#Compassion

The Ten Archetypal Buddhas of the Mandala – Part 1: The Inspiration-Prayer

This article is the first of fifteen articles inspired by the ‘Inspiration-Prayer for Deliverance from the Dangerous Pathway of the Bardo’, in which I shall be aiming to show meditators how each one of the ten deities of the Dharmadātu Mandala can be felt in the fields of the body as profound suprapersonal sources of somatic healing and wisdom. Those who read the whole series of articles – and it is intended that these articles should be read in sequence – will be able to incorporate these reflections into their meditation practice in a systematic way.

I would like to dedicate this series of articles to Dharmachari Subhuti, a Member of the Triratna Buddhist Order. It was Subhuti who set me on the five-fold track of the Five Wisdoms, when I attended a seminar on the Bardo Thodol with him in the early 1980s.

Padmasambhava – The Second Buddha

I have a great love of the Bardo Thodol, or ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’. It contains powerful truths about the nature of mind. I regard, Padmasambhava, its author, as the second Buddha, as the Tibetan Buddhists do. I see the Bardo Thodol as a wonderful distillation of the essential elements of the Mahayana phase of Buddhism, at a crucial time when its Vajrayana phase was being born. While I love early Buddhism and the historical Buddha, my belief is that, if we are seeking radical transformation and self-realisation in this lifetime, our approach to meditation and insight practice benefits enormously from the incorporation of the key Mahayana and Vajrayana insights that can be found in the Bardo Thodol.

An important thing to understand about the Bardo Thodol is that we do not have to believe in it as a literal description of how rebirth takes place, to find it to be of the utmost value. The profound wisdom that it contains is in the form of archetypal psychology. It speaks to us, in the language of imagery and symbolism, of things that can only be pointed to, and felt as a resonance in the fields of the body – not known objectively and conceptually.

The fact that the Bardo Thodol came to be called the ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’ is probably unfortunate. That was the name, given to it by early Western students of Tibetan Buddhism, of the collection of Padmasambhava’s teachings that includes verses to be read over the body after a person has died. It is nothing like the ‘Egyptian Book of the Dead’ to which comparison has often been made. Bardo, or more correctly the two words bar do, are Tibetan for ‘intermediate state’; and Thodol, is actually two Tibetan words – thos, which is Tibetan for ‘hearing’ as well as ‘philosophical studies’, and grol, which means ‘liberation’. Hence a better translation of Bardo Thodol would be Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State.

Padmasambhava, the ‘Lotus Born’ – also called Guru Rinpoche.

To understand the great value and importance to the Bardo Thodol, we need to understand that a bardo is more than just an intermediate state between lives – when we have died and are in the process of being reincarnated. Rather, a bardo is any moment of transition, any moment of choice – indeed any moment of Consciousness. To be truly conscious is to recognise that every moment of every life situation is a bardo – a moment of freedom and potentiality in which profound transformation is possible.

April 15, 2020

Compassion and the All-Accomplishing Wisdom

This is Post 41 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

Making use of the rich mandala-form analysis of the dynamics of cognition and perception that Carl Jung called the ‘Four Functions of Consciousness’ (which parallels the ancient Indian skandhas), we recognise that the green Northern Quadrant in the Buddhist meditation mandalas, is related to the perceptual function of Intuition-Volition. Carl Jung, who identified himself as an Introverted Intuitive type, was writing in the face of great intellectual resistance from the scientific materialist consensus, when he presented his mandala-form psychological model – a model that is distinguished not just by its inclusion of the function of Intuition, but by its embrace of the archetypal and energetic dimensions of psychological reality.

All Life Energies are Compassionate and Life-Serving

In my last two articles (here and here) I have also been drawing heavily on the psychological model of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) which was developed by Marshall Rosenberg, as a way of illuminating the non-dual wisdom of the green Northern Quadrant, which the Buddhist tradition calls the All-Accomplishing Wisdom. The NVC model stands out as another mandala-form psychological framework, which not only includes the Intuition-Volition component, but includes this dimension in the most practical and powerful way in relation to the practice of self-empathy.

NVC does this by recognising that what we experience as a situation of need or apparent lack, is arising not only from an objective Current Reality in the world of Sensation (Southern Quadrant), but from volitional Life Energies (Northern Quadrant), which are apprehended by the function of Intuition in those who are observing the situation. We can say therefore, that it is our internal relationship to the Life Energies of desire, longing and aspiration, that gives us our perception of a Need – and is the key to the creative and self-empathetic attitude that will bring healing to our psychological parts on the inside, and the communication style that will ‘get our needs met’ on the outside.

December 16, 2018

Life Energies of Presence and Connection

This is Post 40 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

Consciousness is a phenomenon of the interface, the boundary, and the discontinuity, between the knowable world of Classical Physics, and the unknowable world of Quantum Mechanics. This interface pervades the universe as an infinite pure space that is an eternal present moment, and is equal and everywhere the same. It is also, at the same time, single – a unity. Mathematically it is a single point – a one point field.

The Classical world of matter is, quite literally, a beautiful illusion. Space and time are just relative phenomena, and matter is also just an appearance – an appearance on the surface of a universe that is mostly unknowable energy and information. Thankfully, the ephemeral perception that is our universe, is pervaded by the absolute reality of Consciousness. It is this animating power that makes it knowable, and makes it so beautiful. Without Consciousness, there would be no life, no meaning, no possibility of evolution, and no human self-conscious experience, with all its richness and relational complexity.

Consciousness and the present moment are inseparable phenomena. When we look out through the dense, ‘milky’ band of stars that is our own galaxy and glimpse the galaxies beyond, we are seeing the universe as it was many millions of years ago. The light by which we perceive some of those distant stars left them long before our own planet was even formed, and has been traversing the vast expanse of space for billions of years. It is a little disturbing to perceive that everything in the Classical world appears fundamentally disconnected and separated by time and space. In the simple human experience of Consciousness however, and in the experience of the present moment, the whole vast expanse is completely connected and unified – as Quantum Physics has also now shown us.

While these sorts of reflections may at first appear somewhat abstract, I hope to be able to show that they also have extremely practical implications. For those of us that aspire to express our deepest human potential – in ourselves, our relationships and our communities – there is enormous value in familiarising ourselves experientially with the more fundamental, non-dual level of reality in which we all rest, because it is such a rich source of psychological insights and personal transformation.

While this exploration of the Present Moment, Connectedness, and Consciousness, is associated with the intrapersonal path of meditation, it is also deeply relevant to our interpersonal lives. We need a high degree of familiarity with Presence, Connection and Consciousness if we are to communicate effectively in our relationships and communities. If we fail to acknowledge, and acknowledge deeply, the present moment of Consciousness in which we are already connected, we will be frustrated in our efforts to relate empathetically and collaborate effectively.

Living ‘in’ and ‘as’ the Life Energy of Consciousness

Knowing that the Classical world is just an appearance of subject-object perception, and that the Quantum world is unknowable, gives great importance to the mysterious boundary phenomenon that is Consciousness. Consciousness is the only thing that exists absolutely for us – that is reliable and ultimately trustworthy in our experience. Consciousness, to borrow a phase from the apostle Paul, is that in which we “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), and resting as Consciousness, through the practice of meditation and mindfulness, is our surest path to authenticity, integrity, and to knowing whatever may actually be known. Continue reading

October 5, 2018

The Beneficial Life Energy of Needs

This is Post 39 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

The four-fold archetypal psychology of the mandala invites us to distinguish the intuitive and volitional function, which Carl Jung called Intuition, and which I have been calling Intuition-Volition, from the evaluative function of Feeling. This distinction is enormously important, but is in general much neglected in modern psychology. The Cognitive Behavioural psychology that has been predominant in the last few decades, has usually chosen to reduce the person to the interaction of three components: thinking, behaviour and physiology – with each of these three components often rather narrowly understood.

Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow

Even the great Carl Rogers, who caused a revolution in the world of psychology, when he abandoned Psychoanalysis and created his Person-Centred model for therapeutic counselling, failed to adequately distinguish between the evaluative and volitional dimensions of our emotional life.

September 10, 2018

Consciousness, Meditation and the Four Qualia

This is Post 38 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

The four brahmavihāras are a description of Consciousness, and of our innately compassionate nature, and together they give us a very powerful approach to meditation. This extremely important ancient Indian framework for personal transformation is unfortunately however, very little known and poorly understood. I am very keen to do what I can to help the brahmavihāras to be better known – the world sorely needs this practice and this understanding.

In my efforts to find ways of making this approach to meditation more accessible, I have developed a somewhat simpler, and more experiential approach, which supports the original brahmavihāras framework, and which I call the Four Qualia. I have been introducing this Four Qualia framework in detail in recent posts (here, here and here), and I recommend that you read those articles first – as they will provide context for this one. I hope, students of meditation and non-duality will find that these four Qualia – these four ever-present, but subtle and difficult-to-define experiences – provide a useful foundation from which the brahmavihāras can more easily be integrated into their practice and their understanding.

The Four Qualia are a mandala framework, and can be approached in meditation as a mandala-cycle – usually starting with the Eastern Quadrant. The exploration of the Four Qualia that I have set out below however, is presented in the order that is suggested by the stupa – by the natural hierarchy of the subtle bodies and chakras – and which I have described previously (here). Those wishing to incorporate this approach into their meditative enquiry, may wish to return to this article several times.

Embodiment, the Physical Body, and Appreciative Joy

The Qualia associated with the experienced reflection of Consciousness in the Physical Body, is Embodiment. When we sit to meditate, and we bring the word Embodiment to mind, we find that we can use it as a pointer to the whole experience of embodied Consciousness in the field of the Physical Body. Continue reading

August 30, 2018

The Mandala of the Four Brahmavihāras

This is Post 37 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

The overall framework for the articles in this ‘Meditation Guidance’ series has been provided by the mandala of the four brahmavihāras: Equanimity (upekshā), Appreciative Joy (muditā), Loving Kindness (mettā), and Compassion (karunā). In order to make these four ‘attitudes of Consciousness’ more accessible, and in order to help people recognise them in their experience, I have, in recent articles, been exploring to the Four Qualia – a formulation of my own, which I have found to be very useful.

The qualia are difficult-to-define, difficult-to-describe, difficult-to-account-for experiences, and there a four of them that together provide a helpful experiential framework for meditation practice: Embodiment; Being; Uncaused Happiness; and Life Energy. Deepening into our experience of resting as Consciousness using this ‘Four Qualia’ formulation as our guide, is essentially an easier, more modest, and more experiential way of approaching the sublime brahmavihāras.

In the next article in this series, I shall be presenting some more detailed reflections on each of the Four Qualia and their corresponding brahmavihāras, for those wishing to experiment with them in their meditation practice, but first, in this article, I would like to reflect on the importance of these practices, and also on why, given their great value, they appear to have been relatively neglected.

Why are the brahmavihāras not better known?

The brahmavihāras are literally the vihāras or ‘dwelling places’ of the great four-faced creator god Brahma – they are the states in which Brahma was believed to abide. Importantly the word vihāra does not denote a permanent home, but a lodging or retreat, like the accommodation for travellers to rest overnight while on a pilgrimage. So the term immediately suggests a staged form of meditation, in which the practitioner moves systematically through a series of four stages corresponding to the brahmavihāras, in order perhaps to achieve a fifth stage, the state of balance, wholeness and internal energetic coherence that Indian tradition calls samadhi. We are being invited, in the brahmavihāras meditation-cycle, to ‘rest’ for a period of time in each vihāra – to rest and find refreshment and renewal in our true nature, both in our meditation practice, and on the journey of life. Continue reading

August 22, 2018

The Somatic Anatomy of the Energy Bodies

This is Post 36 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

While meditation can initially be thought of as an exploration of our felt experience, or Sensation, in the field of the body, the wisdom of Intuition-Volition and of the green Northern Quadrant, is telling us that we need more than a medical anatomy textbook as our guide. Rather, we need self-enquiry frameworks that can guide our exploration down into the subtle, multidimensional, and energetic territory of Consciousness, and into the energetic reflection, or resonance, of Consciousness, in the energy fields of the body.

A Nested Hierarchy of Subtle Bodies

These maps to navigate by, are provided firstly the mandala, which has been my main frame of reference in these articles, but also by the stupa, which is a symbolic structure that reflects the nested hierarchy of the subtle bodies, and the subtle energy anatomy of the human body.

In my last article (here), I wrote about this subtle anatomy in three main ways: (1) in relation to non-duality; (2) as a way of locating the brahmavihāras in the fields of the body; and (3) as a way of understanding and systematically cultivating the experience of samādhi – the meditative state of integration and effortless concentration that arises as we learn to know our wholeness, and embrace the deeper and more subtle levels of our somatic experience.

Although our focus in this article is still the green Northern Quadrant and the Volitional, or energetic, dimension of experience, and the perceptual function of Intuition by which we know that dimension, I need now to continue further in addressing the important but paradoxical fact that the energetic reflection of Consciousness in the fields of the body appears to be available to sensory experience – in other words they are also aspects of Sensation, or vedana, in the ancient Indian languages.

August 8, 2018

The Asura Realm – Intuition and the Egoic Will

This is Post 34 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

Before we can go further in our exploration of the wisdom of the green Northern Quadrant of the mandala, we need to ask why it is that the perceptual function of Intuition-Volition, which so naturally finds expression as Empathy, and as a compassionate recognition of the needs of ourselves and others, should so often manifest instead as fear and disintegration, and as actions characterised by deep inhumanity. This takes us to the heart of the distinction between resting as Consciousness on one side, and living in egoic identifications on the other.

When we are in identification with egoic parts, Intuition serves those parts, and responds to, and adds to, their fears – and our reflex response is to act to manipulate our internal and external world in the light of those fears. While Intuition and Volition are entirely integrated on the level of Consciousness, in the egoic psyche they give rise to fused pairs of psychological parts. Usually the vulnerable, predominantly intuitive, part is more deeply exiled from awareness, and the more volitional part, which carries and energy of protection and defence, is more conscious in the personality.

The Psychology of Bullies and Bullying

If these pairs of parts predominate within the psyche, they can form a narcissistic dissociation – a deeply unconscious and defensive psychological dynamic, which usually manifests in a range of extremely unconscious, violent, and unethical behaviours. These behaviours might be described psychologically as sociopathic or psychopathic, but they are actually relatively common statistically, and are frequently seen as personality traits in many of the ‘successful’ high profile individuals who shape the culture of our world.

One part in each of the pairs of parts has an intuitive recognition of a vulnerability or threat, while the other part carries the impulse to control that vulnerability or threat. And the greater the unconscious fear and vulnerability of the intuitive part, the more destructive and heartless will be the volitional impulse of egoic control, to protect it, or prevent its emergence into awareness. This is the stark truth of the deep heartlessness that we face in the egoic psychology of the green Northern Quadrant – which is also, paradoxically, the quadrant of Compassion. Continue reading

July 21, 2018

The Yin and Yang of Love and Compassion

This is Post 33 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. It continues the theme of the previous article, which you can read here.

In this article we are once again in the territory of the Northern Quadrant, if we use the traditional directions of the Buddhist mandalas, which Carl Jung adopted – so we are also addressing the function of Intuition. Intuition is probably the most difficult of the four perceptual functions to define, but as a starting point we can say that Intuition is that function of Consciousness by which we perceive dynamics, patterns, processes, and motivations – in the world; in the people in our lives; and in ourselves.

Intuition is the function by which we recognise volitional processes. These include our needs, desires, wishes and wants – and also our fears and the energies of aversion and and not-wanting that arise in connection with fear. Volitional, in this context, means pertaining to the the Will, and to the energies of desire and motivation – energies that can be unconscious or conscious; egoic or psycho-spiritual. The highest form of intuition is empathy – our responsive, unflinching, and compassionate recognition of the needs and desires of others, and ourselves. Empathy and Compassion can therefore be seen as two sides of the same experience. They are closely related and are in many ways interchangeable – indeed they are related in exactly the same way that Intuition and Volition are related.

To rest as Consciousness and to recognise, through Intuition, that an energetic reflection of the compassionate and creative energies of Consciousness are always present in the field of the body, has a profoundly transformative effect on our experience of volition – the fearful egoic will begins to undergo a healing process. This blissful self-surrender into effortless and fearless compassionate connection, is a key feature of all the genuine spiritual paths.

But while this will begin to arise naturally as we rest as Consciousness, it requires an expansion of our vision of what it is to be human being. We need to acknowledge the mysterious and benevolent energetic dimensions that are always present in our lives – always inherent in the everyday moment-to-moment experience of Consciousness.

Intuition and Volition – Empathy and Compassion

When we learn to rest as Consciousness, and become familiar with the somatic experience of the Volitional Body – the deepest of the four surface bodies, and the one associated with the Heart Chakra – we come to recognise, usually with some surprise, that our core motivations are always compassionate and life serving. Continue reading

June 15, 2018

Feminine and Masculine – Energy and Presence

This is Post 32 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

In this ‘Meditation Guidance’ series, I have frequently drawn on the wisdom that Carl Jung articulated in his mandala-form psychological model of the ‘Four Functions of Consciousness’, and on the corresponding mandala of the brahmavihāras – the ancient Indian ‘attitudes’ of Consciousness that were adopted so enthusiastically by the Buddha. Also, drawing on the Tibetan Buddhist form of the mandala, I have, in recent months been looking in detail at the polarities within each of the first three Quadrants of the mandala: first the opposition of the egoic Thinking function and Equanimity in the East; then the opposition of the egoic Sensation function and Appreciative Joy in the South; and most recently the opposition of the egoic Feeling function and Loving Kindness in the West.

In each of these polarities I have been highlighting the apparent spiritual choices that are always presented to us in life, between the ‘attitudes of Consciousness’ that we experience when we rest naturally as Consciousness, and the egoic expressions of the same archetypal principles, that we experience when we fall into identification with psychological parts. And by exploring the imagery of the Buddha’s Six Realms, we have seen that the extreme of egoic Thinking is expressed in the archetypal psychology of the Hell Realms, or Narakas (here); that the extreme of egoic Sensation is expressed in the archetypal psychology of the Human Realm (here); and that the extreme of egoic Feeling is expressed in the archetypal psychology of the Preta Realms (here).

The Northern Quadrant – Compassion versus the Egoic Will

I would like now to move on clockwise round this mandala, to the Northern Quadrant, where we shall be looking at the egoic function of Intuition / Volition and the corresponding Volitional aspect Consciousness, which expresses itself in the brahmavihāra of Compassion.

In the next few articles I will be addressing the core of the egoic will, that deep volitional aspect of the egoic mind, which the Buddha personified, in an extreme but very illuminating way, in the archetypal imagery of the Asura Realm – a realm of demonic, power-seeking anti-gods, or ‘Jealous Gods’. It is extremely valuable to have a familiarity with, and an acceptance of, these fear-based drives for control, so that we can learn to let them go, and thus reveal the universally present and universally benevolent spiritual energies that are hidden by them. Continue reading

May 26, 2018