New Paperback and e-Book: The Mirror Of Clear Meaning

Jo Féat transcribed this four-day teaching retreat given in Aracena, Spain, 2016. Alicja has prepared it in both Kindle e-book and paper book form. The presentation is a personal, almost conversational,  distillation of Nuden Dorje’s realisation in a manner both beautiful and deeply meaningful. The 40 short verses show with pithy clarity how the various aspects of dzogchen fit together.

The same text was used as the basis of James’ book, Being Right Here.

 

Excerpts

 

…One of the things that children learn quite easily is the joy of spinning; it doesn’t cost anything. You just spin round very fast and then you stop and you are off-balance and dizzy. You, yourself, make yourself feel funny. If you stop spinning you will be quite grounded but if you keep spinning you will get dizzy. That is all the Buddha ever said. Spinning is ignorance so just stand still…

 

 

…“From one cause many other causes arise.” From the one cause of ignoring the open ground of being, spacious awareness — which includes everything and is a generous hospitality open to everything — ends up as this one particular person with his or her likes and dislikes walking through a big forest along a very narrow path. This is called samsara…

 

 

…The focus of our work is tenderness and gentleness. When we are tender towards ourselves we start to understand ourselves…

 

 

…You’re out having a nice walk in the country. You see dark clouds approaching. Suddenly heavy rain starts to fall. You want to find refuge. You love flowers, but if you go to a little daisy it won’t give you much protection. You see a big oak tree and so you run towards it and now you feel dry. The oak tree offers protection just by being an oak tree. All you have to do is be where the protection is. You don’t have to make the protection; you put yourself in the way of the protection…

 

…We usually understand learning as a process of gathering information, but here the path is about letting go of what is unnecessary…

 

 

…After a long drive you don’t look at the car mirrors to check if they are exhausted. You don’t think, ‘I will take the mirrors to the Mirror Hotel for a little rest before our journey home.’ The mirror is always working yet it never tires out. This is an example of the mind: the image doesn’t tire out the mirror; thoughts don’t tire out the mind…

 

 

…Judging ourselves as bad, or lazy, or stupid doesn’t help. Instead we want to see the patterns of how we get lost. Seeing clearly without any evaluative judgement is the path…

 

 

The life of the yogi: sleep when you’re tired and eat when you’re hungry. It is all very simple.