The only Meditation Exercise Machine Needed for Liberation

I returned to the Dharma Centre recently after more than a decade away, to continue the work of maintaining the Centre’s various monuments begun almost fifty years ago.  The impetus was less about the practicalities of doing so, since we had already rebuilt these structures many times before. The pressing need was to introduce the current cohort of Dharma practitioners to the work, in order to help perpetuate it. 

But of what then does this work consist? Western philosophers tend to begin the discourse by distinguishing between the sacred and profane, and then proceed to propose the means by which we might pursue our inherent predisposition for the former. To facilitate the pursuit and achievement of the sacred, technologies such as Mandalas, stupas, pagodas, churches, temples and mosques have been developed, as devices to portal between realms.

The practice itself is a full body, all-you-can-eat workout buffet. For the diligent practitioner with the appropriate aspiration it’s the only meditation exercise machine needed for liberation. Like many meditative practices it begins with the aspiration for liberation, and the commitment to the teacher that inspires the suspension of disbelief. It then proceeds through a process of integrating one’s own body with the structure that is being rehabilitated, and the arduous purification of both, until their respective impurities are chiselled, scraped and sanded away. This is suitably back-breaking work. The burden of time and literal or figurative weather on both is no trivial matter to address and rectify.

But wait, there’s more. While confronting those impurities, and gradually sanding them away, there is also some serious Mr Miyagi style “wax on, wax off” stuff happening, as the structure and its “sacred geometries” are imprinted upon ones being, thereby triggering the knowledge-base of the primordial depth. Michelangelo didn’t invent these geometries. Like other masters, he simply located where in consciousness the knowledge resided, and so gained access. 

The imprinting of the structure is gradual and subtle. One day, perhaps in contemplation before it, a parallel visualization may pop-up in your mind’s-eye, like a heads-up display, and eventually you’ll learn to manipulate it in space and dimension, enter it, and travel through the worm-hole to realms still unknown, just like the first time you were born.

Powerful stuff indeed, and there are few places on the planet where you can undertake this important and ancient practice, because you need the almost unique combination of tools, teachers, a safe place, and, perhaps most significantly, a supportive sangha to help you make it happen.

This is why it’s so important that we maintain these structures,  and, more importantly, that we provide and support the transmission of these teachings to others of similar aspiration, to maintain within our sangha a body of knowledge to continue this work for the benefit of all beings. 

Oliver Harte