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Tag Archives: bodhichild
The Pregnancy
One fateful day, Pamela approached Evan with a revelation that would forever alter the course of their lives. She declared that she was pregnant, a statement that left Evan dumbfounded. How could this be? They had never engaged in any intimate relations. Confusion and disbelief clouded Evan’s mind as he tried to comprehend the situation. Yet, Pamela remained resolute, insisting that she was indeed carrying some form of pregnancy, though uncertain of its nature.
The Resurgence of the Venerable Teacher
This impression endured for a fleeting moment, until his eyes readjusted and he was abruptly transported to the shoreline of an expansive beach, which appeared to be of an otherworldly magnitude, with colossal worlds suspended in the distance. Initially, he was under the impression that he was in a state of reverie. However, the authenticity of the waves crashing a few yards away from him and the slimy, algae-covered rocks that extended into the ocean could not be disputed. He ventured forth to discover what this new reality might bring.
Posted in The Unborn Odyssey: A Novel
Tagged Ariyan Mind, bodhichild, bodhicitta, Buddha family, Ch'an Master
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The Heat of the Matter
As stated in the opening blog of this series Spiritual-Heat, or Tapas, is generated when utilized for spiritual rejuvenation; tapas is always a self-imposed and voluntary type of asceticism, rather than a natural occurring one. These voluntary practices may entail seclusion, silence, and fasting. It is considered to be a personalized form of austerity or asceticism. By engaging in tapas, individuals purify themselves and transition from impurity to purity, ultimately reaching a celestial state. Therefore, tapas encompasses both the practices performed and the outcome of asceticism, such as the heat generated during the practice. Through the practice of asceticism, or tapas, the ascetic experiences spiritual fervor. In Unborn Mind Zen it is a formidable surge of luminosity that solely the devout pursuer dares to embark upon, for it is through such divine benevolence that they relish in the delightful ecstasy discovered within its boundless core of perpetual solicitude. When practitioners engage in meditation and invoke the Tathagata deities, their inner mind and spirit become infused with the potency of bodhi, thereby enabling them to access the Element of Truth (Dharmadhatu). The resulting inner-heat has the potential to transmute one’s being into a crystalline Vajra-Body, which is commonly referred to as the Blue Flame of the Bodhichild within our tradition. This phenomenon takes place within the sacred womb of the Tathagata-garbha. The wise ancients have presented a highly fitting analogy of the aforementioned interconnection: the mother hen is capable of hatching her eggs owing to her constant and attentive inward listening to the chick’s growth. Despite the outward appearance of merely warming the outer-shell, her concentrated focus also engenders an inner-heat, thereby facilitating the circulation of Qi that incubates the embryos.
Posted in Asceticism
Tagged Abbagotaragarbha, bodhichild, dantian-point, embryo, tapas, Tathagata-garbha Zen
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Springtime with Tozen
Every spring as the winter cold becomes a distant memory and everything about is brimming with life again, I like to take rides in the blossoming countryside. To accompany my reverie I always turn to the recordings of the Tozen teachings from our Bodhichild YouTube Channel, playing them from a memory stick implanted in my car’s dashboard. There’s a certain majesty about them, created back in the spring/summer of 2011 and originating from the teachings listed on the former Tozen Yahoo Group message board. These are archived now (*in our library) and measure in the thousands—from teachings, poems, interactions with students and even evolving insights from the students themselves. Riding along and listening to them brings new vitality to the spirit and even inspires new Buddhaic visions. This present series revisits those teachings and presents them in their original form, accompanied now with an exegesis of each invigorating lesson from the Mystic of the Unborn Buddha Mind himself. Enjoy the ride!
Out of Consciousness
Why do you always cast consciousness in a negative light?
The state of the body consciousness is not synonymous with the Unborn; the Unborn is prior to it and in no way, shape, or form, resembles a state. Consciousness pertains to existence and existence is a reflection of consciousness. In this mode, existence is the superimposition of consciousness upon the Unborn…
How a Lankavatarian becomes impregnated
Laura Iverson
Suppose you were to awaken one day and discover that what you once conceived to be “you” unraveled and revealed itself to be a combination of five different parts all vying for attention: a concretized formal entity that is comprised of sensate impressions; these sensate impressions suddenly branch out and perceive its apparent environment through the medium of conflicting pleasurable or disagreeable feelings; suddenly the scene shifts again as everything undergoes a morphosis into pure cognitive mentation as it first begins to conceptualize just what it construes to be perceived phenomena; now firmly attached to all that is moving within this great phenomenal craze, bundled and conditioned patterns of habitual karmic associations emerge and predetermines all future perceptions through the constricted lens of preconceived discriminations; thus consciousness is born and is heavily dependent upon all the aforementioned aggregates as it crawls through samsara in sentient fashion—seeing and hearing and smelling and tasting and touching and evaluating and feebly trying to focus and make some sense of it all whilst at the same time, being hindered and inextricably linked and allied with a vast storehouse consciousness (Alaya-vijnana) of self-same interdependent origination since time immemorial.
Birthing the Bodhichild
Within you is the Buddha-seed or gotra, which we refer here to as the Bodhichild. But this child cannot be birthed in a forced or worse yet, in an artificial manner. Its potentiality is already there, it just needs a little coaxing through proper nourishment via the Buddhadharma. It’s there but you have been carrying it for so long that it may result in a still-birth. This is the direct cause of your inner-anguish, you sense something is there inside that wants to come out, that wants to be born, but your resistance is killing it; it’s like a woman carrying a fetus for more than nine-months—it’s not natural and this unnaturalness is malignancy itself. Only a monstrous tumor is the end result. It seems to be a contradiction, but you first need to be empty before this transcendent birth can occur. Emptied of all that is in opposition to the Unborn. Emptied of emptiness itself.
Ghosts in the Machine
- So the flood of the Alayavijnana is always stirred by the winds of objectivity (vishaya), and goes on dancing with the various Vijnana-waves.
Familiar phraseology of the dancing waves of the Vijnanas, stirred into motion through both objective (vishaya) and subjective instigators. The Alaya-receptacle itself is usually dormant, but it houses a million-fold [images] that are ready to spring into action at the least suggestion, in effect once again “haunting” its host. Memories, fears and phobias, sexual fantasies, times of love and betrayal, familiar moments in time that are always there but rarely relivable yet still sting with their indelible impressions on the psyche—all these are housed in that store-house consciousness and return again and again, like recurring Ghosts in the skhandhic machinery. How best to exorcise these old demons that forever linger on through entrenched habit-energy since time immemorial? Unborn Mind Zen is one such spiritual modality that provides the remedy. Disengage the Alaya by awakening its dominant twin—the Tathagata-garbha—that houses the Immaculate-Seed of the Bodhichild, a mystical child of Light that has no former associations nor obtuse attachments and thus can never be affected or haunted by the onslaught of its defiled-twin and harbinger of so much misery. Thus, having been graced with the full import of this Self-realization of Noble-Wisdom, this child of matured-garbha can enter into limitless deep-samadhis for the sake of its own spiritual development as well as leading others to drink from the deep and nurturing spring of the Unborn:
Posted in A Mystical Odyssey through the Sagathakam
Tagged ālayavijñāna), atoms, bodhichild, grasping, tathagata-garbha, tathata, vijnapti
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The Nine-Sheaths
Even though the Tathagata-garbha is “within” all sentient beings, it is still plagued by a series of kleśas that soil and keep it dormant until efficacious Buddha-qualities peel-away the damning-sheathes. The Ratna gives nine-examples of these defilements that are by their very nature adventitious. Once un-sheathed, the unadulterated Buddhadhātu shines through. The nine are taken directly from the Tathagata-garbha Sutra. This is a prime example of how the Ratnagotravibhāgaśāstra is compiled from a wide array of Tathāgata-scriptures.
Posted in The Ratnagotravibhāgaśāstra
Tagged bodhichild, Buddha-dhatu, clay-covered gotra, diseased lotus flower, hidden treasure, impoverished woman, kernels, Munis, small seed, soiled garment, soiled treasure, swarming bees, Tathagata-dharmagarbha, Tathagata-dhatu, Tathagata-garbha Sutra, Tathagatakaya
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