Q: Could you say something more on how you structure your retreat or retreat that you would recommend? How much should, how much sky, how much yoga breath? How do you structure that?
A: Ah, you mean like the teachings that we have read today. How do you structure that?
I think way to structure these things, I think, the first meditation cycle is the most important. The first one. The first and the second one is the most important. Keep that in the cycle it’s very important: one and the two. And the rest of it is just more like adding, eventually over the time, on the top of that.
The first two is the most important. That’s the one with, remember, you breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in and then, by the third time, and then you just simply with the sense of detachment attitude and then you meditate on that thought. Right? Without any expectation, without too many ideas about “what it should be and how it should be”. None of that. Just when you breathe in, put your mind in the state of the breath, not in the beginning, not in the end, not too much concerned about that. Simply breathe, in, out, in, out and, by the third time, and then when you breathe out, you can breathe in slowly anyway, but by the third time when you breathe out, and then keep your mind attitude in a sense of detachment. And then obviously, it’s not going to stay that long, so the projection of thoughts arises and when the reflection of image and thoughts is arisen and then you just simply gaze upon that and see that. And then do not exaggerate from what it is. Then it dissolves by itself.
Then again, come back and breathe out, and breathe in, breathe out then breathe in and breathe out again with a sense of detachment and meditate a little bit.
So that’s the most important. So I would recommend probably like short time as possible in the beginning. It doesn’t have to be like hour and hour. It can be like 15 minutes, 20 minutes. And then, once you find a joy of doing the practice and experiencing it little by little then I think it will increase by itself. So that’s that.
And if you’re doing a retreat, … So like in the beginning, just try to do one session a day. That session can be like probably 20 minutes, 30 minutes. And then eventually, once you have more, some sort of a confidence, and then you can do 3 sessions, 2 sessions. One session in the morning before you eat any meal and then one session in the evening, one session in the late afternoon. Like that, like if you’re doing a retreat: morning, late morning, afternoon and the evening.
So that’s it for today.
…
So we make a dedication:
[Dedication of Merit]བསོད་ནམས་འདི་ཡིས་ཐམས་ཅད་གཟིགས་པ་ཉིད།
Sonam di yi t’ham che zik pa nyi
By this merit may all attain omniscience.
ཐོབ་ནས་ཉེས་པའི་དགྲ་རྣམས་ཕམ་བྱས་ནས།
T’hop ne nye pay dra nam pam je ne
May it defeat the enemy, wrongdoing.
སྐྱེ་རྒ་ན་འཆི་རྦ་རླབས་འཁྲུགས་པ་ཡིས།
Kye ga na ch’hi ba lap t’hruk pa yi
From the stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death;
སྲིད་པའི་མཚོ་ལས་འགྲོ་བ་སྒྲོལ་བར་ཤོག
si pay ts’ho le dro wa drol war shok.
From the ocean of samsara, may I free all beings!
Jang chhub sem chhog rin po chhe
May the precious supreme bodhichitta
Ma kye pa nam kye gyur chig
Not yet born arise.
Kye pa nyam pa me pa yi
May that arisen not decline,
Gong nä gong du phel war shog
But increase more and more.
Niguma’s “Amulet Mahamudra” by Kalu Rinpoche (2nd afternoon session – 2h 38′ 52”)
Kagyu Sukha Chöling – Friday March 11, 2022
Comments are closed.