Mi'sen

Contemplative fieldnotes: Had an interesting chat with a long term Vajrayana practitioner, about how a practitioner represents the dharma back to themself/others. They are quite convinced that the symbols/stories used to represent dharma, shape the ‘flavour’ of training a lot.

Eg: I was asking about a mahamudra text where cessation is described as something that a well trained mind can do, but it’s kind of no big deal. The issue comes in where it becomes the entire goal, and then the person rejects experience/life in a way which becomes an impediment.

That could be avoided with skilful teaching, but it’s also possible to shift the perspective a bit, so then you end up with yogis singing about stuff like the one ground of samsara and nirvana (mind itself), or the one taste of bliss and suffering, those sort of themes.

This is also probably why you get formulations such as the three kayas - where dharmakaya refers to something like the non-experience of cessation, and nirmanakaya is the full play and sensitivity of awareness during ‘normal’ experience. (One way of thinking about it, at least)