Namgyal Rinpoche on MUDRA – Movement as meditation –
from the www.namgyal.ca Archive
The Venerated Namgyal Rinpoche, our Root Guru, was still known as the Venerable Bhikkhu Ananda Bodhi when I first met him in 1968. Many of you may have heard ‘my story’ before – feel free to go directly to the Teaching below. But for those of you who haven’t and have requested it, this is a brief synopsis, as a prelude to the excerpt posted here of Teaching on Mudra by Namgyal Rinpoche.
In February of ’77 Angelica, as the Chair of the ‘Yukon Dharma Society’ and myself, as the Chair of the ‘Karmapa Committee’ – assisted by many members of the society and the community at large – organised and hosted the Teaching Tour of His Holiness Gyalwa Karmapa 16 and His Entourage of 12 Tulkus, Rinpoches and Lamas to the Yukon. He appointed me as His personal Representative there and told me to give the Karma Kargyu Teachings. When I protested that I was not competent He instructed me to bring His Guru, His Eminence Kalu Rinpoche, to the Yukon to give further guidance, which Angela and I did that summer. His Eminence bestowed upon us the ‘Genyen’ [lay-teaching couple] Lama Couple Consecration Ordination in His Shangpa Kargyu Lineage during the Initiation Ritual of Sangye Menla, the Buddha of Healing, as Healing has always been our ‘Main Dharma Focus’.
In 1978 we returned to Toronto, as I had told His Holiness we would not be staying in the Yukon in all probability. That summer we invited and hosted His Holiness Sakya Trizin to come to Toronto to give teachings here. He and His family lived with us for 10 days or so during which time we established under His Auspices the Sakya Society of Canada and a Teaching Centre which He named ‘Sakya Thubten Namgyal Ling’ – ‘The Place of Great Victory of All the Sakyan Sage’s Teachings’. He Bestowed on us each the title ‘Sakya Shasanadhara’ – ‘Holder of the Sakya Lineage Teachings’ and also consecrated us with the Genyen Ordination in His Lineage.
Throughout the intervening years we continued to receive Transmissions, Teachings and Training in the ‘Non-Sectarian Spirit of the Rime’ from the Ven. Namgyal Rinpoche and Lamas from the four main Lineages of Tibet – while sharing our experiences with the Namgyal, Kargyu and Sakya Lineages as a ‘Lama Couple-Dharma Family’ with those who were interested. As the years went by several of the Rinpoche’s ‘single’ students set off on their own paths to gather students and establish centres. We ‘preferred’, while raising our four children, to remain in the Rinpoche’s Mandala and offer service to him and all as we could – a very ‘traditional’ approach. In 1990 we expressed to Rinpoche that his training had inclined us to work with him directly as ‘associate teachers’ in a ‘Group Mind’ exploration. This may seem brash to some but was logical to us!
His response was, “Well, put something together and we’ll do it!” Which is how the ‘Mudra Teachings Series’ began. In the early summer of ’91, at the Toronto Waldorf School (which our children were attending) and in Ottawa, Namgyal Rinpoche began two series of teachings which he called ‘Mipham Mudra’ and ‘Sangye Menla Mudra’. These became week-end retreats, comprised of what he referred to as ‘Normal Working Days’. These teachings, which were focussed on various forms of ‘Healing and Good Health Practices for the Path’ – with Namgyal Rinpoche as the ‘Highlight Speaker’ – were organised and led by us (assisted initially by Debbie O’Connell and Freyda Olsen).
This period began a new level of interaction between us and our family, as teachers working directly with Namgyal Rinpoche. It led to the centre in our home – often called ‘Sakya Namgyal’ by the Rinpoche’s students – becoming Namgyal Rinpoche’s main teaching base in the Toronto area for a little more than the last decade or so of his life. These teachings were recorded with the Rinpoche’s express approval and some have been transcribed. The following is from:
‘ A Part of the Introductory Discourse to the Mipham Mudra series by Namgyal Rinpoche…
“There are seven major meditation categories laid out in the most ancient of texts, and by oral tradition before that. These are:
1. Meditation on the BREATH, pranas/vital energies (life forces), one entire category. The purpose of these is to heal the mind/body.
2. Meditation on the ENERGY CENTRES in the body. These are areas of the psycho-physical body, called CHAKRAS in Sanskrit, (something like the coins or pentacles in the Tarot) which loosely correspond to the adrenal glands and various plexii and nexii in the body, such as the solar plexus. There are ‘energy’ channels that connect the chakras. These are analogous to the physical nervous systems and are called NADIIS in Sanskrit. Nadiis and chakras relate to the spinal chord, the brain stem and the brain itself.
3. There is a meditation category for VISUALIZATION.
4. A category for meditation on SOUND, called ‘MANTRA’.
5. Meditations on MOVEMENT, called ‘MUDRA’ in the Sanskrit language. Mudra can be viewed as the posture of the body as a whole – or as a gesture, by a portion of the body (often the hands), which is symbolic – and movement of the body as a whole while it functions.
Then there is ‘Karma Mudra’. In this case Karma could translate as action. So the phrase would mean, ‘action gesture’ or, one’s ‘action partner’ in (sexual) activity.
In this teaching mudra is not practiced merely to establish mental or physical wellbeing (to make you feel good), but to bring you into the Wisdom State – a state that enables you to go further with the direct realization of the laws of the universe – the ‘Sophia Principal’ in Orthodox Christianity.
One of the ways in which you can prepare for wisdom realization is to practise movement by treating it as a meditation – not merely as movement, but as ‘mudra’. Strangely enough, one of the powers of mudra is for vanishing, ‘MU’! ‘DRA’ means formations. We have the idea, from the first syllable, of being rid (MU) of the blocks (DRA) in the being that prevent one from’ vanishing into the light’.
That’s one possible way to interpret it, the vanishing (MU) of blocks or things (formations) that stand in the way (DRA). The other interpretation is that movement can become a tool for the vanishing of suffering in the being, clearing the being of suffering.
6. DEVOTIONAL category meditations – (Emotional, wet type).
7. INSIGHT category meditation – the (dry) vision approach, based on pure awareness, attentiveness and recollectedness etc.
So the teachings on calm are of compassion, awareness, the development of compassion – for you to be in a very good and healthy state in order to become a fully awakened or fully knowing being. We do not teach them merely for the JHANAS, ecstatic highs, although there’s no disparagement of that in any way. You can use the bliss factor – but its to ‘get somewhere’ or other, ‘further’.
So, the first six categories of meditation are to prepare you for insight. I think I really must stress this, because in this type of teaching we don’t do movement or mudra, merely for the establishment of calm or health, merely to make you feel good or something. It is to ‘use’ of course, to ‘get there’ – in order to use that state to go further into Wisdom and direct realisation of the Laws of the Universe. In this teaching, it is presumed that people will eventually dedicate themselves to insight/wisdom. And not merely for personal realization, but for universal realization (or recognition of the universe) and for universal responsibility. Got it? All right, now we’ll back up a bit.
Now, to be very technical… I’ll be ‘technical’ about the word mudra. The Buddha said, “I teach but two things…” I am what is called a Buddhist teacher, so I’m teaching within that format – that’s not in defiance of you, I’m not throwing down the gauntlet. I’m just explaining to you in your own language where I am coming from. (I hope there is no ‘I’ to be coming from anywhere – according to good Buddhist teaching.) But, in this teaching the Buddha said, “I teach but two things, suffering (including by the way, ignorance or not knowing), and the cessation of suffering.”
So the Buddhist meditation of movement must be dedicated to the cessation of suffering. The cause of suffering is not seeing, directly. Most of your life, (if you are very fair about this), you’re living on other people’s opinions, reflected from the home; public school, private school, university, newspapers, television and so on. It’s not based on your own direct perception of truth or insight – within your own body – caused by its movements.
You acquire, very frequently, very dubious information. It’s that state in a nutshell – and you either believe that, or you don’t! That’s not to say that wisdom may not come from other beings, but it must be put to the test – and the final test is direct perception, direct exploration of things”.
Continues…