Sweet Simplicity. Audio. Berghof, July 2022

Teachings and retreat on Mahamudra Doha Songs

4-12 July 2022.

James taught referring to his new 2022 book “Sweet simplicity: Mahamudra doha song”.

It was held at Retreathouse Berghof, on the outskirts of Wiesen city, a small village in the Spessart Nature Park, in Germany. It was organised by Martin and Birgit Brüger of Tibethaus.


“We find ourselves in the intrinsic non-duality of mahamudra by being present in the instant spontaneity which displays the inseparability of illusory subject and object.”

Jonathan (Jon) Lever has usefully prepared the topics on each day of the retreat in separate recording snippets.
For a better understanding of the retreat, there is a separate post for each day so that you can follow the flow of the teaching in the correct chronological order. If you have the book to hand then you can follow the teachings better.

To download the records of the entire retreat click here.

Berghof, Monday 04.07.2022

  • 1-01 Mahamudra - nothing more to be done
  • 1-02 Can we trust the simplicity of just this
  • 1-03 One-pointedness
  • 1-04 Shamatha meditation
  • 1-05 Intention - mobilisation - karma
  • 1-06 Present - just present - the neutral
  • 1-07 Moving in harmony with nature
  • 1-08 Activity and approval
  • 1-09 Embedding the world with rememberances
  • 1-10 Creativity emptiness and experience
  • 1-11 More Shamatha - without struggling
  • 1-12 Consciousness - looking for something
  • 1-13 The mind always moving
  • 1-14 Getting impacted
  • 1-15 Grasping at the ungraspable - the coming and going
  • 1-16 Present with what is here
  • 1-17 Question - about the ground - one or many
  • 1-18 Question - overwhelmed - no access to openness
  • 1-19 Question - different with different people
  • 1-20 Question - different ways of making sense
  • 1-21 The nature of unawareness
  • 1-22 Awareness - being present with nothing

 

Berghof, Tuesday 05.07.2022

  • 2-01 Taking refuge in your mind - self and non-duality
  • 2-02 Open sitting practice
  • 2-03 Not saying this is me
  • 2-04 Map and territory
  • 2-05 Vipassana - the dynamism of embodiment
  • 2-06 Present without interpretation
  • 2-07 Bringing dharma into the world
  • 2-08 The Doha songs - giving yourself to the dharma
  • 2-09 Identity and conventions
  • 2-10 Naropa text - Don't recall
  • 2-11 Don't imagine
  • 2-12 Don't think
  • 2-13 Don't analyse don't examine
  • 2-14 Don't be artificial
  • 2-15 Don't move from here
  • 2-16 Introducing Saraha and the Dohas
  • 2-17 Homage to Sri Vajradakini
  • 2-18 Homage to the great bliss
  • 2-19 How Mahamudra is - space intrinsically empty
  • 2-20 Withness is everything
  • 2-21 Not the least difference
  • 2-22 All phenomena are ones own mind
  • 2-23 The primordial non-existence of mind
  • 2-24 Does the mind have colour
  • 2-25 Does the mind have a shape
  • 2-26 Does the mind have a size
  • 2-27 Phenomena moving in the space of the mind
  • 2-28 Does the mind come from somewhere
  • 2-29 Is your mind somewhere here
  • 2-30 Does your mind go somewhere
  • 2-31 A few words about these questions
  • 2-32 Stay with the space
  • 2-33 The thusness of this cannot be taught
  • 2-34 If there is an owner there will be possesions
  • 2-35 How does the mind exist
  • 2-36 Not found if sought for
  • 2-37 Unborn and unceasing - revealed through participation
  • 2-38 Thusness abides as it is
  • 2-39 All appearances the dharmakaya all sentient beings buddhas
  • 2-40 Already part of the world

 

Berghof, Wednesday, 06.07.2022

  • 3-01 Refuge and Bodhicitta
  • 3-02 Refuge and Bodhicitta - images
  • 3-03 From sound to meaning
  • 3-04 Guru yoga
  • 3-05 Remarks on Guru yoga
  • 3-06 The object comes to life
  • 3-07 Do not enter into judgement
  • 3-08 Vipassana - emergence and density
  • 3-09 Attention without elaboration
  • 3-10 Trauma and attachment - present and past
  • 3-11 Question - dementia present future and past
  • 3-12 All within the Dharmdhatu
  • 3-13 Going back to clarity
  • 3-14 It was not real but delusion
  • 3-15 Protecting the imagined
  • 3-16 Earth pot making
  • 3-17 Demons
  • 3-18 Scholarship and enquiry
  • 3-19 Imprisoned in clouds
  • 3-20 Guru yoga again
  • 3-21 Body and sensation in the practice
  • 3-22 Honouring sentient beings
  • 3-23 Never strayed from the state of thusness
  • 3-24 Without seer or seen inexpressible
  • 3-25 To help you wake up to your mind - PHAT!
  • 3-26 Garab Dorjes three statements
  • 3-27 Entering the hermits awakening
  • 3-28 The path of Mahamudra - showing the view as it is
  • 3-29 Abandonig all hopeful and fearful attitudes
  • 3-30 Question - inherent existence - aversion - attraction
  • 3-31 Dedicating the merit - compassion

 

Berghof, Thursday, 07.07.2022

  • 4-01 Happy Thought for the day
  • 4-02 Nothing is special
  • 4-03 Hopes and fears - the map and the territory
  • 4-04 Only ever your experience
  • 4-05 The mind - no limit no centre - who can know it
  • 4-06 A receptive practice
  • 4-07 Introduction to Tonglen
  • 4-08 Tonglen practice
  • 4-09 Available as required
  • 4-10 Vipassana
  • 4-11 Staying with the emergent as it emerges
  • 4-12 One taste
  • 4-13 The manner of awakening
  • 4-14 Illusion - belief
  • 4-15 Ground path and result
  • 4-16 Present with what is occurring
  • 4-17 Commentary on The Cuckoos Cry - Vairocana
  • 4-18 Question - how long
  • 4-19 Question - how can you lose the ground
  • 4-20 Question - what is reflected
  • 4-21 Where is the impermanence in chronic diaseses
  • 4-22 Question - love - just in my mind
  • 4-23 Question - merit - false start
  • 4-24 Question - merit - sharing - paying for
  • 4-25 Always here and now
  • 4-26 Preferring qualifications
  • 4-27 The hiding place of fears is destroyed
  • 4-28 The non-meditation of Mahamudra
  • 4-29 Ordinary mind in authentic intrinsic mode
  • 4-30 Sitting without intention

 

Berghof, Friday, 08.07.2022

  • 5-01 About participation
  • 5-02 Desire and anger
  • 5-03 Not getting hooked
  • 5-04 Dependent origination - graspability is delusion
  • 5-05 The delusion that I know who I am
  • 5-06 Question - mind without content in meditation
  • 5-07 Question - vanishing of experience
  • 5-08 Question - sense of me my thoughts and duality in meditation
  • 5-09 Question - interpretation perception and spontaneous arising
  • 5-10 Question - important to believe in previous and future lives
  • 5-11 Question - language - dissolve and vanish
  • 5-12 Activity moves through us -settling uncontrived awareness
  • 5-13 Space is open to the movement of forces
  • 5-14 Infinty of mind meets infinity of sky
  • 5-15 More and more possibilities of being here
  • 5-16 Water and waves not separate
  • 5-17 Free of the three wheels - perfect in itself
  • 5-18 In terms of conduct
  • 5-19 How to avoid being tainted by circumstances
  • 5-20 Spontaneous desireless compassion
  • 5-21 Working with the truth of illusion
  • 5-22 Sitting with the sky in front of you
  • 5-23 Text - the certainty of gaining the result
  • 5-24 Desiring something when there is nothing to get
  • 5-25 Conventional - within relative truth
  • 5-26 Brief remarks on finishing the text
  • 5-27 Question - are we there yet - background sense of existence

 

Berghof, Saturday, 09.07.2022

  • 6-01 Curtains - roles - open to the open
  • 6-02 Reminding ourselves of the simplicity
  • 6-03 Availability - you and the situation together
  • 6-04 Question - preparation - necessary planning
  • 6-05 Question - in the present in meditation
  • 6-06 Question - is the view not a map
  • 6-07 Always non-dual with the ground
  • 6-08 Tilopa - some background
  • 6-09 The five skandas
  • 6-10 Question - awareness and the five skandas
  • 6-11 The substantial and the insubstantial
  • 6-12 No meaning to be sought
  • 6-13 Beginning and ending are discarded
  • 6-14 Subjective naming is not actually how it is
  • 6-15 Question - meditation - thoughts about the perceptions
  • 6-16 Text - I Tilo have nothing to teach
  • 6-17 The potential of this moment
  • 6-18 Considering suddenly occuring experiences memories knowledge
  • 6-19 Fear
  • 6-20 James on his childhood anxiety
  • 6-21 Emotions
  • 6-22 Justice and truth - moving in the field of complexity
  • 6-23 Text - conduct
  • 6-24 Presenting the result - awake to your own ground here and now

 

Berghof, Sunday, 10.07.2022

  • 7-01 Trusting spontaneity - immediate freshness
  • 7-02 Text - Krishnapa - Ending the limitation of the view
  • 7-03 It is not what you think it is
  • 7-04 Conceptual thought is itself delusion
  • 7-05 Learning and the Dharma
  • 7-06 Two recently published books
  • 7-07 About Nagpopa - sitting on corpses - importance of stimuli
  • 7-08 When the intellect takes an object
  • 7-09 Ending the limitation of conduct
  • 7-10 Question - taking a decision without accepting or rejecting
  • 7-11 Ending the limitation of the result
  • 7-12 The essence of all phenoma is like space
  • 7-13 Whatever arises the mind is open
  • 7-14 Text - Maitripa - Distracted wavering
  • 7-15 Guru yoga
  • 7-16 Release into the self-releasing
  • 7-17 Text - give up activity let the mind look at itself
  • 7-18 Seeing the illusoriness of what is occuring
  • 7-19 The body as unhelpful reference point
  • 7-20 Question - making decisions for example to become yogi yogini
  • 7-21 What can we rely on - falsely imputing existence
  • 7-22 Text - self-liberation - desire - wandering like a lion
  • 7-23 A short story
  • 7-24 Question - practicing with the sky
  • 7-25 Question - urgency and effort
  • 7-26 Question - one short text enough
  • 7-27 Question - setting up a regular meditation practice
  • 7-28 Question - not existiing meaning as independent entity
  • 7-29 Question - present with without grasping
  • 7-30 Question - thoughts repeatable and seeming controllable
  • 7-31 Question - path deity
  • 7-32 Question - sleepiness duration meditation

 

Berghof, Monday, 11.07.2022

  • 8-01 Polarities and positionings
  • 8-02 Present without judgement or evaluation
  • 8-03 Guru yoga
  • 8-04 Sound showing its emptiness
  • 8-05 Question - labelling thoughs vs non-involvement
  • 8-06 Question - how can I say my mind
  • 8-07 Question - traces of duality experiencing thoughts
  • 8-08 Question - Guru Yoga - pictures memories
  • 8-09 Open awareness on the cushion harder
  • 8-10 Connectivity in the world
  • 8-11 Short text - Tilopa
  • 8-12 Dirt and purification
  • 8-13 Things with real value
  • 8-14 Question - chosing amongst qualities of musical instruments
  • 8-15 Question - value of living beings
  • 8-16 One-pointedness
  • 8-17 Text - appearances are ones own appearance
  • 8-18 Question - the outer guru the inner guru
  • 8-19 Question - reading and studying texts
  • 8-20 Sitting
  • 8-21 Meditation advice
  • 8-22 Question - no essence in a colour also the whole world
  • 8-23 Question - does a thought have a form
  • 8-24 Question - experiencing a sense of tiredness in meditation
  • 8-25 Question - fear on returning to life in samsara

 

Berghof, Tuesday, 12.07.2022

  • 9-01 In the state of presence
  • 9-02 Interruption and non-interruption
  • 9-03 Bringing compassion into the world
  • 9-04 Question - enough time but low energy
  • 9-05 Being with anothers worry
  • 9-06 Sitting - open with how it is
  • 9-07 Patterns and conceptual structures
  • 9-08 Blind to the fact that you are in movement
  • 9-09 Text - The Doha Treasury of Virupa - Part 4 - 1
  • 9-10 Do less enjoy more - open to what is there
  • 9-11 Sharing the merit
  • 9-12 Already connected with every living form
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