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Shardza Rinpoche composed several cycles of Dzogchen instructions, among them the famous Kusum Rangshar, and Kunzang Nyingtig (also known as heartdrops of Dharmakaya).

The very last Dzogchen text that Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen Rinpoche wrote, and which accordingly sums up his whole life's experience, is entitled "Experiential Teachings Sealed in the Heart". Lama Sangye has repeatedly remarked that he feels these are Shardza Rinpoche's most profound Dzogchen instructions.

This instruction belongs to the category of direct experiential guidance, pointing students beyond conceptual understanding and into immediate recognition of the natural state of mind.

Rather than relying on intellectual analysis, Nyam Trid emphasizes direct experience—guiding practitioners to rest naturally in awareness as it is, without fabrication, effort, or alteration.

The text does not start with preliminary practices (Ngondro) but with general principles, such as "listening, thinking, practicing". Then comes introdution to natural state...

Geshe Tenzin Gelek will go through the entire text line by line, commenting on it as he reads.

https://www.akarboncenter.org/events/sealed-with-the-heart

Hello vajra friends,

I see there are many versions of this text (the oldest English translation nearly 70 years old, and then other versions as recent as within the past decade). For those familiar with this text, I wonder if there are any that teachers and practitioners tend to recommend?

Thank you in advance,

So I wanted to kind of write this post, because recently I had an interaction with a very conservative lama, who has very rigid views on things. And this guy had very "serious" views on things. And I think "serious" is a good word to start with as a jumping-off platform for this post, because it really leads into the kind of delusion this guy had.

One of the fundamental Buddhist truths is that of Anataman. Or no-self. This is often misunderstood but is essentially a teaching on Shunyata. Emptiness. That no phenomena we observe has an inherent "selfness". A banana doesn't have any inherent "banana-ness". It's an interconnected part of the endless flow of reality. The same space between the atoms of a banana in your hand, are the same basic space between the atoms in your body. And indeed, "atoms" themselves are 99.9999% space.

And this is kind of the problem when people take magic too "seriously". To train in Siddhi powers often means training oneself to very clearly visualize things in minute detail. But the problem with this, is people can start to believe that those things are fully "real". That they have a kind of inherent "selfness" to them.

They can be told these scary stories about what will happen if they do or don't do a magical thing properly, and that can be "true" to an extent... but only "true" if they actually believe in it. In other words, if they take it "seriously". The power of magic kind of depends on this actually, —taking it seriously.

When one of my teachers was teaching me about magic, he told me that "curses can only hurt you so long as you believe in them." In other words, they only work as long as you take them "seriously". The moment you don't, they stop having power over you. They don't have an inherent self-nature of their own. They're a bit like lucid dreaming. Yes, if you take them seriously, they can seriously effect you. But if you choose not to, it's very difficult for them to have any power over you.

This is one of the problems that can sometimes develop in Tantra. People get so used to deep diving into all these deities, and folk stories about magic, and what awful thing will happen if they do or doing do this sort of thing, that they can loose sight of the deeper "big picture" of the entire point of Buddhism, which is the Dharmakaya.

I've seen some tantric practitioners, who basically get lost in the magical realm. They get fascinated by the sorcery and magic, and forget that that's only "Level 2" of reality. And they can forget to go deeper because all of their efforts are essentially spent being caught up in, and reifying the magical realm.

But the problem with doing that, is it's only supposed to be done as a skillful means. Training oneself to pay attention to the subtle energies and realms can be helpful... but only to an extent. The problem is, both the Nirmanakaya and the Sambhogakaya are the realm of form. Together, combined: they are the Rupakaya. Getting caught up in fascinations with the unseen realm, can in some ways start to become a little bit like reifying our own thoughts and emotions. It's not so different than getting caught up in the material world.

The purpose of Buddhist practice is not to reify your thoughts and emotions, nor to reify the unseen realm. Or to reify the material realm. Rather, the point is to break through to the deepest level into seeing the Dharmakaya.

People can spend thousands of hours, and years of their life doing visualizations and chanting mantras to develop magical abilities. And indeed, they may develop such. But the problem is, when in groups of people, they can then have such an intense energy about them, that they can then use to convince other people of their own righteousness.

The lama I met recently had a huge amount of intense energy that he could project and use to kind of enchant others into accepting his view. But when you looked behind that, "behind the curtain" (so to speak): his personality was someone who was extremely impatient, condescending, unpleasant, and kind of unhappy actually. He wasn't somebody who had the peace of someone who had really come to deep peace and healing in his own nature: he was someone who seemed intently focused on reifying his own thoughts, with all the seriousness he could muster.

HA HA HA HA HO!

The universe is a big joke. The idea that someone's thoughts and emotions are inherently "real" just because they can concentrate on them so much, and visualize them so well, is insane. And no amount of "intense energy" that someone can emit, changes the fact that all of reality is one and interconnected, and inherently empty.

As the Diamond Sutra says:

"Thus shall ye think of this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream."

I grew up in a family of people with intense siddhi energy. A lot of them were jerks. I've been around such people all my life, who able to kind of "dazzle" people with their energy. But those people aren't necessarily wise, just because they can do that. I sometimes encounter people who say, "When I met my Lama, I could just feel the energy off him. He just had such a sense of presence!" Yeah a lot of business managers can do that too. Most politicians can. Cult leaders, etc. Many actors and rock stars can do that. It's a common siddhi. It doesn't make someone wise. Encountering that sort of thing doesn't impress me, even if they are a Buddhist. Sometimes I feel like some people who dive too deep on the "wizard" side of things, miss the cosmic forest due to fascination with the magical trees. My teacher told me this was one of the dangers of the magical world. While helpful: it can suck you in if you're not careful, and become a kind of endless fascination of its own. Another distraction.

🙏

So I'm curious as to other people's perspectives on this.

I grew up in a family of people with strong siddhi energy. And they were not nice people. From a young age, I got badly hurt by this, and had to learn the hard way of how to defend against people who are trying to dominate you with their energy. I got pretty good at energy combat doing this. (Although: that's a horrible, unloving way to grow up, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.)

Later, when I lived with my teacher for ten years, he showed me how to do visualizations for shielding and blocking techniques. Basically he taught me how to defend without going on the offense.

But, here's the rub. I still run into this problem socially, including with other Buddhists, including Buddhist teachers.

Basically, these people try and force you to submit with their energy. For me: I'm not going to do that. Like ever. I tasted plenty of that when I was a kid, and I will never do that again.

But, it's still exhausting having to deal with such people. I see Lamas and such do this sometimes too. I've seen a few Zen teachers do this also. Trying to just dominate the room with their energy. It's at best: really annoying having to block them out? And at worst: kinda puts me in combat mode and makes me want to energetically take them down a peg, and teach them some manners.

I get the sense that some tantric lamas especially seem to genuinely feel that it's okay to try and dominate others with their energy.

Basically my problem is: I genuinely don't want to get into an energy fight with people. (I don't want to get into a fight with anybody!) But I also have no intention whatsoever of submitting to them. And I also don't want to sit there and just have to keep half my concentration focused on blocking them out while I'm trying to relax socially.

Some of these people basically treat my refusal to submit to their energy as a "challenge" where they double their efforts to try harder to make me. In some situations, I've genuinely just had to beat a few people in an energy fight, before they would back off, and respect me.

But it still really bothers me that I even had to do that in the first place, you know? There's just something about the fact that they would even try and do that at all, that just really bothers me. It comes across as deeply disrespectful of other people's energy autonomy, and the right to decide for themselves. It comes across as really arrogant, narcissistic, and disrespectful to me. And just rude, frankly. They just kind of come across as assholes who have no energetic manners to me.

And so I'm just not sure how to handle this? I don't want to get into energy fights with people, but it also seems like some people, including some "respected" Buddhists act like they just have a right to just go around trying to dominate others with their energy.

Does anyone know how to handle this socially? Do you just have to decide to be the biggest fish in the pond? Even if you don't want to? It just seems pretty stupid if that were literally the only option available. Don't people just know how to live and let live? Do you just walk out, even if it creates a stir by doing so?

Why do some people just want to try and dominate everyone around them? It's quite disturbing to me.

For those with some experience wielding their energy, how do you handle such people in a diplomatic way? I'm looking for some kind of win/win solution here, that if at all possible, doesn't involve conflict.

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Thunder over the Dragon Kingdom

“We’ll talk on more topics in the next blog, till then, take care, thank you for reading. You make it worth it! Don't forget to follow, Like and Subscribe."

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Lately, I’ve been feeling completely overwhelmed in the best and most confusing way possible. My curiosity first led me to places like tsopema, and through a deep dive into the Vajrayana stream, I've had the immense fortune of encountering teachers and practitioners (including some connected to the Nyingma lineage and figures like Mandarva) who answered my questions.

​But standing here now, wanting to learn the Dharma systematically, get initiated, and figure out my path, I feel a massive internal split. Part of me feels a strong pull toward the idea of a wandering yogi, or even questioning monastic life, while another part is just a 19-year-old trying to figure out studies and everyday realities. I deeply resonate with emptiness (Sunyata) and have been trying to ground myself in texts like The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas and The Eight Verses on Training the Mind.

​For those further along the path: How do you handle the initial phase of intense confusion and the urge to rush into everything? How do you balance a deep spiritual calling with the slow, step-by-step reality of daily life?"

Hello everyone,

Pecha is an open-source tool that turns Lotsawa House texts into pecha for printing, two per A4 landscape sheet, with the Tibetan, the transliteration and the translation in separate layers.

- Only texts that Lotsawa House marks as unrestricted are used in the library.
- The Lotsawa House license (CC BY-NC 4.0) is followed: non-commercial use, with credit to the translators.
- The tool runs as a skill for Claude. The layout is read from the structure of the Lotsawa House page.
- Printed examples and a guide are available on GitHub:

https://github.com/eltonmelo21/pecha

Tashi delek!

One of my history textbooks has use this powerful vibrant painting if Green Tara in Alchi Monastry. I'm curious to know about this also the difference between Dakini and Tara. Also some Museum artifects to share.

can anyone elaborate about the Bhutadamara and vajrapani's sadhana and the outcomes?