Today is the fifteenth day of the first month of the Tibetan Calendar, and the culmination of the annual Great Prayer Festival (Monlam Chenmo), a two-week-long festival that begins with the Tibetan New Year.
In accordance with our tradition of dedicating the merit gained from these prayers for the well-being of all sentient beings, this year too I fervently pray for greater peace and understanding in our world. It saddens me to see so many people suffering as a result of conflict, in Ukraine, in Gaza, and other parts of the world. By now we might have hoped that human beings would have learned from our history of violence. In all such conflicts, it is the innocent who bear the heaviest burden—living in fear, facing the loss of so much, even our lives, and constantly enduring the challenge of uncertainty.
One simple truth remains: every human being, each and every one of us, wishes not to suffer and only wants to be happy. If we recognize our shared humanity, recalling that the welfare of one depends on the welfare of all, I truly believe we can find a peaceful resolution to even the most intractable conflicts. But to do so requires a willingness to enter into dialogue and negotiation. I therefore appeal for concerted efforts to create a more compassionate, peaceful world free from violence.
I was out walking and listening to an episode of the Tricycle Talks podcast. The podcast is an offshoot of the Buddhist magazine Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. In the middle of the podcast there was an advertisement for other offerings that Tricycle currently has, during which it was mentioned that Tricycle started 34 years ago. I remember when the first issue of the magazine was published. There was a lesson in impermanence for me.
Many years ago I remember reading an interview with a Western Buddhist monk. The monk was asked what he had got out of his years of meditation practice. I like the monk’s answer,
I have found copies of old blog posts on my computer from an earlier incarnation of my website. This one was from I know not when, but will guess around 2010. I have edited the post lightly to provide link references and clarification where appropriate.
While in New York last week for Thanksgiving and a host of other family events I visited the wonderful Rubin Museum (which sadly on October 6th, 2024 will close and move to a “global museum model.
I visited the Rinzai Zen Mission near to Pā’ia this morning for their morning meditation and service. It was a beautiful way to start the day.
Here is the closing prayer that we chanted.
FOUR INFINITE VOWS
All beings without limit I vow to carry over,
Kleshas without cease I vow to cut off;
Dharma gates without measure I vow to master;
Buddha’s Way without end I vow to fulfill.
This story share by Robert Rackley on his blog Canned Dragons reminded me of a story that I heard about a Tibetan Buddhist nun.
A friend of mine, herself a Buddhist nun at the time, was studying at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala in Northern India. I’ll call my friend Ani-la, meaning nun in Tibetan. A friend came to visit Ani-la. Ani-la took her friend on a walk around the Institute and Dharamsala, showing her North Indian home.
I finished reading: In Love with the World by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. This book felt like a gift that I am very grateful for. I took my time with it. An account of a young Buddhist monk setting off on a wandering retreat who then becomes severely ill and almost dies. What made this book special for me was the intimacy of his story. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a Tibetan Master, shares his Buddhist approach to the struggles that setting off on the retreat brings to him. Then as illness strikes he offers rare insight, from my perspective, into the Tibetan view on mind, consciousness and dying. 📚
The Rubin Will Close Its Physical Space and Become a ‘Museum Without Walls’ - I’m sad to see this happening. I don’t visit New York often, but when the opportunity allowed I loved spending time (long periods of) in the Rubin Museum, taking in its displays of Himalayan art. Still a central tenant of Buddhism is impermanence.
Home alone, listening to and reading the poems of Han-Shan, Cold Mountain. Thank you Gary Snyder, Red Pine and others.
Men ask the way to Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain: there’s no through trail.
In summer, ice doesn’t melt
The rising sun blurs in swirling fog.
How did I make it?
My heart’s not the same as yours.
If your heart was like mine
You’d get it and be right here.
I periodically return to the book One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poetry of Ryokan translated and introduced by John Stevens. Ryokan’s poems, expressions of simplicity and insight into the essence of life, calm me and help to give me perspective.
This one touched me this morning,
TWILIGHT - smoke rises from the village,
A winter goose cries overhead,
Wind blows through the mountain pines.
Alone, carrying an empty rice bowl,
I return along the path.
I recently watched the documentary Tukdam: Between Worlds. This explored the phenomenon in Tibetan Buddhism where experienced practitioners can remain in a state of meditation after the body has shown all physical signs of having died - no breathing, the heart has stopped. In this state the body can support itself, the skin looks healthy, there is no sign of decomposition of the body (even in the heat of India where many of the exiled Tibetan community now live), and a feeling of warmth remains around the heart.
Last night I went back through some slides from my 1989/90 travels through Pakistan, China, Nepal & India. I have numerous slides, and they are in an ill arranged mess at the moment. As I loaded up the carousel to put into the projector, I had little idea as to what I would be looking at, even whether I would recognize the images.
My fears of not recognizing images were unfounded.
I’m not sure what is going on in this photo, taken in Tibet in 1995. I believe that it was taken near to Drepung Loseling Monastery and that the monastery just visible in the middle right might be Nechung Monastery, home of the Nechung Oracle. Both monasteries have been reestablished in exile in India, Nechung in Dharamsala in north India, and Drepung in the south in Kanaktaka State.
Given that it is center stage, I think that I was trying to capture the run down tractor/cart in the middle of the photo.
Another slide coming out of my evening going through old travel photos. Like yesterday’s image, this image is a photograph of a slide projected onto the wall.
The photo was taken at Drepung Loseling monastery in Lhasa, Tibet in 1995. At the time of the Chinese invasion, Drepung was the largest monastery in the world with 10,000 monks - a small town.
The picture shows my Buddhist teacher, Ven. Geshe Damcho Yonten (on the right), speaking with an old monk who had stayed behind in Tibet following the invasion. This was Geshe-la’s (as he was affectionately known) first and only visit back to Tibet having fled the country in 1959.
Currently reading: Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron. Actually I have this book on regular reruns, picking it up and reading a few pages during my meditation practice. I need to be reminded of the material in this book. I need to be reminded that as much as I might complain about the actions of others, peace starts with softening the rigidity in my own heart. 📚
I love the expression (emphasis mine) that Thich Nhat Hanh used, in the quote below, to describe the dopamine effect that we feel when receiving a response through our devices.
We all crave connection, and many of us try to find it through our phones or e-mail. We feel a neurochemical sweetness when someone sends us a text or an e-mail, and we feel anxious when were not with our phones or near them.
I find something very compelling in this quote by Mingyur Rinpoche, that we can train our minds so that ”happiness will arise naturally.”
Our mind is very important and all our experiences of happiness and unhappiness arise in the mind. So if we can train our minds then happiness will arise naturally. This happiness is real lasting peace which you will have in the external environment as well as in your inner mind.
It was early April 2017. I was sitting in an Airbnb in Portland, OR. My wife and I had returned to the city that had been our home for eight years, to sort out a storage room of our belongings, to decide what was going with us back to Maui and what we were going to sell. I had decided to start a podcast to help people start and build a meditation practice.
Melissa Schwartz of Leading Edge Parenting, where she coaches parents of highly sensitive children, recently interviewed me. Our discussion looked at the overlap between Tibetan Buddhism, particularly meditation and High Sensitivity. You can watch the complete interview below.
I hope that you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the conversation with Melissa.
Buddhism speaks of Buddha Nature, the fundamental nature of all beings. This is our natural, innate wisdom free from all obscurations. It is a state of simply knowing which is right now clouded by the mists of our untamed mind. In the coaching world they speak of people being naturally creative, resourceful and whole. The implication with both of these views, and others similar to them is that we have a natural, compassionate wisdom at our core, we just have to create the causes to allow that nature to grow and manifest in our lives.
I am writing this on a flight back to the US from England. I have spent the last two weeks in the UK, where I was born, visiting with family and friends. The UK is home and so visits back there become a run around of trying to see and do as much as I want to in the time available. The truth is though there is never enough time. For those who need their quiet time, the phrase “run around” can get the alarm bells ringing, and indeed my first week back was exhausting - seeing friends, meetings, coping with jet lag - read, “little sleep”.
A lot of good advice has been offered online on how introverts and HSPs can manage the social demands that might come their way over the holiday period. I was not intending to add to this well informed conversation, until I came across this short video (below) by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who is based in Seattle. The advice that he gives stretches beyond the Buddhist world and applies to any time and place in our lives, not just the this holiday time.
