The Heart Sutra and Dzogchen

Unknown Speaker

Hi everybody, Eh…Good to see you all, ah…hopefully you can hear me well, ah…welcome to Lama Lena’s 6th visit in the Netherlands [unclear] yeah, very welcome to Lama Lena, we’re very glad to have you back and for those of you just by way of brief introduction, Lama Lena is a teacher of direct mind perception meditation which in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is known as Dzogchen and Mahamudra and Lama Lena has studied under great renowned Lamas since the early 70’s and she’s also…

Lama Lena

Magic Stuff [audience laughs]

Unknown Speaker

And she has also done a retreat for seven years in her cave in Tso Pema and under the tutelage of her root Guru, the venerable Lama Wangdor Rinpoche and Lama Lena has also traveled throughout the world and with Lama Wangdor Rinpoche both as his assistant and as his translator, and she has started teaching on the request of her teachers and also on the request of students, both Westerner and Easterner students and we’re very happy that she has come back at Europe this year and here in the Netherlands in particular and this evening she will be teaching on the Heart Sutra and Dzogchen and tomorrow and Sunday she’ll be teaching on the four uncommon Dzogchen samayas, and also Lama Lena in her own right is a qualified Chinese medicine practitioner, and for many years write about her own practice in the San Francisco Bay Area where she lives part of the time and she also travels to Tso Pema to her cave and she supports the local community there through providing teachings and arranging sponsorship and providing assistance to the local community there including medical assistance.

So just by way of housekeeping to mention that just a couple of practical matters today, I just wanted to bring your attention at the exits, so the main entrance and exit is the door through which you came over here at to my left and there is also an emergency far exit over here at to the right and the toilets are through the main exit to the right and then to the left and you follow the signs and we have tea, coffee and some refreshments over here to my left and if there is also a period of questions and answers we have a movable microphone, where we can pass it around and you can ask your question to Lama Lena and we will just ask you to project your voice and speak clearly because we are also live streaming this event on Facebook and YouTube, so welcome also to everyone who’s tuning in online.

You will also find some information on your seats or on your cushions as well in relation to Danna offerings to Lama Lena, for those of you who don’t know, Lama Lena does not charge any payment for her teachings within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition she graciously receives Danna which are voluntary donations, so you would have the opportunity over the weekend to make your own personal offering to Lama Lena in the traditional way with the Khata and there is also separately to this offering there is also the means to donate towards the organizational costs, traveling, etc also are available and our information is on the sheet at the reception also. I just want to say in relationship to tonight’s teaching and we do need to exit this venue at 10 pm sharp at the end of the teaching so I just wanted to let you know that and also for those of you who may smoke no smoking is allowed outside of the terrace you have to go beyond outside pass the railings if you wish to smoke …

Lama Lena

Go hide in the bushes [audience laughs]

Unknown Speaker

And I think that’s all I need to say, just again another warm welcome to Lama Lena and we’re very happy to have you here. Thanks everyone [audience applause]

Lama Lena

Due to conditions if you do want to make any personal offerings to me you do it at whatever is the last session you come to, that just makes it less of a cluster and that way we can get out by 10 since this is the first session.

The first thing that’s gonna happen is: Land Spirit Offerings, spirits of place, yes they’re real, well they think they are, so do you, it’s about the same.

Just as if you’re going to throw a late party, you would probably go around your neighbors first and invite them and maybe offer them tea and cookies if you didn’t want them to come because it was too wild to party for your neighbors, is this kind of the same? These teachings especially Dzogchen teachings containing the four Wangs, they’ve got psychic noise in them, they could be found disturbing by a land spirit if they hadn’t been sort of introduced to what’s going on and offered some tea and cookies or juice and cookies or feel just a nice little gesture so I need two people off this place, to volunteer, actually three, two have to be off this place, the third one doesn’t matter.

Audience

This place you mean I’ll stand?

Lama Lena

Yeah, yes. Okay, you’re one… and you’re the second… and the gentleman back there is number three. Okay, gentleman back there since you’re number three, you get to open the doors for number one and two, their hands will be full

Not quite yet, relax, [unclear] really big gestures like [come in gesture with her arms] when it is time for you to do stuff.

I’m going to do some, I guess you could call it singing – although once you hear my voice you’d realize that’s a stretch – of the ceremonial request and all of that, we get to a certain point and you’re going to pick up the plate and cup, one person take one, one person take the other, you’re going to take it outside and you’re gonna look around and somewhere you’re going to see some places with more placeness than other places.

The kind of place when you were a little kid, you’d have given a name to it maybe like the old fallen log or the monster tree or you know how kids do, but not this in the same direction go in different directions, when you come to the place with the placeness, which is what where the land spirits congregate, looks like to normal eyes, to untrained eyes. We don’t have any children or I just send a kid with you because they can always spot them, so when we have children at the teachings they get to help with this but you grownups can remember, you’re not beyond it.

So you’re going to take this out now you’re going to keep a good hold on the plate and cup, don’t let go whatever happens, toss the contents up into that place return and leave the plates and the cups with the cup upside down on the plate over on the side table or in the back as you can see looks easiest, where there’s room, got it? Questions? Simple, most people can tell where the land spirits are once you [unclear] what it looks like.

“[Land Spirit offerings]” [using Dorje and Bell][Blesses offerings with Bumdro][Blesses offerings a 2nd time with Bumdro][Signals to take offering plates and cups outside][Plays Hand Damaru & Bell…stops…plays the Hand Damaru & Bell again] Hear the change? The change in tone of the bell is when they accept the offerings [plays the Hand Damaru & Bell] hear that “woa, woa, woa, woa, woa”? that’s what you’r listening for when you’re doing this yourself, because you can do this at home, specially if you live in an old house, where plumbing can be iffy, you don’t want the Nagas pissed, you want them friendly, so you do land spirit offerings, not every day, periodically on auspicious days, you don’t do it every day, just like you don’t feed the squirrels and the birds every day because they become dependent and then if you’re not there on vacation, and they don’t have food, they don’t… they forget how to get it elsewhere, so you’re doing it at sort of random times. Traditionally, the Tibetans would do it on the eighth day of the moon, the 15th, which is full moon, auspicious days like that and if you grab a Tibetan calendar, it will tell you when to do it.

All Dharma, all non Dharma, is based on the ignorance of duality, so in that way, all Dharma is based on the opposite of that, which is not called unity, it is beyond the duality of the unity-duality ideas, whenever we do Monlam, recite something of wish path which often gets called prayer in English only it’s not because you’re not asking daddy in the sky to give you something like a Mercedes, so it’s not really prayer, Monlam wish-path, using the Chakra of intent which is your speech Chakra the AH, the creative, creativity, to set the intent of something, so whenever you do that, you always take on the left side, the Yin energy of Sunyata, Okay, sometimes they call it emptiness, sometimes they call it great mother ocean of Dharmakaya, it’s got names, but just feel it as open minded, open hearted openness, vast without differentiations, unborn, undying, Yin energy, sky like nature of mind, and you take Bodhicitta, Buddha consciousness, the creative energy of love and the urge to flee loneliness, to merge with others to not be alone forever, though recognize the creative interpenetrating, interrelating, samaya of sentient beings, so this is Yang energy, you bring them together in this manifestation this movement, [put hands together in prayer] this doesn’t mean please, please, it means the duality of Yin and Yang brought together.

In the beginning of all practices we take refuge and arise Bodhicitta, this can be done both at the same time through Guru yoga, where it is recognized that all Buddhas of the three times past, present and future arise out of all sentient beings of the three realms, there is no separation, as you love your teacher the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, so the bugs biting you are part of that, they may not know it today, but someday in the fullness of time of past, present and future beyond time and space in the realm of unborn, undying, they are obviously part of your lineage, just because it didn’t happen yet, doesn’t mean it ain’t real.

I better check, Do you all speak English? Or do we need to have translators here? Online we have many translators working at the moment, you can find this on probably YouTube and elsewhere, if something I said had too much slang for you, and find it in a language that explains it better for you.

So this is where Guru yoga, your trust, love, open heartedness to the lineage, is the same as… to your root guru and the lineage that they bring forth and give to you to the Dharma itself, is the same as your love for all sentient beings, because in reality, these two things are not two, hands [make praying hands gesture] “[Lineage Prayer]”.

What I do when I sing the lineage, same for various definitions of same, is to include all those lineages with which I have studied at length, in-nodding the Rimè movement which started a few couple of 100 years ago, is really important, it is the open minded non sectarian aspect of Tibetan Dharma and it was begun in the 1800’s by several great Lamas and furthered even now by my teacher who considered himself Rimè, and many others, in the universe these days I have been noticing a dichotomy of falls between tightness and openness, there is seems to be an energy currently going on a lot stronger with COVID and without, of some people really trying to narrow things down, lineage, my religion, just like this, you’ve seen this happening in the Christian religion in America, in the Muslim religion in Afghanistan, and attempt to narrow, the Rimè movement is the opposite of that, an attempt to open not to be sectarian not my way only, but to leave it open to all the possible ways in the universe…

I’m moving this, so I can see you, alright? Can you help me stabilize it over here? [unclear] no because then I can’t see him, right there, perfect…

Some of you may have a great heartness, heart feeling for a particular lineage, be it Kagyu or Shakia, that’s fine, I have a great heart feeling for Nyingma, suits me, that doesn’t make it better than Gelugpa, It makes it fit me better, size seven shoes are not better than size five shoes unless you happen to have size seven feet, in which case for you they are, I guess that was my political statement tonight.

The Buddha himself in his time did a great deal of political movement, in his time, the exclusion was a caste system, he stepped outside of it, he allowed the Sangha to be entered by someone regardless of their birth, this was the big deal in the context of his culture, I believe he was Kshatri, which is usually what the kings are. That is not the big issue, except for in Silicon Valley and India these days, there’s other issues but do follow which way he pointed, later others came after him and codified things and narrowed them down again, because some will do that, you don’t have to, keep an open mind and an open heart to all life, your path is only the best one for you, I’m always sending people to other teachers, if I spot somebody who needs something in particular, yeah. I don’t teach Tummo, you need Tummo? Tenzin Wangyal is really good, he dried the sheets, he passed the finals, I didn’t, I studied it, but I didn’t pass…I didn’t take the finals.

So understand that Guru yoga is not about I will adhere to that personality, no, it’s about recognizing all life as someday part of the lineage of all the Buddhas of the four times and as such opening your heart in love to the life force of the universe and not squishing stuff, Yeah?

The text…Oh, good It didn’t go away.

So, Dzogchen, completion stage, the final teaching.

Some people say that it was not taught by the Buddha, even some Tibetans, they say that it was not real Buddhism and it came in later, people say a lot of things, even Tibetans have Dharma rumors and probably they’ve got their own form of Internet where they argue with each other about them.

But the Heart Sutra introduces Dzogchen, just as it is, without anything added or removed, now, some of the Dzogchen Ngondros did not come from the Buddha, they were remembered from a previous Buddha and past on or someone noticed that people kept getting stuck here and needed a method to get themselves unstuck and came up with something that worked. We’re talking Rushens, which are Ngondros, so there’s a lot of embroidery and texts around Dzogchen, but the basis is right here in the Heart Sutra.

‘Thus, I have heard at one time the blessed one was dwelling and Rajgir at Vulture Peak mountain together with a great community of monks, and a great community of Bodhisattvas also gathered there were Gods, non Gods and other types of sentient beings’

Which may be called human although not homo sapiens such as Nagas, The definition of human is able to express abstract concepts in a language, the definition of Homo Sapiens is much more specific, lots of things are human but not Homo Sapiens, there may be other things on this planet that are human but not Homo Sapiens, can the dolphins tell each other abstracts? we don’t know, what about octopus who speak in color? Are their abstracts communicable? we don’t know, we don’t know is just a perfectly good answer.

‘At that time, the blessed one entered an absorption on categories of phenomena called perception of the… of profound’ understand that his absorption at this point had a…it wasn’t…damn words! Yeah, we can do abstracts, but not well. [smile]

An absorption is a meditation, if it is on a category of phenomena and it is a … perception of the profound, it is a moving, it is a part of the creativity, the created, so he was meditating on the concepts and ideas of Dzogchen, of gone beyond, of thus gone, while absorbed in that, it is the mother of the dancing stillness, so contemplation is of the dance, but it is the stillness contemplating this.

If it’s not making sense to you right now, may well eventually, so don’t worry about it.

‘At that time, noble Avalokitesvara the Bodhisattva and great being beheld the practice of the profound Perfection of Wisdom, the last paramita and saw that the five aggregates are empty of nature’

Are you familiar with the aggregates because this is important?

Audience

No

Lama Lena

Okay

So, how do we be? an old Greek thing: ‘I think therefore I am’? How about: I’m therefore I think, consciousness, the ability to think, feel and perceive, without that it would be a big dead old mechanistic sort of black void wouldn’t it? without that consciousness, that vitality which does exist in the universe, how do we know it exists? Well, hello! you’re experiencing it, feelings, thoughts, Namtok, life, desire, aversion, pursuing your dreams, running away from your nightmares, all of this, this is the vitality of aliveness, the basic consciousness.

We talk about the three Kayas, the three bodies, the three aspects, the three Jewels, Dharmakaya, which is a word so that we can talk about the infinite vastness of awareness, it’s natural unlimitedness, it’s sky and space like nature, but it’s not just open and empty of phenomena, its nature is that of what the Tibetans call clear light, ösal transparent, light, [looks through a crystal cup] transparent, like glass, clear light is not like something woo-woo like you get when you take window panes? Are you old enough to remember those terms? or whatever you call acid these days…mushrooms, I think mushrooms are more in style now, clear light is what’s between my hands [hold arms in front] there’s nothing there is there? and yet [holds a Dorje with one hand] any object entering that space is illuminated so you can see it, clear transparent, light, awareness, sometimes use as a word for consciousness, is the… in Tibetan Rig-pa, the ability to see, the see-er, feel yourself looking down from behind your own eyes, feel it right now, feel that? not what you’re looking at, feel the look-er, that basic awareness is what they mean by clear light, the light by which the see-er sees whatever it be seeing in the moment, not the thing it sees, that aliveness, awakeness, consciousness, that allows it to see, this is an errant in the vast skylight space, like spaciousness of an infinite universe, an infinite multi-dimensional universe, infinite and a lot more directions than you can think of, that consciousness which is the union of Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya in its totality, but is often pointed as Sambhogakaya, where all the Gods are born, in consciousness as dreams, as hopes, as fears, the Gods and the demons, because this lucidity, luminosity clarity exists, it is the nature of light to sparkle and shimmer when it moves, in movement, in reflecting.

This is analogies but it’s the best we can do trying to talk about this, that movement is the pattern, there arises sensation of however many sense organs you happen to have karmically in this current life, as Homo Sapiens it would be six, that something else, well you don’t have sonar but dolphins do, another sense organ, somewhere in the ear or inside, there are worms that don’t have eyes because they live where there is no light, I can easily explain to you what sonar feels like just like you can easily explain to the worm what vision feels like, yeah? no.

So you get sensations, the moment you have a sensation, [hand claps] sound, you immediately label it, name it, make it something, the moment you’ve done that, that conceptual overlay on simply the feeling, you… it’s an embroidery, you have an emotion about it, liking or disliking, It can be a very slight emotion, here’s a sound [Hand Damaru played] …you’re thinking about it, aren’t you? going to tell yourself a story about it, it is the sound of a Damaru, it is nice, it is not nice, I like it, I don’t like it, It could have been done better, it couldn’t have been done better, see all those? Those are the stories you are telling yourself about a sensation, what it is you’re making it into, I see shape with the rods and cones of my eyes, color and shape and then I tell myself a story, it’s a glass of water.

Could be vodka guys you know? [audience laughs] [drinks water and smiles] [unclear] knows me really well, that might have been nice [audience laughs] [drinks water again and makes a satisfied face] it’s very good, Thank you.

So now you’ve got a physical sensation and then you’ve got a feeling about it, from the feeling you decide to do something about it, you like it, you’re gonna reach for it, you’re gonna bring it closer, you don’t like it, you’re gonna push it away, you’re gonna run away, you’re gonna decide how to do this most effectively, so round and round it goes, your karma creates the sensations…[looks for a musical box] there it is! your karma in your energy channels there’s cricks, pips, bumps, tangled spots and as the energy of the Chi moves through the channels, sensations arise [play music box] like this music, you then decide it’s music and you think about it and you tell yourself what this is and you make a whole bunch of stories about it and you like it or you don’t and you want one or you don’t, you see how that’s moving? or you know where I got this and you think about that and you like it or you don’t and you want to do it again or you don’t, all of this…, these are the five Skandhas: Consciousness, sensation, naming and evaluating and deciding what it is, when you see you’re not always right, in fact you’re never really right, because when you see a rope and you think it’s a snake or you see a snake and you think it’s a rope and that really happens a lot when your blood sugar is low and you’re angry…oh, the things you think…, caught me the other night, definitely hungry there.

So when you make up a story, you’re now gonna have feelings about the story and you’re going to take actions on the story and all this is because you are capable, vital, alive, clear light nature, of thinking , feeling, perceiving, do you see that? It’s really important, this is the basis of Buddhism, the way this arises as the five Skandhas.

I’m gonna pause here and see if you have questions on the five Skandhas, because it’s really basic, but really important, and very rarely is it simply explained in a way that you can feel it happening while you do it… checking …wave, if you have a question,… yes, in the back gentleman.

Audience

Ah..when you said I’m naming it, by that do you mean what’s normally called the standard form?

Lama Lena

Yes, you’re putting a name on it, and that causes you to tell a story about it, and that causes you to have a feeling about it, and that causes you to do something about it, again and again, and then that creates a karma which causes another sensation.

Audience

So the specific form of it isn’t there until I name it…

Lama Lena

[make a gesture for the question to be repeated]

Audience

Is the naming that is the specific form?

Lama Lena

Yes, for example, in the Bardo.. Have you read the Bardo Thodol? These little books of the Bardo? or you’ve heard stories about you see all the Yidams and the Archetypes, well you might not, you will see something bright and loud, and with shade and color, if you are a practitioner of tantra familiar with the fierce and peaceful Archetypes, that is probably the recognition you will put on that visual and audio, actually, it’s the sensations are in all your sense organs, so, it also is an intense scent and it has an intense taste and intense emotional ye.. feel… if you have never seen those Archetypes, you will probably decided something else in your mind, named it something else, Tibetans within their culture are very familiar so for them, it arises as these Archetypes, for those of you who have practice tantra it will also probably arise as these Archetypes but for those of you who are not familiar with that, it might arise as some other Archetype, you might name it, perceived it as, really all it is is brightness of color and sound and then you name it, your consciousness because it is alive, awake aware, creates the naming, which creates the story, which creates the feeling, which creates the action, which creates the karma, which determines future sensations and you do it again and again.

Have I communicated in such a way that you can get the feel of them, the five Skandhas?

Any other questions on those?… Okay, that was actually important and…oh, yes, yes.

Audience

Yeah, yeah… you were telling before about the fact that we just put another label or labeling on feeling and if we were to replace feeling by experience, would that be more inclusive and broader?

Lama Lena

No, because I’m actually talking about emotional feeling, an experience contains: sensation, thoughts about the sensation, say you have the experience of a truck is coming for you very fast on your side of the highway and it doesn’t have room to get back, passing, that’s an intense experience, their sight, their sound, there’s also the thoughts going with it… oh fuck! there’s also the attempt to get it out of the way, the action, take an action on those thoughts, thoughts assessment, first you recognize… shit truck!, then you realize danger need to do something about it, I assess that it is not going to be able to get back in its lane, then you turn the wheel and try to go off the road while trying to slow down in order to get out of the way, choice of action, causing further karma as you both perhaps save your life, kill some frogs, save the truckers life, so karma is very complex, because a deed doesn’t lead to just one result.

Does that answer what you were asking?

Audience

Yeah.

Lama Lena

It’s an experience when it’s all over [unclear] and you’re talking to your friend and you tell them the experience you had today, so experience has a lot of duration…

Audience

Thank you

Lama Lena

Other questions?

‘So, Avalokitesvara beheld the practice of the profound reflection of wisdom and saw the five aggregates are empty of nature’

Although this is the pattern you do in your aliveness it is not made of anything and does not occur anywhere…thoughts…let’s pick the easy one to see, what are your thoughts made of? Don’t give me hearsay, feel around for it… don’t give me somebody said neurotransmitters, you never saw neurotransmitters have you? Come on!, own experience…What are your thoughts made of? are they…do they have molecules? Atoms? Can I think a shelf and put my glass on it? Is there any substance or solidity? Okay, pick a thought, any thought, hold that thought,…bet you can’t hold that thought [smiles [audience laughs] no duration either ah? You can think a lot of thoughts about the same subject but they’re not the same thought, they’re different each one.

Thoughts, utterly lacking in substance or duration,… the five aggregates are made of thoughts and feelings, thoughts are easier to see than feelings, so I’m not going to push on you seen feelings tonight because it takes longer and our timing is specific but another time I’ll show you how to see the feelings lack substance…and duration, although you can have the same one, again and again and again and again until it wears off just like thoughts.

Perceptions? a perception is just an entanglement of thoughts and feelings and sensations altogether, I perceive this to be a glass of water, I see it, I perceive it, yeah, that’s a thought, my feeling of I’m thirsty, It’s all in there to get the sensation of my eyes in my hand and my mouth, [drinks water] a perception is just an entanglement of thoughts and feelings and sensations, so we could say thoughts, feelings and sensations as the three, they’re not made of anything, they’re empty of substance and empty of duration, you can’t keep them, can’t hold them, you can’t give me one of yours in my hand [extends her hand to receive]

‘Then, through the Buddha’s power venerable Shariputra – who is known for his lack of shyness and tendency to open his mouth and ask questions, I need one of those – he said to the noble Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva and great being, how should a child of noble family, who wishes to practice the profound Perfection of Wisdom train? How should one learn to see this oneself? by what method, by what training, may one come from? Whatever one’s ordinary life is of chasing dreams and fleeing nightmares, to seeing the nature of reality as it is without doubt or quibble? [repeats quibble…] and this is what… this is what he said and the noble Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva and great being replied to the venerable Shariputra, Oh Shariputra, a son of a noble family or daughter of a noble family who wishes to practice the profound Perfection of Wisdom should regard things in this way: they should see the five aggregates – Skandhas – to be empty of nature, form is empty, emptiness is form, emptiness is not other than form, form is not other than emptiness’

Form objects [pick a roll whistle and blow] is not working! [blows roll whistle again] now it is!…object, name, thoughts, feelings, the form of this, what you think it is, the shape, its size, sensation of the eyeball, sensation of the ears, story about it, there’s no real thing there, is there? This is what’s being pointed at, empty doesn’t mean a vacuum, a void or a darkness, just means there’s nothing there to grab a hold of.

‘Form arises in emptiness as emptiness, in the same way sensations, recognition, conditioning factors and consciousness are emptiness’

Your perceptions, your experiences, are not happening the way you think they are, there may be a real relative reality out there, but no one has ever seen it, perceived it, experienced it, no one ever will perceive it or experience it, we will only experience according to our karma, group karma, conditioning factors, according to these things, but there is no actual thing that is being experienced, only experiences, in Tögal we call this the display, in the infinite openness of sky space, display occurs, catching this?

‘Therefore, Shariputra all Dharmas are emptiness, they are without characteristics’

Saraha said, and even the jewel ornament of the Dharma is no more real than any of these, you wanted Dzogchen!

‘All Dharmas are emptiness, they are without characteristics, they are unarisen and unceasing, they are not tainted and not untainted, not deficient and not complete, therefore Shariputra in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, no recognition, no conditioning factors, no consciousness, no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind’

And all that effort doing Dzogchen was input into finding your mind… you don’t have one! give up… it won’t go in until you give up, do stop grabbing.

Rinpoche used to explain this in a different way, no eye? How is there no eye?, my eye is right here, what is my eye? there’s a lid, some hairs, there’s a lens and muscles that control it for eye focus, underneath that there’s like this jelly thing, in a capsule, there’s a retina with some rods and cones, when you take it apart, where’s the eye? In all of these things.

When you take a man apart, you cut off his arms and you put one over there and one over there, and you cut off his legs and you put one there and one there, and then you take his liver and you hang it up there, and his intestines is what you’re hanging with, and you put the head in a pedestal here, now tell me where’s the man?… scattered… because it is not a thing, it is an aggregate a conglomerate, a group of things temporarily brought together and in their own good time they will come apart, Yeah, you’re gonna come apart, your shit is not going to stay together forever [smiles]… all the effort to keep your shit together [smiles]… Give up.

‘Therefore, Shariputra in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, no recognition, no conditioning factors, no consciousness, no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no visible form, no sound, no odor, no taste, no texture, no mental objects, no I element, no mind element and as far as no mental consciousness element, there is no ignorance and no extinction of ignorance’

You worry about getting rid of your ignorance and being good enough for enlightenment …give it up, let go.

‘No old age and death, no extinction of old age and dead, likewise, there is no suffering, no origin of suffering, no cessation, and no path, no wisdom, no attainment and no non-attainment, therefore Shariputra since Bodhisattva have no attainment they rely and abide by the Perfection of Wisdom, since their minds are unobscure they have no fear, they completely transcend error and reach the ultimate Nirvana gone beyond of the beyond, all the Buddhas, throughout the three times fully awakened, to unsurpassed, genuine and complete enlightenment, by means of the Perfection of Wisdom, therefore the mantra of the Perfection of Wisdom, the mantra of great insight, the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra that equals the unequaled, the mantra that pacifies all suffering is not false, and should be understood as true, the mantra of the Perfection of Wisdom is proclaimed as follows:

GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA

GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA

GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA’

It doesn’t quite translate but if it were to translate: gone, gone, beyond gone, beyond the beyond gone, beyond that and so be it.

It’s not like there’s somewhere you get to in the beyond, you gotta go beyond that, It’s not like somebody gets somewhere, you gotta go beyond that too, go beyond the where and the get-er and the only way to do that is to see separating subject and object, doer and deed and done too, is called one taste, where the doer, the doing and that which is it is done too… are in no way separate, in Dzogchen they never were, you don’t get there…at some point you give up and notice you’ve always been that.

Shariputra, a Bodhisattva and great being should train in the profound perfection of wisdom in this way, thereupon the blessed one arose from his absorption and commended Avalokitesvara the Bodhisattva and great being: excellent, excellent indeed oh son of a noble family, that is how it is, that is exactly how it is, one should perceive [unclear], one should practice the profound Perfection of Wisdom just as you have taught, and then even the Tathagathas will rejoice. When the blessed one said this venerable Shariputra and noble Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva and great being together with the whole assembly and the worlds of Gods and humans, Asuras and Gandharvas rejoice, and praise the speech of the blessed one’

This is The Heart Sutra, some people recite it, frequently, in the hope it will go in, that’s called Monlam, some people recite the mantra frequently in the hope it will go in…there are 1000 methods, Dzogchen is beyond method, but there are 1000 methods to get beyond method, go lie to yourself, I don’t care, In any moment, if you feel you are sitting beyond method then just relax and if you feel disturbed by your ignorance, and you mind that you are disturbed, grab a method and use it, sometimes you can’t just sit there, you’ve experienced that, but not always, don’t mind the moving, the moving is just the thoughts, the feelings, the perceptions, the experiences, don’t mind them, they came, they go, relax, don’t grab for the chocolate ones, and throw away the root beer, all the flavors, doesn’t matter, empty in nature.

Questions here? …Yes, please.

Audience

So the text says such and such is emptiness, but doesn’t say it’s empty…

Lama Lena

Excuse me?

Audience

Text says a few times, such and such is emptiness, but doesn’t say is empty.

Lama Lena

Yes, That’s correct

Audience

Is there a difference? Is that significant?

Lama Lena

To say something is empty would imply that it could be filled, had been filled or might someday be filled, that emptiness was a temporary experience, also it would imply that it was a container, it had a… an inside and an outside but when we say emptiness, we’re pointing at something which does not have these characteristics of ever having been filled, having been emptied, being fill-able, or having a container or an inside or an outside. I think that would be the answer to your question but remember, this is a translation of a translation, so we are playing telephone with the words, it was probably originally said in Sanskrit or maybe even Pali, I don’t know what he was speaking, what the original language was of Chenrezig, and then the scholars had it in Sanskrit and it was taught in Sanskrit, that may have been the first translation and then it came up to Tibet and was translated from the Sanskrit of the scholars to the common language of Tibet and then it got turned into English.

Well, that’s an awful lot of words and none of them have one to one correspondence exactly, I mean, how many of you…, you’re all multilingual aren’t you? most people here in Europe are, so I can think things in French and then I do certain kinds of things, then [unclear] made the same plan in English, it will be quite a different plan, my personality is actually slightly different in English from what it is in French, I really do tend to get into more trouble in French than I do in English [audience laughs] and although my German is really rusty at one point I spoke Swiss German and that was completely different anything planned to do in that language, they don’t exactly correlate perfectly [unclear] two languages, there’s a whole lot of words in Tibetan that don’t go into English, or rather change the word they go into an English depending on the context and the sentence it’s used in, in Tibetan.

You can say… he blessed him, or there’s a lot of power in that Vajra, you’d be using the same word Jinlab or you could call a place where the lane lines cross a place of Jinlab.

So yeah, language is funny, don’t too much, look at the words, they point, you’ve all seen me do the point at the bell and ring the bell and the finger won’t ring I’ll do it all the time, look where the words point rather than really try to parse the words, words are not trustworthy, they’re what… the best thing we have is the words to point with, that doesn’t make them really good at it, it’s like my singing, it’s the best I can do, that does not make me good at it or able to carry a tune effectively.

Other questions?… Yes.

Audience

When you spoke about the Archetypes you said that people who don’t have this reference [unclear] Archetypes really experience the same thing in other ways so what is an Archetype, actually? Is it just a structure that somehow organizes what arises in a moment or….

Lama Lena

An Archetype is a symbol in the universal unconscious, a shape or form that has almost been agreed upon by so many people over time that it has been given at least some reality, this is how we make Gods, you make a God by worshiping it all together with a whole bunch of people and so you have the Archetypes of Demeter talking the Roman ones now or the Greek ones…I forget their names now…

Audience

Hermes?

Lama Lena

Yeah, there’s one or the Indian ones, Shiva or Pan all of these are Archetypes, the Tibetans also have Archetypes, they’re Gods, but they don’t exist independently, but our mind made symbols of certain energies within consciousness, so Chenrezig, who is the name Avalokitesvara, is the translation of the name of the man who said this, the practitioner, the member of Buddha’s Sangha, who said this, he had very great Bodhicitta, the real Bodhicitta, not the pretend one where you try to drag little old ladies across the street every day, whether they want to go or not so you can do your good deed as a boy scout, not that kind, not white man’s burden and all that crap, the other kind, the real one, direct perception of the inter-penetrating nature of all phenomena and consciousness and open hearted, great hearted love, the pattern.

So these Archetypes are mind made, but they sort of take on a life of their own for as long as people see them, feel them and they symbolize different things: Chenrezig symbolizes Bodhicitta, so does Phurba, Dorje Phurba, Vajra Yogini and Dorje Phagmo symbolizes unbridled free female energy, the woman who is not constrained by being owned by a man or a culture, Sky-walker, Hayagriva the power of the wild horse, so there are many, your channels have shape, as your Chi in death withdraws from the channels you will experience sensations which being still consciousness you will interpret them, so you will interpret them according to your culture, I don’t know what you will see, I am… enough in the Tibetan culture and have done enough Tantra that I will probably see the Tibetan Archetypes, but you might see something else, perhaps you’ll see Mother Mary, I don’t know if you grew up with that as a strong feeling, the whole point is those sensations that you will experience as the Chi withdraws from the channels of the brain, are fierce and intense and you mustn’t run, try you can run away from your own Chi, don’t try to run from your own vitality, accept it, embrace it, absorb it, even if it’s very, very loud like being next to the speakers in a rock concert, you don’t even know if you’re gonna survive, don’t expect to, you’re dead anyway, the adamantine unshakeable piece of the ones that withdrawal from your heart Chakra area and your torso, is also terrifying just by its intensity, don’t run that’s the Bardo teaching in regard to this, however your brain…not brain mind interprets these sensations the intensity after death, don’t run from it, let go, chin up, tits to the wind, go forward into it.

Did I answer your question? [audience laughs] Who else has a question for me?…[unclear]

Audience

When do I use the mantra?

Lama Lena

Whenever you like, the more often you say it, the more you make it real for you. Have you ever worked with say self-hypnosis? Okay, repetition is one of the keys, regularly doing it, you do a lot of things with that, so with this, say the mantra whenever you like, frequently is better than infrequently and at some point may find that you do not need the mantra and then again later you might find you do and that’s okay.

It is nice to have a mala for a mantra to have one that pleases you, so wait until you find one, they’re all over eBay and then shops, for most mantras such as this mantra, you want a smooth mala rather than a Rudrakshi mala, those rough nibbley Rudrakshi malas are only for working with certain fears Archetypes, the irritation of the touch of it is considered helpful in some instances, but you don’t use it for most Archetypes, and you wouldn’t use it for this, what I want to call clean mantra.

Lama Lena

Do you have a question?

Audience

In the Sutra, it says that since there is no attainment, the Bodhisattva abide in the perfection of wisdom, and… that sounds like a thing… and I’m trying to think because…like…what I try to do is stay in stillness, not to be bothered by movement, no? and… and relax into it… but then…but then I get that there is…

Lama Lena

Missing something… so as you separated movement and stillness in Mahamudra, and you became clear which was which and then you were working on Trultra Naljor, the dance of stillness, you haven’t quite got them all the way together yet, you’re working on it, that’s what you’re seem to be telling me, so it isn’t to try to remain in stillness, go ahead and move, feel and cry, laugh, think, talk, while noticing that the stillness is still there, and it is in itself, you might be bothered by the movement, the botherment is simply movement, it has no effect on the stillness and there is no thing which moved as long as you are trying to hold still, there’s a grasp, that won’t work, that will create the push-pull of duality, so that the moving will pursue you because you’re fleeting it, by trying to hold still, relax into the moving.

Can I encourage you this weekend to find a dance party? (audience laughs) or you know…a club or something that might have some dancing in the evening? and to go and immerse yourself in that and in the feelings that arise both embarrassment at your dancing and pride at your dancing because you’ll get both and go ahead and drink but not for the first couple of hours, want you to experience it both sober and slightly sloshed, but not so slosh, that you’re gonna you know, do things like not keep an eye on your drinking if somebody drops something and somebody could do that, so not sloshed to the point of incompetence, a nice little buzz, I want you to notice what changes and what doesn’t, you are identifying with either the moving or the stillness, there’s a midpoint. Sambhogakaya nature of mind, the stillness, Great Mother ocean of Dharmakaya, the ground of mind, all those wonderful terms, skylight nature of mind, the moving Nirmanakaya, the arising, the phenomena, the dance of form and all of that, Sambhogakaya, the consciousness in the center, that which looks out from behind your own eyes, that awake awareness, whether it’s moving or still or rather not whether it’s moving or still, but whether there is movement or stillness, try that this weekend, see if you can bring them together experientially, while physically doing a lot of movement and the way I’ve instructed should bring up some emotions, so you’ve got emotional movement, you’re going to be having all sorts of Namtok about what I’m telling you to do, so you’re gonna have that going on, try it.

Audience

Is that Nal Rochick pa?

Lama Lena

No, not yet, that is the Trultra Naljor part, dancing stillness, you gotta get that before you can turn around and try for the Rochick, in Mahamudra and since you’re using Mahamudra terms, there’s an order of operation and there’s a reason for the order of operation there, It works.

Audience

May I have another question?

Lama Lena

Yes

Audience

But if the Sutra says there is no eye, there is no path to walk, because there’s no places to arrive, so what am I doing?

Lama Lena

Good question. You don’t want to fall into the nihilism of those concepts, right now, what you have are the ideas… that there is no path to walk, because somebody said, that’s very different from seeing the unity of the path and the fruition directly all the time, make sense?

Audience

Not yet…

Lama Lena

Okay. I’ll try some more words, right now you are understanding Dzogchen, this is a problem…for all of you, you’re understanding because you are over educated intellectuals, the Tibetans say it’s much easier to teach a shepherd than a scholar, Dzogchen, because intellectuals grasp the understanding and on some level are satisfied by it or think they should be because understanding is everything…no, understanding is too limited because it is done in thought with thought and thought is moving, yet can they keep it and you know, they say a yogi should he find himself able to fly is strongly advised not to fly over large bodies of water especially if he can’t swim. Why? because you can get so much moving you can get the Siddhis within the moving, been there done that, fuckers were off at the worst possible moment leaving you [unclear].

So, knowledge and understanding are insufficient because they are acquired, anything acquired is going to go away, however the non-acquisition of relaxation is not the same as going limp, one practices as long as one can find a practitioner, Gom Me, the last stage, cannot occurred before Rochick, and Rochick cannot be occur… occur before full accomplishment of Trultra Naljor, if you’re gonna do Mahamudra you take it in steps and it’s very, very effective that way.

A lot of people in Dzogchen should have been in Mahamudra, because they get to the point where they keep trying to stabilize the experience of Tawa. Do you all remember the months and years you wasted trying to stabilize an experience? because you didn’t do the Rushens, that’s why we have the Rushens in Dzogchen, specifically for that one of the body, which we did in Poland last year, you can’t stabilize the moving, you can’t make it still, the moving moves and any realization you acquire, if it comes, it’s gonna go, remember your basic, basic teachings on impermanence: if you put it together, it’s gonna come apart, if you get it from somewhere, you’re gonna lose it, all aggregates dissipate, all clumps unclump eventually. This is why the dancing stillness yoga, the yoga of dancing stillness is so important part, but it can’t be done until you’ve actually done Rushen, Mahamudra Rushen is slightly different, done at a different time than Dzogchen Rushen, we’d like to drive yourself nuts for years in Dzogchen and before we take you out and run you around in a Rushen, so that’s how it’s done.

You don’t have to do anything to get the apple to ripen, but don’t pick it too soon or it will be sour, that’s the best answer I can give you.

There was someone behind you with a question also…Yes?

Audience

You spoke about the perception of the same taste, right?

Lama Lena

Yes.

Audience

When we perceive things like that, don’t you mean that the five aggregates are not perceived anymore as such?

Lama Lena

No, well… perception is moving, when you perceive something eventually you will not perceive it, one taste, if one taste, if the step of the state of one taste comes, if you get it, you’re gonna lose it, you cannot keep it, you cannot keep nothing you get, when one taste is obvious, not acquired, not lost, not created but as it always has been, what’s to gain or lose? but you cannot make that happen at a given moment, you cannot grab that, you can however, create the cause for that happy accident of that noticement, it is not a single moment in time, it is not not a single moment in time, it is not all moments in time, both and neither. I call it a noticement, but it is not something that you notice as an idea or as a feeling or as a perception.

You know, in the early teachings, we all say to you, you have Buddha nature inherent in you, you are enlightenment, you’ll always have been, but this will not satisfy you until it does and if you are not yet fully satisfied, it is necessary to keep practicing. Don’t fake it, to yourself, that’s important.

Did I answer your question? [audience: Yes]

Like the apple on the tree, or the river flowing to the sea, you can’t force it, all you can really do is keep practicing as taught by your teacher and when it comes to pass that you see no need to practice because it is obvious…[whispers] Don’t stop there, there’s an accident waiting to happen, there’s an oops right there, don’t fall in that hole, It hurts! Yeah, ask me how I know that! [audience laughs] twice! you’d think once would be enough! [audience laughs] Don’t stop, as long as there is ANY subtle experience – I’m gonna call it because they move – of a practitioner and a practice that couldn’t be done or not done, don’t stop. Okay? And if you do, I will do exactly what my teacher did both times [laughs out loud] told you so [audience laughs]

Other questions?…Yes?

Audience

Do we have access to the translation …of this text?

Lama Lena

Hmm, Yeah, I grabbed it from Lotsawa house …and edited a few bits from when Rinpoche used to recite it, in the Tibetan, then I looked through a bunch of translations of the Heart Sutra and this is the closest one to the way Rinpoche used to say it in Tibetan that I could find and I’m old fashioned [smiles]…yes?

Audience

You mentioned Jin…lab…

Lama Lena

Jinlab, yes!

Audience

What does it mean?

Lama Lena

Well, it could mean power, it could mean blessing, could mean energy, it would depend on the context you used it in. Tibetan words… First of all, there’s no words in Tibetan, there are phrases and syllables, the unit of meaning is syllable Rig: to see, pa: er, put them together and we say it’s the word Rig-pa translates as awareness, okay? [rolls her eyes] but you never have just two syllables together, you have a phrase where a bunch of syllables are strung together meaning making a unit of thought, ‘he went to town yesterday’ is a phrase, ‘Khetsang Khorang Trong Kier song’ Is that a word? So when we start even talking about words, they don’t have words in Tibetan, they have syllables that modify each other into phrases, but as you begin to try to translate it into English, you take pieces of those phrases, which match to English words, kind of sort of maybe, best answer I can give you on that one.

Audience

Jinlab is two syllables?

Lama Lena

Jin lab

Audience

they have…

Lama Lena

Jin..Jin, yes but I don’t know scholars. Martin?

Audience

Giving, Jinlab, Jinpa

Lama Lena

Oh! Jin as in Jinpa. Okay, giving and Lab?

Audience

Lab is like wave, waves…

Lama Lena

Okay! wave of giving, Thank you. I do love when they’re scholars because I’m just [unclear] cave Yogi and I don’t know that much, I just had a really good teacher. Other questions?…

Looks like we may be finishing early, unless there’s something else y’all want to know… Okay! I can keep going, but you gotta say something…you gotta ask something, where’s my Shariputra?

Audience

Should we [unclear] enlightenment?

Lama Lena

Yeah, you can, if you like, I don’t know where it is.

Audience

[unclear] short question…

Lama Lena

Okay

Audience

You say you had a good teacher, what defines a good teacher?

Lama Lena

He was patient enough not to throw me out too often [audience laughs] In my case, because I was not an easy student, he was truly realized, one of the last of the old masters who had done his time in retreat, in solitary retreat in caves in the mountains, who was trained in Tibet old style and then after Tibet fell, came out to India and practiced for years, obtained full realization and had the patience to put up with a couple of crazy students like me and a few others, and had the courage to drop kick me off cliffs when necessary, to take the chance that I might run away and not come back, because yes, I ran away a couple of times but I came back, It was an amazing teacher…Wangdor Rinpoche, but form is impermanent, form is moving, emptiness equates to stillness, when you talk about moving and stillness, emptiness and form.

Does that answer it? I think in my case, having the patience to put up with me was a big part of it because oh boy, I was a little bitch [audience laughs] …Oh, yes, please.

Audience

Well, what’s written in the [unclear] up there?

Lama Lena

I gotta look, [audience laughs] That’s an Ah, [audience: ah….laughs] speech Chakra, volition. I believe that has to do with a number of teachings on Shine and other things used also in Dream yoga by Norbu Rinpoche…less emphasized by my teacher…AH…word, you know in the Bible where it says in the beginning was the word and the word was God? that’s actually not a terrible translation from the Hebrew, now I did read it,…AH… all things begin with intent, intent, that’s the circle of the Skandhas, the way they lead to each other consciousness, wants, hopes and fears, duality created by original oops, the simple misperception that the doer, the deed and the done too are separate, rainbows do not occur in the sky, they are an interaction of water vapor, eyeballs, and space, they’re in the eye. Think about rainbows, it’s a Tibetan symbol, when you see a rainbow is not out there it’s a phenomena occurring in your eye, when you see anything, you assume it’s out there, oops tonight when you go home and sleep, you will dream and with everything occurring in your dreams, you will assume all those things are out there, you’re dreaming, there is no black dog out there that wants to eat you, there is no cupcake that you want to eat and yet you run from the dog in the dream and you pursue the cupcake, examples: it’s all arising as sensations in your mind as the Chi moves through the Chakras, see if you can notice that tonight while dreaming, is good practice for the Bardo.

Original oops is simply the perception that the pretty rainbow colors are out there, the way a kitten chases a laser pointer, the way of baby reaches for the rainbows cast on the wall by the sun hitting Mama’s wedding ring, so the perception that it’s out there causes reaching and [unclear] which creates the karma for further perceptions and so you dance through Samsara but no thing ever actually happened, this is an oversimplification, but you may find it reassuring, but go ahead, this idea I have given you about reality, see if you can notice it in your dreams tonight.

Audience

How to set your mind before you going to sleep to recognize…

Lama Lena

Just decide…see if you can,… it might be and then pick it again next time you get up to pee, I don’t know, you may not be old enough to get up to pee much [audience laughs] Yes?

Audience

[unclear]talk about the relationship between, let’s say concentration and awareness, and maybe letting go or not grasping, if I may refer to like imagining [unclear]we used to talk about being spaced-out, you know, and being spaced-out could feel like no grasping, but yes…

Lama Lena

Meditation accident that happens to a lot of Yogi’s, that space-outness, been there done that.

Audience

It was lacking awareness, basically and I would love to know your thoughts on that.

Lama Lena

When you grab stillness, in a certain way, you get the side effect of spaced-out, it’s where you start liking the experience of stillness better than the experience of movement, that’s where you were falling in our conversation, why I’m sending you out clubbing this weekend, so yes, a lot of times we do that, especially if there’s been too much movement lately, where I get that is when I’m traveling, and I’m just traveling a little too fast and then it’s like, no, no, I just want to sit here, I just want stillness and then I find myself reaching for that and then I get really spacey, so it’s a way of noticing that you’ve grabbed stillness, like okay, that’s a side effect, It’s a Nyam a meditative experience, they’re sign posts they’re useful, but not to claim to, so when you notice that you have leaned too far into spaciness, bring yourself back, notice, Ah… I must have gotten too tired and grabbed stillness because I was tired of moving my balances off, lean back the other way, what I find useful is to sit in a cafe and watch the moving, to catch the rest in moving stillness, that works for me, it may not for you, when you notice the balance is off, and you’re leaning too far towards stillness, we’re talking Mahamudra again, but you get what I mean, even in Dzogchen, one becomes attach to the experience of wisdom, or of clarity or a bliss which is delightful that’s when nothing hurts too, yeah, that’s wonderful [audience laughs], my back likes it.

The point I’m making is we do tend to become attached to pleasure and fleet pain, but you have to look at what you are defining is which and then how you’re creating your definitions, you can do it first start with thinking, because it’s a good beginning, Okay, why am I attached? What is it that this time is causing me to feel that attachment to the stillness? Right, but don’t spend too long on the thinking part, feel, feel the attachment, work through it, feel how you’ve gotten attached to stillness, feel that desire for rest, at least in my experience for me, that’s where I am, when I find myself reaching for stillness, at that point, start seeing if you could just lean…without falling in the other direction into total focus on the moving and being all involved in thinking it’s real, see if you can just lean a little bit back towards center you will lean too far, and you’re gonna go like this a little bit [rocking movement] when you find the midline, it’s not spaced-out, it’s not particularly wise or clear or anything at all and yet it is all those things inherently.

Is this…help a little bit with the spaciness?..ah, Yes in the back…

Audience

I’m so curious to know, what made you run away from Lama Wangdor? …laughs on background

Lama Lena

Oh, he pushed me and you know, a no way to let go and I wouldn’t let go and I didn’t want to let go and I ran away but then he was still there so finally I eventually with a lot further flapping here and there, let go… you don’t want to let go, nobody wants to let go, what did Trumpa Rinpoche say? no one in their right mind will jump off this cliff and no one who’s not in their right mind is going to manage the realization of sky…sky dancing which comes after jumping off the cliff , so somebody has to drop kick you, I think that’s in one of his books somewhere but not in those words I don’t remember the words, someone else might… it’s why you need a teacher, you will not let go unless somebody stamps on your little fingers, there will be something that you care too much about to let go of, Rinpoche used to have great fun kicking me in the feminism.

That’s okay, my friend had a teacher who used to make her sleep with assholes…Idiots… there’s always something you won’t do, inside it’s not outside, it’s not behavior, because of a hold on who you think you are, I am like this, but not that…and when someone forces you to let go, that’s called a stamp and on their little fingers and no teacher ever does it on purpose, it’s the function of Samaya, you don’t… as a teacher you don’t think about it and decide to do it, sometimes someone will experience that as a function of the Samaya whereas you thought you were asking them to buy you some fish, so you never will know what your teachers actually thinking, in my experience, I’ve never been able to figure out what he meant by anything, except he meant Dzogchen, because that’s where he lived.

This is a hard one to communicate. I’m going to take the next one…

Audience

Seems like in the last several months, there’s been many masters that have passed on and when you were speaking about the rainbow, and the rainbow body, it made me think maybe poetically, that it was their way of their last gift of showing us that perception of the aggregates dissolving and leaving that for us as the observer to see those things.

Lama Lena

Yes, not everyone can see rainbow, sometimes it’s there and you explain it away, must have had something in my eye. I remember one time, there was a student who came to visit my teacher, one of his students and I’m the translator so I’m in there, and the student was saying to him… quite an advanced student, I need you to show me a miracle I’m losing my faith, I need you to show me just once, magic a miracle, all these things they talk about you know going through walls, levitating, just show me one, I need, I desperately need this and he actually went on at great length about this and while he was doing that, my teacher put his hand through the table, reached it down, put it up, again, picked up his water bottle, but not reaching this way, but up through the table, took a sip [drinks some water] put it down, put his hand back through the table, I’m watching this, he is looking at that direction, he’s in an angle to see this, we’re sitting next to each other, he’s still asking my teacher to please show him a miracle, like you know somebody putting their hand through a wall or something, please show him, finally he ran down and Rinpoche looked at him…sorry I can’t show you a miracle he said, so but I’ll have faith in you anyway, even if you can’t do a miracle, she said…what you experience not only in regard to your teacher, but in regard to every thing is your interpretation of your sensation, you’re making it up… Yes, Martin?

Audience

Just wanted to say briefly, maybe in relation to this, that also Jin, Jin lab means not only given but the potential of something to change the way you perceive, like sometimes translated as magnificence or…

Lama Lena

Okay

Audience

So that it may be related.

Lama Lena

Yeah, like most words, depending on context, in context, it’s going to be this thing or that thing. Thank you…ah..you?

Audience

I think you just explained about the teacher and the function of the teacher and the stepping on the fingers, where…where we don’t want to let go, you could experience that with Wangdor Rinpoche because you were like, very close and working very closely together, but if I…

Lama Lena

No…because it didn’t bother me.

Audience

Okay, so if I… if I like, meet the teacher only once or twice a year but I do guru yoga and I take refuge in the nature of mind as if it’s the teacher, does then the situation come anyway?

Lama Lena

Yes,…Yes, you… it’s good to bounce off the teacher occasionally, but for individual students, what they need as far as a relationship with the teacher is very different, and for the same student, it’s different at different times, they say the teacher is like a fire, if you get too close, you’re going to get burned and if you get too far away, you’re gonna freeze, so you gotta move in and out to your point of comfort, it is up to you to figure out the point not up to the teacher, so you…you sort of do like this [make a back and forth gesture with her hands] in and out as needed, you’re too cold? you come a little closer, you feel like you’re getting singed? back off for a while, yes?

Audience

Well, what made you come back?

Lama Lena

I wondered… he phoned me from the airport: When are you coming to get me, I’m in the airport? I’m in America … and he I last saw was in Tibet, I said… Rinpoche which airport? Your airport! Okay, where in the airport Rinpoche? By the telephones idiot! [makes gesture of hanging up a phone] [audience laughs] so we got [unclear] to the airport while I cleaned up all the sex toys in the house [audience laughs] we’ve been in a new relationship for like, a week and so we gave him the bedroom and we slept on the couch and that was his first time West and we invited our friends and he gave a teaching and they told their friends and [make increasing gesture] so it grew, why did he come to America? Well, Norbu Rinpoche made arrangements for him to go to Europe, but the trip started in Finland, so he was in Hong Kong and he went to the Finnish embassy to get a visa and they said, Oh, no, no, no, you have to do it in your own country, it’s passport is Nepali, so he went to Nepal to do it, because Norbu Rinpoche was sponsoring this was wonderful, but there is no Finnish embassy in Nepal [audience laughs] and when he was down in Embassy road he’s discovered this, he’s like, Oh, what the…? Then he sees the American Embassy, so he walks slowly…Who’s in America now? So he walks over, walks in and says Can I have a visa? and they gave him one [covers her eyes in dismay, audience laughs] [unclear] so that’s how he called me from the airport, now find the why in any of that…because I never could…

Audience

How long was the distance that… between…that… how much time…

Lama Lena

He was in Tibet when I left, so maybe a year or two? there was a number of reasons for leaving but I was running away…um…he’d been pushing me and I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, at that time and then my mom got sick and gave me an excuse she had a heart attack so I went to look after her, but I don’t know all the whys, I know why I ran, but the rest of it, I don’t have a clue.

Yes?…ah, it is getting on for that time, we will be back tomorrow there will be plenty of time for a lot more questions, because when teaching Dzogchen the thing is, there’s a certain point beyond which more words don’t make it any clearer, they just complexify things.

My teacher was actually a very simple man not a scholar, Khampa Cowboy, that’s what Norbu called him Khampa Cowboy, they were old friends and yes he had that kind of a twang.

So I will run out of words, periodically and then you got to sort of put another quarter in by asking questions [audience laughs] Okay?

“[Dedication Prayer]”

That prayer what it actually says is this all of those who have gone before… the gist of its meaning, I’m not gonna do a direct translation because it’s a bit…it’s a very shortened version of a much longer one, because I like short, simple…As those who have walked before me, as those who walk with me, as those who will come after me have all done – here this refers to all Buddha’s of the three times – I also offer all virtue created or benefit created by this, these actions for the sake of all life, that’s the gist of the meaning. Okay, we are complete.”