Drenpa, recollection. Extract from The Happy Twins, Eifel 2019

James Low

Extract taken from ‘The Happy Twins: Dzogchen and Mahamudra Autumn Retreat in the Eifel, 2019 James Low

Transcribed by Jo Feat

Edited by Barbara Terris

The retreat focussed on two texts: The Mirror of Luminous Revelation, a terma text from Nuden Dorje Drophan Lingpa and The Mahamudra Middle Way of the Ganges spoken by Tilopa to Naropa. It also focused on how to respond, as Buddhists, to climate change and other world crises.

Read the 3 page transcript here.

James speaks about the Tibetan word drenpa, which he translates as recollection.

Dren-pa [Tib. Dran Pa] is the Tibetan word translated here as ‘recollection’. It is the same as sati in Pali and smriti in Sanskrit which mean mindfulness, but not the dualistic mindfulness of being mindful of something. Dren-pa means to be in the presence of the open ground itself; it means not being distracted, not being led into concepts. In dzogchen text this is precisely what is meant by drenpa or recollection.

It is as if you are going out for a walk. You are walking along the path engrossed in something, and then suddenly a little bird shoots out in front you. That bird pops you out of whatever you were in, inside yourself, and now you see the trees and the park all around. ‘Here I am, and it’s a good day.’ That is a re-collection because the bird brought you back to where you were already. It is not an intentional recollection; you are not having to bring yourself to somewhere else. It is not effortful because from the very beginning we have always been in the awareness which is like the mirror. So you just wake up to where you already are. You did not go anywhere else. You are not adding any value. You are not removing any impediment. You are just here.

 

Listen to the whole retreat here. https://simplybeing.co.uk/audio-records/year/audio2019/autumn-2019-the-happy-twins