Let Love And Compassion Ride Your Breath

This practice is part of Atisha's 7-Point Mind Training. Breath is what connects us to the world. When there is breath, there is this world, the illusion, the Maya. When breath stands still, the world disappears. In meditative silence, there is only pure consciousness. How this pure consciousness interacts with the world, that transaction should be of love and compassion. Sending and receiving love, compassion, positivity, joy, peace.

Transcript

Namaste and welcome to this daily life meditation with me,

Dhyansa.

30 minutes today and every morning.

If you contemplate and meditate along with me in these sessions,

You will be one step closer to love,

Compassion,

Self-awareness,

Happiness and everything that you wish to bring more clarity in your life to take you one step closer to your highest potentials,

To take you one step closer to becoming pure awareness consciousness,

A light onto yourself.

In this series,

Right now we are discussing 7 point mind training by Atisha.

This is a part of Tibetan Buddhism,

A practice called Lojong.

In these 7 points,

We are right now on point number 2,

Which is a path towards Bodhicitta,

Meaning purifying the consciousness to become pure consciousness.

The consciousness that we have right now is filled with the contents of our mind with all sorts of things.

The effort here with these sutras from Atisha is to move towards purifying our consciousness to become pure consciousness,

To become pure awareness.

The sutras for today,

Sending and taking should be practiced alternately.

These two should ride the breath.

Three objects,

Three poisons,

Three roots of virtue.

In all activities,

Train with slogans.

Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself.

I will break this down into two sessions.

Today we will discuss the first part of what is this sending and taking.

And tomorrow we will discuss what are the three objects,

Three virtues,

And how to understand how to unfold these sutras for us in our own daily lives,

Not a life of a monk.

But what does this mean to the practicalities of our life?

The first part,

Which is sending and taking should be practiced alternately.

What is this sending and taking that Atisha is referring to here?

To understand that,

We need to take a step back and see how Atisha himself was trained.

Atisha was trained by three different masters,

Not just one,

But three different enlightened masters who taught him very specific three different types of training,

Three different types of paths that one could take.

They individually were taking that specialized path,

But Atisha was trained in all these three paths.

The first path that Atisha learned from the first master was the path towards emptiness,

Meaning the path towards no mind,

Moving out of the mind,

Moving out of the realm of thoughts,

Of all what is there on your mental plane to reach to a meditative state,

To reach to emptiness.

Then Atisha was trained by the second master in love and compassion.

This became a very very strong foundation of Buddhism and also the teachings of not only Atisha,

But several other Buddhistic teachers,

Masters,

Spiritual leaders that came and shared their vision with us.

And the third,

A more tricky pillar,

A more tricky path,

Was to absorb the suffering of this world and convert this into love and passion.

This third path,

This third training which Atisha took from the third master,

This is something very advanced,

This is something that does not belong to ordinary life.

This is where the training is to interact with this suffering,

To absorb this suffering,

Transform this suffering into light,

Into love,

Into compassion,

Into silence,

And then sending it out in the world.

So when Atisha says here,

Now back to the sutra,

When Atisha says sending and receiving,

What he refers to sending and receiving and what the practice of in Buddhism known as Tonglong,

That is created out of this Atisha sutra,

Is actually meaning sending love,

Compassion,

And receiving the misery of the world.

As I said,

It is an advanced practice where you in your meditation,

In your silence,

In your purity,

Absorb the misery of the world,

Absorb the misery that is all around us in this world,

And transforming this,

Taking this to our heart,

And transforming this,

And sending it out into the world as love,

Compassion,

Silence,

Peace,

And so on.

And this process to me is an advanced process.

If you were to become a monk,

If you were to become a Buddhist monk or any other monk,

I would recommend to start training yourself in that direction as well.

But for us,

Remember we are on the path of purifying our consciousness.

We are not here to become Buddhists,

My respects to all the Buddhists,

But here in these sessions,

We are learning from them and not trying to become them.

We are learning what is valuable for our daily lives,

And this sending and receiving could have a second interpretation as well.

The way I see this sending and receiving,

I see that breath.

Breath is our connection with the world.

Let me explain what that means.

Breath is a part of this world.

Breath does not belong to the dimension of consciousness.

When you are sitting in silence,

When you are sitting in pure awareness,

When you are pure consciousness,

There is no breath.

And you can notice this in your own experience,

When you are really reaching to your depths,

To your silence,

The breath becomes very,

Very still.

As long as there is breath,

There is this world.

There is this illusion which Atisha was mentioning earlier,

Which we had discussed yesterday in post meditation,

Be a child of the illusion.

The world,

This world is an illusion,

Is maya,

Is samsara.

How to then deal with it?

So see that you and the world are connected with the breath.

The breath stops,

Life is over,

You are somewhere else,

You are not a part of this world anymore.

So how to still remain connected with the world,

But not of it?

Not become the illusion,

But still be part of the illusion,

Go into the illusion,

Be the child of the illusion,

But not become the illusion.

How to do that?

That's where this sutra from Atisha has another meaning,

Which is sending and receiving,

Ride this sending and receiving as a part of your breath,

On top of your breath.

So when you are breathing in and out,

See,

Observe from the observer,

From the standpoint of consciousness,

That this breath is a connection to the world,

Is a connection to the illusion,

To the maya that we all live in,

But this sending and receiving now,

Once you have,

Firstly,

You have recognized,

You have realized that this breath is your connection to the world.

You can do that by bringing your awareness to your breath and feel that the more you are aware of your breath,

The more you can understand this connection between yourself,

Between pure consciousness and the world.

And at the same time,

Then what should be the nature of this sending and receiving,

Which is coming out of pure consciousness,

Which is going out into the world and coming from the world to pure consciousness and going back into the world.

My recommendation to you would be,

Stay with love,

Stay with compassion,

Stay with light,

Stay with positivity.

Don't go into misery,

Don't go into negativity,

Don't try to be a hero.

Don't try to save the world by being a hero,

Trying to absorb the misery and sending out,

Transforming that into love and compassion.

When I say that,

All I'm saying here is that right now,

Start with yourself,

Start with love,

Compassion,

Light,

And when you have your consciousness is purer,

Then you can move on to the negativities,

To miseries and absorb that and transform that for the world.

Otherwise,

What will happen is,

Point number one,

You will start feeling like the savior,

Your ego will be strengthened,

You will start to think that you are the one who is saving the world,

And that will result in only strengthening of the ego,

If it's there in you.

Secondly,

You may harm yourself.

So,

I would suggest to remain with the light,

To remain with love,

Remain with compassion,

And establish this sending and receiving with the world from your pure consciousness to the world,

The sense of love,

The sense of compassion,

And with every breath,

With every exhalation,

Release this love,

Compassion for the whole world,

And with every inhalation,

Receive love,

Compassion of this world.

There's enough love and compassion in the world,

We need to connect to each other with love and compassion.

And it is not like that if we would receive love and compassion,

It would be any lesser in the world.

So,

The mathematics of love and compassion function differently,

The more you share,

The more it increases in the world.

Focus on love,

Compassion,

Silence,

Awareness,

And from your point of pure awareness,

Pure consciousness,

First of all,

Recognize that your breath is the bridge towards the world,

And then learn what to ride upon this breath,

Which is love and compassion being sent from you to the world,

And being received from the world to you.

As a part of the meditation,

We will practice this for the next 15 to 20 minutes,

Before sitting in absolute silence.

Please close your eyes.

Make sure that your posture is comfortable,

And your back is upright.

Your hand posture,

Your leg posture does not matter.

Your head is straight,

Your face relaxed,

And your awareness turned inwards towards your breath.

Thank you.

Bring your attention to the flow of the breath,

Of the rising and falling of your breath,

With every inhalation,

Every exhalation.

Bring all your awareness to your breath,

And notice that the breath is the bridge between you and the world.

When there is breath,

There is the world,

Thoughts,

Emotions,

Ideas,

Sense of I,

When there is no breath,

When there is a pause,

There is pure nothingness.

In that nothingness,

There is your awareness.

Don't try to close your eyes.

Don't try to change anything.

Simply observe your breath,

And realize the nature of your breath.

The world rises and falls,

With the breath rising and falling.

The world appears and disappears with the breath being there and not being there.

Now,

Shift your attention to what you send and receive.

Receive with every breath.

Allow your love and compassion to ride on your breath,

And share it with the rest of the world,

With every exhalation.

And with every inhalation,

You receive the love and compassion from this world coming to you.

With every inhalation and exhalation,

Receive love,

Receive compassion,

Send love,

Send compassion.

Build this relation,

This bridge of breath,

Fill it with love and compassion.

Leave the technique.

Leave the focus on your breath.

Simply remain aware,

Silent,

Seated in pure awareness,

Absolute silence for another couple of minutes.

Wales.

If you wish to sit longer in silence,

Keep your eyes closed,

Go deep within as long as you like or very gently and slowly you may open your eyes slowly awareness back into the world and as you move into the world today and otherwise as well move into this world with a sense of love and compassion riding on your every breath remaining aware of every breath that you take and this exchange this transaction of sending and receiving happening between pure consciousness you and the world should be of love compassion silence and awareness I'll see you tomorrow at 7 a.

M.

Central European Time.

Namaste