Fri, 31 Jul 2009
Requiem for a Zen Center
I popped by the web site of the Burning House Zendo and was sorry to see that they're closing their center on Harford Road and looking for a new place to practice. The same thing happened to the Gampopa Center back in May. Not only that, Lama Phurbu Tashi lost his home. It's only becuase of the kindness of a sangha member that he's not living out of a dumpster. The Burning House Zendo is affiliated with Eido Shimano Roshi and his students, meaning that it's traditional Rinzai Zen. I'm a traditionalist too. (Hey! That's one thing the Karmapa and I have in common!) If you don't know Rinzai Zen, that's the school where the meditation practice is concentrating on koans. (That's where you concentrate on an unanswerable question like, "How do you find a place to park in Fells Point on a Saturday Night?") until you come to some understanding: ("There's no coming or going, especially at rush hour.") Anyway, Baltimore is a pretty conservative town and not fertile soil for the dharma, as I've sadly noted over the last thirty years. Zen, especially, has had a hard time establishing itself here in Baltimore. Both Buddhism and the Occult have a low level presence in Baltimore. I could tell some stories from thirty years around the scene, but that will have to wait for my memoirs, which will have to wait until I become famous and someone wants to read them. I have never set foot in the Burning House Zendo, which is hust as well, as Pete told me that they are posture nazis. Which I suppose goes along with the traditionalism.
Here's a story that illustrates why I no longer post at E-Sangha. Alex tells how a simple question he raised about some mantra totals was shut down for not being sufficiently respectful or some such reason.
Mon, 27 Jul 2009
Karmapa Facing New Restrictions in India
There's a news report that the Karmapa's movements have been significantly restricted. He's no longer allowed to travel abroad and even his travels in India have been significantly restricted. He asked to visit the Dalai Lama three times and was refused three times before being granted a half an hour visit. Not only that, the construction of a monastery in India as a permanent residence was halted by the government. He's currently a guest iof the Dalai Lama, in one of the monasteries of the Gelugpa order. It sounds like all those articles saying that the Karmapa will be the Dalai Lama's successor have upset the Indian government.
Sat, 25 Jul 2009
America Needs a Buddhist President
I saw that on a bumper sticker last year. But I don't expect it to happen any time soon. Erik Curren is a Buddhist running as a Democrat for the Virginia legilator. His Buddhism has become an issue in the election and drawn some sympathetic attention from American Buddhists. Eric is a student of Shamar Rinpoche and has written a book about the Karmapa controversy arguing Shamar Rinpoche's position. This puts him on the opposite side of the issue from me. I've always said it would become clear who's the genuine Karmapa when both grow up. Orgyen Trinley Dorje seems to have gotten the larger share of media attention and his first two books are now on the market. I haven't seen any teachings from Thaye Dorje, though Lama Phurbu Tashi said he had written something (probably still in Tibetan). The saddest part of the controversy for me is how supporters of Shamar Rinpoche have attacked the Dalai Lama and how the Chinese have used their statements to weaken the Tibetan cause.
Fri, 24 Jul 2009
More Online Notes
I've put some more of my notes online. First, here are my notes from a talk Khenchen Konchog Gyaltsen gave at the Spring Retreat in Frederick on his composition, Permissions and Prohibitions. Then, there are my notes so far from Lama Phurbu Tashi's teaching on The Seven Points of Mind Training. Here's an excerpt on what Lama considers the key point of Mind Training:
Our mind is untrained. We have no idea where our negative emotions are coming from or how to overcome them. Lojong is a profound practice to change our unenlightened mind into an enlightened mind. The source of suffering is ego clinging, which is a superimposition by our mind on reality. We take the five aggregates as me and our posessions as mine. This is a source of problems, so we have to eradicate this thinking. Once we do, we become who we really are. Now we act as if we were drunk or crazy, but then we will become normal. Even compassionate talk does not make us a compassionate person. You need to understand this for lojong practice to make sense. If I burn my hand on the teacup I can blame all the circumstances which caused it to happen, which includes everyone and everything in the world. Or I can turn away from that thinking and place the blame on my ego. All suffering arises from my ignorance. When you place the blame on ego, it is weakened. So that is why we should drive all blames into oneself.
Thu, 23 Jul 2009
Abhidharma Online
One of my prized books is the four volume transaltion of the Treasury of Abhidharma (Abhidharmakosha). The abhidharma is a systematized presentation of the teaching of the Buddha and the Treasury is a relatively short presentation of it. The abhidharma contains a discussion of many obscure points of Buddhist philosophy. It's hard to summarize abhidharma because there's so much of it. But Dhagpo Kagyu Ling has produced a summary of Abhidharma that's pretty good. And this article gives a biography of Vasubandhu, the author of the Treasury of Abhidharma.
Mon, 20 Jul 2009
Solar Eclipse
Wednesday there will be a total solar eclipse visible across India, Nepal and China. According to khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, the day of a total eclipse is a good day to practice, because the inner winds move in harmony with the motion of the sun and moon and during an eclipse all the winds are in a favorable configuration for practice. This idea of the harmony of outer and inner is the basis of all astrology. ("As above, so below," says the Thrice Greatest Hermes, a neoplatonic text.) I don't know much about Tibetan astrology and I've always been more interested in understanding the calendar, but from what I understand Tibetan astrology is more interested in choosing favorable and unfavorable days (hororary astrology) than computing birth charts (natal astrology.This page has a Westerne astrologer giving her interpretation of the significance of the eclipse, including the statement that Tai Situ Rinpoche will be affected. (The eclipse will be conjunct his natal moon.)
Here are two links I found interesting. Gesar Mukpo, Trunpa Rinpoche's son, has made a documentary about Western tulkus, something he's well qualified to do, as he is one. The dvd is not yet on sale, but you can view the trailer and some short clips. Mingyur Rinpoche was described as the happiest man in the world in this post. He's currently touring the United States, so you may want to check him out. I only had one brief encounter with Rinpoche, when he gave the Karma Pakshi empowerment at the New Jersey KTC. Before the empowerment he passed by me on the way to the shrine room. He hesitated briefly, as if he wanted to say something to me, but thought better of it and continued into the shrine. There was nothing special about me other than I was one of the few Western faces in the largely Chinese crowd, so I have no idea what that was about.
Sun, 19 Jul 2009
Lucid Dreaming
I was readind Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche's ">book on the bardo. It's a very good presentation of the subject, but what caught my attention was a question and answer about lucid dreaming. Khenpo Karthar said said that if you have the ability to be aware while you are dreaming, you should put yourself in a frightening situation and see if you are frightened and put yourself in a pleasurable situation and see if you are attached. If you are not, he said, that is verygood.
Fri, 17 Jul 2009
Laundry List
Here's a list of the stuff I'd like tow write if I could find the time. It's a promise to myself in front of others, to make it nore likely that I'll do it. On the computer programming side, I'd like to finish a replacement for the blog software I'm using now (Blosxom). The replacemnt is called Stiki and is ninety percent done, but the last ten percent is always the hardest. Look for it first on my work site. Then I'd like to write a homeopathic repertorization program in Javascript, so the computational load is entirely on the client side. It will use drag and drop for the rubrics, so it will look really snazzy. Repertorization is nothing more than a shopping cart script, so it's not hard to write. Look for it first on my Boger's Card Repertory. Finally, I'd like to write a Tibetan calendar program based on Henning's book on the Kalachakra Tantra. I started and dropped this project and want to pick it up again.
On the literary side, I'm committed to doing a verse by verse commentary on Atisha's Lamp for the Path on its blog. I'd also like to write = an introductory talk on meditation for the Medicine Buddha Sangha, emphasisizing the practical benefits and deemphasizing the spiritual side, simply because that's what people like to hear. That will go on this blog. Then I would like to write an essay defending the concept of the vital force, which will wind up on my homeopathy blog. Finally, (and this is the killer) I'd like to write an essay on the relationships between Buddhism and modern physics. I'm really not competent to write this, but I've seen so much nonsense written on the subject I feel I have to.
None of this is going to happen until I get my web sites squared away.
Thu, 16 Jul 2009
The Gist of Mind Training
Lama Phurbu Tashi has been teaching The Seven Points of Mind Training for the past month. Here's my interpretation of the gist of his teaching. We know that the ego has no true existence from scriptures, reasoning, and (hopefully one day) experience. But still we act as if the ego, the separation between self and others, exists. We act to benefiting ourselves at the expense of others. Reversing that attitude makes our egotism stand out. By shaking up our long standing habits we can see our egotism for wht it really is. Then we can look at our egotism, look at it with our mindfulness practice. In that way we improve both our meditation and our conduct.
Sat, 11 Jul 2009
Positive and Negative
Tonight I fulfill my duty to chatter endlessly by pointing you to a few links. The first is a new composition by Khenchen Konchog Gyaltsen called Samsara and Nirvana, Two Sides of the Same Hand (pdf). The text is a short summary of the Buddhist path. He updates the analogy of compassion and wisdom as the two wings of a bird to the two wings of a plane:
Following the flight path of all the conquerors of the three times, the
Jumbo jet of relative and ultimate bodhicitta
Soars through the sky on the wings of the two accumulations and
Lands smoothly, with no delays, at the four-kayas airport.
The translation was done by Khenchen and Terry during the Spring Retreat in Frederick. Terry really seemed to enjoy working with Khenchen.
The next link is to the weblog of a woman dedicated to proclaiming the dangers of meditation, Down The Crooked Path. My experience has been that meditation is pretty safe, as long as people aren't pushed and are allowed to ease into practice at their own pace. This stuff about kundalini syndrome is overblown, I've known more people who went crazy at work than in the meditation hall.
The last link is just to show that everyone doesn't love KTD. A Woodstock native has visited Karma Triyana Dharmachakra and is put off by the deference shown to the lamas. Everyone should be equal in our democratic, egalitarian age. I understand the sentiment, even if I don't agree with it.
Fri, 10 Jul 2009
Branching Out
I've been busy setting up new web sites lately, which is one reason that my posting has been light. The first site is Medicine Buddha Sangha, the rebranding of our Baltimore Drikung Group. The second site is The Gampopa Center, the site I set up for Lama Phurbu Tashi. And the third is Lamp for the Path, a discussion group for Atisha's text that I set up on Blogger because someone on the Kagyu mailing list said it would be nice to have an online discussion group and it was easy to do. It took a bit of work, mostly done on my days off from work, but it's mostly done now.
Thu, 09 Jul 2009
Sang and Sur
We had a small turnout at the Gampopa Center (not an unusual state of affairs), just Lama Phurbu Tashi, Michael, and myself. So a question Michael asked about sang (smoke offerings) occupied the whole evening's discussion. I didn't take notes, so I want to write down what I remember before it fades from my memory entirely. Sang (smoke) offerings are mostly done for the sake of local spirits (the earth lords) and sur (singed) offerings are done for the sake of pretas (hungry ghosts) and being in the bardo (intermediate state). However all offering practices are addressed to the four classes of beings: first, the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha), second, the dharma protectors, third, the six realms of beings, and fourth, our karmic creditors (those who we owe a debt bt having wronged them in the past). Sang offerings are made in the morning and sur offerings are made in the evening. Lama didn't say this, but I think the reason why is that according to Tibetan lore, spirits go about in the morning and demons (including hungry ghosts) go about in the evening. Sang offerings consist of fragrant and medicinal plants, cloth, fruits, and nuts. Juniper is often burnt. Sur offerings consist of barley flour and the "five whites" (diary products and sugar). In neither case is meat, onions, or garlic an acceptable offering.
After explaining this, Lama did a cleansing ceremony (treu, I think it's spelled bkrus), which is another kind of practice centering on Vajrasattva to remove contamination. The idea of contamination is that even coming into close contact with someone who has committed serious non-virtue, samaya breakers especially, dulls and confuses our mind and make practice more difficult. The cleansing ceremony is meant to remove this kind of contamination. Lam said that on his last visit to Tibet he was often asked to do this practice.
Sun, 05 Jul 2009
Worthy Women
When you read about the great spiritual figures of Tibet, they are almost always men. Tibet also had great women practitioners, but because of the culture, they mostly lived in obscurity. There's no difference between the sexes in ability to achieve enlightenment, but there has been a difference in life stories of spiritual teachers. here are two stories of great women: Sherab Zangmo and Shungsep Jetsun. Here is an excerpt from Sherap Zangmo's story:
Three times she [Yeshe Tsogyal] offered me mudras (hand gestures) and then she became Tsang Yang Gyamtso (the student of the first Tsoknyi Rinpoche who started Getchak Nunnery). He came to rest on top of my head and then he dissolved into my body, speech and mind. We became one. I cried and cried. That moment I had a direct experience of the nature of my mind. I have had many experiences, good and bad, but my mind has remained stable, neither good nor bad
and here is an exceprt from Shunsep Jetsun's story:
When I meditate with undivided attention I experience (the following):
Ordinary appearances having simply ceased,
(Intuitive awareness) appears vividly to my mind
Yet is inexpressible by speech.
When mind is relaxed, I experienced that beyond mind
In my experience of peace, I ecstatically uncovered non-conceptual reality
I meditated on that which is neither continued nor reversed,
Earlier or later not just once, but again and again.
I burst into natural laughter
Upon seeing the self-nature and self's spontaneity,
I can definitely ascertain there is no more to look for.
Sat, 04 Jul 2009
Stuck In Our Views
I've continued reading the Karmapa's book on this fine Fourth of July weekend and his comments have been very interesting and inspiring. Here is one excerpt I especially liked:
When we reach a certain conceptual understanding and our afflictions are not too active, we find something our conceptualizing mind can seize upon and take pride in. When our mind conceptualizes like this in a very solid and concrete manner, our view becomes extreme. We are convinced we have found the "right" way and we are proud of it. This process resembles how the rigid views of people caught in the mundane world are developed, Nowadays, these stubborn positions are a great problem. And they also contradict progress as it is understood in the Dharma. As we move along the path, inferior views are gradually surpassed by superior ones, until finally there is no view at all, nothing to be seized upon. Therefore, we should not go to an extreme snd cling to our position as the truth. Our view of how things are is not something to grasp with a tight fist.
I should give a little context for Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche's talk yesterday. After Tenzin Chonyi fired Byron some people saw the situation in terms of good and bad, with Byron being the good guy and Tenzin the bad. Since the end result of the controversy is that Tenzin is still at KTD and Byron is not, some people might feel that the "bad guy had won" and feel a certain anger at KTD. I believe part of the reason for Khenpo Rinpoche's talk was to diffuse this anger.
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