when you went in, but there's a lot of unnecessary dukkha/struggle in that. The nature of spiritual teachings is to bring you closer to fundamental patterns of how consciousness works and how the self, the ego, gets structured and therefore caught up, and so on.

So, whether it's caballistic teachings or Buddhist teachings, or whatever, the idea -- the core understanding -- remains the same. "What is this thing called 'transcendent consciousness'?" "How do I recognize it and how do I live it?" And from there you go to other teachings, like science, art, music, and so on… business.

http://www.planetdharma.com/

The first step in spiritual awakening is becoming aware of our ego structure -- actually perceiving the particular beliefs and images that we have identified with and taken to be true -- then dissolving that, letting go of that part of one's identity.

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Doug Sensei teaches on the enneagram, drawing from this source:

Part 2: Paralyzed and Free!

A quadriplegic man in the hospital for 25 years sees the spaciousness through which all manifestations can arise, including the mind. Was no longer obsessed with the arisings.

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Part two of the "Why Practice the Paramis?" podcast from Aug. 23, 2013.

The paramis are qualities of character, or "perfections" of heart and mind that can be developed to support the path of awakening--practices which develop wholesome activity, growth and enlightenment. "It is so clear that the Teaching is the only refuge."

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What are the paramis?

Why practice the paramis? Well, as you remember, if you had a turban and it was in flames, what would you do? You'd put it out... or take it off. And so, to extinguish the flames of craving you must apply the antidote and the antidote is... the paramis. Simple as that. You are in a burning pit of passion, desire, fear, hope, ambition, worry, anxiety, wishful thinking. You know, "When my prince comes, when my house is paid for, when the banks get it all straightened out, everything will be fine." No it won't. Then you'll be 60 and you'll have a heart attack... or something.

I talked to Gerry today, you remember Gerry? He's walking now, which is good, very fast [recovery]. They call him the poster boy for rehab. He was supposed to be in rehab for 3 months, but it looks like he'll only be there a month and he can walk with a walker.

He said to me today, "You know, Sensei, I hate to say it, but this has been absolutely, totally, fantastically marvelous." Crushed from the knee to the ankle, thinking he'd never walk again, losing both the lower parts of his legs, having them rebuilt.

He's walking, it's good, he's walking and he's probably happier than if he didn't obviously, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone, but he said "This was the most amazing experience of my life. It is so clear, it is just so absolutely clear that the Teaching is the only refuge."

Because everybody else is busy. What are they doing when you're in hospital for six weeks, or in this case, two months? Moving on. When you're sitting there in the hospital bed for two months, what are they doing? Going to movies, having suppers, talking to their friends, oh, calling you once a week to see how you're doing. Maybe you get an hour of their time and then mostly they're going, "Well, okay, gotta go."

He said it brought the teachings so home. The only refuge you have is your state in the moment and the only thing that maintains your state in the moment are the paramis. There is no other place to go except busyness, and the nature of busyness does exactly what? It hides the nature of your clinging. The more busy you are—and I'm not saying you shouldn't be busy; it's fine to be busy—but what I'm saying is that the busier you are the less visible it is—the clinging that's going on. When you're in your hospital room and you got nowhere to go, you're just left with it—the body and you: clinging. And you have to be in the moment. You have to give up... you have to let the passions and the feelings come and go. You have to give them up. You have to surrender them. You have to surrender your impatience with the process. You can't move.

He wasn't supposed to move off his back for six weeks. Don't move, they told him. Never mind go for a walk. Don't move. Because your flesh is building...in his leg and if he moves them he disturbs them.

Patience isn't something you have any choice about. Coolness—you either do that or you lose your mind, which many people do in those circumstances, they go bananas. They throw things at the nurses, they scratch them, they kick, they bite. Because they're freaking out. I mean, can you imagine... weeks without moving on your back if you have no training, no mental training, no training in the mind? I mean all of a sudden... you know, you've been busy being Joe-head-of-your-department and all of a sudden you're in the hospital. You've got nothing.

Bliss is present because there is no one trying to do anything. Be very clear about this: bliss arises when you no longer try to do anything.

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A one-minute excerpt from a talk by Doug Sensei on the Diamond Sutra held at Zofukuji Temple, Miki, Japan, on Jan. 4, 2013. You'll want to listen to this one over and over again.

Transcript:

"I undertake to train myself to refrain from getting lost in phenomena" -- a suggestion from Sensei for a New Year's -- (from falling asleep in my own stories about me)

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Sensei offers a suggestion on something to do for a New Year's resolution for 2013. Some quotes from Sensei: "Where do you tend to undermine your own unfoldment?" "It's not hard to awaken. You just have to want to do it."

Definition of "passer le temps": doing something simply to pass the time

Part 4: Q & A

In this full talk, the "Map to Awakening" metaphor is a journey from west to east—in this case Kyoto to Tokyo—with the arrival point being the awakened state.

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The metaphor: Traveling west to east, from Nagoya to Shizuoka to Yokohama before reaching Tokyo. "Tokyo" is the awakened state, while any city along the way is still part of conditioned existence. Question: "Could you speak a little bit to Westerners? We seem to have these expectations that our teachers need to prove that they're holy by living in a certain way to determined 'by me.' At least in North America we think you shouldn't smoke, should probably be a vegetarian, etc.…" "The lama in the vajrayana system -- the teacher, the guide -- becomes much more important because you're relying more on the person who's been to 'Tokyo' than you're relying on the map that you have in your hand or that you've been given. You're relying more on the humanity, the interhuman connection of it, more than a program. And in that sense it can be very much faster, because you don't have to stop and look at your map all of the time." How can you tell the charlatan from the real teacher? "You look at the teacher from the point of view, 'Do I feel that he loves me? Do I feel that he has my best interests at heart? And does he act that way?' Not whether I agree with him, whether I like him, whether that's something I approve or disapprove of, but 'Do I feel that he or she is basically on my side?' That's what you can trust." The Aquarian Age is all about 'group guru' -- how to come together as a group, a community. The four stages of the womb journey: 1st stage: Bliss in the womb 2nd stage: Contractions (intermittent) 3rd stage: Birthing (violent); trauma 4th stage: Plop and cut Concepts such as personal mastery, shifting the burden, and creative tension vs. emotional tension are based on the recommended book "The Fifth Discipline" by Peter Senge.