Nun of Your Business

"I have been in retreat and attained the power to not criticise others... If only you weren't so self centred to see it!!"

The Basis of All Good Qualities: a review of the Graded Path to Enlightenment Tibetan: Yönten Zhirgyurma Commonly called: The Foundation of All Good Qualities Composed by: Je Tsong Khapa English arrangement for chanting by: Gelongma Losang Drimay First published 2008, slightly modified (first 2 verses) in May 2009 Right reliance on the kind guru— The basis of all good qualities— Is the root of the path. Bless me to See this and rely with great respect. Precious freedom of this one-time life Is so meaningful and hard to find. Bless me with the mind which day and night Always takes its essence without cease. Like a water bubble, this life is Fleeting—it decays and then death comes. After death, your good and bad karma Follow you around like a shadow. Knowing this with a firm conviction, I'll give up even small non-virtues, And take up all virtuous actions. Bless me to live conscientiously. Knowing how samsaric pleasures are Disappointing, unreliable— Seeking them just leads to suffer

Well, July 2008 went by without a blog post. Anyway, here is what I've been thinking about lately. Carlos Castaneda's ideas of the double body and dreaming Vajrayana practices of generating an illusory body and dream yoga Castaneda's writings are an interesting resource for getting some ideas--outside of the Buddhist tradition--that might help us understand some of the Vajrayana practices. Castaneda's stories, which are so well-known among Westerners in my generation, bring to life the possibilities which might seem too theoretical from classical Buddhist texts. See Tales of Power , pages 43 - 51, for an anecdote about don Genero showing up in his 'double' body, which: can travel great distances in an instant "Genaro is a man of knowledge," don Juan said dryly. "And being a man of knowledge, he's perfectly capable of transporting himself over great distances." He reminded me that once, years before, the three of us had been in