Tue, 30 Sep 2008
Power and Love
Edward Conze once defined power as the ability to ignore the wishes of others. Given that differences in power are inevitable (parent and child, boss and worker, and yes, spiritual teacher and student) it seems to me that all such relations should be based on friendship and mutual concern. It seems that we in the West assume that in all relations both parties are only seeking personal advantage. However, in the East the relation between superior and inferior is seen as supportive and mutually beneficial. This is probably the most important spiritual lesson I took away from studying the martial arts.
Mon, 29 Sep 2008
A Fable
A Japanese priest liked to gamble with dice. One day he had a losing streak and lost his stake. Walking home from the game, he first felt angry, but consoled himself by thinking, "Those poor fools don't know that someday they must die."
And the moral is, it's easy to quote the scriptures to your own advantage, but hard to apply then to your life.
Sun, 28 Sep 2008
Our Rainy Weekend
This weekend Lama Gursam held a mahamudra seminar at our center. On Saturday the skies opened and the rains poured down. The same thing happened when we had a table at the Asian Festival. Maybe we ought to rent ourselves out as rainmakers. The seminar combined talks and meditations. Lama Gursam empasized the practices that he has found most helpful: calm abiding meditation, guru yoga (on Garchen Rinpoche), and meditation on loving kindness and compassion with Chenrezig. The last is my current practice, so it's good to know that Lama thinks highly of it. Lama Gursam seemed more serene than at his last visit. His meditations seem to be having a good effect. He thanked me for managing his web site. It's a simple job, but it's nice to be thanked.
I have put my notes from Traga Rinpoche's talk on the web, if you would like to look at them.
Fri, 26 Sep 2008
Lama Gursam Visits
Lama Gursam is visiting Baltimore this week. So far, the members had dinner with him on Monday (thanks, Lance, for the dinner!) and Wednesday he gave a Medicine Buddha empowerment down at Breathe Books. We got a good attendance for the empowerment, probably because we tapped into Breathe Book's publicity network. Tonight will be an introductory talk and the Saturday we'll have the Big Weekend Seminar™. This year it will be on mahamudra, which I understand that Lama has been teaching on at his other stops. Here are a few of Lama Gursam's remarks from the empowerment.
We need a skillful method to see our enlightened nature. We have to be introduced to it. Every enlightened being started out as ordinary and through their training became enlightened. Ordinary does not mean we do not have the enlightened mind, it only means we are not yet realized or awakened. Those who have become completely awakened are called Buddhas We don't have to go to some special place to awaken, we only have to practice. There are many diseases, some which cannot be cured. Whoever is born must die. Naturally aging is a part of life, as is disease. But through Medicine Buddha disease can be healed. His practice can also protect from obstacles such as untimely death
Sun, 21 Sep 2008
No Wisdom Either
I've finished correcting my notes from Traga Rinpoche's talk yesterday. Here's an excerpt where he talks about how in the ultimate truth, not even wisdom can be found.
Ultimate truth is the original nature, which is the dharmadhatu, the suchness of phenomena. It is referred to as emptiness, mahamudra, or mahasandhi, the perfect nature. It is realized only by the noble ones. It is the self aware primordial wisdom. It is beyond the domain of thought, inexpressible, and incomprehensible. It cannot be expressed through speech, shown, pointed to, or demonstrated. The body cannot touch it, the speech express it, or mind think of it. It is known only by discerning the primordial wisdom. There is no duality of subject and object in it. It is inseparable appearance-emptiness. This emptiness is the dharmadhatu, the base of all phenomena. When it is realized, there are no concepts or kleshas. All impurities have been eliminated. But also there is no wisdom.
Milarepa was asked, "Is it true that in that state there is no wisdom?"
He replied, "I cannot say yes or no. You will have to see for yourself."
Sat, 20 Sep 2008
Traga Rinpoche
I had my first chance to attend a teaching by Traga Rinpoche today. It was down at the Drikung Mahayana Center, in other words, Su Su's house. which is in Gaithersberg, a very nice suburb of Washington. The house was equally nice. It was the first time I'd been there. For some reason I had the idea it was on top of a hill. It was not. Maybe someone told me that there was a hill behind it. We all listened to Traga Rinpoche in the living room. Su Su showed a lot of hospitality to all of us. Trag Rinpoche's teaching was on the four schools of BUddhist philosophy in India. The names, translated into English, are the Commentary School, the Sutro Followers School, the Mind Only School, and the Middlemost School. The idea that there were four schools of Indian Buddhist philosophy is a Tibetan conceptual scheme. Reality, as always, is not so neat and clear. Anyway, it was a high level overview of the schools, since we only had four hours to cover them. But it was a more detailed look than I've heard before at a teaching. Usually this sort of discussion is difficult to translate. We were lucky to have a khenpo serving as Traga Rinpoche's translator.
We ate lunch with Rinpoche and Khenpo (part of the hospitality I mentioned) and Khenpo told a Tibetan joke. Two Tibetan lamas were traveling together and stopped to make soup for their dinner. Their provisions were short and there was only enough soup to satisfy one person. One lama, scheming to have all of the soup for himself, took out his dirty thigh bone trumpet and and used it to stir the soup. He apologized, saying, "I am a yogi beyond the concepts of clean and unclean." The second lama kicked over the pot of soup saying, "And I am a yogi who is beyond concern."
Wed, 17 Sep 2008
Chasing Enlightenment
Brad's going on about Genpo Roshi's Big Mind™ seminar on his blog again. I don't have too much to say about it, except even if it works, it doesn't. For the sake of argument, let's say the seminar works and you get a glimpse of enlightenment. If so, the conversation in your head is going to go something like this:
Huh?
Is this enlightenment? I'm enlightened!
This is wonderful! I always wanted this!
It's going to make such a big change in my life.
What happens now? I've got to make sure I understand it.
What if I lose it? Can you lose enlightenment?
What is it? What did I understand?
I can get it back if I concentrate enough.
Shit.
Like the movie title says, "Gone in Sixty Seconds." The point is, all gain and loss is samsaric, and that includes gaining enlightenment. It's only when you get tired of chasing after gain and fleeing loss, that you can see through your ambition and see a little bit of the truth. And getting tired takes a few spin cycles in the washer. It's something that has to wear out, you can't throw it out. And that's why you can't get enlightened in a weekend.
Sun, 14 Sep 2008
Luther's Views
I stumbled across the blog of my friend Luther while I was surfing the Internet. He goes by his dharma name Rangdrol, much as I often go by my dharma name, Jinzang. I know Luther from the Shambhala Center, from Khandro Rinpoche's retreat, from the Tibetan Meditation Center in Frederick ... Everywhere I've been, he has showed up too, except for Lama Gursam's teaching. I've picked out two posts from his blog. The first gives the story of how he became involved with the dharma. The second is his report on Khandro Rinpoche's retreat, with photos. I was sad to hear that Lucinda died this summer. I can't say we were especially close to her, but she was a very bright and very dear person.
Sat, 13 Sep 2008
Faith and Trust
It's commonplace criticism of religion to compare it to science. The criticism says that while religion merely has beliefs taken on faith, science has knowledge based on experiment. Many Buddhists take this criticism to heart and try to package Buddhism as a scientific religion, where meditation and the experience born from meditation take the place of experiment. I personally think this challenge and response miss the mark. It neglects one side of faith and that is trust. One believes because one trusts. Without trust there can be no friendship and no community. All communities, including scientific ones are built on trust. Without trust society would disintegrate. A religion is more than a collection of doctrines, it is a community and the community is held together by a shared trust. This is why religions are so impervious to the criticism of sceptics. The criticism merely drives the community closer together, like a herd of caribou in a snow storm. Critics of "unreasoning belief" ignore the affective, emotional side of human nature.
Fri, 12 Sep 2008
Daido Loori Remembered
Over on E-Sangha Adam says the Daido Loori is being treated for lung cancer. Just as I wrote this, I noticed a dead moth on my desk. It was fluttering around the light this morning and now it's dead. Impermanence.
I thought I would mention my brief encounters with Mr. Loori. Both were at KTD. Zen Mountain Monastery is just down the road a mile or two and when Daido Loori moved in, he made a courtesy visit to see Khenpo Karthar. I was sitting on a sofa in what's now the bookstore as he went in and recognized him from a picture on one of his books. He seemed slightly nervous going in, but quite happy going out. I haven't mentioned this story before because I thought people would take it as a criticism. Everyone knows that genuine Zen teachers are much too holy to ever be nervous. Well, the people who think these thoughts will probably find a thousand other things to criticize about Daido, so they can have this too. I also heard Daido Loori speak at a conference Will Roth organized on Buddhism and psychotherapy. He struck me as being a sharp guy, both in terms of intellect and practice.
Thu, 11 Sep 2008
Revamped Site
The Tibetan Meditation Center has redone their web site. They've got a small photo gallery on the site. This group photo from the Spring Retreat captured most of the members of our Baltimore sangha. That's me in the denim shirt with a dumb expression on my face. Charlie is kneeling to the right of me, Lance is behind me, and Pete is standing to the right of Lance. John is seated on the left in a black shirt and his wife, Mary Beth, is to his right. And Khenpo Tsultrim is seated on the throne. I look a little chubby in the photo. I've lost twenty pounds since then.
I was testing out a new search engine this morning and found this web page of classic mahamudra texts. Well worth pondering.
Mon, 08 Sep 2008
Buddhist Military Chaplains
I mentioned the Buddhist Military Sangha blog shortly after it started. It's kept going since then and a mobth ago they posted an interesting article about the requirements for becoming a Buddhist military chaplain. The requitements I found most interesting are that one must have graduated from an accredited chaplain's program, one must be ordained in a Buddhist tradition, and one must be approvrd by an authorized Buddhist group. The only Buddhist group currently recognized by the military is the (Pure Land) Buddhist Churches of America. The requirement for ordination raises a dilemma for any Buddhist lineage that keeps the Vinaya seriously: there is a prohibition in the Vinaya against monks being associated with the military:
Should a bhikkhu watch an army in battle array, unless there is a suitable reason, it entails a Pacittiya offence.
Should a bhikkhu stay with an army more than three consecutive nights, even for a suitable reason, it entails a Pacittiya offence.
Should a bhikkhu go to a battlefield, a roll call of the troops, a battle array or to see a regimental review while staying with an army, it entails a Pacittiya offence.
Sun, 07 Sep 2008
Book Excerpts
Khenpo Karthar's most recent book was his commentary on The Quintessence of the Union of Dozgchen and Mahamudra, a short text by Karma Chagme. One of the Buddhist magazines published an excerpt from the book. That article is now online. It's on the creation and completion stages of tantra. It's interesting because the completion stage described here is essentially mahamudra practice. So we have a public instruction on mahamudra from a great teacher:
There is no object of meditation because your mind is simply experiencing itself just as it is, in the present moment. It is sufficient here to look at the nature of your mind without distraction. The words look fixedly at are by nature dualistic language, and are misleading in the sense that the mind that is looked at is not something other than the mind that is looking.
While doing this, it is unnecessary to hope that things will go well and that you will recognize your mind's nature, or to fear that things will go poorly and you that will become distracted or lose the recognition. It is unnecessary to think, "Is this it, or is this not it?" It does not matter whether your mind is still or moving. If it is still, it is not going to stay still forever, so it shouldn't matter anyway. It does not even matter whether your mind is particularly lucid in that moment or for that day. Regardless of whatever is happening in your mind, simply look with an intense or glaring awareness at the nature of whatever arises. The term vivid means "one-pointedly without distraction." This means not allowing the distraction of thoughts to divert you from looking at the nature. That itself is the main practice here.
KTD Publications has also put online some excerpts from Khenpo Karthar's next book, the third volume of Karma Chagme's Mountain Dharma. Here's another excerpt on the subject of meditation:
While resting in even placement, all kinds of thoughts can naturally arise. When they arise, if you become involved in evaluating each thought by thinking, "This one was better," "That one was worse," and so on, this does not serve to help you, and it is also not meditation. If thoughts arise, then remain undisturbed. If they do not arise, then remain without delight. To be unmoved by whatever pleasant or unpleasant thoughts may arise and to remain in the state of even placement within that nature -- this is the authentic method of practice. About this, Padampa Sangye said, "Thoughts leave no trace, like birds in the sky." We see birds flying around in the sky, but they leave no print or trace at all in their wake and so the sky itself remains undamaged and unmarked. In this way, regardless of whatever thoughts may arise for you, if you simply rest in even placement within that essential nature, free from fixation on the duality of apprehended object and apprehending cognition, the thoughts will not become a conceptual focus or defect, nor will they disrupt your experience of meditation. If you cultivate your practice in this way, it will lead to realization.
Sat, 06 Sep 2008
Asian Arts Festival
I spent the day manning a table at the Asian Arts Festival promoting our Buddhist group. We shared the table with the Susquehanna Yoga Studio, which gives our group the space to practice. It was a bad day weather-wise. The remnants of Hurrican Hannah passed through, dumping rain as were unloading our stuff. The storm passed through quickly though, and was gone when we packed up. Despite the bad weather, people showed up for the festival We had tankas to sell and pamphlets to give out. We didn't sell any tankas, as the price was too steep for the festival attendees, who mostly seemed interested in having an enjoyable day. We did hand out some pamphlets, and so did our small part to spread the dharma. The local NKT center was there, and in a better location with more traffic. I took a break from the table and listened to a Balinese music group, which was nice. We spoke to a woman from the Shambhala center, who looked at our tankas and while I was at the concert Pete said we were visited by a Tibetan nun.
