5th October 2024. James Low had invited questions from people watching his Zooms, which he began to answer.
Note: the constant cuts in this video result from the removal of James Low's periods of silence, while waiting for the consecutive translation from the German translator.
"(00:00:00) Introduction"
"(00:07:54) As I become more conscious of my habits and patterns, I also become more conscious of the five poisons impacting my activity. For the five poisons to become the five wisdoms, is it simply in self-liberation that this occurs or is there more involved in this transformation?"
"(00:27:47) How to remain with nonduality when you come into treatment in hospitals and also have to deal with other people's thoughts about how you are?"
"(00:37:54) The teaching says that in order to find our true self, which is emptiness, we need to relax and open. In everyday situations, in everyday decisions, is it also best to just relax and open and see what emerges instead of analyzing the situation and thinking about what to do?"
"(00:48:49) Texts on meditation often have references to states of absorption. What are these states and how do we recognize them? Are they signs of progress?"
"(01:08:23) As a non-monastic practitioner and a working adult, it's often necessary to use emotional strategy and seemingly unkind actions to solve problems. To help one group of people not get into trouble, we will often have to put the other group of people causing harm in a precarious position. Anger and aggression are sometimes necessary especially in corporate fights, but, if people know we are buddhist practitioners, then they might say 'oh aren't you supposed to be compassionate? You're not supposed to get angry and be aggressive. Aren't you supposed to be gentle and kind?'"
"(01:25:06) James mentioned, in a previous question, vipassana without a special focus, just attending to how I am in this very moment. In what way does this vipassana exploration differ from dzogchen meditation?"
"(01:40:38) Through sadhana practice, we can connect with Guru Rinpoche both as the guru, the embodiment of all the teachers, and also as our yidam. Is there a difference in the quality and feeling tone of this connection in either case or more formally in the way the practice is done?"
"(01:54:47) If it's right that in all the Mahayana path, karma is an illusion, then is karma cause and effect teaching less important in dzogchen?"
"(02:06:32) Could you give some guidelines on how to start to meditate?"
"(02:31:23) When I'm having an exchange with someone, either verbally or online, and the person feels they've made a mistake and reacts harshly, even though I feel it's out of self-defense, I still react inwardly. I find their reaction dishonest and it makes me pissed off. Why is this the case? I know it's not directed at me, it's what's happening for them, but I still react very strongly. Instead of turning to them with sympathy, I think that I don't want to have anything to do with someone like. I can then discipline myself and stay in contact and try to react well, but it seems contrived. Why is that? What is missing?"
"(02:52:53) A Zen Roshi is being quoted and the quote is 'actualization is not just the manifestation of your individual experience of the truth. It is your life interconnected with the tree life, a bird's life, water's life, Spring's life, Autumn's life, in the life of the whole universe'. Does the term 'truth' apply also to dzogchen? Would that quote also be applicable to a dzogchen path?"
"(02:56:34) Can you explain the White A? How to do it when and what it means?"
"(03:11:40) Is the path of the bodhisattva a natural outcome of direct seeing or is it an extra relative construction that leads to direct seeing but does not have any relevance beyond it?"
Video at https://youtu.be/cfJ9WvwzJ-8?si=kCjUiko-zyq9Qruu
