Alejandro's report

"Long time no see" to me.

I've been having some really cool conversations with Villum on Gtalk and I figured I should be sharing this through my practice thread. So here it is:

When taking refuge a la vajrayana (ngondro), one visualizes Padhmasambhava in front of oneself, and all the buddhas and bodhisattvas spread out all over the sky. Then there are some other prayers to establish the qualities of the visualized. There's one bit in particular that made sense yesterday. In tibetan, one recites: Kyen-No and it means: be aware of me. The first time I heard that I was like "ok, so you ask the big dudes to be there for me, always watching over me". But yesterday it hit me: what else is aware of oneself like a guard, ready to detect the hindrances, poisons and neurosis, if not other than right mindfulness?

So there, one establishes right mindfulness outside oneself through the pure visualization of the pure beings. Why would one do that? I think its because sometimes it is difficult to give rise to it within oneself due to disturbances or thick fabrications. By giving rise to RM outside, one solves the problem and one can continue cultivating it until the disturbances are reduced.

But then, as I was reading Thanissaro's quote mentioned in Nikolai's last post ( thehamiltonproject.blogspot.mx/2012/10/a...n-khemaka-sutta.html ) I remembered the strategy in which one gets to a more refined mode of becoming, so that one does not create the fertile conditions for fabrications to arise again. And then it hit me again: what is the most refined mode of becoming if not Buddha Nature (BN) itself? What does Padmasambhava represent if not BN staring back at me? Could I flip perspectives and pretend that I am the external Padmasambhava staring back at Alex? Of course I could, but why would I do that? Continued below...

By establishing Padmasambhava outside myself, shifting perspectives by pretending I am padmasambhava staring back at Alex, I realized I was also practicing Kenneth's "Bystander" technique (it sees, it smells, it feels, it thinks, etc.) But the ngondro provides more cool strategies: when taking refuge, one is supposed to cultivate devotion, surrender, trust, etc. So yeah, one cultivates emptiness by giving up oneself, one's will, etc. We can also see that in Kenneth's "Paying the toll" metaphore. But, if I'm supposed to be pretending to be the external BN staring back at me (Padmasambhava) and if I look at the whole scenario as one big thing (panoramic contemplation of Alex, BN, time and place in a simultaneous way) then Alex reveals itself as a fabrication, karmic formation, etc. Alex is given so much priority over everything else that it feels existant and separate. Yet if Alex behaves like just another thought floating around this "Infinite consciousness", then it can rise, endure and cease naturally, specially if I'm pretending to be the already free external BN manifestation. This accelarates things a lot.

I see some parallels in Nik's last post as well:
"Experiment with dropping noting at this stage and just notice each of the components that make up that 'I am-conceit', let all those compounding factors show their origin and disappearance themselves."

Devotion, taking refuge, surrender and trusting, to me it feels exactly as dropping the I-am conceit so that it can rise, endure and cease. Effortless noting then is established with the external BN (way easier than Alex's effortless noting because Alex tends to exert redundant effort by default). So there, one has the perfect setting to clean the I am conceit. It definitely works for me. I hope this makes sense.

I've been experimenting with this too, with some instruction from Alejandro.
I haven't been doing the perspective-shifting, though. Instead, from the instructions i got, what i understood was that the visualization should arise not as something observed, but something unperspectival, with no (perceivable) distance between observer and observed, as an image made out of awareness experiencing itself as that image. Only then does some relationality come into it, as the purity of the self-experiencing arising begins to collapse duality, and "I" begin to feel the purity of the buddha-nature touching me.
At least, that's what it seems to me that i do. I might well be doing something much more dualistic, fabricated and ignorant.

The perspective-shifting, though, seems good in that it allows this mind to see some of the core-self-fabrication as just another happening. I have not yet learned to abide without holding some sensations of the unchanging ground of it's being (at least for very long), and therefore i like the idea of shifting perspectives into something pure and allowing what was self to be just another fixation of attention.

Sorry, my language is totally clumsy today. Hope you understand what i'm trying to say.

Perspective shifting, I think, must be practiced several times for it to make sense. If we don't know what BN looks like we can do the following:

We know "space" and space could be said it is refined mode of becoming. So first we can ask ourselves:
- Where is space? to direct the mind to space.
- What kind of space is there? To identify empty space and filled space (filled with things like furniture, bodies, matter, air, etc.)
- We explore de 6 consciousness and note the types of space there is: Empty, full, full, empty, full, empty, empty, full, etc..
- We create momentum of space-noting so that it becomes natural, spontaneous, organic and unwilled.
- We effortlessly notice if there's a fundamental difference between empty space and filled space.
- When realizing there is no difference, at that moment we can recognize the 5th jhana.
- From there we can ask ourselves "what is staring effortlessly at infinite space?" to jump into infinite consciusness and build up momentum to abide effortlessly there.
- When abiding effortlessly in infinite consciousness we can ask: what and where is the container of infinite consciousness to jump to nothingness, cultivate momentum and drop willed effort to abide in nothingness.
- From nothingness we can ask ourselves "how much effort is needed to perceive nothingess?" to discover no effort is needed and get to perception-no perception, build momentum to abide there and then cultivate "no abiding".

Does BN stare back at all the previous modes of becoming? Is there a difference between BN and the modes of becoming?

MU