Questions & Answers 22. Zoom 05.2022

18 May 2022. James Low had invited questions from people watching his Zooms, which he began to answer.

Note: the constant cuts in this video result from the removal of James Low's periods of silence, while waiting for the consecutive translation from one of the translators.

Index

"(00:00) Question from someone who has practiced a lot of zen sitting for many years, but started to feel the tradition wasn't doing anything lively for him. He says: now I feel more alive with the sense something inside me is guiding me, but can I trust this? Because I am aware how easy it is to deceive oneself."

"(02:17) Are there life patterns? If so, can we scape from them?"

"(13:27) 'Observe our own mind and find out how it is.' Does it envolve analises? The guru yoga is free of analises."

"(16:04) How to live in a proactive culture, while remaining in the receptive state of the mirror?"

"(20:27) Is enlightenment possible without meditation? What about the religious traditions that don't talk about meditation?"

"(23:10) Do you believe in free will? If so, where is the 'I' that I believe sits in front of the thoughts that are ever emerging?"

"(24:42) When difficult emotions arises, a mood can last for days. We are advised not to reject negative experiences, but to protect the thusness within them. How to do this without reactivity or artificiality?"

"(26:26) How to reverse the karmic impact of unethical actions?"

"(29:10) Why are owls auspicious?"

"(30:07) How is deity practice relevant to us on the path?"

"(30:34) What are mind termas?"

"(31:05) How can we be sure that we are in rigpa?"

"(31:59) In the Rigdzin text, it says 'I and all sentient being go for refuge'. How can I say this on behalf of all sentient beings?"

"(33:16) Many teachers give the Rigpa Tsal Wang and say that this is indispensable for dzogchen practice. You don't. Why? "

"(34:42) With intense experience of suffering, where one moment of experience is followed by another, the fact that the arising is vanishing doesn't help, with the stream of similar experiences which keep coming, such as chronic pain, fear of attack, war, grief."

"(38:52) With the war in Ukraine there is hurtful aggression, it may be illusory, but people do experience attack and suffering. How to look at war in terms of emptiness, while avoiding entering into judgment?"

"(40:31) Nothing exists in and of itself, everything is empty. So how does karma come into future lives? What transports the karma?"

"(42:31) In the text we read, there are five kayas. I know about the dharmakaya, sanbogakaya and nirmanakaya. What are the other two?"

"(43:37) How to continue in awareness in our daily activities, without immediately falling back in the same old pattern of reification?"

"(45:01) What is meant by pure vision? Is it a pure sensory perception or rather a pure view?"

"(47:31) Is is it possible to have a pure vision while we still have a karmic body?"

Video at https://youtu.be/78YUjwB8SH4?si=QCJfD3sRZ3myqAXo