Awakening to Our Buddha Nature: Summary

  • What is Buddha Nature
    • How we act in the present, making choices for freedom and happiness*
  • Exploring Freedom
    • So instead of making assumptions about innate natures or inevitable outcomes, the Buddha advised exploring the possibility of freedom as it’s immediately present each time you make a choice.
  • The Four Discernments
    • Not to neglect discernment
    • Preserve the truth
    • Develop relinquishment (letting go)
    • Train for Peace
  • What is a Trance?
    • Totally absorbed by beliefs and unaware of any external stimuli
    • The trance of unworthiness – totally absorbed in our self-perceived deficiencies
    • The cause is the self which is just created by a number of beliefs
  • Radical Acceptance
    • clearly recognizing what is happening inside us, and regarding what we see with an open, kind, and loving heart.
  • The Wings of Radical Acceptance
    • Mindfulness
    • Compassion
  • The Sacred Pause (giving us time to make a choice in our Buddha Nature)
    • Between stimulus and response (reaction), there is a space.  In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our happiness.
  • Saying Yes to Life
    • Keeping up the mindfulness and Inquiry
    • Observing bodily sensations as well as thoughts
    • Accepting pain, not fear – Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.
    • Awakening from the wanting self – recognizing our human tendency for clinging, craving and attachment to desires
  • The Trance of Fear
    • Fear is the anticipation of future pain.
    • The trance is being totally absorbed by anticipation.
    • Making room for fear
      • Relate to fear rather than from fear – just allow fear to float in awareness.
      • See fear as a signal when we are stuck, where we are holding ourselves back, where we can open to life.
    • The safety of belonging with others – connectedness
    • Taking Refuge – commitment to the buddhadharma
      • Buddha (the physical, the practices, the essence of his work)
      • Dharma (the teachings)
      • Sangha (all those walking the path of spiritual awakening)
  • Compassion – the melting of the heart at the thought of another’s suffering.
    • The steps to holding ourselves with compassion
      • Mindfulness
      • Investigation
      • Loving kindness
      • Metta practice
      • Connectedness
    • Compassion for others
      • The trance of the unreal “other”
        • Changing our fixed perceptions – stereotypes
      • “What do they really need?” leads to “What can I do to help?”
        • Just being with them may be all that is needed.
        • How can I be more kind?
        • Every being needs to be listened to, loved and understood.
    • Practicing The Way of the Bodhisattva
      • May all circumstances serve to awaken compassion.
      • May my life be of benefit to all beings.
      • Widening our connectivity
    • Increase your compassion by practicing Tonglen.
  • Seeing the world of suffering
    • Forgiving ourselves for unskillful behavior (reactions)
      • When we have hurt others
      • Thich Nhat Hahn’s advice
        • Take responsibility for causing pain
        • Listen deeply to understand the person’s suffering
        • Sincerely apologizing
        • Renew our intention to act with compassion toward this person and all beings
      • Insight Dialogue (Gregory Kramer)
        • Pause
        • Relax
        • Open
        • Trust emergence
        • Speak the Truth
        • Listen Deeply
    • Seeing our goodness
    • Forgiving Others
      • We forgive by letting go of the blame and opening our heart to the pain we have tried to push away.
    • Walking the path with spiritual friends
  • Seeing beyond the self and letting go into awareness
    • Meditation is good practice for seeing beyond the self
    • When we ask the questions, “Who am I” and “Who is aware right now?”, we find that no one is behind the scenes.
    • Everything we can possibly see, hear, feel or imagine—this entire world—is a fantastic display, appearing and vanishing in awareness. When thoughts arise, where do they come from, where do they go to? As you explore looking into the space between thoughts, through the holes in the net, you are looking into awareness itself. You might sit quietly and simply listen for a few moments. Notice how sounds arise and dissolve back into formless awareness. Can you notice the beginnings of sounds, the ends of sounds? The spaces between? It is all happening in awareness, known by awareness.
  • Realizing our nature as both emptiness and love
    • Our being resides in both the worldly and beyond the worldly realms.  From our formless awareness springs the varying and endless waves of life – through the senses, feeling, perception, mental objects and consciousness.  As noted in the Mahayana Heart Sutta, “Emptiness is form and form is not other than emptiness.”  What is this mean?  It means that we cannot have one without the other.  If we live in pure awareness without form, we are in a daydream, a fantasy.  If we live in form without awareness, we are trapped in frustration and suffering.  Pure awareness is non-attachment, not withdrawal.  If we withdraw from life, we enter the world of fantasy.
  • Stepping into unconditional presence
    • Although we drift on the path and lose sight of our essential being, remembering what we love guides us back to sacred presence. The Tibetan Book of the Dead offers the deepest reassurance: “Remember these teachings, remember the clear light, the shining light of your own nature. No matter where or how far you wander, the light is only a split second, a half a breath, away. It is never too late to recognize the clear light of your pure awareness.” We can trust the awareness and love that are our true home. When we get lost we need only pause, look at what is true, relax our heart and arrive again. This is the essence of Radical Acceptance.

 

*All italics refer to quotes from various sources including Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach.  The other sources are noted in the talks on the White Hall Meditation website and can be found by using the search function. (www.whitehallmediation.org)