Notes for the 2015 8-Week Retreat on Mahamudra

Notes for the 2015 8-week Retreat on Mahamudra

Prayers and Mantras

REFUGE

NAMO LA MA DE SHEG DÜ PAI KU

NAMO In the lama who is the embodiment of

KÖN CHOG SUM GYI RANG ZHIN LA

the Sugatas, of the nature of the Three Jewels,

DAG DANG DRO DRUG SEM CHEN NAM

I, together with the beings of the six realms,

CHANG CHUB BAR DU KYAB SU CHI

take refuge until our enlightenment. (Repeat three times)

BODHICITTA

SEM KYED DRO WA KÜN DÖN TU

For the sake of all beings, I generate the spirit of awakening and

LA MA SANGYE DRUB NEI NI

Cultivate the realization of the lama as Buddha.

GANG LA GANG DÜL TRIN LEI KYI

By means of enlightened activity I shall train each being according to their needs.

DRO WA DRÖL WAR DAM CHA O

And I vow to liberate the world. (Repeat three times)

The Seven Line Prayer and Mantras

HUNGORGYENYULGYINUPJANGTSAM

HUNGInthenorthwestfrontierofOddiyana,

PEMAGESARDONG PO LA

Intheheartofalotus

YAMTSENCHOGGINGÖDRUPNYEY

SitstheonerenownedasPadmasambhava,

PEMAJUNGNEYZHEYSUDRAK

Whoachievedthewondroussupremesiddhi,

KHORDU KHANDROMANGPÖ KOR

Andissurroundedbyahostofmanydakinis.

KYEDKYIJESUDAKDRUPKYI

Followinginyourfootsteps,Idevotemyselftopractice.

JINGYILAPCHIRSHEKSUSÖL

Pleasecomeforthandbestowyourblessings.

GURUPEMASIDDHIHUNG

Guru Rinpoche Mantras

OM āḥhūṃ VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI hūṃ

OṃāḥhūṃVajraGuruPadmaTötrengTsäl vajra SAmayajaḥsiddhiphalahūṃ

Excerpt from The Foolish Dharma of an Idiot Clothed in Mud and Feathers, by Düdjom Lingpa, translated by B. Alan Wallace

In my opinion, if you don’t submit your own snout to the hook and rope of self-centeredness, [463] but rather aspire for the hereafter by thinking of definitely reaping a harvest for all future lives, free of deception, then if you don’t do something meaningful in this present, precious human rebirth with its leisure and opportunity, it will be difficult to obtain such an opportunity repeatedly in the future. This occasion—of circumstances aligning and finding freedom—is no more than a dream, so if you pointlessly squander it, when you lose such freedom what will you do? Carefully reflect on this and know your own situation for yourself. This is the first point.

On this occasion when you have such a bounty of opportunities in terms of your body, environment, friends, spiritual mentors, time, and practical instructions, without procrastinating until tomorrow and the next day, arouse a sense of urgency, as if a spark landed on your body or a grain of sand fell in your eye. If you have not swiftly applied yourself to practice, examine the births and deaths of other beings and reflect again and again on the unpredictability of your lifespan and the time of your death, and on the uncertainty of your own situation. Meditate on this until you have definitively integrated it with your mind. This is the second point.[1]

Now on the delusive, vast, illusory plain of emanations and transformations, reckless lunatics ride [464] the blind, wild steed of spiritual sloth, and, lacking the reins to control it, they lash it again and again with the whip of negligence. Thus, although there was a time when they could have sown a perennial harvest for all their lifetimes, from this life onward they are relentlessly impaled on the sharp spokes of the wheel of saṃsāra and the miserable states of existence. Fierce karmic energies bind them, they have nowhere to escape, and they are cast from one life to another. When that time comes [for you], you will have no freedom. Rather than wondering whether there is anyone who can protect you when you arrive in such a great fire pit of suffering, put off human pretense and the pursuit of this life’s affairs. This is the third point.

These [three points] are the field of sublime Dharma, the exhortation to achieve liberation, and the sole guide, guardian, and spiritual mentorto turn you away from the paths that descend into the dungeon of suffering of saṃsāra and the miserable states of existence. The spirit of emergence and spiritual zeal of those who lack these three points are like dew in the summertime…

Having established those teachings as your foundation, with constant devotion offer prayers of supplication to your guru. Outwardly, imagine your guru on the crown of your head. Inwardly, visualize your own body as the guru. Secretly, again and again transfer your own vital energies, mind, and consciousness, and nondually merge them with the nonconceptual primordial consciousness of your guru’s mind. This is the first point.

With devotion and affection, visualize your companions as being of the nature of vīras and ḍākinīs, and see the fine qualities of your guru and Dharma siblings rather than looking at their faults. This is the second point.

In this limitless realm of saṃsāra, [466] among all sentient beings, who are tormented and bound by unbearable suffering, there is not even one who has not been your father or mother. In other times, like your present father and mother, they cared for you with food and comfortable clothing and benefited you in countless ways. Having protected you from immeasurable fears and miseries, they have all been enormously kind. What they all desire is happiness, but in terms of their behavior, these poor fools engage in the causes and sow the seeds of suffering. Feeling compassion for each one, constantly reflect on this until heartfelt compassion causes tears to flow from your eyes and your mindstream is subdued. Beyond that, make the resolution, “I shall bring them to the state of omniscient, unsurpassed, authentic, perfect buddhahood,” and apply yourself to the practice of the sublime, profound Dharma. Whatever Dharma you perform, dedicate it to all sentient beings, with no partiality toward those near or far. This is the third point.

These three are the essential nature of all Dharmas, the root of all Dharmas, the source of all Dharmas, and the eyes and limbs of all Dharmas. Without them, whatever Dharma you perform will be like a corpse with no head or limbs.

English mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879) expressed the ideal of many scientists when he wrote, “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”[2]

Gestalt Therapy Verbatim by Frederick S. Perls: “As Albert Einstein once said to me: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.” But what is much more widespread than the actual stupidity is the playing stupid, turning off your ear, not listening, not seeing.”
William James (1842–1910): Where preferences are powerless to modify or produce things, faith is totally inappropriate, he wrote, but for the class of truths that depend on personal preference, trust, or loyalty for actualization, “faith is not only licit and pertinent, but essential and indispensable. [Such] truths cannot become true till our faith has made them so.”[3]
William James: “In what manner do we espouse and hold fast to visions? By thinking a conception might be true somewhere, it may be true even here and now; it is fit to be true and it ought to be true; it must be true; it shall be true for me.”[4]
At the Western Dharma Teachers Conference in Dharmsala, His Holiness the Dalai Lama categorically stated that the only qualification of a Buddhist teacher that matters is the benefit to the students, their development of realization, and their personal transformation. He said that all titles, certificates, lineages, and presumed attainments were irrelevant if the teacher’s students did not progress. If on top of that the teachers behaved badly, treated their students harshly, etc., the students should make such conduct publicly known.
“Religion is the opium of the people.”
Karl Marx: “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”[5]
Is śamatha the opium of the contemplatives?
“Materialism is the datura of the intelligensia.”
Arthur K. Shapiro: “A placebo is defined as any therapeutic procedure . . . [that is] objectively without specific activity for the condition being treated. . . . The placebo effect is defined as the changes produced by a placebo.”[6]
Daniel Dennett: “With consciousness...we are still in a terrible muddle. Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused.”[7]
John Searle: “In spite of our modern arrogance about how much we know, in spite of the assurance and universality of our science, where the mind is concerned we are characteristically confused and in disagreement.”[8]
Sigmund Freud: “The problem of a world constitution that takes no account of the mental apparatus by which we perceive it is an empty abstraction, of no practical interest…No, our science is not an illusion. What would be an illusion would be to think that we might obtain elsewhere that which science cannot give us.”[9]
Sigmund Freud: “I find another advantage of religious doctrine in one of its peculiarities, to which you seem to take particular exception. It admits of an ideatiorial refinement and sublimation, by which it can be divested of most of those traces of a primitive and infantile way of thinking which it bears. What is then left is a body of ideas which science no longer contradicts and which it cannot disprove. These modifications of religious doctrine, which you have condemned as half-measures and compromises, make it possible to bridge the gap between the uneducated masses and the philosophical thinker, and to preserve that common bond between them which is so important for the protection of culture.”[10]
Buddha: “Monks, just as the wise accept gold after testing it by heating, cutting, and rubbing it, so are my words to be accepted after examining them, but not out of respect for me.”
Dalai Lama: “A general basic stance of Buddhism is that it is inappropriate to hold a view that is logically inconsistent. This is taboo. But even more taboo than holding a view that is logically inconsistent is holding a view that goes against direct experience.”
William James: “Evidently, then, the science and the religion are both of them genuine keys for unlocking the world’s treasure-house to him who can use either of them practically. Just as evidently neither is exhaustive or conclusive of the other’s simultaneous use. On this view religion and science, each verified in its own way from hour to hour and from life to life, would be coeternal.[11]
Max Planck: “Religion and natural science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never relaxing crusade against skepticism and against dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition... [and therefore] ‘On to God!’”[12]
Buddha: “In the seen there is only the seen; in the heard, there is only the heard; in the sensed, there is only the sensed; in the cognized, there is only the cognized. Thus you should see that indeed there is no thing here; this Bāhiya, is how you should train yourself. Since, Bāhiya, there is for you in the seen, only the seen, in the heard, only the heard, in the sensed, only the sensed, in the cognized, only the cognized, and you see that there is no thing here, you will therefore see that indeed there is no thing there. As you see that there is no thing there, you will see that you are therefore located neither in the world of this, nor in the world of that, nor in any place between the two. This alone is the end of suffering.” Udāna I, 10.
TheDhammapada: “The mind is the basis for everything. Everything is created by my mind, and is ruled by my mind.”
Ratnameghasūtra: “All phenomena are preceded by the mind. When the mind is comprehended, all phenomena are comprehended. By bringing the mind under control, all things are brought under control.”

Excerpt from The Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra by Düdjom Lingpa

Examine the body, speech, and mind, and among them recognize the one that is primary as the all-creating sovereign.

The shape and color of the all-creating sovereign,

as well as its origin, location, and destination, are objectless openness.

This is the spontaneous actualization of the essential nature of the path of cutting through.

Simultaneous individuals enter the path with no basis and no root.

Others should come to rest in space,

and within three weeks they will certainly awaken and enter the path.

Those of the class with inferior faculties

identify stillness and movement,

and by taking the mind as the path, they are led to the absolute space of pristine awareness.

Einstein: “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” from “Physics and Reality” (1936), in Ideas and Opinions, trans. Sonja Bargmann (New York: Bonanza, 1954), 292.
Stanford University cosmologist Andre Linde:
“The standard assumption is that consciousness, just like space-time before the invention of general relativity, plays a secondary, subservient role, being just a function of matter and a tool for the description of the truly existing material world. But let us remember that our knowledge of the world begins not with matter but with perceptions… We are substituting the reality of our feelings by the successfully working theory of an independently existing material world. And the theory is so successful that we almost never think about its possible limitations.”[13]
He then hypothesizes that consciousness, like space-time, might have its own characteristics independent of matter, and that neglecting this will lead to a description of the universe that is fundamentally incomplete and misleading. “Is it possible,” he asks, “to introduce a ‘space of elements of consciousness,’ and investigate a possibility that consciousness may exist by itself, even in the absence of matter, just like gravitational waves, excitations of space, may exist in the absence of protons and electrons?”[14] He hypothesizes that with the further development of science, the study of the universe and the study of consciousness will be found to be inseparably linked, and that ultimate progress in the one will be impossible without progress in the other.
“The universe becomes alive (time-dependent) only when one divides it into two parts: an observer and the rest of the universe. Then the wave function of the rest of the universe depends on the time measured by the observer. In other words, evolution is possible only with respect to the observer. Without an observer, the universe is dead.”[15]
Georgia Tech physicist David Ritz Finkelstein[16]
“An idol, in the language of Francis Bacon (1620),[17] is a false absolute resulting from reification. ‘Idols of the tribe’ are those common to a whole community, such as those resulting from innate propensities to reify. ``Idols of the theater’’ are those erected within a particular theory. If my usage differs from Bacon’s, it is because I regard idols as inevitable and useful products of the same theory-making process that breaks them.”
“The Galilean compound space/time forms from the Aristotelian simple time and simple space when time “swallows” space. That is, in Galilean thought there is no space separate from time; we cannot recognize the same place at a different time, and to speak of it has no meaning; but there is still time within space-time, and still a unique space at each time, a time-slice of the tree of history. Galileo has absolute time and absolute space/time but no absolute space.… Such one-way coupling is a sure sign of a compound and is circumstantial evidence that the unresponsive partner in the coupling is what Francis Bacon (1620) called an idol, a false absolute.”
“Galileo had shown that space was an invalid reification. Einstein’s development showed that time was too. Aristotle’s two uncoupled absolutes, space and time, had evolved through the compound space/time of Galileo into the one symmetrically coupled absolute space-time of Einstein.”
“In classical physics since Descartes… Physicists took for granted that there was a special variable of the system called its state (of being, implicitly), independent of the experimenter, and completely describing the system… When an ideal experimenter determines the state, the state couples to the experimenter, who learns something, but the experimenter does not couple to the state, which is fixed. Here the state is the absolute, like the time of Galileo or the space-time of special relativity.”
“In quantum physics… Learning (something about the system) and doing (something to the system) are no longer fantasized as fundamentally different kinds of action. The act of determining a property is an interaction between experimenter and system that now has significant consequences for both… The idea of visualizing anything completely and exactly, a goal of some mental practices, is renounced by Bohr and is alien to quantum mechanics.