As I sit here contemplating the up and coming death of my martial teacher, Sensei Cox. He helped me crack open my broken heart and lost humanity. Someone who has dedicated 40 years of his life to growing people through to the other side of trauma. He found out he has a terminal brain tumor one week ago. I dropped everything to go and spend my last bit of time with him in the physical. It was precious the time spent. To pour 28 years of relationship into a few hours, distill the essence of that and connect in the flesh for the last time. The sharing of stories. Massaging the feet of this beautiful human being. Feet that are getting ready for enevatible journey that we all take. Laughing and crying, often both at the same time. All he could say as the tears flowed from his eyes "I'm good! this is not sadness. It's just that there is so much love and joy inside, there is no more room left in there, it's just spilling out now" This is who and what he is. So the gift that is coming in his death will be ever unfolding. As I take stock of this life and the lineage teachings I have received from him. The rope that he handed to me. Comes with a lot of hands holding it from the past. Do I drop the rope or do I pass the rope forward to the futures? Of course I have to hand it forward along with the stories and teachings that come with those. These past teachings have created the causes and conditions for me to be in this river, this lineage. Life is full, yet so much to give. So full of Joy and Love, that there is not enough room inside to contain it all. Sometimes it just has to spill out, with the face of many, many various emotions. So much I want to share, yet not the words right now. Except. Uke (the one in the middle being used to show the various martial techniques) the receivers of teachings or techniques. To surrender the self to the teacher. To die in every moment of the receiving, slaying of the ego. To give yourself completely. To be vulnerable, to receive first hand what the teacher is trying to impart. To be open to the lineage, to flow through and live within. To jump at any opportunity to be Uke, to allow the self to say "I don't know this, please teach me" This is how I view my kind Guru Khandro La. She is my teacher and I am the Uke. I will take every possibility to learn. Place myself in uncomfortable situations of not knowing melodies, sound like shit while learning. Ask to connect and grow this lineage within. To run with this opportunity. Not cower in the corner of ego's false refuge and delusion of perfection, that it needs to look like it knows, when it doesn’t know shit. My Guru's will all pass from this fleeting life. Have I truly collected the transmissions well? Or have I remained in ego's firm grasp. Applying all the comfort excuses from ego's timid perspective. A word he gave me, minutes before I left. One that we have lived by. Okuden = heart to heart transmission. To truly connect as only Teacher and Student can. Goes beyond blood. Goes beyond this life. TAYATA OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASUMGATE BODHI SVAHA

Language has a very conceptual element to it. Its the mind putting boxes around and under everything. Yet conjures up so much of everything. Playing on words, I love messing with the different play of the same word, depending on its context within a phrase. Language can box the mind or free the mind. What's been playing in my mind is 'Awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings' Awakening implies that there is a Sleeper. Yet ultimately there is only Awakened, expressing through dependent appearance's. Yet even this Awakened, is dependent on being experientially perceived. Otherwise, why is there a paradox of Enlightened vrs Un-enlightened. Awakening in this very moment, which moment? What is the 'non awake' that holds the veil over the already awoken? No thing needs to change. It already is. Peace

May all beings awaken from the delusions of Nirvana May all beings awaken from the distractions of the symptoms of Samsara May any benefits and roots of good merit, become the awakening for all beings May this body become the food and the fulfiller of all desires and needs for all beings. Just as the tree loses her leaves without a second thought of hanging on to them, in the appropriate season. So, to this mind now finds a truth that fits the context of this life of non attachment to the experiences. Emptiness, non duality is the only non-framework that makes sense anymore. It gives context to this frames journey. Life's actions and pathways of study. Removing the hierarchy of emotionality. That of happy over sad or pleasure over pain. Its, all the same, One taste. Non Duality Conditioning this tongue to appreciate everything as one flavor. Non Dual. Everything being just an experience, no judgement nor justification needed. Only Presence. I have no true existence; I merely appear like a rainbow. A dependent existence. Dependent on mind streams that hold reference points and coordinates for an experience. No thing more, No thing less. All that appears is the same emptiness/clear light. Therefore it is of all the same value/level. Emptiness. I as a dream are not real, in ultimate truth. I as a dream being dreamt by a Perceiver. The Perceiver being Innate Awareness. The Innate Awareness that is, the essential of all Reality/Non Reality the Ultimate Truth, Ultimate Refuge and Ultimate Guru. I am this Innate Awareness, dreaming this character that walks these experiences of this existence. There is only the experiencing of this experience. Innate Awareness experiencing itself through and of itself. So, I as dreamer, dreaming whilst being dreamt, by Innate Awareness expressing its/myself to experience. Living a life within non reality, I am drawn into this journey that goes nowhere, yet every where. Ultimate Guru with your feet firmly planted within my heart/mind stream. I follow your/my footfalls on a journey as old as time, yet as fresh as a new flower bud. My mind swoons with devotion and hears this calling. This calling to stand and stay, stay in Awareness. To live life as Innate Awareness, moment by moment. Ultimate Guru calling to the disciple within. Stay disciplined in the art of a life my friend, lived as Awareness itself. Keep persevering, staying with the uncomfortable, the ugly and beautiful sides of life. Do not turn away my friend. Drop deep my friend, there is nowhere to run, only to stay. Stay Where my Guru? Stay present to this life and all that it offers. What part should I focus on for the best results my ultimate Guru? That part of life that creates the high times. That part of life that creates the low times. And all the parts in between, my friend. You mean I have to focus on all the parts of my life? Yes, but no so much as focus and solidify, more, just be the awareness within it all. non judgement and non justification. Guru, I do not have time for this, I need to go out in to the world and try to find myself. To become that which I need to become. Where will you find yourself out there my friend? Oh, I fear my Guru, it will need to be a complex journey, if I am to be worthy of such a find. My ultimate self! Ah, the demon of self worth. One that you may feel you need to pay your dues, to acquire what you need, this is your wish my friend, yet totally unnecessary. So much distraction, there seems so many important things to do on that journey of flesh. Stop running towards where there is nowhere to arrive, out there. Where ever you find yourself my friend, just go deep within. I and all you need, are there my friend. All that I protest, are my Mothers All that I crave are my Mothers All that I kill are my Mothers All that I love are my Mothers All that I … All my Mothers sharing their wisdoms, through their apparent selves for my benefit, to awaken for I and they. Yet within all of these my/others experiences. There is mirrored my Ultimate Guru, leading me deeper into my/our emptiness. Clear light. I am no one, yet everyone, all sentient beings. I am the inanimate and the animated. I am a single atom. I am all the billion worlds. Where ever I look there is my Guru. Kindly showering me in the blessings of all my Mothers. Dan is nothing more than a dream, being dreamed by the ultimate Dreamer. One Taste. Non Dual TAYATA OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA

I sit here after this mornings crazy practice. Technology not going to plan, not being able to log in to practice and not holding space for practice on the Dakini zoom space. This is what showed up in the after glow.. There is a place inside me that will! make any thing asked of me happen. I will create and hold space for the on going growth, of all of us who are carrying the bundle that this river carries. I will walk solidly and surely in any charnel ground that shows up. Which ever God or Demon shows, I will feed and nurture, offer Dharma and this illusionary body. This is my resolve. I will carry this bundle, to all who need to hear it and experience these teachings. In this life, in all lives. This experience today has just created more resolve. The closer we get to our personal Vision. The more Darkness steps in to hinder that. So today I set my line in the sand and grab the rudder of this vessel. This is my Dharma, my awakening for the benefit of all beings. The times we live in needs heart, heart to remain focused on what is needed and being called for. So fuck it, just make it happen, what ever shows up. Excuse my language, this is my resolve to make practice happen. No matter what! Stand up and do your practice as it is. For this is what is is. Stand up and do not be apologetic for how you give your Dharma. Who is to judge how it looks or what it sounds like. No one! I do not need another' approval to get on with life or live the aspect of the Devine that I experess. Most people hide away in some cave waiting for the day they will sound and look perfect before they get on with it. Hiding away because the demon of perfection has them by the short and curly's. Judgement of self allows the demon of procrastination to hop into the drivers seat. Calling out to the demon of doubt to ride shotgun. While the demon of self worth jumps in the back seat to whisper softly into the ear. "You're not good enough yet, you'll need to try harder still yet, you're not worthy enough yet" To these demons of judgement, I put the big one fingered salute in to the air. Emptiness am I, clear light! I am dharma my life is dharma. I will awaken for the benefit of all beings. Such is the fierceness of my resolve. This retreat is giving me the food I need and the demons I need to feed on. Then, like all good big chunky meals do. The need to then go and release, all that fresh compost. To carry on growing with. Ahhhhh

On waking in the darkness, dragons having been throwing boulders at the walls of a castle. 20 ton rocks they threw, to smash those walls down. Two of them one white, one black with wings and arms and no back legs... man that was crazy I thought as I shared the dream with Deidre. The beginning of multiple waking's and visitations for the night, that set the tone. there were four more waking's out of dream, Yidam and Dakini being the theme. Each one Machik, Vajrayogini, Prajnaparamita and a black one. I don't know the black ones name.... yet! Each showed and dissolved into their seed syllable and became the Mantra standing upright. With their mantra spinning counterclockwise. After each one had reveled their heart essence, I would wake to then drop straight back into the next meeting or reveling. Finally after the last Dakini had flowed in and dissolved into this being, this precious body. An Asian man showed himself. Eyes in meditational half gaze. Looking through the depths of my very soul, there was no where to hide, no one else to be. All that I could do was to bathe in the love showered by this Guru of old, master of a well trodden path, that is navigated by only a few. In this day the words of my Guru Khandro La of yesterday. They will reveal the teaching's and we will meet them with in our bodies, in an experiential way... Little did I know that they would come knocking on the door of my minds eye that night.... LOL Heart essence Drops is the words that live in my mind today. Life is perfect.... LOL Ah funny Peace

Sitting in life this morning. Looking out across the landscape. Birds waking into the dawning day. Sun's silent rising just about to begin. The need to get on with practice. Accumulations and the rest of the practices that make up our mostly daily practices. A text that I have not read, called out to be read. "The insight that brings us to the other shore" It inspired something so deep. Just a realization right now, That I have been looking at the translator on youtube, for the last several days since his death. Looking lately at the dramas that I am attached to, so much depending on the children and humanity making it through these crazy times we live. Struggling with these things. Struggling with these and losing the grip of being able to philosophize it into a comfortable place. Yet today something dropped so deep, I have been aware of this for many years, yet today it dropped out of my head and into my bones. All is empty of true existence. Emptiness is emptiness. This is just an experience of emptiness returning to emptiness. Being present to this. Yet present to what? The experience! No-thing more. Stop trying to create boxes for everything! Any fear for the futures of my Children and humanity will pull me back into the fruit of rebirth, the mind stream of Samsara. Any chasing of Nirvana will pull my mind stream back into the realms for rebirth, back into Samsara. Any attachment to, or aversion from, will fruit and rebirth mind back into Samsara. All enlightened activities are Empty of true existence, all are ultimately Emptiness. Nirmanakaya, clearly appearing like a rainbow. Images that appear so real, yet devoid of true existence. Everything is emptiness. Yet what is Emptiness? All of us. All of this. Every experience. Everything! All potential manifest and unmanifest. All this being said. My mind finds peace in these feelings that arose today in this practice of life. Ultimately I will leave this husk, I call home for now. My children and humanity will seek freedom from suffering or not. As I sever my attachments and aversions, so to will others that meet this frames journey. As I sever my additions to this apparition I call life, and the fruitless endeavors of chasing the rainbows. As this mind stream settles into the possibility of not chasing good or striving towards struggle and suffering. Seeing it for what it all is. Emptiness The perfection of Emptiness is who we all are. So who am I? Emptiness!