In the Charnel Grounds

In this guided meditation, Khandro-la leads practitioners into the ancient charnel ground, the place we least want to be. Yet, as tantric practitioners, we sit in the middle there. Meditating on the reality and the symbolism of the charnel ground, the inner dakini is touched as our most divine motiv

I sat in the dark, playing and singing along with everyone, on this Dakini Day. What a pleasure and joy to share in this practice with you all! In my mind i could see the vultures flying swooping down to the chopped up bodies of the sky burial.... now as my awareness, swooping and chopping, flingi

"I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger, I can tarry, I can tarry but a night. Do not detain me, for I am going, Yea, going where great bliss in empitness. There the knowing is ever resting, Oh my longing heart, my longing heart is there. Here in Samsara, so dark and dreary. Too long I've wandered, sad

This journey is filled with doubts but my pace doesn't hesitate. This journey is repetitive but is fascinating. This journey is lonesome but never lacks connectedness. I was told to "Rest in it". In our last Cho Mastery Journey gathering, I asked how to deal with doubts. Am I doing it right? Am I

When the first slogan “Confess your hidden faults” was introduced by Khadro-la, I thought these Five Slogans of Machig Labdron would be much similar to Vajrasattva’s repentance practices. However, this self-invented assumption just proved once again how a preoccupied mind can fail me. It actually ha

Khandro La's teaching on Mackik Labdrons's 5 SLOGANS last week showed me the profundity and 'simplicity' of Cho practice. 1. Confess your Hidden Thoughts 2. Approach what you find repulsive 3. Help those you feel you cannot / don't want to 4. Give up anything you are attached to 5. Go to the place

Sitting in life this morning. Looking out across the landscape. Birds waking into the dawning day. Sun's silent rising just about to begin. The need to get on with practice. Accumulations and the rest of the practices that make up our mostly daily practices. A text that I have not read, called out t

I dreamt I had died, and I laughed out loud (LOL). My husband smiled and took my body into the woods, inviting all beings to feast. They came, devouring this banquet, this gift from this giver being given. With every bite, dakinis flew from my heart into the sky, filling the entire universe. It was

"Every single heart break is holding the possibility of heart awake." (Indian yogini) In this podcast interview, our precious teacher, Khandro-la, speaks about, The Broken Heart of Possibility. In it, she says, " moments of feeling lost, when our heart is breaking and we are thinking we can't face

Posted by Jens "gCod [chod] is like taking a jet plane to Enlightenment rather than walking." Source: Savvas, "A Study of the Profound Path of Gcod," 83. This was told to her by "the great gCod master the Venerable Zong Rinpoche" in personal communication in India, 1980. When Chökyi Nyima Rinpoch

I have a little dance in my step now as I walk into the charnel ground. I sit there and own it with my own true face. I am not afraid. Anxious, yes, but not afraid. I swear. How can that be?

Today in the Dendok Chikma Cho practice with KL and the sangha I had this feeling of flowers bursting from my heart as we were guided in meditation into Prajnaparamita. Suddenly (and momentarily) I felt an outpouring of joy and compassion. This is the image I had in my mind in a very rudimentary dra

"The lantern which I carry in my hand makes enemy of the darkness of the farther road, And this wayside becomes a terror to me, where even the flowering tree frowns like a spectre of scowling menace, and the sound of my own steps comes back to me in the echo of muffled suspicion. Therefore, I pray

Machik's 5 slogans! I have heard them before and most likely read about them as well, before and after I first picked up my Chod Damaru. After Khandro-la shared these teachings with us, I went to the wild forest nearby and walked! In the nature that nurtures I walked through each of those 5 slog

I never heard about Machik's Five Slogans before I joined Dakini's Whisper, but there is a familiar sense to this. It kind of resonates with some of the early hippie ideas of letting go of our "hangups", self-examination, and facing our fears—fears that are usually not protecting anything of essent

DW's Public Sunday this past week was an invitation to Cho via Machik Labdron's 5 Slogans. These slogans have deep meaning to me and I actually recite them every morning. Reciting them I do feel like such a fearless dakini! Listening to Khandro-la's talk and the stimulating conversation among fellow

In terms of the 3 poisons, so you think the wish or longing for things to be different than they are is 'desire' or 'ignorance?' Or actually, now that put this out there, I am thinking it's a sort of 'aversion' as well...aversion to what is happening and desire for it to be different because of 'ign

My charnel grounds arise mainly from early childhood experiences of isolation and non-acceptance, repeated throughout my adult life in similar situations. Luckily there was enough good karma to hear my broken record playing even in my own reactions of judging myself as less than and unlovable, even

This week I found myself trudging through some inner charnel grounds, quite unexpectedly. My awareness of what was happening seemed so clouded by my own constrictions around my "story." Then, one night as I practiced the Yoga of Sleeping, out of nowhere it seemed, my heart opened up and welcomed the