Simply Being

The purpose of this website is to make freely available the dharma teachings given by James Low in the tradition of C.R. Lama. The teachings were given spontaneously according to the energy of each event, since the transmission depends on the mood of the occasion. They are not structured as academic explanations although they offer clarity of explanation. They are intended as a support and stimulus for practice and an encouragement to pursue your own further study.

Simply being is the ground or basis of every occurrence; it is the unchanging awareness which reveals the ever-changing play of experience. This is dzogchen, the wholeness and completion within which we live. Dzogchen teaching recalls us to this open purity which we have never left, yet habitually disregard.

These teachings, the heart of the primordial buddha Samantabhadra, have been present in our world for many thousands of years, passed on in unbroken lineages in Tibet, and now spreading out in the world.

The ignoring of the intrinsic ground generates an illusion of subject and object as real and separate entities. Meditation reveals this delusion for what it is and awakens us to our primordial integration. As this shines forth all the accumulations of tension, anxiety and assumptions that bind and restrict us are released without effort.

The purpose of this website is to offer the key points of dzogchen, illustrated with examples from everyday life. There are audio and video recordings and some transcripts of public talks and teaching retreats in Europe.

In this tradition students are encouraged to develop a simple and straightforward attitude to study and practice. Thus it is said: do not consider the dharma to be like the musk gland on the belly of a musk deer; do not consider the teacher to be like a musk deer; do not consider yourself to be like the hunter. Rather, see the dharma as a medicine, see the teacher as a doctor and see yourself as person needing help.

In this way we develop humility and gratitude, diminishing our ego’s tendency to feed itself on everything it finds. We enhance our clarity and compassion in order to benefit all sentient beings who suffer due to ignorance of their essential goodness.

In order to bathe in the living stream of the dzogchen lineages it is important to make steps to gain transmission from a living teacher.

Photos

Various people have shared their photos to be used on the website. This includes Andrea Pieper, Chimed Jansen, George Thomson, Marlis Scholz, and Robbie Terris.