James Low - Dzogchen and Buddhist Teachings

1/2 Self-liberating understanding. Eifel 10.2015

Dec 7, 2025

Explore the art of shamatha and vipassana meditation as they calm the mind and reduce ego's grip. Dive into karma’s role in shaping our choices and habitual patterns. Discover how naming influences experience and learn to let thoughts flow naturally. Uncover the inseparability of emptiness and appearance, while examining self-liberation through awareness. Insight into integrating these principles into everyday life — even in simple tasks. Ultimately, find trust in the interplay of awareness and action in a complex world.

08:50:59

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ANECDOTE

Misreading Shows How Ignorance Fills Gaps

James recounts how reading with imagination rather than accuracy is an example of ignorance.
If you don't see what is there, the creativity of the mind invents fantasy to fill the gap.

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ADVICE

Take Refuge In Mind, Space, And Field

Take refuge in Buddha (your mind), Dharma (the space of phenomena) and Sangha (the field of arising) by relaxing into awareness.
Use refuge as orientation to act from openness rather than clinging identities.

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INSIGHT

Compassion Emerges From Empty Openness

Compassion in Dzogchen arises from the mind's emptiness: be present in the field and respond, not from fixed prescriptions.
Fresh spontaneity with others requires releasing habitual arousal so responses fit the moment.

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Shamatha: Focusing on the Breath

00:00 • 3min

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Settling Attention and Gentle Posture

02:38 • 15min

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Karma, Choices, and Habitual Patterns

17:09 • 14min

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Vipassana: Bare Attention Through Body Scan

31:07 • 13min

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Naming, Bodies, and Sensation's Radicality

44:35 • 12min

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Spontaneity, Subpersonalities, and Awareness

56:48 • 13min

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Awareness, Suffering, and the Mirror Metaphor

01:09:53 • 29min

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Nine-Round Breathing and Open Awareness

01:39:02 • 12min

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Attention, Attachment and Consumer Choice

01:50:56 • 12min

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Disidentifying: From Form to Emptiness

02:02:49 • 11min

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Guru Yoga and Self-Liberation Practice

02:14:11 • 12min

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Spaciousness vs Ethical Complexity

02:26:28 • 12min

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Non-Activity: Thoughts Pass Without Trace

02:38:22 • 23min

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Practice Rhythm and Intro to Patru Rinpoche

03:01:03 • 12min

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Essence of Dzogchen: Emptiness and Dharmakaya

03:13:04 • 13min

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Seeing Mind Directly: Experience and Subjectivity

03:25:54 • 13min

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Space, Velcro, and Letting Go

03:38:50 • 17min

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One Ground, Two Paths: Practice and Action

03:55:26 • 12min

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Taking Refuge in Mind, Dharma, Sangha

04:07:52 • 11min

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Refuge, Ethics, and Practical Uncertainty

04:19:18 • 16min

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Emptiness and Manifestation Together

04:35:41 • 24min

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Garab Dorje's Three Statements Summarized

04:59:33 • 12min

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Practice with Others: Grounded Spontaneity

05:11:08 • 12min

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Remain Without Artifice in Practice

05:22:47 • 13min

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Attachment, Stories, and Self-Liberation

05:35:56 • 12min

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Non-Reactivity: Let Thoughts Flow

05:47:46 • 12min

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Questions for Direct Inquiry

05:59:35 • 13min

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Mind Inside or Outside? Field Experiments

06:12:15 • 11min

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Mind-Color, Direct Experience over Concepts

06:23:31 • 12min

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Remain as the Looker; Let Thoughts Self-Liberate

06:35:49 • 14min

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Equanimity Amid Flux and Practical Care

06:50:05 • 11min

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Unborn, Unceasing Mind and One Taste

07:01:28 • 13min

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Practice, Opinions, and Social Conditioning

07:14:51 • 15min

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Hidden Faults and the Cow-in-the-Field Metaphor

07:29:40 • 13min

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Searching for Mind: Wrong Methods and Parables

07:42:17 • 14min

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One Ground, Two Paths Revisited

07:56:11 • 12min

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Emanation, Practice Integration, and Everyday Life

08:08:24 • 12min

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Trusting the Pattern: Practice, Ethics, and Action

08:20:44 • 30min

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#27106

• Mentioned in 2 episodes

Self-liberating Understanding

Patrul Rinpoche

Self-Liberating Understanding is a text that presents core principles of Dzogchen, emphasizing direct realization and the self-liberation of experience. Patrul Rinpoche elucidates key concepts such as emptiness, the nature of mind, and the importance of integrating these insights into daily life. He offers guidance on overcoming obstacles to meditation, fostering wisdom and compassion, and achieving freedom from suffering. This profound text provides readers with essential tools for transforming their understanding and experiencing the true nature of reality.

#13643

• Mentioned in 4 episodes

Simply being

James Low

15-18 October, 2015. Meditation retreat in Kamalashila Institute, in the Eifel region of German, based on Chapter 10 of James Low's book Simply Being, which is a translation of Patrul Rinpoche's text "Self-liberating Understanding".

"Integrating the view, meditation and activity in dzogchen. We will focus on the self liberation of experience, which is the heart of the meditation, and how to apply that within the complexities of daily life. This involves finding the middle way of appearance and emptiness, free of control and avoidance on the one hand, and merging and identification on the other."

~ James Low

• Thursday 15/10/2015: session 1 introduced "two methods for calming the mind and looking at the contents of the mind by focussing attention."

- Shamatha meditation

- Distraction - giving ones self

- Re-collection and mindfulness

- Vipassana

- Naming is not neutral

- Question - spontaneity and choice

- Awareness

- Identity - meaning - situation

- Nine round breathing

- Sitting with what occurs

- Leaving appearances to be as they are

- Guru Yoga

- Guru Yoga instructions

- Thoughts and feelings passing through

- Question - who notices - mind - ego

- Just with the thought

- A few words about the text

- Introduction to the text

- From the heart of a ragged gentleman

- Inseparability of your mind and the Dharmakaya

- Knowing this everything is liberated

- Question - fear - dissolving

- Question fear anxiety holding on

-This one is sufficient to rule

• Friday • 16/10/2015: session 2 develops that. The topic is awareness. "Awareness and attention are not the same. Awareness is the open clarity of the mind which is present whether we are attentive or not. Awareness is innate, is there from the beginning, whether we are aware of it or not."

- On Refuge

- Question - tree of refuge

- Compassion then back to Refuge

- Clear and alert in non-artificial voidness

- Question - letting go

- Do not react - remain without artifice

- Practice in conjunction with the text

- Your mind is not found by seeking

- Staying with the direct experience

- Time is limited

- Seeking is not necessary - remain without artifice

- Non-artificiality removes all obstacles

- About the involvement of the experiencer

- The demon of elation - relational structures

- Buoyant and hopeful - equanimity

- Question - faith and trusting

- Teaching on the minds hidden faults

- Sitting exactly here and now

- Question - one ground two paths - the Bardo

- Question - Semdzin practice

- Question - allowing impact allowing duration

- Question - emanation

- Question - partial enlightentment - predjudice illumination relative truth

- Question - a universal ethical code

Transcript of the retreat: https://bit.ly/4iJbaX5

Audio recording of the retreat: https://www.simplybeing.co.uk/2015/11/28/autumn-2015/

Learn more about future events: simplybeing.co.uk/events/

📱 Instagram of excerpts: https://instagram.com/SBSangha_JamesLow

🎧 Poscasts of some teachings: https://simplybeing.co.uk/news/podcasts/

📆 Learn more about future events: https://simplybeing.co.uk/events/

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywDBc4XLsvU

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