Retreat Reflections

Well, the ten day silent, solitary retreat is over. It was amazing.

Ten days alone with my mind...oooohhhhh....I have to say I learned so much.

Retreat

What is covered in this blog is a lot to learn!  How do you absorb it all?  If you are overwhelmed, no worries.  It is almost impossible to realize these teachings without going into a retreat.  For over 1,000 years, the way these teachings were realized has been by going into deep silent, solitary retreat.   This is exactly what my teacher advised me to do after going through the Lamrim once as we did through these blogs.

The Bliss of Emptiness

What more bliss is there than realizing your own emptiness?  It is liberating.  It's not that you feel free. You realize that you are free.  All those things that you think you are -- they are just projections. All those things that you think you should be doing -- also, projections, illusions.  What happens when you look behind the projections?  What do you find?  An absence.  Behind the images you project of yourself, there is an absence.  You are not any of those things.  The things you hold most dearly - you are not even that.  The things you think so strongly that you must do, you do not even have to do that.   With an ignorant mind, those projections, those feelings seem to be so real.  With a mind of wisdom, you see those images are illusions.  They are nothing more than projections.  Look behind the projections.  What do you see.

Superior Seeing

The Emptiness of Yourself