Dreams and Truths from the Ocean of Mind by Pema Lodoe

Author:Pema Lodoe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hay House
Published: 2019-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

And so, from that day forward I ceased my daily production of quatrains, seeing such activity as an unwanted and unnecessary means of increasing my ties to the world of ordinary conceptuality with its attendant confusion. I continued to come out of my meditation cell only on the second day of the Tibetan month (i.e., the day after the full moon) to meet with Khenpo Rinpoche and his attendant. We would spend the day deep in conversation on the meditative experiences of the previous month. I would look to Khenpo for clarifications, and he would likewise consult with me. This was a marvelous opportunity for profound Dharma discussions with immediate practical application. It was our monthly celebration of the joy of the Dharma.

One day some people arrived from my hometown in Golok. They were on a pilgrimage to the sacred places in and around Lhasa. The news had reached them that Khenpo Rinpoche and I were on retreat in Tsering Jong and that we met with visitors only on the second day of the month. They came and waited. When I received their news, it was not good. I learned that my paternal grandmother Dzamlo, who raised me like a second mother and who was a precious treasure to me, had now embarked on the fifth path, the final period in the cycle of life and death.139 This bad news of her passing struck me very hard. I was completely miserable. For the next forty-nine days140 I engaged in the practice of the transference of consciousness (Tib. phowa) for my grandmother during the fourth (and final) meditative session of each day. Together with the phowa practice, I exerted myself with assiduous efforts of prayer and aspiration to invoke the powers and blessings of the enlightened ones and the Dharma protectors to free my grandmother from the difficulties and dangers of the bardo.

My grandmother’s passing functioned as a strong incentive that stimulated and focused my efforts in the retreat. It increased my determination to detach from worldly involvements, to renounce worldly aims, and to pursue liberation with undivided devotion. It caused the reality of impermanence, of the transitory nature of all composite phenomena,141 to appear vividly and continually in my mind.

A little over six months had passed since I sealed myself into this retreat. It was the twentieth day of the fifth Tibetan month of the Iron Horse year (i.e., early summer of 1990) and I had just finished the noon meal, which is the last meal of the day for the Buddhist anchorite. I went out the door of my shelter into the courtyard and began my meditation session. At once I felt a singular sense of focus on the goal of liberation whereby any interest I had in the things of this world simply fell away. In this aspect of Dzogchen meditation, the eyes are wide open and look upward at the vast expanse of endless space. As I looked upward in meditation, I remember how the summer sky was brilliantly clear, with the sun shining warmly above.

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