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December 2020 Managing Editor: Matthew Dawson Essence of Mahamudra INSIDE THIS ISSUE Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche • Essence of Mahamudra • Buddhist Summer School Online January 2021 • Interview with Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel • Interview with Dechen Davies • News from Maitripa Centre, Healesville • News from Nyima Tashi Buddhist Centre New Zealand • News from E-Vam Buddhist Institute U.S. • News from Akshara Bookshop • News from Shogam Publications • E-Vam Institute 2021 Summer Teaching Program • E-Vam Institute 2021 Autumn Teaching Program This is the first of a series of four talks Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche gave on Mahamudra Meditation in Sydney in 2009. The next three talks will be featured in consecutive E-Vam newsletters. am happy to take this opportunity to practise we basically owe to the Indians. The speak on a topic which is so profound Indian origin of Tibetan Buddhism is to be Iand vast. valued. I think it’s very important not to As you know, all of the traditions of overemphasise the notion that as Tibetans Buddhism that Tibetans practise came from we came up with something really India. We inherited the practices from extraordinary, but to value the roots from Indians, brought over by both Tibetans and which it came. I believe that to be very Indians. Not only were Tibetans travelling to valuable because, after all, our roots mean India in search of the most precious, most everything. esoteric, and the most advanced teachings. Tibetan Buddhism encourages that notion They then brought the teachings back to as do many other Buddhist traditions. In the Tibet, translated the texts and explain to the Zen tradition they talk about The Tibetans what those practices were all about. Transmission of the Lamp which is a very It was also the Indian teachers, even those sacred Zen text that talks about the who didn’t speak any Tibetan, also came to transmission of the lineage. Tibet to share teachings. Buddhism came to Tibet in two waves. So that’s something that we actually need They are known as the “spreads” of to think about. The Buddhism that we Buddhism: the early and later spreads or The Wheel of Times • 1 disseminations. The first one was known Padmasambhava and other earlier In exoteric Mahayana the model of a as the Nyingma school, meaning “ancient”. Tantricas, before Langdarma’s time. really good aspirant on the path to Nyingma, in this context, means the Buddhism was first brought to Tibet by enlightenment is known as the “first,” the first Tibetans who embraced Guru Padmasambhava and is seen in “bodhisattva: the one who has generated Buddhism. So the first people to embrace Tibetan and Bhutan and many other enlightened heart,” which means one who Buddhism became known as places as a master and a hero. In Tibet we has made the commitment to cultivate “Nyingmapas.” think of Padmasambhava as the second mind which is both enlightened, imbued Buddhism was basically destroyed in Buddha: sang gye nyi pa (sangs rgyas gnyis with wisdom, and also with compassion, the 9th century, around the time of King pa). Sang gye nyi pa means “second love and things of that kind. The Langdarma. There was a lot of conflict Buddha” – sang gye of course means the cultivation of such altruistic qualities is and factions within the courts – a “Buddha.” practiced for a long time, so five paths, ten Buddhist faction and a Bonpo faction of With these new influences and events stages of the bodhisattva path are spoken non-Buddhists. The Bonpos still wanted both in Tibet and in India – politically, about. to practise their ancient Bön religion. sociologically, religiously – it was a very, The tantric path of the new school, as Originally what is often referred to as very interesting time and also very opposed to the old school, is modelled on the lama dance or “Black Hat’ dance – the unsettling as so many new things were that. Even the old school talks about the dancers wear costumes with flared sleeves happening. nine yanas, nine vehicles and so on. It is and broad hats, sometimes masks and When we think of Mahamudra slightly different because the old school other attire. This was originally a Bönpo teachings and so forth we need to relate to approach is still not as gradual, not as dance. Many of these rituals were the notion that new forms of tantra were descriptive, and the path is not presented eventually incorporated into the Tibetan brought to Tibet. You would not find a lot in a very structured way as with the new Buddhist tradition. The Black Hat dance of the old tantras in the Tibetan canonical school approach to Tantricism, esoteric and many other ritual practices have many Buddhism. elements of the Bönpo rituals remaining. “Mahamudra is The newer wave of Tantricism was very After King Langdarma’s death his two seen as the highest structured. You start with the kriya, sons moved into power. One son was pro- charya, yoga tantras which are different Buddhist and the other was anti- form of tantric levels of esoteric practices of which the Buddhist. They fought and the Tibetan teachings that are highest form is known as “Mahamudra.” kingdom ended up fragmented. This discussed in Tantricism. Mahamudra in itself cannot really be ushered in a whole new kind of described as a tantric practice in many Buddhism, which is known as “new”, the How to integrate the ways and I will try to explain over these Sarmapas. Nyingma means “old or first body, mind and prana four teachings what I mean by that. school,” and Sarma means “new school.” For now it is sufficient to say that the So the Mahamudra types of teachings that or motility – highest form of tantric practice you can do are followed mainly within the Kagyu true integration.” in the new tantras is what we call tradition come from that time, not only “fulfilment stage” practices. Practices like in Tibet but in India also. Those were literature. They are not there in the dream yoga, illusory body yoga and other turbulent times in India as well. The Tibetan canon, for example, but the new forms of yoga, yogas that will help you to Moguls were making their way into India. tantras are. So the old tantras were put go deeper and deeper into yourself, not The Moguls who saw themselves as into a separate collection, for example, the just using your mind but even your body. Mongolian ruled India practically until Nyingma Gyübum (rnying ma rgyud So you use physical exercises breathing the British came to India. bum), and have remained separate. exercises - the body, mind and breath, and At this time a new development of The newer forms of Tantricism taught a visualisation bring together the mental Buddhism was taking place, known as form of graduated path to enlightenment, aspect. Tantricism, which is a form of esoteric in its own way. It was somewhat modelled The mental aspect is the most Buddhism. History scholars argue about on the sutric approach to enlightenment, important thing and visualisation is a very the timing but roughly it began around as taught in traditional Mahayana important part of that practice. So even the 9th, 10th century, to the 14th. These teachings. Mahayana, as it is taught in when you are dealing with the body, you dates are not precise. You can even add a Tibetan Buddhism, emphasises two are thinking of the body in a visualised century or two or take a century or two different approaches. One is the sutric way. You are using imagination even with off. approach, the exoteric approach, and the your body. You are not just thinking: Oh, This new development in Tantricism other is the esoteric approach. The this is body and this is mind. I’m just that was brought to Tibet ushered in a exoteric approach of Mahayana speaks thinking this or I’m just imagining this or whole new way of looking at tantric about five paths, ten stages of that. What you are actually imagining and teachings – quite different from that enlightenment and so on, which is a what you are doing with your body and which was introduced by Guru familiar model of a bodhisattva. your breath are integrating them. 2 • The Wheel of Times hese teachings say that the breath, mission and receive instruction and then these practices are done in the exoteric prana, is not just about breathing. practice many rituals, visualisations, chant context but [we think of it] in a different TI suppose it’s like oxygen and mantras and so forth. Tantricism is very way, a non-graduated way – almost in a energy so if we think of prana in that way, affective in bringing contradictions into non-systematic way. Instead of thinking, instead of just breath or wind, as it is often one experience explicitly. You bring “I have to approach everything in a step- translated, then we might get a better sense contradictions together and then you are by-step manner” you think in terms of of what we are working with. Sometimes, if transported to another level of being, a how to empower yourself, how to something knocks you out for a few state which you have not been familiar actualise yourself, how to realise yourself seconds or you are rendered breathless and with within yourself. That is one of the in a more direct manner. suddenly you come back, you become extraordinary things about Tantricism. That’s what Mahamudra teaches – as rejuvenated and reanimated, brought back Tantricism is somewhat designed to be does Dzogchen of the old school.

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