Embodied Enlightenment

~ Love in practice ~

From a Buddhist perspective and from the Buddha himself, you are perfect and complete and lacking nothing!

At the moment of the Buddha’s enlightenment he realised that he had always been enlightened – that it was the obscurations of his mind, caused through familial and societal conditioning, that veiled his inherent enlightenment from his awareness.

Since his enlightenment, some 2500yrs ago, Buddhist practices have been developed and perfected to clear these obscurations in the mind. Thousands of practitioners in the various Buddhist lineages have, as a result of coming to their own self-realisation, verified this to be true – that they had always been enlightened, that they have been perfect and complete from the beginning.

This edition of Beyond the Edge examines a quote from Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. His quote invites each of us to go to the edges of the conditioning in our minds – what we chase after and what we reject – in short, our judgements. To see them, become them, and let them go. In this way we have the profound opportunity to go beyond the edges of their limiting reflections of our trained minds and realise for ourselves our inherent, undistorted perfection -our enlightenment.

“The perfect method for becoming quickly accustomed to the unfabricated state of awareness is to have devotion for the enlightened beings and compassion for the unenlightened beings. Then, as it is said, ‘in the moment of love, the empty essence dawns nakedly’. Devotion and compassion are both love. Body, speech and mind can feel overwhelmed with love, and if you then look inwardly, it is like a sun unobscured by clouds. This is how practitioners could attain enlightenment without being learned.”                                                            – Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche.

In Tibetan Buddhism, a tulku is an individual who is spiritually advanced to direct their reincarnation and be able to guide their followers to find their next physical embodiment. Rinpoche, is an honorific term used in the Tibetan language. It literally means “precious one”, and may refer to a person, place, or thing—like the words “gem” or “jewel”. Rinpoche is used in the context of Tibetan Buddhism as a way of showing respect when addressing those recognised as a reincarnated accomplished teacher of the Dharma.

When a Tulku Rinpoche speaks or writes, their words are true and selected with care, without exaggeration or embellishment.

Referring to Tulku Urgyen Rinponche’s quote but said differently…

A tried and tested practical methodology which will rapidly bring you into pure and authentic alignment, is one that cultivates love for both the pure and impure, for the greater and the lesser ones, for the things you like and the things you don’t. In this practice of love, the bare, un-manipulated state of reality breaks open. This embrace of a love-filled-life can come with powerful energy, and if directed inwardly, will reveal your innate deep clarity, beyond the edges of your conditioning.

Or…

The practice of active Love (kindness, at-one-ment, embrace, non-judgement, acceptance etc.) for (i) the beings you consider to be evolved and the beings you consider to be un-evolved, and (ii) the parts of yourself you consider to be bright, shiny, and good, and those parts you believe to be dark, icky, and unacceptable, is the fasted way to enlightenment!

Pretty straight forward and simple! Right? But HOW do you practice this LOVE?

You practice love by having compassion and love for all the parts of yourself. All the parts? Yes, all the parts. And all the time. Nothing left out, ever. The only limitation to your capacity to love all your parts, and by extension all the parts of others, is not knowing all of your parts.

Using transformational awareness practices – like meditation – to slow the moments of your life down to be able to be present enough to observe the causes of the manner in which you behave, and what your behaviour in turn causes, will aid you to find more aspects of yourself to love.

If you can’t see your behaviour, or its causes and resulting effects, you haven’t slowed down enough to see what needs witnessing. Slow down more. Take up a practice that allows you a steady and spacious looking glass to clearly see what is going in your consciousness. The non-distracted stillness of meditation offers a powerful lens into the cause-and-effect sequencing of thought and the words and actions that follow.

Once you can witness this for yourself, compassion will naturally arise allowing you to practice embodying enlightenment through love in action in your relationships with others. The more you can practice accessing the tumult of pain and suffering within yourself by getting to what is under the habitual responses to triggering circumstances, the more you will be able to stand steady and observe and practice love in the moments when others trigger you. And, once you have done this a few times and found the transformation and healing available to you there, you will know it to be true, and possible.

Consequently, you will begin to adopt this practice of loving yourself and others more readily, and with greater and greater equanimity. Little by little (and if you’re sincerely committed, by leaps and bounds), you will enter the Way of the Heart. You will have learned how to actively and powerfully direct the transformational energy of love. More and more, through trust, experience and wisdom, you will follow this love path – which, as Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche says, is the fasted way to enlightenment!

Every offering at BEZA is an opportunity for you to hone your capacity for the transformational medicine of love.

Nangaku    

Dear Earth Beings,

Here is something for you to investigate in this moment, or perhaps for the rest of your life…

My spiritual Grandfather, Baba Credo Mutwa – High Sanusi, Sangoma and Spiritual Elder of the Zulu people was the great record keeper of the ancient stories of the African people. He wrote the first African Bible which speaks very clearly and articulately about the genesis of humanity.

Baba would teach through storytelling. In these stories was an invitation to the mystery to self-awareness and self-knowing. He once told me this story…

“The first creators and harvesters of Gold were initiated woman. Only initiated woman knew the secret of seeding and harvesting Gold.”

First, let us not forget that (at the time) the largest military manoeuvre occurred on planet earth to secure a certain volume of Gold by colonising forces. Before we had the miners, machinery and industrial equipment that would invade our beautiful mother and extract from her this pure substance we call Gold, without permission, for profit and benefit of self, for elevation and power, before all that, women would enter Mother Earth with their sacred ways. They would seed, cultivate and then harvest Gold in minuscule proportions – as medicine.

What was that activity?

It was a secret only known to initiated woman. I do not have the answer. I have been working on this ever since I heard this story.

As we are working through the Grounded Earth Advanced Training Module at BEZA, who or what is this Mother? This Gold that we adorn our shrines with? What is the seeding of your pea inside your bowl of soil and the harvesting of this life – the secret only known to the Yin, Feminine element? What were the initiated women doing in Mother Earth? How were they seeding and harvesting Gold. What is the secret of self-knowing behind the story?

The thin layer of soil that surrounds the Earth is 500 Billionths of the distance from the center to the edge of the Earth – soil’s thickness is 0,000000005% of Earth’s radius. That is how thin the soil layer is!

Who cares how thin the soil is?

You stand on a fraction of Earth’s spherical circumference – a fraction of the 500 billionths. On your feet you stand tall. The energies of this universe travel through you to the center of the Earth and through the center of the Earth into the heavens. You are a specific kind of conduit of energy. The conduit functions when you stand firmly in place, in the moment, on the very ground only you occupy right now. What is the functioning of your conduit – what is your Earthly function?

All life as we know it lives and occupies time and space on this very thin cuticle that surrounds Mother Earth. Every creature around you, every object, is definable or knowable by its edge. Without the edge we cannot see where it begins – what it is. That very edge gives you and the thing – the object or creature – the cognition of its particular kind of existence.

You have an edge. It is protecting, serving, creating definition and holds the definition of who it is you are. We do not pay attention to the edge. If the edge of things was not there, if your edge was not there, what would there be? Who would you be? That is the secret. Who are you without the edge?

Our thoughts have edges. Our stories have edges. Our way in the world manufactures, creates and proceeds through this life, acknowledging, responding and resisting, and integrating with all kinds of edges. Yet in this modern society, and new-age movement, we are all talking about oneness. What is this so called Oneness? Oneness of what?

All the work we do here at BEZA – all of it, is to invite you to the edge of what it is that you believe is creating your definition and purpose in this space and time that you are occupying right now – in this moment. There is a vitality to the function that only you can perform because only you are located on this membrane, as a membraned being, fulfilling a unique kind of function in that location. What is that function and in relation to who or what?

Only when the edge disappears may we know what that function is – what or who we are serving. When we go beyond the edge we connect to all of it, to it all, and become it. As a result of the disappearance of the membrane, we know something (even if it is only that which is waiting just beyond the edge of what we know). In that which we have suddenly woken up to beyond our borders we discover we have a particular function related to what is complete and whole. We now have relevancy, and pay homage to the whole and serve the whole for we see we are part of the whole.

When we do not know the whole, we have no idea of who it is we are. We do not know our edge and so therefore we do not know our function. Not knowing our function, our purpose, what are we doing, actually? What are we practicing, protecting and serving? What is our particular form and function within and in relation to the whole?

It is only when going into the edge, and in seeing the edge, that we have this profound opportunity of letting go of the edge – to see the edgeless, wholeness of this life. When we become and immerse ourselves in the no-edge, only then can we really embrace and know what and how the edge serves. Do you know really know your edge? If you do, you would know your edgeless-ness – your wholeness.

Second, let us remember we have an aura. Aura means ‘lights of gold’. The symbol for gold is Au. Ra is light or ray. Our auras connect, merge and become one with the auras of all beings. Is this what Baba Mutwa is pointing to when he says, “The first creators and harvesters of Gold were initiated woman. Only initiated woman knew the secret of seeding and harvesting Gold.”

Let us do it. Let us go to the edge. In the Earth Module training offered at BEZA we encourage apprentices to go to a tree in the morning, in the afternoon or once a week. They are going to the edge. The collection of all the story ritual items that they have been putting into their bowl is going to the edge. Coming to meditation in the morning, is coming to the edge. Coming to Community Council is coming to the edge.

What edge are you going to? Whatever edge it is just go there – however you want to do that.

See what is there. And then go beyond – let it go.

You will find your true self, peace and purpose on the other side.

Nangaku

Coalition of Sovereign Love

From my Heart to yours,

2024 is the first year in recorded history when more than 50% of the world’s population (some 4 billion of us) have the opportunity to choose which power structures best represent our will. Regardless of actual turnout, pollsters all agree that 2024 will smash the record for number of votes cast internationally in a single year. Of what significance could this be to you?

These are revolutionary times evidenced by the speed of change occurring before us – technologically, environmentally, socially, economically, politically, and yes spiritually! The younger generation is keeping pace with this revolution, if not fuelling it. The older generation – the gatekeepers of power – with more life behind them than in front, appear to be holding on to it for now – but only just.

2024 is a global inflection point. The real value of trendy political sloganostra is worth less than the paper or pixels they occupy. Old narratives with power brokers purporting to be endowed with solutions succumb to a sort of habitual perpetualism synonymous of samsara.

Revolution, on the other hand is always risky. It flirts with unpredictable unknowns. In hindsight, revolutions expose the brittle bond linking the various carriages of ideological paradigm-trains together – that of the public’s trust. While this sacred trust is at an all-time low universally (an indictor of potential revolution) let us not underestimate the global forces at play here, and abroad.

As the world’s population votes this year, a ridiculous game of chicken is being played out on the world’s stage. The US/EU/NATO’s ‘Maintain-at-all-Cost’, unipolar, dominant, western ideological train barrels towards the oncoming BRICS’s “Change-at-all-Cost’, multipolar, power redistribution train. Does South Africa (and by extension you) find itself tied in and to the middle of this track as we await news of a coalition government?

With the prevailing pundits suggest a Government of National Unity as the ideal, they intelligently caution its impractically, predisposing it to failure! Will you, as a South African and global citizen, via the government we democratically inherited, veer right ideologically (map-left toward the unipolar dominance of western ideology), or veer left (map-right toward the east-driven demand for a multipolar, countervailing force for the risky alternatives of unknown change)? A Zen Master once said to me as I questioned alternatives, “Move and you will be a lost ghost for a thousand years!” I trusted him and the opportunity my conundrum offered. I trust these now too. Without choosing left or right how would you respond? How would you create a self-governance system within yourself to rebuild the sacred trust for unity?

Whenever there is a conundrum – we find it only in the mind – a mind with a pre-existing condition intent on reconstituting our compendium of narratives. When the mind cannot comprehend, solve or reconstitute, at best, it surrenders. Worst, it revolts – often violently. Perhaps your heart is patiently waiting for your surrender, and perhaps for just such a moment.

Nowhere in South Africa’s Constitution or Bill of Rights, nor in the manifestos of over 50 political parties and independents who contested the recent election, have I heard or seen the word LOVE. Aren’t we essentially constituted love? Would you fuse or unite with who or what you don’t love?

This I know to be true – Love is the ultimate unifier; Love dissolves all edges as it celebrates diversity; Love gets down to the basic fundamentals of this life – to the heart in the matter. I wonder, have we reduced Love to a four word?

Coalition means union, or fusion. Yoga means union too! Zen… not two (self and other are One), or as we South Africans like to spout – Ubuntu (I am because you are). Can you imagine a Government of National Yoga or Zen? Perhaps an effective GNU (in you and the country) could bring the eastern and western halves of ourselves together and avoid a nuclear catastrophe?

If we are not each able to quell the obstinance of the old narratives residing in our own ideological minds we may push our collective minds into violent con-fusion.  Rather, let each of us be the revolution, be the most risky thing possible, and go beyond the edges of narrative and our limited understanding, by Being-the-Edge.

Entering this edgeless terrain we will find an infinite supply of true love, and consequently our True North. Let us each love practically, ferociously, uncompromisingly – everyday, everyone, and every aspect of ourselves – even the most unloving nature we all, in some way, harbour.

If we each did this, in every possible moment would be the most powerful vote. 2024 would simply be four numbers on a calendar. We would not need to cast ballots to (hopefully) choose government representatives to re-present our love. We would instead present love as our very selves. We would be sovereign in our own empowerment presenting our truth, our very presence. We would be our own government – a constituted and Embodied Enlightenment – Ubuntu and Unity.

Not for the feint of heart, the ride of your life on Love’s Trackless Train awaits. Its station is everywhere, hidden in plain sight. Remember you can’t get on where you get off. It never arrives, and never departs. There are no obsessive log keepers, pundits, analysts or bean-counters on its Middle Way.  This train has no need for records.

This is the state of Nirvana. The price? All your fears.

Nangaku