James Low

Lahr, Germany, 5th-6th December, 2009
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Transcribed by Sarah Allen
Edited and revised by James Low

 Excerpts:

… Sitting quietly in meditation you can examine the birth of samsara, when the openness of the mind gets lost sight of, as the subject is mesmerised by the object and so forgets its own ground…
 

…Thoughts are very fragile; they don’t live very long and they can’t do very much. There is no end to thinking and thoughts do not establish anything reliable. However, we use these thoughts to create the whole world. Every day we are constructing this great edifice of samsara with our thoughts. Thoughts are very young, they like to play. Let them play. The point here is, don’t ask your thoughts to give you the meaning of existence. They cannot do that. Don’t ask thoughts to do what they can’t do…

…Tantra is a path of activity, and one of its strengths is that it gives us something to do. There are mudras to do with your hands, a dorje and bell to hold, instruments to play, things to read, and many things to visualise. The beauty and the skilful organisation of these patterns of movements allows such a focus of attention that there is no spare aspect of the mind to be caught up in distraction. In tantra you are working with energy, with the transformation of your experience of what is occurring.  However in dzogchen one is concerned simply to relax into the natural purity of the open state…