About Me
- Rudy and Sharon Bauer
- Rudy Bauer is a clinical psychologist and practioner of phenomenology and dzogchen awareness. Sharon is a psychotherapist and has practiced and taught meditation for 30 years.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Speaking of Consciousness
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Mudra of Time and Timelessness
Mudra of Time and Timelessness
The simple mudra of lightly touching the tip of the first finger to the tip of the thumb connects, brings together, time in timelessness and timelessness in time. This invaluable, easy gesture of the hand reminds us where we are in any given situation. It is a gesture that brings us to the precise and present moment of whatever circumstance we are in. In this shared instant of now, time and timelessness effortlessly balance one another.
If pulled apart or separated, time and timelessness lose coherence. Without time, timelessness floats with no meaningful ‘where’ in the vast and open oneness of singularity. And time, without its timeless companion, gets stuck, pinned, by its own overabundant focus on endless parcels and bits…fragments of occurrences, whether real or anticipated, of situations past, or present, or yet to come. In this way, time catches itself, ensnares itself, in the ‘thingness’ of events. With no abiding ‘whereness’ of time, we too become caught and cannot fully meet, cannot fully connect, with the moment of our situation. Without timelessness, there is no felt place in time in which to be.
And so, these two entities of timelessness and time provide a context, an unfolding frame, for each other; one holds both the other as well as itself. So too are we as ourselves, as your self and my self, simultaneously held in both time and timelessness. We can now know naturally and easily the ‘where’ of our situation, whatever it may be. In this way, we can meet a circumstance and take agency, for a place in time now has meaning. And at this triangulated point of self and time and timelessness, we can just be. Never lost to time, never lost in ‘no time’, this point moves like liquid light. It is the leading edge of light and is not different now from what it was several minutes ago, or from what it will be several minutes from now. It is compass and map and place all at once…pointing to now, now, now…a known time held always in the timeless present in the life of every situation.
The mudra…the index finger flexed and lightly pressing against the thumb, the thumb gently staying the finger…is method. We can now choose to be fully present in any given moment. The mudra gives us a way to do that: The beingness of our own being emerges and unfolds where time and timelessness simultaneously hold and release the moment of every circumstance. And we are here, living now from this place in the clarity of continuously flowing time.
Written by: Erin Johannesen, M.A., M.D.
Edited by: Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
GAZING AS DZOCHEN
Monday, August 22, 2011
A Breeze Runs Through It
Friday, July 22, 2011
Outside the Window
I’d like to tell you a little story that is true....
One day, I had completely exhausted all of my usual ways of entertaining myself and I still had time to fill. I had played with my dolls and colored, and God knows what else. So, I decided to sit and look out the window. The next step unfolded quite naturally. I thought that I would experiment to see what something could happen while doing nothing. Something out of nothing! I was very curious about what might happen. But, I had no idea what! So, I turned our big cushy chair around to face the window and sat in it. I decided to just look at the big maple tree in front of our house and sit in the chair. And I waited. I just gazed. I think I had enough faith and curiosity combined to just simply sit and see. I felt empty.
That was the action within non action. I was opening to a possibility. Sitting there felt satisfying enough. And, I began to explore the tree very slowly. I was aware of how clear this picture was. I saw the branches and the different shades of black and the green of the leaves. My vision took in the shape of the leaves, baby leaves and really big ones, their directions hanging on the limb, the different sizes of the branches and twigs and how they were all so unique, like snowflakes. I traced their own path to reach the sun. I was lead to discover the space between the branches and a whole new world within that space. I noticed that I was very still and actively calm. There was a sweet, warm energy flowing in my body and mind.
Then, I began to notice something very interesting. And, very exciting and new! I couldn’t think about it with my mind! I was just allowed to notice it with my experience of what was inside of me and what was outside of me. It was like the window that was separating me and the outside just opened up. And, that openness was the something! The tree and me were having the same experience of “something”! We weren’t two separate things anymore, me and the tree. The “something” that was glistening cool diamonds of light sparkling in the tree and the sky and the branches and leaves was the same cool sweet feeling moving inside my whole body. I could sense myself in the tree and the tree could sense me and we perfectly still together even though the leaves were moving. We were occupying the same space. Just open light and love together, in this endless moment of pure awareness and being. It was all around me, in me, outside of me .and it was all the same. The tree was alive in me. It was in my eyes, my hair, my arms, my whole body, and I was inside of the branches and the trunk and the leaves and all the never-ending spaces in between. One becoming two and two becoming one.
When I experienced this, I felt so happy. I was amazed and very satisfied to know that there really was something in nothing, and that my question had been answered. I was very happy to be alive and grateful to know the secret living in the tree and in me. I didn’t quite know what to do with this information, but there was a completion in just knowing it. I saw the tree , went through it and found the sky on the other side. It was emptiness and it was fullness, simultaneously. Then, I heard my mother call me for lunch.
Written by Karen Ferguson
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Sambogakaya
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
DZOGCHEN AS A PHENOMENOLOGICAL THEOPHANIC MANIFESTATION
1. THE GREEK WORD PHANES MEANS APPARITION OR APPEARANCE….OF DIVINITY.
2. THE GREEK WORD PHAINO MEANS TO SHOW OR TO MANIFEST OR DISPLAY. TO APPEAR. APPEARING, SHOWING, MANIFESTING, APPARITION. PHANINO MEANS TO BRING TO LIGHT OR TO BRING INTO APPEARANCE. PHANEROS MEANS TO SHOW OR DISPLAY, TO MANIFEST.
3. PHENOMENOLOGY AS METHOD COMES FROM THIS WORD…THE EXPERIENCE OF APPEARANCE. ..THE UNFOLDING OF MULTIDIMENSIONAL APPEARANCE, THE ARTICULATION OF APPEARANCE AS KNOWLEDGE. THE PATH OF DZOGCHEN IS THE PATH OF AWARENESS WITHIN APPEARANCE AND APPEARANCE WITHIN AWARENESS. THE PATH OF PHENOMENOLOGY IS THE ARTICULATION OF APPEARING WITHIN EXPERIENCE.
4. THEOPHANY MEANS THE APPARITION OF DIVINITY WITHIN AND THROUGH APPEARANCE. DIVINITY MANIFESTING THROUGH PHENOMENA. THEOPHANY IS THE APPARITION OF GOD, DEUS…
5. AND SO AWARENESS AS YOU AND I KNOW IS MULTIDIMENSIONAL, THIS WONDERFUL AWARENESS MAY BE CONSIDERED A THEOPHANY…WE OFTEN THINK ABOUT THIS THEOPHANY IN ITS VERTICAL OR ASCENDANT HORIZON… THE GEOMETRY OF ASCENDANCY…OF MANIFESTATION. PURE AWARENESS UNBOUND OPENNESS OF DARK LUMINOSITY, ARISING AND MANIFESTING IS THE COSMIC LIGHT AND VORTEXES AND THE ARCHETYPAL DIMENSION OF THE DEITIES OR DEVAS OR DAKINIS…AND THEN THE ELEMENTS BECOME FLESH….ARISING OUT OF VOID, THE LIGHT AS ELEMENTS CONFIGURE AND CREATE THE POWERS OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND THEN THEY MANIFEST AS THE EARTH ELEMENT THE ELEMENT OF FLESH.
6. BUT THIS VERTICAL PRESENTATION IS ONLY AN IMAGINED GEOMETRY..AND SO THE THEOPHANY IS ALSO HORIZONTAL….AND SO ONE ENTERS THE THEOPHANIC DIMENSION DIRECTLY THROUGH WHAT IS IN FRONT OF YOU, BEHIND YOU, WITHIN YOU, AND ABOVE YOU…THE RELATIONAL WORLD IS THEOPHANIC.
7. OF COURSE THIS THEOPHANIC DISCOURSE IS THE MANIFESTATION OF LOVE, PURE LOVE COSMIC LOVE PERSONIFIED.
8. THE SINGULARITY OF LOVE , OF THE BELOVED IS THE SINGULARITY OF EACHNESS OR SUCHNESS...THE COSMIC WITHIN THE PERSONAL. IN THE THEOPHANIC LOVE, ALL LOVE IS COSMIC ...COSMIC COMPASSION AND PERSONAL. IN OUR POOR SOCIETY EROS HAS BECOME SEXUALITY AND A KIND OF DISCHARGE MECHANICS. BUT WITHIN GREEKS, DZOGCHEN AND MAHAMUDRA, AS WELL AS CERTAIN SUFI AND CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHIES ALCHEMICAL LOVE IS EROS... AND OF COURSE LOVE MASTERS US. LOVE IS THE THEOPHANIC MANIFESTATION. YOU AND I ARE THEOPAHNIC MANIFESTATIONS OF PURE LOVE.
9. LOVE. EROS IS GOD..AND GOD IS EROS... UBI CHARITAS ET AMOR DEUS IBI EST.
10. IT IS NOT LOVE THAT THE LOVER FALLS IN LOVE WITH BUT THE DIVINITY MADE MANIFEST BY LOVE .
11. AS DANTI DESCRIBES IN HIS FIRST SIGHT OF BEATRICE WHO IS COSMIC AND PERSONAL. FOR THE DZOGHCEN SHAVITE AND AS WELL AS SUFISM OF ILB ARABI, LOVE IS COSMIC PERSONAL, LOVE IS ALWAYS THEOPHANIC..
12. WHEREVER YOU LOVE THERE IS GOD.
13. TRUE SPIRITUALITY IS AN ANIMA EXPERIENCE...PSYCHE. OF COURSE THE LOVE OF YESHE TOGYAL AND PADMASAMBHAVA IS A THEOPHANIC DESCRIPTION…AND THE ONENESS OF THE COUPLE SAMANTABHADRA AND SAMATABHADRI IS INDICATIVE OF THEONENESS OF THE MASCULINE AND FEMININE IN ONE PERSON AND THE THEOPHAINIC EXPERIENCE OF LOVE BETWEEN TWO.
15. THE PRACTICE OF THE INNER HEART ESSENCE IS A PATH OF LOVE, A THEOPHANIC PATH OF NON DUAL ONENESS, OF LUMINOUS FLESH,
16. SPACE MAKES PLACE FOR THE MANIFESTATION OF THE ANIMA …SPACE MAKES PLACE FOR THE ANIMA MUNDI. THE DAKINI IS THE ANIMA EXPRESSION OF PRIMORDIAL AWARENESS IN HER MANY FORMS. AS SOURCE, AS APPARITION. VORTEXUAL, AS HUMAN BEING AND AS THE EARTH ITSELF, THE EARTH IS THE DAKINI.
17. ALTHOUGH PATRIARCHICAL IN INSTITUTIONALIZATION, THE PATH OF AWARENESS IS THE ANIMA, GNOSIS , DIRECT PERCEPTION AND IS FEMININE. DIRECT PERCEPTION, GNOSIS IS LOVE ITSELF.
18. THERE WAS THIS AMAZING AND SECRET GROUP THAT CROSSED THE BOUNDARIES OF SUFISM AND CHRISTIAN MEDIEVALS…CALLED FEDEI D'AMORE, THE SERVANTS OF LOVE. AND THIS WONDERFUL GROUP WENT THROUGH SPAIN, ANDALUSIAN SPAIN, INTO ITALLY. DANTI WAS A MEMBER. A SUFI NAMED RUZBEHAN BAQLI OF SHRIRAC D1209 WROTE A TREATISE THE JASMINE OF THE FEDLI D'AMORE. MARSSILO FICINO WROTE DE AMORE, AND SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE LABORS LOST WRITES A DEFENSE OF THE FEDEI D'AMORE. THE SUFI IBN ARABI IN 1201 FALLS IN LOVE WITH A YOUNG WOMEN NAMED NIZAM AYN AL-SHAMS, meaning HARMONY. THE EYE OF THE SUN AND OF BEAUTY. SHE REVEALS THE SOPHIANIC RELIGION OF LOVE.
19. IF ONE READS THE TEXT OF DZOGHCEN AND THE MAHAMUDRA SIDDHAS ONE SEES OVER AND OVER THE VAST EMPHASIS IS ON HUMAN LOVE AND THE MYSTERIOUS CONJUNCIO AS DIRECT MANIFESTATION OF NON DUAL ONENESS.