Advanced Mahamudra Talk: One Taste and Nonmeditation

[Baba]

I’ll start this topic by copying bits from other threads.

@Baba

Ugi: I think Tulku Urgyen is the one modern teacher who came closest to the teaching style of Gampopa. And maybe today’s Kagyupas are actually following Gampopa’s teaching that only someone who is at the stage of great One Taste can point out the nature of mind to students. Such a level of realisation is regarded as extremely hard to achieve in today’s Kagyu world. At least that’s what I’ve read and heard many times.

Tulku Urgyen was really awesome . Straight to the point, keep it simple and easily approachable.

I didn’t know that advice reg. greater one taste. In terms of bhumis, that’s around the perfection of higher bhumis, 8-9-10. With the perfection of 6th one starts getting one taste but the development with each one from 6 to 7 to 8 and so on, those are subtle but profound and subtle changes. However, I don’t agree with Gampopa about this.

As you know, in tibetan buddhism, grounds are achieved in different way than in Pemako. One open, one perfect, second open, second perfect and so on. This way is very slow. I could make a list of old tibetan lamas alive now and if you were able to read their energy, point out that it has taken over five decades of practices, in most cases more than that up to 70 years, for them to reach the stage of greater one taste. So yes I can understand perfectly why they say that it is “extremely hard to achieve”. For one, you run out of time.

Some people, usually those who have practiced meditation for a number of years, who have 11 bhumis open have true recognition and can therefore point it out. This is not the case with every single person who opens 11 but in many cases yes.

It is of course an necessary point to mention that not all kinds of transmissions given by anyone from advaita, to neo-advaita to Indian tantra point out the nature of mind. But still, even a seasoned meditator, i.e. some purification of the 10 bhumis, together with 11 bhumis open can point it out.

@Baba

@Ugi

Gampopa… What he also mentioned reg. this, was, that on the stage of One Taste, you begin to see in people whether they have correct emptiness recognition or not. From my experience, there’s truth in that. At this stage, you naturally begin to intuit if a teacher or anyone really is speaking from emptiness or if he’s just talking about emptiness.

That-is-spot-on. I couldn’t agree more on this. Strictly speaking selflessness/anatman of the first vehicle and emptiness/sunyata of the second vehicle are two very different things, though some think they are very similar or even exactly the same. They start at the same place but at one point, exactly at the perfection of 6th bhumi, they separate, or the former comes to an end stop of arhathood, while the latter keeps going towards buddhahood.

As emptiness of all phenomena begins to dawn after completing the purification of bhumis 1-6, and shifts and insights keep progressing to mahayana terrain (7-8-9-10), the flavour, tone, feel and energy of the person changes subtly but radically. This is why mahayanis make it clear that hinayana and mahayana are two entirely different vehicles. They do this not because they look down upon hinayanis or frown upon them but to make it clear that the vehicles travel to two different kinds of places.