Tag: Experience

Tilopa’s Mahamudra

Foreword:

This is not written by me, it’s an old scripture, revealing the last and most advanced teaching of the Siddha (perfected being) Tilopa, to his student Naropa after he exposed him to long and tedious trials, proving his worth, patience, discipline, dedication, resilience, and devotion. I decided to post it here because it’s quite hard to find it on the internet in this particular translation, which I find to be the closest to its original meaning. At first, it took me years to grasp the true  beauty and wisdom of these words fully, so come back to them after a while, like I did, and see different aspects that maybe, at first glance, failed to reveal their full splendor, ancient wisdom and simplicity.

Tilopa’s Mahamudra

Mahamudra cannot be taught, Naropa. But your devotion to your teacher, And the hardships you’ve met, Have made you patient in suffering and also wise. Take this to heart, my worthy student.

For instance, consider space: What does it depend on? Likewise, Mahamudra: It doesn’t depend on anything.

Don’t control. Let go and rest naturally. Let what binds you let go, and freedom is not in doubt.

When you look into space,  Seeing stops.  Likewise, when mind looks at mind,  The flow of thinking stops,  And you come to the deepest awakening.

Mists rise from the earth and vanish into space.  They go nowhere, nor do they stay.  Likewise, though thoughts arise,  Whenever you see your mind,  The clouds of thinking clear.

Space is beyond colour or shape.  It doesn’t take on colour, black or white;  It doesn’t change.  Likewise, your mind, in essence, is beyond colour or shape.  It does not change whether you do good or evil.

The darkness of a thousand eons  Cannot dim the brilliant radiance,  That is the essence of the sun.  Likewise, eons of samsara  Cannot dim the sheer clarity,  That is the essence of the mind.

Space is empty; You can’t say that space is “like this”.  Likewise, mind is said to be sheer clarity;  There is nothing there. You can’t say it is “like this”. Thus, the nature of mind is inherently like space;  It includes everything you experience.

Stop all physical activity;  Sit naturally at ease,  Do not talk or speak.  Let sound be empty, like an echo.  Do not think about anything;  Look at experience beyond thought.

Your body has no core,  Hollow like bamboo. Your mind goes beyond thought,  Open like space.  Let go of control,  And rest right there.

Mind without projection is Mahamudra.  Train and develop this,  And you will come to the deepest awakening.

You don’t see Mahamudra’s sheer clarity  by means of classical texts or philosophical systems, whether of the mantras, paramitas, vinaya, sutras or other collections. Ambition clouds sheer clarity, And you don’t see it. 

Thinking about precepts undermines the point of commitment.  Do not think about anything; Let all ambition drop.  Let what arises settle by itself like patterns on water.  No place, no focus, no missing the point –   Do not break this commitment; it is the light in the dark.

When you are free from ambition and don’t hold any position,  You will see all that the scriptures teach.  When you open to this, You are free from Samsara’s prison; When you settle in this, All evil and distortion burned up.  This is called “The light of the teaching”.

The foolish are not interested in this;  The currents of Samsara constantly carry them away.  Oh, how pitiable, the foolish – Their struggles never end.  Don’t accept these struggles; Long for freedom and rely on a skilled teacher.  When their energy enters your heart,  Your mind is freed.

Samsaric ways are senseless; They are the seeds of suffering.  Conventional ways are pointless… Focus on what is sound and true.  Majestic outlook is beyond all fixation.  Majestic practice is no distraction.  Majestic behavior is no action or effort. 

The fruition is there when you are free from hope and fear. Beyond any frame of reference, mind is naturally clear.  When there is no path,  You begin the path of awakening.  When there is nothing to work on,  You come to the deepest awakening.

Look carefully at this experience of the world;  Nothing lasts. It’s like a dream, like magic.  The dream, the magic, makes no sense.  Experience the grief and forget the affairs of the world. Cut all ties of involvement with country or kin;  Practice alone in forest or mountain retreats.  Rest, not practicing anything.  When you come to nothing to come to, you come to Mahamudra.

A tree spreads its branches and leaves.  Cut the root and ten thousand branches wither.  Likewise, cut the root of mind,  And the leaves of samsara wither. Though darkness gathers for a thousand aeons, A single light dispels it all.  Likewise, one moment of sheer clarity  Dispels the ignorance, evil and confusion of a thousand eons.

With the ways of the intellect, You won’t see beyond intellect.  With the ways of action,  You won’t know non-action.  If you want to know what is beyond intellect and action,  Cut your mind at its root and rest in naked awareness.

Let the cloudy waters of thinking settle and clear.  Let appearances come and go on their own.  With nothing to change,  The world you experience becomes Mahamudra. 

Because the basis of experience has no beginning,  Patterns and distortions fall away.  Rest in no-beginning, With no self-interest or expectation. Let what appears, appear on its own, and let conceptual ways subside.

The most majestic of outlooks is free of all reference.  The most majestic of practices is vast and deep without limit.  The most majestic of behavior is open-minded and impartial.  The most majestic of fruitions is natural being, free of concern.

At first, practice is a river rushing through a gorge,  In the middle, it’s the river Ganges,  Smooth and flowing.  In the end, it’s where all rivers meet,  Mother and child.

When your mind is less acute and does not truly rest,  Work the essentials of energy,  And bring out the vitality of awareness.  Using gazes and techniques to take hold of the mind,  Train awareness until it does truly rest.

When you practice with a sexual partner,  Empty bliss awareness rises.  The balancing of method and wisdom transforms energy.  Let it descend gently, collect it, draw it back up,  Return it to its place and let it saturate your body.  When you are free from longing and desire,  Empty bliss awareness arises.

You will have a long life.  You will not grey and you will shine like the moon.  You will radiate health and well-being  And be as strong as a lion.  You will quickly attain the ordinary abilities,  And open to the supreme one.

May these pith instructions, the essentials of Mahamudra,  Abide in the hearts of all worthy beings.

Let the fear go

When we look at the ocean or the sea, we observe waves coming and going, rising and falling. Do you think you can capture a wave? Even with the best technology and human resources, we cannot really capture a wave. Whatever we would have taken out of the ocean would be just water which, when taken from the ocean, doesn’t rise and fall as it is disconnected from the huge mass of water which has its own power by sheer quantity and vastness, besides the consciousness which is inherent and permeates everything that exists, visible or invisible.

We are waves of the ocean. We appear as being separate from our ocean, yet we are not. We feel like waves that separated from the main body of water, and now we tremble in fear of dissolution. We have forgotten our origin. “The ocean” is the Source of everything, and by ignorance we forgot our belonging to the Source, we forgot about the game we came to play.

We ought to raise our heads and try to see the larger picture. The higher the outlook, the more objective the vantage point becomes. The wider the perspective grows, the more correct everything appears.

Let’s try to recall a certain event that, whilst experiencing, we assumed was terrible, overwhelming, life-threatening even, etc. The further back in the past it was, the more insignificant it looks and our previous perspective of it may now appear exaggerated or even outright laughable. Now extrapolate this realization onto everything you have experienced and will experience.

Realize that you are in a sequence onto which you have zero to very little influence or control. Whenever forceful control is applied, all we do is just postpone or/and accumulate that energy that was ours to deal with. That’s why people try to force life into being comfortable and free from unwanted events, unaware that by forcing life into that unnatural dynamic, the avoided events are just piling up under the rug where they were swept, and will eventually burst into an unnecessary, huge conflagration, possibly even life-threatening.

It is as futile and unnecessary as trying to stop a river from flowing. Even if blocked, it will always find a way to push and pierce through any obstacle. So, don’t be afraid to experience life and its ups and downs, as you, as a soul, are never at risk of being truly annihilated, as no one can annihilate water taken from the ocean, but it can only be temporarily separated. Even though this separation is merely apparent, we’re never truly apart, as the Source of everything contains in it the material worlds and the very Nothingness that holds all created worlds, dimensions and universes and fills everything that appears empty.

There is nothing separated from Life, nothing that is not alive, everything is in eternal movement, everything is eternal experience changing from one form to another, no real drama happens, only pure undivided experience, Yin and Yang continuously flowing from one to another in an eternal cosmic dance.

The drama is just on the screen of the Existence, in the eyes of the one watching. Real and unreal at the same time. Why would you be afraid of anything if you are Source experiencing itself through fragmentation and separation? An eternal game of hide-and-seek, a movie so well-made that we forgot it’s just a movie.

Coming back to the waves and the person trying to control life’s currents, our of sheer fear of discomfort, fear of dissolution, fear of pain and whatnot. Let’s see our experience in this body as being waves, allow yourself to explore the rise and fall, know that you are not in danger at any point (since you are not the mortal human body), allow yourself to embrace everything that’s thrown in your “movie” and enjoy. Don’t forget that the Yin Yang symbol has equal parts of black and white which harmoniously merge one with another. As such, your experiences can’t naturally be only positive. Embrace both currents, let the cold touch you and the hot, and you will realize that both are amazing. Let yourself stay in deep darkness as well as light, see the beauty of the sun-shining days as well as of the overcast and rainy ones.

Know that whatever you run away from will chase you and eventually get you. So how about stopping the eternal running away? How about embracing and loving everything and everyone indiscriminately? How about when you feel fear, you just surrender to the moment and allow yourself to see that there’s no boogieman under the bed?

By knowing that you are one with God, the Source, the Absolute, fear vanishes. There’s no antagonizing force to the Source, as everything flows out of it. If the antelope knew that it was also the lion, the hyena, the vultures, the worms, the river, the ocean, the sky and the entire forest, it wouldn’t fear, but it would still run if the lion is chasing as it’s the game it came to play. The result is always unknown, but also always correct from the higher most perspective. Both possibilities still nurture the Existence. If the antelope is caught, it will feed the lions and their cubs, the insects, hyenas and vultures, and it will participate in the eternal dance of creation and dissolution. If it survives, it will teach its progenies how to avoid being caught, enhancing their survival skills and passing that information for generations to come, maintaining the balance.

Everything is always correct. There are no enemies or friends, there’s only One which we all are. If we understand this deeply, fear will forever vanish as an invented boogieman that never existed. What can happen? Changing form? Like switching dreams. It’s just experience and the least tragic we see the experience the more we will start grasping the secret behind it all and the reason we are having all these experiences.

Let yourself experience the uncomfortable, the dark, the cold, and everything you used to run away from with courage and then, the good, comfortable, pleasant and tasty will rush into your life on its own accord. Don’t try to keep people longer than the assigned time, don’t try to suspend and capture pleasant moments as you might unknowingly deprive yourself of even better ones.

Let your fear be gone, and you will experience your life as being a continuous miracle. Embrace life as it comes and do your due diligence with dedication and determination, and you shall remember who and what you truly are!

It’s a matter of perspective

Each time we complain about our experience, it’s because our expectations are set on “high”. If there’s no expectation or hope neither addiction to a certain outcome, then whatever is given by life is fully received and embraced, and the true lesson of each experience is fully grasped and transcended.

From the perspective of the person who hopes that life should be “good “, each small stumble, each unexpected turn is perceived as very painful and becomes a vicious circle of trying to escape pain and change the outcome and even a intent to manipulate life to flow our way is initiated, and even if with great struggles, we manage to push the outcomes to fit our hopes, we will just postpone and pile up the events that we are so eagerly running away from.

I have been there myself, wondering why life was so difficult and painful. When I started accepting whatever comes my way with the least opposition, Life started flowing like a gentle river, bringing about debris of past rejected elements that I avoided and experiences of all kinds, but although unexpected events still take place, they’re just boulders in the river over which the water flows with ease.

Sometimes it feels like a miraculous way, the manner in which everything unfolds; how if I take time to accept whatever happens; whatever is offered, even if it feels unpleasant, as soon as I accept and embrace that event, it’s like it gets canceled by the very Existence, or one way or another the whole thing gets adjusted, sometimes to an even better situation than previously.

This reminds me of a quote from Tao Te Ching: “Do you have the patience to wait ’till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving’ till the right action arises by itself?”

Let’s say, if we are aware that this is a very low-vibration material existence, although not the lowest, and each emotion has to be experienced fully, (as this is the only purpose that we came to fulfill: to have a low experience without losing oneself), then it all start to make sense, and in the worst situations, remembering the nature of this existence, you will find the possibility to relax and even smile.

When we fall into sorrow, guilt, shame, comparison, jealousy, vengeance and other very low feelings, then we feed the very system that we are trying  to  escape.

As soon as an emotion is ignited, we should feel it deeply, so as not to try to escape the feeling that we came here to have, but we shouldn’t employ any escapist or coping mechanism, or allow thoughts and actions to drag us deeper into the depths of victimization.

Let’s say we are rejected: at first every one of us will have a painful reaction as we are programmed to look for good experiences and run for those who are taking us out of our comfort zone. I feel it, it first comes like a huge overwhelming wave that tries to create an immediate response, trying to drag me under the water, blinded by emotions and reacting in an inappropriate way. But I have learned to stay there with the feeling, accepting it, and trying not to react or think about it, just be with the feeling. And whenever I am aware, and I do not react to it, the whole tempest is showing itself for what it truly is: just a storm in a glass of water.

If we knew we were in hell whilst having this exact experience, we would be dancing and rejoicing every single day, remembering to see the blessings that we have in our lives and how this version of hell is quite OK, especially compared to other people’s experience, as soon as we stop antagonizing it. But if we project some sort of idea of a place of pleasure, hope and joy, we are bound for a rough awakening. So you see, it’s all about the perspective. Depends on the angle from which we see everything, and the expectations or lack thereof.

Don’t you see how our own expectations and projections are binding us even more? Transforming a neutral experience that a godlike being came to have, into a belief of being trapped, doomed, tricked, punished, and eventually bringing us back to the same place, less and less aware of the nature of this paradigm, when in reality nothing can bind us and everything is just a projected experience based on mistaken beliefs and assumptions.

I am not able to do it all the time, as many times I am caught off-guard by the waves of life, acting from past distortions and programming, but each time I take my time and allow life to flow at its own accord, I am so happy I managed to do it. The more we do it, we become free from projections, and the world will fail to look neither good nor bad, but it will just flow like the ocean’s waves: one day roughly, one day calm and joyful, another day it may look like they want to destroy and annihilate and other days they’re still as a  lake in a painting.

If you watch the ocean through the window or the TV screen, no storm will scare you, but you will enjoy its dynamism and continuous change and unpredictability. Similarly, if you grasp the nature of this existence, you’ll feel like watching it through a screen, and the tremendous show that it puts into scene will inspire and put you in awe, but it will no longer scare you or catch you off guard.

This is how we are gradually spiritually maturing, slowly growing, enhanced by our trust in life and by the Grace that flows from within us, not separate from the Life that flows equally from within, as everything that we experience outside of us.

How can then be someone to punish or reward us if everything is just us? But because we believe in that predicament, we create a life that will fit our idea of it. Change your perspective and life will feel easier, the power is always in our hands.

Experience it all

One of the tricks through which souls are maneuvered into returning to this experience is the idea of unfinished businesses, things and events that we refused to have, or we were too scared to dare facing.

Attachments are the other trick, and it can be any type of attachment: to an idea, to a lover, to a family member, friend, pet, belonging or all of them together. Another attachment is the religious/ spiritual one that can be used against us.

Ideally, every single day we should accept whatever is laid in front of us, without rejecting or denying it, just fully accepting whatever is given, as we accept a movie plot at the cinema, knowing that we can’t change the direction of the events in the projected movie. But through the experience we have, we have the potential to change things. Unfortunately, we mostly have the power to get more lost rather than grow out of it. Everything is made addictive, so we get hooked onto each experience and crave for more. That’s when the game gets a grip on the player instead of the situation being otherwise.

You came to have this experience, have it fully, embracing each particle of it, while trying not to get captured in its snare. “Be in the world but not of the world”.

Have everything but make sure you don’t crave anything, make sure you make peace with the idea of you potentially leaving this game tomorrow and be ready not to look back, either at family, lover or any other potential trap to bring you back.

Do not get stuck in the movie you just finished, but continue to let go of it, and every experience and be ready for the next one. The capacity to let go of everything, anything and anyone at any point is the key to successfully escaping the trap of being stuck in the game.

There’s no debt you owe to anyone and nobody owes you anything. If you know this, you’ll be safe. Our kindness is used against us when we are leaving, as a manipulation tactic. Guilt and shame and even the sense of duty will be used against us. Beings reminiscing religious figures of our choice will be employed to keep us in the loop. 

Promises of evolution, enlightenment and the achievement of perfection will try to trick one into coming back. But you should know that we are already all-knowingly, perfect and enlightened.

There are no stairs to climb, no place to reach, nothing to achieve. You’re just a being that has it all, yet wants to explore lower, and rather limited realms. It’s like a wealthy person having planes, helicopters and other vehicles yet enjoying the thrill of riding an old bike or skateboard and eventually becoming oblivious of his previous belongings. You can always get back to your vehicles and not remain stuck with the skateboard. The trick here is that, in the game we play, we can become forgetful of all those flying vehicles and allow ourselves to identify with the skateboard and get tricked into repeating the experience with the promise of a car, when, in reality, we are not even bound to time and space, hence even planes or helicopters are not really necessary.

If you are Everything that ever was, is and will be, which we all are, how can you owe anything to anyone, or how can anyone be indebted to you?

Even though the sun is hidden for days and weeks by clouds, that doesn’t mean it disappeared. As such, although you’re unaware of the Divine essence within you, that doesn’t mean that its existence is canceled by your unawareness of it.

Playing it safe in life is avoidance of the experience and, although many assume greatness or even sanctity in playing it safe, they are just deluding themselves. They’re deluded by their one-sided perspective. Whereas those who traveled deep within the hellish realms and yet traveled back through the obstacles and opposition, back to wholesomeness, those are the true unrecognized heroes.

So make sure you experience it all, whatever is yours to have, finish everything on your plate, or you might get tricked into return by your own unfulfilled desires and experiences and unfinished businesses and attachments.

Don’t make a big deal out of anything, forget, forgive and love unconditionally, be kind and selflessly giving, live courageously and know that you are already perfect, wise and enlightened. You just forgot! Now remember!