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"Love All, Hurt No One, Trust A Few" : Thoughts on Buddhism in the West and Spiritual Community

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:58:15 GMT

"Love All, Hurt No One, Trust A Few" : Thoughts on Buddhism in the West and Spiritual Community
by KT

Response to "I have some fear of sangha [ Buddhist fellowship ]".

"Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none."
William Shakespeare, "All's Well That Ends Well", Act 1 Scene 1

"This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity. . ."
William Shakespeare, "As You Like It", Act 2 Scene 1

It is perfectly reasonable to be cautious about any religious or spiritual fellowship. This does not mean you have to be in any way concerned about same. There are general principles to be followed.

The most basic principle, which was stated by both Confucius ( Kung Fu Tse ) and Guru Sakyamuni Buddha, has always been this:
"Do not do unto others as you would not be treated by them."

In other words, live and let live. Things get complicated sometimes, so we have to consider the content and contexts of communication. I'll do that here, specifically with regard to Buddhist fellowships in the West. The basic approach is very simple, but I really haven't seen it articulated or demonstrated in concrete terms. So I'm writing this to help people through what can be a rough spot in social and cultural relations: how to deal with unknown people and fellowships.

The basic model is that of the humble samurai, or sometimes, the "peaceful warrior". With that in mind, the following is written as a response to a tribe.net thread "I have some fear of sangha [ Buddhist fellowship ]".

It is different to be concerned ( or cautious ) about an individual Buddhist practitioner than to be concerned about a Buddhist group. These should be separable issues.

You have fear of judgement by others. But others judge us all the time, at work or at school or in public or whatever. But what are the risks of social judgement, for any of us?

Remember that other Buddhist students are just that, other Buddhist students. They don't necessarily have the authority to lay down any law or challenge anyone on anything. Certainly not as a snap judgement, nor based on mere hearsay.

There are some basic rules for Buddhist gatherings, such as
1) Don't arrive unwashed, drunk or drugged at a Buddhist gathering.
2) Don't smoke in front of a Buddhist teacher or at a Buddhist gathering.
3) Don't interrupt a Buddhist teacher when he or she speaks.
4) Don't cause problems for any one individual, group or teacher. If there is a legal or financial or psychological problem area to address, try to find a balanced outcome, by a third party, or by drawing appropriate interpersonal boundaries. You can even resort to police help or litigation or kung fu if necessary. But as I will show later, I don't think such recourses will ever be needed.

Most Buddhists that I have seen tend to be shy, quiet, fairly withdrawn, and often tend towards the less social or nonsocial. Nonsocial meaning socially disengaged, the opposite of antisocial aggression. If there is a problem with Buddhist communities in the West, it relates more to the way these can be "dissocial aggregates", collections of more-or-less strangers who do not know or care much about engaging other Buddhists. But that is changing, as I have seen.

Buddhists are often emotionally weary, and quite often can be depressed or frustrated or self-conflicted people. A typically Buddhist characterological response is to emotionally disengage from others, hence the common introversion. The trend overall however is towards healthier engagement of oneself and others, for a fair number anyway. We have a lot of good teachers, practices, and some really cutting edge psychologists.

Basically, you're more likely to get into problems walking through a college campus than going to a Buddhist fellowship, Tibetan or otherwise. U Cal Berkeley has some risks, particularly for women, as do college campuses in general. But Oakland California is no doubt extremely dangerous as it was many years ago. I wouldn't get out of the BART tube there for any reason. Too much gunfire!

. . .At the same time, I have repeatedly found many Buddhists to very judgemental and some are extremely judgemental. And there can be problems, and these can escalate. But most often these problems are based on real ignorance of others, on jumping to conclusions. This happens quite commonly when a far less experienced "Buddhist" has condemning thoughts towards a far more experienced and far more capable Buddhist. This in fact happens all the time. I really get sick of it, and as a western-born teacher, I have to always be very careful, but I think overall that ignorant attacks are more self-limiting and self-defeating.

Here is the very simple "secret" to dealing with such problems. If someone criticizes you, or even yells at you or outright attacks you, relax and focus and listen. That's it, just relax and focus and listen. This works almost all the time, and it works in really difficult situations. The principle is just the same as "defensive driving". It is classical Buddhist kung fu as well. ( If a police officer were to yell at me, my response would automatically be
"Good afternoon, officer. What can I do for you?" )

I once relaxed and focused when attacked and challenged to a duel, by a Buddhist teacher I did not know. It happened like this. One day in the late eighties I was walking down the road just outside a large Buddhist temple, where I sometimes taught as vajrayana guru ( on a rotating basis ) for a couple years. Some guy, while washing the car of the tantric lineage holder, turned around, straightened and snarled at me "I know you!" and started yelling at me.

Never met him before in my life. He was from London England. Apparently a tantric guru AND a kung fu instructor. Uh oh. . . I stopped and listened, certain this was a complete stranger. Completely baffled, I did the intelligent thing : I listened some more. He handed me his card, which mentioned London, his teaching credentials and so forth.

I said nothing, trying to get the measure of this fellow. My immediate thought was this : This is a formal challenge! Dont know why. He gave me his card, which means, classically, that he expects to duel!

Maybe this guy somehow didn't understand what he was literally saying by presenting me his card in a direct challenge. ( Even more absurd. And reckless: odds disfavor casual duellers. ) Soo. . his "kung fu" was ( unknowingly ) to call for a duel. MY kung fu was to not duel, and instead quietly walk away.

See how easy that was? The next step *could* have been for him to escalate, to grab at me for example. But no one gets to do that. Given the foolish presentation of the card, that means a full duel has begun, leaving me free to defend myself By Any Means Necessary. This is western law and also Buddhist law. I would have then fought this "fellow Buddhist guru", with a first goal of twisting his arm and forcing him to his knees. Some body parts would soon break, his and/ or mine. That's classical, it's called "trial by fire". The point is that the test is mutual, not a one way street!

All of this is encapsulated in the perspective of President Theodore Roosevelt, who said "Speak softly but carry a big stick." That is very classical Buddhist perspective in Tibet, China and Japan. In the Chinese Buddhist kung fu, we speak of the "peaceful warrior", who is
like "a well tempered sword wrapped in soft cloth".

A sword is a crucial metaphor. A sword can block many attacks. A sword can also maim and destroy adversaries. So the etiquette is to not jump a swordsman, whether you are unarmed or whether you are a swordsman. In a real swordfight, your chances of dying are one in three or even two in three. Often both swordsmen die. The basic rule of thumb therefore is: Don't fight unless absolutely necessary, then fight to decisive victory.

This guy from London - a fellow tantric Buddhist guru - somehow thought he was a samurai and I was a peasant. He thought wrong. I saw him many months later at the same temple - and he looked badly shaken up and extremely fearful of me, from eighty feet away. Why? Seems like the Guardians Upstairs ( like, say, Mahakala ) evidently decided to teach him a lesson.

There is also a woman teacher who falsely accused me of "not helping with the translation work." But she never sent me the texts to work on, and I never received them from anyone. What was the outcome? Well, she was very sick for a good many months. And she was a western medical professional to boot.

I distrust these two fellow Buddhist teachers twenty years later, and there has no apology to accept. Very simple, except I ended up with an undeserved bad reputation all the way across the Pacific, in Taiwan. Example: A PhD psychologist from Taipei gave me some grief and treated me with contempt over a dinner table in a Buddhist teacher's house! For a few minutes, anyway. But he didn't prove capable of a simple psychological intake nor did he set up an argument. It was just a knee jerk emotional attack.

So the moral here is simple: just because someone is a PhD psychologist or a Buddhist teacher, don't think they will never make stupid mistakes. They do. Real intelligence means not making the mistakes, like these people.

Therefore don't fear the Buddhists ( or anyone else, whatever they may be called ). Respect everyone to the extent called for, relying on caution and awareness and inner balance and integrity, not social positions.

You need not fear any kind of aggression from Buddhists, not physical aggression, not emotional aggression, not psychic aggression.

These levels of aggression are all pretty much nonexistent among Buddhists in my experience. And I have personally seen about 8,500 Buddhists. What kinds? Chinese, American, Vietnamese, Japanese, Native American Buddhist etc., since about 1980. Where? In Hawaii, on the West Coast from Los Angeles up through San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver BC. In Chicago, and in France, on a month long retreat.

I have yet to see or hear of a psychic attack or psychic aggression of any kind by any tantric Buddhist. Anywhere. In theory this *could* be a real concern, and in Tibet it really was: some Tibetans actually died as a result of pure psychic attacks or combat, Buddhist or non Buddhist Bonpo. This however is simply not a problem in the West.

Basically 99.9% of my experience tells me that Buddhists don't know how to fight, don't want to fight, and don't want to learn to fight. ( Big mistake, especially for women anywhere. ) I also have a definite sense that, overall, Buddhists don't really know how to argue effectively on the interpersonal level. When they argue, it is over abstract philosophy. Most traditional Buddhist culture is against public argumentation, and matters are resolved in private to "save face".

Despite your fear, there is basically no "pressure to assimilate" in Buddhist fellowships.

Major social psychology studies show that a conscious sense of "connectedness", of healthy community, is strongly predictive of a long and healthy life, no matter what your faith or social status. It's best to take an "ecological" perspective. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_psychology

At the same time, there are many great Buddhist practitioners and teachers who kept mostly to themselves and even spent most of their lives on strict retreat, alone or with a very few other practitioners, e.g. as in Shakespeare's outcasts found in "As You Like It", who are
"exempt from public haunt" and find "tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
sermons in stones and good in everything".

Social or nonsocial - either way can work. But the point is to give oneself the choice, to consciously choose and not be psychologically limited or emotionally crippled by fear and doubt. The main priority is a positive one: make the best possible use of your time "to live for that which is highest in oneself and others".

For me that really means Mahayana in a literal sense, so community is critically important to me and I have to handle things very effectively. Otherwise my thirty years of practice is a complete waste, right?

Without Buddhist transmission and empowerment you cannot do any of the key yogas or inner practices. Lacking effective human contact there is no connection to the Mahayana Buddhist practice, nor even entrance to the basic outer sangha fellowship. To have no mahayana guru, means all the many books will be of no help : you cannot practice what is not transmitted.

The good news is that overall the western Buddhist communities are quickly evolving towards really healthy principles and models of sacred fellowship and practical co-operation. Western Buddhists are now far more articulate and psychologically capable than they were thirty years ago.

A key point is that western Buddhists strongly emphasize respect for women, and we have women teachers ( scholars and gurus ). This is a much better and more authentic version of Mahayana Buddhism than was typical of Asia, where dharma opportunities for most women were very meager: Confucian social forms and expectations pervaded Eastern Asia and most women were severely oppressed for close to two thousand years. It's different here!

Everything looks to be going in a good direction in the the West. I would say that we have evolved in a few decades to a sense of Buddhist community that took many generations in traditional Asian societies. And we are just beginning. There have been some severe problems in some Buddhist fellowships, but when the smoke clears these do not cripple the fellowships.

Yes, there is a lot of confusion about Buddhist doctrine among many inside and outside the refuge-holding sangha, but these points are easily addressed, and the Buddhist doctrine will not be lost to mass delusion and external belief systems. Instead, Buddhist teaching is working on society, through such teachers as the Dalai Lama, and others.

The simple and crucial issue and measure comes down to this: We are basically all new to the practice here in the West. We have therefore to prove ourselves to ourselves, to others, and to society. This means that people who claim to prioritize Mahayana Buddhism have to live it, they have to be functional, and the Buddhist fellowships have to prove their worth to society in order to last, to carry on.

This is very doable. It has everything to do with communication and co-operation and resources that cannot be taken for granted, but which must be cultivated.

At the same time, I would not say that Buddhists are in general "reliable and mature." Its not that I definitely distrust them as a group. Much experience has taught me the importance of NONTRUST. I short I don't expect problems from Buddhist individuals, but in my own life I expect little or nothing from them in the way of help or reciprocity.

I keep a personal list of Buddhists that I will not speak to nor help. The reasoning? The Apache ( American Indian tribe ) say "Do not help those who fail to help others." To this I would add "Do not help those who cause problems for others." If a claimed Buddhist is clearly disrespectful towards the Buddhist community, then for me to help that one is a fault in my Mahayana Buddhist vows, and self-contradictory, pure and simple. Better for me to help some one else instead.

Yes, most of history teaches us to be extremely wary of religious groups in general. Yes, much of the course of religious history is basically rivers of bloodshed and oppression and opposition to humanitarian values. But you simply cannot find much to blame in Buddhist history, or in western Buddhist fellowships in the new century. Buddhists are very quiet in terms of world political history. Mostly they have fled war and oppression. Extreme politics and cultural destruction are more found in Communism and Islam, not in Buddhist history.

Many basic issues that have really challenged western Buddhists in the last century have moved into the right tracks, quickly and effectively ( which is the opposite of China, Burma, Tibet and so forth ). Here in the West the Mahayana dharma is, overall, respected ( or at least peacebly ignored ) and not trashed by modern society. Buddhist fellowships and individuals are *not* being derailed, internally or externally. The western model of Buddhism is decidedly sane and multicultural, a real benefit to western society, well founded in both depth and breadth, and mostly functional. We'll show the whole world how it's done!

I can't tell you how crucially important this mostly functional western Buddhism is for the survival of Buddhist practice in the world today. We have so very much to be thankful for, and a lot to look forward to. Much more than you could think possible! I am *very* surprised and thankful to be able to say this, and I say it with *real* confidence born of experience and comparative history, not mere pious abstract faith.

In other words, don't be afraid. Instead, go with the Bard and
""Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none."

I hope this helps you and others as general perspective and guidance. Sarva mangalam.

Long live the Mahayana!

KT, mage guardian, inner medical tantrika and so forth

From Shakespeare's "As You Like It", Act 2 Scene 1:

DUKE SENIOR

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
'This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
I would not change it.

AMIENS

Happy is your grace,
That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 43 replies

Your Experience of the Eightfold Path

Aron — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:37:00 GMT

Hello.

What have your experiences with the eightfold path been?
What do they mean to you?

The Right View,
The Right Intentions,
The Right Speech,
The Right Action,
The Right Livelihood,
The Right Effort,
The Right Mindfulness,
The Right Concentration.

You are experiencing. What is that?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

some classical core guidance on mantra recitation, short mantras for a number of tantric deities, strategies for mantra practice and results of practice

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:19:08 GMT

Keywords and main points: Vajrapani short mantra, Padmasambhava short mantra, Simhamukha mantra. Tara short mantra, Vajrasattva short mantra, significance of 1 M recitations as deity yoga connection, importance of protector practice, authorizations for deity yoga practices, book "Dakini Teachings" by Guru Padmasambhava.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is in ourselves, that we are slaves."
Julius Caesar, in the play by Shakespeare

This is a long post. It covers a lot of tantric Buddhist theory and practice. It was originally written as a direct response to Matt in a thread he started on this tribe Tibetan Buddhist. It grew, because I had to provide the right context and an overall view, one which is so often lacking, and certainly not well communicated among the claimed sangha.

I know about major empowerments and sustained deity yoga practice. I have over sixty eight full Vajrasattva empowerments, and have been practicing mantrayana for thirty years.

I myself am not a Tibetan Buddhist per se, but rather a Sanskrit Buddhist. I did well over ten thousand hours of Sanskrit recitation as Vajrayana sadhana, and am providing a clear and definite response to specific and general issues regarding Mantrayana practice, including a whole set of teachings by Padmasambhava, as a book reference.

Why? Well, it's a primary teaching responsibility, and this is how I teach. Nobody here can break this teaching, in whole or in part. I'd be amused to see anyone try. This teaching is classical, tested, and proven. And quite universal, really. Works great for householders.

It is not intended as specific guidance for any one person, nor is there any claim made for efficacy regarding any one specific need. I always explicitly disavow such claims.

If you know of anything better, by all means do it. If you somehow dislike this classical mahayana dharma or somehow can't understand it, then you probably can't be helped anyway. It's all completely straightforward, and the confusion is, sadly enough, yours alone.

KT

Re Matt
"It seems in the texts I have encountered it usually says that one needs to recite a mantra at least a million times or more before "definite signs will occur." This was referring to the "approach" mantra, while the accomplishment and activity mantras followed. Has anyone actually gone far enough to know what happens when you recite a million mantras? Do you obtain definite siddhis? "

Matt, you ALREADY have the connection.
We all struggle with concerns about the purity and strength of our inner connections, I do too.

The point is to go forward and go upward, at least a little bit, every single day.

It is quite common to recite 1 million *short* recitations of some deity or other per year. That is in fact a very basic practice. You can do mantra washing dishes, you can do it silently in public [ e.g. on the bus ], and so forth. I do it walking around the lake, or while a passenger in the car.

I will address your specific concern with my own definite experience.

I have done 1 million each of
Vajrapani,
Vajrakilaya,
Hayagriva,
Tara,
Mahakala,
Fierce Guru Padmasambhava [ Dorje Drakpo Tsal ].

One way or another I have obtained some result with *each* of these, with all of them. Thank goodness, seems like almost all my friends are the Upstairs kind.

Let's talk about Vajrapani, a major healing and protective practice for me.

In the mid 1980's Vajrapani practice and the Thirteen Golden Dharmas of Sakya [ tantric transmissions given by H.E. Luding Khen Rinbochay which include the Four Armed high aspect of Vajrapani ] literally saved my life.

I was in a very bad place, physically and spiritually, despite years of yoga practice, squeaky clean living and so forth. A yoga teacher and tantric master from North India wanted me off the the scene, and he definitely knew how to "reach out and touch someone."

The Thirteen Golden Dharmas [ empowerments ] saved me. They saved my physical life, together with 1 M short Vajrapani recitations
HUM VAJRA PHAT

This is a restricted mantra, though openly published in quite a few places. I will of course not give the extended Vajrapani mantras here, nor the hastamudra / sacred hand gesture.

Anyway, between recitations 900,000 and 1M of Vajrapani, I developed and then lost some very small skin sores on my feet and a number of basically painless blisters. That was definitely the result of the burning power of Vajrapani practice, which literally expelled bad karma through the soles of my feet, just like the classical texts describe in tantric purification practice. Junk comes out of you, sometimes etheric, sometimes in literal fashion.

My problem was not drugs or alcohol or smoking, my problem was frustration, unhappiness, anger, and oh yes, for those months and years, the world class psychic attack. Sigh. Well, I'm still alive, I passed the test. Maybe the three year retreatants could also, but I don't expect that to be true in general. This guru was one Blue Meanie!

You won't have to worry about world class psychic attacks, they almost never happen, and anyway, this heavy duty [ non Buddhist ] tantric teacher died quite a few years back. I still use his really great yoga manuals, have a big stack of them, and bought two more this year!

So, we can learn a lot by trial and challange and especially from our own "worst enemies." The Dalai Lama said very plainly that of all his teachers, the Chinese were the best, the most important.

Even if we are not presently challenged by genocidal Islamists [ who destroyed the great Buddhist universities of Nalanda and Vikramasila in Old India ], nor the Communists [ who wiped out much of Buddhist civilization in Tibet, China, Cambodia, and so forth ], we all still have problems and challenges.

It's not just sickness and old age and death, not just economic change and the skyrocketing costs of health care.

Our worst enemies, or our best friends, are we ourselves.
Matt, you are your own best friend. You've gotten experience, you've tasted the experience of Dharma as tantra. Knowing this even once, you should go forward, and go forward every single day. It's your life, your magnetic field, you vibration, and your karma and your evolution.

People and situations and emotions can come and go, but you have to be your own light and continue to take refuge in yourself through practice.

I have had many many many spiritual breakthroughs. I could use a couple more. It's not about bein greedy. I've relied on the practices to keep me whole and together and functioning under different conditions of challenge, like the one mentioned above.

But dharma is not primarily about psychic or energetic experiences or visions, although those may be meaningful and indeed real breakthroughs.

Dharma is about developing Wisdom, Compassion, and Power [ jnana, karuna, bala ]. If you are developing a clearer sharper mental state, if your heart is more open and sensitive, if your spiritual strength and magnetic field are even a few percent stronger than a year back, then that is real progress, and something to honor. The changes can be subtle, the point is to make the progress stable and to continue to go forward.

We all need power practices to purify and protect ourselves. Vajrapani is such a practice, and a very good protector sadhana if one has not established a protector practice for oneself.

My general recommendation to Buddhist tantrikas is this:
Do A Million Short Protector Recitations, like say the Vajrapani Four Syllable Mantra.

In my understanding and personal experience, 1M protector recitations is of vital importance on all levels, just as a basic foundation, and Vajrapani, the protector aspect of Vajrasattva, is central and universal to all the schools, even the ancient Chinese Shao Lin School [ of Kung fu ], the Chinese schools in general, and the Japanese school known as Shingon.

A full Vajrapani is completely bestowed in many major empowerments, such as Dzogchen Breakthrough - Patrul Tsik Sum Ne Dek, any high Vajrasattva empowerment such as Cakrasamvara, Kalacakra, even in a major transmission [ not permission blessing ] of goddess yogas such as Vajrayogini, Cittamani Tara, and so forth.

Vajrapani is the principal protector of the Medicine Buddha. So, if you have a Highest Yoga Tantra empowerment of Medicine Buddha, and any Dzogchen Medicine Buddha Padmasambhava includes Medicine Buddha, then clearly you have a High empowerment of Vajrapani. Too bad basically no-one knows about Vajrapani within the Medicine Buddha, even after a high transmission of same.

Many many people in the West have a major Vajrapani empowerment without knowing it, in fact it is common for western tantrikas to have a buch of Vajrapani empowerments [ folded in though the various major transmissions ] and be completely unaware of this remarkable and important blessing! So they can practice, they just don't know they can practice.

I M short Vajrapani done in a focused fashion, like say in a year's time, is a profound way to purify karma, remove obstacles, defend one's magnetic field, remove depression and so forth. It does work for some, and of course no claim is made that it works for everyone, or "handles everything". It is wrong to make any *specific* claim of applicability for any one person, that any one person will get the hoped for result.

It is known to work, it did work for me, and in the case of Jamgon Kongtrul the Great, the practice of Vajrapani, by itself, restored his sight. He was blind, and Vajrapani practice restored his sight. So profound results do happen, we just can't claim they work in general.

It was the combination of tantric transmissions and protector recitations that saved my life in the eighties. After getting a stack of Sakya transmissions, I broke through a life-threatening psychic danger, although not getting out of the woods by any means. I was however able to rebuild my very torn or shredded magnetic field, and was strong enough to practice more and to receive more transmsissions.

In particular, I soon received three major cycles of key Kagyu transmissions from Kyabje Kalu Rinbochay, in Vancouver, Salt Spring Island, and Seattle. E.G. Kalacakra Master Empowerment, Mahakala, Hayagriva, Milarepa, Phowa, Six Yogas of Niguma, Medicine Buddha, Amitayus.

The Kalu Rinbochay transmissions of Hayagriva and Mahakala became a primary focus, and that was what got me through in the longer term. But it was a short and powerful empowerment of Vajrapani, and the short and powerful practice of Vajrapani, that
a] got me out of a near coma
b] got me back on my feet
c] made it possible for me to practice and heal myself, shredded magnetic field notwithstanding.

And I could have practiced a lot more, and a lot better. I *should* have completed, in one year, a million Simhamukha to go along with the Vajrapani! Both were in the Thirteen Golden Dharmas of Sakya. But no one told me about the practice and I had no text. I did not know it was a crucial and powerful protector practice, nor how to do it.

So let's talk about Simhamukha, to help the western students.

If you have ANY Longchen Nyingtik empowerment in full, such as Rigdzin Dupa, or Dechen Gyalmo, Patrul Tsik Sum Ne Dek etc., you have a FULL Simhamukha transmission [ as well as Vajrapani and Vajrasattva ]. Why? Simhamukha is the principal guardian of the Longchen Nyingtik cycle of Great Treasure Revealer Jigme Lingpa.

This year many people in many parts of America received full Simhamukha empowerment, because Lama Wangdor Rinbochay gave Patrul Tsik Sum Ne Dek on an extended coast to coast tour.

So this is in itself a powerful practice for protection and purification, once people figure out they can actually do this, and how much it will help them.

For their benefit, here is the basic mantra:
A KA SA MA RA CA SHA DA RA SA MA RA YA PHAT!

It's a highest yoga tantra practice, and thus restricted to initiates only, even though the mantra has been published all over in public books and websites. I am confirming that this is the correct mantra [ for Nyingmas etc. ], and it could possibly be of great help to some of you who have the authorization.

As with Vajrapani, so with Simhamukha: authorized practitioner can do the 1 M recitations, and perhaps get some good result, even without the text.

I have different kinds of Sakya Simhamukha practice texts, and different kinds of Nyingma Simhamukha practice texts. That is valuable and important, but the main focus is always the same : authorizing empowerment and correct practice and conscious commitment to samaya, as in Mahayana vows.

I do *not* claim to know what practice is most appropriate or most beneficial for any one person, nor have I any idea what manifest results will come of practice. This is a very very general discussion. In particular, it is often the recommendation or personal guru direction to begin Protector practice only AFTER Vajrasattva and guruyoga.

For many people that will be appropriate as a stepwise progressive path. Sometimes a person needs to jump in, and ramp up with daily protector practice. In all cases, use yogic common sense. Don't strain or force anything. It's like athletics. It's a system.

Still, doing 1 M recitiations of a short protector practice, at some point, is very important. Doing 1M recitations of some deity each year is a baseline of practice. This means in the course of five or six years a person can reasonably expect to complete the basic requirement [ 1 M recitations for one diety yoga ] which establishes the connection with several deities.

If you are Kagyu, whatever Kagyu lineage, you are *expected* to do
a) 100,000 long Vajrasattva *after* Vajrasattva-authorizing empowerment
b) 1 M guru yoga recitations *after* receiving the empowerment, such as Milarepa or Karma Pakshi.
That's the baseline.

If you are Nyingma, you are *expected* to do
a) 100,000 long Vajrasattva *after* Vajrasattva-authorizing empowerment
b) 1 M guru yoga recitations *after* receiving the empowerment, such as Padmasambhava in particular.
That's the baseline.

There are very good reasons for this kind of approach. Vajrasattva purifies obstacles and clears the magnetic field, and connects one with all the Hundred Familes of Buddhatantra. Guruyoga connects us with the lineage.

This kind of approach [ Vajrasattva plus Guru yoga ] is not strictly speaking necessary across the board for everyone. But it does cover a lot of ground.

Simply put,
a) if you do the 100K Vajrasattva, a lama has to give you *some* respect.
b) if you do the 1 M guruyoga, a lama has to give you *some* respect.
a) if you do the 100K Vajrasattva *and* 1 M guruyoga of Any Kind, a lama has to give you some real respect as an actual tantric Buddhist, no matter their lineage or yours.

There are other ways, of course.

Here is a basic short mantra for Vajrasattva:
OM VAJRASATTVA HUM

Here is another
OM VAJRASATTVA AH

Once initiated for Vajrasattva, and not otherwise, one can do 1M of these short Vajrasattva, in one formula, not both. That is also a real practice connecting one to Vajrasattva, and thus worthy of respect among the claimed-to-be sangha.

It is easy to do 1M short Tara mantras. Here is the basic short and universal Tara mantra:
OM TARE TAM SVAHA
It is quite common to complete 1M of the standard
OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SVAHA

It is easy to do 1M short Padmasambhava recitations. Here is a little known but valid short and universal mantra for Padmasambhava, which I have in Tibetan and Chinese script. It is

Padmasambhava:
OM PADMA VAJRA HUM

To do this one MUST have a Padmasambhava guruyoga empowerment. But it is only six syllables. Ig a person cannot complete 1 M recitations of 6 syllable Padmsambhava in one year, then the problem is one of time management and commitment, not difficulty or elaborateness of practice. I did 1 M fierce Padmasambhava in one year, and that was 17 syllables, not 6 or 12.

Here's the deal : you can do more than you think, more than you know to be possible. And, it will take time and commitment.

Padmasambhava made it clear that SOME daily practice is a requirement of highest yogatantra. You can read that in the book "Dakini Teachings" which talks about the perspective, the vows, and so forth very clearly and concisely. I have vows of daily sadhana, daily practice. Since tantric empowerment and practice quite literally saved my life, I never consider this a burden, but rather a source of life and healing and wisdom.

This one book, "Dakini Teachings", a record of teachings given by Guru Padmasambhava, is a whole library of tantric Buddhist discipline and practice. The first 100 pages of this book are invaluable for all Mahayana and Tantrayana practitioners and would be practitioners, and you can get the book openly from Amazon, Snow Lion and so forth.

This book is inexpensive, and sidesteps the need to try and get this kind of teaching in bits and pieces over time. What a great blessing! It can save you years of confusion and doubt and wasted time, and really establish a person on the path of Mahayana and Tantric practice through correct understanding.

No one anywhere can speak against this book. It is my professional recommendation. You can try hard over a period of years to find anything better. Too bad nobody ever mentions it, eh?

Someone has to know how these things work. Anyway, you have been helped.

Sarva mangalam! Siddhi rastu!

KT

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 19 replies

sensations-feelings-emotions

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:02:34 GMT

I came across the suggestion that "vedana" is translated as sensation and feelings..

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedan%C4%81 )

and It got me thinking of how in the west, we got this notion of emotions that are part conceptual and part sensation.. or feelings with some conceptual evaluation can designate different emotions..

For example a sensation of anxiety can be designated as fear, where the same anxiety sensation can be designated as romante.. all depending on the mental/conceptual interpretion of the context in which the sensations are felt.

Do you know of a Buddhist book that touch upon such details of emotions-feelings-sensations?

Thanks..

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 3 replies

Questioning the Path, Guru, and teachings

Ngakpa Bill — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:01:06 GMT

Some of the more recent posts have included what could be considered insults and attacks to members of the tribe.

Buddhism (Tibetan or otherwise) is not a "follow-the-herd", non-thinking, system. The Buddha himself urged us to question everything, don't just take a teacher's word for it.

Believe me, most teachers appreciate genuine debate regarding the Dharma. They worry when their students simply go along with what they say like herds of cattle.

The tribe discussions here can have this kind of candid dialogue and debate, but only if the participants are respectful to each other and focus on the subject matter.

Several members of the tribe come from very different backgrounds/teachings. This is rich and fertile ground for cross-pollenation and some real growth.

so....Let's not dumb down the Dharma with dualistic habits if we can help it.

(Don't worry ---we are not going to hug or sing Kumbaya now)

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 6 replies

The World Peace Prayer

Ngakpa Bill — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:52:27 GMT

DZAMLING CHI DANG YUL KHAM DI DAG TU
In the world in general and in this nation

NED MUG TSHON SOK DUGNGAL MING MI DRAG
May not even the names disease, famine, war, and suffering be heard.

CHO DAN SONAM PALJOR GONG DU PHEL
May virtuous qualities, merit, and prosperity greatly increase

TAGTU TASHI DE LEG PHUN TSHOG SHOG
And may continuous good fortune and subline well-being perfectly arise.

by Jnana

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

i have some fear of sangha

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:36:13 GMT

it has been some years now..

I have been vacillating showing my face to a buddhist center or temple.

Always back out of it.

I think i fear community...because of what I imagine of as pressure to assimilate...

Eventhough i know i am pretty descent do-no-harm kind of guy.i'm constantly fearing that i will be judged..i can't relax much.. i feel pressure to please others..
It's not that i do not want to please others, i do but i tend to feel obligated by the very fact that i am there as part of that community and that makes me self suspicious of my own motives..that i am faking it..

so I have just kept my so-called practice to myself.. reading books and figuring things out on my own..this way.. i do not dount my motives..and i don't feel pressure to assimilate.

I need some prespective.. advice..

thanks for your attention.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 16 replies

Coyote in Tibetan Buddhism

LowKey_Loki — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 05:57:22 GMT

Hello all,

I was wondering if anyone had encountered any symbolic associations of the coyote in Tibetan Buddhism.

Peace,
Matt

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 10 replies

support for first Newari Buddhist temple in the US

yeshes devi — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:54:25 GMT

The first Newari Buddhist temple in the US has been completed in Portland, Oregon, and is about to be consecrated. In order to do so they are trying to bring a priest from Nepal to conduct the ceremonies, but he has twice now been denied a visa to the US. Below is an email I received this morning from Dance Mandal, the organization building the temple:

"Please support our efforts in bringing a priest from Nepal to perform the traditional 3 day consecration for the first Nepalese Buddhist Temple in the West! His visa has been denied twice by the US Embassy Officials stating that he has no evidence that he will return to Nepal. There is no attention paid to the appropriate documents provided and the Consular himself knows nothing of this case and the true facts.

There is very little time. Please demonstrate support by clicking on the link below and signing the petition today so that the Consular may understand the significance of our request.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/twice-denied-consecrating-the-first-nepalese-temple-in-the-west

You can also help through prayers for obstacles to be removed. Join us in spirit in Oregon this Weds. eve.

Thank you for listening and encouraging a fair chance in this process."

For more information also see http://dancemandal.com/

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Blessing Pills

Ngakpa Bill — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:00:08 GMT

Well, there are several kinds of blessing pills and Tibetan medicine. I will share the little bit that I know about this subject and hope that others expand on it.

There are Nectar pills, Namjom pills, Wisdom pills like Manjushri, Vajrayogini pills, Mani Pills, Longevity Pills, and many more names.

Precious Pills are a medicinal pill that actually have a seal of authenticity.

Most all fall into the category known as Chulen. Chu is the essential substance of the elements: it maintains the physical body and, if our energy is uncoordinated, it co-ordinates it, if it is weak, it reinforces it. Therefore, chulen is useful, above all, to harmonize energy and develop clarity.

The pills are made of up to 20-30 substances representing the elements’ essence. They are prescribed to ensure the 5 winds, 5 biles, and 5 phlegms remain in balance.

Imbalance is thought to cause disease.

These pills often contain the relics of previous great meditators and Tulkus as well as the elemental substance and herbs . They are made under special processes and ceremonies to imbibe and empower them with lineage blessings and compassionate curative powers.

Tibetan medicine also includes blowing on the affected part of the body (like LLDD’s head) to effect healing or pain relief. (Using compassion as the healing medium). Visualization is also part of the healing process.

I mentioned Karmapa pills in my last post…they are sometimes called Black Pills or Karmapa Black Hat Pills. I will copy an article on the Black pills under separate post if you are interested.

Happy Thursday!
Bill

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 5 replies

How to use a butter lamp

Thu, 18 May 2006 19:01:37 GMT

How do you use a butter lamp?. What do I use for a wick? Do I need a lid (mine didn't come with one)? Is the ghee that's sold at the local Indian food market usable as fuel?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 14 replies

Saraha and the Bengali siddha songs

sahajananda — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 16:40:50 GMT

In a recent thread here Saraha was mentioned a number of times.

I thought I'd start a thread to talk about Saraha and the cayragiti, vajragiti, and dohas of this and other siddhas. I hope others will join me.

On a somewhat related note, does anyone have any songs of prose writings from Jalandaripa? Anything in English or Tibetan would be fantastic, but really I'd appreciate anything regardless of language.

Warm Regards,
Ryan

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 48 replies

Female Buddhas

tulku for cocoa puffs! — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:56:40 GMT

I love female BUDDHAS. I was wondering if anyone could list some undisputed female BUDDHAS on here. I know of only Achi Chokyi Drolma and vajrayogini/vajravahari. Thanks.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 25 replies

Love

bugwitch — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:30:57 GMT

Okay...because I seem to be avoiding my BioChemistry homework still, I figured I would pose this little question to the brilliant minds here.

So...What's Love Got To Do With It?

Where does love fit into the practice of a buddhist/yogi/etc? What kind of love would you say qualifies as that which would benefit someones practice and what kinds of love should be avoided? Does love always breed attachment and as such a reluctance to surrender that which is the object of said love? Is it possible to feel that need for attachment, yet still be able to let go? Do we all run the risk of being Anakin Skywalker and going all crazy-homicidal?

What are your thoughts on these questions...and the concept of love in general?

Is it true? All you need is love?

okay...I'm done with the punns....now off to studying with hot tea in hand. :)

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 9 replies

One transmission for many empowerments?

tulku for cocoa puffs! — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:52:17 GMT

Recently K mentions that some yidam transmissions automatically give permissions for other yidams without recieving transmission. Is this true for all the lineages?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 7 replies

How to be a skillful killer? :)

tulku for cocoa puffs! — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:55:54 GMT

When I first took refuge I thought that I would not kill humans but I could still maim them if need be and that would be it. But later I learned the deeper meaning of equanamity and compassion in buddhism. I don't think it is possible to not be a killer. Just turning on hot water kills billions of little critters! In buddhism I was taught that if you are not aware of killing, the karmic result is not full and less. So it rewards ignorance because there was no intent. And sometimes killing is okay according to Karthar Rinpoche if there is a murderer entering a boat of bodhisattvas and his intent is to kill them all.

But I am not talking about being a noble bodhisattva protector killer, I am talking about bugs mostly. And I am concerned about my victims. I live in rural florida and they are everywhere! I went a year without killing any bugs intentionally. Then they got real bad and a tulku's momma told me it was okay to kill pesky bugs if you say chenrezig mantra before doing it. Other tibetan teachers told me that she was terribly mistaken!

What I do now is circle a stupa around the border of yard before I mow. Or circle a stupa around a victim before I have to kill it. I was just wondering if anyone had any better skillful advice since I don't know phowa yet. Thanks.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 12 replies

Buddhist sexual ethics

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:23:21 GMT

I have come to realize that i might just benefit greatly, and perhaps others as well, if there where some resources on the sexual ethics of Buddhist.

Ideally, i would like to read exemplified case studies on the matter.

What I have read thus far, has been rather general and i will like to gain insights into how it works for some adepts.

Thank you kindly...

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 28 replies

The Elephant Headed God : Ganesh / Ganapati in pre Vedic India, Vedic India, and Buddhist tantra.

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:41:36 GMT

The Elephant Headed God : Ganesh / Ganapati in pre Vedic India, Vedic India, and Buddhist tantra.

From tribe Buddhism:
http://zenbuddhism.tribe.net/thread/989ff1b7-12be-49b7-b950-0a064744c6af

Re Qatana:
"Um, Ganesh is a HINDU deity, far pre-dating the Buddha, and has absolutely nothing to do with Buddhist philosphy or practices. Ganapati is a HINDU puja."

Qatana, you are quite wrong.

I have a Hindu empowerment of the Thousand Names of Ganapati / Ganesh. I also have two empowerments of Ganapati in the Indo-Tibetan tradition of the Sakya School, which is one of the major schools of Buddhist tantra.

The "Buddhist Ganapati" is significant in both the Sakya and Gelugpa schools of "Tibetan Buddhism". It is one of several significant Hindu-derived or Hindu-like deity yogas in Buddhist tantra, which on a practical functioning level is largely polytheistic.

You can see a short ( restricted to initiates ) Ganapati practice available for sale on the Gelugpa web site
www.fpmt.org

The Buddhist Ganapati is also known in classical Indo-Chinese-Japanese tantra of the Shingon school. This means Buddhist Ganapati travelled to Japan SEPARATELY from the central Asian Nepalese Tibetan connection. Thus it is guaranteed to have been practiced by Buddhists in ancient India before the development of "Tibetan Buddhism", and independently of "Tibetan Buddhism".

Similarly, I have a Saraswati ( Hindu Goddess of Learning ) empowerment in the Sakya tradition. But the Buddhist tantric Saraswati is distinctly Buddhist in terms of the practice, and does not conform to the classical Hindu mode of practice.

For example, the Hindu Saraswati has the basis seed syllable AYIM. The Buddhist Saraswati has the syllable HRI. So they look and function very similarly, but they are definitely not identical.

Note also the Hindu Ganapati has the basis seed syllable GAM. The Buddhist Ganapati has the syllable GAH. So they look and function very similarly as well. But all Buddhist tantric practices, such as Buddhist Saraswati and Buddhist Ganapati, are given always and only in the context of Buddhist Mahayana refuge vows.

It is incorrect to say that Ganapati was originally a Vedic Hindu deity. Ganapati far precedes the rise of Vedic culture in ancient India. Ganapati is a pre-Vedic indigenous archetype and deity, later incorporated into Vedic practice, like many diverse local village forms of "the Great Goddess".

Thus, Ganapati is pre-Hindu, Hindu, and Buddhist all at the same time.

Tantric Buddhist Ganapati in the Sakya School is, according to the rite of initiation, a sub-manifestation of Amitabha Buddha as Avalokitesvara ( "Chenresig" ). He is Twelve Armed and crowned by Amitabha Buddha. This may not be true of the Japanese Shingon school of tantra.

Current Hindu scholarship admits that the tantric Buddhists claim Twelve Armed Red Ganapati - the form I have received repeatedly from the Sakya school - may well be Buddhist in origin. The Ganapati Hrdaya Mantra follows a more Buddhist structure and clearly relies on the seed syllable GAH, rather than the seed syllable GAM characteristic of Hindu Ganapati practice. The Hindu scholars admit that Buddhists claim the Ganapati Hrdaya mantra as being Buddhist in origin, not Hindu in origin. They do not necessarily accept the claim, but it is quite reasonable.

Several Buddhist deities have become part of the Hindu pantheon, including Avalokitesvara and the Goddess Vasudhara. This is accepted in modern independent university scholarship.

Sometimes the Hindu Ganapati is seen as opposing Buddhist teaching and practice. There is a form of Six Armed Mahakala, a primary Buddhist protector deity, which tramples on a two armed Hindu Ganesh. I have that empowerment twice from the great Kagyu master Kalu Rinbochay.

Thus, Ganapati is found in three of the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the Kagyu, the Gelugpa, and the Sakya, as well as in the independently derived Japanese Buddhist school of Shingon. Buddhist Red Twelve Armed Ganapati is also known in Nepal. Thus the Buddhist lineages of Ganapati spread across all of northern Asia.

Buddhist Twelve Armed Red Ganapati has been repeatedly given in San Francisco ( 2x ), Vancouver BC ( 3x ), and in Seattle Washington ( 3x ), foe eight times total. I am directly connected with all three of the relevant local fellowships, which are all Sakya / Tibetan lineage.

I have written on Buddhist and Hindu Ganapati, here and elsewhere, to demonstrate one of the key links between Hindu tantra and Buddhist tantra. This is straightforward, but obviously has been questioned and/ or attacked by some ignorant people, some very ignorant and even aggressive people.

There are quite a few people here and there who have either the Buddhist or Hindu transmission of Ganapati. Almost no one except myself has both.

I understand your confusion on this point. The difference is that I am a published Buddhist liturgical scholar and tantric Buddhist guru. You have been answered.

There are quite a few "yoga teachers" on tribe.net, but few know or use Ganapati practice. Ganapati is key to the Hindu systems of practice, and it is typical for any Hindu rite to begin with a Ganapati practice.

The point here is that Buddhists also have a distinct and well-developed Ganapati transmission and practice. It is an effective practice, I have a connection with Ganapati, through my original Buddhist Sakya transmission, not through the later Hindu Thousand Names of Ganapati ( received from Vedacarya Ashley-Farrand ).

Buddhists and Hindus share a tremendous amount of spiritual culture, not just Ganapati and Saraswati and Tara and so forth. This is in direct contrast to the complete gap between Hindu-Buddhist culture and monotheistic culture, Islam in particular. That is the real point.

All the Hindu and Buddhist practices of Tara are completely unacceptable in Islamic totalitarian culture. That means all of Tibetan culture, all tantric culture, and all Goddess practice is illegal under the arbitrary law known as Islamic Sharia.

In contrast to this, I support a broad range of non Buddhist as well as Buddhist practices, including some Hindu, some Taoist, some Shinto, some native American, and some shamanic practices. I have strong connections with all of these.

I am an individually licensed tantric Buddhist guru and a Pipe Carrier of the Lakota Sioux. I practice for All Our Relations. I know my stuff, and I'm here to help people make valid and worthwhi;e connections, both outer and inner. That's my job.

Some practices, like Ganapati and Tara Devi, and also Ayurveda, are demonstrably major bridges between Buddhist and Hindu lineages of classical tantric and yogic culture. Thus, I emphasize these to show the commonality in a world where "religion" is too often employed to divide and disempower people, to oppress and hurt, and to destroy classical culture, and spiritual culture in particular.

As Sting has pointed out:
There is no religon in the path of hatred.

Now you know. And since I make detailed responses to challenges to these my teaching posts, this communication is clearly not spam. Instead, it is help and an effective means of building bridges among different tribes and cultures.

For more details on Ganapati practice, both Hindu and Buddhist, see
http://ganesh.tribe.net/thread/1b62bb97-6b82-46f1-be58-475d29bb211e

Sarva mangalam! Siddhi rastu!

KT

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Magical Nectar: Advice for a Disciple from Dudjom Rinpoche

Cliff — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:33:18 GMT

Magical Nectar: Advice for a Disciple

Namo!
Gracious Lord of all the Buddha Families,
The nature and embodiment of every refuge,
To you, the Lotus-Born, my jeweled crown, I bow in homage!

If I were to instruct others in the excellent way, who on earth would
listen? For I am wholly without discrimination and cannot be a guide
even for myself! Still, you see me with pure vision and you did ask.
So rather than being a disappointment, I will say a few things as they
come to mind.

All success, great and small, whether in spiritual or temporal
affairs, derives from your stock of merit. So never neglect even the
slightest positive deed. Just do it. In the same way, don't dismiss
your little faults as unimportant; just restrain yourself! Make an
effort to accumulate merit: make offerings and give in charity. Strive
with a good heart to do everything that benefits others. Follow in the
footsteps of the wise and examine finely everything you do. Do not be
the slave of unexamined fashions. Be sparing with your words. Be
thoughtful rather, and examine situations carefully. For the roots of
discrimination must be nourished: the desire to do all that should be
done and to abandon all that should be abandoned.

Do not criticize the wise or be sarcastic about them. Rid yourself
completely of every feeling of jealous rivalry. Do not despise the
ignorant, turning away from them with haughty arrogance. Give up your
pride. Give up your self-importance. All this is essential. Understand
that you owe your life to the kindness of your parents. Therefore do
not grieve them but fulfill their wishes. Show courtesy and
consideration to all who depend on you. Instill in them a sense of
goodness and instruct them in the practice of virtue and the avoidance
of evil. Be patient with their little shortcomings and restrain your
bad temper, remembering that it only takes the tiniest thing to ruin a
good situation.

Do not consort with narrow-minded people, nor place your trust in new
and untried companions. Make friends with honest people who are
intelligent and prudent and have a sense of propriety and courtesy.
Don't keep company with bad people, who care nothing about karma, who
lie and cheat and steal. Distance yourself, but do it skillfully. Do
not rely on people who say sweet things to your face and do the
reverse behind your back.

As for yourself, be constant amid the ebb and flow of happiness and
suffering. Be friendly and even with others. Unguarded, intemperate
chatter will put you in their power; excessive silence may leave them
unclear as to what you mean. So keep a middle course: don't swagger
with self-confidence, but don't be a doormat either. Don't run after
gossip without examining the truth of it. People who know how to keep
their mouths shut are rare. So don't chatter about your wishes and
intentions; keep them to yourself. And whether you are speaking to an
enemy, an acquaintance or a friend, never break a confidence.

Be welcoming with people, and smile and talk pleasantly. And keep to
your position. Be respectful towards your superiors, even when things
do not go well for them. Don't scorn them. At the same time, don't bow
and scrape before the vulgar, even when they are proud and full of
themselves.

Be skillful in not making promises that you know you cannot keep. By
the same token, honor the promises you have made, and never dismiss
them as unimportant. Do not be depressed by misfortune and the failure
to get what you want. Instead be careful to see where your real profit
and loss lie.

All such worldly conduct, adopted with proper discrimination, will
result in this life's fortune and prosperity and, so it is said, a
speedy passage to the divine realms.

If, however, you want to get out of samsara completely, here is some
advice that should help you on your way to liberation.

If you have no contentment, you are poor no matter how much money you
have. So decide that you have enough, and rid yourself of yearning and
attachment. It's a rare person indeed who knows that wealth is passing
and unstable and who can therefore practice perfect generosity. For
even those who do practice it, generosity is often soiled by the three
impurities and is wasted, like good food mixed with poison.

Apart from the beings agonizing in hell, there is no one in samsara
who does not cherish life. Now, of the seven excellencies of the
higher realms, longevity is a karmic effect similar to its cause.
Therefore, if you want to live long protect the lives of others;
concentrate on doing this!

Cultivate faith and devotion to the Three Jewels and to your teacher!
Strive in the ten virtues and combine clear intelligence with
extensive learning. And nurture a sense of personal integrity and
propriety with regard to others. With these seven sublime riches you
will always be happy!

To gain peace and happiness for oneself is the hinayana approach of
the Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas. The altruism of bodhichitta is the
path of beings of great potential. Therefore train yourself in the
deeds of bodhisattvas, and do this on a grand scale! Shoulder the
responsibility of freeing all beings from samsara. Of all the eighty-
four thousand sections of the Buddha's teachings, there is nothing
more profound than bodhichitta. Therefore make every effort on the
path, uniting absolute and relative bodhichitta, which distills the
essence of all the sutras and the tantras. The subduing of one's own
mind is the root of dharma. When the mind is controlled, defilements
naturally subside.

Do not allow yourself to become impervious and blasé with regard to
the dharma; do not lead yourself astray. Let the profound dharma sink
into your mind. Now that you have obtained this excellent life, so
hard to find, now that you have the freedom to practice the teachings,
don't waste your time. Strive to accomplish the supreme, unchanging
goal. For life is passing, and there is no certainty about the time of
death. Even if you are to die tomorrow, you should have confidence and
be without regret.

Therefore, cultivate a real devotion for your root teacher, and love
your vajra kindred, cultivating pure perception in their regard.
Fortunate are those disciples who at all times keep their samaya and
vows as dearly as their lives. They gain accomplishment quickly.

Ignorance, the five poisons, doubt and dualistic clinging are the
roots of samsara, and the sufferings of the three realms. To this
there is one antidote that removes or "liberates" everything in a
single stroke. It is spontaneous wisdom, the primal wisdom of
awareness. Be confident, therefore, in the generation stage:
appearances, sounds and thoughts are but the primordial display of
deity, mantra and primal wisdom. Then settle in the
"subsequent" (anuyoga) path of the three specific perceptions, the
perfection stage, the state of bliss and emptiness.

Take your stand on the ultimate practice of the Heart Essence—samsara
and nirvana are the display of awareness. Without distraction, without
meditation, in a state of natural relaxation, constantly remain in the
pure, all-penetrating nakedness of ultimate reality.

Dudjom Rinpoche

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

mantra and siddhi

LowKey_Loki — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:11:46 GMT

Hello,

It seems in the texts I have encountered it usually says that one needs to recite a mantra at least a million times or more before "definite signs will occur." This was referring to the "approach" mantra, while the accomplishment and activity mantras followed. Has anyone actually gone far enough to know what happens when you recite a million mantras? Do you obtain definite siddhis?

I am struggling with this aspect of my practice. I believe in bodhicitta and the power of meditation based on my own experience, but it is harder to have faith in the deity and mantra practices without much experience of the results they produce even after a few years of practice. Early on I had an amazing experience with mantra recitation that was totally undeniable, but I feel like I am still riding on that for my faith in the recitation of mantras, etc. It was probably the most amazing thing I've experienced (outside of a peyote ceremony, anyways!) but it is hard to rely on just one experience to know something so far out is true.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 67 replies

Favorite Quotes of Tibetan masters

Ngakpa Bill — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:21:52 GMT

Do you have a favorite quote you would like to share with the group?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 2 replies

Rangjung Yeshe Institute--Shedra now on-line!

Sarah — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:40:28 GMT

"Welcome to CBS ONLINE, the Online Learning site for Rangjung Yeshe Institute and the Centre for Buddhist Studies at Kathmandu University. Rangjung Yeshe Institute’s Centre for Buddhist Studies (RYI, CBS) is based in Boudhanath, Kathmandu, Nepal, where we offer a program that combines traditional monastic and western academic education, allowing our students to experience the diversity and depth of two complementary scholarly traditions in their pursuit of Buddhist Studies.

We begin our Online Learning journey with an exposition of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā by Nāgārjuna, a classic Buddhist text that uses logic to challenge all of our assumptions about the nature of reality. This text is thaught over the span of two semesters. The course offered during the Fall semester covers the first half of the text, and runs from August 31, 2009 until December 11, 2009. The second half of the text will be thaught during the Spring semester, which begins January 11, 2010 and ends April 23. The Interactive versions of this semester's course includes all of the course material taught in this class at RYI and CBS in Boudhanath, Nepal, plus additional materials prepared especially for the online course...."

Here's the link: http://www.shedra.org/moodle/

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Things to do for a dead pet?

Grihastha — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:59:15 GMT

Hello all,

I'm seeking some practical advice. My dog was hit by a car yesterday and killed. I got there just too late. I said the Jewel In The Lotus over him and told him to find a good rebirth - a human rebirth, and did the same when we buried him.

Can I do anything else for my old friend?

Blessings,

Pip

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 4 replies

How to benefit from high teachings

Mark108 — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:46:46 GMT

The following is advice of H. H. Namhka Drimed Rinpoche
mainly on receiving Dzogchen, but It applies to Tantra too:

The core quality a student must have is unwavering faith, devotion
and trust in the Lama. One should be without any doubt in the Lama.
One should know that the Lama is always working for their benefit and
that whatever the Lama tells the student is best for the student.

One should feel as if this Lama is their root Lama in this lifetime and in
all other lifetimes to come. The proper view that one must have is that the
Lama is equal and the exact same as the Buddha. Even though the Buddha
had unfathomable kindness and compassion, he is not here today to give
these teachings to us. Therefore, in a way the Lama has more kindness and
compassion, as it is through the Lama that we are able to receive these
teachings that will swiftly bring us to enlightenment, so the Lama is equal to
that of the Buddha.

While there are many kinds of teachers that one has along the path, and one
may receive many teachings and empowerments from many different teachers;
it is only through one’s Root Lama that one can and is actually introduced to the
essence of one’s own mind (DzogChen). The Root Lama is the one who is able
to give us the proper view to look into our own mind. This proper view into our
own mind is what allows us to reach enlightenment.

In order to achieve this view of DzogChen, it is necessary for the student to have
many pure qualities. These pure qualities can be and are developed through
the practice of Ngordro, that is why it is of particular important for one to have
completed Ngordro prior to receiving any of the higher teachings. In order for a
student to truly receive the highest teaching Dzochen, one must have ALL
of the following qualities:

1. A student should never have any doubts about the teacher or the teachings.

2. A student should always trust the teacher and what the teacher has said is
for the benefit of the student. No matter what the teacher has said, whether it is
something that the student wants to hear or not, the student should have faith in
what the teacher is saying and take to heart what has been said.

3. The student should have devotion to the Teacher and Teachings
without any conditions.

4. The student must see the teacher as their ultimate Root Lama in
this lifetime and all other lifetimes.

5. The student should be motivated not just for the benefit of oneself
but for the benefit of all sentient beings. The student should be receiving
the teachings with aspirations that all beings are able to benefit from
these teachings.

6. The student should have great regards for the laws of causes and
effects, karma, and understand the relations between cause and effect.

7. The student should be someone who understands the meaning of
impermanence and is aware of the impermanence in their life.

8. The student should contemplate the meaning of karma and
impermanence at all times and be aware of the influences of karma
and impermanence at all times.

9. The students mind should be totally dedicated to the dharma.

10. The student should have very little attachment to samsara.

11. The student should have great diligence in studying the dharma.

12. The student should have great compassion towards all sentient beings.

13. The student should be very kind and have a caring mind.

14. The student should also have a sharp mind, that has wisdom,
but not sharp in the sense as to over think about things.

15. The student should have great regard to uphold their samaya
(or practice commitments)

16. The student should be someone who does not speak a lot,
is reserve in speech, and does not distort what others say.

17. The student should not be caught up in the distraction of the
world and should be focused on the dharma.

18. The student should want to practice the dharma.

19. The student should be someone who can control non-virtuous
actions and know that such actions are poison.

20. The student should be someone who has a spacious and
courageous mind as it is a prerequisite to receiving the highest
teachings.

21. The student should be someone who ultimately understands
that the whole purpose of life and the dharma is to achieve enlightenment.

If someone has all of these qualities, then they are a perfect and qualified
vessel to receive the highest teachings DzogChen. In conclusion, in order
to truly receive the DzogChen teaching the student must have complete
faith and trust in the teacher.

###

What do you think? How are we doing?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 1 reply

Small change on TB Tribe

Mark108 — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:23:51 GMT

Dear Dharma friends:

I want to take this opportunity to share my appreciation
to those of you who share sincerely-- in a real dharma
spirit, ask questions, answer what with what you know
and honestly say "I don't know" where that's the case.
This forum has been resource for Buddhists and
those exploring becoming Buddhist, nothing airy-fairy
or new-agey here. I have to acknowledge Barnaby in
setting the tone long before I arrived on the scene. I never
asked to lead this, rather when he wanted to retire from
Tibetan Buddhism Tribe, he asked me to fill his shoes.

Some of you are really awesome in terms of knowledge
and experience, some are Sanskrit or Tibetan scholars,
some are Tibetologists with advanced degrees from western
Universities. Others have many months or years of retreat.

I want you to know that near the end of this month, I am
going on a short solitary retreat-- only four months. I'm
delighted at this small opportunity. So please, in my absence,
play nice!

I've invited a couple of really knowledgeable people to join
this tribe. In fact they've been lurking for months. They have
my complete respect and trust not only as dharma "students"
of really great Lamas but also as practitioners. So when you
meet either Lama Thubten or Ngakpa Bill here please
appreciate that they are not by any means self-ordained,
self-appointed, frauds or the like. They are bona fide disciples
of masters like His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, the Khenpo
Brothers, Chogyal Namkhai Nobu Rinpoche, His Holines the
Drikung Chetsang Rinpoche, etc.

Assuming that impermanence doesn't get us, we'll be chatting
again after Jan 1 of the new year.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 7 replies

Om Ah Hum, May all be limitless liberation

nigels_abodh — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 05:16:46 GMT

Many praises to Lordess Tara!

O! How I love the Dharma!
It is the constant source of endless joy, indubitably.

My words are not poetry like the masters of the tradition, and all of them have been said before in one way or another.
May all beings have access to the Dharma
even when it seems like they are in the disconnected family
may they all be blessed with infinite opportunities in this lifetime
to cast away the confusion, and realize the two-in-one mind.
Also may all beings who are attached to the Samboghakaya forms,
distinguishing between "this is me" and "this is not me",
taking their lives to be a shakespearean monologue,
be liberated at once, and may they realize the clear state of Dharmadhatu in this precious vessel.

May the perfect dharmas of the Mila Grubum and the Bodhisattvacarya be passed on to and assimilated by all
who have an interest in stepping off the hamster wheel of samsara.
And those who have already realized the great perfection as it is, stay with us a bit longer, please?

May we all have long life, free from suffering, attachment, aversion, greed, envy, false pride, and ignorant blindness.
and all who read this post, may you have the timely blessings of Padmasambhava,
with faith in the lotus born, he can grant all your wishes in this timezone of great decrepitude and materialist sludge mentalities.

Om Swasti! Siddhi rastu! AH HO YE

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

PRANA

tulku for cocoa puffs! — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:34:59 GMT

I can see prana in the air but only in the blue sky part, if there is a tree or something blocking sky they don't appear in that line of sight. They look as if close right in face but if I put hand far in front of vision they don't appear in that line of sight. Is this just my bad eyes playing tricks or is it because the sun is blocked? Why are they sqiggly and moving, appearing and dissappearing, with a bright point of light like a fiber-optic going down length of squiggly?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 3 replies

reality and perception, lineage and the heart's true release

Ash — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:41:07 GMT

From reading thinly Norbu's WHITE SAIL I get from him a sense that. "reality" is but a very convincing perception. The more ways in which a perception can be verified the more convincing it is to be a reality. The more people that have the same perception the more real and substantial it appears.

But if a "reality" that thousands or more hold feels wrong to me then I start to think that there is a flaw in this "reality" and now I start to label it a popular but flawed perception. I start to realize that every perception I have encountered is a flawed model. This means that every reality can be proven to be a flawed perception. So then no matter how many ways a perception can be verified, flaws can always be found in the reality as it is labelled.

Then I had to realign my criteria by which I gauge the value of a perception:

It must be believable
It must not feel wrong
It must make me feel alive
It must make me feel peaceful
It must make me cherish myself and others
It must make me feel amorous

It is because my perception (reality) must serve me, not someone else. What my study of Buddhism taught me is that I can have limitless influence over my perception by practicing focus of intellect consistently.

I can suspend disbelief in the above by noting the develpment of neural pathways as seen in structural differencres on CT or PET scans of brains of musicians compared to abused children of the same age. I find this extremely convincing, to the point that I don't doubt it

Focus of intellect changes the brain. MY reality. And it is a good one for me. It empowers me. there are 2,500 years of practice by millions of people (Buddhists) to further verify it. And the goal is the true heart's release to feel the joy or pain of the moment, staying in the moment aware of being alive and feeling the life around me.

I get affirmation from the teaching of following a path with heart. Buddhist tradition: If you follow a path with heart (The above) then it is worthwhile, if it doesn't have heart then it is of no use. So in translation if someone tells you that you should live a certain way and it feels wrong to you and it does not make you feel alive and free and amorous, then it is a useless perception.

What I am struggling with, however, Is the author's apparent prioritization of the lineage of teachers over how beneficially a perception serves one's heart.. I feel he doesn't connect with what releases my heart and his perception which he claims is flawless, actually suffocates it.

Love and compassion,

Ash

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 15 replies

Youtube and Yoga

sahajananda — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:13:50 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSyqAJUYJdk
A video discussing the Five Root Yantras (rtsa ba´i ´khrul ´khor lnga) from the _byung ba´i thig le_ section of the Tibetan tantra called _ma rgyud songs rgyas rgyud gsum rtsa 'grel_ as well as yantras from the text _ rdzogs pa chen po sku gsum rang shar las bogs ´don ´khrul ´khor sgyu ma´i rol mo_

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk4NIQL6s2c
A demonstration of numerous yantra methods (rlung ro bsal ba, tshigs sbyong lnga, rlung bsang brgyad, dung, gri gug, phur bu, and sdom) from the an eighth century text by Vairocana called _‘phrul ‘khor nyi zla kha sbyor bzhugs so_

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG6w036k8u4
An impressive demonstration by a Tibetan teacher( spyan snga rin po che) of a yantra-yoga method discussed in the Tibetan text _bde mchog snyan rgyud kyi rtsa rlung 'khrul 'khor gyi skor_.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-wuOYlxMSY
A clip from a program on History Channel. Shows Bensons’s scientific measurements of the “inner fire” method taught in a text called _rdzogs pa chen po sku gsum rang shar las thun mong gtummo'i nyams len ye shes me dpung bzhugs so_

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbB6r4p6BJk
In this video a teacher (slob dpon bsod nams bzang po) supervises three yogis doing yantra, and later another teacher (a pho rin po che), who the video says is about 90 years old, also does yantra.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 1 reply

Reiteration of Policy

Mark108 — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 03:27:20 GMT

This tribe is a resource for Tibetan Buddhists
and those exploring the possibility of becoming
Tibetan Buddhists. We honestly discuss many
points of Sutra and Tantra, we do not criticize
genuine Lamas, practices or practitioners.
Rather, we support and encourage the Triple
Gem; Lama, Yidam and Khandro; the study
and practice of the teachings.

A person who recently came here and spoke
disrespectfully of Buddhadharma has left this
tribe, the topics have been removed.

We now return to our usual programming. :)
May all beings benefit.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

New Free Materials Available (Vajrayana)

sahajananda — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:25:09 GMT

Some New Materials are available as http://vajrayana.faithweb.com

7-23-09

Added a copy of Albion M. Butters' doctoral dissertation _The Doxographical Genius of Kun mkhyen kLong chen rab 'byams pa_ to the Nyingma Studies page

7-23-09

Added a copy of Janet Gyatso’s doctoral dissertation _A Literary Transmission of the Traditions of Thang-Stong rGyal-Po: A Study of Visionary Buddhism in Tibet_ to the Nyingma Studies page

7-23-09

Added a copy of Mihai Derbac’s master’s thesis _rNying ma’I rgyud ‘bum: A Tibetan Buddhist Canon_ to the Nyingma Studies page

7-23-09

Added a copy of Gregory Alexander Hillis’ doctoral dissertation _The Rhetoric of Naturalness: A Critical Study of the gNas lugs mdzod_ to the Nyingma Studies page

7-23-09

Added a copy of Jean-Luc Achard’s article _The Tibetan Tradition of the Great Perfection_ to the Nyingma Studies page

7-23-09

Added a copy of Jacob Dalton’s article The Development of Perfection: The Interiorization of Buddhist Ritual in the Eight and Ninth Centuries._ to the Nyingma Studies page

7-23-09

Added a copy of Vanessa R. Sasson’s master’s thesis _Compassion in the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the Tractate Mourning: A comparative Study_ to the Nyingma Studies page

7-23-09

Added a copy of Daniel Scheidegger’s article _Different Sets of Light-Channels in the Instruction Series of Rdzogs chen_ to the Nyingma Studies page

7-23-09

Added a copy of Daniel Scheidegger’s article _Lamps in the Leaping Over_ to the Nyingma Studies page

7-23-09

Added a copy of David Germano’s article _The Funerary Transformation of the Great Perfection (Rdzogs chen)_ to the Nyingma Studies page

7-23-09

Added a copy of Lara E. Braistein’s doctoral dissertation _Saraha’s Adamantine Songs: Texts, Contexts, Translations and traditions of the Great Seal_ to the Caryagiti page.

7-23-09

Added a copy of Kurtis R. Schaeffer’s doctoral dissertation _Tales of the Great Brahmin: Creative traditions of the Buddhist Poet-Saint Saraha_ to the Caryagiti page

7-23-09

Added a copy of Dale Allen Tadaro’s doctoral dissertation _An Annotated Translation of the Tattvasamgraha (Part 1) with an Explanation of the Role of the Tattvasamgraha Lineage in the Teachings of Kukai_ to “The Archive”

7-23-09

Added a copy of Carol Diane Savvas’ doctoral dissertation _A Study of the Profound Path of gCod: The Mahayana Buddhist Tradition of Tibet’s Great Woman Saint Machig Labdron_ to “The Archive”

7-23-09

Added a copy of Massimo Facchini’s article _The Spiritual Heritage of Ma Gcig Lab Sgron_ to “The Archive”

7-23-09

Added a copy of Janet Gyatso’s article _Healing Burns with Fire: The Facilitations of Experience in Tibetan Buddhism_ to “The Archive”

7-23-09

Added a copy of Paul J. Griffiths’ doctoral dissertation _Indian Buddhist Meditation-Theory: History, Development and Systemization_ to “The Archive”. It looks at a variety of “psychotropic techniques” for producing altered states of consciousness that were used in Buddhist practice.

7-23-09

Added a copy of Daniel Gold and Ann Grodzins Gold’s article _The Fate of the Householder Nath_ to “The Archive”

7-23-09

Added a copy of Alex Wayman’s article _Female Energy and Symbolism in the Buddhist Tantras_ to “The Archive”

7-23-09

Added a copy of Michael M. Broido’s article _Padma Dkar-Po on Tantra as Ground, Path and Goal (1) _ to “The Archive”

7-23-09

Added a copy of Michael M. Broido’s article _Padma Dkar-Po on Tantra as Ground, Path and Goal (2)_ to “The Archive"

7-23-09

Added a copy of Jeffery Hopkins’ article _Tantric Buddhism, Degeneration or Enhancement: The Viewpoint of a Tibetan Tradition_ to “The Archive”

7-23-09

Added a copy of B. Ghosh’s article _Emergence of the Kalacakratantra_ to the Kalachakra page

7-23-09

Added a copy of Victoria Dmitrieva’s master’s thesis _The Legend of Shambhala in Eastern and Western Interpretations_ to the Kalachakra page

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 1 reply

2009 U.S. Teaching Schedule For H.E. Gochen Tulku Sang Ngak ( Tibetan Buddhist Nyingma lineage )

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:16:23 GMT

2009 U.S. Teaching Schedule For H.E. Gochen Tulku Sang Ngak ( Tibetan Buddhist Nyingma lineage )

Keywords: Nyingma, Great Perfection / Dzogchen, tantric transmissions and retreats, H.E. Gochen Tulku Sang Ngak, Ewam USA.

Here I provide details on the current 2009 teaching schedule, practice centers, and background for H.E. Gochen Tulku, a most accomplished Tibetan yogi.

His Eminence is a major teacher and incarnate guru in the Earlier Transmission ( Nyingma ) of Buddhist tantra into Tibet from India, as established by the Great Guru Padmasambhava, in particular of the Primordial Awareness Yoga known as "Atiyoga", that is, the Great Perfection, a.k.a. "Dzogchen" in Tibetan ).

For more information on esoteric Buddhist tantra in the form of Nyingma and Dzogchen materials, see Snow Lion Publications online
http://www.snowlionpub.com/
and the book
"The Crystal and the Way of Light", by Namkhai Norbu.

For current information on H.E. Gochen Tulku, his Evam USA organization and their projects and teaching schedules, see
http://www.ewam.org/

H.E. Gochen Tulku is a lineage holder and has even transmitted a major tantric / atiyoga cycle TO H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinbochay, but is not yet well known in the West. He is nevertheless a very important teacher in several western Nyingma fellowships such as Chagdud Gonpa Foundation and the Dudjom Yeshe Nyingpo.

I have seen this teacher several times from 1997 to 2000, and received numerous major transmissions, including some that are both extremely rare and very powerful. He is truly extraordinary and I strongly recommend him to those who wish to connect with the inner Early Transmission and the Great Perfection.

This year he is teaching in Montana, Colorado, and California ( see below ). This schedule includes extraordinary healing practice ( Vajra Armor ), and extraordinary goddess yoga ( White Dakini ). Note that I do *not* represent this teacher, and schedule details are subject to change.

The merit of sharing this teaching is dedicated to the life and spiritual work of H.E. Gochen Tulku, with great gratitude, and to the continued development of these tantric lineages, with the hope that it will be profoundly beneficial to many.

Sarva mangalam. Siddhi rastu!

KT

"Tulku Sang ngag Rinpoche, the sixth Gochen Tulku, is an incarnation of Gyalwa Chokyang, one of the close disciples of Padmasambhava. Recognized at the age of three, Rinpoche began learning religious rituals and liturgies, as well as traditional Tibetan medicine, at an early age.

"Rinpoche met his root guru, Tulku Orgyen Chemchok, in a Chinese prison where he was held for nine years. Here he received teachings and secret transmissions. Upon release, Rinpoche met his other root teacher, H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, with whom he traveled, studied, and practiced intensively for nearly fourteen years.

Rinpoche teaches worldwide and oversees his two retreat centers in Pharping: Yuloko Nunnery and Phurpaling, a dharma center in Taiwan and his U.S. retreat center, Ewam Sang-ngag Ling, located in Arlee, Montana."

Contact info

- - Ewam USA - -

Sang-ngag Ling - Arlee, Montana
406-726-0217

PO Box 330
34574 White Coyote Road
Arlee, MT 59821
ewammontana@blackfoot.net

Samten Ling - Tuolumne, California
(near Sonora)
209-928-1326
michaelirw@mlode.com

- - Ewam Nepal - -

Phurba Sang-ngag Ling
Phone: 977-1-4710-093

Turquoise Leaf Nunnery/Yuloko
Phone: 977-1-4710-094

To contact Nepal Centers:
P.O.B. 7032
Devi G.B.S. Pharping
Kathmandu, Nepal
e-mail for both: ewamnepal@hotmail.com

- - Ewam Asia - -

Ewam Phurba Ling Taiwan
Dr. Choeji Lodoe Tashi
1F and 4F, No. 76, Sec 1. Hsiu Lang Rd
Yung Ho City, Taipei Hsien, Taiwan
Phone: (02)2928-7993 - (02)2920-5294

Ewam Taichung
Dr. Choeji Lodoe Tashi
F3, No. 105 Nan Yang Rd
Feng Yuan City, Taichung, Taiwan
Phone: 886-4-2529-5973

Ewam Hong Kong
Flat F, 18/F. Block 1, Pierhead Garden
Tuen Mun, NT, Hong Kong

-------------------------------------------------

Schedule for H.E. Gochen Tulku Sang Ngak for 2009

Buddhahood Without Meditation

Sept 8-15th, Arlee Montana
http://www.ewam.org
http://www.ewam.org/pages/directions.php

Please register by August 1st, to register and pay for this retreat, click here, see below for retreat costs. This is a restricted retreat so please contact Devi in the office for more information at 406-726-0217.

Widely known by its subtitle, Nang-jang (Refining Apparent Phenomena), presents the view of the Great Perfection through the approach known as t'hreg-chhod (cutting through solidity). The nineteenth-century master Dudjom Lingpa received these teachings in visionary dialogue with fourteen enlightened beings, including Avalokiteshvara, Vajrapani, Longchenpa, and Saraha.- The Dudjom lineage, based on the terma, or hidden treasures, revealed by Dudjom Lingpa and his immediate rebirth, His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche (1904-1987), late head of the Nyingma school of Buddhism, is one of the principal modern lineages of Dzogchen Transmission.

RETREAT COSTS:
Non-Member $560.00
Non-Member/Camping $505.00

Member $476.00
Member/Camping $428.00

White Dakini Drub Chen
with Tulku Sang ngag Rinpoche & Lama Tsultrim Allione
August 23 - 31, 2009

Tara Mandala Colorado
See http://www.taramandala.org/

White Dakini Drub Chen. For the first time in the West a Drub Chen (Great Accomplishment Ceremony) of the White Dakini ( White Goddess ) practice from Do Khyentse’s Dzinpa Rangdröl (Self-Liberation from Fixation) treasure cycle will be performed. This lineage comes directly from Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche to Tulku Sang ngag who will be the Vajra Master at the Drub Chen.

We will experience a traditional empowerment given by Tulku Sang ngag, and we will be lead through an in depth process of learning and practicing the White Dakini mandala. This White Dakini practice is the union of Machig Labdron and Yeshe Tsogyel surrounded by the dakinis of the five families. During the retreat, in addition to the precious teachings from Tulku Sang gnag, Lama Tsultrim will help frame the experience through discussion and further teachings.

The White Dakini practice will be established as a key practice at Tara Mandala and links directly to Machig through Yeshe Tsogyel, her previous incarnation. This is an opportunity to be in the first group receiving this lineage transmission and is open to anyone interested. In addition, it is a strictly closed retreat and requires intensive practice and the ability to hold the container.

During the Drub Chen traditional instruments will be played, a mandala will be created, and continual mantra recitation will occur. The participants will experience deep immersion in the Vajra world. This is an exciting deepening of the tradition at Tara Mandala and we encourage everyone drawn to be here to come. Mipham Rinpoche said, ”One Drub Chen is equal to seven years of solitary retreat.”

Price
Double: $1,553 - $965
Queen Double: $1,575 - $1,080 - SOLD OUT
Queen Single: $1,685 - $1,190 - SOLD OUT
Camping: $925 - $650
Suggested Dana: $160 - $320

Guya Garbha ( Hundred Deities / Bardo ) – Shedra Retreat

Sept 20-27th
Arlee Montana
http://www.ewam.org
http://www.ewam.org/pages/directions.php

Prerequisites for these teachings are the prior Shedra retreats on the first part of a commentary on the Treasury of Precious Qualities - A Commentary on The Root Text of Jigme Lingpa. This book presents the entire Buddhist path according to the Nyingma School. Tulku Sang-ngag began giving these retreats at Ewam in 2002 and finished the text in 2007 which are available on CD. , Lama David Curtis also taught this text over the course of 3 years. This year Rinpoche's brother, Khenpo Ngawang Gelek, will continue these teachings and Rinpoche will give the empowerment. There are no translations of this part of the text yet.

If you are interested in this retreat, please contact Devi in the office as soon as possible at 406-726-0217 or via email.
( It is important to get an idea of how many people are coming to this retreat to plan accordingly. )

RETREAT COSTS: Non-Members $500.00
Non-Members/Camping $450.00

Members $425.00
Members/Camping $382.00

The Nature of Mind ( Great Perfection )
Root Text by Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche

October 14th - 19th
Ewma Samten Ling, Tuolumne California ( near Sonora )
Contact phone 209.928.1326
Email
michealirw@frontiernet.net

Vajra Armor Retreat

November 5-8
Mt. Shasta, CA
please contact John Cashman at (530) 926-5196.

"The Vajra Armor Mantra (Tib. Dorje Go-Drab), is among the most powerful healing practices in Tantric Buddhism. Long held as a secret practice, it has been practiced for over a millenium by tantric adepts and Tibetan physicians as an effective method for treating diseases, purifying negative energies and protection from misfortune.

"The Vajra Armor Mantra was first introduced into Tibet in the eighth century by Padmasambhava, who had collected various teachings and practices on this mantra from the ancient Indian Buddhist tradition. After teaching his close disciples in Tibet, he hid the Vajra Armor teachings in 124 places, to be discovered by future ‘treasure finders’ as prophesied in his writings.

"Padmasambhava predicted that a time would come when there would be a great need for this mantra and to preserve the integrity of the teachings and lineage, he hid different versions of this practice in many different places for safekeeping, until the designated treasure finder would reintroduce them to the world.

Over the past one thousand years, there have been numerous major teaching cycles of the Vajra Armor Mantra that have been revealed, including those of Dorje Lingpa, Mipham, Dudjom Lingpa, and Trak-t’hung Namkha’I Jigme. These teachings outline a deep and profound path to realization and ultimately to Buddhahood through the practice of healing and rebalancing the outer and inner elements."

----------------------------------------

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 1 reply

Long Life Prayer for Lama Kunga Rinpoche

Cliff — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:49:48 GMT

Long Life Prayer for Lama Kunga Rinpoche

All joyful Lord of Stainless Being, primordial purity embodied, to you we pray.

Look with compassion upon all beings, and grant them the blessing of the Dharma.

Lama Kunga Rinpoche, the manifestation of supreme bodhicitta, we supplicate you to live long.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

tantric Buddhist empowerments this June & July in California and Oregon: Lama Getse ( Nyingma )

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:54:18 GMT

tantric Buddhist empowerments this June & July in California and Oregon: Lama Getse ( Nyingma )

Keywords : tantric Buddhist transmission, Nyingma lineage, Orgyen Dorje Den, Oregon, 2009 tour for His Holiness Getse Rinpoche.

From Orgyen Dorje Den ( San Francisco ):

"HH Getse Rinpoche will be visiting the U.S. in the next few weeks ( June - July 2009 ), and has been invited to Orgyen Dorje Den in Alameda, Dorje Ling in Portland, and Tashi Choling in Ashland to give empowerments and teachings. A general schedule is listed below; as details of times and events become available, we will pass them along by email. Stay tuned!

"H.H. Katok Getse Rinpoche is a highly esteemed incarnate lama of the Katok branch of the Nyingma lineage. He was recognized as a tulku by His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa, the previous Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, and Adzom Gyalsé Rinpoche. From a very early age, he received teachings and empowerments from Dudjom Lingpa’s son Tulku Nyida, Khenchen Jigmé Puntsok Rinpoche, Adzom Drukpa, Katok Moktsa Rinpoche, Khenpo Ngakchung, and H.H. the Dalai Lama. H.H. Getse Rinpoche has done many years of retreat, taught widely throughout Asia and is well known for his mastery of the Dzogchen approach. Fulfilling a request made by Chagdud Rinpoche, Katok Getse Rinpoche serves as the head lama of Katok Ritrod, Chagdud Gonpa’s retreat center in Parping Nepal."

See
http://www.orgyendorjeden.org/contact.html

N.B.: I do not represent this center nor do I know this teacher, but Orgyen Dorje Den hosts amazingly good tantric Buddhist teachers, sometimes on very short notice. These are typically of the Nyingma lineage, and the transmissions are of very high quality and power in my own experience. The transmissions may well include full Great Perfection Awareness Yoga ( atiyoga, dzogchen ) authiorization.

See the books
(1) "Crystal and the Way of Light"
and

(2) "Tantric Practice in Nyingma"
Author(s) : Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche and Hopkins, Jeffrey
ISBN : 0937938149

Publisher : Snow Lion Publications
Published : 1986
Category : Tantra: Vajrayana Buddhist
Category 2 : Tibetan Buddhism: Nyingma
Synopsis:
The essential internal and external preparatory practices required before entering the path of Great Perfection (Dzogchen), in the form of an accessible and lucid commentary on the first part of Patrul Rinpoche's "Words of My Perfect Teacher". Also included is a section on daily meditations and recitations. Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche's commentary contains the classical Nyingma presentation of the tantric practices that lead to the realization of Buddhahood.

At this time the Oregon centers do not have information available on this tour of HH Getse Rinpoche.

May this be beneficial.
Sarva manglam! Siddhi rastu!
KT

Preliminary schedule

Orgyen Dorje Den, Alameda, California: June 20-21
www.orgyendorjeden.org

Saturday: Vajrasattva empowerment and teaching
Sunday: Vajrakilaya empowerment and teaching

Orgyen Dorje Den 2244 Santa Clara Avenue Alameda, CA 95401 Phone: (510) 337-1163 Email: orgyendorjeden@gmail.com

Dorje Ling, Portland, Oregon: June 27-28
www.dorjeling.info/

Tashi Choling, Ashland, Oregon: July 3-5
www.tashicholing.org

Each dharma center will need support before, during, and after each event--if you are able to contribute time, funds, or other resources, please contact the centers through their websites listed above. Your assistance is vital in order for these unforeseen, auspicious transmissions to manifest!

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Question

Holly — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:15:23 GMT

I have been having a bit of trouble finding info about the meaning of shempa. I might be mis-spelling it. The concept as far as I understood it from an audio book has help me a lot and I just want to expand my understanding of the concept of shempa. It seems like in western ideology they would say a complex, but I think that the way I understand shempa, there may be some difference. Could any one clarify this for me?
Thanks

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 2 replies

Lama Mingyur Rinpoche: tantric Buddhist teaching and empowerment tour June - August 2009 / Avalokitesvara teaching

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:32:56 GMT

Lama Mingyur Rinpoche: tantric Buddhist teaching and empowerment tour June - August 2009 / Avalokitesvara teaching

Keywords : meditation practice ( tantra devayoga sadhana ), Mahayana Buddhist transmission, mantra yoga, Heart Sutra, Karma Kagyu lineage of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 2009 Tour, Portland, deity of "Liberating Compassion" Avalokitesvara empowerment ( a.k.a. Kuan Yin, Kannon, Chenresig etc. ).

Summary: His Eminence Yongey Mingyur will be giving a tantric Buddhist empowerment ( highest yoga tantra ) for Avalokitesvara in Portland this June 19, and later, other cities as well. This major tantric guru of the Karma Kagyu lineage is on international tour through August. Background references and a key book reference are provided.

" If we try too hard, meditation becomes difficult. But it is so easy... Meditation is resting in our own natural awareness. "
His Eminence Yongey Mingyur Dorje Rinpoche

His Eminence Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is a younger yet also major teacher in the Indo-Tibetan tradition of vajrayana and tantra, specifically as a retreat master in the Karma Kagyu lineage. He is the son of the great Nyingma master Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, and his main residence is Sherab Ling, the seat of His Holiness Khentin Tai Situpa, a principal Kagyu guru.
http://www.mingyur.org/biography/index.html

Although quite young, HE Yongey Mingyur is an accomplished master of both the Great Seal ( Mahamudra ) and Great Perfection ( Dzogchen ) traditions of pure awareness yoga. I have received from His Eminence both the Tsik Sum Ne Dek ( Great Perfection Breakthrough ) and Karma Pakshi Great Seal guru yoga empowerments some years back, and both transmissions were quite powerful.

His Eminence is also establishing fellowships in North America ( e.g. San Jose CA and Phoenix AZ ) and participating in western scientific studies on mind science. He is the author of two well received books on meditation, including the recently released "Joyful Wisdom - Embracing Change and Finding Freedom".

This young teacher is clearly one of the most important of the new generation of tantric Buddhist gurus teaching in the West, in terms of the quality and quantity of his teaching work, and the deep and broad impact he is beginning to have. ( See "Yongey Foundation Links" at http://www.mingyur.org/links.html ).

This year he teaches coast to coast and also in Brazil. For information on the North American Tour continuing through August, see
http://www.mingyur.org/schedule.html

The main event of the Portland visit is a major empowerment for the meditation deity Avalokitesvara. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalokitesvara

and many book titles and other resources from Snow Lion Publications. See
http://www.snowlionpub.com/

and the Kagyu bookstore for the Karma Kagyu lineage seat in North America at Woodstock New York:
http://www.namsebangdzo.com/

Avalokitesvara is a primary and pre-eminent deity and practice for Buddhists worldwide. Avalokitesvara is the renowned deity of "Liberating Compassion", known in many parts of the Far East as Kuan Yin ( China ), Kwannon ( Japan ), Kwan Seeum ( Korea ), Kwan Theum Botat ( Viet Nam ), etc. This is a major practice for both general Mahayana ( Great Way ) Buddhists and also for esoteric / yogic ( tantric ) Buddhists, and thus unites and helps all schools of Buddhist practice in many different cultural contexts, both Asian and Western.

This is a most well known and quite universally practised pagan / polytheistic deity yoga of Sanskrit origin, Hindu or Buddhist. For example, it has become incorporated into some Hindu practice lineages, such as that of Swami Nikhilesvarananda. It is very similar to or overlaps the practice of Blue Throated Siva, as shown in one of the mantras for Blue Throated Avalokitesvara.

The influence of Avalokitesvara is vast throughout the world, and in different Buddhist lineages. Several of my teachers are considered to be emanations of Avalokitesvara including ( the late ) HE Deshung Tulku Rinpoche ( Sakya ), HH the Seventeenth Karmapa Urgyen Trinley Dorje and the Karmapa lineage, HH the Dalai Lama and the Dalai Lama lineage, and so forth.

His Eminence Dzongsar Rinpoche ( Sakya and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism ), who teaches worldwide, has stated that Avalokitesvara is the most broadly and most commonly practised of all Buddhist mantras worldwide. This is consistent with my experience in Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan, and Vietnamese traditions. Apparently there is a book on Avalokita practice in the Sri Lankan traditions, which are mostly Theravadin Buddhist.

The esoteric yoga traditions of Buddhist tantra are based on ritual empowerment and the practice of self-empowerment, and these include placing points of light at the Brow Cakra ( White Light ), Throat Cakra ( Red Light ), and Heart Cakra ( Blue Light ). Some forms of Avalokitesvara practice include a full kundalini yoga / psychic heat method, known in the Buddhist tradition as Completion Stage Yoga. N.B. One important example is the transmission of Red Avalokita / Vajrayogini. However, I do not know what form of Avalokita is being given by HE Mingyur Rinpoche.

Avalokitesvara is without doubt the most well known Buddhist ( or other ) esoteric spiritual practice in the West ( either as "OM MANI PADME HUM" or as the "Heart Sutra" or as other variants, see below ).
Many tens of millions of Buddhists recite daily either a Sanksrit formula for Avalokitesvara or a meditation text associated with this deity, as in (1) and (2) following.

1) One of the root mantras ( esoteric invocations or evocations ) of Avalokitesvara is
"OM MANI PADMA HUM", which is discussed at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om_mani_padme_hum

2) Avalokitesvara is the source of the primary Buddhist text Prajna Paramita Hrdaya, the Heart or Essence of Transcendent Wisdom, which is recited daily in many Buddhist countries, such as in the Chinese and Japanese Zen traditions. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_sutra
This is a primary and central and definitive text for many of the Mahayana Buddhist schools, both outer and inner.

A good source of teaching on Avalokitesvara in the East Asian tradition is
"Bodhisattva of Compassion: The Mystical Tradition of Kuan Yin"
by John Blofeld.

There is also
"The Origins of Om Manipadme Hum: A Study of the Karandavyuha Sutra"
by Alexander Studholme, Ph.D.

An example of a deeper and essentialized practice focused on Avalokitesvara is given in the book
"The Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen"
by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche
ISBN 962-7341-13-9
Rangjung Yeshe Publications

This is a commentary on "The Direct Instructions of the Compassionate One" originally given by Karma Chagmey Rinpoche the First.
See
http://www.snowlionpub.com/html/product_6174.html
THE UNION OF MAHAMUDRA AND DZOGCHEN
by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche
240 pp.
# UNMADZ - $ 18.00

"Teachings on the complete path to enlightenment in 8 songs by the 17th century yogi/poet Karma Chagmey explicated with Rinpoche's trademark brilliance and humor.
'This advice spoken through personal experience embodies the quintessence of the Dharma.'--Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche"

Please note that I do not formally represent this teacher nor the fellowship hosting him in Portland.

Sarva mangalam! May it be beneficial!
Siddhi rastu! May there be accomplishment!

KT

Hosted by Portland Dharma Group
www.portlanddharmagroup.org
503.341.7776

From
http://www.portlanddharmagroup.org/Mingyur2009/Mingyur.html

schedule

16 June
7:30 pm
Book signing at Powell's Books for
"Joyful Wisdom - Embracing Change and Finding Freedom"
http://www.mingyur.org/book/joyful_wisdom.html

17 June - 18 June
Public talks 7 - 8:30 pm
First Congregational Church
1126 SW Park Ave, Portland OR

19 June
7pm
Avalokitesvara [ Chenrezig ] empowerment
First Congregational Church
1126 SW Park Ave, Portland OR

[ end listing / article ]

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Parinirvana of H. H. Penor Rinpoche

Mark108 — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 21:27:27 GMT

I know no details other than this fact.

His Holiness the 3rd. Drupwang Penor Rinpoche
died this morning in India.

To all of us connected with him-- do not neglect
Guru Yoga and Vajrasattva. Those of us in SF Bay Area:
Orgyen Dorje Den is hosting Vajrasattva accumulations
in Alameda.

There are no words for this catastrophe-- first Kusum Lingpa,
now this. Those who knew him, know what I mean.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 9 replies

Parinirvana of H. H. Kusum Lingpa

Mark108 — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:59:34 GMT

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Many of you have met and received teachings or empowerments from
His Holiness Kusum Lingpa, a terton from Golok, Tibet. If you have remained
close to his sangha called "Vajrakilaya Centers," then you know his health
has been deteriorating over the past few years. In spite of that he has
continued to travel to the USA from Tibet each year, sometimes twice a year
to propagate and preserve the Dzogchen Longchen Nyingtik as well as his
own Pema Nyingtik termas. His Holiness died this week at his monastery
in Golok, Tibet.

Here is some detail from Lama Howard, the Director of S. F. Bay Area Vajrakilaya
Centers. What follows is a glimpse into the death process of one master.

"I just spoke to Dorje Trangpo and he asked me to give you all this message and
describe the situation at the monastery. Lamasang's condition continues to worsen.
Every day it is more and more serious. He is not in a coma. He is awake and knows
what is going on around him, but he cannot respond.

"There are only 15 monks in the compound with him now. No one can go in or out
(except his family). The monks are doing Guru Yoga practice and taking care of Lamasang.
The monks taking care of him made a committment to be vegetarian, to be accumulating
virtue for his benefit. It is very cold and snowy at the monastery right now. Yesterday about
2000 lay people from the area came to take part in a ceremony out of their love for Lamasang.
They took vows not to kill animals, not to sell animals and not to eat animals. Some took the
vow for a few years, some for their lifetimes. All did this out of their love for Lamasang and to
accumulate virtue for his sake. Many ceremonies are being done at the monastery currently.

"We in the West should continue with our daily practices, especially Guru Yoga and virtuous
activities as we have been doing. Last Friday there was an animal release in the Bay Area
that many attended. This Friday is Guru Rinpoche Day, so let's all do practice for Lamasang
and all sentient beings."

After His Holiness' death, the following email came:

"Our Oakland Bay Area Vajrakilya Center would like to invite those that have long been cherished
students of our beloved Lamasang to come together this coming Saturday (3/7/09) to join minds
with our Father Lama during his tug dam and liberation into the Pure Lands. This is an opportunity
to strengthen our connection to His Holiness for now and future lives and to received his final blessing
during his parinirvana. We would like to practice Guru Yoga together and recite, as a group,
Tulku Hung Kar's heart warming and beautifully written "Words of Aspiration to the Beating of My Heart:
Yearning for the Swift Return of A reincarnation." Please bring food offerings as this will be a
tsok practice.

"...This a terribly difficult time for all of us who have had the great good fortune of an auspicious
connections with The Crazy Wisdom Holder of Golok. Each and every one of us while grieving and
tremendously saddened must count themselves as having had the rare blessings of sitting at the
feet and, more likely at the dinner table, of this profound Emanation of Vajrapani.

"While Lamasang's mind has always been steady in the Dharmakaya we will miss his physical
presence deeply and from the very core of our beings. May he be reborn quickly and may we return
to the good fortune of his presence in this very lifetime.

"With painful heart but unbroken confidence in the Stainless teachings of the Buddha..."

May all (even those who didn't know him) be inspired.
--Mark

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 5 replies

www.vajrayana.faithweb.com is back up, at least for now…

sahajananda — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:41:27 GMT

The website www.vajrayana.faithweb.com is back up, at least for now…

It had been removed because freeservers felt it violated copyright.

It is my understanding that as long as the scholarly articles and doctoral dissertations are not used for commercial purposes and are archived strictly for private study, scholarship, or research, that the site is not in violation of US copyright law.

JSTOR and UMI/ProQuest as well as the Library of Congress all make millions of copyrighted texts available (despite not owning the copyright) under this legal exception and all three *charge money* for their service.

Surely, as the site charges no fees and makes available a much smaller number of texts (on a very limited field of study) it must enjoy the same legal protections.

I have been contacted by a number of noted scholars in the field of Indo-Tibetan studies who have all expressed the merit and value of the site. It is a useful service to a very small but still significant portion of the academic and scholarly community.

I will gladly work with the staff of freesevers.com to make sure the site meets their standards. Hopefully there is a way for us to continue this service.
I don’t know for certain if this will be possible, so if you need to make use of the site please do so in the very near future.

Warm Regards
Ryan

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 1 reply

Prayer wheel

Daray — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:30:02 GMT

Hi all,

Is there a difference in kind of prayer wheel being used by Buddhism and Bön Buddhism? Because Bön Buddhists spin their wheels counter-clockwise.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 3 replies

HIS EMINENCE GARCHEN RINPOCHE in SANTA MONICA TONIGHT

rareworlds — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:54:50 GMT

watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcUqhifbD3o

"The cause of happiness is love. The cause of suffering is self-cherishing." - Garchen Rinpoche

Drikung Center of L.A. & santa Monica KTC are pleased to present

HIS EMINENCE GARCHEN RINPOCHE

THURSDAY, MARCH 12 at 7.30-9.15 PM

suggested donation $20/no one turned away for lack of funds

1020 Victoria Ave./corner of Lincoln, 1 blk north of Venice

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 1 reply

Chotrul Duchen

Konchog Dorje — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 02:59:07 GMT

Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 11, 2009, is an important day in Tibetan Buddhism.

There are four major Tibetan Buddhist holidays—duchen or ‘great occasions’—marking the four events known as the ‘great deeds’ of the Buddha. The first is Chotrul Duchen, which falls on the first full moon of the year and celebrates the time when the Buddha is said to have displayed a different miracle each day to spur on his disciples.

The leaders of the six main philosophical schools of the day challenged the Buddha to a contest of miraculous powers. The Buddha displayed a different miracle each day for fifteen days, and, utterly defeating his opponents, inspired students many to follow the dharma.

On this day the effects of positive or negative karma are said to be multiplied ten million times.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 1 reply

50th Anniversary of Tibetan Uprising

Konchog Dorje — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:57:29 GMT

Below is an acount of the Tibetan Uprising of 1959---the 50th Anniversary of which is being observed this coming week---the events leading up to it, and its aftermath.

Of interest to Kagyupas is the mention of the important role played in it by Tsarong Dasang Dadul, grandfather of Chetsang Rinpoche, one of two throneholders of the Drikung Kagyu, and his death in prison.

March Winds -- Remembering the Great Uprisings Of '56 And '59
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jamyang Norbu
WTN
March 6, 2006

Three years ago I wrote an article which in large part was a commemoration of this year's 50th anniversary of the March 10th Uprising. Some might feel I jumped the commemoration gun here, but I have, for a long time now, viewed the Khampa Uprising of 1956 as the opening conflict of the Tibetan revolution that culminated in the Lhasa Uprising of 1959. And, of course, though the ripple effects of the revolution have since then largely remained invisible under the surface of Chinese Communist repression, they have at unexpected moments erupted as in last year's historic uprising. Despite the brutality of official reprisals and the large-scale military clampdown throughout the Tibetan plateau, a number of protests, demonstrations and a self-immolation have already taken place this year.

The one prediction we can make with any confidence about the future of Tibet is that there will be more uprisings. Therefore remembering and honouring these events of our recent past should not be viewed as a symbolic ritual or an academic or literary task. It should rather be an occasion for us to renew our commitment to fight for freedom and justice, and to prepare for that day in the near future when the final uprising, the rangzen revolution, will surely come.

This long article is an expanded version of "Forgotten Anniversary - Remembering the Great Khampa Uprising of 1956 which appeared in Phayul.com on 7 Dec 2006. I have made a number of corrections and additions and discussed the Lhasa Uprising at more length. I have also included a few photographs from the Rangzen Archives and from the AMI Visual Archives.

------------------------
In 2006 the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution against Soviet occupation was observed with due ceremony and honour throughout Hungary, though in the capital, Budapest, the celebrations were somewhat marred by anti-government protests. Newspapers, magazines and TV networks world-over came out with reports on the anniversary and also retrospectives and commentaries on the events of '56 in Hungary.

A far larger and bloodier popular uprising took place that same year in Eastern Tibet, against another totalitarian Communist giant, Red China. But the 50th anniversary of this momentous historical event was entirely ignored by the world, which, distressing as it was, was not very surprising seeing that the Dalai Lama and his exile government also chose to overlook it.

The Hungarian revolt lasted for nineteen days. 2,500 Hungarian freedom fighters were killed and about 13,000 wounded. In Kham the uprising started in February 1956 and lasted until 1962, at least within Tibet, and it was only in August 1974 that Gyatotsang Wangdu, the last resistance leader was ambushed and killed and the guerilla base at Mustang, on the Nepalese frontier, closed down. No one really knows how many people died in this entire conflict. A conservative estimate would have to be no less than half a million people, on the Tibetan side. These facts and figures have not been cited to draw a comparison with what happened in Hungary, since statistics can tell us little about the actual courage and sacrifice of the heroic freedom fighters in both Hungary and Tibet. It was rather to emphasize the bizarre neglect that the Tibetan revolution has congenitally suffered, particularly from those who owe the most to it.

The people of Kham, or Eastern Tibet, rose up against Chinese occupation when Communist authorities began to implement "democratic reforms", the program to eliminate monastic and tribal leadership and eradicate the traditional social system. The program involved thamzing struggles, public humiliation, beating, torture, forced confessions, imprisonment and often executions. Suicides were widespread in areas where "democratic reforms" were announced.

In exile folklore an archetypal origin of sorts has been ascribed to the events of 1956 in the Lithang Uprising. I may have contributed a little to this development with my play YUNRU, first performed at TIPA in 1981. The paramount resistance chief of Lithang, Yunru Pon was not only a very young and enigmatic personality, but his death in action was the stuff of epic films. He and other Lithangwa chiefs and warriors defended the great monastery of Lithang (founded by the 3rd Dalai Lama) against numerous Chinese infantry assaults, artillery bombardment, and bombing by Chinese aircraft based at Chengdu. When his ammunition ran out Yunru Pon faked a surrender and approaching the Chinese commander shot him dead with a concealed pistol, before being gunned down by Chinese soldiers in a most spectacular manner. One eyewitness, Loto Phuntsok, testified to the International Commission of Jurists in 1959, that 500 Chinese soldiers fired on Yunru Pon.

Violent insurrections had taken place earlier in Eastern Tibet in Gyalthang (south of Lithang) in 1952/54 under the leadership of Wangchuk Tempa, aka Aku Lemar (he was bald) and also in north-eastern Tibet (Amdo) in Hormukha and Nangra, under Pon Choje and Pon Wangchen. According to Rinzin, a surviving eyewitness of the fighting in Amdo, "so many people were killed, so many committed suicide and so many fled to Lhasa that only a few blind men, cripples, fools and some children were left".

However, the Khampa uprisings of 1956 should be considered the beginning of our great national revolution because these were not isolated events but involved many districts, regions and tribes. The uprisings were, surprisingly, coordinated to quite an extent. According to one source twenty-three major chiefs of Lithang, Chatreng, Batang, Lingkashi, Nyarong, Gyalthang, Gyalrong, Horko, Gaba and other areas, communicated with each other and arranged a common day to launch the uprising. This was the eighteenth day of the Tibetan New Year of 1956.

In Nyarong the attack on the Chinese headquarters at Drugmo Dzong (Dragon Castle) took place four days earlier, on the 14th. The fighting here was led by a young woman, Dorji Yudon, whose sister and husband (the chieftain Nima Gyaritsang) were being held hostage by the Chinese at Dhartsedo. In a conversation with this amazing woman (very soft-spoken and less than five feet tall) she told me that she received a letter from Yunru Pon, calling on Nyarong to revolt. She was forced to advance the date of her attack as she was tipped off that the Chinese were coming to arrest her. Other Khampa women also fought against the Chinese and in some cases, like Dorji Yudon, even led resistance groups. When one of the chieftains of Gonjo, Lemda Pon, died, his daughter, Pachen, took up the fight and fought stubbornly for a number of years till her people and her family were wiped out and she herself captured and imprisoned for twenty years.

The districts of Gonjo, Drayak, Chagra Pembar, Shopado, Western Derge, Pomo, Dzachukha, Trehor and Markham joined in the fighting some months after the initial uprising. With the whole of Eastern Tibet now ablaze with insurrection, the Red Army embarked on a genocidal course of reprisals. One of my informants, Nyarong Aten (whose biography I authored) had at first collaborated with the Chinese and he told me that a Chinese officer Colonel Len explained to him why Tibetan children had to be killed "…we are to exterminate them all, even the women and children … if you crush the nits, there will be no more lice." Now a large flow of refugees began to make its way to Lhasa. The Dalai Lama and his government retained nominal authority in Central Tibet, but insignificant as it was, even that was eroding every day as the Chinese occupation force in Lhasa grew ever stronger, with reinforcements arriving daily on the new motor road.

Khampa residents in Lhasa became increasingly troubled with the catastrophic news from their homeland. One prominent merchant of Lithang, Gompo Tashi Andrugtsang, secretly began creating a resistance movement inside the city. Using the cover of organizing a public religious event, a Long Life Prayer Ceremony for the Dalai Lama he raised funds, contacted important lamas, various leaders, and also officials of the Tibetan government, including the Dalai Lama's Lord Chamberlain, Phala. This ceremony had an underlying political significance that expressed the people's loyalty to the Dalai Lama, and Gompo Tashi used it brilliantly to reassert the fundamental unity of Kham, Amdo and Central Tibet under the sovereign rule of the Dalai Lama. He symbolized this in the offering of a golden throne to the Dalai Lama from the three provinces of Tibet.

Then in 1958 he formed a resistance army, the Four Rivers Six Ranges (a geographical description of Eastern Tibet) at Driguthang, south of Lhasa. Agents of the resistance movement were sent to India were able to contact the CIA. Eventually with the participation of the Dalai Lama's older brother, Thupten Jigme Norbu, and later under the direction of His Holiness's other brother, Gyalo Thondup, a program was created where Tibetan volunteers were flown to a secret training camp at Colorado and trained in communications, weaponry, guerrilla warfare, and parachuting.

The first American arms drops that arrived in the July of 1958, about four hundred rifles, could not match the demand from the large number of volunteers that had gathered at Driguthang. But Gompo Tashi still managed to launch a number of long-range strikes against Chinese positions in northern Tibet, western Tibet and even back inside Kham in the Sho-Ta-Lho-Sum area. News of these attacks and Chinese defeats appeared in Lhasa city on wall posters, and thrilled the populace. Khampa refugees in Lhasa began to make their way to Driguthang, as well as volunteers from Lhasa (many ex-soldiers) Gyangtse, Shelkar and other districts in Central and Western Tibet. The resistance now took on a broader pan-Tibetan character and was renamed "the Volunteer Army to Defend the Faith" (Tensung Dhanglang Makar) to reflect this transformation.

Whatever the immediate reasons for the Lhasa Uprising of March 1959 - the invitation to the Dalai Lama to attend a cultural show at the Chinese headquarters and so on - the fundamental cause for this defining event was certainly the Khampa uprising and continued resistance. This, in a real sense, provided the inspiration and the opportunity for the Lhasa populace, the remaining units of the old Tibetan army and loyal government officials to strike a final blow for their leader and country - before the Chinese took control completely.

Even a cursory account of March 1959 would require at least a book, but perhaps I can briefly cover some less well know events in that Uprising, and also record the names of some of the brave but unknown people, peasants, monks, nuns, soldiers, artisans, and aristocrats who took part. We now know that it was a junior official, Barshi Ngawang Tenkyong (with the support of some officials as Phala) who first spread the news of the Dalai Lama's proposed visit to the Chinese military headquarters for the cultural show, and who "was instrumental in organizing public opposition to this". Then we have the creation of the People's Assembly and the women's demonstrations on 12th March led by "Pamo" (heroine) Kunsang and Galingshar Choela, a nun from Mechungri Nunnery, both later executed in prison

The Uprising was coordinated by the People's Assembly, a gathering of government officials, military men, monks and heads of the various trade guilds and mutual-aid groups (kyidug). They met at the government printing press (Shol Parkhang) at the Shol hamlet below the Potala. Weapons were obtained from the government armoury in the Shol Military HQ and distributed to all the fighters including monks from Sera, Drepung and Ganden who came to the hamlet secretly in the night. With about three hundred people in the Assembly there was a lot of talking and back and forth, but soon a clear leadership began to emerge in the persons of the monk official Khenchung Lobsang Tsewang (Minkyiling) and Tsarong Dasang Dadul, the first commander in chief of Tibet's modern army, but now an old man.

Tsarong had returned from India a few months earlier with the intention of rescuing the young Dalai Lama (as he told my uncle in Darjeeling). He had, decades, earlier helped the Thirteenth Dalai Lama escape from the clutches of Manchu soldiers. One eyewitness told me that on the first night of the fighting (March 20th) he saw Tsarong in a large chamber in Shol, with a map (probably Aufschnaiter's map of Lhasa) spread out before him. He was smoking heavily (the room was full of cigarette smoke) and issuing instruction to various people. He told my informant to go and help dig trenches. He had a Colt automatic pistol tucked in the belt of his chuba. He survived the fighting and was captured by the Chinese. He died in prison. At least three people I interviewed, who were with him in prison, told me that he just laughed and joked till his last day.

The few surviving units of the old Tibetan army, supported by volunteers from the Lhasa public, were distributed around the important areas of the city. The Guards regiment (Kusung Magar) defended the Norbulingka along with a unit from the Gyangtse regiment, another unit of which was posted at Shol. The Lhasa police force was took charge of the Jokhang area, Lubu and Ramoche. I will not go into details of the fighting in the center of the city. Most Tibetans have heard of the legendary police major, Rinzin Paljor, also know as Rupon Gura (hunchback) because he was tortured by the Chinese in 1933 and his back permanently damaged). This extraordinary man had some policemen and volunteers haul a large howitzer and a number of mortars through the streets and alleys of Central Lhasa, all of which he would, from time to time, personally set up, aim and fire at Chinese positions.

The Potala Palace and Chakpori were defended by soldiers of the Drapchi regiment. Chinese infantry charged up the Chakpori (Iron Hill) held by about seventy-seven soldiers. Twice the Tibetan soldiers beat back the charges. Then the Chinese trained their artillery barrage on the hill. One of the last defenders was Sergeant Tashi Tsewang, who kept on firing his bren machine-gun although covered with blood and dying. His son, a soldier, Kalsang Wangdu, said "Pala, give me the bren gun, Pala. As his father's head fell back, the young soldier took the bren from his father's hand and commenced firing at the attacking Chinese soldiers. Then the entire building collapsed when it received a direct hit from an artillery shell. My informant was the only survivor who escaped from the hill. When the Chinese made their final charge there was no one left alive on the hill. In Communist propaganda films you see their soldiers charging up what they refer to as "Yowang" (?) hill, and Tibetan soldiers surrendering immediately afterward. But this latter footage is actually of the soldiers of the Guards regiment (check the uniform) surrendering at the Norbulingka barracks. I was told that the whole thing was reenactment for the documentary. The photograph of Tsarong and other prisoners marching with their hands up was also a reenactment.

Following the events in Lhasa, the nomads of western Changtang, under the leadership of Nagtsang Pubo of Shentsa Dzong, rose up against the Chinese. A support team was parachuted near Lake Namtso, to back up the revolt, but it failed to make contact with the fighters. The following year the nomads of Sog, Bachen and other districts in north-eastern Changtang, under the leadership of Pon Norbu Tsering put together a formidable resistance force of at least five to seven thousand fighting men. The Chinese at once sent in a couple of divisions of infantry, supported by cavalry units, armoured cars, tanks and even jet fighters based at Damshung north of Lhasa. A team of eight Tibetan specialists was parachuted in to support the uprising, which they successfully did, following which nine separate arms drops were made.

On learning that the Chinese were using tanks against the resistance fighters another eight-man team of Tibetans, trained in using bazookas and 75mm recoilless rifles, were also parachuted in. The Chinese air-dropped leaflets calling on the Tibetans to surrender, but the Tibetans got the Americans to drop thousands of facsimile copies of a letter from the Dalai Lama urging Tibetans to resist. Many Tibetans kept the letter as an amulet. After six months of savage fighting the resistance force here was completely wiped out. The last radio communication that the CIA received was from "Nathan", the codename of Andrugtsang Ngawang Phulchung, the team leader. Under withering fire he sent out the message that tank-led columns were closing on their position. Not a single member of the two teams got out.

In March 1961 a seven-man team led by Phupatsang Yeshi Wangyal ("Tim") was parachuted into Markham. The resistance force here though once around twenty thousand strong, had weakened considerably by this time. Though the inserted team managed to make contact with what remained of the resistance force (about sixty odd fighters) the Chinese wiped them all out within the year. The Chinese were reported to have had 70,000 troops in Markham district alone. The only surviving member of the team, a doctor in the Lhasa police force, Nyemo Bhusang (my informant and friend) had earlier fought in the '59 Uprising with Rupon Gura at the Jhokang. He was captured in Markham and imprisoned for eighteen years.

We must bear in mind that at any one time during the Soviet war in Afghanistan the Russians only had about 80,000 to 100,000 troops throughout the country. In Tibet (including Kham and Amdo) it appears that the Chinese had about half a million soldiers based there. From most accounts it also appears that the Chinese used "human wave" (ch. ren-hai zhan-shu) tactics against the numerically inferior Tibetans. In a number of interviews survivors spoke of entire mountainsides being covered with yellow (tib. ri ser-chigi). The Chinese uniforms being khaki or "yellow". Of course such tactics would translate into high casualty figures for the Chinese as well, which might account for the prevalence of many "Martyr's Memorial" cemeteries (ch. lishi-mu) In a number of district headquarters in Kham, where reportedly tens of thousands of Chinese military personnel were buried, in many cases three or four bodies in one coffin.

From anecdotal evidence alone the scale of the fighting and the subsequent deaths and dislocation in Eastern Tibet appear to have been enormous. A leading American China scholar, Roderick MacFarquhar, considered that the Tibetan Resistance produced "the gravest episode of internal disorder (in the People's Republic of China) prior to the Cultural Revolution . . ." Chinese figures taken from their 1982 census, twenty years after the revolt had been crushed, reveal far fewer men than women throughout Kham and parts of Amdo. Such disparate sex-ratio figures do not appear in other areas of Tibet or China, although vast numbers of people died in these places too, especially during the post "Great Leap" famine, but which, one can reasonably conclude, affected both sexes equally.

The only published figures we have for Tibetans killed in the Lhasa Uprising and its aftermath is from official Chinese sources. A booklet marked "secret" and published in Lhasa on October 1, 1960 by the political department of the Tibetan Military District, states : "From last March (1959) up to now (1960) we have already wiped out (ch. xiaomie) over 87,000 of the enemy."

At a conference in Harvard in 2002, on "Tibet and the Cold War", some American sinologists there insisted on explaining that the term "xiaomie", though literally "wipe out" could be interpreted to mean "imprisoned" or "removed" and so on. This was academic claptrap of the most specious kind. Many words in most languages have alternative or synonymous meanings. For instance the word "kill" does not necessarily have to mean the taking of life. It could be used in the context of ending a deal, or even causing laughter to an extreme degree. But if a police report stated that so and so was killed would we seriously consider these semantic substitutes? So why should we do so in the case of a Chinese "military", repeat "military" document where, almost certainly, precise and unambiguous language would be called for.

At a famous libel trial in London in 1994, the notorious holocaust denier, David Irving, made a similar comment about the German term "ausrotung" (extirpation) used by Hitler, which Irving argued did not mean mass-murder but rather "uproot" or "enforced immigration". He also took issue with the word "vernichtung", which historians generally consider a euphemism for annihilation. Irving argued that the term was used by the Nazi's only in a rhetorical sense.

The Tibetans issue has spawned its own share of "holocaust deniers", a leading one being the anthropologist Melvin Goldstein who has stated that there was no genocide of Tibetans by the Chinese. He has also advocated that Tibetans give up their national rights and live in "cultural reservations" in the PRC. In his 1996 report on the Golok nomads of north-eastern Tibet, Goldstein makes passing mention that they resisted the Chinese occupation militarily, that the fighting was severe and that there were many casualties. But then he continues - without a hint of irony, or use of qualifications or parenthesis - that "… the area was pacified and liberated only in 1952." Goldstein further informs us that there was a second substantial outbreak of fighting in the 1957-58 period. In a footnote he adds: "It is interesting to note that the figure of Goulou (Golok) population growth in the Socio-Economic Baseline Survey reveals a sharp decline in population between 1957-58."

But that genocide, ethnic cleansing, holocaust or whatever you want to call it, had taken place in the Golok region is undeniable. A Chinese academic who traveled through Golok and made a thorough study of the situation there, concluded that the Golok population had been reduced from about 1,30,000 in 1956 to about 60,000 in 1963. (China Spring, June 1986). More than half the population had been wiped out.

The late Panchen Lama, Chokyi Gyaltsen, courageously spoke up about the genocide of the Golok people in an official speech in Beijing. "In Amdo and Kham, people were subjected to unspeakable atrocities … In Golok area, many people were killed and their dead bodies rolled down the hill into a big ditch. The soldiers told the family members and relatives of the dead people that they should celebrate since the rebels have been wiped out. They were forced to dance on the dead bodies. Soon after, they were also massacred with machine guns."

I will stop here. I know there is so much more to tell, but this piece was written to remind Tibetans of the forgotten anniversaries of our national revolution, not as a history of the resistance. All Tibetans need to be reminded of these tragic yet great events, especially those of us who made it into exile and freedom. In the aftermath of the Lhasa Uprising nearly everyone who managed to escape from Central Tibet did so largely because the major Chinese garrison at Tsetang, south of Lhasa, was under siege by the resistance, which allowed a safe corridor for refugees to flee to India.

Refugees from Tö, Ngari and Kyirong in Western Tibet had a relatively easier time escaping because Chinese troops were tied down by the fighting in Central Tibet and Kham. Later when the Mustang base became operational, Chinese military movement in Western Tibet became greatly curtailed, especially during 1963 and 1964 when the Xinjiang /Shigatse highway became all but unusable because of guerrilla attacks. This allowed more refugees from Western Tibet to escape through the Mustang corridor.

All the Tibetans from Kongpo and Pemako area who escaped to India in 1962, managed to do so because of the leadership and guidance of the ten-man guerilla team that had earlier been inserted into that area, and that organized the mass evacuation of the local people to Arunachal Pradesh. These refugees were subsequently resettled in camps at Miao, Tezu, and Chaglang. From the mid sixties onwards after the resistance was completely crushed and the Tibetan border sealed, the flow of refugees to India and Nepal virtually dried up to nothing.

It is safe to say there would have been no exile-government at Dharamshala if it weren't for the Uprisings of 1956 and 1959. Which is why we must ask why Dharamshala did not observe the anniversary of the '56 Khampa Uprising and appears to be be doing nothing more for the '59 Uprising, other than arranging a Long Life Prayer Ceremony for His Holiness? Is it because the actions of our leaders and the present policies of the government in exile are in stark contradiction to the idealism of those who fought and died for Tibetan freedom? Is this is why Dharamshala appears to be more comfortable celebrating betrayal and treachery rather than courage and sacrifice?

In 2006 an official Tibetan translation of a biography of the arch collaborator, Phuntsok Wangyal, was published at Dharamshala (the English original by Melvyn Goldstein appeared in 2004). The book was released with much fanfare in the Tibetan exile community with Prime Minister Samdong Rimpoche presiding over the function and praising Phuntsok Wangyal as a great Tibetan and a philosopher. In a subsequent discussion on the book on Radio Free Asia, I pointed out that Wangyal had been deeply involved in the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, acting as the chief guide to the invading Chinese Army, the main organizer and supplier of food grain and pack animals (on which he and his partner Chagotsang Topden reportedly made a lot of money) and attempting, in various clandestine ways, to get Tibetan officials and military personnel in Chamdo and Markham to betray their country. Not a single officer did.

All the subsequent stories of betrayal and treachery by government officials are just that - stories. Even Ngabo went over to the Chinese side only after he was captured and Phuntsok Wangyal spent many hours indoctrinating him. Over a thousand Tibetans, regular soldiers and Khampa militia died defending their country in 1950. During the discussion on Radio Free Asia the Tibetan translator of the biography insisted that Phuntsok Wangyal could not be considered a traitor since the Chinese would have won the war anyway even without his assistance.

I say this with all due respect, but Samdong Rimpoche should reflect on what might have been his own fate had resistance fighters not protected his escape route in 1959. I have interviewed a few incarnate lamas left behind in Tibet after the uprising and their accounts were invariably harrowing. Under similar circumstances it seems very possible that Samdong Rimpoche would have ended up in some bleak laogai farm, in a line of gaunt, starving prisoners, chanting "yi-ér yi-ér" (one-two one-two), as they shuffled in time, bent over with the weight of wicker baskets overflowing with fetid night-soil.

But far more important for all Tibetans is, of course, the question of what might have happened to the Dalai Lama under these circumstances? What if there had been no uprising, or no armed escort of resistance fighters to cover his escape from Lhasa? What if he had been forced to remain in Tibet? I have asked and answered these questions in another essay some years ago, but I think they could be re-examined to some profit.

Had the Dalai Lama remained behind it is fairly possible that, especially with the advent of the Cultural Revolution, he would have undergone imprisonment, public humiliation and torture, much like the Panchen Lama. Even if that had not happened he certainly would have become a Chinese puppet. In the opinion of His Holiness's youngest brother, Tendzin Choegyal, had the Dalai Lama remained in Tibet "…they (the Chinese) would have would have used His Holiness just as the Japanese used poor Pu Yi (the last Manchu Emperor). That's what he would have become, another Pu Yi." (Kundun, Mary Craig, Harper Collins, 1997). So, in a real sense the Dalai Lama owes his freedom, his present international stature and even his Nobel Prize, to courageous fighting men who rescued him not only from physical danger but also from a situation that was politically and morally compromising.

At the very least anyone who considers himself or herself a Tibetan should spare a moment to remember all those incredibly brave men and women without whose courage, sacrifice and most of all, resolve, there would probably now be no Dalai Lama, no exile-government, no exile-community, no Tibetan cause and perhaps even no Tibetan culture and religion, other than the museum or dharma center variety.

It is especially important to remember these people now, as many heroic Tibetan men and women are following in their footsteps and more seem determined to do so for the foreseeable future. The hard truth is that the uprisings will never stop. All of us, especially His Holiness and the exile-government, must accept this. Whether peaceful, as they appear to be at present, or violent, which is the grim possibility in the future - the uprisings will absolutely go on. The only way the uprisings will ever stop is when the Chinese succeed in wiping us out as a people, or when Tibet becomes independent.

SELECT NOTES:
* Jamyang Norbu, Warriors of Tibet: The Story of Aten and the Khampas' Fight for the Freedom of their Country, Wisdom, Boston 1986. First published in 1979.

* Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

* The Population Atlas of China, Oxford University Press, 1987)

* Xizang xingshi wenwu jiaoyu di jiben jiaocai, Lhasa: Political Department of the Tibetan Military District, 1960.)

* Melvyn C. Goldstein, "The Dragon and the Snowlion: The Tibetan Question in the 20th Century", CHINA BRIEFING, 1990, New York, the Asia Society, 1990. Reprinted in TIBETAN REVIEW, March 1991.)

* Speech by the 10th Panchen Lama at a meeting of the Sub-Committee of the National People's Congress in Peking on situation in Tibet, 28 March 1987.

* Nomads of Golok: A Report Melvyn C. Goldstein, Case Western Reserve University, Dec.14,1996. www.case.edu/affil/tibet/tibetanNomads/golok.htm

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

preparing for the drubchen

rareworlds — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:31:14 GMT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drubchen
preparing now for the drubchen coming up starting next weekend for eight days. we have 36" square space to sit in 17 hours a day for the practice with only toilet and meal breaks. we cannot speak nor ever see the sun for the duration. we can only brush our teeth and wash our face and that is all. they block out the sun and we sleep in only 5 hour shifts.

one must commit that under NO circumstances (in tibet they don't even remove you if you die) must you leave the temple. you are invited and must procure two vouchers from sangha members who believe you will stay in it.

so i have my tart cherry for pain and inflammation because you can imagine the energetic intensity of it! and oregano oil which is a powerful anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, cayenne for circulation and digestion, cell food which is very oxygenating and green food so that i get nutrition but not by eating so much food.

i also have organic green tea powder so that i stay warm and stimulated if necessary. i will purchase a meditation belt that is critical for keeping in the posture. let's see, i guess that's it except four changes of loose fitting comfy pants, and i have these round cotton pads soaked with witch hazel and tea tree oil which i depend on for cleaning my face.

i will be incomunicado from the 14th through the 22.

i am staying on for losar the tibetan new year celebration which will be catered and quite an event in that it is the garchen institutes 10th anniversary and also a long life celebration for h. e. garchen rinpoche.

if you are in los angeles or pheonix or any nearby places i highly recommend getting some friends together and coming out for losar. you must rsvp because it is a catered event.

http://www.garchen.net/schedule.html#local-schedule

if you have any suggestions or advise i welcome it. this will be the first i've done this.

may we all be benefitted!

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 12 replies

Oral Teachings of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche - an excerpt

Cliff — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:01:39 GMT

"TENDING CAREFULLY INTO BLOOM THE SEEDS OF PRACTICE" – an edited
excerpt from oral teachings given by Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche,
July 2007

Let's say you want to plant a flower. Perhaps you go to the store
and you buy a nice pot, soil mixture, and seeds. You read a garden
book about how much sun and water and protection the plant will need,
and you also study what minerals and other nutrients it needs. So
you do your very best to get everything in order like you should for
a successful outcome: a beautiful flower. Once you've done all of
that at the start, though, do you then just forget about the seeds
you have planted? No, you would want to check regularly the spot
where you planted them to see whether any seedlings had sprouted up
from the soil. And once they had, then you would keep checking back
to see if stronger stems and leaves were growing from those. You
would also wonder occasionally, "Do they need water?" You'd continue
to give them your attention until the plants matured and produced
their beautiful flowers in full bloom. You would pay continuous
attention to those plants from the beginning, wouldn't you? It is
important to do that. But you see, many times in relation to our
practice we don't do that. We learn the practice, then simply do it
mechanically, and forget about tending that seed of practice along to
its full maturity. That is not the right thing to do.

When you are trying to see whether or not a plant is growing from the
seed that was planted, the first question you have to ask is, "Where
do I look?" When we are focused on doing exercises like tsa lung and
nine breathings or many other practices, the most immediate effect is
that we feel physiologically and energetically clearer and more open
right afterward, don't we? Many people say, "I just love tsa lung
practice!" What they are saying is, "I feel great afterward!" That
period right after practice is where they are checking for the seeds
of those practices to sprout. They are not saying, "I love tsa lung
practice and how it is changing the way that I work in my
profession. Every month it is getting better and better. I love my
work now. I love people. I'm very productive. I'm able to do so
much and help so much." No, we just say, "I feel great after
practice," in the same way that we talk about how we feel after a
good workout at the gym. If we only notice the immediate effects,
then we are not really focusing on the area where the plant of our
practice is going to be growing, and we will miss attending to it
properly enough for it to really flower. In real terms, the full
measure of these practices should be the way that you are living your
life. If the practices are not affecting your life in positive ways,
then more attention is needed. Plan for the flower to bloom
completely out in one's life, not just to have a great feeling after
meditation practice.

Focusing in the right direction, then, with regard to practice, is
important for developing fully: "Illumination? Sure, I'm pointed in
that direction, but meanwhile the practices should affect my life
through my being clearer, happier, kinder, and more open and free."
That can be a clear goal. Where do I look for this kind of
manifestation, this flower blooming, in my life? I will see the
flower blooming in the places where it previously had not. Just like
looking into our pot to see if the first shoots are emerging from the
seeds we had planted. If nothing is coming up there, then I add the
right amount of water, give it sunlight, and keep on checking there
until the first seedling comes up through the soil. "Oh wow!
Something is coming up! I need to continuously take care of this
plant as it is growing." One day it blooms into full color.

So, keep this metaphor in mind. Practice in this way and try to do
the best you can. Sometimes you might get a little lazy;
nevertheless, just refocus and then continue. Of course, you'll feel
the immediate beneficial effects of the practices, but you'll also
want to see whether the practices are truly affecting your life in a
real sense. I know we all know about this in a general way, but we
haven't really approached it from this more substantial point of view
because we normally don't pay attention in this way; we don't look at
whether practice is affecting our development in the sense of real-
life issues. It's just not an emphasized aspect of reflection or
conversation. However, I feel that it is very important. It is the
approach I take with my own practice in my own life. Is it clear?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

upcoming visit of His Eminence Thartse Khen Rinpoche this Spring 2009.

janina — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:06:20 GMT

Ewam Choden Tibetan Buddhist Center is proud to announce the upcoming visit of His Eminence Thartse Khen Rinpoche this Spring 2009.

H.E. Nhawang Sonam Chhyokden Lama Bista, also known as Thartse Khen Rinpoche, is the 77th throne holder of Ngor Ewam Choden monastery. The Thartse lineage belongs to the Ngor tradition of the Sakya lineage. It dates back to its founder Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo and is the lineage of our venerable resident teacher, Lama Kunga Rinpoche.

His Eminence studied in Puruwala Sakya Institute for six years under the tutelage of the great scholar H.E. Khenchen Appey Rinpoche before completing his final years in Sakya College . His ritual training was done at Ngor Monastery in Manduwala.

H.E. Thartse Khen Rinpoche shares his duty of running the Ngorpa Centre with the present H.E. Luding Khen Rinpoche. Rinpoche frequently travels overseas to Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong to give teachings and spread the Buddhadharma.

His Eminence will start his first US tour with extensive teachings and empowerments at Ewam Choden. He will then visit our sister centers Sakya Kachod Choling in Washington, and Tsechen Kunchab Ling in New York. please keep checking the web for updates

Preliminary Schedule
Arrival: April 6th

Friday 9th (7pm)
PARTING FROM THE FOUR ATTACHMENTS,
based on teachings of Sachen Kunga Nyingpo

Saturday 10th (4pm)
HEVAJRA - Preliminary Empowerment

Sunday 11th (2pm)
HEVAJRA - Main Empowerment

Friday 17th (6PM), Saturday 18th (12 noon), Sunday 19th (12 noon)

THIRTEEN GOLDEN DHARMAS of the Sakya-pa

Saturday 25th

Teaching: THE LAM DRE - ITS HISTORY AND ESSENCE (2pm)

Empowerment: WHITE TARA (6pm)

Sunday 26th (3pm)

LONG LIFE Empowerment

DONATIONS to Ewam Choden Tibetan Buddhist Center are accepted at the door to assist in defraying the costs of these very special events.

SCHEDULE AND TIMES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE based on His Eminence's confirmed arrival date.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Please help a monk in Nepal

Konchog Dorje — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:35:50 GMT

Dear friends,

This was posted on another mailing list, and I am posting it here.

<<<Dear Friends,

I'm currently in Nepal preparing to enter the Rangjung Yeshe Institute this summer to begin intensive study of Tibetan language (modern spoken this summer and classical written Tibetan as well starting in the fall) and Buddhist philosophy. RYI is a comprehensive program with more than 20 years history in Nepal. It was founded by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche and attracts scholars of Tibetan Buddhism from around the world to study Tibetan language and philosophy and to teach as well.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm a monk originally ordained in 2001 at TMC by Khenhen Konchog Gyaltshen Rinpoche. I did the Bikkhu ordination at a Vietnamese temple last may the day after graduating from University of the West with a M.A. in Religious Studies concentrating on Buddhism.

In the future, I hope to translate Dharma texts and interpret for our lamas. I also hope to start a more organized training and education program for monastics and the laity alike--a small institute--to facilitate the transmission of the Dharma coming to the west.

Assuming I can get work-study or a scholarship (they each cover half tuition, but you can only get one or the other form of support), I estimate I'll need $3860 per year for three years of study here. I have enough for the intensive summer program and next fall, but fall short after that.

I have looked into other programs, like the translator training program at the Songtsen Library, but they are entering their last term and there are no plans to continue the program after that. Other programs I've checked out focus almost exclusively on coloquial Tibetan and at the end of the day, the cost isn't that much lower. RYI really is the best program.

If you can see this as an investment in the transmission of the Dharma to the west and would like to offer even a small amount of support, please write to me at this address and I will send the necessary information to you.

Also, check out my blog for updates on how things progress here in Nepal.

With Palms Together,

Rinchen Gyatso

Gyatso's blog: "A Monk Amok" www.amonkamok.typepad.com
Bodhicitta, the excellent and precious mind--where it is unborn, may it arise. Where it is born may it not decline, but ever increase higher and higher.>>>

Good translators are so useful to the spread of the Dharma here in the West. I hope you will consider sponsoring him in this endeavor. A few dollars a month may be little here, perhaps the cost of eating out at a restaurant, but in Nepal it can go a very long way.

Best wishes,

Konchog Dorje

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Compassion

Laith — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:36:01 GMT

Is the capacity to experience the suffering of another as the suffering of oneself.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 2 replies

2/28-3/1/09 in NYC: Younge Khachab Rinpoche teaches Simhamukha, Tummo

floragreen — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:38:55 GMT

Rime Shedrub Ling New York City Welcomes Younge Khachab Rinpoche

Sinhamukha Empowerment, Sinhamukha Tummo Completion Stage Practice and
Dzogchen Teachings

Saturday February 28th, Sunday March1st (Sunday *Restricted* to those
who attend on Saturday)

February 28th:
First Session 10am: Simhamukha Ripening Empowerment and Tsog
Second Session: 2pm: Creation and Completion Method of Liberation
Instruction for Simhamukha practice

March 1st:
First Session 10am: ( *Restricted* Must have attended Saturday)
Simhamukha Tummo Bliss of Inner Heat
Second Session 2pm: Recognizing the Primordial Dzogchen Clear Light
through Tantra

NEW REGISTRATION: Pre-register $100 at the door for both days.
$150 at the door.
No one will be turned away for lack of funds. For those with financial
difficulties, please pre-register early for volunteering, karma yoga
opportunities.

Write Celestialwindow@yahoo.com for pre-registration and payment.

Location: Kundrolling
151 west30th Street, Suite 403 on the fourth floor
between 6th and 7th avenues

Also please note Rinpoche's 2009 teaching schedule in New York City:
Dzogchen teachings to be announced for:

May 1st, 2nd, 3rd

August 7th, 8th, 9th

October 2nd, 3rd, 4th

Mark your calendars!

Younge Khachab Rinpoche is the Younge (Yonge) family lineage holder, a
treasure–revealer and a true nonsectarian scholar and Dzogchen yogi.
He is the 7th recorded incarnation of the Khachab Rinpoche Tulku who
was known for his accomplishment of Yamantaka and his healing siddhis.
Rinpoche makes his home in the United States, and he is one of the
most qualified lineage masters alive, holding both the titles of Geshe
and Khenpo. He is known for his accessibility, youthful humor and
brilliant discourses.
For more information about Rinpoche and his teachings:
website: RimeShedrubling.org

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Tibetan Earth Treasure Vase practice

Zorro — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:32:43 GMT

Hi friends,
here a nice introduction for a tibetan practice for the healing and protection of the Earth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYeVk5zlbsM

Deep peace
Zorro

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 1 reply

winning battles for your heart

Ash — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:22:46 GMT

As a gay fella studying Budddhism I have recently stumbled upon an amazing inner peace lately.

Greater than winning a political conflict or legal battle as a gay fella Is winning your inner sanctuary. Times change and there will always be people who seek our rights, our property our freedom and even our lives.

The Inner Sanctuary is our victory and priority number one. Inner peace and inner sanctuary must be independent of outer influences. It cannot be given to you. You must cultivate it on your own. Do you see what I mean?

You could be given every privilege but not have any joy or appreciation if you feel unworthy of them. Then they would just exaggerate your sense of worthlessness and inadequacy by contrast.

Inner sanctuary is something that you can share by showing compassion and kindness. Try it! You'll find it is very contagious! Then the surprise you find is there is a society rich with buds of compassion and appreciation waiting to bloom! Suddenly we become the "in" crowd that others envy.

Every decision we make in every moment of our lives is a choice between suffering and a miracle. Let go of fear and anger and resentment and choose the miracle.

This is the power we all possess, but few realize. But it's never too late to practice and learn. And we learn by doing

LOve and affirmation

Ash

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 3 replies

new SAKYA TRIBE

janina — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:47:50 GMT

http://tribes.tribe.net/sakya

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Forgiveness basics I have learned

Ash — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:52:42 GMT

Life without forgiveness would be unbearable. For without forgiveness we would carry the suffering and pain of all the trespasses that have resulted in pain that we have encountered. Who benefits from forgiveness? Everyone, but most of all it is the forgiver who frees himself from the suffering caused by his attachment to the pain. Without forgiveness, experiencing the joy of the moment would be impossible. Love is hindered. The beautiful shining inner queer spirit is trapped and caked with mud.

Forgiveness begins with ourselves. Each of us has cause harm to others, Knowingly or unknowingly. Through our fear, ignorance, confusion. Though our pain and suffering we have acted or spoken unskillfully resulting in injury to others. To ask for forgiveness is a given entitlement of being. We deserve forgiveness For the pain I have caused another, I ask for forgiveness. Pleases forgive me. Please forgive me.

Forgiveness is also needed to one's self. How often have we treated ourselves without compassion. How often have we harm ourselves out of self loathing or sacrifice. We judge ourselves much too harshly. To my self I ask May I be forgiven? May I let go of my self judgement? I am a shining being. A loving compassionate soul derserving of forgiveness. Forgive me for my trespasses against myself. My confusion caused me to violate my inner sanctuary. The love of my inner spirit, betrayed by my action and thought and word . I ask forgiveness and reunion with my inner sanctuary. please forgive me. please forgive me.

Sometimes the most diffcult direction of forgivess is toward others who have caused us harm and hurt....Humiliation and anger .. We all have been betrayed and hurt, some of us quite gravely. I allow the compassion that I feel for myself from the forgiveness I have received.

To the extent that I am able I feel compassion to those who from their pain and confusion have acted unskillfully and either knowingly or unknowingly have hurt me. I understand their pain and confusion that prevent them from acting compassionately. I feel their guilt and shame they feel for hurting another human being. To those who have harmed me. You have suffered enough. No more payment for your trespass is needed. I forgive you. I forgive you.

Forgiveness is necessary to live on. Forgiveness is necessary to end violence. Without forgiveness, joy and love are mingled with pain and anger ...and we become sickened and die inside

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 27 replies

Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso Rinpoche Visits Dallas 12/19-12/21

VoiceOfMind — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 19:48:05 GMT

Venerable Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso Rinpoche
Spiritual Director, Palyul Changchub Dargyeling Dallas
Dallas~December 19-21, 2008

7 Line Prayer Teaching / Rigdzin Düpa Empowerment

"When a disciple calls upon me with devotion and the yearning song of the Seven-Line Prayer, I shall come at once..."
-Guru Rinpoche

The Seven Line Prayer is said to be the most majestic of all prayers to Guru Padmasambhava, and is the most powerful way to invoke his blessings. In a very special three part teaching series, Rinpoche will explain the profound meaning of the outer, inner and secret aspects of this sacred prayer. Rinpoche will also confer the empowerment of Rigdzin Dupa, the inner aspect of Guru Rinpoche. Rigdzin Dupa, "The Gathering of Awareness Holders", is a very powerful practice for dispeling obstacles, and is one of the three root sadhanas in the Longchen Nyingthig tradition.

Fri 12/19
7PM-9PM Teachings on the Seven Line Prayer Part1

Sat 12/20
10AM-Noon Teachings on the Seven Line Prayer Part2
2:30-4:30PM Teachings on the Seven Line Prayer Part3
4:30PM Refuge Ceremony

Sun 12/21
10AM-Noon Rigdzin Dupa Empowerment
2:30-4:30PM Teaching on the practice of Rigdzin Dupa

Location of events:
320 Terrace Drive, Richardson, TX. 75083
For driving instructions, please visit www.pcddallas.org

Suggested Dontation:
Fri. evening $20
Sat (all day) $40 ($20 per session)
Sun(all day) $40 ($20 per session)
PLEASE NOTE: Scholarships available. No one turned away due to lack of funds

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 2 replies

any dominant submissive personalities in Tibet?

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:14:58 GMT

I was wondering if tibetans have such notion of dominant and submissive personalities..

On the surface, in the west.. this notion of master/slave dominant/submissive active/passive dualities seem to be heavily used..

i was wondering about the Buddhist in tibet.. or the tibetan people..

do they think this way to some extent or do they disregard it as rather useless to the path of spiritual growth?

thanks in advance for your thoughts..

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 7 replies

Palden Dorje speech

Vinixia — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 20:00:58 GMT

Murder, violence, greed, anger and temptation have made the human world a desperate place. A terrible storm has descended upon the human world, and this is carrying the world towards destruction. There is only one way to save the world and that is through dharma. When one doesn't walk the righteous path of spiritual practice, this desperate world will surely be destroyed. Therefore, follow the path of spirituality and spread this message to your fellows. Never put obstacles, anger and disbelief in the way of my meditation's mission. I am only showing you the way; you must seek it on your own. What I will be, what I will do, the coming days will reveal. Human salvation, the salvation of all living beings, and peace in the world are my goal and my path. "Namo Buddha sangaya, Namo Buddha sangaya, namo sangaya." I am contemplating on the release of this chaotic world from the ocean of emotion, on our detachment from anger and temptation, without straying from the path for even a moment, I am renouncing my own attachment to my life and my home forever, I am working to save all living beings. But in this undisciplined world, my life's practice is reduced to mere entertainment.

The practice and devotion of many Buddhas is directed at the world's betterment and happiness. It is essential but very difficult to understand that practice and devotion. But though it is easy to lead this ignorant existence, human beings don't understand that one day we must leave this uncertain world and go with the Lord of Death. Our long attachments with friends and family will dissolve into nothingness. We have to leave behind the wealth and property we have accumulated. What's the use of my happiness, when those who have loved me from the beginning, my mother, father, brothers, relatives are all unhappy. Therefore, to rescue all sentient beings, I have to be Buddha-mind, and emerge from my underground cave to do vajra meditation. To do this I have to realize the right path and knowledge, so do not disturb my practice. My practice detaches me from my body, my soul and this existence. In this situation there will be 72 goddess Kalis. Different gods will be present, along with the sounds of thunder and of "tangur", and all the celestial gods and goddesses will be doing puja (worship). So until I have sent a message, do not come here, and please explain this to others. Spread spiritual knowledge and spiritual messages throughout the world. Spread the message of world peace to all. Seek a righteous path and wisdom will be yours.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Argument about Godhead concept

nigels_abodh — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:58:37 GMT

In all forms of Tibetan Buddhism, a god that maintains the universe and is free from samsara is negated.
As i have not come to this conclusion resoundingly, i'd like to find sources for common arguments.
It would be most helpful to read classic debates on the subject, with an overview of Madyamika and other schools.
With the risk of this becoming a debate thread in itself, i'd also like to open it up to personal reasoning why you do or do not support the theory of A One God creator being (in the Brahmanic / Vaisnava / Saivite perspective.)

this is something i've been thinking about for years. I'm studying Tibetan Buddhism and yet, lingering in the back of my mind is this love for religions that explain things from a common angle. The common schools elevate the student up to God, showing them beauty, and convincing through experiences 'Thou Art That.' Tat Tvam Asi.

A comparison of the Gita and Buddhism shows many many of the same principles... yet the question remains.... is there a personality to the universe, a divine lila of krishna for example, or is there a buddha-nature in which all gods and all buddhas are interwoven that lacks a singular personality...or a conscious will. Is there a big being in the sky that is the essence of all the others...or is everything a manifestation of consciousness endulging in karma? These are just some sample questions that might inspire you to comment :):):)
Love,
Tejdeep

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 23 replies

Dharma quote

tashidorje — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 08:03:02 GMT

Dharma Quote of the Week

Life would be unbearable if everything stayed the same because human beings find situations that are fixed and predictable very hard to tolerate. Even in small matters, we become uneasy if we feel there is no end in sight. I know of couples who live harmoniously together for ten years then marry and are divorced within a year. As soon as they feel bound to each other for the rest of their lives, they begin to fight. Impermanence removes our reasons for quarrelling with each other. Arguments only break out if we imagine that our relationships are endless. When we appreciate that our time with our families, partners, and friends may be shorter than we think, we get on better with each other. Awareness of impermanence gives us extraordinary inner strength and resilience.

--from Mind Training by Ringu Tulku, edited by B.M. Shaughnessy, published by Snow Lion Publications

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 127 replies

The Karmapa's Visit to America

venicevagabond — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:15:11 GMT

http://www.karmapavisit.org/

He is coming to New York, Boulder and Seattle - May 15th - June 2nd.

If you are in the Denver/Boulder area and would like to help out in any way (volunteer stuff) let me know and we can chat.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 56 replies

Mantras

bugwitch — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:36:30 GMT

Hey again all. Still haven't found a place nearby to visit, but I'm still looking. Sometimes for meditation or focusing excercises I recite a mantra. The one's I'm familiar with (Buddhist variety anyway) are the Mani mantra and Tara mantra. Are there any mantras that you use for meditation that you find cleansing or beneficial? If what I have been reading is correct, I understand that many devotees devote much time and effort to memorizing full texts and recite those. I'm not sure if those are used specifically for ritual purpose or are also used as a form of meditation.

Thanks again.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 11 replies

My Dharma practice

celestial — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 04:40:48 GMT

I show up late to teachings and my engine drowns out the gong. I have taken many wangs with great masters but I don't remember any of them since I don't do the practices. I drop a lot of special words and explain them to people who aren't into Tibetan Buddhism. I fill the water bowls on my shrine just before important guests show up. I say a lot of mantras while I visualize what I'll do on vacation this year. I go to tsogs to eat the food. Torma looks like marzipan. I once ate something during a wang that looked like a hit of acid. I was pissed when it didn't get me off. I think about sex when I'm doing practice. I don't practice when I'm having sex. I like to sing during group practice so I can hear myself. I hate everyone in my sangha. Even my lama looks bored when I'm around. I ask all the questions in question and answer sessions. Mostly I ask political stuff.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 9 replies

"Thoughts" and "Thinking"

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 16:23:31 GMT

(noticed in another forum)

How would these two be precisely defined according to Buddhism?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 24 replies

Coordinated approach for buddhist practice

IronDoug — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:33:27 GMT

Hello:

I have been reading The Art of Happiness on the Dalai Lama. He talks about having a coordinated approach for a buddhist practice. Combining studying and learning with the practices of contemplation and meditation. He said this is important so there won't be any imbalances between the two.

He compares it with a voltage stabilizer. Irregular power surges instead of a stable and constant source of power.

I wonder if I do enough learning and studying.

I would love to hear from people with professions who balance it with their practice.

Namaste,

Doug

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 9 replies

food offering prayer and mantra questions

nigels_abodh — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:09:01 GMT

What is the purpose of the food offering prayer? Does the prayer work in a nondual way, such as you are offering the food to your own buddha-nature too?

in mantra, do the sounds themselves generate the energy of the deity, the pure mind? Should we strive to create any feelings, like a love or gratitude towards the deity, or should we just relax and do the mantra over and over with a mind not attached to creating anything?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 1 reply

Twenty One Praises to Tara

nigels_abodh — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:57:51 GMT

1
Homage to Tara swift and fearless
With eyes like a flash of lightning
Lotus-born in an ocean of tears
Of Chenresig, three worlds' protector.

2
Homage to you whose face is like
One hundred autumn moons gathered
And blazes with the dazzling light
Of a thousand constellations.

3
Homage to you born from a gold-blue lotus
Hands adorned with lotus flowers
Essence of giving, effort and ethics,
Patience, concentration and wisdom.

4
Homage to you who crown all Buddhas
Whose action subdues without limit
Attained to every perfection
On you the bodhisattvas rely.

5
Homage to you whose TUTTARE and HUM
Fill the realms of desire, form and space.
You crush seven worlds beneath your feet
And have power to call all forces.

6
Homage to you adored by Indra,
Agni, Brahma, Vayu and Ishvara.
Praised in song by hosts of spirits,
Zombies, scent-eaters and yakshas.

7
Homage to you whose TREY and PEY
Destroy external wheels of magic.
Right leg drawn in and left extended,
You blaze within a raging fire.

8
Homage to you whose TURE destroys
The great fears, the mighty demons.
With a wrathful frown on your lotus face,
You slay all foes without exception.

9
Homage to you beautifully adorned
By the Three Jewels' gesture at your heart.
Your wheel shines in all directions
With a whirling mass of light.

10
Homage to you, radiant and joyful
Whose crown emits a garland of light.
You, by the laughter of TUTTARA
Conquer demons and lords of the world.

11
Homage to you with power to invoke
The assembly of local protectors.
With your fierce frown and vibrating HUM,
You bring freedom from all poverty.

12
Homage to you with crescent moon crown
All your adornments dazzling bright.
From your hair-knot, Amitabha
Shines eternal with great beams of light.

13
Homage to you who dwells in a blazing wreath
Like the fire at the end of this age.
Your right leg outstretched and left drawn in,
Joy surrounds you who defeats hosts of foes.

14
Homage to you whose foot stamps the earth
And whose palm strikes the ground by your side.
With a wrathful glance and the letter HUM,
You subdue all in the seven stages.

15
Homage to the blissful, virtuous, peaceful one
Object of practice, nirvana's peace
Perfectly endowed with SOHA and OM
Overcoming all the great evils.

16
Homage to you with joyous retinue
You subdue fully all enemies' forms
The ten-letter mantra adorns your heart
And your knowledge-HUM brings liberation.

17
Homage to TURE with stamping feet
Whose essence is the seed-letter HUM
You cause Merus, Mandara and Vindaya
And all three worlds to tremble and shake.

18
Homage to you who holds in your hand
A moon like a celestial lake
Saying TARA twice and the letter PEY
You dispel all poisons without exception.

19
Homage to you on whom the kings of gods,
The gods themselves and all spirits rely.
Your armor radiates joy to all
You soothe conflicts and nightmares as well.

20
Homage to you whose eyes, the sun and moon,
Radiate with pure brilliant light
Uttering HARA twice and TUTTARA
Dispels extremely fearful plagues.

21
Homage to you, adorned with three natures
Perfectly endowed with peaceful strength
You destroy demons, zombies and yakshas
O TURE, most exalted and sublime!

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Shempa

Avoué d'Arras et Bellonne — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 16:51:14 GMT

There is a concept in Thibetan Buddhism known as “Shempa” ( strange enough, shempia would mean stupid in some Latino languages) a shempa is a place where we are “hooked.” It’s something that gets under our skin, that works its way into our mind and we find after a while we can’t stop thinking about it and letting it go is difficult. Shempas are little irritants that work away at the mind. They can, if nourished, become very strong and powerful. A shempa is an addiction to a way of thinking – a (seemingly) justified projection. The ego speaks first and loudest and this past year as the readers of Miracles know, a shempa came my way and I let it take my peace away.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 6 replies

test of tolerance of impermanence

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:30:57 GMT

I'm meditating over a barometer for where I stand with respect to impermanence and I thought of this:

would someone who is at peace with impermanence be easily mistaken for acting almost aloof compared to how those disquieted over it?

you know, if someone is calm about impermanence and neither is neither fearful of it, or relishes it.. would one have a neautrality about it.. similar to someone accepting the laws mathematics.. like accepting that 1+1=2?

so if one is surprised that a certain change, one would still have some work to do with respect to impermanence, yes, no, maybe?

thanks for your thoughts in advance...

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 10 replies

"Considering Anthropophagy in Tibet"

Sarah — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:27:11 GMT

Since I find ritual fascinating especially when it predates Christians eating the "blood of the lamb," thought a few of you might want to attend this lecture. Too bad I'm working....let me know how it goes.

Dear Friends of the Center for Buddhist Studies at UC Berkeley,

Our 2008-09 colloquium series begins next week with a lecture by Professor
Frances Garrett of the University of Toronto:

Thursday, September 11, 2008, 5:00 pm
Frances Garrett, University of Toronto
"Considering Anthropophagy in Tibet"
IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor

This presentation will examine "cannibalism" as a locus of connection
between religious, medical and occult traditions in Tibet. Surveying
examples of the consumption of human body parts as articulated in Tibetan
contemplative, ritual, occult and medical literature, and in myth,
iconography and narrative, this talk will consider how anthropophagy has
been controversial not only for Buddhologists and European visitors to
Tibet, but also for Tibetans themselves. Professor Garrett draws in
particular from the Nectar Tantras canon and its writings on the
contemplative and ritual practice called Accomplishing Medicine (sman
sgrub), an esoteric exercise that involves the creation and use of
"nectar" recipes using human products. She concludes that in Tibet
anthropophagous practices and narratives are acts of transgression,
generosity, and incorporation that are simultaneously savage and
civilized.

For more information about this event and other upcoming events sponsored
by the Center for Buddhist Studies, please visit our website at
http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/events. A complete fall events
calendar will be sent to you soon.

Best wishes,

Keila Diehl, Ph.D.
Vice-Chair, Center for Buddhist Studies
University of California, Berkeley

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Tibetan-Yoga mailing-list

sahajananda — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:56:21 GMT

Hi everyone,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Tibetan-Yoga/

This is a private mailing-list where it is possible to discuss the topic of Tibetan-yoga in more depth than in a public forum. Strictly speaking it is not limited to just Tibetan practice, and dialogue about Indian, Newar, and Central-Asian variants is encouraged.

We also welcome discussion of how these methods relate to better-known methods like Hatha-yoga and Kundalini practices.

Subjects of interest would include:

Tummo (candali): The yoga of inner-fire. The Buddhist/Bon equivalent of kundalini-yoga

Trulkhor (yantra): A sophisticated methodology similar to Hatha-yoga

Tsalung (nadi-vayu) Employing the prana and energy-channels of the body

Kumnye (abhyanga-mardana): Application of ointments and massage

Lojung: Body-training in the broad sense (including yoga)

Dream and Sleep Yoga
_______________________________________________________________

Generally speaking, to join you will need to be a practitioner of some form of Tibetan yoga.

However, exceptions to this rule may be made if you have a background or special knowledge that would allow you to make an important contribution to the group.

Special circumstance will be considered (for example, if one has a serious health concern, compassion might dictate that one be allowed to join in order to learn more about traditions which might be of help).

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

HHDL suffering from exhaustion

celestial — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:27:23 GMT

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080.../dalai_lama

I am posting this article for a specific reason.

We don't know why HH has taken sick but one sure way to harm yourselves and especially the Lama is fighting each other esp. over Dharma.

I see a ton of this on this tribe. Entire threads of people insulting others while touting their own greatness. It is the opposite of Dharma practice.

It is the reason I started that crazy thread saying what a horrible practitioner I am. My hope was that others would join in but only two people in this tribe seemed to catch on.

Again, the most harmed from this type of thing are our precious jewels the lamas (and esp within your own lineages). All will ultimately suffer. Please people, take responsibility with your actions.

-C

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 5 replies

Recommendation for a taste of Meditation / Buddhism in Portland, OR

Tim — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:35:21 GMT

I am wanting to explore Meditation / Buddhism and have identified the Dharma Rain Zen Center and the Shambhala Meditation Center as possible contacts. I would appreciate it if anyone familiar with these place could share any insight, experience or insight about them.

Thanks much.... Tim

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 1 reply

China's Iron Grip on Olympics Starts to Slip

Konchog Dorje — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 03:33:00 GMT

China's iron Olympic grip starts to slip
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet critics, made bold by their uncensored criticism of the
Games' opening ceremony, are seeking new targets
Michael Sheridan, Beijing
The Sunday Times (UK)
August 17, 2008

The mystery of the half-filled stands at many events at the 2008
Olympic Games has been solved, according to Chinese internet users,
who say it is the result of a policy to prevent the gathering of
large and possibly uncontrollable crowds.

They claim ticket sales to the public were secretly restricted.
Blocks of tickets went to government departments, Communist party
officials or state-owned companies, which have quietly obeyed orders
not to hand them out. "People are so angry because they slept all
night outside ticket booths and got nothing and now they see this,"
said one blogger, Jian Yu.

Official explanations eroded swiftly because internet insurgents have
rapidly identified cracks in the perfect facade constructed for the Olympics.

In the nine days since Chinese leaders presided over a grandiose -
and, it turns out, partly faked - opening ceremony, one fact after
another has eluded the censors and fuelled public indignation at the
costs and the charade. Protected, they hope, by online anonymity,
some of China's 1.3 billion people are daring to wonder where it will all end.

At some football matches in the northern city of Shenyang, only a
third of the seats were taken. Even some gymnastics finals, usually
one of the biggest attractions on the programme, were not sold out.

Nobody seems to have explained it to the International Olympic
Committee, which is baffled by the empty seats, or to the sponsors,
who are disappointed.

The policy meant that some British supporters have been deprived of
the excitement of seeing the Games. Even parents of competitors, such
as those of Rebecca Adlington, the gold medal-winning swimmer, have
complained about being unable to get seats.

Jeff Hunter, group operations director for Sportsworld, the official
travel and ticket agent for the British Olympic Association, said:
"It is surprising that not all the venues have been as full as they
could have been."

Lower-ranking Chinese officials hastily bused in paid "volunteers" to
populate the stands in Beijing, appreciating the embarrassment caused
by leaving them half-empty, but public relations remain a matter of
indifference to most guardians of public order.

Security has been heavy-handed from the start. As the film director
Zhang Yimou's extravaganza kicked off with a boom, I watched on a
giant screen in a park, one of the few venues where ordinary Chinese
people were allowed to gather.

They cheered as the fireworks exploded, few looking up to find that
there were, in fact, none to be seen because the sequence was
produced by software, not gunpowder.

They cooed at nine-year-old Lin Miaoke, hardly caring that her lyrics
were obviously mimed, and as she sang they went into a patriotic
delirium when goose-stepping soldiers raised the national flag. Yet
even these loyal citizens could not be trusted. We were surrounded by
dozens of police who locked the gates to keep us in and others out.

Chao Chanqing, an exiled journalist widely read on web-sites
accessible in China, has accused Zhang, the director, of playing the
same role as Leni Riefenstahl, who filmed an epic documentary for
Hitler at the Berlin Olympics of 1936.

The director scorns the comparison but he admitted that a Chinese
leader ordered him to make changes to the ceremony. "I had no chance
to reject his opinion," he told the Nanfang Weekend newspaper.
Analysts said he was referring to vice-president Xi Jinping, heir
apparent to the top job.

Government officials swept thousands of migrant workers out of
Beijing -- the very people who built the stadium, at least 10 of them
paying with their lives. Police arrested hundreds of provincial
petitioners who sought justice in the capital and sent at least 58 to
labour camps for "reeducation".

The sick were told that routine surgery was cancelled in every
hospital and officials shut some psychiatric patients inside their wards.

Even as the nation is supposed to be keeping a keen tally of the gold
medal count, dissenters are daring to raise the issue of how much the
Games have cost the people of China.

For all its export might, China is still a poor, largely agrarian
country with perhaps 700m farmers and 150m migrant workers. The size
of its economy is huge but, measured by wealth per head, it ranks
109th in the world, comparable with Swaziland or Morocco.

It faces an acute crisis as its people live longer but fewer are
born; the old lack pensions and healthcare must be paid for. Half the
population does not have clean drinking water and 16 cities are among
the most polluted on earth.

So why, asked the mainland Chinese writers in a Hong Kong magazine
named Kaifeng (Open), did China blow more than £20 billion on the Games?

They calculate that the total costs may exceed £30 billion, more than
the Chinese government will spend this year on education or public
health or relief for the Sichuan earthquake. These are questions that
would make any ruler nervous.

Chinese leaders prided themselves on the splendid reception for
dignitaries and 10,500 athletes. They rejected criticism of their
policies on Darfur, Burma and Zimbabwe, brushing aside foreign
demonstrators complaining about Tibet.

However, they remain worried about political undercurrents among
their people. These can be unexpected. Despite pervasive internet
control, censors could not stop nationalist criticism about the
diplomatic price China has paid for mounting the Games.

Exhibit one for the ultra-patriots was a border treaty signed on July
21 between China and Russia to settle disputes over their Siberian
territories that led to armed clashes during the cold war. Official
accounts of the treaty emphasised the return to China of 1½ islands
in the icy Amur River that divides the two nations.

Online critics were enraged because the foreign ministry appeared to
have recognised the 19th-century conquest of thousands of square
miles of land by Tsarist Russia. "These lands belong to all the
people of China," a blogger called "Tiger" wrote. It was only on the
day the treaty was signed that the attendance of Vladimir Putin at
the opening ceremony of the Games was confirmed.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 1 reply

basic breath practice and basic mantra practice : nadi shodhana pranayam and White Tara mantra

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:01:05 GMT

Re: what to engage in yoga - breath practices and mantra

Re Jennifer on tribe tantra
"What is a good form of yoga to get into for beginners? "

Hi Jennifer.
A simple and profound practice is "pranayama", or breath modulation.
It is used by yoga practitioners at all levels.
It requires no specific religious philosophy.

It is used for many purposes, such as psychological balance, energy balancing, mind-body co-ordination, physical workout warm-ups and warm-downs, kundalini yoga, and as a key practice in Buddhist yogas of primordial pure awareness, such as Great Perfection and Great Seal.

There are also Buddhist kung fu breath modulation practices for martial arts which are sophisticated and powerful.

There are many excellent books available on pranayama.
A basic and most useful pranayama practice is alternate nostril breathing, which is taught in many variations, among the Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists. In Sanskrit this is known as nadi shodhana pranayam.

As with most yoga practices, be careful regarding sensitive times such as pregnancy or illness and do not practice when the stomach is full.

A major source of teaching on pranayama is the 3H0 Sikhs and Yogi Bhajan, who brought a tremendous amount of this material to the West. Do a google search for "kundalini yoga" + pranayam + "yogi bhajan". You can get 3H0 books on kundalini yoga from Ravi Singh and Guru Rattan Khaur Khalsa.

I have and use many texts on tantra and yoga as practitioner and as guru, and pranayama is always of enormous importance in the different lineages, and in my own practice. I began doing pranayam in 1980, and on at least one occasion it has saved my life.

Another major and most useful kind of practice is Sanskrit recitation, or mantrayana.
You can find a basic description of the Vajrasattva mantra at my tribe home, under the picture for "Hundred Syllable Mantra".

The primary source for transmissions of this kind of yoga is the esoteric Buddhist tantra, known to the public under the name "Tibetan Buddhism."

I have completed ten thousand hours of mantra.

A most basic and openly available mantra for healing and developing inner spiritual connections is the Buddhist goddess mantra for Tara:

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE MA ME AYU PUNYA JNANA PUSTIM KURU SVAHA

This is for wisdom ( jnana ), long life ( ayu ), noble qualities ( punya ), and spiritual energy ( pustim ). This is a good mantra for protection, for removing obstacles, and cleansing the magnetic field.

A basic practice would be to recite this 100,000 times, and it works better with visualization, pure intention and so forth.

There are many Buddhist books and practice texts for Tara, for example from Snow Lion Publications, at
http://www.snowlionpub.com/

See the book
"Skillful Grace: Tara Practice for Our Time"

at Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Skillful-Grace-Tara-Practice-Time/dp/9627341614

If you can do some effective pranayama and some effective mantra then you are a functional yoga practitioner.
If you lack both pranayama and mantra, your practice will remain very very very limited.

Best,

Acarya KT

Sarva mangalam! Siddhi rastu!

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Olympic crackdown: China's secret plot to tame Tibet

Konchog Dorje — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:58:15 GMT

Olympic crackdown: China's secret plot to tame Tibet
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sunday Times
July 13, 2008

Beijing is putting on a show of moderation but internal party papers
reveal a sinister crackdown

Michael Sheridan in Hong Kong
The Sunday Times
July 13, 2008

Internal Communist party documents have revealed that China is planning
a programme of harsh political repression in Tibet despite a public show
of moderation to win over world opinion before the Olympic Games next month.

A campaign of “re-education” has been outlined in confidential speeches
to meetings of Communist party members by Zhang Qingli, the hardline
party secretary of Tibet.

Verbatim texts of the speeches have been kept out of the Chinese media
but were printed in the April and May editions of the Xigang Tongxun
(Tibet Communications) — a classified publication restricted to party
officials. Translations were handed to The Sunday Times in Hong Kong.

Zhang has admitted behind closed doors that the Chinese authorities in
Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, face “a tide of encirclement” and that
anti-Chinese violence in March “destroyed social stability”. He has
warned that “final victory” is far off.

Rioting broke out in Lhasa on March 14 after days of peaceful protests
by Buddhist monks, which had been broken up by the security forces.

The violence was fuelled by ethnic hatred for Chinese migrants who owned
shops and homes. China said 18 people died, some beaten to death and
several burnt alive.

Disorder spread across the Himalayan region “liberated” by the People’s
Liberation Army in 1950. Monks and civilians confronted Chinese security
forces in towns and villages, some hurling stones and wielding primitive
weapons.

The internal publication stated that 242 soldiers and police were killed
or wounded but did not break down the figures. It said 120 homes and 908
businesses in Lhasa were destroyed.

There are no independently verified numbers for Tibetan casualties but
the Tibetan government in exile has spoken of about 200 dead.

Zhang has now outlined a Mao-era system of “administrative committees”
to control the monasteries, revived officious “street committees” to
watch over the city and co-ordinated an intensive military operation.

China agreed to talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s
exiled spiritual leader, to defuse international criticism over its
reaction to the uprising, which led to demonstrations in many countries.
Protests in support of Tibet had plagued the Olympic torch relay in
London, Paris and Greece, home of the Games.

Amid calls for a boycott of the Games, foreign governments and the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) welcomed China’s decision to meet
the Tibetan exiles as a sign of dialogue.

However, Zhang’s words make it plain the talks are a diplomatic mask to
conceal China’s actual policy. His speeches, which are remarkably frank,
show the government’s chosen response is a classic Marxist-Leninist
propaganda and re-education campaign backed up by armed force.

The Tibet party leader retains the backing of China’s President Hu
Jintao who crushed a Tibetan revolt in 1988 during his tenure as party
secretary in Lhasa. He also has heavyweight support on the politburo in
Beijing in the shape of his mentor Wang Lequan, a 64-year-old lifetime
Communist functionary believed to be directing policy in both Tibet and
the neighbouring region of Xinjiang. Wang has described himself as the
number one terrorist target in China.

Some Chinese analysts believe there is disquiet among other leaders,
which may come into the open after their façade of harmony for the
Olympics is dropped.

In one speech Zhang admitted that the March 14 incident had “seriously
destroyed social stability”.

“Afterwards, people were very scared. They even stopped going to the
monasteries to spin prayer wheels and chant sutras, a fact that tells us
that the Dalai Lama is the real criminal who is destroying Tibetan Buddhism.

“We must learn lessons from this issue and organise our masses to build
up an impregnable fortress against the tide of encirclement to beat our
enemy.”

Zhang has since proclaimed that conditions for schools, businesses and
offices in Lhasa are “normal”.

“But we are far from final victory because the Dalai Lama group, which
was exploited by western enemy forces, is making a new plan for
separatism,” he said. “So you, the leaders of work units, must guard
your gates and manage your people well. Let leaders of street committees
be vigilant and keep watch on all outsiders.

“Propaganda and education are our party’s greatest advantages. These are
the most useful weapons with which to defend ourselves against the Dalai
Lama group. So let the propaganda department work more actively to
expose its plots.”

The internal publication noted that the police, the government’s
religious bureau and all party branches should earnestly implement
Zhang’s instructions.

“Each department should make full use of those religious people who love
the motherland and love religion, in order to make the administrative
committees work with vigour.”

The “administrative committees” reproduce a standard Communist party
method of installing trusted cadres who will ensure obedience to its
policies inside any institution.

The head of propaganda in Tibet, Lie Que, was even more explicit in
remarks published by the official Tibet Daily on June 2.

“We must clean out the monasteries and strengthen the administrative
committees,” he said, “After that we will absolutely control them.”

China preserves the façade of an autonomous regional government in Lhasa
and has paraded ethnic Tibetan figureheads in front of foreign journalists.

In reality, Tibet is governed by the party and the army. The outskirts
of Lhasa are ringed by barracks. Every road in is blocked by
checkpoints. Real power rests with Zhang and the military commander of
Tibet, General Tong Guishan.

Zhang originally attracted international attention by characterising the
Dalai Lama as “a wolf in monk’s clothes, a devil with a human face”. He
rose up the hierarchy in Xinjiang, another remote and resource-rich
region troubled by separatism. As a reward for his loyalty, he was
transferred to the top job in Lhasa in 2005.

Since then he has accelerated campaigns against Tibetan culture and
religion, brought in more settlers on the world’s highest railway and
stepped up the exploitation of Tibet’s huge reserves of raw materials.

“The central government has used the whole country’s resources to help
Tibet since its peaceful liberation and has allowed Tibet to achieve
thousands of years of progress in just a few decades,” Zhang told a
group of cadres.

He appears immune to embarrassment. Welcoming the Olympic torch on its
heavily guarded tour through Lhasa on June 21, Zhang promised that he
would “totally smash” the Dalai Lama “clique”.

The IOC regretted that “political statements” had been made at the
event. But with top-level protection, Zhang appears supremely confident
of his authority to run a campaign that sounds to many Chinese like an
echo from history.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 1 reply

HH Phakchok Rinpoche and the Chokling Tersar Lineage of the Great Perfection : An Introduction and 2008 Tour Notes

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:28:22 GMT

HH Phakchok Rinpoche and the Chokling Tersar Lineage of the Great Perfection : An Introuduction and 2008 Tour Notes

Keywords: Esoteric Buddhist yoga ( buddhatantra ), Great Perfection / AtiYoga / dzogchen i.e. primordial awareness yoga, tantric Buddhist empowerment, non-sectarian tantric Buddhist practice ( Rimay ), HH Phakchok Rinpoche Tendzin Jigmey Drakpa, Orgyen Dorje Den Center ( San Francisco ), Chokling Tersar lineage ( Nyingma / Ancient School transmission of Indo-Tibetan vajrayana ).

NAMO GURU SRI PADMAKARAYE
Homage to Guru Padmasambhava.

This summer ( 2008 ) His Holiness Phakchok Rinpoche, a primary tantric Buddhist lineage holder, is on a major tour ( see below for events ), giving tantric Buddhist transmissions and teachings in the USA, Canada, and Europe. He is a younger major teacher in the Chokling Tersar tradition of Nyingma and Dzogchen ( see below ).

This lineage derives directly from Guru Padmasambhava, a most extraordinary Indian guru and a principal cofounder of the Buddhist tradition in Tibet. Today six million or more people practice teaching deriving from from Guru Padmasambhava, in for example the Tibetan traditions such as Sakya, Kagyu and Nyingma, including some millions of East Asians ( Chinese Buddhists of esoteric Buddhist lineage ).

This is a very magical, very powerful, and very yogic style of transmission, especially in terms of the inner practices. It is well supported by many independent practice lineages, of which the Chokling Tersar Foundation is an important example both in the USA and Europe. It is well established in California and Denmark, and several major teachers of this tradition give teaching tours.

This sangha ( spiritual fellowship ) is of major importance because Chokling Tersar Foundation has a translation / publishing organization called Rangjung Yeshe. This is one of the main sources worldwide for core Nyingma and dzogchen publications. I have and use quite a few Rangjung Yeshe practice and teaching texts. They are highest quality and indispensible for all Nyingma and dzogchen practitioners in particular, and broadly useful.

One of the most important books ever published for tantric Buddhists is
"Dakini Teachings", by Padmasambhava, and this is from Rangjung Yeshe.
Another key example, from the same source, is
"Light of Wisdom", by Padmasambhava and Jamgon Kongtrul.

For a general background on dzogchen, or "primordial awareness yoga", it is well worthwhile to obtain the book
"The Crystal and the Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen", written by another important master of a parallel Nyingma lineage, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu. This is about the best place to start for a book introduction to the inner teachings, which is descriptive only, and not practice per se.

Esoteric Buddhist yoga ( buddhatantra ) and Great Perfection ( dzogchen awareness yoga ) depend fundamentally on transmission, and so it is necessary to see a real teacher. Without a major transmission from an authentic guru, much or most of the teaching - and all of the yoga sadhana - does not work. Therefore I take this opportunity to make an important introduction.

( Please note that I DO NOT have any authority to represent Chokling Tersar Foundation, HH Phakchok Rinpoche, or any activity associated with this line of transmission. I am simple conveying what I know in a clear and definite way, to support this lineage and those who may benefit from it. I cannot make any promises that any of what is said here, or this kind of transmission, will solve any particular problem or give any particular result. The results are very personal and individualized. )

HH Phakchok Rinpoche Tendzin Jigmey Drakpa is not yet well known to the public, but is already having a great influence in transmitting key innermost teachings of tantra and dzogchen. Therefore it is auspicious and appropriate to make known this teacher and the availability of these teachings.

The qualifications of HH Phakchok Rinpoche are vast and profound ( see below for his autobiography ). He has highest-level authorization to give primary transmissions in both the Nyingma and Kagyu lineages, and is one of the few people who has a complete cycle of Sakya School tantric empowerments.

Two years ago I received a major dzogchen empowerment from this teacher, from within the Chokling Tersar, and personally confirm that his transmission is powerful and effective, not only as a tantric blessing / psychic cleansing, but also as a functional teaching and transmission. He is very direct and engaging and extraordinarily generous in his teaching. He is here to teach core precepts, not just bestow blessings. That means actual, whole person practice.

HH Phakchok Rinpoche gave me his card at the one time I was able to attend his transmission, so he is willing to personally engage students in a longer term sense. At that time he did lay on those present the general but significant requirement to Do A Daily Tantric Buddhist Practice, which is in fact the requirement of Guru Padmasambhava.

A daily practice typically means mantra recitation, as well as upholding ethical precepts of the Mahayana and Tantra. ( See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva_vows or better yet, the above book "Dakini Teachings" for teaching on outer and inner Buddhist ethics. ) A primary example of mantra discipline is Vajrasattva deity yoga, for which a short teaching is given at my tribe.net home under the Sanskrit picture for Hundred Syllable mantra.

A specific event listing for the Yangdak Heruka transmission and teaching to be given August 16, 17 & 18 follows. Orgyen Dorje Den can host at least 200 participants. This is a remarkably important group, and a "home fellowship" for me, though I have not seen them in many years. Their center teacher, Ven. Gyaltrul Rinpoche, is a great gift to the West. I have and use and recommend his books.

Basically, it is from the Eight Herukas Cycle which is associated with the Guhyagarbha Tantra, which was propagated as one of the primary practices of Guru Padmasambhava. This fully confers Vajrasattva, a key basic and continung practice, and *may* fully confer Great Perfection / Breakthrough as well ( no guarantee ).

Significant mantra teaching on the Eight Herukas is given in the remarkable book
"The Tibetan Book of the Dead: First Complete Translation (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Paperback)", Publisher: Penguin Classics; Deluxe edition (January 30, 2007 ),# ISBN-10: 0143104942.

This is written in partial fulfillment of mahayana and tantric Buddhist teaching responsibilities, in support of His Holiness Phakchok Rinpoche, Orgyen Dorje Den and Ven. Gyaltrul Rinpoche, the Chokling Tersar lineage, and the benefit of as many people as possible.

Sarva mangalam! Siddhi rastu!

Acarya KT

http://www.phakchokrinpoche.org/events.htm
Events
H.H. Phakchok Rinpoche's 2008 Teaching Calendar
For more information on any of the below programs, please e-mail us at office@phakchokrinpoche.org.

San Francisco, California: Aug 15-19
Empowerments: Yangdak Heruka & Sangtik Korsum (Teaching and Advice)
Teachings: Advice and teaching on general Development Stage
Meditation Training - at Orgyen Dorje Den, Directions to Orgyen Dorje Den
Public Talks: The Great “I” (Berkeley Shambhala Center)
Great Longchenpa
E-mail: office@phakchokrinpoche.org

Toronto: August 27-Sept 1 – with H.E. Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche
Empowerment: Sangye Won
Teachings: Jewel Ornament of Liberation
Taklung Thangpa
Public Talk: The Great “I”

H.E. Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche
Empowerments: Vajrakilaya & Tara
Prosperity Vase Blessing & Tsok
Visit: Riwoche Society, riwoche.com
E-mail: pema@riwoche.com

Vancouver: September 5-7
Teaching: VajraYogini Program [ this is restricted to those who have the empowerment ]
Public Talks: The Great “I”
Meditation and Happiness
E-mail: Mara Shnay, mshnay@telus.net

Salt Springs Island: September 7-9
Empowerment: Medicine Buddha
Meditation Retreat
E-mail: Matthew, matthewphyllis@telus.net

Europe: Poland & Germany

Hamburg, Germany: Sept 20-21
Lamrim Yeshe Nyingpo (Light of Wisdom)
E-mail: Arne Schelling, arne.schellingatgmx.de

Menz, Germany: Sept 22
Public Talk on The Great “I”
E-mail: Arne Schelling, arne.schellingatgmx.de

Berlin, Germany: Sept 23-24
Life Stories of Yeshe Tsogyal and Machig Labdron
The Aspiration Prayer of Samantabhadra
E-mail: Anne Siml, annesiml@yahoo.de

Greifswald, Germany: Sept 25-27
Public Talk on Compassion
Mind Training
E-mail: Anne Siml, annesiml@yahoo.de

Rangjung Yeshe Gomde – Denmark: Sept 29-30
Lotus Essence Tantra
Heart Sutra
Questions and Answers for Meditators
Website: www.gomde.dk
E-mail: Erik Pema Kunsang, erik@gomde.dk

Warsaw, Poland: October 2-5
Kunzang Thuktig Preliminary Practice
Mind Training
E-mail: Julia E. Wahl, karmayeshetsomo@gmail.com
Mobile: +48 608 079 909

The following events will be at:
Orgyen Dorje Den
2244 Santa Clara Ave
Alameda, CA 94501
http://www.orgyendorjeden.org/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coming this weekend, August 16, 17 & 18:
H.H. Phakchok Rinpoche, head of the Taklung Kagyu lineage and son of H.E. Chokling Rinpoche, nephew of H.E. Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, and grandson of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, is coming to the San Francisco Bay Area from August 15-19 to give teachings and empowerments. Please plan to attend and spread the word regarding these precious teachings.
See phakchokrinpoche.org.
And for biographical info: http://phakchokrinpoche.org/lineage.htm
http://phakchokrinpoche.org/historyofpresentPK.htm

HH Phakchok Rinpoche will be giving the following empowerments and teachings at ODD.
Yangdak Heruka empowerment and teachings.
August 16 from 10 am to 12 pm and 2 to 4 pm.
When asked for some brief info about Yangdak Heruka, Rinpoche, translating from a text, replied the following in a phone call:
"Yangdak Heruka is the secret heart essence practice of Mahapandita Vimalamitra & Guru Padmasambhava. As a method to repair mistakes, purify broken samaya and reverse bad karma it is greater than even Vajrasattva. According to Ratna Lingpa, it is a supreme method for yogis to fulfill the root & branch samaya of vinaya, mahayana & vajrayana precepts & it will enable the practitioner to receive the 2 siddhis and have a long life. It requires accumulated merit from past lives to meet with these teachings and through practice you will see how fast the siddhis will be received. This terma is a revelation of Chogyur Lingpa--it is a short lineage--he revealed it on Guru Rinpoche Day from a Big Boulder. It is part of the Sangtik Korsum, which is a cycle of practice which also includes Vajrasattva & Vajrakilaya." This is the first time Rinpoche is giving the Yangdak Heruka empowerment in the USA.

Teachings on Sangtik Korsum cycle of empowerments, instruction on general development stage, and meditation training:
August 17 from 10 am to 12 pm and 2 to 4 pm
August 18 from 10 am to 12 pm and 2 to 4 pm
These teachings will relate to the specific cycle, Sangtik Korsum, but will also be applicable to whatever sadhana practice one is engaging.

The suggested donation is $100 for the three days, $35/ day & $20 per session.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Orgyen Dorje Den
2244 Santa Clara Ave
Alameda, CA 94501
www.orgyendorjeden.org

From
http://www.riwoche.com/phakchok_rinpoche.html

Phakchok Rinpoche's emanation-basis is the Lord of Secrets Dharmevajra, the compiler of the teachings of the Great Secrets (Vajrayana) of all buddhas; the arhat Ananda, the foremost disciple of our teacher (Buddha Shakyamuni); Lhalung Palgyi Dorje, the direct disciple of the Second Buddha of Uddiyana (Padmasambhava); (Rechung) Dorje Drakpa, the lord of siddhas; and many others.
. . .
The reincarnation of this sublime master was the seventh Phakchok Rinpoche, Tendzin Jigmey Drakpa, born in the Year of the Iron Bird, 1981, of the seventeenth year cycle. The family he was born into is, among the six original clans, the Nangchen Tsangsar of the Khepaga line which were chiefly holders of the Barom Kagyü Dharma lineage, a family line who maintained an unbroken tradition of combining Kagyü and Nyingma.
. . .

Due to his outstanding brightness and inherent qualities from former training, he comprehended reading and writing, and when he later studied the topics of knowledge with Kungo Kalzang, Karma Urgyen Rinpoche's younger brother, he gained effortless understanding by simply hearing what was said.

Here is a description of the ripening empowerments and liberating instructions Phakchok Rinpoche has received from masters of the Sarma and Nyingma schools of all traditions:

From Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche he has received longevity empowerments, the Six Volumes of Jatsön Nyingpo, Gyachen Kadzö (of Jamgön Kongtrül).

From Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche he has received the empowerments of longevity.

From Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche he has received the empowerments for the Rinchen Terdzö, the complete empowerments and reading trans-missions for the Chokling Tersar, the Dzogchen Desum, the empowerments, reading transmissions and instructions for the Kunzang Tuktig, the empowerment of awareness-display and mind-instruction for Dzogchen, the complete empowerments and reading transmissions for the Root Volumes of Nyingtig, the Hundred Chö Empowerments, and the Namkha Gojey.

From Kyabje Taklung Shabdrung Rinpoche he has received the complete empowerments and reading transmissions of the Taklung Kagyü, and the complete empowerments and reading transmissions for the collected works and terma teachings of Jedrung Rinpoche.

From Kyabje Chobgye Trichen Rinpoche he has received the empowerments and reading transmissions for the Gyüdey Kündü.

From Sakya Dagtri Drölma Podrang he has received the complete Drubtab Kündü.

From his father, Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche, he has received the complete empowerments and reading transmissions for the Chokling Tersar.

From Dzongsar Khenchen Kunga Wangchuk he has received the reading transmission for the collected works of the Five Sakya Forefathers, the Prajñamula, Madhyamikavatara, and the 400 Verses, Sakya Pandita's Tsema Rigter, Tsema Namdrel, the Higher and Lower Abhidharma and other works.

From Kyabje Tenga Rinpoche he has received the reading transmission for the Tenngyur, the Great Collection of the Translated Treatises.

From Kyabje Penor Rinpoche he has received the complete empowerments for the Rinchen Terdzö.

From Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche he has received the complete reading transmissions for the Rinchen Terdzö.

From Arik Khenchen Petse Rinpoche he has received explanation to the Guhyagarbha Tantra and the Manjushri Nama Sangirti, as well as mind-instruction.

From Kyabje Trülshik Rinpoche he has received the complete empowerments for the Collected Works of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

From Kyabje Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche he has received the Tögal Cycle of Khenpo Ngakchung's Hearing Lineage, as well as mind-instruction.

. . .

This was translated by Erik Pema Kunsang, at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery, February, 2000.

www.choklingtersar.org

http://www.rangjung.com/gl/Chokling_Tersar.htm
Chokling Tersar, the New Treasures of Chokgyur Lingpa ( copyrighted )
During the ninth century, Buddhism was introduced from India into Tibet and its literature and culture has since been preserved in a way that has been unique in accuracy and truthfulness to tradition. Four decades ago, the occupation of Tibet by Communist China began an era of repression and systematic destruction of this thousand year old Buddhist culture. Shreds of this tradition reached the countries on the southern slopes of the Himalaya ranges - India, Nepal and Bhutan - in the hands of the few refugees who managed to escape alive. During the following years these areas have been the meeting-point and a forum of exchange between a large number of people from all countries of the world.

In response to the heart-wish of Kyabje Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, the Chokling Tersar Foundation was established. It is in the spirit of wishing to protect and preserve one of the important contributions to the world's cultural heritage, as well as responding to a growing demand within North America, that the members of Chokling Tersar Foundation support the foundation through donations of effort, money and prayers.

Chokling Tersar literally means the 'new treasures of Chokgyur Lingpa' and owes it name to the great Tibetan Buddhist master of the 19th century. Chokgyur Lingpa lived from (1829-1870) and was regarded by the most reputable living masters of his time as one of the major tertons (revealer of hidden treasures) in Tibetan history. His teachings are widely practiced by both the Kagyu and Nyingma schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

The collection of treasures revealed by Chokgyur Lingpa together with its connected teachings are contained in the Chokling Tersar, a body of literature filling more than forty large volumes. In English translation each of these volumes would be between seven and eight hundred pages and the total would amount to approximately 30,000 pages. The connected teachings included in these forty volumes were written over the last 150 years, chiefly by his contemporaries Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo and Jamgon Kongtrul, as well as by the subsequent upholders of the lineage down until today.

Kangyur - the TripitakaThe Chokling Tersar literature is meant to be studied and practiced as an addition to the traditional canonical scriptures of Tibetan Buddhism. These traditional scriptures are found in the Kangyur and Tengyur, the written words of Buddha Shakyamuni and their commentaries by learned Indian Masters. These two collections occupy respectively 104 and 273 large volumes.

In these scriptures are found detailed instructions on how to take full advantage of and imbue human life with its fullest meaning. These revealed scriptures were concealed by the 9th century Buddhist saint Padmasambhava with the expressed wish to be uncovered at specific times in the future. Many of them contain predictions for those times and which particular spiritual practices would be most beneficial for the people of those times.

Ccenters practicing the New Treasures of Chokgyur Lingpa:

Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling monastery, Boudha, Nepal.
Lamas: Tsikey Chokling, Gyurme Dewey Dorje; Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche; Phakchok Rinpoche

Pema Ewam Chogar in Bir, Himachal Pradesh, India.
Lamas: Neten Chokling and Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche.

Tsikey Gompa in East Tibet.
Lamas: Chokling of Tsikey, Tsang-Yang Gyamtso; Tersey Tulku

Chokling Tersar Foundation, USA.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Ngakpa Ordination

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:15:00 GMT

I took another step on my Buddhist spiritual path. Tonight I was ordained a ngakpa called "Ngakchang Konchok Jangchup Dorje." Since several of us had taken refuge only days before, Venerable Lama Sonam was apparently merciful enough not to change our newly received names. However, the level of commitment is no less demanding.
The Ngakchang path is less well known than the monastic path, but its "vows" or root samayas, although fewer in number than the precepts for monastics are very rigorous because their focus is interior rather than exterior. The fourteen root samayas are
not to:
1) disparage the Master
2) transgress the Buddha's words
3) be hostile to vajra brothers and sisters
4) forsake loving kindness on behalf of sentient beings
5) abandon the enlightened mind (Bodhicitta)
6) criticize the tenets of one's own or anther's faith
7) divulge secrets to the immature
8) abuse the five components which are primordially pure
9) cast doubt on the Dharma of the Pure nature
10) maintain friendship with those who are harmful especially those who harm the doctrine
11) apply conceptualization to wordless natures
12) belittle those who have faith
13) violate one's words of honor strictly as given
14) disparage women, the source of discriminative wisdom
While I could focus on these and examine each one in turn which would be a worthwhile study, it is perhaps more important to look at the chief reason that drew me to this step. This path is devoted to the essence of tantra, transformation. Nothing is evil except the "three poisons," anger, grasping, and ignorance, but everything including afflictive emotions may be transformed from a negative into a positive. Each of these has powerful energy which can, under the right circumstances, propel the practitioner toward enlightenment.
I am only a beginner on this path with a beginner's understanding. However, I do have a course of study passed down through our lineage and teachers who can teach me.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 6 replies

War Preparations in Tibet

Konchog Dorje — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:30:00 GMT

Emergency Wartime Response Preparation Status Announced in Tibet
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2008 Olympics & Human Rights
By Guo Chuanxin
The Epoch Times/Central News Agency
Aug 7, 2008

The Tibetan Government in Exile said on August 6 that in the Tibetan
areas in southwestern China security has been on extremely high
alert. Following two days of anti-terrorism military drills with real
weapons in Lhasa and other Tibetan settled areas, the Chinese regime
has announced that all Tibetan areas are in an emergency wartime
response preparation state that will last until September 20.

The Tibetan Government in Exile said that according to reliable
sources, in late July, the Chinese regime set up makeshift temples,
shops, and residences in Aba Tibetan Autonomous District in
northwestern Sichuan Province. On July 31, a large number of Chinese
soldiers were dressed as Tibetan monks, held flags of the Tibetan
Government in Exile, and staged a riot. The military suppressed the
riot as an anti-terrorism drill. The whole process was videotaped.

In addition, Chinese authorities conducted two anti-terrorism drills
at the Lhasa train station and airport on August 2 and August 4. On
the afternoon of August 5, the Communist Party Committee and
administration of the Tibetan Autonomous Region held meetings with
key officials to ensure security during the Olympics and Special
Olympics. Military drills were also held in other Tibetan settled
areas such as Kangding.

The Tibetan Government in Exile believes that such large-scale
anti-terrorism drills with real weapons are aimed to threaten local
Tibetans using military prowess.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Woeser: Banning Tibet

Konchog Dorje — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:59:38 GMT

Woeser: Banning Tibet
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Woeser on how China closed a country
Woeser
The New Statesman
July 31, 2008

A great cry, a noise that can be produced only by those who live in
the grasslands, sounded from the Tibetan lands in March 2008,
shocking the world. The Chinese media called it "the wolf howling".

When the Olympic torch passed through Lhasa, Tibetans were not
allowed to leave their homes unless they had special passes. My
friends in Lhasa wondered: "If Chinese citizens can watch the torch
when it passes through other cities, why can't we? Are we not
citizens of this country?"

Many monks have disappeared. Where are the thousands who were in the
three major monasteries in Lhasa? Where are my two young monk
friends? Last year I saw pictures of the Dalai Lama in their quiet
dormitory, filled with scents of monastery incense. Some say that
more than a thousand monks are locked up as "terrorists" in the Gobi
Desert in Golmud, Qinghai - the Guantanamo of China - and will not be
released until after the Olympics.

Buddhist ceremonies have been cancelled because the authorities fear
gatherings of monks and devotees. Many annual folk festivals have
been called off, too. When the Torch reached Qinghai, Tibetans around
Qinghai Lake were banned from worshipping mountain gods and racing
horses. The traditional layi song festival of the farming communities
of Amdo, originally scheduled for the end of July, was banned. The
Kampa Litang Horse Festival is not exempt either.

"I suppose the Olympic Games are just like our horse festival," said
a tall Kampa man, when I was visiting the area. "But we won't have a
horse festival this year."

More troops have been deployed to the Tibetan areas in Gansu and
Sichuan provinces. Roadblocks and military police are seen
everywhere. In Ganzi County alone, there are more than 70,000
soldiers - far more than the troops sent to suppress the Tibetan
rebellion in 1959. More than 10,000 soldiers have set up camp in Maqu
County, the same number as the local population. In Lhasa, everyone
must pass a loyalty test in the campaign to clean up in the aftermath
of the unrest in March. The Olympics are meaningless to Tibetans there.

Then there are the thousands of Tibetans in Beijing. Tibetan college
students have been told to go home this summer, while students at
Tibetan schools are not allowed to leave the school premises. The
Tibetan Studies Centre has given its staff a rare long holiday: even
those we call "Tibetans hired by the imperial court", meaning those
on the government payroll, are not trusted. A Tibetan tour guide who
I know was detained for a month, with no explanation whatsoever from
the police.

A Tibetan artist friend was interrogated for a day because Buddhist
scripture in Tibetan was found in his painting. My good friend Dechen
Pemba, an ethnic Tibetan who was born in London and has been studying
and working in Beijing, was deported back to the UK for reasons that
were never fully explained.

As for me, if I stay in Beijing during the Olympics, I expect to be
put under house arrest. So, should I go back to Lhasa? Friends and
relatives there tell me: "You'd better wait until after the Olympics."

Translated from the Chinese by Bessie Du.

Woeser is a Tibetan writer based in Beijing. Her blog The Middle Way
is frequently blocked and her books are banned in China

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 4 replies

Obama, McCain & Tibet

Konchog Dorje — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:08:11 GMT

John Nichols: Obama, McCain & Tibet
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Capital Times - OPINION
7/20/2008

President Bush has announced that, despite China's violent crackdowns on
dissent in Tibet and its support for the brutal dictatorships of Sudan
and Burma, he will attend next month's opening ceremonies of the Beijing
Olympics.

In response, Barack Obama distinguished himself from the man he seeks to
replace.

Asked whether he, as president, would convey legitimacy on the Chinese
government's recent actions by attending the opening ceremonies, Obama
said, "In the absence of some sense of progress, in the absence of some
sense from the Dalai Lama that there was progress, I would not have gone."

This was not Obama's first statement regarding Tibet or the Dalai Lama,
who this week is in Wisconsin as part of a visit to the United States.

In a foreign policy address delivered in March, the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee member said that the advancement of human rights
must be a central U.S. priority. And he pointedly declared, "We can
start now by speaking out for the human rights and religious freedom of
the people of Tibet."

Around the same time, Obama announced, "If Tibetans are to live in
harmony with the rest of China's people, their religion and culture must
be respected and protected. Tibet should enjoy genuine and meaningful
autonomy."

While Obama's election would represent a clear break with the
compromised commitments of the Bush administration -- and of the Clinton
administration before it -- the jury is still out on Republican John McCain.

Without a doubt, McCain is more sensitive to concerns regarding China's
human rights abuses than Bush. This spring, when the Chinese crackdown
in Tibet turned particularly violent, the senator from Arizona issued an
excellent statement.

"I deplore the violent crackdown by Chinese authorities and the
continuing oppression in Tibet of those merely wishing to practice their
faith and preserve their culture and heritage. I have listened carefully
to the Dalai Lama and am convinced he is a man of peace who reflects the
hopes and aspirations of Tibetans. I urge the government of the People's
Republic of China to address the root causes of unrest in Tibet by
opening a genuine dialogue with his holiness, the Dalai Lama, aimed at
granting greater autonomy."

At the time, McCain suggested that he might also boycott the opening
ceremonies as a protest against Beijing's policies.

In recent months, however, McCain has been increasingly critical of
Obama's emphasis on diplomacy and respecting human rights when it comes
to international affairs. When Bush announced he would attend the
opening ceremonies, McCain made no formal move to condemn the decision.

While Obama has been firmer in his embrace of human rights, McCain's
past statements suggest a consciousness of what is at stake in the
dispute over China's treatment of Tibet that runs far broader than that
evidenced by George Bush or Bill Clinton during their presidencies.

As such, though Bush's decision to attend the opening ceremonies is both
disappointing and embarrassing, 2008 might yet be the year when America
moves from the shadow of complicity into the sunlight of a more genuine
commitment to human rights.

John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times, Wisconsin's
progressive daily online news source, where his column appears regularly.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 2 replies

Dharma of Political Action

Konchog Dorje — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:20:45 GMT

See http://thetibetconnection.org/dharmaofpolitics.html

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Hidden Cost of China's Olympic Gold

Konchog Dorje — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:13:03 GMT

The Hidden Cost Behind China's Olympic Gold
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
By Hua Ming
The Epoch Times
July 24, 2008

As the Beijing Olympics approaches, Chinese people hope that their
country will out do the U.S. in gold medals. According to recent
reports, China is gradually becoming the top sports country in the
world -- China is to surpass the U.S. in gold medal totals to be the
top gold medal winner in the world.

At the Athens Olympics four years ago, the Chinese Olympics
Delegation won 32 gold, 17 silver and 14 bronze medals; it was only
second to US, which had won 35 gold metals. For the forthcoming
Beijing Olympics, where expectations see China winning the majority
of all medal totals, the Chinese Olympic Delegation will send nearly
600 athletes, far exceeding 407, the number of athletes sent to Athens.

While these statistics may be exciting for the Chinese people, many
may not have considered how a country that is ranked around 100th in
the world for GDP per person can win over the U.S. -- ranking in the
top 10 countries for GDP -- to become the top sports nation in gold
metal totals. Especially for a country that still has more than 200
million living below the poverty line, some believe China's
anticipated high medal ranking represents a poor allocation of resources.

How Much for a Gold Medal?

Prior to Athens Olympic Games, an Internet article in China became
extremely popular. In "The Trap of Olympic Gold Medal," the author
exhibited astounding numbers. After the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games,
the budget for the China Sports Bureau raised from three billion yuan
($USD 439 million) to five billion yuan ($732 million) per year.
During the four years of preparation for the Athens Olympics, China
spent 20 billion yuan ($3 billion), but the expense earned China 32
gold medals, making the cost for each gold medal nearly 700 million
yuan ($102 million). Due to this high price for Olympic glory, China'
gold medals have been called "The most expensive gold medals in the world."

To put this in perspective, the article points out that the 700
million yuan used to win one Olympic gold medal can build 3500
elementary schools, rescuing 350,000 children from poverty due to
lack of education.

Such a contrast is shocking. In a country where the budget for
education, science, research and social security is extremely tight,
many believe the 700 million yuan to win one gold medal could be
better spent. Like an exploding bomb, "The Trap of Olympic Gold
Medal" received an enormous response from across Chinese society. Of
course while gold medals are something people look forward to, some
are beginning to think that the cost is too high.

Funded by a Billion Taxpayers

Although the General Administration of Sports of China never
publicized all the numbers invested in preparation of Olympic Games,
Bao Mingxiao, Head of Center for Sports and Social Science Research
under the Administration estimated that the country invests
approximately four to five million yuan ($590,000–$730,000) on one
Olympic athlete. Assuming there are 400 athletes in China's Olympic
Delegation, the total cost is between 1.6 to 2.0 billion yuan ($234
million to $292 million). Convert the investment for each gold medal
based on the 32 won in the last Olympics, and the cost for one gold
medal is 500-600 million yuan ($73 million to $87 million).

Chinese track star Liu Xiang won a 110-meter hurdle at the Athens
Olympics. Before this, his annual expense was about three million
yuan, which included an environmentally-friendly running course for
over a million yuan and several hundred thousand yuan for a new set
of hurdles. The amount China spent on Liu Xiang could equal several
hundreds even thousands of Elementary Schools of Hope—charity schools
for kids in poor areas of China.

Wu Shouzhang, vice chairman of China's Olympic Committee commented
that the total cost for this endeavor is very difficult to calculate.
He adds that, besides Liu, there are also medical doctors,
scientists, nutritionists, field workers, document workers, as well
as early investments made by Shanghai, Liu's home city.

According to the "Report on China's Olympic Gold Medal" issued by the
China Branding Research Institute, the commercial value for Liu
Xiang's gold metal was worth 461 million yuan ($67.5 million) last year.

Weighing Priorities: Gold Medals or People's Livelihood?

How do people feel about a country with a per capita GDP ranked more
than 100 in the world striving to become a sports superpower? "If we
become number one in the world, how can we speak of our pride?"
lamented one Internet user. "Can we say to the people, whose basic
freedoms cannot even be guaranteed, that we are number one in the
world? Can we say to the tens of thousands of migrant workers, who
have to work over ten hours a day all year round, yet cannot even
have their salary guaranteed, that we are number one in the world?"

This Internet user believes that a huge number of gold medals
represent "a diseased inverted pyramid type of sport system. It has
nothing to do with the sporting achievements enjoyed by common
people. Primary and junior high schools at basic level cannot even
provide students any fields for athletics. Sporting facilities for
the masses are almost nonexistent in the countryside."

Renowned Taiwanese writer Lung Ying-tai questioned how China gained
its 32 gold medals. She found that the country used a huge amount of
taxpayer money to set up sport schools at various levels. In
comparison, with other sports superpowers such as the U.S., Germany,
and Japan, the majority of their achievements are display of the
results from across the entire population.

China's situation is just the reverse. There are many sports venues,
but they are not open to general public. Rather they are only
reserved for a few specific people. China has an amazing sports
budget, but it doesn't go to national athletic programs. Instead it
is used to train a few medal winning stars. Western countries use
competitions to encourage athletic excellence for all, and to improve
citizens' health. In China, competitions are for publicizing Chinese
regime's prestige to the outside world. They seem to have little
interest in promoting the health of its citizens.

So does the Chinese regime believe that gold medals are more
important or people's livelihood? "We've been asking this question
for some time," say human rights activists, "and the consideration
has those who see the truth demanding: 'Human Rights before Olympics'!"

Olympic Projects: A Source for Corruption

Moreover, many Chinese officials spent large portion of public funds
to inspect abroad in the name of the Olympics. The audit storm in
2004 exposed the scandal of General Administration of Sports of China
appropriating Olympic special funds to build houses. Hence some
Internet users exclaimed, "Olympics, Olympics, how many corruptions
are undertaken in your name!"

According to an Associated Press report, Beijing Vice-mayor Liu
Zhihua -- who oversaw the Olympic construction projects costing 280
billion yuan ($US 41 billion) -- was under investigation for
corruption. He was dismissed in June 2006.

Observers point out that Liu had an opportunity to gain a large
amount of ill-gotten gains just before and right after Olympic
construction began. The bidding process alone could make him very rich.

China's Olympic project is a major endeavor overseen by the Chinese
regime. This authoritarian regime does not allow independent
judiciary or media supervision, so power monopolization and
behind-the-scenes deals are common. Without freedom of the press and
media supervision, the oversight is Chinese communist's own
anti-corruption system. In such a situation, embezzlement is common.
In reality, no one can know just how much Chinese taxpayers have paid
for a single gold medal. Yet one thing is certain: while these gold
medals give prosperity to corrupt officials and a few elite athletes,
the Chinese people who paid for them will not benefit from it at all.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Civil Rights, Honesty Lacking in Olymic Host

Konchog Dorje — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:00:06 GMT

Civil Rights, Honesty Lacking In Olympic Host
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Agam Gecko
July 20, 2008

Is the Chinese government sincere about addressing the Tibet issue? A
better question might be, "Is the Chinese government ever sincere
about anything?"

After half a century of misrule in Tibet, the total failure of
Chinese policy is evident to all but the holders of that policy.
After major uprisings in 1959, 1987-89 and 2008 (with innumerable
less known events affirming Tibetan national identity throughout the
period), world leaders pressed China to deal with the problem
sincerely. That there is a problem is beyond question.

After two meetings between Chinese and Tibetan exile officials (since
the outbreak of the latest crisis), a Chinese official made plain
that as far as the "People's" Republic is concerned, only a single
narrow issue is on the table -- the personal future of His Holiness
the Dalai Lama. Nothing else will ever be considered.

One would expect such a bombshell announcement to have penetrated the
world's halls of power, and reached at least some of those who have
lately cited "progress" between the two sides. It seems not to have
done so. Only the Tibetans are willing to state the inconvenient
truth, while everyone else looks the other way.

On July 15, speaking to reporters at the European Parliament in
Brussels, one of the Tibetan envoys to China stated the obvious.

"We do not see any useful purpose in continuing the dialogue, since
there is obviously a lack of political will from the Chinese
leadership to seriously address the issue of Tibet," said the envoy,
Kelsang Gyaltsen.

This statement is objectively true, and proven so by China itself.
Straight from the horse's mouthpiece, Xinhuanet:

"He stressed that the contacts and dialogues were about Dalai Lama's
personal future, not so-called "China-Tibet negotiation" or "dialogue
between Han and Tibetan people"

Nothing could be clearer. The sky is blue; the sun is hot; China is
insincere. It's like a law of nature, as long as the CCP runs the place.

In a shocking display of insincerity, on July 17 China rejected the
notion that it is insincere, clearly smarting from the implication
that its own standard complaint about Dalai Lama actually applies
more accurately to itself.

"The central government is sincere about holding contact with the
Dalai side," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told reporters.

China perpetually issues demands to the Dalai Lama, and he just as
continually meets (and even exceeds) them. Their permanent response
to his goodwill, is to claim that his statements are "insincere."
While he goes around the world, proving that he means what he says at
every possible opportunity, it's never enough for the Chinese.

To make plain the depth (and longevity) of the Chinese insincerity,
the Office of the Dalai Lama issued a statement, which says in part:

"In fact, when the Chinese Government made a five-point proposal in
1981 which included that "the Dalai Lama will enjoy the same
political status and living conditions as he had before 1959", His
Holiness categorically made it clear to the Chinese leadership that
the issue at stake was the well-being of six million Tibetans, and he
personally had nothing to ask of the Central Chinese government.

For at least 27 years, the CCP has clearly known that the issue of
Tibet has nothing to do with the personal future of His Holiness. Yet
they assure the world that they sincerely want to meet with the
Tibetans, but only for discussion of that one thing that they know
doesn't matter at all.

The generally tongue-tied IOC, after being shamed by Chinese
occupation officials in Lhasa who launched hysterically political
diatribes at the "politics-free" official torch ceremony, expressed
dismay at this blazing hypocrisy and "hoped it wouldn't happen
again." It's been the only occasion of the IOC showing any sort of
principle in the face of all the broken promises of better human
rights, media freedom, etc. made during Beijing's campaign for this honour.

On July 17, Jacques Rogge, the IOC President, announced that his
"silent diplomacy" had resulted in new Chinese laws to protect child
labourers, media rights, the Olympic projects' dispossessed people,
and the environment.

"For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and
publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on
the Internet."

That's a pretty bold statement to make, "no censorship." He has
received "very strong assurances." Right. Like that's never happened before.

Call me cynical, but I don't expect "no censorship of the Internet"
to happen by August 8. Keep an eye on the live "China Internet
Censorship Index" button, added to our sidebar a few days ago. A
range of websites are continually tested from within China to gauge
the Internet's status there. Zero would be a complete Internet
shutdown, 100 would represent no censorship at all. The day I put it
up, the index was at 32.5. Click the button to get more about the methodology.

Beijing may claim to be welcoming the world next month, but as its
actions make clear, it doesn't consider Tibetans, Uyghurs or
Mongolians to be part of that world. If you happen to be a young
Uyghur family with a baby daughter, expect to get the Mary and Joseph
treatment.

"Most of the hotel clerks, mistaking them for foreigners, welcomed
them and offered a room. But when the couple pulled out their
identity cards, the clerks realized they were Muslim Uyghurs from
China. And then the response was always the same: Sorry, no room at the inn."

Of course Han Chinese are not treated that way when they go to
Xinjiang, where they now outnumber the locals.

A young British woman was recently subjected to the swiftest
deportation procedure imaginable. She stepped out of her apartment to
find security agents waiting for her. After letting her grab a change
of clothes, confiscating her Olympics tickets and her bank account
(and all belongings in the apartment), around 30 state agents mounted
the operation to get her to the airport and out of the country.

How could a British citizen (with a valid visa and work permit, no
less) be treated this way by a country claiming to be "welcoming the
world"? That's easy: Dechen Pemba has a Tibetan heritage. Citizenship
matters little to a regime which puts such a high premium on "race."
Hotels in Beijing have been told not to accept Tibetans, Uyghurs or Mongolians.

During this high-security operation, Dechen Pemba was even refused
her right to call her embassy. The entire episode was video-taped by
(in)security officials, probably not for use in the next "Beijing
Welcomes the World" advertisement.

The Chinese later claimed she was a member of the Tibetan Youth
Congress, which Beijing falsely claims as a terror group. Dechen
says, "It's amazing the things they just make up. It's absolutely not
true." Once again, the inimitable Liu Jianchao:

"Dechen Pemba, a key member of the splittist organisation the Tibetan
Youth Congress and a British citizen, took part in activities against
the law of China during her stay, and has been deported," he said.

As is the standard procedure for the CCP, anything can be justified
with hysterical accusations lacking a shred of evidence. Dechen had
repeatedly asked these officials what she had done wrong. The only
answer they could give was, "You know what you've done." They had no
idea either! However, the pudgy spokesperson falsely claims that she
had admitted to "activities against Chinese laws".

That guy has no shame in openly lying. Which should bring into
serious question his assurance of China's "sincerity" noted earlier.
The United Kingdom must respond to this outrageous treatment of its citizen.

Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians, British -- is anyone else unwelcome at
the Welcome to the World event? After earlier incidents in which a
young American was attacked while crowds shouted "Kill him! Kill the
Frenchman!" and a French student was assaulted by a Chinese gang on a
Shanghai subway and told "You are not welcome here," many foreign
residents have been getting a similar (though less physical) attitude
from Chinese officialdom. With a policy that aims to "keep dangerous
forces outside the country," people such as English teachers are
feeling picked on. Who knew that conjugating verbs could be so subversive?

For the "leadership" of China, this is the silencing season. No
naysayers are allowed, and anything that might prove embarrassing
will be off the menu. Racism, however, is decidedly on the menu.

Bar owners in Beijing are now being forced to sign pledges to ban
"black people" and Mongolians from their establishments. Question:
Wasn't it the apartheid laws which disqualified South Africa from
Olympic participation not so many years ago? Can we now disqualify
China, or is there a double standard somewhere?

"Bar owners near the Workers Stadium in central Beijing say they have
been forced by Public Security Bureau officials to sign pledges
agreeing not to let black people enter their premises," the South
China Morning Post reported yesterday.

It quoted the co-owner of a bar who said that a group of police had
recently visited his establishment to order it "not to serve black
people or Mongolians."

In the Sanlitun bar district, owners are required to sign promises to
prohibit certain activities, including dancing and serving black
customers, according to SCMP. Mongolian women are perceived as
"prostitutes" and Africans are perceived as "drug dealers."

"In a notorious incident last September, dozens of black people were
detained by police in a raid on bars in the Sanlitun district.

"Witnesses said the police rounded up all the black people they could
find, up to three dozen in total, and beat some of them with rubber
truncheons."

In that incident, the son of the ambassador from Grenada was clubbed
on the head, sending him to hospital.

A businesswoman from Liberia tells of two-tiered pricing at a popular
nightclub; the entrance fee for "black people" is twice as high as
for anyone else. Those who really wanted to go inside and paid the
double price, were prohibited from sitting at the tables. Bar-raids
on establishments patronized by Africans frequently include urine
tests for all customers. Black people are asked to present their
passport before entry to some clubs, while other foreigners are not.

The Liberian lady knows what is behind all this discriminatory treatment.

"When the police come, you have to run," she said. "I've lived in
Holland and the United States and it was never like this. There's no
human rights here. It's racist and it makes me feel very bad."

China's leaders need to learn a civil rights lesson given many years
ago (40 years, to be exact). Here are two short video pieces from the
producers of Salute the Movie. Keep this in mind when you see "T for
Tibet" next month.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Red flares for Tibet

Konchog Dorje — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:24:40 GMT

08/08/08: red flares for Tibet joined by red candles all over the world
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
MountEverest.net
July 22, 2008

Friday August 8 at 1 pm, hundreds of red flares will be lit on top of
mountains, hills, skyscrapers, and other monuments in Europe, America
(North and South) and Asia.

This will be the second (and final) step of project Sad Smoky
Mountains, conceived by Alberto Peruffo and Fattoria Artistica
Antersass. One day earlier, on August 7, people around the world will
also light a candle in solidarity with the people of Tibet.

The two initiatives, Sadsmokymountains.net and candle4tibet.org have
now merged to send an even stronger message, creating a "Light
Protest" on a world scale.

Interestingly enough, the final ignition happens to take place not
only on the Chinese Olympics inauguration, but also on a date that
spells out 08/08/08.

Number eight is very important to Buddhists. Right Association; Right
Knowledge; Right Effort; Right Mindfulness; Right Speech, Right
Behavior, Right Absorption and the Right Livelihood are the 8 truths
of the Dharma wheel.

You might recall ExWeb's story Eighteen-fold Path to Chomolungma
Nirvana -- the Routes of Mount Everest where Pete Poston borrows from
Siddhartha Gautama's Noble Eightfold Path describing the way to
understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four
Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism.

Find details on Sadsmokymountains.net if you want to join. All it
takes is a red flare or a red candle, a camera and...the right effort!

Berlin, Paris, New York, Rome - Italian artist/climber Alberto
Peruffo wants red flares lit in all these cities. The simple civil
action will result in a monumental work of art and you are invited:
lit a red flare on a high terrace or roof of any skyscraper, ancient
architectural structure or tall building anywhere in the world. Send
the pic to Alberto.

The title of the resulting poster will be "Lit Your Own Flame" and
the manifest, along with other art forms planned for the event, will
be an alternative to the Chinese Olympic torch, with the red smoke
around the world aimed to show global support for human rights and Tibet.

The project has grown into a mega event. On May 11 - in the first
ignition phase - more than 100 summits were involved.

Final Ignition is set for the official Olympics inauguration day,
August 8th, 2008, regardless of weather. At 1 pm local time,
synchronized (as far as possible) flares will smoke from mountains
tops, hills, in cities, on and around monuments.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Big Brother Versus YouTube: Let the Beijing Games Commence

Konchog Dorje — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:14:05 GMT

Big Brother Versus YouTube: Let the Beijing Games Commence
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
By Leonard, Mark
istockAnalyst.com, OR
Story Source: Spectator, The; London
Saturday, July 19, 2008

'For years we couldn't wait for the Olympics to start. Now we can't wait
for them to be over.' That is how a Chinese friend described the
horrible limbo in Beijing as a control-freak state tries to anticipate
and eliminate any possible challenges to its glorious coming-out party
on the 8th of the 8th, 2008. It is clear to any visitor to the Chinese
capital that while China hopes to clean up the medals tables, the
sporting contest is at best a sideshow to the real Olympic competition
-- the battle to define how China is seen by its citizens and the world
outside. For the Chinese people the Olympics are the final proof that
China has reclaimed its rightful place in the global premier league;
putting behind it two centuries of humiliation at the hands of foreign
invaders. For the world outside, the Games are meant to embody an
official narrative of China as a 'harmonious society'. The organisers
had promised the trinity of a 'green Olympics', a 'high- tech Olympics'
and a 'people-centred Olympics', designed to show off China as a beacon
of economic prowess and modernity that has traded pariah status for
global respectability. But as China ricochets from one PR disaster to
the next -- with stories about sweatshops combining with Tibet and
Beijing's choking pollution -- the authorities are now trying to manage
expectations downwards with a focus on the more modest goal of a 'safe
Olympics', flooding the city and its environs with security forces
primed to thwart potential terrorist attacks.

The Chinese Communist Party combines a laser-like focus on detail with
awe-inspiring ambitions for the big picture. Where other Olympic cities
like Athens or Sydney were kept desperately busy just completing
building work on stadiums and transport links, Beijing's concern extends
from controlling the weather to micromanaging the behaviour of its
citizens. Last year, when the Chinese government hosted the tenth
anniversary of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation -- an alliance of
autocrats which Beijing and Moscow have formed with five central Asian
republics -- the authorities treated the occasion as a dry run for the
Games. They seeded clouds to prevent rain; sent police along the major
streets removing washing lines and unseemly clutter; and declared a
public holiday to decrease congestion. The organisers of the Olympics
are going even further -- wiping out entire neighbourhoods to
accommodate Olympic buildings, closing factories to reduce pollution,
running 'public education campaigns' against spitting, appointing 1,500
'civilised bus-riding supervisors' and holding 'queueing awareness
days'. Visas for foreigners have been curtailed to stop human rights
protesters from entering the country; Chinese activists imprisoned or
kept under surveillance; security checkpoints set up on roads around
Beijing; and foreign governments bullied to attend the opening ceremony
(more on this later).

The awesome preparations show how ludicrous it is to suppose that sports
and politics can be kept apart. The truth is that in China almost
everything is political -- it is less than a decade since the Communist
Party allowed people to get married without asking the permission of
their local party secretary -- and anyone who studies the history will
realise how central sports have been to the construction of the Chinese
nation. For Sun Yat-sen -- the founder of modern China -- sports were
seen as a literal solution to China's plight as the 'sick man of Asia';
Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists talked of 'training strong bodies for the
nation' in order to defeat Japan; Mao Tse-tung continued the tradition
by putting a military man in charge of his first national sports
commission in 1952; Chou En-lai used ping-pong diplomacy to engage
Richard Nixon in the 1970s; and China's original bid for the 2000
Olympics (which was blocked on human rights grounds) was designed to
heal the damage from the Tiananmen massacre. During each of these
episodes, politicians have micromanaged every aspect of China's sporting
progress (Chou En-lai even personally put together the national
table-tennis team and coached it in diplomatic etiquette, urging its
players to put 'friendship first, competition second').

But in spite of all the preparation, the Beijing authorities have
sometimes been dazzled by the blinding lights of prime-time exposure.

Although the authorities provoked the attention, they often did not know
how to handle it. That is because for most of the last few decades,
Beijing's foreign policy was driven by a determined quest to keep a low
profile. Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China's opening and reform
policy, declared that China must 'hide its brightness', avoid
controversy and focus on growing its economy. He feared that China would
be seen as a threat by the rest of the world and that other countries
would gang up to prevent its rise. But with the Olympic Games, Chinese
strategists have moved from seeking invisibility to actively trying to
shape their country's image through a mixture of charm and steel.

The most fashionable theory in Chinese think-tanks is the American
academic Joseph Nye's theory of 'soft power' -- the idea that a country
can assert itself not only through the 'hard power' of military and
economic coercion, but the attractiveness of its ideas, its culture and
the political institutions it builds. Beijing has tried to build up its
own soft power by sharing its development expertise while stressing its
commitment to multilateralism and peaceful integration (in contrast to
Washington's neo-liberalism, unilateralism and imperial urge). And it
has used a battery of public diplomacy techniques -- from international
TV stations to cultural institutes -- to promote a 'Chinese Dream' as an
alternative to the American Dream. The Olympics is the most dramatic ad
for this new China.

When its charm offensive fails, Beijing has been adept at bullying
foreign governments to temper their criticism. When I was in Beijing in
May, French diplomats were reeling from a 'Skip France' campaign
organised by the Beijing municipal authorities. According to their
account, Chinese tourists who wished to travel to France were told that
tickets were not available and visa applications dropped from 300 a day
to just ten. Chinese foreign policy experts explained to me that the
goal was to punish Nicolas Sarkozy for saying that his attendance at the
Olympics would depend on the human rights situation in Tibet. It worked.

Last week, Sarkozy announced he would attend the opening ceremony to
'deepen [France's] strategic partnership with China'.

China has found Western NGOs (nongovernmental agencies) less compliant
than their national governments. When, on 8 August 2007, the Beijing
Olympic Committee started the official countdown to the Games with a
giant clock in Tiananmen Square, the limelight was stolen by an
unofficial event launched by a group of Canadian activists.

These protesters had climbed on to the Great Wall of China and unfurled
a banner saying 'One World, One Dream, Free Tibet'. In the last few
months there have been campaigns by activists for human rights,
supporters of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, persecuted
peasants and environmentalists. Of all the campaigns, the most visible
one was the 'genocide Olympics' campaign over China's role in Sudan
which attracted support from Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg.

But to the surprise of outside observers, criticism from Western NGOs
seems to have bolstered rather than undermined the regime's popularity
at home. Although discontent is simmering below the surface -- there
were 87,000 protests last year alone -- Chinese citizens and
intellectuals are more focused on inequality and corruption than the
concerns of the Western campaigners, which they interpret as support for
'separatism', 'cults', or a desire to keep China down. Moreover, China's
government has successfully mobilised the swelling patriotism of its
citizens in campaigns against Western interference, such as the boycott
of the French supermarket chain Carrefour.

Many in the West had hoped that giving the Olympics to China would -- in
the words of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee's Liu Jingmin -- 'help
the development of human rights'. Some predicted that repressive laws
would be lifted, political prisoners freed and the media given new
freedoms. But human rights activists tell a different story about
crackdowns on protesters in Tibet, the imprisonment of activists such as
the land rights campaigner Yang Chunlin, housing rights campaigners Ye
Guozhu and Wang Ling, and the celebrated anti-Aids activist and blogger
Hu Jia. They also claim that the runup to the Games has seen a growing
phalanx of people held under house arrest because of vague crimes such
as 'separatism' or 'subversion'. As Amnesty International says: 'It was
hoped that the Games would act as a catalyst for reform but much of the
current wave of repression against activists and journalists is
occurring not in spite of, but actually because of the Olympics.' The
outside world tends to talk about how revolutionary economic reforms
have gone hand in hand with political stagnation. But the Olympics shows
that China has modernised its politics as much as its economy -- just
not in the direction of liberal democracy. The state has largely
withdrawn from people's everyday lives, giving Chinese citizens
unprecedented freedoms to consume and organise their professional and
personal development. But this growing freedom in the personal realm has
been matched with an increasingly sophisticated control of the public
sphere. In the 1980s, many Chinese intellectuals supported multiparty
elections and the separation of the party from the government. But since
Tiananmen, political reform has taken on a new meaning. While there are
still prominent thinkers -- such as the political scientist Yu Keping --
who believe in the country's incremental embrace of democracy, many
modern intellectuals argue that China would be better to avoid elections
altogether and instead focus on introducing the rule of law while making
the one-party state more responsive. The last few years have seen the
party use opinion polls, focus groups and public consultations to put
the one-party state in touch with public opinion. What is emerging is
not Western-style democracy, but a high- tech model of 'deliberative
dictatorship' that has increased the legitimacy of the one-party state,
and lessened calls for genuine democracy.

But though the Olympics will strengthen the Beijing government's
standing at home, it is likely to weaken it abroad. Maybe the big story
of the 2008 Olympics will not be of Beijing's 'Big Brother' watching its
citizens, but rather the story of thousands of journalists and fans
watching Big Brother, and recording its every move on mobile phones,
cameras and blogposts. In an interesting new book, Owning the Olympics:
Narratives of the New China, the academics Monroe Price and Daniel Dayan
claim that the development of new technologies such as digital cameras
and the internet site YouTube could turn the surveillance society
against itself.

In the past, we have defined surveillance as the powerful monitoring the
powerless; the use of information technology by state institutions to
monitor individuals. But increasingly, the availability of new
technology allows individuals to monitor the state institutions
themselves. The authors use the phrase 'sousveillance' -- French for
monitoring from below -- to capture a new phenomenon where the powerful
can be filmed and held to account for their actions in the court of
public opinion. Sousveillance famously made an appearance with the
beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, the hanging of Saddam Hussein in
2006 and the protests in Burma in 2007. But the Beijing Olympics could
take this to an industrial scale. The Beijing authorities could see all
their painstaking attempts to show a kinder, gentler image to the world
overturned by some rogue footage of an overzealous security official
responding to protesters captured on a mobile phone or digital camera.

The stakes for the Beijing authorities could not be higher. The Olympic
genie will never be put back into the bottle. Beijing will find that its
actions on the world stage continue to be held up to minute scrutiny
long after the Games are over. They will need to get used to prime-time
attention. Moreover, with George Bush on the way out and the promise of
an American Renaissance under President Obama, global public opinion and
journalists are on the look-out for a new bogeyman to blame for the
world's ills. In the last few months the media has grown accustomed to
criticising China for its policies on Burma, Sudan, Tibet, Zimbabwe and
climate change.

If the authorities in Beijing are not careful they could find that these
charges stick, and that China unwittingly fulfils a new global role; not
as a modern harmonious society but as an all- purpose rogue state.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Olympic Countdown

Konchog Dorje — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:11:27 GMT

Olympic Countdown
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Washington Post - Editorial
07/19/2008

With three weeks remaining until the opening of the Olympic Games,
China's Communist leadership is relentlessly pursuing a strategy doomed
to failure. Through censorship, visa restrictions, intimidation and
brute repression, China's leadership is trying to prevent any public
expression by Chinese citizens or foreign visitors that conflicts with
the image it wishes to project to the world - that of a "harmonious"
society. In pursuit of this goal, China is blatantly violating the
promises it made when it was awarded the Games, including that it would
allow unrestricted media coverage. And it is setting itself up for a
political and public relations disaster when - as seems inevitable - a
dissident message evades its censors and security thugs.

To fulfill its pledge to the International Olympic Committee, the
government of Hu Jintao lifted some restrictions on foreign journalists
in January last year. Last week, under pressure from the IOC, it agreed
to allow live satellite uplinks from Beijing. But as the Games approach,
intimidation of both the international and domestic media has
intensified. Many visas for journalists seeking to travel to China
before the Games have been withheld; correspondents based in China have
been warned that negative coverage may cause their news organizations to
lose accreditation for the Olympics. According to Human Rights Watch, 10
foreign correspondents, including representatives of the Associated
Press, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, have received death
threats because of their reporting on the recent violence in Tibet.
Travel to Tibet remains severely restricted.

Chinese who question the official Olympic narrative have been treated
far more harshly. Two prominent critics, Hu Jia and Yang Chunlin, were
sentenced to prison this year after they tried to link the Beijing
Olympics with China's human rights record. Dozens of other writers and
dissidents have been jailed, placed under de facto house arrest or
ordered to leave Beijing before Aug. 8, when the Games begin. When Reps.
Frank Wolf, R-Va., and Christopher Smith, R-N.J., traveled there this
month with a list of 734 political prisoners, civil rights lawyers with
whom they tried to meet were detained or prevented from leaving their homes.

Beijing has heavily pressured the IOC and many Western governments to
prevent athletes from criticizing China or its foreign policies during
the Games. But the regime itself has not sworn off political statements.
When the Olympic torch passed through the Tibetan capital of Lhasa last
month, the local Communist Party leader delivered a speech excoriating
the Dalai Lama and proclaiming that "China's red flag ... will forever
flutter" above Tibet.

Too many foreign leaders, including President Bush, have chosen to
tolerate this behavior without protest. Bush has confirmed that he will
join Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Cuba's Raul Castro in attending the
Opening Ceremonies because he wishes "to cheer on our athletes" and
because to do otherwise "would be an affront to the Chinese people." In
fact, Bush is affronting those Chinese who have bravely tried to resist
the regime's steamrolling of all dissent. And what if an intrepid
protester manages to raise his or her voice for Tibet or religious
freedom or an end to China's sponsorship of genocide in Darfur and is
swarmed by the regime's thugs? What if Western media seeking to cover
such an event are censored? We can only hope that in that event, Bush
will stop cheering.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Athletes urged to show hands for Tibet at Olympics

Konchog Dorje — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:02:13 GMT

Athletes urged to show hands for Tibet at Olympics
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ashling O'Connor, Olympics Correspondent
The Times (UK)
July 11, 2008

If a coach or athlete makes a "T" sign with their hands at the
Olympic Games in Bejing next month, it will probably indicate their
support for Tibet rather than a request for a refreshing cuppa at the
finish line. With four weeks to go until the start of the first
Olympics to be held in China, human rights activists are calling on
competitors and spectators to show their concern for the situation in
the Himalayan region by forming a "T for Tibet" with both hands.

Joanna Lumley and Jeremy Irons, the actors, are spearheading the
campaign, which is launched today to refocus attention on Tibet after
the issue consumed the Olympic torch relay in April, prompting a wave
of violent protests along the international route.

Athletes will be encouraged to make the sign as a way of
circumventing strict rules that prohibit political banners and flags
inside the stadium and other Olympic venues. Anne Holmes, the acting
director of the Free Tibet Campaign, said: "British and all other
athletes must act as their consciences dictate. We would love to see
an athlete dedicate a medal to Tibet, but we are making no demands."

Athletes will also be guided on ways they can speak out in Beijing on
Tibet without jeopardising their place at the Games. This includes
voicing their concerns during press interviews after their events or
wearing Free Tibet T-shirts around Tiananmen Square.

The IOC has said that athletes will be free to express their views
during the Games but must not engage in any kind of "demonstration or
political, religious or racial propaganda" inside accredited areas.
However, there is much uncertainty surrounding the definition of propaganda.

Making the "T" sign on the podium would probably be interpreted as a
political statement and could result in tough sanctions. Tommie Smith
and John Carlos, the United States sprinters who won gold and bronze
medals respectively, were suspended from the American team and banned
from the Olympic Village for their Black Power salute on the podium
at the 1968 Games in Mexico City in protest at racial oppression.

The IOC said that the focus of athletes should rest on sport, not
politics. "We are aware that organisations are urging athletes to
take stands on various issues," Giselle Davies, the IOC's
communications director, said. "How any result, if any, would be
interpreted will come down to a commonsense approach, which the IOC will take."

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Committing to a lineage?

bugwitch — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:02:09 GMT

Hello all. I've posted a few times here so some of you might know a bit of my thoughts. I've been wondering about the different lineages and what your experiences have been with them. Why did you decide to follow that path? Did you really decide or was it just something that "happened"? What would be a reason to commit to one particular (or more)? I've never really been one for assigning one role for myself. I've encountered many people in my life that attempt to tell me that one way (and only one way) is the path for me/everyone. When I hear this, I generally perform some equivalent of a mental-rolling of the eyes and move along because I know that's not for me. Anyway, I suppose I have started rambling again, I am getting quite tired, but I thought I would just inquire as to your experiences and such.

I have found a few sites that have some wonderful information (The Berzin Archives are quite nice and I have found some youtube videos of HH the Dalai Lama). I had the privilege to be at a few of his talks and felt a sort of spiritual/emotional clarity for a long time. It has since faded, replaced by the frustrations of the life of a college student, among other things. Perhaps I am just trying to regain that clarity. There have been many times in my life when I have felt that way, then something makes it go. I'm sure this is the cycle of things (to a degree). Again...beginning to ramble.

Thank you for your time and thoughts.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 15 replies

Sanskrit vs. Tibetan mantras

QuantumMonkey — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:45:29 GMT

Having recited and translated Tibetan sadhanas for many years, though admittedly with no real experience of them, I have observed innumerable mantras of all different sorts. The Tibetan lamas I have asked all have various explanations of their functions, usually following classical scriptural commentaries on different types of mantras, but I have heard very little information regarding their actual function and how they accomplish that function, in practical terms.

It seems that, according to the view prevalent among Tibetan practitioners of mantra, exact pronunciation is of little importance. What is important, is the devotion exercised while reciting the mantra. This is usually exemplified by the story of the Tibetan Kilaya practitioner who lost his powers when he followed the advice on proper pronunciation given to him by an Indian scholar. But if the mantras are only a support for devotion, then wouldn’t it be mostly irrelevant what syllables one is chanting? And why then the need for so many millions of mantras? Has anyone noticed the prevalent insanity of striving for maximum quantity thereby sacrificing most quality rendering the practice not only largely ineffective, but even harmful. (When one curses tantric practices for being so foolish and ineffective and leaves to go and at least have some fun in samsara.)

Now, on the other side of the Himalayas, Indian sources say that mantras should be pronounced perfectly, and that the resonance thereby generated affects the subtle energies in the practitioner’s neurological system. To me, this sounds much more reasonable and scientific than the blind-faith system promoted by the Tibetans. I always imagined that Buddhism would be a very scientific and rational system, until leaving the Tibetans after many years disappointed. To be fair, so long the bhakti for a real master was there, the Tibetan practices were effective. Unfortunately that bhakti could not survive the trap of the Tibetan scholastic system into which I was put, against my wishes, which gave huge emphasis on intellectual speculation while discouraging meditation (!!!). Suffering a terrible broken heart, I departed from my Tibetan masters to find methods that might be effective in relieving the sufferings of a great sinner.

Can someone please clarify the apparent discrepancy between these two systems of mantra recitation? Furthermore, can someone clarify the spelling, pronunciation, meaning, and intended neurological effects of mantras such as:

OM/AUM
A / AH
HUM/HUNG
SOTI/SWASTI
SOHA/SWAHA
PHAT

This message has been posted concurrently in the Tantra tribe to receive responses from both quarters.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 14 replies

Padmasambhava's activities in Bhutan

QuantumMonkey — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:51:18 GMT

Can anyone explain or point me to clear historical information on Padmasambhava's activities in Bhutan? What does it really mean that Padmasambhava emanated as Dorje Drolod and flew upon a tigress? How does a Vajra Master 'subdue the local deities and spirits' ?

The following is from
www.keystobhutan.com/bhutan/bhutan_history_buddhism.php

Legends have it that, at the end of the 8th century, King Sendha built an iron castle in Bumthang containing all the treasures of the world. His territory was invaded by King Nabudara or Nauche (Big Nose), who ruled the Duar plains to the south. Prior to the battle outside the iron castle, King Sendha performed a grand ceremony in which he invoked the local guardian deities for their help. But it was all in vain: the Bumthang forces were defeated and King Sendha’s son Taglamebar slain. The distress king lost faith in the deities and ordered all temples in his kingdom to be desecrated and destroyed. A Bhutanese chronicle narrates what ensued: “The deities, deeply offended at the sacrilegious vandalism of the mortal king, grew irate, and misfortune befell the entire kingdom. King Sendha was struck down with a fatal illness. The deities had sapped his life seemed to be evaporating. People close to the king felt lost and forsaken.”

Officers of the royal court held discussions to seek a solution, and the leading astrologers of the region suggested remedies that failed to take effect. At that time Guru Padmasambhava (known as Guru Rimpochey or the most Precious Teacher), one of the greatest Buddhist masters of Ugyen country known for his miraculous powers, happened to be meditating in a cave called Yangleshoe in Nepal. Messengers carrying gifts and cups filled with gold dust visited the great guru, beseeching his help to destroy the evil deities and rescue their monarch.

Accepting the invitation, Guru Padmasambhava traveled via Nubjikorphu in the Khen region to Bumthang, where he organized a festival of ritual dances and, with his magic powers, assumed eight forms of dance in order to subdue the evil spirits. The encounter culminated with the guru, now transformed into the primeval bird Garuda, retrieving King Sendha’s vital strength from the chief of the local deities, had appeared at the spectacle as a lion and is now known as Shelging Karpo, chief protective deity of Kurjey temple in Bumthang.

Following these miraculous events, king Sendha and his subjects were converted to the Buddhist faith and undertook to propagate the new religion and reestablish all the holy places.

One salient features of Guru Padmasambhava’s religious policy was his incorporation of the Bon deities into the Buddhism pantheon, having, as the legend relates, bound them through oaths not only to serve the Buddhist faith, but also, in the process, to becomes its protector. The psychological implications of this development should not be underestimated, for it lent a sense of continuity to the beliefs of their new adherents and satisfied the needs of their stage of consciousness.

With the emergence of the anti-Buddhist King Langdarma in the northern kingdom of Tibet, a wave religious persecution and political turmoil swept through that country. The ninth and tenth centuries witnessed an exodus of monks to Kham in eastern Tibet and Bhutan, the latter quickly being recognized as a Baeyul, or scared Hidden Land of Spiritual Treasures, that had received the blessing of Guru Rimpochey.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

Khyentse lineage

Vajra — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:00:18 GMT

Part of Shakya but who still practice
preliminary practices of Longchen njingthik.

Whoa?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 3 replies

"The Five Tibetans" and 'phrul 'khor (pointer)

sahajananda — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:38:27 GMT

This is just a pointer to a thread I started in the Buddhism tribe on "the Five Tibetans" and 'phrul 'khor

http://zenbuddhism.tribe.net/thread/4d58c399-090f-4179-8b96-5f6fc77793b6

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 11 replies

The eight precepts

bugwitch — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:08:23 GMT

I've been wondering this ever since I read about it. Why is dancing forbidden in the eight precepts? I'm sure there are different cultural practices as every culture is relative unto itself, but I feel that dance can be a very spiritual thing. Buddhism, in my understanding, is one of the few religions out there that is inherently fluid in nature, meaning as times change and knowledge/science/etc grow, so will the Buddhist traditions. So, with this in mind, would some precepts or other traditions evolve? Am I wrong in my assumptions?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 7 replies

Faith and Buddhism

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:59:16 GMT

I understand Buddhism to be devoid of western notions of faith; that even in "concepts" they are held tentatively as concepts with limited incomplete utility to understanding the totality of reality.

I understand Buddhism to advocate belief but to the extent that one finds them as self-evident truth in one's practice.. that nothing should be accepted by faith.

Pehaps this is a blanket generalization.

Would you be willing to share your understanding on Buddhism and how faith, in the western sense, plays into it?

there is a western viewpoint that buddhist rely on faith to believe in reincarnation, for example. But it's my understaning that faith has nothing to do with believing in reincarnation. what do you think?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 19 replies

emotional culture of tibetan buddhist

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:51:21 GMT

Not personally knowing any Tibetan Buddhist, I'm curious as to the emotional communication..

I understand that they have great awareness of emotions, their own and how to read the emotions of others..

Of the Lamas that I see on the internet, I gather that they are emotionally expressive people.. not guarded in disclosing their sorrow or joy.

I am wondering if you can share your encounters or knowledge with Tibetans Buddhist culture with respect to their emotional communications.

For example, Are they verbally expressive of their emotions? Is expressing emotions just as prominent as expressing thoughts?

thanks..

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 2 replies

Universal Symbiosis Records - Padmasambhava

entheogenic — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:13:22 GMT

Hi all...

for all quality chill music lovers... please checkout: www.universalsymbiosisrecords.net - Padmasambhava Inspired

The new USR website & new label for Entheogenic with their latest release 'Flight Of The Urubus'

+ lots of interesting info - hopefully healing workshops are to be started soon !!!! watch this space....

Su

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 0 replies

being impersonated

janina — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:06:22 GMT

sorry if this seems too personal, but since I work at a dharma center i wanted to alert folks about some one who my be representing themselves as me.

today I recd an obscene rant from someone saying how much they hated me. This is the only group I really post opinion in so I have to assume it came from here, since I really don't post that much on tribe anymore.

basically it said "I think that you are the stupidest bitch on this site, and you post some really stupid shit, and you make me very angry. " What was creepy is that they copied two of my photos and created an new account [Tara Jeannine Delong], with a name similar to what I was using [Tara Umdze} enough so that, if they posted elsewhere, people might think it's me. I had to change my name and photos accordingly.

I contacted tribe to check it out since it borders on impersonation - a violation of tou. However, I just wanted to say to that person, you may not like my opinion, but at least I am not so cowardly as to hide behind brand new profiles to attack someone.

If anyone sees this person posting in a manner that they may be implying they are me, please send me a message. thanks for your help.

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 3 replies

Naga offering

Vajra — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:46:58 GMT

O beholder of Nagas
use thy tongue to emit the razor sharp wisdom

in other words, how do you perform?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 3 replies

The significance of the term "lama" as opposed to "kadam" or "geshe"?

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:54:31 GMT

I'm a new follower of Tibetan Buddhism, and the last topic about Lama Thunderbolt and how the term "lama" has become vernacular sparked my interest.

I am somewhat familiar with the New Kadampa Tradition and know that in this tradition they used the word Kadam as a title for a teacher.

Is there a difference in the meaning of the terms "lama" and "kadam"? Are the requirements to be considered a lama or kadam different?

Also, regarding "geshe", I understand this to be a person who is trained in knowledge of Buddhist scriptures, a scholar. I understand a lama to be a person with spiritual insights that enable him to guide followers. But in the New Kadampa Tradition they call their spiritual leader "Geshe".

Can anyone help clarify the significance or differences between these terms?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 6 replies

Non Duality

Sentient — Thu, 01 May 2008 03:18:42 GMT

I would like some help understanding the Tibetan Buddhist perspective on non duality. As I understand duality, it is the defining principle of all existence. You cant have up without down, left without right, light without dark, hot without cold, self without other. Non duality as I understand it basically would mean non existence. The one becomes two, and the two becomes three....We can see that every element is made of basically the same particle, and our protons and electrons are basically divided neutrons, as if you combine them together they are identical in weight to a neutron.
My background is not really a Buddhist one which is why I would like clarification on the Buddhist perspective. The idea of "Tai Chi" is the unification of Yin and Yang, or duality, which leads to higher awareness and function.....This does not negate the existence of opposing forces however. Its an awareness of their unification, and very much ties into the idea that "Im in your and you're in me", but within the whole there are still polarities that define all existence.

So what exactly is non-duality from a Buddhist perspective? How is the early Buddhist desire for the attainment of Nirvana different from the idea of non duality from the perspective that Samsara and Nirvana are basically the same thing?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 50 replies

Tibetan buddhist studies

Monika — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:09:57 GMT

Im interested in the study of tibetan healing/medicine and psychology. I hope to live and work as part of a community while taking daily studies. An internet search has shown this kind of centre in the US but ive been unable to find one in europe. any suggestions?

posted in Tibetan Buddhism - 6 replies