2009.07.27 19:00 - on Lonchenpa

The Guardian for this meeting is unknown. The comments are by Wester Kiranov.

 By accident (http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/07/Page_Title/2009.07.28_01:00_Oops) I claimed this session. It is a lovely discussion of some of the roots of PaB.

Eos Amaterasu: HI Ade
Eos Amaterasu sits in the PaBilion
--BELL--
Pema Pera: Hi Adelene and Eos!
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Pema
Eos Amaterasu: I think Adelene is AFK
Pema Pera: ah, okay!
Pema Pera: Anything you like to talk about?
Eos Amaterasu: I like to read Longchenpa
Pema Pera: oh, he is one of my all-time favorites!
Eos Amaterasu: The only way to read him is from that playing as Being space
Pema Pera: YES
Pema Pera: he was one of my main inspirations, in fact
Pema Pera: I'm delighted that you picked that up :-)
Eos Amaterasu: I came across one little verse fragment:
Eos Amaterasu: "Without sense objects being blocked or mind being reified
Eos Amaterasu: if there is no straying from the natureal state of spontaneous equalness
Eos Amaterasu: you arrive at the enlightened intent of supreme spaciousness."
Eos Amaterasu: It's a nice commentary on appreciating the presence of being
Pema Pera: yes
Eos Amaterasu: Without sense objects being blocked..... allowing perceptions
Eos Amaterasu: not reifying mind... allowing it also to "lighten up" :-)
Pema Pera: yes
Eos Amaterasu: and the second line is that that is really all you need to "do" - just continuity of that
Pema Pera: yes
Eos Amaterasu: and then you start "being done", so to speak
Pema Pera: hehehe, yes indeed
Pema Pera: the only problem is that without significant preparation it is really hard to read and understand Longchenpa -- and at PaB we attempt the almost impossible, to make all this accessible without assumed prior anything . . . .
Eos Amaterasu: yes ! :-) !
Pema Pera: . . .. but of course we, too, have to then try to make our words understandable . . .
Pema Pera: but we can do so in 21th century terms in English
Pema Pera: rather than trying to translate from 13th century Tibetan
Eos Amaterasu: That can be very powerful and fresh
Pema Pera: I would strongly suggest you get the following book, if you don't have a copy already: http://www.wisdom-books.com/ProductD...l.asp?PID=9485
Pema Pera: * Current Promotions * Books * • Tibetan * • Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive * • Sadhanas and Prayers * • Tibetan Buddhism: Dzogchen * • Tibetan Buddhism: Gelug * • Tibetan Buddhism: General * • Tibetan Buddhism: Kadampa * • Tibetan Buddhism: Kagyu * • Tibetan Buddhism: Nyingma * • Tibetan Buddhism: Sakya * • Theravada * • Zen * • Mahayana * • Western * • General * • Beginners * • Meditation * • Tantra * • Buddhist Studies * • Mind Body Spirit * • Other Religions * • Languages / Dictionaries * • Land and Culture * • Travel * • Health / Medicine * • Sale * Cards * Meditation Supplies * DVD & Video * Posters & Calendars * CDs & Tapes * Statues & Stupas * Tricycle The Buddhist Review Contact Us For any sales queries please contact us on +44 (0)20 8553 5020 Full contact details Buddhi
Pema Pera: oops, sorry
Pema Pera: problems of cut and past
Pema Pera: try again:
Eos Amaterasu: I got the link (it seemed to come with lots of other stuff from the page)
Eos Amaterasu: but yes, I have that book, that's where the quote is from
Pema Pera: Longchenpa's book, with URL above has the title: "Precious Treasury of the Basic Space of Phenomena"
Pema Pera: ah, small world :-)
Eos Amaterasu: I had a previous translation titled "Treasury of Dharmadhatu"
Eos Amaterasu: http://www.coachingplatform.com/blojsom/blog/szpak/Dew-Drop/2007/05/31/Tea-with-Longchenpa-and-Aquinas.html
Pema Pera: didn't know that one
Pema Pera: yes, the great Tom knew about Space :-)
Pema Pera: Aquinas was quite impressive
--BELL--
Pema Pera: About the basic space of phenomena, on p. 5 of that book, a very pithy sentence: I am the dwelling place of all ordinary beings; their habitual patterns manifest as bodies.
Pema Pera: now there's a way to de-re-ify :)
Pema Pera: or on p. 189: Given the freedom in which it is irrelevant whether or not one has realization, to believe that freedom comes about through realization
Pema Pera: which ties into the "if" I've been talking about recently
Eos Amaterasu: (that must be the text with commentary...)
Pema Pera: ah yes, sorry
Pema Pera: indeed
Pema Pera: Treasure Trove, my mistake
Pema Pera: I just looked in my journal for notes I had made three years ago
Pema Pera: when I started reading those books (the series of large blue books, an ongoing translation of the seven treasures series)
Pema Pera: When I first tried to read "You are the Eyes of the World" more than 20 years ago, I was fascinated, but I found it hard to "get" it
Pema Pera: so I put it aside, until I stumbled upon Longchenpa again, four years or so ago
Pema Pera: five years, I now remember
Eos Amaterasu: It's an unusual text, which some people say just reading is practice/realization itself (the 7 treasuries)
Pema Pera: yes!!!
Eos Amaterasu: At some point I realized that the only way to read it is _from_ that kind of viewpoint
Pema Pera: I had that experience, just reading seemed enough to dive in very deeply
Eos Amaterasu: from Being
Pema Pera: yes very much so
Eos Amaterasu: so it's a way to practice
Eos Amaterasu: if you don't approach it that way, it's all very redundant
Pema Pera: yes
Eos Amaterasu: and it helps click you back in
Pema Pera: indeed. How did you find your way into Longchenpa, if I may ask, Eos?
Eos Amaterasu: Hmm... he's a little famous ("one may well burst out in laughter", that quote)
Eos Amaterasu: but basically he's in the tradition that I studied with Chogyam Trungpa.
Eos Amaterasu: The Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje, and Longchenpa were both students of Kumarajiva, and also tuaght each other
Eos Amaterasu: so kind of bringing together essence Mahamudra and Ati / Dozgchen
Pema Pera: I didn't know that connection, how interesting!
Eos Amaterasu: But I had the same response you did initially
Eos Amaterasu: Yes, they spent years in retreat, Kumarajiva forcing them to move quite often
Eos Amaterasu: but those two traditions have played together for a long time
Eos Amaterasu: part of our global heritage
Eos Amaterasu: I feel that PaB is a great effort to start taking advantage of and appreciating that heritage
Eos Amaterasu: while moving forward with it in a very contemporary way
Eos Amaterasu: which also happens to bring more light to some closer in traditions that we come from
--BELL--
Pema Pera: As for my encounters with Longchenpa, I fell in love with his brief text "Now that I come to die" when I read that almost 30 years ago, and then more than 20 years ago I somehow felt extremely attracted to his "You are the eyes of the world" book without really reading it, funny how that can happen. Then a couple years after that, in 2000, I went to a two-week intensive Time, Space, Knowledge retreat at the Berkeley Nyingma Institute, where I "met" Longchenpa -- he is one of their prime leading lights, of the Nyingma tradition, as you know. And yet it took me another 14 years or so to really get into his texts . . . .
Pema Pera: And yes, Nyingma/Kagyu has been a very strong source of inspiration for me -- and yet I also see PaB as completely non-sectarian, non-Buddhist, non-spiritual even!
Eos Amaterasu: I think that's a great way to approach it, and in a way that's the fruition of many of such religious traditions
Eos Amaterasu: to some extent the medium becomes the message
Eos Amaterasu: being monastic is one way to get on the path, but then that becomes identified with the path and becomes the goal in a way
Pema Pera: and the greatest proponents of all traditions warn against that very problem!
Eos Amaterasu: Yes :-)
Eos Amaterasu: I think a bringing together of the secular and the sacred, while not turning that into religion, is a prime challenge for out times
Eos Amaterasu: part of our growing up
Pema Pera: what is great about virtual worlds, like Second Life, is that for the first time in history we can combine monastic and lay practice: having a job and family while getting together with the community several times a day which is something only monastic people could do throughout the history of humankind
Eos Amaterasu: Yes, this is an incredible opportunity... a truly worldwide community
Pema Pera: so yes, lowering the walls: between sacred and secular, between monastic and lay practice
Pema Pera: If SL is about anything, it is about lowering walls, boundaries
Eos Amaterasu: and allowing building of spaces that are meaningful
Eos Amaterasu: (thinking of the details of the design of this PaBilion)
Pema Pera: :)
Eos Amaterasu: This convening of meetings 4 times a day, and the process around that, is an emerging form
Eos Amaterasu: The logs can be quite moving
Eos Amaterasu: Sometimes it's the interactions of people, how they support each other
Eos Amaterasu: The genuiness of the questioning, inquiry
Pema Pera: yes . . . a real sense of sangha, of community, of exploring together with deep respect and trust
--BELL--
Eos Amaterasu: Threedee had a great observation a week ago: "Threedee Shepherd: A mystery that is still and always present is that I experience "consciousness" AND cannot explain how it arises or what its purpose is--if any.:
Eos Amaterasu: A lovely mystery :-)
Pema Pera: yes, and perhaps the real mystery is that consciousness experiences consciousness and calls itself Threedee :-)
Eos Amaterasu: and manifests in 3D :-)
Pema Pera: and thus downshifting plays blind man's buff
Pema Pera: or whatever it is called in your prefered circles :)
Pema Pera: yes, in 3D indeed (^_^)
Eos Amaterasu: Well, I just meant to visit briefly, - must get to bed
Eos Amaterasu: Thanks for the conversation, Pema (I think Ade must have claimed the log)
Pema Pera: same here, Eos!
Pema Pera: sleep well!
Eos Amaterasu: Ciao! Enjoy the rest of your stay in Japan!
Pema Pera: thank you!
stevenaia Michinaga: waves
--BELL--