Read Online Awakening the Luminous Mind: Tibetan Meditation for Inner Peace and Joy by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche - Free Book Online

see my book Awakening the Sacred Body , which includes meditation practices that clear the negative, obscuring winds and allow the wisdom wind to move.)
    When the clouds of obscuration clear, there is light. This is the light of awareness. Internally, you are able to experience pure awareness. So we take refuge in awareness itself. Awareness is the direct cause for many qualities. Openness allows all our experiences, but awareness gives brightness to appearance. The sky allows, but the sun has more of a role in what you see right now. In terms of our inner experience, qualities such as compassion, joy, and love are linked with the presence of awareness as the immediate cause. The root cause of positive qualities is openness or space, but only when awareness of that space is present does the quality emerge. So many feelings become available because of being conscious, being aware of the space of being. It is possible to be open before being aware of it, but the moment you become aware of openness, it gives birth to positive qualities. I am making a distinction between openness and being aware of openness. Openness can exist whether you are aware of it or not, but when you are aware of openness, it gives birth. That is the reason we take refuge in the light, in awareness.
    Let me try to express this in another way. If you are in the country and walk outside at three or four in the morning, it is dark. You can’t distinguish the objects or colors of the natural environment around you. While you may not perceive the details of the trees, birds, and flowers, nonetheless those things are there. The space is still holding everything, but you are not able to see anything. You may be able to imagine there are many beautiful things in this space, but you are not seeing them. You can imagine what surrounds you, and trust what is there because you remember what you experienced previously. Then, when morning comes, the sun rises and reflects on your surroundings, and you see the beauty of trees, mountains, grasses, flowers. Perceiving the beauty gives you access to the inner qualities. In dzogchen teachings we hear so many times that everything is perfected in the base of one’s being, the inner space of being. We may read or hear this many times, but until the sun shines, until you are aware of that inner space of being, you don’t see the perfection.
    When the light of awareness shines, you are able to experience what is perfected. Genuineness and authenticity come from this union of openness and awareness. You see what is here. You take refuge in this body of light. You turn your focus inward and take refuge in awareness itself.
    This body of stillness, emptiness, and this body of awareness, light, has nothing to do with any religion or philosophy, but it has everything to do with you. It is within you. Look directly within and you will see it. Look away and it is obscured. Why do we look away? Ego is not able to see it. Ego only sees its own imagination. Who sees it then? It sees itself. It knows itself. Therefore it is called self-realization. I already referred to one of the lines of supplication in the Bön and Buddhist traditions that express this as a sincere intention and request from the student to the teacher. I’ve included a few more: “Bless me to recognize my true face with my own eyes. Help me to recognize the treasure within, the refuge tree, the jewel, the source of enlightenment, my true self.” There is no knowledge greater than that recognition, and we cannot produce it or make it happen through any effort. That recognition is the greatest gift you can have in your life, and we acknowledge that in prayer.
    T HE T HIRD R EFUGE : T HE B ODY OF B LISS
     
    The third place of refuge is in the body of great bliss. When awareness arises, something happens. From the space in your heart, from the light of awareness, the darkness of ignorance is dispelled, and a sense of great bliss manifests. Great bliss is simply the