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• 1 Niall Nicholson // Jul 21, 2008 at 3:59 am

  Use this reminders as a foundation for contemplation and meditaton. They will create much benefit and merit for your path.

  Excerpts from Je Gampopa’s,
  A Precious Garland of the Supreme Path.

  Namo Guru. I pay homage and go for refuge.

  These are a precious garland of the supreme path, instructions that are extremely valuable to those fortunate ones who directly or indirectly venerate me.

  ~This pure human body with its freedom and resources, so difficult to possess, is lost in ordinary physical death without Dharma.

  ~ It is necessary to select instructions of one’s guru unmistakenly, through understanding the difference between instructions that are appropriate and inappropriate.

  ~ It is necessary that, by being without attachment and craving, one avoid giving one’s nose rope to others.

  ~ Rely upon worthy disciples who have faith and respect.

  ~ Abandon retinue and negative companions that harm your mind and experience.

  ~ Abandon careless conduct that causes others to lose faith.

  ~ Since appearances are the radiance of the mind, do not abandon them.

  ~ Since desirable things are the water and manure of experience and realization, do not abandon them.

  ~ Since all the pleasure and suffering of sentient beings arises from karma, know the results of actions to be unfailing.

  ~ Relying upon a holy guru, abandon arrogance; practice in accordance with his or her instructions.

  ~ If excitement predominates, emphasize the subduing of awareness.

  ~ Contemplating death and impermanence, exhort yourself to cultivate virtue.

  ~ If you have little faith and much knowledge, that is the deviation of becoming a talker.

  ~ If your mind is untrained in method—great compassion—that is the deviation into the path of the lesser vehicle.

  ~ There is confusion between the emptiness that is the nature of all knowables and the emptiness that is intellectually posited.

  ~ To combine the hearing, reflection, and meditation aspects of Dharma is unmistaken.

  ~ To have good experience and realization and no arrogance or vanity is unmistaken.

  ~To be learned in instruction and have no experience is like a treasury of riches to which there is no key, and is useless.

  ~ To abide in solitude and accomplish greatness in this life is a hidden evil of practitioners.

  ~ To present instructions to others while one’s own mind is contrary to Dharma is a hidden evil of practitioners.

  ~ A view that realizes the nature of all knowables s indispensable.

  ~ It is a mark of a holy person to examine any action with alertness and to perform it with alert mindfulness.

  ~ Since, having entered the gate of Dharma through faith, if you do not conduct yourself in accordance with Dharma it will cause lower migrations, there is no benefit.

  ~ Disregarding through pride one’s holy guru and the Victor’s teaching is like a rash ruler ignoring his council, and is accomplishing one’s own disaster.

  ~ To abandon activities of distraction and cultivate hearing, reflection, and mediation, is a great kindness to oneself.

  ~ Realizing that the viewed, the viewer and the realization are indivisible is the perfect view for one of the highest capacity.

  ~ Not searching out the instructions of the siddha’s oral lineage but earnestly emphasizing pointless intellectual Dharma is extremely bewildered.

  ~ Not to reflect upon the meaning of Dharma while living alone, but to teach Dharma amidst an extensive retinue, is extremely bewildered.

  ~ In the middle stage, undistracted meditation is necessary, like the intense feelings of a mother whose only child has died.

  ~ If suffering is recognized to be siddhi, searching for pleasure is unnecessary.

  ~ This vehicle of the essential meaning is superior to the paths of all other vehicles.

  ~ If an individual who has attained freedom of mind abandons desirable things, it is excellent. If he or she partakes of them, it is also excellent.

  ~ When a bad person’s mind turns to genuine Dharma and he or she becomes a holy person respected by everyone, this is a quality of genuine Dharma.

  ~ Since in the path there is nothing to be traversed and no one traversing it, path is merely a name.

  ~ Since in effortless conduct free from action there are no elaborations of acceptance and rejection, it is spontaneously present as great bliss.

  These concepts when practiced during contemplative meditation, and fully realized will directly lead to self-realization. The lineage of such practitioners is great, stretching from The Buddha Shakyamuni himself, and continuing through many accomplished masters of India and Tibet. We have been blessed to have received these transmissions in the West since the 1960’s.

  As you are fortunate enough to be reading this excerpt of ‘The Precious Garland’, you have already obtained great merit, and any practice of the above contemplations will generate many blessings for all sentient beings in the ten directions and the six realms.

  Transcribed by one known as Niall Tenzin Gyrume, on the 164th day of the year of the Earth Rat in the New World.

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• 2 Nathan // Sep 10, 2009 at 5:11 am

  I just recently started using binaural beats as well, and I have found them extremely helpful and relaxing. I have noticed a lot of benefits, and have even begun blogging about my experiences. Great article, and great resources!

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