My Meditation Practice

08/07/2025

So, my suggestion for you is first to protect yourself before you die. Otherwise, there is a chance of experiencing so many eons in the lower realms and the unending heavy suffering. So, this is the immediate thing to do, because the nature of life is impermanent and death can come at any time, and then it is possible to be reborn in the lower realms, with no opportunity to practice Dharma, because one would be totally consumed by the unbelievably heavy suffering, which is so much heavier than any suffering in the human realm.

Whenever we have a human body, it is an incredible opportunity to have all happiness up until enlightenment. This is because we have the opportunity to practice. When we have stomach pain, we can’t meditate, it’s so difficult, unbearable. This is nothing compared to the suffering in the lower realms, this pain compared to that is great bliss. It is said that all the energy of all the fire on earth, if you combine it all together, that inconceivable fire is like cool air compared to how hot just one spark of fire is from the hell realms. So, you can imagine the unbelievable suffering in the hell realms, and how difficult it would be to practice Dharma. In the hell realms one has no opportunity to practice Dharma. Therefore, one has no opportunity to be liberated from the sufferings and the causes of suffering.

Now you can see why it is so important to immediately start practicing now, while one has the opportunity, so that one can again have a high rebirth, especially now when one is able to practice Dharma, when one has all the circumstances and the opportunity.

- Lama Zopa Rinpoche

From advice Rinpoche gave to a person who wrote to Rinpoche saying how he had killed his parents during a psychotic episode and wanted to know how to purify this action. You can read his letter and the rest of Rinpoche’s response if you feel like it https://www.lamayeshe.com/advice/killing-ones-parents 🌈 Image by I do not remember where I borrowed it from 🤪

04/07/2025

Advice to Myself

Stop living a false and empty life.
Drop those deceptions of your own mind
And endless projects that you don’t need!
Don’t make your head spin with the burden of strings of ideas that never come true
And endless distracting activities —
They’re just waves on water.
Just keep quiet.

~ Patrul Rinpoche

Text shared by Jiří Král 🙏💎 and Lama Michael for sharing ❤️

03/07/2025

If You Wish to Eat Me, Then Eat Me
Thanks to Naldjor ❤️🙏🏽

"When Milarepa was deep in his meditation practice, he lived alone in a small rocky cave. One day, after wandering in the mountains gathering food, he came back and found his cave filled with demons. They were horrible, ugly, frightening creatures — squatting everywhere, growling, laughing at him.

At first, Milarepa tried to teach them the Dharma. He sat calmly and spoke of impermanence, of emptiness, of compassion. But the demons only laughed louder, mocking him.

Next, Milarepa grew angry. He shouted at them, demanded they leave. He tried to scare them away. But the more he fought, the more solid and powerful the demons became, as if they were feeding off his fear and anger.

Realizing his efforts were useless, Milarepa paused. He remembered the true essence of his practice — not fighting with appearances, not clinging to fear or pride. So he softened. He sat down and said gently, “I accept you. You may stay if you wish. This cave is big enough for all of us.” Hearing this, many of the demons disappeared instantly, like mist touched by the morning sun.

But one demon remained. The biggest one, the most terrifying, its mouth open wide, dripping with blood. It seemed it would devour him whole.

Milarepa felt a deep surge of fear rise up — but he did not run. Instead, he walked straight toward the demon. He bowed low and placed his head inside the demon’s mouth, offering himself completely. “If you wish to eat me,” he said, “then eat me.”

In that moment of total surrender, without a trace of resistance or fear, the final demon vanished into nothingness."

Shared by Naldjor 🙏💎🌹

03/07/2025

Some free Therapy……

Find a TREE sit under it and place the back of your head on the trunk disconnect the mind and just witness the energy flow 😊

Forget your internet 🛜 connection and feel the connection to nature

I find myself so caught up in worrying about if my phone is fully charged or not I can forget to charge myself 😊 🔥❤️

18/06/2025

“Our greatest fear is that when we die we will become nothing. Many of us believe that our entire existence is only a life span beginning the moment we are born or conceived and ending the moment we die. We believe that we are born from nothing and that when we die we become nothing. And so we are filled with fear of annihilation.

The Buddha has a very different understanding of our existence. It is the understanding that birth and death are notions. They are not real. The fact that we think they are true makes a powerful illusion that causes our suffering.

The Buddha taught that there is no birth, there is no death; there is no coming, there is no going; there is no same, there is no different; there is no permanent self, there is no annihilation. We only think there is.

When we understand that we cannot be destroyed, we are liberated from fear. It is a great relief, We can enjoy life and appreciate it in a new way."

~ Thich Nhất Hạnh

Artist: Tenzing Rigdol

Shared by Deja Hu 🙏

06/06/2025

The Song of the Twelve Deceptions

Worldly affairs are all deceptive;
So I seek the truth in ultimate reality.

Excitements and distractions are illusions;
So I meditate on non-dual reality

Companions are deceptive;
So I remain in solitude.

Money and possessions are also deceptive;
So if I have them, I give them away.

Things in the outer world are all illusion;
The Inner Mind is that which I observe.

Wandering thoughts are all deceptive;
So I only tread the path of wisdom.

Deceptive are the teachings of convention, ultimate reality is that on which I meditate.

Books written in black ink are all misleading;
I only meditate on the pith-instructions of the whispered lineage.

Words and sayings, too, are but illusion;
At ease, I rest my mind in the effortless state.

Birth and death are both illusions;
I observe but the truth of no-arising.

The common mind is in every way misleading;
And so I practice how to animate awareness.

The practice of stilling the mind is misleading and deceptive; And so I rest in the realm of reality.

– Jetsun Milarepa

The Hundred Thousand Songs Of Milarepa

29/01/2025

3. The Sleepless Saint (Ram
Gopal) From the book Siddhi: A Guide to Paranormal Powers in Yoga and Buddhism

Yogananda grew up, and at the age of 17 or so, he met his guru, Sri Yukteswar, and he knew that this was his guru, but he still had a longing to go to the
Himalayas and be with the Yogis he had seen in a vision and heard about since childhood. So, one day, he asked his master if he could go to the Himalayas, where he hoped to go deeper into his meditation and achieve the highest level of spiritual awakening. He said that at this time, he still did not fully understand what a spiritual giant his master was. “Many hillmen live in the Himalayas yet possess no God−perception.” Yukteswar told him. “Wisdom is better sought from a man of realization than from an inert mountain.” Yogananda didn’t want to listen and asked him again. Yukteswar didn’t want to tell him no, so he simply hinted that it was him, and not a mountain that was Yogananda’s guru. So Yogananda packed a bundle of things to take with him and took off for the mountains.

He had heard about a saint who was so powerful that he never slept, this saint was known as Ram Gopal, and was a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. He got an idea that he would first meet the sleepless saint and get confirmation from him that he should find a cave in the Himalayas and meditate there for years at a time. He had heard where the sleepless saint lived, got instructions on how to find him and
took off.

On the way there he came to a famous shrine at Tarakeswar. Many people had experienced healing miracles there including Yogananda’s aunt, who went there seeking a cure for his uncle, and after fasting at the shrine for a week, an herb
materialized in her hand which healed him. Inside the shrine there is a round stone. It is a symbol of the infinite because as a circle, it has no beginning and no end. Yogananda felt that God should be sought only within the soul, and so he did not bow to the stone as was customary. Further on, after some bad directions from a person he met, he got truly lost.

He was wandering around in the middle of nowhere when the man he waslooking for simply walked up to him. He was a short “physically unimpressive
man” with piercing dark eyes. He told Yogananda that he was planning to leave that day but seeing that Yogananda had a good mission to find him, he waited around. Yogananda was speechless, not knowing how the man knew who he was.

Then he asked Yogananda where God was. When Yogananda said “everywhere” he asked why Yogananda didn’t bow before the circular stone at the temple the day before. (Since God is in the stone.) He laughed at Yogananda who was
burning up in the heat of the sun in the field where they were standing, and then emanated beams of energy out of himself which cooled Yogananda down and refreshed him.

He then said that he knew Yogananda was running away from his master and told him that the Himalayan mountains cannot be his teacher, and that a guru can show up anywhere in the life of anyone when that person is ready to go to the
ends of the earth to find their guru. He told Yogananda to return to his guru Sri Yukteswar and repeated Yukteswar’s words that “mountains cannot be your guru.” The sleepless saint then says…

“The Himalayas in India and Tibet have no monopoly on saints. What one does not trouble to find within will not be discovered by transporting the body hither and yon. As soon as the devotee is WILLING to go even to the ends of the earth for spiritual enlightenment, his guru appears near−by.” -Ram Gopal, in Autobiography of a Yogi

He then said something incredibly profound to Yogananda that is also good advice for me, and you, and all people who are living our lives within civilization, trying to survive in this world, and yet seeking the greatest spiritual powers of the
saints…

“Are you able to have a little room where you can close the door and be alone?” “Yes.” I reflected that this saint descended from the general to the particular with disconcerting speed. “That is your cave.” The yogi bestowed on me a gaze of
illumination which I have never forgotten. “That is your sacred mountain. That is where you will find the kingdom of God.” -Ram Gopal

So, we must all find our Himalayan cave, a place where we can practice our yogic science. In that moment Yogananda’s lifelong desire to live in a cave in the mountains vanished. Ram Gopal invited him to his house, they did meditation together, and Yogananda asked him to grant him a Samadhi, or a Shaktipat, (a direct transference of energy) but the saint said that he would soon receive that
from his master Sri Yukteswar, and that his body was not prepared for the divine current and might shatter like a light bulb that suddenly had 1,000 watts of electricity directed into it.

Yogananda asked the saint about his life, and he told him that for 20 years he meditated in a cave, meditating for 18 hours a day. Then he moved to another cave and meditated for another 25 years. By that time, he was able to meditate for 20 hours a day and did not need sleep ever again. He explained to Yogananda that in the superconscious state the muscles, heart, lungs, and circulatory system enter a state of suspended animation. Resting deeply, the body is supercharged by the cosmic current.

After telling him a story about the first time he met Babaji, which we will talk more about in chapter 8, the saint fell silent. Yogananda laid down and tried to sleep, (Ram Gopal himself simply did not need to) but he started to see the room filled with white light, and bolts of lightning flying everywhere all around him. Then he opened his eyes and continued to see it. The saint then told him he was
fortunate to be able to see the spiritual radiations.
The next morning Yogananda leaves, with tears in his eyes, he will miss Ram Gopal so much, and then continues his way back to the circular rock shrine at Tarakeswar, this time bowing deeply to the stone which symbolized the infinite cosmos. Then he returned to the ashram of his guru Sri Yukteswar.

04/01/2025

The reason why we can't find the mind when we look for it is that the mind doesn't have an essential nature of its own. This nonexistence is what the Buddha called 'emptiness', or 'shunyata'.

This emptiness does not need to be verified through complicated philosophical reasoning ; it is simply the nature, or essence, of the mind.
Both peacefulness and disturbing emotions arise from mind's nature. And this is not solid and dense ; rather, it is empty of inherent existence.

Because it is empty, it's nature cannot be harmed and does not become defective or degrade with age and illness. Because Buddha nature is essentially free from fault, we need not fear anything whatsoever. This peace, which is characteristic of mind, is also known as emptiness.

When we say that the mind is empty, we do not mean that it is a void in the way that space is empty. Space is indeed empty, but it does not have the ability to know, to see, or to reflect. Space is a "dead emptiness".

When we say that the nature of mind is emptiness, we mean that the mind is not a solid or fixed entity. It cannot be found, no matter where we look. Nonetheless it has the ability to understand and reflect.
This ability to think and know is what we mean when we speak of the mind's luminosity.

In the sutras, this luminosity is called 'Buddha essence'.
Buddha essence is the union of wisdom and space. But this space is an alive space.(Skt, dhatu), connoting spaciousness, vastness, and reality.

We call this spaciousness "emptiness", and by 'wisdom' we mean "the luminosity of the mind".
We might think that because the mind is empty it could not have the ability to know. But actually emptiness and luminosity are not contrary.
While the mind is empty, it is luminous. And just as it is luminous and aware, so it is entirely empty.

~ Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

Lama Khenno 🙏💎

Shared by Matthew Vagg 🌹

16/12/2024

EVERYWHERE IS A PURE LAND

When you experience that phenomena are unreal,
you will then be free from the concept of self and other, right and wrong, and free from the afflictions of greed, hatred, worry and pride. You will not need to search for peace and purity, and you will not need to detest evil afflictions and impurity.

Although you live in the world of phenomenal reality, to you, any environment is a Buddha’s Pure Land. To an unenlightened person, you are but an ordinary person. To you, all ordinary people are identical with Buddha.

You will feel that your own self-nature is the same as that of all Buddhas, and the self-nature of Buddhas is universal throughout time and space. You will spontaneously apply your wisdom and wealth, giving to all sentient beings everywhere, throughout all time and space.

~ Sheng Yen

Post by André A. Pais 🙏
Shared by Erik Jensen 🌹and Lama Michael for sharing

05/12/2024

30/11/2024

Soaring in Freedom

The appearance of Vajrayogini signals the Buddhist participation in the upsurge of Goddess worship throughout India and the Himalayas in the seventh and eight centuries.

One of the central insights of this religious revolution was the recognition that the female body is more universal than the male, for it contains, gives birth to, and nurtures all bodies, both male and female, and is therefore more encompassing in nature. Furthermore, the female body contains the mysteries of creation and generation, brining forth something where there was nothing, providing both space and substance necessary for existent to take shape.

Moreover, sakti, the sacred life force, is most concentrated in the female body, providing the heat and creative force for generation, as well as the energy for spiritual transformation.

Therefore, Ta***ic Buddhism was adding its voice to a chorus of Sakta theologies-Puranic, Pancaratra, Srividya, Kuala-proclaiming that ultimate reality may fittingly be envisioned as female, as a cosmic Goddess, in its creativity and transcendent non-duality.

Buddhist Goddesses of India.
~ Miranda Shaw

Shared by Matthew Vagg 💎🌹

25/11/2024

Blessed rising brothers and sisters.

My last public demonstration of Homa therapy will be on Sunday 15th of December 3:30pm to 5pm on the full moon. At Crystal Palace Yoga & Pilates
10 Westow St.
Crystal Palace
Upper Norwood
London
SE19 3AH

Please see a video and introduction explaining what agnihotra and homa therapy is. All are welcome to this free event.

https://youtu.be/tnSzK9Mijr4