Machig Labdrön, The Diamond-Hearted Dakini

Today's wisdom comes from Machig Labdrön, The Diamond-Hearted Dakini.

Machig wants us to know that the darkness within us isn't actually dark. By bringing what we may think of as our shadow or darkness into the light of Love and acceptance, and embracing it lovingly, we will be set free. Learning to love and embrace all that we are, just as we are, to be the Love and Compassion that we may seek from others, to be that for ourselves. We are children of the Divine, precious and adored. We have everything we need within us. We don't need to be fixed or to fix ourselves. We need to love ourselves, exactly as we are. Love will set us free.

Machig Labdrön

The Diamond-Hearted Dakini

When Your Soul Selects Her Card

From Machig’s perspective as an enlightened female, she knew that the difference between a god and a demon had to do with our reaction to them. Those who cause us pain, she explained, also teach us patience, whereas those who bring gifts can distract us from our spiritual paths. No one and no single situation has the power to derail us, that is unless we let it. The power rests within us.

The spiritual path for Machig was to become intimate with her inner demons: those thoughts or beliefs that kept her from experiencing joy, bliss, and pure love.

The darkness within us isn’t actually dark. It often feels threatening because some aspect of our intuition knows that when we face it, we will reclaim a lost part of our soul. We will heal. We will become more whole, and that ironically can be terrifying.

We get so used to functioning with only one wing. We wonder, How can I fly now with two? I’ll go too far, too high. Who will I become now that I am free? And who will I lose in the elevation of my soul?

Machig is here to support us in seeing what’s ready to come to consciousness. She’s here with her diamond heart to hold us as we feed one of our demons not with fear, but with the knowledge that bringing it to life, and into the light will help set us free.

Soul-Voice Meditation

Is there an ego belief that I am ready to see and release within me?

Intention

I see the light in my own darkness. I face my ego beliefs to feel free.

For those who would like to know more about her...

Who She Is

Machig Labdrön takes the dark and transmutes it into only more light. Tibetan Buddhists believe that Yeshe Tsogyal was reborn as Machig Labdrön and that both were incarnations of the female Buddha Vajrayogini. Machig’s mother had an auspicious dream right before giving birth. Seven dakinis poured water over her body, blessing her, purifying her, and prophetically relating that this little baby girl would also be a dakini.

As a young woman, Machig made a living by reading the Prajnaparamita sutra or the Heart sutra, which is the most beloved wisdom text in Mahayana Buddhism. People considered it a great blessing to have it read in their homes. After leaving a monastic order, Machig married and lived what is referred to as “the red and white essence” of mystical union. She practiced tantric union with her husband while raising a family together. Her son became one of her greatest successors.

Machig developed the tantric Buddhist practice of Chöd. These teachings were the first Buddhist teachings to emerge in Tibet. Chöd is referred to as the Cutting Off Ritual. A demon, according to Machig, is anything that obstructs the achievement of freedom. Demons then are ego beliefs – not scary, hairy beasts, but inner barriers that keep us from realizing the nature of reality. The Chöd practitioner visualizes their demon and then mentally cuts off parts of their own body as an offering to the demon. Machig holds a traditional Tibetan Chöd drum (a damaru) in one hand and a bell (ghanta) in the other.

Machig, like Yeshe Tsogyal, lived until she was 99. And then according to Tibetan Buddhists, she reincarnated as Lama Tsultrim Allione, an American Buddhist teacher. Allione explains in her book, Feeding Your Demons, that Chöd is “a method for bringing our shadow into consciousness and accessing the treasures it holds rather than repressing it.” This powerful, unbroken lineage of female transmission reveals to us that enlightenment is about making the darkness conscious.

Deck: The Divine Feminine Oracle by Meggan Watterson

Artist: Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman

Wishing you and yours abundant blessings!

Much love,

Martina Cevero

Founder of Finding Treasure: The Journey Home

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