"Momentary delusions and confusions obscure our true nature, including our luminous heart, the bodhichitta, the awakened heart-mind-body consciousness that is within us all." Lama Surya Dass
Here I am, sitting on the balcony this morning, enjoying the scene before me. The air is cool from last night's rain, birds chirp in the trees, and a squirrel runs along the telephone wires. Yet, all is not well in this idyllic plain.
The thoughts in my mind break in, rumbling through this scene like a loud, obnoxious garbage truck. Conflicts real and imagined, points of disagreement, disconnects and dissatisfactions, all rushing in to fill the beautiful empty space in my awareness with an early morning collision of dissonance.
And yet, as I raise my eyes up from the imaginary garbage truck on the landscape before me, I see the blue sky unfolding in all directions. It is a scene of deep and saturated blues punctuated by wispy clouds advancing steadily.
This is what is known in Tibetan Buddhism, and in their indigenous Bön tradition, as Dzogchen, or the "Great Perfection". The basic idea being that our true nature is that of spontaneous and vast emptiness, expanding to infinity.
Yet, with that comes the corresponding challenge of cutting through the clutter of our mental formations to recognize that clarity on a moment by moment basis. Thankfully, the sky did that for me this morning. It brought me the recollection that I am not the thoughts gathered ominously in my mind.
And so I let them rumble around in my head, watching them, and then before too long...they dissipate, they're gone. I don't know where, or exactly how, but it points out their illusionistic nature. Continually rising and falling, this is karma in both the positive and negative senses of the word: action. Processes acting and playing themselves out across the clear space of my awareness.
Looking up into the sky now, all of the clouds are gone. It is just a blue expanse of emptiness. I breathe in, then out, deeply and slowly.
Here I am, sitting on the balcony this morning, enjoying the scene before me. The air is cool from last night's rain, birds chirp in the trees, and a squirrel runs along the telephone wires. Yet, all is not well in this idyllic plain.
The thoughts in my mind break in, rumbling through this scene like a loud, obnoxious garbage truck. Conflicts real and imagined, points of disagreement, disconnects and dissatisfactions, all rushing in to fill the beautiful empty space in my awareness with an early morning collision of dissonance.
And yet, as I raise my eyes up from the imaginary garbage truck on the landscape before me, I see the blue sky unfolding in all directions. It is a scene of deep and saturated blues punctuated by wispy clouds advancing steadily.
This is what is known in Tibetan Buddhism, and in their indigenous Bön tradition, as Dzogchen, or the "Great Perfection". The basic idea being that our true nature is that of spontaneous and vast emptiness, expanding to infinity.
Yet, with that comes the corresponding challenge of cutting through the clutter of our mental formations to recognize that clarity on a moment by moment basis. Thankfully, the sky did that for me this morning. It brought me the recollection that I am not the thoughts gathered ominously in my mind.
And so I let them rumble around in my head, watching them, and then before too long...they dissipate, they're gone. I don't know where, or exactly how, but it points out their illusionistic nature. Continually rising and falling, this is karma in both the positive and negative senses of the word: action. Processes acting and playing themselves out across the clear space of my awareness.
Looking up into the sky now, all of the clouds are gone. It is just a blue expanse of emptiness. I breathe in, then out, deeply and slowly.
The thoughts are like clouds. Oh this one looks like a rabbit, like a monster...watch them dissolve and clear the sky of the mind.
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