Shine and Vipassana. Extracted from The Happy Twins, Eifel 2019

James Low

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

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.

Transcribed by Jo Feat

Edited by Barbara Terris

… Before we are ready to do dzogchen and mahamudra practice we need to be able to focus. Shine is described as a preparatory practice because it helps train us to focus. On a relative level, we can focus our attention and energy on many things. Some may seem more meaningful than others… Attention gives identity. When you become distracted in meditation and you put your energy into the thought that is carrying you away, you are maintaining your identity. When you manage to sit for a while just on the breath, you have no identity. It is just peaceful and calm, but no sense of self is being constructed out of that….

… The basis in mahamudra and in dzogchen is staying with the simplicity of the manifest. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have thoughts and experiences, but you need to see their function as a kind of playfulness. They are a tonal quality.

Read the full 6 page transcript here.

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