All emotions belong to the five buddha families. Tantra talks about the relationship between the buddha families in the same way zoologists point out that although dolphins look like fish, they are, in fact, mammals. Similarly, as far as tantra is concerned, whatever an emotion may look like, it is, in fact, a member of a buddha family. All Tantric practitioners should cultivate this attitude to their emotions. Just as lotuses are only found growing in muddy water, wisdom can only be found in our negative emotions.
Poison is Medicine Khyenste Rinpoche
Just got out of a retreat with Lama Liz… We taught on the Five Buddha Families.
Any of you worked with this material before?
My experience with the five Buddha families.
A bridge between our conventional world and the sacred world of the Vajrayana.
Five colors, five different perspectives on the world.
Go over each of the five as an introduction, then do one of the meditations that Lama Liz wrote.
If there’s time at the end we can discuss.
Key point before getting into this - experiencing the blockages is not a value judgement. It’s not bad if you experience these energies in their blocked form. It just means you are human!
The problem is not the energy itself. The thing that causes suffering is our relationship with the energy!
Ratna
The wisdom of equanimity
The klesha of pride
Energy of richness
Yellow, south, autumn, earth, solidity, fertility,
sense perception taste
Neurotic expression - pride, hunger, poverty mentality
Awake expression - Expansiveness
Karma - Enriching
Jewel
Personal experience - cooking
Vajra
The essence of Vajra Wisdom is sharp, diamond clarity. Imagine a scalpel or a razor blade that can slice through any confusion with precise, clean, dispassionate strokes.
Imagine that at any time, when you are feeling confused or overwhelmed, you could stop time, step back from the situation and look at it from a dozen or a hundred perspectives. Then you could choose the best approach, the right thing to say, for the maximum best result for everyone involved.
In my personal life I encounter Vajra energy when I work on spreadsheets. Everything laid out in its cells.
That’s Vajra Wisdom.
It’s easy to see how that clarity, that sharpness, could flip into anger. You think you see more clearly than anyone else. Instead of a surgeon’s scalpel you have a sword. Instead of picking the best approach to benefit everyone, you slash out at the situation to make your self feel better.
I most encounter anger these days when my dog won’t stop barking in the middle of the night. There is literally nothing there. There is no threat. And yet, she wakes up the house at 3am with these sharp, loud calls like the wolves are gathered at the door.
This blind rage flares up inside me. Why does she do this? Why doesn’t she see what I see? Why does she have to wake me up in the dead of night?
Padma
Ah Padma. This is familiar ground for all of us. Padma is associated with the human realm - the realm of desire. We want.
We want. We yearn. The grass is always greener. The second noble truth - the cause of suffering is craving.
We are too hot. We are too cold. We are bored so we want to eat, or get up and walk around. But then we do that and we don’t feel any relief. We want a new class, a new job, a new apartment, new clothes.
Padma is red like a slinky silk dress or a stock broker’s tie. In its neurotic aspect, it’s selling us all the stuff we think we want. It’s a hustler or an advertising executive: smooth talking, convincing, a seducer, but just a transactional one. It doesn’t care for true, deep connection. It wants another notch on the belt, another body for the count.
The passion for getting, attracting, kind of melts into compassion for the heart behind the wanting.
All of the activity aimed at papering over the hole in our hearts can rest for a minute. We can turn our attention towards the heart and the hole itself.
We feel lonely. We feel unworthy. And we feel tender towards that, like we’ve looked under a wet cardboard box and found a little grey kitten. We want to pick it up and warm it with our body heat.
Suddenly, the burning fire of seducing the world turns into curiousity and interest for this simple, tender heart.
Karma
Mind way ahead of the body, or vice versa. No synchronization.
Turning everything into an expansion of personal territory.
Highly competitive - with other people or some imagined version of ourselves.
Keeping ourselves very busy so we don’t have to feel the hard emotions.
Fixation on self is lifted so the energy can flow
Flow state
Action of Destroying - Calling out STOP when I saw a blind person about to get hit by a car.
Aikido
Being a CEO - prioritizing but letting go.
Buddha Amogaciti. Female buddha is Green Tara.
Chakra is solar plexus - martial arts, the place where the movement comes from.
Buddha
Buddha Virochana
landscapes - sand dunes, abandoned cities, ruins,
In harmony with the way things actually are.
the wisdom of dharmadatu - the space out of which everything arises and into which it dissolves.
Blocked Buddha energy
So much less work than these other painful emotions!
Ignorance is bliss right?
Why is that a joke? Why sarcastic?
Because we know in our heart of hearts that it’s not. We know this.