thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
your ordinary form withthe exception that you visualize your body as hollow. So, from the outside, you will lookas you look and from the inside there are no bones or guts.In the center of your right foot towards its heel, visualize a black Duh syllable. Youthen think that all of the karma which is likely to cause your rebirth anytime in hell, all ofthe karma accumulated by others which will cause their rebirth in hell, and all of thehellish kleshas that afflict you and others, are drawn into that black Duh syllable. Thesyllable in your foot is then transformed into the realm of the hot hell, clearly like animage in a mirror. Then you imagine that you, in the form of a little body, are actually inthat hot hell inside your right foot. Try to imagine it as clearly as possible, theinconceivable suffering of the hot hells. While you are doing so, you repeat the mantraRam Naraka at least seven times. The first part, while doing this contemplation, is toimagine yourself burning in the hot hell and then towards the end of it you look directlyat the nature your mind which causes the appearance and the sensations of the hot hellrealm to dissolve into emptiness.Next, in the same way, you visualize in the corresponding place in your left foot anidentical black Duh syllable, and withdraw into that all the karma and kleshasaccumulated this life and in previous lives by yourself and others that causes rebirth inthe cold hell. Again, imagine that you are stuck there and are experiencing all theinconceivable suffering of extreme cold. While doing so, you recite the mantra KhamNaraka seven times and then you look at the nature of the mind of the meditator, theperson visualizing this, the experiencer, the person who is experiencing the suffering andlooking at the nature of the mind. At this point of course is the return to the practice ofMahamudra or Trekcho, and by doing so the appearances dissolve into emptiness.The purpose of these first two meditations is, through the direct experience ofemptiness, to purify the habit of the two hells. The second realm, from the bottom up, isthe preta or hungry ghost realm. The corresponding meditation concerned with this realmbegins by visualizing a red Preh in your lower abdomen that is in the center of your bodyat the level of the genitals. You think that all of the karma accumulated by yourself andothers, through greed and the klesha of greed itself, in short all wrong doings andobscurations that can cause birth as a preta are withdrawn into this red syllable. At thatpoint, it is transformed into the preta realm. You imagine, after being born there, intensesuffering of hunger, thirst and craving. You recite the mantra Sarva Pretaka at lease seventimes and then again you look at the nature of the mind of the person meditating, theperson experiencing, and by doing so the contents of the meditation dissolve intoemptiness.The third samsaric realm is the animal realm. For this you visualize a dark red coloredsyllable at the level of the navel in the center of
your body; its a dark red Trih.You think that all of the karma and kleshas that cause the rebirth as an animal,principally the karma and kleshas associated with stupidity and apathy, are drawn intoCourtesy Namo Buddha Publications Thrangu Rinpoche"From The Direct Instructions on Mahamudra and Dzogchen. To be published, Fall, 2008."this syllable which is transformed into the habitat or realm of animals. You imagineyourself born in this realm and, as vivid as possible, imagine the suffering you areexperiencing being born an animal, such as enslavement and being preyed upon. Thesuffering that is fundamental to this realm is the suffering of stupidity and the inability tocommunicate. You recite the mantra Sarva Tiryaka, at least seven times. Then at the end,as before, you look at the nature of the mind of the meditator, the experiencer, causing allthe appearances of the meditation to dissolve into emptiness.The fourth realm, the first of the so called fortunate or higher realms, is the humanrealm. Here you visualize the syllable at the center of the heart and the syllable is Nrih, itis green. Then you think of all of the causes of human rebirth, principally the klesha ofdesire and the karma accumulated through desire by yourself and others, dissolving intothis green syllable which becomes the four continents of the human world. Imagineyourself born there and the sufferings most astigmatic to the human realm are birth,aging, sickness and death. Try to imagine these four as clear as possible. While doing sothe mantra that is recited is Sarva Anuse, seven times. Then afterwards you look at thenature of the mind, the meditator, the experiencer, and the appearances dissolve intoemptiness.The second of the higher realms and the fifth realm in samsara is the realm of theAsuras or non gods. Here the place is the center of the throat, the syllable is Suh, and it isyellow. You visualize that while thinking that all of the causes of rebirth, principally theklesha of jealousy and the actions motivated by jealousy, are drawn into that syllablewhich is transformed into the Asura realm. You then imagine you are born in and stuck inthis realm and that you are undergoing the suffering of an Asura. Now, because theirnature is jealousy, their principal suffering is unsuccessful warfare against the gods andyou imagine all the experiences of being killed and wounded. You recite the mantraSarva Asurra seven times. And then again you look at the nature of the mind, themeditator, the experiencer, and the appearances of the Asura realm dissolves intoemptiness.The sixth and highest realm within samsara is the god or deva realm. You visualizethe syllable Ah, white in color, inside your head toward the top. Again you think that allof the causes for rebirth in the deva realm are withdrawn into the syllable. Principalamong these are the klesha of pride and actions motivated by pride. All of this dissolvesinto the syllable which is transformed into the god realm, specifically the type of godrealm which is called the deva realm of desire. You imagine that you are born in thatrealm and experience the suffering of a deva. Now, generally speaking,
the devas enjoytremendous pleasure, comfort and prosperity, but since they are still within samsara itends and when it ends they experience incredible suffering, the suffering of death anddownfall. Because the deva realm and life in the deva realm is so pleasant, when they seesigns of their impending death, [they do sometimes before it occurs] they suffer terriblybecause of what they are losing. Now, because of the contrast with the subsequentrebirth, which they can see; so obviously if they know that they are going to be reborn inone of the three lower realms they suffer. But, even if they are going to be reborn as ahuman or as an Asura, they suffer because of not having control or choice. Think that youare experiencing the suffering of a deva, and repeat the mantra Sarva Deva seven times.And as before, look at the nature of the mind of the meditator, the experiencer, which isCourtesy Namo Buddha Publications Thrangu Rinpoche"From The Direct Instructions on Mahamudra and Dzogchen. To be published, Fall, 2008."the practice of Mahamudra or Trekcho, and the appearance of the meditation of the devarealm dissolves.In that way you eradicate or prevent the birth in and experience of the suffering of thesix realms. At the end of all six phases of the meditation you again look at the nature ofyour mind. The point is to realize that the experience of suffering, such as the individualsufferings of the six realms, the experience of suffering is mind; it is not something otherthan mind. These sufferings occur, but they occur as manifestations or display of mindand mind is not anything, it is empty of being anything. So by recognizing the emptinessof mind and the emptiness of the experiences of mind, this is an instruction forpreventing rebirth in the six realms. This is also referred to closing the door of rebirth inthe six types of existence.At this point or phase of the contemplation you recite the six syllable mantra of TheGreat Perfection, which prevents rebirth in the six realms.AH AH SAH SAH MAH HAHNext, in the same meditation, you visualize the embodiment of the wisdom bodyspeech and mind of all buddhas, as the three syllables in your three places. So, insideyour head, you visualize a white Om, inside your throat, a red Ah, and in your heart, ablue Hum. You then think that the blessing and wisdom of the body speech and minds ofall the buddhas are drawn into these three syllables. Once these blessing and wisdom ofthe buddhas are drawn into these syllables, they blaze with wisdom fire, the fire of fivecolors in each case.Now, previously after visualizing each realm, you looked at the nature of your mind,and the visualization of each realm dissolved, but you didnt totally get rid of the realms.Here you are going to get rid of them. So you think that the wisdom fire which comesfrom these three syllable fills your whole body, burning up and away the six realms all atonce, and the seeds which cause the rebirth in them. While visualizing that, you recite themantra OH AH HUM. Thats the samsara part.Now
we come to the nirvana part. The nirvana part is the contemplation of the ThreeJewels, but starting from the bottom up. So first sangha, the dharma and then the buddha.Now during the previous meditation you visualized yourself in your ordinary form. Youare going to change that; first you are going to visualize yourself as the sangha. Thesupreme member of the Mahayana sangha is the Bodhisattva Maitreya because he isgoing to be the next buddha. He is the closest member of the sangha to buddhahood. Youvisualize yourself as Maitreya and while doing so you recite the mantra; NAMOSANGHAYA.Next is the contemplation of the jewel of the dharma. You think that your body, as theBodhisattva Maitreya, is transformed in an instant into the embodiment of dharma. Therealization of dharma is depicted as the female deity. The cause of all awakening, thecause of all buddhahood is the perfection of discernment, Prajnaparamita. Although theperfection of discernment is truly the realization of the nature of all things, because it isthe cause of all awakening when it is depicted as a deity, it is called the great motherPrajnaparmita. So you visualize yourself as her because she is the embodiment of alldharma. She is gold in color with four arms and so on. You recite the mantra; NAMODHARMAYA, three times.Courtesy Namo Buddha Publications Thrangu Rinpoche"From The Direct Instructions on Mahamudra and Dzogchen. To be published, Fall, 2008."Then there is the jewel of the buddha. You think that you, as the form of the greatmother, are transformed in an instant into the Buddha Sakayamuni, and visualizingyourself as the buddha you recite the mantra NAMO BUDDHAYA, three times. Thenhaving visualized yourself as the buddha, you visualize yourself as the BodhisattvaAvalokiteshvara. The reason you visualize yourself as Chenrezig at this point is that he isthe embodiment of the compassion of all buddhas. So you think that you, the BuddhaSakayamuni, are transformed into the Bodhisattva Avlalokiteshvara, and you visualizeyourself as him in the usual manner, white in color with one face and four arms, and yourecite the mantra OH MANI PADME HUM, three times.Then in order to reveal or enhance the power of compassion you think thatAvalokiteshvara is transformed into his ferocious or wrathful form, Hayagriva. NowAvalokiteshvara has these two aspects because compassion itself is embodied in thepeaceful form and the power or effectiveness of compassion is in the wrathful form. Soyou visualize yourself as Hayagriva, who is red in color and recite the mantra; OMHAYAGRIVA HUM PHAT, three times.Now all of this is basically connected with the purification of the body, and yourbody is composed of the five elements, earth, water, fire, air, and space. Not only yourbody but all of the external phenomena are composed of the five elements as well. Whilereflecting that the five elements do not exist independently, that things appear that way asthe display of mind, you recite the essence syllable of the five elements; E YAM RAMBAM LAM, three times. E, the essence of space, YAM, the essence of wind or air,RAM, the essence of fire, BAM, the essence of water and LAM, the essence of earth.That
section is the purification of body.The second section is the purification of speech. The purification of speech is donethrough the use of the syllable HUM, by mantra.You sit in the same posture, except that you join the palms of the hands above the topof the head, and you visualize your body as a five prong golden vajra. In the center of thevajra you visualize your mind as a blue HUM, and you think that from the bindu at thetop of the HUM lots of blue HUMS emerge and come out of your body, the golden vajra,and fill the entire universe with HUMS. Then you think; they return and come togetherinto one cubic size HUM, in the space in front of you. Then you think from the HUM, inthe center of the vajra, which is somewhat identified with your heart, more HUMS comeout and this time they fill your body. While doing this recite three long HUMS, and thenafter that, for the rest of the time you do short HUMS, recited in groups of three.The final part of the preliminaries done after that is called the natural settling of body,speech and mind. So after doing all of these you then rest your mind without anycontrivance or artifice in primordial purity, which means you return to the Trekcho orbreak through practice that you did earlier.TogelPrinciple PracticeThe principle practice of The Great Perfection can be divided into two aspects;Trekcho, or breakthrough, and Togel or leap over. Of these two, this section is concernedwith the practice of Togel. The practice of breakthrough or Trekcho is the basis for theCourtesy Namo Buddha Publications Thrangu Rinpoche"From The Direct Instructions on Mahamudra and Dzogchen. To be published, Fall, 2008."teachings and practice of the six lamps, which constitute the path of the leap over. Thepractice of Togel in itself has two aspects, the preliminaries and the main practice.Now we come to the presentation of the actual practice, which is called theintroduction of the six lamps. The use of the term lamp, or torch, connotes or denotessomething that dispels darkness. What we are trying to do in our practice is recognize adirect experience of the Dharmata, or nature of all dharmas or things. This is of coursethe nature of our own mind. Principally we recognize it by looking at our own mind. Thefirst thing you can say about your own mind is that it is emptiness because it is empty ofany substantial existence. If that was all the mind was, just emptiness and it was nothing,then we could not call the mind, or the nature of the mind, a lamp. It would not have thecapacity to dispel darkness; in fact it would be darkness itself. While your minds natureis emptiness, it is not obscurity or darkness, it is illumination. Along with the mindsemptiness, the other character that defines the mind is cognitive lucidity or awareness. Sohere the first use of the term lamp is to refer to the nature of your mind, which is like alamp, in being the unity of cognitive lucidity and emptiness.There are six aspects to this lamp
or the illuminating quality of ones basic nature. Thefirst is called the abiding lamp of the ground. This is what was pointed out in the chapterwhich introduced Mahamudra and Trekcho or breakthrough. Any sentient being bydefinition has a mind. Any being that has a mind possesses the same fundamental nature.All minds are of the same nature and this nature is emptiness, not obscurity. It is anemptiness that is inseparability from lucidity. This lucidity which is the definingcharacteristic of a mind, or of cognition, is at the same time the innate ability to achievethe perfect wisdom of buddhahood, the innate ability to realize the nature of all things.Therefore, this lucidity, which characterizes any and all minds, is called Sugatagarba orthe seed or nature of those who have gone to bliss. Now the term sugata refers to abuddha and it means those who have gone to bliss, those who no longer are remaining ina state of suffering. When it is said we all possess the basic nature of that, it means we allpossess the ability to transcend suffering, the ability to achieve buddahood. So cognitivelucidity in and of itself is the seed of the potential to achieve and the ability to achieveawakening. And this is so because we always have this as our basic nature.The first of the six lamps, the abiding lamp of the ground, is in a sense an explanationor common to Togel and Trekcho. The others are uncommon, in that they are onlyexplained or pointed out in the contents of Togel instruction. Now Dharmata, the natureof things, if you look at it from the point of view of its vastness in scope is literally thenature of all things. Therefore it is all pervasive. But the root of Dharmata is the mindand therefore the primary observation of Dharmata is in ones own mind.We saw before that the mind has two aspects, what it is or how it really is, and what itappears to be or how it appears. In terms of how the mind appears, the mind appears toreside in the body. The way we experience is our appearing to be a resident of our body.This means that while Dharmata is all pervasive, because it is the nature of mind andbecause the mind appears to reside within the body, Dharmata is most apparent withinyour body. Now your mind pervades your whole body, but especially the mind itself.In the primordial wisdom of the sugatas, the principle mind is seated within the heart.Therefore, the second lamp is called the citta flesh lamp. So the heart is the lamp made offlesh or living tissue. The reason for this is that, as we saw earlier, while you are alive thefundamental seat of the eighth consciousness is your heart. Now when you die and yourCourtesy Namo Buddha Publications Thrangu Rinpoche"From The Direct Instructions on Mahamudra and Dzogchen. To be published, Fall, 2008."mind leaves your body, thats a whole different thing. Your body becomes a corpse. Butas long as you are alive, your body and mind are interconnected. Therefore, the secondlamp is the heart, which is the seat
of mind.The third lamp is called the smooth white channel lamp. This is the channel whichconnects the heart to the eyes. The eyes are the fourth lamp and the third lamp is thechannel that connects these two. It is this channel that causes the appearances ofDharmata, seated in the heart to be visible. In order to be visible obviously they have toappear to the eyes and the connection between the heart and eyes is called the smoothwhite channel lamp. Now it is a channel, but it is a channel that does not contain eitherblood or lymph. It is empty of everything except wind. For example, in some Dzogchentantras it says, It is in the white place of the brain that the appearances arise to thesenses. This refers to the vision of the eyes because this channel passing from the heart,the smooth white channel lamp, passes via or through the brain.The fourth lamp is called the distant lasso water lamp. This refers to something that isin the center of the eyes. Because you can see things that are distant, its called the distantlasso water because of the composition of the eye. It refers, not to the entire eye, but tothe sense faculty within the eye that is at the end of the smooth white channel lamp. Thesmooth white channel lamp starts at the heart and ends at the optic nerve.The fourth lamp is the gate for the appearance of wisdom. The wisdom, in this case,refers to the display of Dharmata and the condition for its appearance is the use of theeyes in a particular way, or gaze, in connection with a source of light. Traditionally thesun is given as the main example but it can also be the light of the moon, an electric light,or a light from a flame. Through the application of gaze you cause to appear to the fourthlamp, or in the fourth lamp, the eyes, a rainbow like light phenomenon. This embodiesthe purity of the Dharmakaya and the five certainties of the Sambhogakaya, initiallyappearing as multi colored light and circles of light. The gate for that appearance is thedistant lasso water lamp. When you do this and apply the gaze and make use of the fourlamps explained thus far, what you will see looks something like the tail of a peacockwhich contains circles, which are often five different colors; one surrounding another likecircular shields used in warfare.What you are seeing with the fourth lamp is the fifth lamp which is called the purelamp of the expanse. Here it is called the pure lamp of Dharmadhatu. Through themeeting of the fourth and fifth lamps you experience the spontaneous display of thenature of all things. This means that what you are seeing is not a created or compositephysical phenomenon. Within the rays of light, which are created by the gaze, you seenot only large circles or spheres but lots of minute or little ones, like a net of pearls orlittle drops like fish eyes, and sometimes they appear in moving patterns of latticenetworks. That aspect of what you are seeing is
the appearance of the unceasing activityof Nirmanakaya. What you experience is called the display of the Trikaya in the form ofrainbow lights; they are the unlimited display of the same nature; the Dharmata. Whatyou are seeing are the three kayas as the unified appearances. Know that they appear indifferent ways; know that in reality the different modes of appearances of the threeembodiments are in essence indivisible from reality itself.The way you do this is by using a light source and in this text the example used is thesun. Usually you use the sun as soon as it has arisen or as it sets. But, whenever you do it,it has to be done in a certain way for this to work and for it to be safe.Courtesy Namo Buddha Publications Thrangu Rinpoche"From The Direct Instructions on Mahamudra and Dzogchen. To be published, Fall, 2008."First thing, you do not look at the sun. You are not trying to get the direct light of thesun into your eyes. Nor do you look at the rays of the sun in the usual sense, as the sunhas rays coming out of it. What you do is look one cubit below the sun, some distancefrom it, and you cause the appearance of rays by squinting. By closing your eyes halfway you adjust them exactly as to how much you close them, to what or how much youneed to, in order to generate the appearance of rays. When this happens, one of the thingsthat occurs is you cause the appearance of refractions of the light, so that it appears indifferent colors. The squinting of the eyes causes the rays of light to appear like alignedweapons, like parallel spears, which seem like a downpour of weapons shooting intooneself at your heart.This one aspect of this training, and one benefit of this, is that you prepare yourself forthe appearances of the bardo. Because, in the bardo after death the light of wisdomappears in part as brilliant rays of light that you perceive as threatening, as weapons, assomething that you have to be afraid of. So one thing you are doing in this practice islearning to recognize such phenomena as your own display and not as something comingfrom outside yourself.When you do this you see five colors of light. The five colors of light are consideredthe display of emptiness. The reason that you see the five colors is because in the impurecontext or form, we experience the five poisons, attachment, aversion, pride, jealouslyand apathy. If they are recognized in their pure nature, these are the five wisdoms, whichare inseparable from the five buddhas. In the impure context we experience the fiveaggregates, form, sensation, perception, mental formation and consciousness. In the pureform they are the five buddhas; Varochana, Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha andAmoghasiddhi. In the impure contents we experience the five elements. Blue light is theelement of space, white light of water, yellow light of earth, red light of fire and greenlight of air. In their pure form they are the five female buddhas. The dark blue light isAkasadhatvisvari; the white light is Buddhalocana;