13: Orchestrating Insight: A Discussion on Sharing Buddhist Teachings

Podcast episode 13. Orchestrating Insight: A Discussion on Sharing Buddhist Teachings

Bill Moriarty and Michael Carroll discuss how to approach becoming a teacher, and what that even means.

Notes from this show:

The Vagrant and the poet

W. Blythe Miller, Phd.

https://sangha.live/teachers/lama-willa-miller-bio/

While Willa, in this article, does not speak to the “5 point Mahamudra practice” formulated by Gampopa, here is a section from the text depicting Gampopa’s conversation with Phagmo Drupa that set the foundation for the practice:

https://drukpa.org/our-forefathers/phagmo-drupa/

Gampopa said to Phagmo Drupa: …You go to mountainous areas and so on, congenial places where disenchantment can be produced and experience can develop. There you arouse the mind thinking, “For the purposes of sentient beings, I will attain Buddhahood”. You meditate on your body as the deity. You meditate on the guru over your crown. Then, not letting your mind be spoiled with thoughts, not altering this mind—because it is nothing whatsoever—in any way at all, set yourself in clarity which is pure, vividly present, clean-clear, wide-awake!

Later, Phagmo Drupa formalized this instruction into the 5 point Mahamudra – from another text:Phagmo Drupa said: First, meditate on enlightenment mind; Meditate on the yidam deity; Meditate on the holy guru; Meditate on Mahāmudrā; Afterwards, seal it with dedication

Jigme Phuntsok quote:

I came all the way from the Snow Land of Tibet to the US. I find myself now in a place that can be called the second land of Shambhala. In fact, the actual kingdom of Shambhala is one of the five great sacred places according to the Buddhist doctrines. These five sacred places are: 1) Bodh Gaya, the sacred place located at the center of this world where all buddhas of the three times will attain full awakening; 2) Mount Wutai, the Five-Peaked Mountain in China, the sacred place of the east where Lord Manjushri now dwells; 3) Mount Potala, the sacred place of the south where noble Avalokiteshvara actually resides; 4) Copper-Colored Mountain or Oddiyana, the sacred place of the west, the Land of Dakinis, where Guru Padmasambhava abides; and 5) Shambhala, the sacred place of the north.

https://khenposodargye.org/content/uploads/2023/12/A-Journey-to-the-West-1-English-20231223.pdf