One night, I did a short Chenrezig practice (Sanskrit: Avalokiteshvara, the buddha of compassion), chanting the mani mantra (OM MANI PADME HUNG) 108 times and then silently chanting the mantra while meditating on the completion stage (Tibetan: dzog-rim) of form/sound/awareness as inseparable from the deity’s form, mantra, and enlightened awareness — in the case Chenrezig’s form, mantra and enlightened awareness.
I find the completion stage in any mahayoga practice to be so incredibly profound, and it’s amazing the extent to which I can really feel the vibrant presence of the phenomena of form (appearance/visual objects), sound, and awareness (my own) as being timelessly inseparable from, and manifestations of, the deity and emptiness.
The sounds become more resonant, and they become somehow more discernable and crisp to the ear, even as they seem to become more illusory, dreamlike, echolike, and inseparable from emptiness.
The same goes for the yogas of form and awareness (including thoughts) inseparable from the empty yet luminous display of the deity’s enlightened form — forms and thoughts/awareness become more clear, more discernable, more vivid, more alive… even as they become more miragelike, more boundaryless, more open and naturally spacious.
Thoughts and awareness can be like the container and contents; like a cup and the water inside it; or perhaps more appropriately, like an ocean and its waves.
It is really quite something — how it feels. How it can feel.
Surges of energy course through my body, and I feel a palpable dynamic energy, streaming here and there on subtle levels.
This meditation is not meant to create something new, but rather reveal some deeper aspect of reality which has always been present and timelessly the case. In light of this, it is very powerful to viscerally experience this divinity, this deeper nature, which at once increases the intensity of appearances-sound-awareness, making them more poignant and potent with meaning; and at the same time, more empty. Dreamlike. Spacious. Free.
What is the most impressive, perhaps, about the completion stage meditation of mahayoga, is how the felt-sense of phenomena feels so different, much more blissful and beautiful. Their qualities are heightened on every level, and at the same time giving room for a different kind of space, a basis space: a broader arena in which to experience all phenomena with equanimity and compassion.
Comments