Tag Archives: bodhichild

Practice Without Fabrication: The Black Dragon Eye and the Bodhichild

Chapter Five — Practice Without Fabrication: The Black Dragon Eye and the Bodhichild, If the Ground (gzhi) reveals what reality is, practice reveals how misrecognition ceases. Yet Bön, like Unborn Mind Zen, approaches practice with a paradox that immediately unsettles conventional spiritual logic: nothing real needs to be created, yet something habitual must dissolve. Practice does not perfect awareness. It does not refine Mind. It does not polish obscurations into purity. It exists only because beings habitually interfere with what is already complete. From the very beginning, Bön is explicit that meditation is not a technology for producing awakened states. The Ground is already awake. Awareness is already functioning. What practice addresses is not reality itself, but the pattern of grasping that overlays experience with artificial structure. In this sense, practice is not additive. It is subtractive. It removes the unnecessary tension of control, expectation, and identity maintenance that prevents recognition from stabilizing. read more

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What is the difference between Bodhichild and Bodhisoul?

Grok was asked to discuss the distinction between Bodhichild (as portrayed in The Dhammapada in Light of the Unborn) and Bodhisoul (as found in a blogpost of the same name dating back to November 2011) read more

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Birthing the Bodhichild

Pamela had a conversation with Evan where she expressed that she was feeling an intense inner light that was causing her to feel like she was about to burst. Evan explained to her that this was a sign that the Bodhichild, the child of Unborn Light, was about to be born. In order to properly prepare for this birth, Pamela needed to learn how to regulate her breathing through a practice known as Spirit Breathing. read more

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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. read more

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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. read more

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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. read more

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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! read more

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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… read more

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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. read more

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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. read more

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