Watch: Carl Jung - The Wisdom of The Dream

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-_RF8zjUhcA three-part series of films produced by PBS, on the life and works of the great thinker and psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. Part one provides an overview of the major contributions made by Jung in his long career. Born on July 26, 1875, in Switzerland, Jung became interested in psychiatry during his medical studies.He saw that the minds of mentally deranged persons had similar contents, much of which he recognized from his own interior life, described in his autobiography "Memories, Dreams, Reflections." His lifelong quest to understand the workings of the psyche led him to develop the analytical method of psychiatry.He proceeded by looking at the role in his patients' lives of what he termed the personal and collective unconscious, as expressed through dreams, myths, and outer events. With film clips, photographs, and interviews with some of his colleagues, as well as with Jung himself, the story of one of the most important figures of the 20th century is told.

Lama Tsultrim Allione on Feeding Your Demons

Feeding your demons rather than fighting them might seem to contradict the conventional Western approach to what assails us, but it turns out to be a remarkably effective path to inner peace and liberation. Demons are our obsessions and fears, chronic illnesses, or common problems like depression, anxiety, and addiction. They are not bloodthirsty ghouls waiting for us in dark places; they are within us, the forces that we fight inside ourselves. They are inner enemies that undermine our best intentions.The approach of giving form to these inner forces, and feeding rather than struggling against them, was originally articulated by an eleventh-century female Buddhist teacher, Machig Labdrön (1055-1145). Her exact dates are debatable and vary according to the source, but most scholars agree she was born in 1055 and lived well into her nineties. Her spiritual practice was called Chöd (pronounced "chuh"), which means "to cut through." She developed this form of meditation, unusual even in her time in Tibet, and it generated such amazing results that it became very popular, spreading to all the schools of Tibetan Buddhism and beyond.In today's world we suffer from record levels of inner and outer struggle, and find ourselves ever more polarized politically and spiritually. We need a new paradigm, a fresh approach to conflict. Machig's strategy of nurturing rather than battling our inner and outer enemies offers a revolutionary path to resolve conflict that leads to psychological integration and inner peace.In 1967, at age nineteen, I had the good fortune to travel to India and Nepal and meet the Tibetans who had settled there as refugees after being forced into exile during Communist China's invasion of Tibet. I fell in love with the Tibetans and returned to India in 1969 after spending six months at the first Tibetan monastery in Scotland, founded by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. in 1970 I was ordained as a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan tradition by His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa, in Bodhgaya, India, and for the next few years I had the immeasurable blessing of receiving teachings at the feet of many great Buddhist masters trained in Tibet. As I describe in the following pages, after several years I made the decision to return my monastic vows, It was at this time of great transition and uncertainty that I was first introduced to Chöd. I subsequently returned to America, became a mother, and sought to integrate Tibetan wisdom into my life as a layperson. I was eventually guided to discover Machig Labdrön's biography (written in Tibetan), and her teachings became pivotal for me.Because I myself was able to find such enormous relevance in Machig's teachings, I was motivated to find a way to make her approach accessible in a Western context. When I began to teachthe Chod practice in the West, I developed an exercise of visualizing, dialoguing with, and feeding demons that yielded tangible results. Gradually from this exercise the five-step process described here evolved into a method I call feeding your demons, which began to be used independently of the Tibetan Chöd practice by my students, For the past twenty-five years-most recently at our Colorado retreat center, Tara Mandala, in Chöd and in Kapala Training retreats-I have taught this way of feeding your demons to make friends with that which we would most like to avoid.Those who have used the method report that chronic emotional and physical issues such as anxiety, compulsive eating, panic attacks, and illness were resolved or significantly benefited from this approach. The five-step process has also proved helpful in dealing with short-term upheavals such as the breakup of a relationship, the stress of losing a job, the death of a loved one, and interpersonal problems at work and at home. Sometimes the results have been instantaneous and seemed nothing short of miraculous, while other effects have been more gradual and subtle.The method that I call feeding your demons-based on the principles of Chöd- is a simple five-step practice that doesn't require any knowledge of Buddhism or of any Tibetan spiritual practices. In the first step we find where in the body we hold our "demon" most strongly. This demon might be addiction, selfhatred, perfectionism, anger, jealousy, or anything that is dragging you down, draining your energy. To put it simply, our demons are what we fear. As Machig said, anything that blocks complete inner freedom is a demon. She also spoke of gods and god-demons. Gods are our hopes, what we are obsessed with, what we long for, our attachments. God-demons occur when a hope and a fear are closely attached to each other; when we shift back and forth between hope and fear, this is a god-demon. Although in the following pages I refer for the most part to demons, the same approach applies equally well to our gods and god-demons.In the second step we allow the energy that we find in the body to take personified form as a demon right in front of us. In the third step we discover what the demon needs by putting our-self in the demon's peace, becoming the demon. In the fourth step we imagine dissolving our own body into nectar of whatever it is that the demon needs, and we let this flow to the demon, In this way we nurture it, feeding it to complete satisfaction. Having satisfied the demon, we find that the energy that was tied up in the demon turns into an ally. This ally offers us protection and support and then dissolves into us. At the end of the fourth step, we dissolve into emptiness, and in the fifth and final step, we simply rest in the open awareness that comes from dissolving into emptiness.Paradoxically, feeding our gods or demons to complete satisfaction does not strengthen them; rather it allows the energy that has been locked up in them to become accessible. In this way highly charged emotions that have been bottled up by inner conflict are released and become something beneficial. When we try to fight against or repress the disowned parts of ourselves that 1 call demons, they actually gain power and develop resistance. In feeding our demons we are not only rendering them harmless; we are also, by addressing them instead of running away from them, nurturing the shadow parts of ourselves, so that the energy caught in the struggle transforms into a positive protective force.

Giving our demons form by personifying them brings inchoate energies or harmful habitual patterns into view, allowing them to be liberated rather than leaving them as invisible destructive forces. The alternative to feeding our demons is to engage in a conflict we can never win: our unfed demons only become more and more powerful and monstrous as we either openly battle them or remain ignorant of their undercover operations.

Although the therapeutic technique of personifying a fear or neurosis is not unfamiliar in Western psychology, the five-step practice of feeding your demons takes this approach deeper. Its additional value lies in dissolving our own bodies and nurturing rather than just personifying and interacting with our inner enemies, and in the experience of non-dual meditative awareness that occurs in the final step of the process. This is a state of relaxed awareness, free from our usual fixation of "self" versus "other," which takes us beyond the place where normal psychotherapy ends...- Lama Tsultrim Allione, Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict

Zen and Leonard Cohen

LEONARD COHEN – My Zen Whispererby John "Krishna" BushI met Leonard again, looking like this, at two different week-long Zen sesshins with Sasaki Roshi in the early 80’s. Ram Dass and I traveled to one the year before and it was profound. Now Leonard, an old student of Roshi, was serving as Shoji, an officer of the zendo and fellow practitioner who cared for our physical needs, like getting me some aspirin.leonard-cohenHis kind approach helped ease me into the rigor of waking at 3:30 am and meditating through the day til 10 pm, in black robes, two rows facing each other, sitting straight up, cross legged, hands in mudra, no movement allowed, no closing of eyes, meals taken in silence still on the pillow. Walking meditation in line like a centipede.

Leonard deepened my sense of the protocols around meeting the zen master twice a day for koan testing. In a soft voice he said that when around Roshi he “hears tiny silver bells ringing in the air.” Already hugely successful, and able to do anything, Leonard chose to do this for more three decades. Roshi died at 107.The other zendo officer, the Jikijitsu, walking with a bamboo sword to keep you awake when nodding - with a deep bow, a few thwacks to each shoulder blade, followed by another bow. How the samurai were humbled into becoming monks.At the end of the week, ego was parked in the corner and I was opened up inside, the dualism had fallen away and I was looking forward to entering the world anew.The last night, after the sesshin ended, Leonard went out and came back with two large bottles of Cognac. Not my usual Buddhist retreat. Those of us who remained got pretty well lubricated, telling stories and singing songs. Yet it still seemed ritualized, so I asked Leonard what was the purpose. He said with kindness “to wash away the stench of enlightenment.”The next morning I left with a major hangover and an understanding that true perfection was greater in its apparent absence.

The Great Reversal by Sakyong Mipham

The Great Reversalby Sakyong Mipham Rinpochetsp-sakyong-miphamThe Mahayana Buddhist tradition is defined by the supreme thought of bodhichitta, the intention to bring all sentient beings to enlightenment. Those who vow to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of others are known as bodhisattvas. Their path is based on the six transcendent perfections, the paramitas.Paramita is a Sanskrit word meaning “arriving at the other shore.” On the bodhisattva path, one’s view, practice, and action are based on simultaneously benefitting self and other. The bodhisattva is likened to a ferry operator whose sole purpose is to take passengers across the water. Yet while taking others to the other shore, the ferry operator is crossing, too.The paramitas are generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, meditation, and prajna — wisdom or “best knowledge.” They are the supreme way to attain merit, giving one the fuel and strength to take all beings across the waters.Only with prajna are the other paramitas transcendent. Without prajna they are simply ordinary generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, and meditation. The paramita of prajna is like the ferry operator keeping an eye on the other shore, which we could equate with great emptiness and great wisdom. Prajna always sees the purpose of the journey. Therefore, prajna keeps the boat from going adrift. Generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, and meditation are like the oars of the boat.In practicing the paramitas, bodhisattvas progress along the bhumis , the stages of realisation. Through generosity, they create favorable conditions. Through discipline, they become excellent at knowing what to accept and what to reject. Through patience, they retain all the previous merit. Through exertion, they progress joyfully. Through meditation, they exchange self for other and create equanimity. Through prajna, they understand reality. Thus, the paramitas become the bodhisattva’s view, action, and meditation — all fueled by bodhichitta, the supreme thought.We should not confuse bodhichitta with buddhanature, the inherent possibility of becoming a buddha. Everyone has this seed and is fully capable of attaining enlightenment. Since bodhichitta leads to full enlightenment, it too could be regarded as a seed. However, while all beings have buddhanature, we do not all have bodhichitta.While the seed of all beings is buddhanature, at the core of bodhichitta is the exchange of self and other. The two elements that enable one to exchange self and other are loving-kindness and compassion. loving-kindness is engendered by the thought, “May all beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.” Compassion is engendered by the thought, “May all beings be free from suffering and the root of suffering.” When we unify these two, we have bodhichitta, the vow to bring all beings to the perfect state of buddhahood.Love and compassion are essential to the teachings of the Mahayana and the way of the bodhisattva. love and compassion lead to buddhahood because for beings to be truly happy, they must understand the true source of happiness, and for beings to be free from suffering, they must understand the true source of freedom from suffering. If beings do not understand the source, they might have a temporary state of happiness, but they will not have a permanent state of happiness.The bodhisattva exists in order to help others. One is not helping others simply because one is inspired and wants to do it for oneself, for the bodhisattva does not believe in the self. rather, the bodhisattva helps others because they are utterly confused about the source of both happiness and suffering. Trying to be happy, sentient beings act out of self-interest and engage in non-virtue — that which benefits self instead of others. In fact, it is said that within samsara, the cycle of suffering, sentient beings act as though it is virtue that will destroy them. and in a way that is true, for if we define virtue as a lack of self-centeredness, virtue ultimately does destroy the self.The bodhisattva sees that entire realms of beings are going up and down the ladder of existence, trying harder and harder to achieve happiness: in the hell realms through anger, in the ghost realms through jealousy, in the human realms through desire, in the god realms through pride, and in the animal realms through ignorance. Clearly these beings are perpetually suffering and utterly confused about how to free themselves. Therefore, the bodhisattva sees an urgent need to apply bodhichitta and liberate them.Bodhisattvas make a vow that they will remain in this cyclical place of pain and suffering until all these beings have perfected view, meditation, action, and the six paramitas. When all beings have perfected those, the bodhisattva stays to ensure that they attain the noble qualities of perfect buddhahood. In this way, the bodhisattva is like a shepherd, remaining until every being in samsara attains the perfect state.Bodhisattvas attain buddhahood themselves as a means to lead all beings to rouse the mind of bodhichitta and attain buddhahood too. In this light, the bodhisattva is said to be like a monarch, first demonstrating the principle so that other beings will follow. Otherwise, they may not follow and, since they do not know what buddhahood is, they might even fear it. Therefore, bodhisattvas perfect the state of buddhahood for the benefit of all.The ferry operator, the shepherd, or the monarch — all these virtues of the bodhisattva stem from bodhichitta. In the sutras, the buddha says that arousing bodhichitta protects the mind like a suit of armor. With bodhichitta, the mind is free from fear. as well, having bodhichitta brings perpetual joy, and arousing bodhichitta gathers unimaginable merit. Once one begins to understand the awesome potency of bodhichitta and its benefits, one starts rousing the mind to generate it. This potent switch from a subjective orientation toward the self to an objective orientation toward others yields vast results.In this light, if one is drawn toward bodhichitta and develops faith, that propels the mind for many lifetimes into the future, laying the ground for enlightenment. Obviously, if one does not know the value of such an intention, one will not generate it. It is also said that the minor effort it takes to arouse bodhichitta is vastly outweighed by the benefits. Thus, the bodhisattva — whether sitting, eating, walking, or talking — raises this attitude, accumulating infinite clouds of unseen merit.

Wisdom From Lauryn Hill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCrJTX17QOAlauryn-hillWhen Lauryn Hill was 25 years old she dropped some serious wisdom to a group of kids."For me now I'm learning now the importance of being righteous than right."She speaks about serving others, the interconnectedness of everyone, conquering the enemy in yourself, prayer and about ten other very awesome topics.

Becoming Intimate with Our Emotions

pema-chodronWorking with emotions in meditation practice is a big subject for me. Very often, our thoughts are pretty lightweight. Just light, discursive thoughts. We’re thinking, “What’s for lunch?” or, “Did I remember to run the dishwasher this morning?” Sometimes we’re just having the strangest thoughts. Perhaps you are having a memory of your grandmother eating raw onions. Where does that come from?Sometimes these thoughts take you away. Usually they do. But many times, they don’t have a lot of emotion in them. These little things passing through your mind come and go like the wind. You can get completely caught up in this fantasy world, but on the other hand, it’s somewhat lightweight. When you realize you’re thinking, you say “thinking.” You let the thoughts go, and there you are in the present moment. Maybe it lasts only half a second.But if you sit longer, the more you sit, then—no question—painful memories will come up. Suddenly you are struggling against how you’re feeling, and a lot of emotion is involved.The instruction I’ve been giving for years is: when you’re meditating, and even in your everyday life, notice when you’re hooked. Notice when you’re triggered or activated. That’s the first step: you acknowledge that emotion has arisen.Next, I advise students to drop the story line and lean in. Just pause, and for a second connect in with spaciousness, with openness. I call this the “pause practice.” It’s like taking a time-out for yourself. Then you lean in to the quality or the texture or the experience, completely touching in to the emotion, without the story. How does the sadness feel? How does the anger feel? Where is it in your body? You let the feeling of the emotion become the object of your meditation. And the reason that I’ve been so committed to teaching on this is emotion itself is a radical and very potent way of awakening.Without a doubt, this is where everyone loses it. We have so much fear of our emotions, so much aversion to them. You get caught in the momentum of the emotion, and it sweeps you away as if you were in its control. But I’ve found that we can take another approach, which is to enter the emotions that arise in our practice. Emotions are actually very empowering; I call working with the emotions “accelerated transformation.” When you experience difficult emotions in your sitting practice, and you let go of the words and the story behind the experience, then you’re sitting with just the energy. And yes, it can feel painful to do this.It’s so funny, because sometimes when I give retreats, the TV cameras come in and take pictures of people meditating, and it looks like everyone’s sitting there in complete serenity.If you could see the speech balloons above people’s heads, or feel what’s going on with them, you might be knocked over in shock! The person next to you doesn’t know that you’re reliving a horror story from your childhood in graphic, heartbreaking detail, or that you’re in a deep depression, or that you’re having the world’s most pornographic fantasy. What we look like and what’s actually going on are often so completely different. We’re just sitting there in a Buddha-like posture, and it might appear that we are experiencing nothing but openness and calm—and nothing could be further from the truth. But I think the Buddha had the same experience that we do. For him, as for us, meditation isn’t always about sitting in a state of absolute calm. There is a scene in the movie Little Buddha where special effects are used to reflect the myriad emotions and temptations that are trying to seduce the Buddha. So much is coming at him—everything from gorgeous women to opportunities for power to things that are frightening, everything. The idea that the Buddha was completely chilled out and didn’t experience emotion around any of these things simply isn’t true. When the Buddha achieved enlightenment, he learned to be settled with all of those feelings coursing through him.Like the Buddha, you can come to know your own energy, and you can feel quite settled with it. You become intimate with your own energy, and it no longer rules your life. Your conditioning doesn’t go away, but it no longer controls you.In many ways, it is critical that we do become intimate with our emotions. Sometimes it is even a matter of life and death. I want to tell you a story about my granddaughter. Her mother, my daughter-in-law, died of alcoholism at age forty-eight when my granddaughter was seventeen years old. The addiction had been going on for a long time, from the time my granddaughter was about two. Her mother had a recovery and was sober for ten years, but then she relapsed.So my granddaughter was applying to college and she had to write an essay. One of the essays for the college was to write about a transformative experience, and the first line of her essay was, “My mother died on December 1, 2009.” And this essay was so remarkable to me because in it she explained how her mother had died of alcoholism, and she said, “all my mother’s friends from Alcoholics Anonymous were telling me, and I knew it to be true, that alcohol is a disease and once it has you in its grip it’s pretty hard to shake it, and they said that’s what happened with my mother.” She said, “I knew that to be true, but I felt that her drinking was a symptom of something else. So while my mother was in the hospital in a coma, I wrote and wrote and wrote, trying to remember everything about my mother—my own memories, things she had said about herself, things her friends had said about her. I was trying to figure out who my mother was because I’m so much like her, and I wanted to figure out where she went wrong and what happened that ended in her dying so young.”In her essay, my granddaughter came to the conclusion that her mother had a fixed idea of herself as being a certain way. And one of my granddaughter’s conclusions was that we’re changing all the time; everything about us is always changing. My granddaughter said, “When you hold a fixed idea of yourself, you have to leave out all the parts that you find boring, embarrassing, difficult, or sad. You leave out the emotions you don’t want to feel. And then when you do that, when you leave out all those parts, when those parts are not acceptable, then it eats away at you underneath. These unacknowledged parts are like a hum in the background that’s eating away at you, and you have to find an escape to get away from that. And my mother’s escape was alcohol.”In order for us to be fully present, to experience life fully, we need to acknowledge and accept all our emotions and all parts of ourselves—the embarrassing parts as well as our anger, our rage, our jealousy, our envy, our self-pity, and all these chaotic emotions that sweep us away. Looking for an exit from experiencing the full range of our humanity leads to all kinds of pain and suffering. Meditation gives us the opportunity to experience our emotions naked and fresh, free from the labels of “right” and “wrong,” “should” and “shouldn’t.”~Pema Chodron