Buddhism
His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 89th Birthday Message
Anger and The Nun - or don't judge the book by the cover
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. During their walk, they came across a Tibetan nun who in that moment was very angry. Ani-la’s friend commented that someone so angry should not be wearing monastic robes. Ani-la replied that her friend should have seen the nun five years ago.
The nun’s Buddhist practice might not have turned her into a saint (or maybe it did, who am I to judge that?!), but it was bearing fruit, even if it was not the fruit that the friend was expecting to see.
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. 📚
HAPPY LOSAR
Today is Losar, Tibetan New Year, the year of the Wood Dragon 2151.
Below is His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s New Year message to the Tibetan people.
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 was happy today to find the Tibetan Buddhist Retreat Center, Thubten Phuntsog Gephel Ling, about 20 minutes drive from Alcácer do Sal.
On its grounds is the 16 meter high Tashi Gomang Stupa.
Tukdam: Remaining in Meditation At the Time of Death
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. This can last for days and sometimes weeks.
With the support of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, scientists have started examining those who are in this state, trying to understand what is going on. So far, they have few conclusions it seems, other than an acknowledgment that this phenomenon is happening.
There is skepticism in some circles as to whether western science is capable of measuring anything while practitioners remain in this state. Their argument is that consciousness is not material, from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective, and so is beyond the measurement of modern scientific instruments.
Be that as it may, His Holiness the Dalai Lama appears keen that the investigations continues, even if it does take a long time to come to conclusions.
Here is a preview of the documentary.
March 2023 Photoblogging Challenge
Day 10: Ritual, suggested by @drewbelf
A daily ritual of meditation.
An American Buddhist monk, Ajhan Sumedho, once said,
“Suffering is wanting things other than they are.”
My suffering today is having to return something that I bought yesterday and is not working properly.
I hope that I can make myself understood.
Travels through the Solo/Khumbu Region
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. The photos were mostly from the Solo/Khumbu (Everest) region of Nepal and my first forays into India.
This all happened towards the end of 1989, over thirty-three years ago. It was a time of great change for me. I had left home confused, lost, maybe angry, with many questions going through my head. I’m not even sure that I knew what those questions were? I just wanted some space, to get away from all that appeared to hold expectations over me and would not hear questions (or at least I did not feel comfortable going to them with questions). So, I threw a pack on my back and hit the road. This was my second trip and I felt that some pieces were beginning to fall into place, though I had fear around what I would do with those pieces once I was home. For now, I was in a safe place.
I spent a month in the Solo/Khumbu region. Two weeks trekking in, about a week in the area, and then a week or less trekking out. The walk out is mainly downhill, and my blood was pumping with oxygen due to all the red blood cells that it had produced in the rarefied atmosphere at the roof of the world. I found it hard to leave. I felt at home there, especially once I got up in the Sherpa region, dotted as it is with signs of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Something was seeding my growing interest in this faith.
So last night brought back happy memories for me. Memories of a sense of meaning being found, of self-discovery. Such I believe is always available to us, but there are times, such as those days for me at the end of 1989, when there is space to take time to explore, inquire, and look around. The incorporation of my discoveries into regular life were still to come, but at that moment I could take in, appreciate and start to reflect on what was beginning to emerge.
Below is a photograph of me with the Himalayan range, including Mt Everest, in the background. Mt. Everest is on the left of the picture, the triangular peak lying slightly to the left. The photograph is an image taken from a slide projected onto a wall, and then tweaked a little.
Currently re-reading: Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron. I come back to this book from time to time. I need to. 📚
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.
What I am reflecting on today,
So I’m here to tell you that the path to peace is right here, when you want to get away.
~ Pema Chödron, Practicing Peace In Times of War
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.
Here’s a modern day paradox that has just arrived. A Christmas card from a Tibetan monastery.
