The core of Buddhadharma has to do with unfolding the miracle of meaning itself. This dynamic has both a knowing (mind) and a concerned resonating (heart) aspect to it. -Hokai Sobol

I have a series of posts I’m writing this week in which I’ll share my experiences so far as well as instructions and teachings given to me by Hokai Sobol during the 100 Day Vow I’m currently doing. He has encouraged me enthusiastically to do so and I’m extremely grateful for him for taking so much time to guide me in my practice, and to share that with you as I walk this path.

As a quick note, these posts will include paraphrases from Hokai’s instructions, and I won’t always quote them simply to make things easier to read. On occasion I will quote word for word and note that for anything that I felt particularly stood out. So, basically, if you read anything that blows you away, that’s Hokai

In this post I want to provide a little context around the practice I’m doing, detailed here – why I’m doing it, how I’m doing it, and why I’m doing that way. If that makes sense.

Over the last year or so I have embraced a strong second person relationship to the divine, and in that, surrender and receiving have become important. (And even that has now started to evolve beyond itself, but I’m trying to begin at the beginning here in recounting this). At the same time, practice and my experience has become more and more subtle, and with that the form my practice takes has mirrored it, allowing me to deepen it. Hokai has been invaluable in this process since I started to work with him over a year ago, and particularly in creating this practice vow and the practice itself.

Now, I could and might write an entire post on DIY in buddhism. And it’s been happening since the original DIY-er, Buddha, started dishing out the dharma. But, I’m not going to go into that in this post. Suffice to say that the practice I’m doing, described here, is very traditional in its structure and essence, but was taken apart and put back together by Hokai and I, much like Lego blocks, in order to serve, support, and challenge me.

Refuge

One thing I brought to Hokai is that I wanted to feel the power of this 2nd person relationship in the practice, and I told him that the simple gross form of refuge wasn’t bringing the thunder and really seemed too gross in nature compared to how my experience felt in practice. And really, this is already addressed in the vajrayana having three levels of refuge: outer, inner, and secret. One of the reasons for this is to match the practitioner where they are at in deepening their practice. Slowly but surely, the form of practice and every aspect of it will become subtler in nature, and refuge, at least in the Vajrayana is important and follows suit.

Given that, Hokai gave me the refuge you see here, which he had mostly written before, but to which we also added. An important aspect for me was the refuge and practice feeling personal, so personal that even taking refuge in something that had form seemed too much. To my delight, Hokai shared that refuge originally was meant to be something very personal and a symbol so vast that it had no limitation and included itself. And in that refuge there is a tension between the personal and the vast openness, within which something profound can happen. That hit my heart and mind with a big YES! I could and still feel the paradox and truth unfolding, and I was quite amazed to see that come through in something as simple as refuge. What had once been something almost trite, was/is now something powerful in my practice.

An important line is “through this practice I realize my true nature and bring benefit to all”. This is powerful in setting an intention. The practice ITSELF is the accomplishing and the accomplishment. This was powerful for me to see and to embrace more and more, that practice is the portal to realization, is the realization, and is also the benefiting of others. No where to go but here.

Grace, Inspiration, and Buddhadharma

Reality always matches your actions when aspiration meets devotion and resolve. There’s a mirroring of authentic actions. -Hokai Sobol

When I first started exploring this practice with Hokai, he rocked my world with a deepening of what I understood grace to be. This term isn’t used in Buddhist circles, but it’s there just called b other names. What hit me the most was his explaining that grace, receiving, comes from within. Now, this sounds simple as I write this and perhaps as you read it, but I find that quite powerful. It is by my very nature of engaging practice and opening that the receiving happens, and what is received comes from what I already am. What unfolds is not a result of my actions, but the actions allow it to take place. As Hokai said, my movement forward is a proof of my openness to that response.

So, that being the case how could I SEEK inspiration or grace?? I am already moved and inspired. Hokai instructed two things with respect to this: Recognize basic goodness and purity, which means already everything is present and received and there are no obstacles, only a bright mind and bright heart. And two, this brightness is active in wanting to unfold my potential. There is a deep intimacy and trust that reality wants to unfold and recognize itself. And so, when taking refuge and doing the practice, I only need to relax deeply and to be mirrored and accommodated by the practice. For most of the first 50 days, this has been my practice. The practice within the practice.

And the practice then becomes about balancing what my mind can accept and what my heart can embrace as meaningful.

Om Ah Hum

I just briefly want to share some meaning behind Om Ah Hum which is a mantra in the practice I’m doing.

Om in Vajrayana symbolizes the vast open nature of reality. Hokai has come up with a nice western way of explaining it. O = openness. M = mystery. Through Om I recognize my mind is a field of openness and mystery, and in the practice I allow it to permeate my mind. Om is visualized as a white ball behind the forehead.

Ah is considered primordial, and in English, it is the first letter. It symbolizes the source of all manifestation. All truth, lies, whispers, shouts, communications is the nature of Ah. It allows us to share what we have discovered in this open mystery, to hear and receive. Ah is visualized as a red ball in the throat.

Hum is visualized as a blue ball in behind the chest, in the heart. It is the embodiment of the previous two, I am allowing them to become my own embodiment. It is not something abstract, but something lived and felt. It confirms this body as a vessel for realization and expression.

Holding a mudra during this takes our body, what we normally consider dull and profane, as a vehicle for subtle energies, and to bring the subtlest down to the heaviest parts of our nature.

Dedication
Lastly, the dedication is from the Shingon tradition, Japanese Vajrayana, in which Hokai is a teacher, called the Three Powers. This is by far the most meaningful dedication I have used in practice. The first line recognize my own actions as being important and having an impact on others. The second line recognizes that reality is matching my actions, that there is a response from reality that allows for this to occur. The third line recognizes that even before the other two, there is the dharmadatu, the reality expanse, as Hokai calls it, the entirety of reality. It is before I am. The last line states that there is no need to dedicate anything to anyone. Simply being the embodiment of my realization IS the offering, the practice also IS the offering. Nothing needs to be done.

The first place I want to start is to simply share the practice with you, without commentary. This will provide context in some of my other posts as the practice is the starting point for the deeper meaning contained within the practice and teachings. I hope that my experience and sharing Hokai’s teachings will provide inspiration and possible clarity for your own practice, as well as providing some insight into the flavor of Vajrayana practice. Here is the practice that I have been doing:

Refuge

Recite once while holding the vajra-anjali mudra.

I take refuge…
in the wakefulness: vast, blissful, and emanating.
in the truth: ever-present, open, and changing.
and in the congregation of all conscious beings.
Through this practice I realize my true nature, and bring benefit to all.

Purification

Recite while holding the padma-anjali mudra once at the heart, throat, forehead, and crown.

Om svabhava shudda sarva dharmah x 4.

Om Ah Hum Recitation

Vocalized while holding the vairochana mudra, slow and long, one breath each:

Om, mudra at forehead.

Ah, mudra at throat.

Hum, mudra at heart.

Repeat three times.

Om Ah Hum Quick Recitation

Keeping vairochana mudra at heart, quickly recite the manatra om ah hum for extended period of time.

Resting in Rigpa

Drop mudra and recitation, rest openly in rigpa.

Dedication – Stanza of Three Powers

Holding the vajra-anjali mudra, recite:

Through the power of my merits and virtue,
By the power of the Buddha’s grace, and
By the power of the Dharmadhatu,
I abide in universal offering to all sentient beings.

• 100 days of practice. In a row. (that last part is key)
• Practice every single day, no matter what, no matter how long.
• Do the same practice every single day.

(For those of you less skilled in math and the Gregorian calendar, I’m on day 8. It’s cool. I have to use a Mac application to remind me what friggin’ day it is).

Of course, for anyone undertaking a contemplative path, discipline and regular practice is crucial, whatever form that takes, but for me it’s particularly relevant. I have my strengths on the spiritual path. I’m good at going all-or-nothing, like doing a solitary retreat, but the discipline in daily life is a bit more challenging, so this practice vow will be immensely helpful.  Over the last year I have had some breakthroughs and have felt on the verge of another, but I have only been cycling back and forth. There has been real value in the way I have approached practice in the last year, in a more spontaneous manner, but it is time for a different approach, one that bears fruit only discipline can give.

But why do this? Intention has become incredibly important to me in practice, and connecting to these living intentions over and over is what keeps me on the cushion. So, why am I doing this?  I’m serious about waking up. It is both through the practice itself, by itself, and the resulting insights that I am of benefit to others in some way spiritually.

More specifically, there is something beautiful about consistent practice, perhaps even a little paradoxical, and I’ll let Rilke speak this truth as he so elegantly and powerfully does in this passage from Letters to a Young Poet:

…all progress…must come from deep within and cannot be forced or hastened. Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.

In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and consuming, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stand confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it only comes to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything.

I cannot know when fruition will come, but it is through consistent practice that it will arise and it’s arrival will not be announced. Even though I will practice for 100 days, that number means nothing. It is only important that I do it. And so I practice in these 100 days hopefully with such patience.

I’ll be writing about my practice and experiences here. If you’re doing something similar, please share along in the comments.

And you might be in it right now. Or someone you know.

But we need not worry or become frightened – in fact fear is something you become quite intimate and at peace with in the dark night.

The dark night isn’t discussed much in the Buddhist tradition. Mostly we here only about the extremely blissful and shiny aspects and phases of the path. I think this is partly due to the models we hold about enlightenment, but it also has something to do with it just not being as exciting on the surface as talking about Dzogchen or Mahamudra.

The problem here is that not knowing that you’re in the dark night can lead to confusion, stalling out in practice (I didn’t really sit for 2 years straight when I entered into it), and in some cases the self-sabatoging of your life, mistakenly seeing the causes of your dark night suffering as existing “out there”. Even more painful is the lack of appreciation for how far you’ve come on the path, that what you are experiencing right now is beautiful and is indeed progress, not a step back and not an inescapable spiritual abyss.

So, how do we know if we’re in the dark night? There are definitely signs that you can recognize. I highly recommend reading sections from Daniel Ingram’s book, “Mastering the Core Teachings of The Buddha“, available free online as a PDF. He goes into detail about the experiences in practice that lead to the dark night, and what sorts of things you experience while in it. One of the biggest signs is, as I mentioned, giving up practice altogether, which is why this phase is often called “the rolling up of the mat” – things get to ugly and difficult and we give up. There is so much more we could say about the dark night, but perhaps what I could say briefly about based on my own experience is this:

You come face-to-face with deeper levels of suffering, primarily what the Buddhists call suffering of change and the suffering of duality (all-pervasive suffering). What does this mean? You’ve removed the anesthesia from life and are looking and experiencing openly these deeper sufferings that you’ve always carried around, but have avoided your entire life. Doesn’t sound like much fun, and really, it’s not. But, it is what makes you worthy of the spiritual path for the first time. As Joseph Campbell said:

The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.

How do we move through the dark night and come to the moment of light? We have no choice but to surrender, to sit in the Divine Fire and it seems, more than normal, that others cannot do much to help you through it, save sticking with you through out it and offering love, and…. you really have to find your own way, and that way may surprise you.

I could have never predicted what my path in the dark night looked like, which took the form of surrender, spontaneous meditation and writing poetry. I read a lot of Hafiz and his poems would pull me into contemplation, asking me a question that I had to resolve in my own awareness, and I would wrestle with paradox, a poem would be written through that struggle, and light, freedom being born from that poem. In fact, you can see my own progress starting with the first poem I wrote and reading them in order. A few select dark night poems I wrote:

Suffering Perfection

The Battleground of Self

Even Fear is God

The Angels Laughed

The Light That Sees Itself

Please share your own experiences of the dark night or your own wondering about your practice, if you’re in it or not. I hope others will join the discussion and we can all walk this amazing path of Love together.

More posts to follow soon!