I've been dipping in and out of some interesting books recently. The Generation Stage of Buddhist Tantra by Gyatrul Rinpoche details vajranyana visualisations and made me realise once again that there's no chance of me being able to visualise anything in anything like that kind of detail in my current lifestyle.
But I'm still going to go through the visualisations that I do try, and have been trying to do for about eight years, because the bliss when it is coming streaming down from the extremely poorly visualised Medicine Buddha is better than anything. So it's working somehow.
The Three Principal Aspects of the Path, an oral teaching by Geshe Sonam Rinchen, translated and edited by Ruth Sonam, is brilliant in it's description of the correct view. That's in the last third of the book and it's something I'm going to read and re-read.
The Gelug/Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra by H.H. Dalai Lama and Alexander Berzin is a book which has just landed on my lap at the perfect time. I've had this book for years and have read bits of it before, but now I feel as if I'm ready for it. The four lectures at the beginning by Alexander Berzin are brilliant and seem so appropriate right now.
I'm almost finished re-reading Anagarika Govinda's Way of the White Clouds. The examples in it of rebirth are very interesting indeed. I don't like believing in anything other than the illusory nature of reality, but after re-reading this book again ....
My meditations had a huge boost from visiting the Samye Ling for four nights during the recent Drupchen. When such a situation develops, there is always a little trepidation. There are wonderful amounts of bliss and you can feel the force much stronger these days. You have a tiger by the tail again. I think I have to bend my mind towards emptiness and lay off the symbols and channels for a bit. Or, at least, watch it.
