One of the most learned and highly trained American-born lamas in the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition. He is a meditation teacher and author.
“I just came back from conducting our annual summer Dzogchen Center ten day intensive meditation retreat in Garrison, NY, on the banks of the Hudson River. During that time, I thought a lot, with my friends students and colleagues there, about the future of Buddhist wisdom and practice, and where it’s coming from and going; preservation and adaptation, opportunities and challenges; commercialization and communication, both outreach and in-reach; sectarianism and ecumenicism; psychotherapy, meditation and neuroscientific research; the overlap of prayer, meditation, and mindfulness in action (such as through yoga and tai chi); Buddhism, the arts and creativity, social and spiritual activism, human rights and the global environment; and so forth.
What do ya’all think about this? How to adapt without throwing Buddha out with the bathwater? What would a truly transformative and genuinely effective personal spiritual practice look like today, in this new era?
Upcoming conferences related to relevant such issues of Dharma in the modern world that I’m participating in this year will be at Emory University in Atlanta (with the Dalai Lama) on “Tibetan Buddhism in the West”, October 16-19,2010 and our next large international Buddhist Teachers’ Conference & Council on the subject of “Towards A Mindful Society”, June 6-11,2011.
KIS – Keep It Simple.
Chane, you are correct. We can either choose external sources or internal sources. But external sources can be corrupted and misleading throught time, but our internal source is always there, if we can throughtout our flaws.
Anybody can copy and paste external knowledge and wisdom, but does that truly reflect their knowledge and wisdom?
WEll we defintly do not need to throw out the knowledge and wisdom that the people who attain buddhas gave to us. I think we need to show a little less interest in the status of the buddhas, and more interest on ours and others individual souls.
From other afterlife theories, has created perception within and outside the buddhist community that the buddha is higher than the average soul/mystic or sentient. I know we need to all undstand we are all the same souls, with the same potential and decline. Understanding that the teachings of the Buddhas first help your life in the physical world, then secondly it will help your soul in the spiritual and heavenly worlds.
To answer your questions: What would a truly transformative and genuinely effective personal spiritual practice look like today, in this new era?
I would say it would look like an IAM while working their way to be sentient.
Individual: benifiting our souls, and to benifit our souls we have to halp other souls…
American: means beleiving in freedom and tolerance.
Mystic: everything in the physical world and whos knows beyond is made up of mystical energy.
/Senitent: a person who does not following their phsyical instincts, who is aware and understands the purpose fully.
Ofcourse this person would have a diestic perspective. And a love for understand human nature and physical nature, to help understand the essence and purpose of the formula.
I am an IAM.
Wow, that’s a lot to think about.
I came to Buddhism seeing Buddhists practice what they preach. Unfortunately, that has fallen way short of my original vision. While I have no intention of giving up or leaving, because I still see the truth inside, so many Buddhists now take a vew of theirs being the ‘best’ religion. If Buddhists are taking that view, something is really wrong. I’m pretty certain that’s not what the Buddha intented.
Dear Lama Surya Das,
This is a dark age, it is said, and it is so. If one sincerely brings into view the suffering all over the world, and one opens one’s heart to it, it is a very very strong feeling, and one can know that the suffering is unimaginably vast. Unimaginably vast. We are often caught up in the utmost trivial in daily life, and we are programmed to tend to suffer. One rape or murder alone is crushing. Can we even begin to empathize at once with all the billions and billions and billions of plants and animals, and all the suffering of war, economic crisis, and environmental degradation and catastrophe?
Suffering, all humans wish to be happy, and yet we all take on the suffering of others. What may begin as an innate impulse of compassion can lead to sadness, or to anger, and the action that follows may be astray of the way out, or cause great harm. But all despair, sadness, anger, anguish, nihilism, any confusion whatsoever is transformed to compassion, with a dose of wisdom, and the guidance and blessing of an enlightened Master. Even if it is just a projection, what greater gift is there?
The basics are of the utmost value. The universal. See how many in recent times have been thrown into turmoil by a disturbance in their material conditions, even a minor one. Many persons appear to long and ache for pleasure or social, psychological, or material so-called comforts, which may in fact be causing them much trouble. But the true heart-longing is always the true heart-longing of happiness and freedom. Thus, let us understand the innermost causes and conditions of suffering, and understand the way to freedom.
Social conditioning may have us blame ourselves, and others, may have us fall deep into the quicksand realm of samsara, but with a mind and heart, the most precious is never lost–not even diminished, only ephemerally obscured. The dharma would have us realize that joy is life itself, that joy is being itself, that to feel is to love, and to love is to live in service to all, who each embody this perfect bliss. The simple wisdom is true and omnipresent. We really can forgive ourselves and everyone. We can even forgive God and nature, even if there is nothing to forgive! One can be very deeply healed, and live joyfully and simply, despite very severe life situations or history. I have seen it.
Buddha is not necessary because Buddha is necessarily Buddha. Buddhism is not necessary because wisdom is necessarily wisdom. Religion is not necessary because Practice is necessarily Practice. But of course, we have all the teachings, because we have all the practice, all the light of the awakened ones. This is the grace of our collective dream, and our collective aspiration for freedom. Thus, let us awaken! The perfectly real is Buddha, always and ever. The perfectly real is the Teaching, always and ever. The perfectly real is beyond any thought of the perfectly real, it is true. So we can be humble, and at peace. How great!
Enlightenment is the nature of all, but truly living and breathing awakenment are the few. Thus we desperately need guidance. We need leadership. We need to drop the baggage of phony pride that tightens like a noose around the neck, and discover the strength of humility, patience, and devotion to the way and to the teacher. The Masters bring a dose of the real to the starving hearts in samsara. This has been called the nectar of the gods, but it is so simply beautifully the heart of these beloved brothers and sisters! No miracle is greater.
And thus, too, we need to practice the way of the heart earnestly. For the question is not “do we practice?”, but “what do we practice?” Do we practice negativity, or compassion? Do we practice laziness, or energetic enthusiasm? Do we practice healthiness, through good fitness, and dietary practices, or do we practice bodily neglect? Do we practice a care of our surroundings, our environment, our shared space and resources at every level, or do we practice an arrogance of inconsideration, or a malaise of pessimism which are self-made poisons? Do we practice attachment, or peace? And so on. Science can help in the refinement of these practices, and give more support to their urgency. While the Way has been clearly and universally spelled out for ages, the wheel must continuously be turned, and everyone must be shown according to their kharma, time, place, and heart.
So let us not deny or oppose science or anything that happens, but use it in light of the way of the heart. It is said, “it’s not what you have but how you use it.” So it is with everything. Knowing the mountain of my kharma, and feeling a drop of the suffering of others, I pray you and all the great teachers to guide us to the Heart by whatever means possible and necessary–with any language, action, and knowledge possible or necessary. So it will be that some will be introduced to the timeless wisdom, and knock on the gates of their own profound nature, perhaps through some MRI data, even while others are introduced by ancient ways, or even through the utterly superstitious.
Yet how superstitious is it to mistake any form or effect of practice, for awakening itself? The Heart is beyond all data–concrete, abstract, imagined, measured, modern, or traditional. If the Buddha implored us not to mistake him for the Buddha, how much worse is it if we mistake some particular information, thought, word, deed, process, and aspiration, worldly or spiritual phenomenon? So it is suggested we not mistake the finger for the Moon. And let us not mistake the Moon for the Moon either. For nary an instant leaving the view, and with the proper motivation, let us save ourselves and the planet from the death-nell of our abysmal kharmic debt with every possible skillful means, especially dropping the b.s. and waking up!
Love Always,
Om-Mudra
That sounds like a very pretty retreat. I wish I could have attended.
>”What would a truly transformative and genuinely effective personal spiritual practice look like today, in this new era?”
It would be blissful beyond our imagination. It would be the concentrated efforts of each and everyone’s individuality, connected by a common purpose: to end suffering, and enjoy life.
Farewell to Willesdon Green
farewell to Willesdon Green
Gyatri Mantra (‘Om’ painting Luisa, age 7 and Nick – 2008)
Atisha (AD 982–1054)
from Wikipedia:
Even as a monk, Dipamkara Srijnana yearned for the fastest and most direct means of attaining perfect enlightenment.
He made a pilgrimage to Bodhgaya and, as he was circumambulating the great stupa there, had a vision consisting of two materialisations of Tara.
One asked the other what the most important practice for attaining enlightenment was, and the other duly replied that “the practice of bodhichitta, supported by loving kindness and great compassion is most important.” Atisha thenceforth dedicated himself to refining his understanding and practice of bodhichitta.
‘Bodhichitta’: Etymologically, the word is a combination of the Sanskrit words bodhi and citta. Bodhi means “awakening” or “enlightenment”. Citta is derived from the Sanskrit root cit, and denotes “that which is conscious” – mind or consciousness. Bodhicitta may be translated as “awakening mind” or “mind of enlightenment”.
Skip this paragraph if Jobo (Jowo) Atisha’s deepest teaching (on ‘emptiness’) does not chime with your Summer-Autumn cusp mood. I’ll put it in dialogue form, taken from ‘The Words of my Pefect Teacher’ by Patrul Rinpoche (on loan to me from Lama Ato Rinpoche’s Nezang Meditation Group, Cambridge – published by Harper Collins in 1996 on behalf of the International Sacred Literature Trust, Patron: HRH Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh).
search term: visitor corpus christi college cambridge
Note: I worry about words like ‘sacred’ in relation to the many branches of Buddhism – I prefer to see these teachings in a different light. The Godless path and the origins of the University – transcendental humanism, if you like. Certainly Philosophy, certainly not Religion. I have taken issue with Lama Ato Rinpoche on this point.
In the Rinpoche’s view such a distinction is ‘only semantics’.
Chapter Two : Arrousing Bodichitta, the root of the Great Vehicle (The Extraordinary or Inner Preliminaries), 2.6: Transcendent Wisdom.
2.6.3: Wisdom Through Meditation, page 255. I am making minor ammedments (and contemporising additions) to the translation provided by the Padmakara Translation Group in 1994, in my humble capacity as a slightly rusty (once prolific) Occidental playwright.
Drom: What is the ultimate teaching?
Jowo: Of all the teachings, the ultimate is emptiness – conciousness. Realising the truth of emptiness, the nature of reality (at whatever sub-atomic level your visualistions enable) is like a powerful drug, a panacea which cures every disease in the world. Direct perception of emptiness is the remedy for every negative emotion.
Drom: Why is it then that so many people who claim to have realised emptiness have no less attachment and hatred?
Jowo: Because their realisation is only words, had they really grasped the true meaning of emptiness, their thoughts, words and deeds would be as soft as cotton wool or tsampa soup laced with butter.
The master Aryadeva (student of Nagarjuna) said that even to wonder whether or not all things were empty by nature would make samsara – the world of appearance – fall apart… To truly realise emptiness is to become free of attachment – free of craving, grasping or desire for anything within or without – within the insubstantial matter-anti-matter Black Hole transition zone (the moral vacuum ‘wall’ of the cosmologist-sub atomic physicist) – or in the ‘spaces’ between the smallest known particles in this ‘solid’ surface, this ‘now’.
Hawking: God ‘not necessary’ (added 2 September 2010)
My computer screen, Professor Hawking! Without any conception of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ you have no anger only transcendental patience.
Not my view, exactly. This is closer.
Drom Tonpa: Do those who have realised the truth become Buddhas simply by meditating on the view of emptiness?
Jowo Atisha: Of all that we perceive as forms and sounds there is nothing that does not arise in the mind. To realise that the mind is awareness indivisible from emptiness is the view. Keeping this realisation in mind at all times, and never being distracted from it, is meditation. To practice the two accumulations (mind-emptiness) as a magical illusion from within that state is action. If you make a living experience of this practice, it will continue in your dreams. If it comes in the dream state, it will come at the moment of death. And if it comes at the moment of death it will come in the intermediate state. If it comes in the intermediate state you may be certain of attaining the supreme accomplishment.
The great Dzogchen adept, the Hidden Yogi Dingri Khenchen. Rinpoche’s main Dzogchen guru. He died in 2006 at the age of nearly 100 years. He was a student of Khenpo Kunpal of Dzogchen Monastery (who was himself a student of Patrul Rinpoche) and of Bodtul Rinpoche. Many signs occured at the time of his death, including ringsel and script on the skull.
Roughly 500 years before Hamlet raised very similar questions within the crucifying restrictions of the already shrivelling distortions of the Christian view. The Christian view stripped of theories of re-birth which provide the only credible (logical) exchange between Old and New Tesiments, ie Elias-Elija become Jesus-John. Heresy? Roughly 900 years before Nietzsche’s Zarathustra’s outcry: ‘God is dead’. Nietzsche reckoned Buddhism to be a thousand times more complex (interesting) than the Judeo-Christian frameworks of his day in his book The Anti-Christ – beyond good and evil? Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). I’ll come back to the tantric usefullness of Christianity in the particle-wave time domain.
Notting Hill (89 steps up)
‘Le Tango 2010′, painting by Nick Ward (watercolour, acrylic, water-colour pencil, masking tape, on A4 paper)
beginning of Autumn or a freak batch of leaves fallen into the sear?
One of my favorite “ancient masters” is Zen master Bankei. After rigorous practice and ritual that almost killed him, he has his realization of his own Buddha mind, he called the “Unborn Buddha mind”. Here is a tid-bit about some of his teachings….
As Bankei saw it, the whole approach of koan Zen was hopelessly contrived. He rejected the need for familiarity with classical Chinese as an unnecessary encumbrance, and rejected the koan itself as artificial technique. The original koans, he argued, were not “models” but actual living events. The old masters had simply responded to particular situations that confronted them, naturally accommodating themselves to the needs of the students involved. That was the business of any Zen teacher, to meet each situation on its own terms. There was no need to make people study the words of ancient Chinese monks when you could simply have them look at their own “cases”, the way in which the Unborn was at work here and now in the actual circumstances of there lives. This is what Bankei called his “direct” teaching, as opposed to koan practice, which he referred disparagingly as “studying old waste paper.” The koan, Bankei said, was merely a device, and teachers who relied on it, or on any other technique, were practicing “Devices Zen” Why rely on a device, he argued, when you could have the thing itself?
This is what I see in the future of Buddhism. The schools and the rituals that have been imported from the orient are going to fade into an American way of living the Dharma without the necessity of religious showmanship and ritual. It will transform from a religion to what it truly is a way to wake up to what we really are. Then all the priests and teachers that are making a living off the ancient teachings will have to get a real job, and start putting their energy into creating a world without greed ignorance and hatred on a common level like everyone else. They will no longer be talking at others, but talking with them on equal ground, rather than superior spiritual pretense. Until this happens there will be thousands of sheep, that are asleep. Joko Beck realized this and has started to do something about it. It is my hope that all spiritual priests and teachers get out of their business of dolling out spiritual wisdom, and become an ordinary citizen like all the rest of humanity.
Chana
Lama Das,
I’ve thought about this since reading it the other day and will meditate on it more.
Emory and the spiritual leader of Drepung Loesling in Atlanta have done studies on meditation and benefits. I went to a talk there he did a couple of weeks ago on the subject. He was in San Antonio last week working with a study on it there, I believe also.
I wish I could go to the conference, although I am fortunate enough to be able to attend the Dalai Lama’s teaching on 17 Oct. I will be sure to follow what comes out of it closely. It should be very interesting.
What do I think? I think that the teachings of the Buddha and commentaries by others in antiquity and modern times stand on their own. They are timeless and true. We don’t need another religion for human egos to corrupt. You know it always happens to good religions. I think your Awakeing the Buddha Within is beautifully written and the instructions particularly at the end in the meditations will take some time to work through and is a work to return to time and again. I read it twice back to back slowly when I got it.
If one wanted to combine the Buddha teachings with action meditation, that would be OK, I suppose. I have reservations about violent action meditation such as practices at shou lin temple combined with Buddhist teachings because of the non-violent philosophies.
I do not believe it is proper to commercialize (other than making books and other materials available for sale) Buddhism in any way. If I started seeing commercials on TV for it, I would be turned off by that. I do not think Buddhism actively seeks to convert, although if asked, the practitioner should answer questions or refer people to other authorities on the subject if they can not answer the questions.
Compassion in action is where we all should strive to be, in my opinion. Just staying aware and “in the view” is a big challenge in today’s world. There may be opportunities, especially in larger cities, for spiritual teachers to have Buddha Yoga in health clubs or Buddhist Temples as well.
This is a very good point to consider and again, I will be very interested to hear what comes out this conference, especially from the Dalai Lama’s point of view.
John