ALL CAPS here indicates a title, or the text is a link, I'm not YELLING
when you begin MEDITATION it can be confusing where to start
avoid the information overload and focus on making meditation a habit and lifetime learning
think of it like tending a garden, remove bad stuff, add good stuff and above all pay attention
NOTHING TO DO - Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche
There is actually nothing to do because the mind’s true nature already is perfect just as it is. If you are still fiddling about trying to manipulate your mind or experience in any way, then you have not got this . . . If there is no effort or contrivance in your meditation, if you are able to rest relaxed without clinging or fixation no matter what happens, then it is true mahamudra meditation.
JUST LET EVERYTHING BE — Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche
Although meditation is actually very simple, it is easy to get confused by the many different descriptions of meditation practices. Forget them all and just sit quietly. Be very still and relaxed, and do not try to do anything. Let everything—thoughts, feelings, and concepts—go through your mind unheeded. Do not grasp at ideas or thoughts as they come and go or try to manipulate them. When you feel you have to do something in your meditation, you only make it harder. Let meditation do itself.
After you learn to let thoughts slip by, the thoughts will slow down and nearly disappear. Then, behind the flow of thoughts, you will sense a feeling that is the foundation of meditation. When you contact this quiet place behind your inner dialogues, let your awareness of it grow stronger. You can then simply rest in the silence. For in that silence there is nothing to do; there is no reason to produce anything or to stop anything. Just let everything be.
MEDITATION HAS NO PURPOSE - Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Meditation has no object, no purpose, no reference point. It is simply individuals willing to take a discipline upon themselves, not to please God or the Buddha or their teacher or themselves. Rather one just sits. One just simply sits without aim, object, purpose, without anything at all. Nothing whatsoever. One just sits. Sitting is just being there like a piece of rock or a disused coffee cup sitting on the table. So meditation is just sitting and being, simply.
using the BREATH
things that cause samsara
transforming
transforming
five hindrances
https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Destructive_emotions
https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Four_abodes_of_Brahma
the EIGHTFOLD PATH
four metta phrases
six wholesome and unwholesome roots of the mind
wisdom
delusion
six stages of metta
https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Three_types_of_suffering
eight vissitudes
https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Dependent_origination
three feeling tones
https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Six_consciousnesses
seven points of posture
If you pay close attention as the universe unfolds meditation is inevitable
Buddha created 84,000 paths to accomodate various personality types
many other people have made similar paths, they almost all lead to the same place
you can find a guru to help guide you, or do your own research
dedication and intention
cultivation
I will cultivate openness, nondiscrimination, and nonattachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.
dharma seals
doors of liberation
factors of awakening
Concentration
Concentration means you keep the insight alive for a long time.
It’s not just a flash; that’s not enough to liberate you.
So in your daily life, you keep that insight of nonself, of emptiness, of impermanence alive.
When you see a person, a bird, a tree, or a rock, you see its nature of emptiness.
five aggregates of clinging
five remembrances
these are from the book FEAR
I breath out and I know this is an out breath
I breath in/out and I follow the in breath all the way through from beginning to end
breathing in/out I’m aware of the whole body
breathing out I release the pain or tension…
the traditional phrase is: cultivate shamatha; train in vipashyana.
shamatha
calm abiding (Skt.: shamata) Refers to a mind that abides in its own steadiness, independent of external circumstances; cultivated through meditative awareness.
The genuine shamatha is to not create anything artificial whatsoever, but to simply remain in the experience of emptiness. Vipashyana means not to deviate from that state.
vipashyana (Skt.) Insight; clear seeing. Vipashyana meditation emphasizes that the recognition of all that appears arises from emptiness; it is inseparable from emptiness, and it dissolves into emptiness.
Vipashyana is the direct, experiential insight that all experience does indeed appear, yet cannot be captured by words and concepts, and so is fundamentally as ungraspable and groundless as space.
In Tibetan teachings, wisdom specifically relates to the recognition of one’s buddha nature, the union of emptiness and clarity
Pursuing the insight of vipashyana means to try to find who the meditator is; trying to identify what it is that remains quiet.
great completion great perfection
Dzogchen, the ultimate view is to relax into nondual awareness
there are two stages called trekco and togal
this article is amazing
https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/jamyang-khyentse-chokyi-lodro/key-points-on-trekcho
Trekcho is to simply acknowledge that one's innate essence is empty. Togal is to recognize that the natural display is spontaneously present. They are not our creation; they are not produced by practice. There is no imagining of anything in either trekcho or togal
direct crossing over the dualistic gap between subject and object
nangjang training "training in refining experience"