The Buddha, The Dharma, The Sangha

"Spiritual powers and their wondrous functioning--hauling water and carrying firewood." --Layman Pang, upon his realization

Saturday, April 12, 2008


"...while walking in a park, the body may be in the park while the mind is off working in the office, or at home, or talking to a distant friend, or making a list of grocery.  That means the mind has disconnected from the body.  Instead, when looking at a flower, really look at it.  Be fully present. With the help of the flower, bring the mind back  to the park.  Appreciation for sensory experience reconnects mind and body.  When the experience of the flower is felt throughout the body, a healing occurs;  this can be the same when seeing a tree, smelling smoke, feeling the cloth of your shirt, hearing a bird call, or tasting an apple.  Train yourself to vividly experience sensory objects without judgment.  Try completely to be the eye with form, the nose with smell, the ear with sound, and so on.  Try to be complete in experience while remaining in just the bare awareness of the sensory object.

When this ability is developed, reactions will still occur.  Upon seeing the flower, judgements about its beauty will arise, or a smell may be judged to be foul.  Even so, with practice, the connection to the pure sensory experience can be maintained rather than continuing to become lost in the mind's distraction  Being distracted by a cloud of concepts is a habit and it can be replaced with a new habit:  using bodily sensual experience to bring us to the presence, to connect us to the beauty of the world, to the vivd and nourishing experience of life that lies under our distractions.  This is the underpinning of successful dream yoga."

--from "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep", by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Snow Lion Publications

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