Amrita Mandala, Art, Awareness, Beauty, Bodhidharma, Books, Buddhism, Dharma, Dzogchen, Everyday life, Heritage, History, Japan, Landscape, Mahayana, Rinzai zen, Shamanism, Soto zen, Spirituality, Tantric, Taoism, Vajrayana, Yoga, Zen, Zen buddhism

Zen revitalisation?

A zen tradition that doesn’t separate buddhanature from substrate consciousness (skt. alaya vijnana), doesn’t speak or teach kensho but then claims to be able to just sit (j. shikantaza), that doesn’t have one on one instruction (j. sanzen/dokusan), that has no emphasis of any type of dynamicity or physicality in training, where lineage blessings go unnoticed, where students and roshis spend sesshin after sesshin half asleep, has got to be the most decadent form of Zen to ever exist. These are the very problems that Bodhidharma corrected by teaching the weak, sleepy and ignorant meditation monks dynamic movement practices but also how to transform, stretch and strenghten tissues (c. yijinjing) and how to transform all three bodies from samsaric to nirvanic state (c. xisuijing, bone marrow washing). It’s been long since Bodhidharma’s time but the state of some systems that claim to be zen buddhism merely based on lineage transmission and mimicked external form, proves that the deluded mind is master in deluding itself, without much ability to learn from the mistakes done by others. It is indeed difficult to find practitioners who are able to analyze and extract the essential meaning of dharma thus demonstrating abundant merit (skt. punya).

Baba,
Revitalized Zen
16 March 2025

Yes, this seems to be true; that the state of Zen lineages today is simply not producing Masters, as was the whole point of Zen training. The state of Dharma is seemingly in a bad shape all around. Therefore, I find it very refreshing and interesting to read such quotes as the one above. Here is the YouTube channel of Revitalized Zen, the facebook group and here is the blog. Excellent reading for any spiritual seeker 🙏🏼🪷

Barn, Books, Culture, DIY, Everyday life, Family, Finnmark, Hjemmeskole, Homeschooling, Indigenous, Landscape, Mental health, People, Photography, Womanhood

Hjemmeundervisning?

Noen gode åpenbare grunner jeg kom på til å kanskje velge hjemmeskole.

Alle foreldre vil jo det beste for sine barn. I det siste har vi tenkt mer og mer på å hjemmeundervise våre. Enn så lenge er de jo begge under 5 år, så vi har ennå litt tid på å ta avgjørelsen, men det er per nå hva som føles mest rett. Personlig kjenner jeg ennå på ettereffektene av 13 års skolegang (10 år grunnskole og 3 år videregående) og den skolevegringen som fargela alle de årene. Jeg er altså 33 år, men tenker fortsatt på det. Men ingenting er jo svart/hvitt; man kan for eksempel velge å hjemmeundervise de første årene, og så begynne på skolen ved et senere tidspunkt, for eksempel rundt tiårsalderen.

Er det noen av dere som leser dette innlegget som har noen erfaringer å dele på dette området?😊

Awareness, Beauty, Books, Buddhism, Culture, Dharma, Dzogchen, Heritage, History, Indigenous, Mahayana, Meditation, Spirituality, Tantric, Taoism, Yoga

Warrior who carries no weapons

Chatral Rinpoche (8. June 1913 – 30. December 2015). Yogi whom has helped me on my spiritual path 💎📿

You might spend your whole life pursuing only food and clothing,
With great effort and without regard for suffering or harmful deeds,
But when you die you cannot take even a single thing with you — consider this well.
The clothing and alms needed to keep you alive are all you need.
You might dine on the finest meal of delicious meat and alcohol,
But it all turns into something impure the very next morning,
And there is nothing more to it all than that.
So be content with life-sustaining provisions and simple clothes,
And be a loser when it comes to food, clothing and conversation.

No matter where you stay, be it a busy place or a solitary retreat,
The only things that you need to conquer are mind’s five poisons (jealousy, pride, anger, ignorance, attachment).
And your own true enemies, the eight worldly concerns (hope for pleasure and fear of pain, hope for gain and fear of loss, hope for praise and fear of criticism, hope for good reputation and fear of bad reputation).

There is no better sign of accomplishment than a disciplined mind.
This is true victory for the real warrior who carries no weapons.
When you practise the teachings of the sūtras and tantras,
The altruistic bodhicitta of aspiration and application is crucial,
Because it lies at the very root of the Mahāyāna.
Just to have this is enough, but without it, all is lost.

It is far better to eliminate your doubts and misconceptions,
By relying on the instructions of your own qualified teacher,
Than to receive many different teachings and never take them any further.

If you lack the wealth of contentment in your mind,
You’ll think you need all kinds of useless things,
And end up even worse than just an ordinary person,
Because you won’t manage even a single session of practice.
So set your mind on freedom from the need for anything at all.
Wealth, success and status are all simply ways of attracting enemies and demons.
Pleasure-seeking practitioners who fail to turn their minds from this life’s concerns
Sever their connection to the authentic Dharma.

Limit yourself to just a few activities and undertake them all with diligence.
Not allowing your mind to become fidgety and restless.

All quotes by Chatral Rinpoche

Adventure, Animals, Art, Awareness, Beauty, Books, Buddhism, Dharma, Dzogchen, Mahayana, Meditation, People, Relationship, Sámi, Spirituality, Vajrayana, Yoga

The healer within

The following text is from Barbara Brennan’s book “Light Emerging”, page 337 – 343 💜

“Once upon a time, aeons ago before time was known as it is today, there was a spark of light in the heart of the divine. That spark in the divine burst forth into millions of stars. Each star had a name that was written in the word of God. One of those stars is you. As a star, you grew and developed and sang across the heavens to the other stars. In this time before you were born as a human, you knew light, love, and wisdom. Being unborn, of course you had no body, so there was a great deal of freedom. You were completely aware of the essence of your being. You had great freedom to move about the universe at your will. You moved in the direction that you focused in. With your intention, you began creating things. If you had a wish, you automatically created it. You created stone and earth; tree and flower; star and planet; even cloud and wind.

Your essence moved easily, changing from one form to another. You experienced being a cloud, a moon, a sun, or a fish, or a cat. You continued to move as your pleasure led you. As you moved from one form to another, creating more forms, you slowly became identified with form, and shadow was born. You got so excited in the creating that memory slipped and you forgot who you were. You were so busy creating, you didn’t even notice that you began to think you were form.

Shadow grew darker, and pain was born out of forgetting that the true self is essence. The true self is the creator, that which is beyond form. That is how you created shadow and pain. You forgot who you are. You split yourself in two: the part that forgot and the whole that remembers.

Within every human being, there is the spark of the divine in every cell of your body. It is the essence of self. Within that true essence of who you are is the healer within you who has all of the creative power of the universe. The healer within you is named according to the word of God. That is who you truly are. Move your awareness now to your inner essence, your power and light that are completely unique. You are the word of God made manifest. Move your awareness to the total essence of your being—that is the healer within you. You have felt it your entire life. The golden threads of this power have been woven through the tapestry of your life since before you were born. You knew as a small child, as you know now, what this means. Feel the essence, the power, flowing through you. It is your uniqueness. It is your beauty. It is your love. It is the sweetness that you experienced life to be as a child.

Your power lies within the sweetness of who you are. It is within the sweet longings you have protected and shielded from others. You are like a flower unfolding in the sunlight. Feel the power and the nature of your divinity, unlike any other. Now ground that well in your body. That part of you is still free. That part of you can still move freely through space, time, and other realities. Feel yourself in this freedom now. As you are moving through time and space to different types of reality, in the far distance you hear a cry. That cry wells up and becomes more audible, and you say, “Oh, what could that be?” You hear the longing in the cry for help. Then you spot it and you see the beautiful blue and white shimmering planet in the sky. You are drawn closer to that beloved planet by the cries of need. As you get closer, you say, “What can I do to help? How can I answer this cry, this call? How can I help heal the pain that is upon the earth?” Then you have a great idea. You decide to create a physical form by drawing it up out of the earth and drawing the pain with it. You intend to use the physical form to heal the pain. You descended into a tiny physical body.

After nine months or so, you were born into this world as a human being. The longer you remained attached to that body, the dimmer the memory of your original essence became. As a child, and perhaps way before that, you began taking on the pain. During the experience of the pain, you completely forgot who you were. When the pain would leave, you would remember. When the pain would come back, you would forget. The pain that you chose to heal grew inside of your body.

Look over your childhood. Find the deepest pain that you have carried in all those years. With that pain, you will find your deepest longing. What is it that you want to be? What is it that you longed to be as a child that you now and then thought you could never be? Did you want to move among the stars? Did you want to heal everyone on earth? Did you want to paint or to create beautiful music? Did you want to make everyone feel safe? What was it that you wanted more than anything? If you could be or could have anything you wished on earth, have any fantasy come true, what is that fantasy? How is the un-fulfillment of that related to your very deep pain?

Look backward over your life. As you moved through each moment of your life carrying that pain, there is one thread: a repeated cycle on the spiral of life, where that deepest pain from childhood has been repeated over and over and over again in the many different experiences that you have had. If you look at all of those experiences, you will find a common thread among them all. When you find that common thread, then allow yourself to begin feeling that pain. Allow your body to experience this pain. Where has it affected your body? When you feel it in your body, where does your body tense? Explore now throughout your body where that pain has affected your psychic, your spiritual, your mental, your psychological, and your physical being. That thread runs holographically through every portion of your being, and as it runs through your body it hits in particular places that eventually become experienced as physical pain. Find it in your body. If you are sensitive to the auric field, then find it in the auric field.

As you find that pain, on whatever level it has manifested most profoundly—perhaps a fear, perhaps a problem with relationship, perhaps in a physical disorder, perhaps in your profession—then ask yourself a question: “What has this to do with my deepest longing? How is this particular problem associated with my deepest longing of who I wish to be, what I want to do with my life, where I wish to live?” The first job you have is to heal that pain within the body. For it is by the pain in your body and life that you will learn the personal skills that you need to fill your longing, no matter what it is. Find that pain within your body, and put your hands on it: that which you have carried for a lifetime, that darkest belief system that has the most profound forgetting, that one major, deepest pain, be it in your heart, your belly, or in your throat. Put your hand there now, and experience the consciousness there that believes in separation. It is the shadow. It believes it is separate and isolated from everything, isolated and separate with no hope. Find that pain that has been there from the earliest of days, and let that shadow begin to dissolve. Enter into the shadow. Accompany yourself into the dungeon within the self that needs healing. Do not deny the human experience of that real pain from the human perspective. It is not a new pain. It has been there ever since you can remember. It is not the kind of pain that goes away easily, for it is deeply, deeply ingrained. Spend some time with the pain. Then when you are ready, move your conscious awareness to the healer within you. Here is your wisdom. Here is your longing and your light with which you came here to heal the pain that is in your body. Move back to the pain and feel the pain. Then move to the longing and feel the longing. Move back to the pain and then to the longing again. Continue moving from one to the other until you find the association between the two, until you can answer the question, “What does this pain in my life mean to me? What is it trying to tell me? What is the message it brings to me?”

While you are feeling that pain with your hands, from the human perspective, ask the essence of healer that you are what you need to do. What is the deepest cause of this pain? Ask for help to heal this pain. Ask the healer within for help to heal that which you have been unable to heal in yourself up until now. Truly ask, and it shall be answered. Ask very specifically what you can do. What is the cause? What is the belief system? What do you need to do every day? Allow the essence of the healer within you to work through your hands to heal your body. Be a channel to heal the self. Let the light flow through you. After you have received as much information as you can, reach for the highest spiritual reality you know; your higher self or your guides. Reach for the memory of who you are from that highest spiritual reality. You will find that the pain within you is precisely the pain that you were drawn to earth to heal, way back before you were born, when you were that wondrous spiritual being. That is who you truly are. So reach up to that part of the self that has incarnated in order to heal the very pain that you carry within yourself and that you have carried since your birth. For it is precisely the pain you have come to heal, and it is you who have chosen to take on this pain and in doing so you chose to incarnate with precisely the best combinations of energies and wisdom and love to heal that particular pain. That is what you have come to heal, and you are fully equipped to do so. You have fully equipped yourself to heal it. And that wondrous spiritual being that you were before your birth when you heard the cries and the longing from the earth and were drawn toward the earth is the healer within you.

You are the person who knows how to heal that pain more than anyone else. That is your healer within. Be the healer within you, and heal that thread of pain that you have carried throughout your whole life. Touch your body in places you feel pain. As you are working, move your consciousness back and forth between the healer within and the inner person who is in pain. As you continue to move back and forth, you begin to understand the relationship between the healer within you and the pain that it has come to heal. You have drawn this pain up from the earth to transform it. Give yourself plenty of time to complete this process. You are integrating the pain within, the longing that you carry within your heart, and the healer within that can heal you. Let the healer within you draw out that pain and return you to wholeness. Move back and forth between the human with the deep pain, and the healer with universal power. Move them closer and closer together as you move back and forth until they merge. Continue the process until you become completely merged. When you feel satisfied that the merging is complete and has stabilized, I would like you to remain silent for at least an hour. Remain silent, sit in meditation, or simply get up and go for a walk in the woods.”

Books, Everyday life, List, Spirituality

No mud, no lotus

 

Høsten er en alltid en fin og fargerik påminnelse om forandring og det forgjengelige.

Jeg liker lister, lister er både gøy å skrive og å lese, så her er en liten liste over ting jeg…

Burde: Stå opp tidligere og ikke starte dagen med kaffe, men ordentlig frokost. Har blitt en sånn en!

Skal: Bruke dagen i dag på å få unnagjort ting jeg har utsatt; svare på mailer, bestille legetimer og få pressa inn noen timer med sitting (meditasjon).

Har dilla på for tiden: Nutella. Er maktesløs mot Nutella.

Ønsker å bli bedre i: Å kommunisere! Jeg har ingen problem med å skrive ting, men skulle ønske jeg var flinkere til å si ting, ikke være så konfliktsky.. Det er vel en øvingssak?

Leser nå: The Lotus Sutra og One Taste av Ken Wilber. Han skriver bra, veldig bra. Har kommet sånn 20 sider inn i boka, og har allerede flirt og grått. Skal sjekke ut flere av hans bøker etter denne. Har lagt til en widget nederst på bloggen til GoodReads-profilen min, sånn btw:)

Gleder meg til: Retreats i både november og desember. Samt kunstutstillingen jeg skal ha på SevenDesign rundt nyttår! Det blir stas.

Gruer meg til: HPV-vaksinen. Haha. Ikke fordi jeg er redd sprøyter, men jeg vet aldri hvordan kroppen reagerer, eventuelle bivirkninger og sånt.

Sparer penger til: Retreats. Og reising.

Prøver å ikke gjøre mer: Utsette ting.

Savner: Sommeren.

Jobber mot: Male nok bilder til en ny utstilling til neste år.

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Kommentér gjerne om du har flere punkt jeg kan adde til lista mi 🙂

Books, Culture, Dharma, Spirituality

Books

Some books I 1) have read and loved, 2) plan to read and 3) am currently reading 🙂

1)

* Stones to Shatter the Stainless mirror: The fearless teachings of Tilopa to Naropa:

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Excerpt from the book: “…I suppose that is the secret and the point of this Vision. In every situation, there is the relative view; where there are others and a world to serve with loving-kindness, compassion and generosity. And there is also the Ultimate view; where there are no others and no world. Only the mind of clear light, manifesting in the various illusions.”

This book really hit home for me; it’s easy to read,  is filled with wisdom but also some funny parts that I could recognize from my own path. It’s written in a way that shows Naropa’s own point of view and the hardships he went through to humble himself enough to receive the teachings of Tilopa. Also, there are some direct “pointers to the moon” by Tilopa at the very end of the book.

* The Life of Milarepa

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“It presents a quest for purification and buddhahood in a single lifetime, tracing the path of a great sinner who became a great saint. It is also a powerfully evocative narrative, full of magic, miracles, suspense, and humor, while reflecting the religious and social life of medieval Tibet.

I have heard this book three times on audio, and it actually only gets better each time. The words are collected and written down by Tsangnyön Heruka (“The madman Heruka from Tsang”), and tells the story of Milarepa‘s physical and spiritual journey towards enlightenment. It’s written in quite a humorous way, I think, and has been very inspirational for me. Actually planning on hearing/reading it again very soon!

2)

* White Lotus: An explanation of the Seven Line prayer to Guru Padmasambhava

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“Mipham Rinpoche’s famous explanation of the Seven Line Prayer to Guru Rinpoche. In this remarkable text the author explains the Seven Line Prayer in the context and application of the main practices of the Nyingma school, including Trekchö and Tögal in an exceptionally clear and accessible manner. ”

Actually found this book as a free pdf file HERE!

* Lady of the Lotus-born: The life and Enlightenment of Yeshe Tsogyal

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“This classical text is not only a biography but also an inspiring example of how the Buddha’s teaching can be put into practice. Lady of the Lotus-Born interweaves profound Buddhist teachings with a colorful narrative that includes episodes of adventure, court intrigue, and personal searching.”

I ordered this book from Amazon about a week ago; patiently waiting for it to drop into my mail box! I have been fascinated by, and feel very close to, Yeshe Tsogyal for the last 6 months or so, so am very excited to start reading this book. I normally order books to my Kindle app, but there is something very nice about having the book physically in your hands too 🙂 Especially if you are in a coffee shop reading, which I often do.

* Sky Dancer: The secret life and songs of the Lady Yeshe Tsogyal

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Another book on Yeshe Tsogyal. Not much on this book when I google it, but still seems worth reading and easy to order for my Kindle app. The cover shows a picture of Vajrayogini/Naljorma – one of Yeshe Tsogyal’s aspects.

* The Life of Longchenpa: The Omniscient Dharma King of the Vast Expanse

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“Compiled from numerous Tibetan and Bhutanese sources, including Longchenpa’s autobiography and stories of his previous lives and subsequent rebirths, The Life of Longchenpa weaves an inspiring and captivating tale of wonder and magic, of extraordinary visions and spiritual insight, set in the kingdoms of fourteenth-century Tibet and Bhutan. It also reveals for the first time fascinating details of his ten years of self-exile in Bhutan, stories that were unknown to his Tibetan biographers.”

Since I loved The Life of Milarepa so much, I have been looking for more biographies on spiritual teachers to read, and stumbled upon this one on Longchenpa, a teacher from the Nyingma lineage. These kinds of biographies seems to be very inspiring and motivational for my own path, and I just generally enjoy reading about other people’s path, and the way they deal with hardships and challenges. Still have not ordered this one, but it’s on my list!

3)

* The Heart of Compassion: The thirty seven verses on the Practice of a Bodhisattva

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“What would be the practical implications of caring more about others than about yourself? This is the radical theme of this extraordinary set of instructions, a training manual composed in the fourteenth century by the Buddhist hermit Ngulchu Thogme, here explained in detail by one of the great Tibetan Buddhist masters of the twentieth century, Dilgo Khyentse.

Only just started on this one, think I am on page 4. I have been meaning to read Dilgo Khyentse’s autobiography Brilliant Moon for some time, but then I stumbled upon this book instead and will finish this before I start on the other. Dilgo Khyentse is by far one of the most inspirational buddhist teachers I know of, so looking forward to see if I like this text.

* Wild Ivy: The spiritual autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin

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“Hakuin Zenji (1689-1769) is a towering figure in Japanese Zen. A fiery and dynamic teacher and renowned artist, he reformed the Zen Rinzai tradition, which had fallen into stagnation and decline in his time, revitalizing it and ensuring its survival even to our own day. Hakuin emphasized the importance of zazen, or sitting meditation, and is also known for his skillful use of koans as a means to insight.”

I am, unfortunately, a very slow reader and have spent a few months on this book, but I really do like it and plan on finishing it. It’s filled with personal accounts of Hakuin and also some lovely calligraphy paintings.

* More than Two: A practical guide to ethical polyamory

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As the title implies, this is a book about polyamory. As a person who is relatively new to this kind of relationship structure, I thought I could use some pointers. Only read the introduction so far, but it seems promising.

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If you have any books to recommend, please do not hesitate to comment or link it to me 😀