Awakening the Luminous Mind: Tibetan Meditation for Inner Peace and Joy (19 page)

Trusting in this process may help to encourage you to turn toward the inner refuge again and again, and that trust can also provide comfort and protection in difficult times. Yet simply trusting or believing what the teachings are saying is not enough. It is important for each of us to discover the truth of the teachings for ourselves, experientially. Apply the medicine in your life directly to the suffering you experience. You will see the proof. Be open to trusting, but take the medicine.

Imagine going to a fine restaurant and reading the menu; do you think that by reading the menu alone you are getting a nourishing meal? Of course, this sounds ridiculous. But this is, in effect, what we do in Western culture: we read a lot and think we know because we can intellectually understand what we have read, and we leave it at that, looking for the next “spin” to keep us going on the path. But this will not help free us from suffering and ignorance. Unless we engage the practice through coming to stillness, silence, and spaciousness, we are just like that person reading the menu but failing to eat. I encourage you to look deeper. Find your personal frontier of discomfort and be present there, open and aware. Host your experience fully, in open awareness. Do not disconnect from yourself by pursuing thinking or analysis. Be present. Warmly present. Be alive and awake in each moment of your life. You will be rewarded beyond the imaginations of ego.

Meditation is not just passively sitting and observing life flowing by. Rather it is an active process of engaging in transformation. Some may think you are wasting time by meditating. They would advise you to go to a movie or on a vacation rather than meditate, which looks like sitting and doing nothing. But no one else can know how much you are disconnecting from your unhealthy patterns and charging your battery by sitting and reconnecting with the source of being. Sitting down and being aware, you are changing your life. Stopping and reconnecting to the refuge of your inner being, even for a moment, you are changing your life. What you overlooked or thought was nothing becomes the deepest treasury imaginable. Perhaps like the old monk that I encountered in Tibet, you too will realize that you have everything you need to practice for the rest of your life, and in so practicing will discover the gifts available to you, sharing them with countless others you will encounter throughout your life.

A
FTERWORD

Awakening the Luminous Mind
completes a series of three books that present meditation instructions and practices useful to opening the three doors of body, speech, and mind, and to discovery of the treasury of the natural mind. I have found these simple practices most essential to support transformation and realization in myself and in my students. The meditation practices are the Nine Breathings of Purification and the
Tsa Lung
exercises, found in
Awakening the Sacred Body;
the Five Warrior Syllables, found in
Tibetan Sound Healing;
and now abiding in the inner refuge and the Fivefold Teaching of Dawa Gyaltsen, as presented in this book. Through learning and applying these practices, the very suffering experienced by so many through the three doors of body, speech, and mind can be recognized as opportunities for finding and connecting to our deeper, inherent wisdom. Deep healing and transformation become possible in so doing. I feel fortunate to have received these teachings, which articulate how our pain becomes a path to liberation. I continue to take these teachings to heart every day. I offer them as my gift to you. May these teachings transform your life as they have mine. May all of our endeavors result in much-needed enlightened expression and activity in our world!

A
PPENDIX

Inner Refuge

Body
The center of the victorious mandala, one’s own body,
The source of all positive qualities without exception,
Is the expanse within the three channels and the five chakras.
I take refuge in this body of emptiness.

Speech
All the gathered clouds of suffering and misery
Are completely cleared by the wisdom wind,
Revealing the unelaborated, primordially pure expanse of the sky.
I take refuge in this body of light.

Mind
From the pavilion of the five wisdom lights,
Rays from nondual spheres of light emanate,
Clearing the webs of the darkness of ignorance.
I take refuge in this body of great bliss.

Dedication

All pure virtue done through the three doors,
I dedicate to the welfare of all sentient beings of the three realms.
Having purified all afflictions and obscurations of the three poisons,
May we swiftly achieve the complete buddhahood of the three bodies.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Through the immeasurable generosity and kindness of my teacher, Yongdzin Sangye Tenzin Rinpoche, I received the teachings of Great Perfection, the highest vehicle among the Bön teachings. He accepted me as his student when I was a teenager, and from the beginning through completion, transmitted the core teachings of the Zhang Zhung Nyen Gyü cycle to me. The essence of those teachings are in this book. Even though he has passed away, his blessing and inspiration continue in my life.

I thank Menri Lopon Trinley Nyima, who was kindly available to look up references and discuss various points related to the dzogchen teachings presented here.

I wish to acknowledge my students throughout the world. I hold all of them dear in my heart. I particularly honor those who have loyally and consistently followed my teaching. Over time they have persisted and overcome many challenges and obstacles on the path. They continue to provide a mirror for my own journey. We have grown together. You cannot see your face unless there is a mirror; you cannot recognize your strength unless there is vulnerability, or find compassion unless there is need. By sharing their hearts with me, they have allowed me to mature as a teacher.

This is the third book that my student, Marcy Vaughn, has edited. The particular beauty of this book is a product of our evolving relationship in working together. She has assisted me in expressing the deep wisdom of these often complex teachings in a very simple, warm, accessible manner. I am grateful for her help. I envisioned these three books as the cornerstones for a program to bring practices of body, speech, and mind from my tradition to a wider audience. The Three Doors training program is the vehicle to bring these practices to those who are ready. I wish to thank Kallon Basquin, who, as the director of this emerging program, has worked tirelessly in the last couple of years. Without him, manifestation would not have been possible. I thank him for his dedication to this vision and to me personally.

I thank Patricia Gift, my editor at Hay House, for her enthusiasm for this current project and the care and advice she offered while bringing it to fruition.

Sue Davis-Dill, as the executive director of Ligmincha Institute, has assumed much responsibility in so many different areas both in the U.S. and worldwide, which has opened up space for me to expand my work and teachings. While not directly part of this book, her support gives me a necessary freedom to teach throughout the world.

My wife, Khandro Tsering Wangmo, has been generous and patient through all phases of my life and work. I am deeply grateful for her support. My son, Senghe, has helped me to grow and cultivate a warm heart. He provides unceasing opportunity to continually exercise my capacity to maintain warmth through stillness, silence, and spaciousness!

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is an acclaimed author and teacher of students around the world. He is highly respected for his depth of wisdom, his engaging teaching style, and his ability to make ancient Tibetan teachings clear, accessible, and relevant to the lives of Westerners. Tenzin Rinpoche is the founder and spiritual director of Ligmincha Institute, a nonprofit organization in Shipman, Virginia, dedicated to preserving the ancient teachings, arts, sciences, language, and literature of Tibet and Zhang Zhung, the ancient kingdom associated with the Bön tradition. He is the author of
Tibetan Yogas of Body, Speech, and Mind; Awakening the Sacred Body; Tibetan Sound Healing; The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep; Healing with Form, Energy, and Light; Wonders of the Natural Mind;
and
Unbounded Wholeness
(with Anne Klein). Tenzin Rinpoche resides in California with his wife and son. For more information about Tenzin Rinpoche’s activities, please visit
www.ligmincha.org
.

Tenzin Rinpoche has created a secular educational organization called Three Doors: Transformations of Body, Speech, and Mind, in order to offer instruction in the teachings described in this book, through workshops and retreats. It is hoped that these simple and profound practices will make their way into prisons and hospitals, boardrooms and think tanks, classrooms and studios, and that they will transcend barriers of culture and belief to support many who could benefit from their potent medicine. Please visit the website for more information and to participate in this venture, if you are moved to do so at:
www.the3doors.org
.

P
RACTICE
N
OTES

Hay House Titles of Related Interest

YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE, the movie
,
starring Louise L. Hay & Friends
(available as a 1-DVD program and an expanded 2-DVD set)
Watch the trailer at:
www.LouiseHayMovie.com

THE SHIFT, the movie
,
starring Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
(available as a 1-DVD program and an expanded 2-DVD set)
Watch the trailer at:
www.DyerMovie.com