Heartland of the Dakinis

Heartland of the Dakinis

Anapurna range. A completely different part of the Himalayas. 

Just to confuse you. ;-)

Early monsoon I made a pilgrimage in to the heartland of the Dakinis - Garsha Khandroling in Lahaul. Blessed with many holy places and incomparable shrines of worship I wandered from place to place. Basking in this wisdom I felt such grace, connecting with the core of these many thousand years old yogic pilgrim sites. Hidden in vast and hard to reach valleys in far away Himalayas.

Deep in to the mountains my heart was filled with an ocean of inspirational compassion, kneeling at the magical Avalokiteshvara/Shiva statue in Trilokinath, as well as marveling at the Dakinis footsteps in a potato field in Markula, a small town blessed with its many thousand years old holy temple dedicated to the Goddess Divine. I made it back just in time for the annual Lama dances in one of the many roof top monasteries of Keylong. Ema-ho!

I sat and sat some more at the holy mountain Drilbu Ri. Enjoying its splendor and magnificent views, pure water and core sacredness. With the chants, drums and trumpets resounding and echoing through out the valley my heart rejoiced a thousand times over all the wonders that has taken place, and that are still taking place at this, by seen and unseen forces, well protected area.

I thank the local Dakas and Dakinis for sharing theyre rich wealth and heritage with a simple wanderer from far away land like my self. Its humbeling to wake up and behold the majesty of the white dressed mountain tops at 4000 something meters and being able to breath and climb in her powerful presence.

I rejoice in the manifold flora and fauna so richly growing from seemingly no soil, and the water streams and falls providing each moment with a meditative roar and pour.

I thank the dragons for inviting and carrying for me on my journey. It was quite scary sometimes looking down at the 1000 meter shafts straight in to the bottom of the valley, while riding the vehicles to take me to and from, on the muddy mountain roads destined by landslides and potentially rolling stones at any moment.

I dont regret for a second going there, neither do I miss this holy Himalayan shrine. She lives in my heart now. For ever.

New Moon in Dharamsala

Came up early with the Nuns community to the Namgyal Gompa. Just in time for His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama to enter the tempel! Kneeling on a red scarf together, sharing a white katha to offer, he briefly stopped near by and first blessed the somewhat desperate older man sitting beside us. As he glanzed over in our direction he met my eyes and time stopped. In that moment I found tears bursting out of my eyes. For the rest of that morning there was a sense of being held by his grace. Swimming in an ocean of love. Ill never forget that New Moon day

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Fleeting Moments

FLEETING MOMENTS (Rains retreat 2011)

Everything was leading up to this.
This moment, this house, the sound of the bird outside.

The rain keeps falling. Its as if I were surrounded by a constant wall of water.
Clothes, books, bags, all are damp and smells like old stovetop rags.
Even the rubber parts of the tea kettle are moulding.
The mist comes rolling in.

I wake up and forget to look with fresh eyes, thinking its the same old bookshelf standing there. Taking the colors of the rooms for granted. Even though I know that the colors are not out there, but they appear in my mind.

And if Im taking this moment for granted, no one is ever going to appreciate it.
It will be lost for ever.

Being bored is a luxury for the ignorant.

Even though I pretty much keep the same routine every day, all the days, hours and moments are different. If I were to make a hundred movies out of each and every one of my hundred days in retreat, they would all be unique. But who would ever watch them?

Those days are gone. Mind is viewing that which an instant ago was the present subjective moment, now turned in to an object. A memory. A concept.
Its a dead thing now.

Remembering certain things you did, said, experienced or how you reacted ten years ago will certainly not bring any transformation to this particular moment here right now. Unless you know the true nature of a memory.

Let go. Move on. Be done with it, and raise your vision to the end of the sky.
Then we can talk about skyflowers and rabbit horns.
And laugh about it.

I love you, she said. But who was she talking to?
The eyes of the beloved?
The nose?
The arms?
The heap of bones, flesh and blood all mixed up together with percieving feelings and holding on to concepts about who you are?
Hm. Maybe it was the name she was talking to.

Wanting the moment to last for ever.
Later wanting to push the memory away.
Now feeling neutral about the whole matter.

Percieving a stone as a stone as a stone.
Knowing it to be nothing separate from the cloud.

Life is a series of fleeting moments, seemingly interconnected with each other. We say we have a history, but each moment is actually fresh.

The hands typing this message, or what ever it is, are a day older then yesterday, they are not the same. Who ever I shock hands with seven or more years ago has actually never shocked this hand. Literally all the cells are renewed, its physically a totally other hand then back then. If we can even talk about a hand at all. Or even "back then".
Concepts.

So how do you know someone?
By theyre psycho-physical make up?
No, its proven to be constantly changing.

Its a river, and you can never step in to the same river twice.

So when body, thoughts and emotions are dealt with, what do we have left?
Consciousness it self? Mind as a continuum? An individual soul?
If it really exists as one permanent entity, then where does it reside?
Where did it come from? And where is it going?
Its impossible to find such a permanence in any phenomena.

A fainted taste of lies arises at the tip of my tongue. But where did it come from?

She does, he says, I loved her, I hated you. Mine, yours. Them. We.
Me, myself and I...who are you talking about?
From a truly inherently permanent self existing point of view,
theres actually no one here.//

A Stone is a stone is a stone...

14 April 2010 the one I was then was visiting a nunnery in India and shared some of my meditation experience with the nuns and laypeople there. Everyone was welcome - the only instruction before hand was: Bring a stone.

Heres some excerpts and lightly edited material from an article that later was published about this meditation event.

"- The first meditation will be a meditation on the stone that you brought. This practice is used in many different traditions. I initially learned it in the yogic tradition, as a means to practice one pointedness, concentration, called tatrak (meaning focusing in Sanskrit). This is a very good start for any meditation that you are practicing - to gather the mind

that many times are all over the place.

Keep your gaze on the stone in front of you...and as you watch the stone you might observe thoughts coming and going..just let them pass by like clouds in the sky. You keep your focus on the stone. And whenever you get hijacked by a thought just notice that that has happened, and then come back to focusing on the stone. Theres no particular WOW or interest in the different patterns, colors or shapes of the stone, or in any kind of mental fabrications such as light appearing, or what ever the mind is up to. Just come back to focusing on the stone, let everything else fall. What ever thoughts or feelings is there right now, tell your mind that right now the stone in front of you is all there is.
What ever comes up, just notice it and LET GO".

Taking Delight

Delight is naturally present in our lifes.

If we look at mundane things.
We like hearing songs, having belongings, being praised and so forth.
We experience delight in connection with the good things of this life.
In due to enjoy these things we do make an effort to get them.
So the energy to do that is coming from the enjoyment to do those things.
Taking delight .
We can just look at our own experience. Its a natural striving to get this.
To feel good about having this in our lifes.
The enjoyment of having worldly things.
Look at how worldly delight comes about. Study that and take a lesson from it.
How delight comes about in our lives in how were seeing them.
In this connection we can refer to what is called "the 8 worldly dharmas": Gain or Loss, Praise or Blame, Happiness or Pain, Victory or Defeat.

We like to get things. Losing it or not getting what we want - we dont like.
Chosing between happiness or suffering - we like happiness and we dont like pain.
Everybody thinks like this.
The dislike comes from seeing those four (4) negative ones as being wrong.
When were not having one of the four (4) we dont like - we like that. Its a form of worldly wealth, worldly abundance.
In addition to that, we like very much when we have the other nice four (4) ones.
There are situations when delight is produced - so we make effort to make these situations manifest.
So that great effort we make in order to get delight, is what we can call diligence!
The way Shantideva described diligence was to take delight in virtue.
Where as the efforts one makes in the 8 worldly things are lazyness.
All the effort to get these worldly things are lazyness.
Real diligence is taking delight in virtues activity.
When this lazyness occur its what is called attachment to lesser activitys. Of wish theres three kinds:

Attachment to...
0. Lesser activitys, or negative activitys.
0. Sheepish lazyness, not believing one can acomplish something. Sleepy, dull.

Where does that come from?!?
Taking delight in non-virtue comes from attachment to lesser activitys. And when one recognizes this attachment one can take delight in virtue. One doesnt know and are confused when being attached to lesser activitys, seduced and takes delight. If one knew that these are lesser activitys one wouldnt do it.
Its a mistake.

So recognizing this it has the opposite effect.
The 8 worldly dharmas and the acivitys we perform in adopting and rejecting there is something we see as positive, an advantage.
Beacuse we see things in a shortsited way. Not like theres another life coming.
Only this life alone.
Not taking in account that were going to die.
Or what will happen after we die.
Only totally zooming in on this life.
We see it like the best thing to do and to spend our lifes.
If this life where all, then the worldly way would be the best, cause there wouldnt be any karmic results.
Just get all the great things you can, makek sure nothing gets in the way of that enjoyment! Grab what you can.
But if we are able to extend our view we see that before we were born we already had a life, and after we die we will be born again.
And we see that there is a karmic effect occuring.
So the happiness and suffering we have in this life is not coming from the outer things we can get or not, but caused by our own previous actions.
Which then links up with conditions in this life, that we experience in a pleasant or non pleasant way.

So what we do now will be the cause of our future experience.
Choose wisely.

We have a choice

Friday nights at the Vihara everyone is welcome for a Dharma talk and reflections. I was gracefully invited to give a talk and to share such an evening with the sangha here. You can find the talk I gave posted under "Sister Chimey Lhatso" - "We have a choice", through this link: http://www.saranaloka.org/audio/visiting-teachers.html
You will also find talks from other teachers there that might inspire you. Enjoy!

If you have any trouble finding this mp3 file or downloading it, please let me know.

Yours in the Dharma,
Chimey

Last Week Past

Last week past.
Full moon waxing and waning.
Stay.
Be.
Walk at the beach. Ocean waves and misty sirens blending in early morning. Experiences of sisterhood by the ocean.
Went many miles to see you, the thread of actions is confirmed.
Here we are.

Sorrow building up for the ongoing  divorce.
Seamless sangha born out of the unknown.

Resting together in silence and sensually tasting the food
- without any blossoming red on our cheeks.
We are alive, we are free and theres a hell of a road ahead!

My Buddha!
Sense the fingertips yearning to touch and feel that parade of bones underneath the cold skin. She has past over to the other shore, the raft is broken, the beautiful vase is no more.

Standing in the midst of fire, burning flesh screaming ghosts.
No More! Will we take another slander. 

No more will we walk the hall of fear.
We are one in breath and one out. 

Dying together giving birth to it all.

Maria can you hear me?
Mother of the victors we love you through rain and shine.
Peace, peace, peace.