Sat, 29 Jul 2006

Deity Yoga

Someone asked on the Kagyu mailing list about the reality of deities we visualize in meditation. I didn't get to participate in that discussion, because I was too busy taking a chain saw to the VKL site. So here's my answer. The deities we visualize represent the Sambhogakaya aspect of the Buddha. What's that? Something neither you nor I can understand right now. Sadhana practice has a lot of places where we pretend to do things we can't understand right now. We dissolve everything into emptiness by imagining that everything disappears. We merge our mind with the deity by imagining light coming from the deity and dissolving into ourselves. We rest our mind in mahamudra by imagining our bodies dissolving and resting without thought. And, yes, we visualize the Sambhogakaya deities and their buddha fields by imagining ourselves as the deity with the deity in front of us in an elaborate palace, and so forth. None of these practices are any more than crude approximations to a reality that we currently can't understand. So to ask if the deities exist misses the point. So why have faith in these practices if we can't understand them? Simply because I've seen the changes these practices have on people when they're done diligently. I'll just mention Lama Gursam who has really changed from the time I first met him because of his retreat practice. I figure what has worked for him will work for me.

According to the Tibetan calendar (one of them, at least) today is the day Buddha preached his first sermon, thus starting the tradition we know as Buddhism. I will be starting a retreat and won't be posting to the weblog for a week.

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Fri, 28 Jul 2006

Notes Gone Missing

There's a famous line in the movie King's Row where Reagan wakes up after an amputation and screams, "Where's the rest of me?" People who have visited the Dharma Teachings page before will notice that now there's lot less teachings on the page than there used to be. There's two main reasons. The first is that I've moved the notes from Lama Gyursam's talks over to his web site and the second is that I was asked to remove my notes from talks taken at Karma Triyana Dharmachakra. That was their right and I have no quarrel with their request. But I feel a little sad, because I believe the notes were very helpful. My reason for putting notes up on the web was my realization that information between book covers or on audio tapes doesn't matter any more. Everyone goes to the web first to search for information and if it's not there, it might as well not exist. Before I started posting the top page on the web about mahamudra was Bobby's Mahamudra, which is some guy relating his experiences after he fell on his head. I'm very happy that I've been able to get genuine and authoritative information on mahamudra on the web.

On the other hand, I'm attached to my web sites. Khenpo Tsultrim told a story about a monk who was a good practitioner, but was attached to his teacup. The abbot knew this and told a young novice to break the teacup. The monk became furious and chased the novice. The abbot was watching and stepped in, scolded the monk, and told him to look at his mind. And when the monk did so, he saw the nature of his mind. I'm hoping to use all my attachments in the same way. Losing what you're attached to is good practice.

I will be doing a weeklong meditation retreat to get ready for Thrangu Rinpoche's Phowa retreat. That means that this or tomorrow's post will be the last post for a week.

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Wed, 26 Jul 2006

Tenga Rinpoche

This myspace post describes the author's interview with Tenga Rinpoche.

In our interview, Rinpoche told me of the escape from Tibet that he shared with Karmapa, his take on Karmapas first trip to the West in 1974 and other, just stop-you-in-your-tracks anecdotes and insights. History aside, there was this warmth, something nonchalant, radiant and staggering. I felt that if votes were being taken for the Single Kindest Person in the World, I would have no hesitation in my heart. When I offered Rinpoche a khata and he blessed me, he raised his arms overhead, which no other teacher has done. Even after feeling his enormous kindness, an undeniable ambient power was in the air.

Tenga Rinpoche is one of the more important lamas in the Karma Kagyu lineage, but I don't hear much about him, because he mostly travels to Europe. Here is a short biography from his monastery's web site.

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Tue, 25 Jul 2006

Ari

Ari-ma translates for Garchen Rinpoche and visited us in Baltimore earlier this year. I went searching for info on her on the web and found this post about the three year retreatants in Alamora. It was about to be lost to the web and to preserve it I'm posting it here.

Dear Friends and Family Members of the Almora Retreatants,

On Christmas Day of 2004 I had the good fortune of visiting Almora and conveying to the retreatants greetings, blessings, advice for practice and chocolate from Kyabje Garchen Rinpoche.

At that time it was not possible for me to meet with the retreatants in person, as they had not quite yet completed the purification practice of Vajrasattva. I did, however, receive messages from Rachel and Rolf about their great joy at having the opportunity to practice intensively in seclusion.

Today I received a letter from Rachel. She wrote of the mutual friendship and support that has arisen among the retreatants and of the great fortune of engaging in these precious practices in retreat. Despite the hardships, this is truly one of the happiest times of her life.

At this time the retreatants are just about to complete the Guru Yoga practice and begin the Bodhicitta section of the Fivefold Mahamudra.

Although it is a sacrifice for us to be separated from the retreatants for such a long time, by holding them in our thoughts and prayers, the sense of separation disappears and we can be an actual support to them.

With sincere best wishes,
Ari Kiev

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Mon, 24 Jul 2006

Web Hauling

I've moved Lama Guram's talks from the Vajra Konchog Ling web site over to his own site. Which is why I don't have time to post tonight. I also got word on what Lama Gursam will talk about when he visits. He's going to talk about loving our enemies and the importance of see the master as the Buddha. They sound like really good and helpful topics to me and I'm looking forward to them.

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Sun, 23 Jul 2006

Quaker Kids

I visited TMC again this morning for their usual Sunday practice. Some kids from a Quaker summer camp wer there. It seems that a visit to TMC is part of their regular schedule. So Khenpo Tsultrim gave an introductory talk and I've included my notes below. Michael and Drupon were back from their trip to Tibet. After the morning servie was over Michael talked about the trip informally and showed some of his pictures.

The main goal of religion is to become a good person and to obtain happiness and joy. If you do this, your practice is working. If you only get more suffering, it is not. Some people attach to temporary happiness, but the main point of religion is to gain permanent joy. The motivation of all religions is not to become rich or powerful, but to become peaceful. This is explained different ways according to each religion's culture. Buddhism and Hinduism are similar because they both come from India. Both believe in karma. Karma says non-virtue leads to suffering and virtue leads to joy. If you do bad things, their results come back to you. Even if someone tries to harm you and make you miserable, you should not be angry because the cause of your unhappiness is not entirely the other person's action, but also your karma. Buddha's two chief disciples, Shariputra and Maudgalyayana, visited hell, where they saw the leader of a religious group, who told them to go back and tell his followers not to practice as he had taught [animal sacrifice?]. They told his followers, but they did not listen. Then Maudgalyayana returned to tell them a second time The followers became angry and beat Maudgalyayana. Because of his karma, he was not able to use his psychic powers to escape and he died from his injuries. Even in a plane crash some survive because they don't have the karma to die. Others can die when they fall from a chair.

We're not saying just believe in karma, investigate and see if it's true. Look at your life and see what happens. You might think how can there be past lives when we can't remember them. But we can't even remember what happened yesterday. Some students learn a subject quickly because of their training from a previous life. This is a sign of previous lives. And some children like to hurt others but others don't. This is also a sign of previous lives.

In Tibet the name for Buddhism is "nangpa" which means insider. Of body, speech, and mind, the most important is mind. Tibetans have a saying, who criticizes you when you study really cares about you. But often we have a problem with criticism. It's also said we have eyes to watch others, but we should use a mirror to watch ourselves. The important point is to become a good person and peaceful. However much you have afflictive emotions you will have suffering.

Q: Could you explain the persons on that painting?

A: In he lineage tree the top is Vajradhara. He is not a person, but represents enlightened mind. His disciples were not monks, but yogis who wore crazy clothes and practiced secretly. Then Marpa the translator. The translators who brought Buddhism to Tibet practiced what they translated, so they understood the meaning. The word "norbu" literally means wealth son, but its real meaning is wish fulfilling gem. So it's important to understand the meaning like Marpa did. He studied during the day and practiced what he studied at night. So don't think that Marpa only understood the language. In Tibet only Marpa could translate the higher tantra called the Guhyasamaja.

Q: What is the significance of the bell and vajra?

A: The bell symbolizes body and speech and the vajra symbolizes the mind. So using them symbolizes offering our body speech and mind to the deity.

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Fri, 21 Jul 2006

Bodhi Tree Burgled

This is amusing, in a disgusting kind of way. Someone has sawed a branch off the bodhi tree in Bodhgaya.

A group of unknown miscreants cut off a branch from a 110-year-old Buddhist holy tree in India's eastern Bihar state, news reports said Thursday. The Bodhi tree around which the Mahabodhi temple complex is built, grew from the original banyan tree under which Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, attained enlightenment 2,550 years ago.

There are accusations that Japanese organized crime is involved in the theft.

Bhante Anand, president of the Akhil Bharatiya Bhikkhu Mahasangh (ABBM), an influential body of Buddhist monks, said: "We have information that the branch was sold to some Japanese for money in connivance with the temple management committee."

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Unpersuaded

I've been on the Internet for a long time and have been in my fair share of arguments. For all I know some of the people I've criticized and insulted are reading this weblog. I've come to some conclusions in that time and one of them is this: I don't take your arguments seriously. That's not because I don't like you or I think you're stupid. I don't take anyone's arguments seriously, including my own.

Here's why. Most people use arguments to support a conclusion that they've already reached. In a way, such arguments are like computer programs, where you're trying to generate a desired conclusion. However, as any programmer can tell you, most programs are buggy. It's very rare to write a program and have it work the first time. The human mind is just not capable of a sustained thread of reasoning without making at least one mistake. Hence, there are bugs in computer programs and errors in arguments. You can debug programs, but it's pretty unusual for someone to go back over their argument and try to pick it apart. And programs are handed to someone other than their author to test, because the author typically won't test is thoroughly enough. So for all these reasons, no matter what your argument is, I think it's probably wrong.

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Thu, 20 Jul 2006

Interview with Khenchen

The interview with Khenchen Konchog Gyaltsen, which was available in print, is now available online at the Snow Lion site.

The three poisons are interconnected; without one, the others cannot exist. There is not so much discussion of desire because this topic is a little sensitive. However, if there is no desire, there is no arising of anger. When there is no ignorance, there is no reason that desire and anger would arise. They are inter-related. The main problem is ignorance--it obscures the pureness of the mind. Because of this, we misperceive the way that phenomena exist. For example, all phenomena are impermanent, yet we perceive phenomena as permanent. Everything is changing every moment, every second, but in our mind we hold phenomena as something substantial and real. If that is present in our mental state, then when we see things we like we will have desire, whether for a person or material things. That desire brings up greed and possessiveness. When we encounter obstacles to our desire, anger will pop up. Anger in this situation is very destructive. Desire is to possess, to want, to have. Anger is to destroy obstacles to this desire. Because they are based in ignorance, we need to understand the interdependent nature of phenomena. All types of causes and conditions come together--no entity is independent. This is what we mean by emptiness--there is no independent entity.

Lama Gursam is returning to Baltimore the second weekend in August. It will be good to see him again.

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Wed, 19 Jul 2006

Finding a Guru

Let me reach way back in my memory to tell the story of how I first became Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche's (KKR's) student. I first met KKR when I attended a teaching on the six perfections at Karma Triyana Dharmachakra in 1978. KKR taught in the morning and Bardor Tulku taught in the afternoon. I didn't know it then, but the teaching came straight from the Jewel Ornament of Liberation. I took refuge with KKR that weekend and each of us got a name from one of the perfections. I was generosity because I was first in line. Despite taking refuge with KKR because I had doubts about his traditional style of teaching. I thought, you're not going to be able to talk to Westerners if you tell them the defect of not practicing generosity is that you'll be reborn as a hungry ghost. (This comes straight from the Jewel Ornament, though I didn't know it at the time.)

So although I enjoyed my visit to KTD, I had no real intention of ever going back there. Then I ran into some serious problems. I suppose all my karma was coming due. They were weighing on my mind and I decided the best way to deal with them would be a meditation retreat. And I decided to do it at KTD. It was quiet (back then) and scenic and seemed like the ideal place. So I went back to KTD and asked KKR how to schedule my day. He told me I should take a break after lunch, which is the big meal of the day at KTD. Someone left a copy of Seven Years in Tibet in my room, so I sat on the covered porch (since torn down) and read a chapter each day after lunch. There were no teachings going on at the time and the place was very quiet. Every afternoon KKR would go out into the fields with a shopping bag and a pair of clippers and come back with wild flowers to put on the shrine. And he wouldn't say anything, but he would smile at me as he came back.

At the time many of the Westerners he would meet would declare their eternal commitment to the Dharma and then go away, never to be heard of again. I was practicing with the grim determination of a person clutching at a life preserver, so I think he was impressed that I didn't run away with some excuse after one or two days. It's funny how karma works. So after a week of smiles I was really impressed by KKR. On the last day he asked a woman who had come for an interview to give me a ride to the bus station in Woodstock after it was over. So I was waiting with her as she was waiting for an interview. Like some people, she started getting nervous. When KKR came out to meet her, he saw she was nervous, and took her hand in his. And at that moment I understood what unconditional love and compassion are. Because KKR did not put this woman into some conceptual box, there was nothing to filter or condition the love he felt for her. And seeing that was just a very powerful experience for me and why I will always consider him my main teacher.

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Tue, 18 Jul 2006

Phowa

While I was at the retreat at KTD, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche suggested that I go to Toronto to do a week long Phowa retreat in Toronto with Thrangu Rinpoche. Not only did I promise to do it, I promised in front of a hundred people. So there's no backing out. That means saving up my pennies for the trip and also completing 100,000 repititions of Amitabha's mantra. The only way I'll complete that is to do a retreat. So I went visiting the Tibetan Meditation Center last Sunday asking for permission to do a retreat there. Khenpo was glad to let me do a retreat there, because he'll be in Gaithersberg taking an English language course. They've been having problems with vandalism at TMC. Someone wrote "Jesus Saves" on their white board in permanent marker and spread loaves of bread around on the parking lot. The latter strikes me as slightly crazy. I wonder if the person is mentally unballanced. So I've got to get evrything lined up to do the retreat. It's embarrassing, but I don't have the Amitabha sadhana, because it's not part of my regular practice. So I ordered it from Namse Bangdzo and asked that they send it by Priority Mail. I hope I get it by the end of the week.

Khenpo Tsultrim gave a short talk on courage and bodhicitta while I was visiting, and I've included my notes below. I also heard that Khenchen Kpnchog Gyaltsen is now back in Tibet, teaching at a monastery there. So no more teachings at TMC for a while.

Mahayana is the great path or transportation. But the path is not going to make us great, we have to make it great. The greatness is the motivation. If you have bodhicitta your motivation is good. You think I want to become liberated for the sake of all sentient beings. That is the motivation of bodhicitta.

It's not an easy job. Bodhisattvas need courage. Without courage bodhisattvas sometimes lose their bodhicitta. People here have heard the stories about Shariputra. Someone asked him for his right arm and he cut it off. The other person refused to accept it when it was offered with Shariputra's left arm. In India offerings made with the left hand are considered insulting. So he lost his path of bodhicitta because he thought I couldn't even make one sentient being happy, so how can I make all sentient beings happy. The other story is how Shariputra offered an eye to a person who squished it saying I like hearing the sound. And this caused him to lose his motivation. One great Buddhist scholar debated a non-Buddhist scholar. When the non-Buddhist was losing the debate, he burnt him with fire. This caused him to consider losing the bodhisattva motivation. He threw rock up in the air and said I will renounce bodhicitta if it falls. It didn't and he looked up and Manjushri was holding the rock. We are Mahayana Buddhists. In Tibet they don't have choice. 80-90% in Tibet are religious. Here when people practice they run into obstacles they think, I should give Buddhism up. That's just your karma. So when you practice you need courage. If you didn't have the karma others couldn't harm you. Shantideva said if someone hits you with a stick, the fault is ego. If you didn't have a body, you wouldn't be able to be harmed. Similarly, the karma and the person who is harming are both working. Shantideva said sentient beings as kind to us as Buddhas in helping us to practice the path to enlightenment. The path is neither fast nor slow. Too slow is lazy and fast means a big effort then you lose interest.

How do you cultivate bodhicitta? Usually it's through considering the kindness of all our mothers in previous lives. There are five mothers, the one who gives you birth, the one who feeds and raises you, the one who teaches you, and so forth, The main point is to consider who has been kindest to you in your life. Then you should think of repaying their kindness. You should wish that that person will be happy. That is called love.

Every sentient being suffers, from the President to a street sweeper. Poor people think they will be happy if they have money. Rich people think that they will be happy if their competition is eliminated. A rich businessman in India invited Chetsang Rinpoche's family to visit. He had a many limousines and a big mansion. At first he talked about how happy he was, then he talked about his worries about his children. So deep down everyone has suffering.

The next practice is exchanging self and other. It seems easy, but sometimes there's the danger this practice can destroy your motivation. So you need strong courage. Some people say I do thong len and I take others sickness. But if you ask them if you can have their car, they wouldn't do it. If you don't have strong love and compassion, you can't have strong bodhicitta. One person became very angry and someone asked him what was wrong. He said, someone's destroying my practice of patience and that's making me angry. We think love and compassion always give you suffering. But that's not love it's grasping to what is ours. It's the grasping that gives suffering. So to have love and compassion you must have equanimity. If you have equanimity, love and compassion will only lead to joy. Otherwise love and compassion will only lead to attachment and suffering. We are in samsara because we are attached. The main cause of attachment is grasping at a self.

You cannot build love and compassion on the basis of seeking benefit for a single life. In Tibet when people are sick they do a lot of practice, but when they get well they don't. You cannot completely eliminate your karma by practices. In Tibet they sometimes blame the teacher and sometimes the practice. They never blame their karma. If people practice for the sake of this or the next life, the practice will cease when you get the result. But if your motivation is enlightenment, the practice and its benefits will continue until you reach the goal. So motivation and dedication to full enlightenment makes the merit indestructible.

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Mon, 17 Jul 2006

Superlatives

I thought I'd finish up my recollections of the 2006 with a little list.

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Sun, 16 Jul 2006

PHP Security

While I was at KTD, Jack showed me the upcoming KTD website. Because they're going to be taking reservations through the web, I offered to point him to some articles on PHP security. Since what I found is of general interest, I thought I'd post it to the web.

Here's a short introduction to web application security, with a focus on PHP. I have to warn you that I'm not that familar with PHP, the examples are untested and based on what I read in the PHP manual. But the principles are the same as in any other programming language.

The idea is that you have you have a web application that has permission to do the work it needs to run the application. It uses the server's operating system, reads and writes files, reads and writes to the database, and builds web pages to display to the user. The person attacking the security of your site tries to get your application to do what you didn't expect or want it to by supplying input to your application that you never expected. The solution to the problem is to restrict the input that your application gets by carefully checking it and rejecting or converting input that causes trouble.

There are several standard routes of attack that are used to subvert web applications. Your application can be tricked into running a command you didn't want it to. It can be tricked to write (or overwrite) a file you did not expect. It can be tricked to execute an sql command you don't want. (This is called an sql injection attack.) Or the web page your application builds can contain Javascript code that steals information from your interaction with the person running it. (The usual target is the session id cookie. This is known as a cross site scripting attack.)

This article gives a good introduction to common PHP security mistakes. Many are obvious, but it's surprising how often these problems are overlooked. This weblog post covers some of the same ground, but is short and makes some different points.

I'm going to focus on sql injection attacks. The two articles above both cover sql injection attacks. But to get more familiar with the technique, it would be good to read SQL Injection Attacks by Example, which works out a example attack on a web application.

The way to protect yourself is to take the input fields that are going to be used in your sql command. Divide them into fields that should have numeric values and string values. Use is_numeric() or is_int() to check the numeric values and reject them if they fail the test. Here are the PHP manual pages for these two functions.

To protect the string fields, use the function mysql_real_escape_string(). This function escapes characters that could be used to subvert your application by preceding them with backslashes. Here is the manual page describing this function.

Using this function is a little tricky, because of the PHP "magic quotes" feature also adds backslashes that escape some, but not all of the characters that mysql_real_escape_string() escapes. If you use this function and magic quotes are turned on, you'll wind up with double slashes in your input, where the same character has been escaped twice. You may or may not be able to turn off the magic quotes depending on your ISP. But what you can do is check to see if the feature is turned on and undo the damage it causes by stripping the backslashes that it adds. That's what the smart_quotes() function in Example 3 on the manual page does. The function looks fine to me, but I wouldn't rely on it to detect the difference between string and numeric fields. Some string fields, like zip codes look like numbers and you shouldn't rely on a function to try to guess if a field a string or numeric based on the user's input. The comments at the end of the manual page raise this point. Test numeric fields separately, as I suggested.

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Sat, 15 Jul 2006

A Visit and a Letter

Rinchen Gyatso writes about his recent visit to the Tibetan Meditation Center on his weblog. He also has a few pictures. I wasn't able to meet him because I was away at KTD, of course, but I know him from previous Spring Retreats at TMC. He writes a bit about dedication prayers, based on a teaching by Ani Trinlay.

One interesting point that came up is the importance of dedication. Without dedicating the merit of our virtuous actions for our enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, the "good karma" comes back to us in the form of mundane benefit like good food, a nice car, etc.... Most of us in the West have a lot of undedicated good karma. So say those dedication prayers folks! Here's a good one specific to the Drikung lineage:

By the virtues collected in the three times by myself and all beings in samsara and nirvana, and by the innate root of virtue, may I and all sentient beings quickly attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect, precious enlightenment.

It's a great catch-all. We don't know when we loose the ability to dedicate the merit of our actions for our enlightenment, so saying "in the three times" helps us to catch every available bit.

I received email from someone in New Zealand about the appeals court decision in the fight between Beru Khyentse Rinpoche and the board of New Zealand Karma Kagyu Trust that I posted about before leaving for the KTD retreat. In case it was not clear, the decision was a victory for supporters of Orgyen Trinlay only in the sense that it changed a total defeat into a draw: neither side can dismiss the other. The case is being appealed to the New Zealand Supreme Court. If you're interested, supporters of Beru Khyentse Rinpoche have compiled a list of links to all the relevant court documents.

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