- painting by Soyolmaa Davaakhuu

In the mountain of the body with the assembled four elements is 

the blessed cave of the primordial mind. 

In there is a wondrous place to practice.

It is in there that you work to accomplish the guru. 

- Ling Repa

What is Sacred Outlook?

Following the close of last weekend’s Vajrayogini Chö Tsok retreat, a line from our Five Dakinis tsok practice sprung to mind with insistence: “All things, pure and impure, good and evil, are of one taste in the absolute expanse of totality, non-dual great bliss.” The weekend of retreat was rather challenging for me, filled with doubt and conflicted emotion. Following our actual recitation of the Chö Tsok sadhana, I felt somehow shattered, bereft of whatever supports I’d entered with. It wasn’t until a bit afterward that I became aware that some transformation had occurred. There was the echo of an encounter that now felt unmistakable, some sense of having met, or rather reconnected with Vajrayogini. This was not an easy reunion, but it felt long overdue.  

What Khandro-la told me is that it does not really matter what kind of experience I have of the practice, as long as it is my true experience. This was somehow quite surprising and also liberating. I found myself paraphrasing the line above: “All experiences, good and bad, are of one taste in the absolute expanse of totality.” I think that Sacred Outlook means going beyond the need to evaluate whether the path is right for me, or I am right for it. There is no “right” or “wrong” experience--it’s about the totality of the process, and that totality is where sacred dignity is found. In our practices and in our encounters with the various figures that populate them, we are enacting the actual process of taking all things good and bad, pure and impure onto the path. This process seems to take a certain kind of courage, but at the same time, we have such profound supports. Here’s to continuing our journey of sacred outlook! 

Ryan

DW Student/Team

Khandro-la's Corner

(Please turn on subtitles for clarity by clicking "cc" on the bottom bar.)

Training in Sacred Outlook

In Vajrayana, there are three elements for how to navigate our experience called life - our self and the world. View, meditation, conduct transform who we think we are, and how we experience who we are, how we hold the world. Then based on that we act. This transformation is the key to Vajrayana.

In that case, it's important to be aware of this dance with Vajrayana –the truth in terms of appearance, apparent reality, it's true, but only apparently; and being able to see the true nature or absolute nature of all that is. This dance is always here between the relative truth and absolute truth or apparent reality and genuine reality. Only Buddha, the perfectly awakened one, can hold both together without any contradiction.

In Vajrayana, we are practicing that to whatever extent we can. It is through yidam deity practice, tsok practice, and all the skillful means Vajrayana provides that we can re-discover our innate purity and transform habitual patterns. We know some Masters, some sages pierced through that veil and came to this understanding, this holding both as the truth. Then they came out of that realization and became immense and benevolent ambassadors. We are here because we are so inspired to becoming like them.

The most important thing is this transformation - transforming the way we experience the world and ourselves. In other words, training in this pure view, sacred outlook, who you think you are. Focus not only on the cushion. Twenty-four hours, day and night, you can practice and nobody knows what you're doing. Keep practicing, trusting your innate capacity.

 "Yet no matter how I searched for you, O Noble Lady,

I could find no certainty of your existence. 

Then this youthful mind, exhausted by elaborations,

came to rest in the ineffable forest hut. 

EMA! Dakini, arise now from the absolute expanse! ”

Student's Reflection

on Vajrayogini Cho Tsok Retreat

Calling all Dakinis and Dakas!

What a powerful weekend of spiritual companionship we experienced on our recent Vajrayogini Cho Tsok retreat! Somehow our reunion felt familiar – this joyful band of beings gathered around the Zoom campfire for the feast, with open hearts and candles burning brightly as we joined in shared aspiration for liberation and awakening for ourselves and all beings. Tara Rose, our small gompa in Washington, DC, felt so fully alive with your presence. Perhaps the familiarity I sensed was born from a previous lifetime in which we’d all met -- and now we’re all being called back together again. The urgency of this moment requires our presence, and no matter where we are on our human journey, we have all answered the call.

I take the Tantric leap knowing there is no solid ground – and yet I am protected. What a feast we had – and with so many amazing guests! I also know that along with the joyous feast there are moments of sadness and terror – all food for this journey. Alas, I’m in good company and for this I’m so very grateful. I offer a deep bow to Khandro-la for her generosity, her teachings, and her wise and open heart; I offer gratitude to the sangha; and I offer gratitude to all those wise beings kindling the flame in my heart so that I may stand up and light it for others.

Kate,

DW Student

Before the retreat, my outlook had become quite murky and I felt like I was collapsing into the emotions stirred by all that is happening in the world and to people I love. I brought all of this inner confusion to Vajrayogini and inwardly asked for help. The help seemed to come in the form of a deeper connection to the practices, an awareness of how words and meaning can be imbued with light and power. During the retreat, the practices came alive for me in a new way and seemed to penetrate ever more deeply into my being. With each portion of the text of the Cho Tsok, I had a felt understanding of the power of Vajrayogini’s presence and her capacity to cut through the obstacles to the experience of the union of bliss and emptiness for myself and all sentient beings. 

Likewise, as Khandro-la invited us to invoke the lineage teachers, I had a felt sense of the threads of light of these beings woven around me and through me offering their support and wisdom even when I am caught in self-doubt and/or in a reaction to circumstances. Since the retreat, I have been drawn to bring the practices into my life more often and I experience them ever more as companions on the path. I also find myself feeling lighter, clearer, and more able to flow with whatever I meet throughout the day. Situations that I used to take quite personally seem to invoke laughter these days. And I feel more able to see global situations with more balance.  I am deeply grateful, and I know this view will seem to appear and disappear. Yet the practices will always be present.

Elizabeth

DW Student

Student's Reflection

The Five Dakinis practice has been an incredible resource for opening to this Sacred View within me.  I connected with the Five Dakinis and their Buddha families who inhabit and empower each of my body’s five elements.  This practice opens us consciously to the essence of all the Buddhas, which all beings innately have at the heart, even if unknown to them.  

Our recent online retreat of the Vajrayogini Cho Tsok practice, a Higher Yoga Tantra teaching, deepened that Sacred View—connecting with pure awareness and trusting in whatever arises as embodied presence, enjoying and celebrating the felt sense of the energies here and now.  We practice to merge into that vast emptiness and bliss in order to help all awaken onto the path, and to bring ease and peace in this difficult time.  

Betty

DW Student

Student's Reflection

on Tsok

There are as many ways to practice tsok as there are tantric practitioners. Here's a brief glimpse at some of the types of tsoks I've seen: a crowded assembly of talkative participants in open-air tents with distributed bags of fruit and packaged foods; a local community passing around bowls and plates of finger foods in a converted living room; a pair of vajra siblings sharing a beer and some vegetarian lunch meat in a half-built cabin in the woods; a sort of intimate talent show for close friends; an elaborate orchestrated ritual with ornate dishes and bountiful piles of foo

There are some common threads throughout all of these: food, community, song, ritual. But these elements aren't the point. If they were, we'd just go to a dinner theatre. They are tools that enable total immersion in a sadhana practice. In a tsok, the features of the world around us become a bridge between our lived experience and the mandala of the deity. We become deities; our siblings become dakas and dakinis; the tsok song becomes an enlightened chorus; the food becomes a pristine offering, and so on. This total immersion in the mandala is so deep that we become firmly rooted in our samaya, even if we believe we had previously faltered, and commitment to regularly practice tsok is a powerful aid to maintaining tantric practice.

Eric

DW Student

Student's Journey