[Terence Tighe]

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[Terence Tighe]

Dr. Stookey,

Good use of the confession/apology form.  Absolution granted.  Your comments re connate were useful and fully prajna-compliant.

Last class, Dr. Callahan said it might be helpful to hear a few examples of VCTR’s statements regarding samsara and nirvana arising together in coemergence.  Here are some:

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A quote from the excellent Glimpses of Alaya transcript of a translators’ meeting wth VCTR:

Robin Kornman: “When you have coemergent wisdom, there is a sacred side and a samsaric side.”

VCTR:  “Yes.”

link is  –  nalandatranslation.org/offerings/translations-and-commentaries/glimpses-of-alaya/

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Also, a quote from SMR’s Shambhala Dzokchen, pg. 90:  “Thus it quivers, vibrates.  It vibrates because it is creating samsara and nirvana simultaneously; thus it is coemergent.”

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Two very good talks on co-em by Larry Mermelstein probably illucidate the VCTR view:

link is  –  shambhalaonline.org/history-details/?id=69632

link is –  shambhalaonline.org/history-details/?id=88873

Back in the day, these were restricted to Vajrayogini abhishekees.  Let your conscience be your guide (from kunshi).

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Not being qualified to speak for Dr. Callahan on any matters, I nevertheless believe her experience is that VCTR students understand VCTR to have taught that ‘coemergence/connate’ involves an awake/unawake dichotomy.  However, no other of the Tibetan teachers’ use of the terms denotes or connotes that dichotomy.

I await correction.

TTighe

[Terence Tighe]

Thank you for noting that location Miss Huck.  I look forward to re-reading it when I am near my Treasury book.

As I mentioned, when I asked the Nalanda translator about it in the context of our current inquiry, he said that when the two were still walking together, they did not yet exist.

TT

 

[Terence Tighe]

Brad the Ocean tech generously helped me get past hours of obstacles getting www links to post, by publishing my piece above.  But in the process, the paragraph spacing dropped out.  So here is the item with spacing; see above version for www links.

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Ready about…

Some loosely linked thought forms:

Currently most useful understanding to cultivate is that everything is an alteration of consciousness – sense perceptions, thoughts, emotions, dreams, visualizations, neurotic eruptions, awareness resting on awareness, TGS, recognizing nature of mind, sems & rigpa, 4th moment, Nowness.  All made of the same stuff.

In the excellent Ocean series on early tantra groups, my position was always that I do not know what the experience of TGS is.  I probably experience it as much as the average bear, but I do not ID particular moments as as having been it.  Always found it odd that the instructors, as much as they talked about the experience of TGS, refused to describe their personal experience of it.  Seems to be a bit of  a taboo in some reference group.  Non-scholars don’t mind opining: extra-vivid perception, etc.  Let’s ask Elizabeth if she will describe her experience of recognizing nature of mind

I find that anchoring on traditional phrasings of these matters (e.g., recognize nature of mind) can be an obstacle to finding the experience.

A class of practices that I find reliably lead to a moment of enhanced clarity and still mind include intensification and release.  Examples: CTR’s intensify neurosis then whoosh; the Miksang human camera exercises; Mudra theatre exercises of whole or partial body intensification and hold, then release; stroke practice

 

A couple of guys, whose methods are possibly worth checking out, are doing a secular trekcho guidance on an internet app and some web sites.  Sam Harris and Loch Kelly.  They both have substantial backgrounds in Dzogchen and Mahamudra practice.  We may not approve of their popularization of teachings, but their methods are worth looking at.  They don’t come right out and say it’s Buddhism, although they don’t hide it.

Elizabeth, Jan Wilcox may have mentioned them when I sent her these links:

Sam Harris’ site:
ttps://app.wakingup.com
He has daily guided meditations and archived ones.  There is also a ‘phone app.

Free month for the site contents and app:
ttps://dynamic.wakingup.com/share/338c81

Under the Practice tab are guest instructors.   These are Loch Kelly’s guided meditations on the Waking Up site:
ttps://app.wakingup.com/practice/effortless-mindfulness

Here are two good conversations between Harris and Kelly comparing their approaches to guiding people to nature of mind (not using that phrase):
ttps://app.wakingup.com/theory/conversations   -1st Kelly session with Harris
ttps://app.wakingup.com/theory/questions-answers    – 2nd Kelly session with Harris.

Here Kelly uses hands to indicate where to place mind.  Interesting method:
ttps://lochkelly.org/way-of-effortless-mindfulness/

 

Elizabeth, I’ve gotten contradictory opinions from scholars as to whether these states of mind are the same thing; awareness resting on awareness, TGS, recognizing nature of mind, rigpa, 4th moment, Nowness.  Do you think they are the same or different?

Helm’s a-lee

TT

You may have to add an ‘h’ to the front of the link.  Having trouble posting links.

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