Guidance to Awakening ”Awakening has made my life much easier.” - Elizabeth ”The Two-Part Formula is too good to be true, except it really is true! This is so wonderful. The distinction between the subject-self and the object-self is such an important distinction to make, something I never understood until I came across the Guidance on the Pemako-website. Really crucial to awakening. I spent 18 years working with the object-self doing buddhist meditation which would have knock on effects on weakening the subject-self, but left it still alive and kicking, whereas after two weeks looking at the subject-self in the Guidance with Kim I finally woke up! I feel so grateful for this - it's been life changing for me. I don't think there are many teachers out there that understand the subject versus object self distinction. Pemako is really lucky in this regard. In terms of buddhism in general, this really is ground breaking stuff.” - Jonathan
Guidance to Awakening is a dialogue between teacher and the one guided. Its purpose is to cause a permanent and irreversible awakening in the mind of the seeker by the means of direct pointing. Guidances usually last from few days to few weeks at maximum. Email is the most convenient way to organize a guidance, because both can write when it best suits them. During guidance messages are exchanged daily. Awakening intensives are also organized. Preparing for Guidance The core of the guidance is so called Two-Part Formula (2PF). It's necessary to properly familiarize oneself with this instruction and other materials, like the "Awake!" -book, before starting the guidance. Prepare well for the guidance. When you familiarize yourself with the Two-Part Formula, you have some idea how it works and how it brings up the sense of me-ness. We have seen that the best way to wake up, is to do it in the guidance with awakened teacher. One on one tips and instructions make a world of difference, although eventually a good technique will do its job. Rules of the Guidance Emails are exchanged from the beginning of the guidance at least once a day, preferably more. Your ongoing efforts with the Two-Part Formula and continuous feedback make the processing ideal. The guidance is intense. Do not take it up casually and understand that most people have to work hard with their self-based emotions and reactions. When guidance is begun, no breaks are taken until awakening takes place. When you start, you should also finish. Processing with the Two-Part Formula requires perseverance. You will more than likely experience frustration and fatigue during the guidance. Although it can be emotionally challenging, generating awakening with the 2PF is not a battle or fight that can be won. The insight is that there is no winner or looser, there is no entity in "you". The process can be compared to a scientific experiment that requires wits, effort and determination. Big hopes, dreams and emotional expectations are of no use whatsoever. It is necessary for you to wipe the slate clean and forget everything you have previously read or heard about awakening. This is often easy for those with little familiarisation with spiritual traditions and hard for those who have adopted pre-conceptions what awakening is and how it feels like. Do a favour for yourself and forget all that. Start fresh every day and every moment of the process. What is required of you is that you keep exercising the Two-Part Formula, according to the instructions given by your teacher. The teacher is there to offer support, sometimes in the form of encouragement and sometime in the form of a rap, so that you can finish the guidance successfully. The teacher also verifies or falsifies your awakening by the means of questions and photographs. If you are not following instructions or indicate some mental health problems, the teacher will end the guidance. You can also stop the guidance, if that is what you want to do. Verification of Awakening When you arrange to take up guidance and start doing preparation, take a picture of your face (look straight into the lens of the camera, not your picture on the screen of your device, good lighting, no eye glasses, plain face), date it and keep it safe. When it looks like awakening has happened, the teacher will ask you to take another picture. Then send both pictures (dated) for analysis. Photographic analysis is done because photo shows if one has awakened or not. Verification of awakening is done through both verbal and photographic means. Technically awakening refers to the opening of the 1st bhumi or stage, as taught in 13 Bhumi Model. You can find out more about 13 Bhumi Model and bhumi analysis from books: Awake! Handbook of Awakening and What's Next? On Post-Awakening Practice. Is this for me? Spiritual seekers come to yoga, meditation and spiritual teachings because they feel that somehow something is not right. They feel something is fundamentally wrong even if their lives are good by common standards. In buddhism this is called confusion caused by a sense of self or me-ness (skt. dukkha). All practices are aimed at reducing this confusion through deconstruction of the self. Two-Part Formula is uniquely helpful to all who have this problem. Guidance to Awakening is for people who are mentally healthy. Guidance is not for people who suffer of psychosis and schitzophrenia. Compensation for Teacher's Time Pemako teachers are all laypeople, not monastics. We are Western laypeople with families, bills and responsibilities. Also, Pemako is not a large organisation with many members backed up by religious establishment with large financial resources. Giving guidance is work for the teacher, so we feel that it is appropriate to ask for financial compensation for the time and expertise offered by the teacher. Below you can find a chart with indicative amounts of compensation. You can choose a suitable amount based on your ability to pay. Details for payment are given in email at the beginning of the guidance. If you are less well off but want to take up guidance, negotiate it with teacher. No one is turned away due to lack of funds. Chart of compensation, sliding scale: 1-3 days: 100-200€ 4-6 days: 200-300€ 7-14 days 300-1000€ When you want to arrange Guidance to Awakening, email Kim Rinpoche: kimkatami@hotmail.com
Links How to Become Awakened: https://www.pemako.org/113 "Awake! Handbook of Awakening"-ebook: https://www.pemako.org/114
|