Mahamudra and the Ships in the Harbor

I just posted a new dharma talk on the new website. It's the latest from the Tuesday night NYC classes. Enjoy!

kennethfolkdharma.com/2011/04/nyc-talk-m...ships-in-the-harbor/

Haven't listened to it yet but can't wait to do so. The new site is looking great!

Thanks, Joel. Yes, I feel good about the way the new site is shaping up and I'll continue to add both new and old content to it a little bit at a time. I hope you like the Mahamudra talk when you get a chance to listen to it.

Thank you Kenneth for this profound and poetic teaching!

Antero.

After practicing this for an entire day (yesterday) I really noticed a huge difference in overall feel. For a long while now I've been really focusing on the body, and much of the time I've been aware of pain, pressure, and other general negativity on a bodily level for a majority, or at least a good part of the day. Holding the mahamudra gesture and focusing on these points really allowed them to dissolve over time and I was actually feeling really good most of the day as a result.

I'm really enjoying this practice. I'm remembering more and more to incline my mind to it, and also learning how to keep it in focus while doing/or looking at other things.

Great!

I really like the idea of the tipping point--more awake moments than asleep ones. What a useful concept for pointing to the viability of enlightenment. Great talk!

Can't wait to listen to this tonight! I'm gathering your dharma talks together to take on my mini-retreat!

As I've said before, if you're ever needing any sort of audio/visual post-production done, be it with your podcasts or video stuff, (although they sound and look fine to me!) then just give me a shout as I'd be honoured to help in any way I can. The new site looks great, cleanly designed and well laid out, excellent work!

Great stuff. I think when KFD expands into merchandise the first T-shirt will have to say "Listen to the ships in the harbour and hang with the heavy cats from the days of yore."

@Mumuwu - can you gives us a taste of how you did this throughout the day? At the moment, I'm thinking of it as a kind of pause - are you doing in between or simultaneous with your other tasks?

Well, the key is that it's a sort of gesture of the mind. I kind of got that you could do it and look at something else during a talk with Kenneth yesterday. Holding the mind that way and allowing sadness to be there sort of allowed the sadness to slowly evaporate. The more you practice it the more you'll get how you can make the gesture (mahamudra) and do other things as well. Obviously if I lose it I listen for the ships, but you get a feel for the thing (the gesture - not for what you are trying to see/hear)... does that make sense?

I enjoyed the talk. Thanks for putting it up.

Regarding the new website: will the pages eventually be categorized like they are here?

Thanks mumuwu, that helps. I asked Kenneth the other day whether there was any difference in listening for the ships and becoming aware of awareness (i.e. the mahamudra) and he said that no, there wasn't. So I'm going about it a bit like I would 'listen' for something, that slight straining to hear, although very gentle and relaxed.

I've got a little chimer on my phone that goes off every hour or so, and I'll use it tomorrow to start doing the mahamudra.

That's an excellent talk, that simple technique is beautifully effective.

Thanks for the talk!
I tried it and thought I'd share my experience.
Initially I sort of focus in (intensify my concentration?) on the sounds I am listening for, far, far, away.
However, I get this feeling like when you're at a noisy party and try to listen to someone a bit away from you,.
I.e. I strain to hear what is being said.
Would this be similar to overstraining trying to find an answer to a koan? (getting a head-ache sort of)

Also, there is of course an element of trying to visualize what I am listening for, since the bay I am focusing on is far away.

I also really liked your picture of the tipping point! Thanks!

Thanks for the support, everyone! There is another NYC class coming up next week; I will try to say something useful and post it on the new site.

Nadav, to answer your question about making the new site easier to navigate: yes, I am trying to figure out how to do that. I have lots of expert help from Mumuwu and Omnipleasant, so we should be able to eventually make it simple and intuitive to find the content there. Also, I am updating and moving the content from this site little by little to the new site. (We will keep this site as the forum even after the new site is fully populated.) As you know, much of what is written here is a bit dated and does not reflect my current understanding. In time, I plan to update everything, but slowness is in my nature, so I hope you will all bear with me as I plod along.

Metta,

Kenneth

Kenneth, Mumuwu and Omnipleasant:

If you guys ever want to integrate the forum into the new KFD Wordpress site, then you should take a look at Tal.ki embeddable forums wordpress.org/extend/plugins/talki-embeddable-forums/

and also BBPress, which is a forum platform made by the same people who make Wordpress, and so should integrate quite seamlessly.
bbpress.org/

I think it would be a good move in the long run - then comments below Kenneth's articles and posts on the main site would be linked up with our forum accounts, and both Tal.ki and BBPress would offer some more advanced posting tools (the ability to add links, images, text formatting) - but it's probably a pretty big undertaking to move all the posts over to a new platform!

Anyway, if you ever consider doing it, I'd be happy to lend another pair of hands.

Andy

Thanks, Andy, this is great info. And thanks for the offer of help!

Kenneth