Special Workshop: October 2nd – 6th, 2019

Meditations from the Vijnanabhairava Tantra

Mindfulness, Presence and Inner Strength. The Confidence of Resting in Emptiness

With Dr. Mark Dyczkowski

October 2nd – 6th, 2019

“Fix the mind wherever the mind finds satisfaction.
It is there itself that the divine nature of supreme bliss arises.”
Vijñānabhairava, chapter 74

Dear friends, we are delighted to announce that world-renowned Tantric scholar Dr. Mark Dyczkowski will visit Rochester, Michigan for five days of profound teachings and meditation practice.

Using the Vijñānabhairava Tantra, music and mantra chanting, Markji will guide us on a journey through the nature of divine consciousness according to the ancient tradition of Kashmir Shaivism.

This class is highly recommended for anybody who wants to deepen their understanding of meditation, yoga and the spiritual path at large.

About The Vijñānabhairava Tantra:

The Vijñānabhairava Tantra, “the Bhairava of Insightful Consciousness,” is a special sacred text entirely concerned with meditation. Through a dialog between Lord Siva and the Divine Universal Mother, it presents 112 meditations that cover the domain of our being and experience.

The Vijñānabhairava Tantra reminds us that ritual is not essential and that the Bliss of divine consciousness can be reached through empowered meditative practice. To awaken this bliss in our daily lives, the Vijñānabhairava Tantra invites us to realize that the worshipper, the deity and worship itself are all the one reality.

The Vijñānabhairava directs us to realize the supreme awakening of divine consciousness in many wonderful ways. Guiding us to enter the Heart of Absolute Being, outpouring everywhere, the Vijñānabhairava invites us to experience the dawning of consciousness free of thought, the attainment of the one who cannot be contemplated, the supreme good fortune, the tranquil Light and the Supreme Goddess.

The Vijñānabhairava teaches us that the result is often in consonance with the practice. For example, spiritual bliss and merger of the mind into consciousness may take place through intensely pleasing experiences by reflecting on their essential nature as manifestations of the inherent bliss of the ultimate reality.

The foundation of such practices is to experience that the one blissful reality, which is Deity, is everywhere, pervading the world as it does the body. Experiencing that, the yogi becomes supreme bliss and experiences it in union with the bliss of passion and the spiritual bliss of making love or when seeing old friends or eating and drinking and enjoying music and the like. By that bliss the mind dissolves away, the Goddess manifests as does one’s own essential nature and its supreme pervasion. The illumined mind attains supreme plenitude, peace, and dissolves into tranquility. The yogi thus attains freedom from negative mental dispositions, enters the stream of the divine current of the flood of consciousness and becomes Shiva.

Some of the main domains of practice covered in the Vijñānabhairava are:

• • – Breath: The places of its origin and end of , its movement, its form, and its ascent.
  • – Emptiness: Within the gross and the subtle bodies; of the mind; at the end of sound and the Sky of the Self.
  • – Perception: Consciousness operating through the activity of the senses and as the basis of the existence of objects; the union of knowledge and known; and as the place of origin of will, knowledge and action.
  • – Sound: The utterance of Mantras, Inner and outer sound.
  • – Centering: Between waking and sleep; between suffering and joy; around intense emotions; contemplating the universe as a magic show.
  • – Oneness: Spiritual joy and aesthetic delight; transcendence of the opposites of purity and impurity, friend and foe, bondage and liberation.
  • – Identification with divine consciousness: Present in everybody and everywhere; the utterance of the divine name.

During the five-day workshop, Markji will teach and guide practices on selected meditations from these themes.

Music and Mantra Chanting:

“When the mind of the yogi is one with the unparalleled joy of music,
he is identified with it by the expansion of the mind that has merged into it.”
Vijñānabhairava Tantra

As the Vijñānabhairava teaches, music can serve as a means to heighten our consciousness. Mantras and music are higher forms of language. Above the sphere of mind and the language of thought, music communicates and fashions the universal forms within universal consciousness that inspire and give meaning to those below in the sphere of consciousness where communication is worship, and the worshipper offers himself to the Divine, his own true nature. Here the mind of the yogi, one with the Mantra and music, freed of the constraints of thought merges into the expanse of consciousness.

About Mark Dyczkowski:

(For Mark’s full biography on his own words click here)

Dr. Mark Dyczkowski is one of the world’s foremost scholars and leading authorities on Tantra and Kashmiri Trika Shaivism. Both a scholar and a practitioner, he was initiated by the great Indian teacher Swami Laksmanjoo in the year 1976. He has lived and worked in India for close to forty years. Currently he lives in Varanasi on the ghats of the Ganges where he teaches students on Kashmiri Shaivism and practices music.Dr. Mark Dyczkowski has an undergraduate degree from Banaras Hindu University and a Ph.D. from Oxford University. He has published extensively including: The Doctrine of Vibration, The Shiva Sutras, A Journey in the World of Tantras, and the 12 volume Manthanabhairava Tantra. He is affiliated with several major academic institutions in India and has lectured in Universities in Europe, the States and India. He is also a well-known sitarist. Since the mid 1970s, has given public performances in many countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Schedule: (It’s possible to attend part of the workshop)

• • • Wed Oct 2nd: 1 teaching session 6 – 8 pm.
    • Thu Oct 3rd: 2 teaching sessions 10 – 12 and 6 – 8 pm.
    • Fri Oct 4th: 2 teaching sessions 10 – 12 and 6 – 8 pm.
    • Sat Oct 5th: 2 teaching sessions 10 – 12 and 2 – 4 pm + concert 6 – 8 pm.
    • Sun Oct 6th: 1 teaching session 10 am – 12 pm.

Cost:

• • • $275 Wednesday through Sunday (including concert).
    • $210 Fri through Sunday (including concert).
    • $45 for individual sessions.
    • $20 for the concert ($25 same day).

More information and Registration:

Joyful Heart Institute – Rochester Acupuncture

Address: 126 East 3rd Street, Rochester

Phone: (248) 841-1570

Email: info@rochesteracupuncture.us