Best 5 quotes of Michelle Sorensen on MyQuotes

Michelle Sorensen

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    Michelle Sorensen

    Machik thus maintains that what is conventionally referred to as a "god" is in fact the positive nature of reflexive awareness that characterizes the full potential of the enlightened mind when it is unsullied by discriminative thinking. In contrast, when "demons" are conventionally invoked, one should understand this as the obstruction of the full potential of the Universal Base [kun gzhi; ālaya] by non-aware emotional reactions (nyon mongs; kleśa).

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    Michelle Sorensen

    As in other Buddhist Tantric techniques, recommended preliminaries for these practices include developing skill at both calm-abiding (zhi gnas; śamatha) and insight meditation (lhag mthong; vipaśyanā). As in earlier Buddhist teachings, many Chöd dehadāna practices emphasize renunciation, purification, and self-transformation through the accumulation of merit and the exhaustion of demerit. Rather than suggesting that one must wait to accumulate adequate merit before offering the gift of the body, however, Chöd provides the opportunity for immediately efficacious offering of the body through techniques of visualization. Using a technique which echoes the traditional Buddhist teaching of the of the mind-made body (manomayākāya), the practitioner engages in visualizations which allow her to experience the non-duality of agent and object as she offers her body. The process of giving the body as a means of attainment is commonly articulated in Chöd practice texts (sgrub pa; sādhana). These practice texts exhibit the framework of mature Tantra sādhana, including the stages of generating bodhicitta, going for refuge, meditating on the four immeasurables, and making the eight-limbed offering. Generally speaking, the main section of a developed Chöd sādhana has three components. The first two—a transference of consciousness (nam mkha’ sgo ‘byed) practice, and a body maṇḍala (lus dkyil) practice—have distinctly purifying purposes. The Chöd transference of consciousness practice has parallels with other Buddhist practices called "’pho ba." In this part of the visualization practice, the practitioner’s consciousness is "ejected" from one's body through the Brahma aperture at the crown of one's head. At this time, one's consciousness can be visualized as becoming identical with an enlightened consciousness, which is embodied in a figure such as Machik, Vajrayoginī (Rdo rje rnal byor ma) or Vajravārāhī (Rdo rje phag mo). [....] In th[e] first stage of this transformation, the practitioner identifies with an enlightened being, thus overcoming attachment to her own body-mind aggregates and purifying them through this non-attachment. In the second stage, the practitioner can extend this identification: the practitioner identifies the microcosm of her body with macrocosms of the mundane and supramundane worlds. The body maṇḍala (lus dkyil) stage also allows the practitioner to reconceptualize her body as expanding through space and time and becoming indistinguishable from the realm of the supramundane, or the Dharmadhātu (chos kyi dbyings). Through the process of reconstructing her identity, the practitioner is able to see herself as the ultimate source of offerings for all sentient beings.

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    Michelle Sorensen

    Chöd is conventionally and misleadingly seen as analogous to, if not derived from, shamanic initiatory dismemberment visions, as well as dualistic anti-body ascetic practices. Two of the elements most commonly referenced by authors in their "identification" of Chöd and/as shamanism—the dismemberment/sacrifice of the body and "demonology"—are presented in an oversimplistic fashion. In the first instance, the numerous Buddhist precursors for the offering of the body provide ample testimony to the ethical and meritorious status such acts have in the Buddhist imagination. As for the "demonology" of Chöd, one must keep in mind the psychology and philosophy of mind that explicitly undergirds the discourse of Düd [Skt: mārā] in Chöd.

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    Michelle Sorensen

    ...the Chöd teachings attributed to Machik Labdrön both rely and innovate on Buddhist representations of mental functionings of a human being, including the onto-epistemological trope of the Universal Base Consciousness [ālaya-vijñāna] and the psycho-ethical trope of Negative Forces as Düd [bdud, māra, demon]. By drawing on and revising these traditional models, Chöd is able to develop effective techniques for "cutting through mind.

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    Michelle Sorensen

    The extraction of discrete parts of Chöd teachings from their broader philosophical contexts is symptomatic of how Chöd has been incorporated into and transmitted through other Tibetan Buddhist lineages. For example [...] Chöd practices gradually merged with pre-existing models of deity yoga, such the Vajrayoginī practices within Nyingma, Kagyü, and Geluk traditions. Fundamental Chöd practices such as those described in The Common Eightfold Supplementary Section do not tend to involve the kind of deity visualization common to *anuttaratantra practices, but many Mahāmudrā Chöd practices have been reconciled with other lineages through the employment of such visualizations. The incorporation of Chöd by the Geluk and Kagyü schools has thus had equivocal results: on the one hand, fragments of Chöd teachings are preserved, but on the other, the distinctiveness of Chöd is diminished in the service of different fundamental standpoints such as that of Mahāmudrā.