Ah! Dharma reflections based on the words of Anyen Rinpoche

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Archive for category Teachings

The View of Meditation

Jun 9

Posted by Anyen Rinpoche in 4 Mind Turnings, Anyen Rinpoche Biography, Benefitting Others, medicine buddha, Personal Transformation, Teachings | 6 Comments

Greetings all!  The Medicine Buddha Monlam was a wonderful success, thanks to all who joined us.  I hope some people will post photos on Twitter and our Facebook wall!

Recently, I have been seriously reflecting on how important the study of Madhyamika is to clarifying what the view of meditation, specifically the view of Dzogchen, is.   Over the last two years, our Denver sangha and those who fly in to join us have been studying Mipham Rinpoche’s Beacon of Certainty intensively.  This entire text, when taught by a live master (not simply trying to figure it out from the root and commentary, which are incredibly dense and require live commentary), elucidates what the view of meditation is.

Sure, we can say “naked primordial awareness,” but what does that mean?  And how do we know that is different from any other experience we have ever had in meditation?  How do we become certain about the qualities of the view?  How do we know we are not just fooling ourselves by assuming that we understand the meaning of these words?

These are the kinds of questions we have been exploring.  And it has been an amazing exploration.  One very important thing we have learned is that Madhyamika philosophy itself teaches a view based on cutting through four types of extremes that are styles of mental grasping.  Yet, although Madhyamika is the basis of our initial understanding of the view, it is not synonomous with the view either.   Mipham Rinpoche says that the majority of us grasp at an empty void when we practice; that we haven’t taken enough time to truly understand what the view actually is, and have not engaged in the proper style of practice to experience it regularly.

It is amazing that all of us have the chance to develop and clarify our understanding of what meditation is, and to take it to a level that is beyond assumption.   It is truly wonderful that Mipham Rinpoche gave us a text like Beacon of Certainty to help us discover something that is truly beyond ordinary mind!  This, combined with serious and continuous study with an authentic master who knows us well and can guide us along the path, are truly a wish-fulfilling gem.

Thank you Rinpoche, for being our wish-fulfilling gem!

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Medicine Buddha Monlam

Jun 2

Posted by Anyen Rinpoche in Anyen Rinpoche Biography, Benefitting Others, Bodhichitta, Global Community, medicine buddha, Personal Transformation, Teachings | 2 Comments

We are so thrilled to be hosting the second annual Medicine Buddha Monlam this weekend in Denver!  For all of you who aren’t able to join us, we’ll be practicing from 7:30 am to 6 pm during the day, and then again in the evenings.  We’ll be meeting Saturday, Sunday and Monday.   Feel free to join in from where ever you are!   And we hope many more of you will be able to join us in person next year!

Here’s an offering for each of you…Medicine Buddha wallpaper for your computer!

http://www.fpmt-osel.org/gallery/medicine.htm

May all beings benefit!

Allison

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For the Benefit of Others

May 26

Posted by Anyen Rinpoche in 4 Mind Turnings, Anyen Rinpoche Biography, Benefitting Others, Bodhichitta, Personal Transformation, Teachings | 4 Comments

One of the quintessential truths of the Vajrayana path is whatever we do for the benefit of others also indirectly benefits ourselves.  This teaching is called “accomplishing the two benefits.”  Thus, it is through reaching out to others and doing our best to help them through pain, suffering and difficulty–or even on occasions of happiness–that we also find happiness.  Despite the focus on individualism we have in Western culture, I think it is still most people’s experience emotionally that this is true.

Practices such as Medicine Buddha (which we are planning to practice intensively at the Medicine Buddha Monlam starting June 4 in Drnver) have us focus on and pray to alleviate all of the myriad sufferings in the world.  Additionally practices such as Tonglen instruct us to aspire to take on those experiences of suffering ourselves.  It is amazing how mentally and emotionally content we feel when we spend time focusing on the troubles of others and praying for their dissolution.

Western culture has a wonderful focus on actual service to benefit others, through the offering of our own time, money and effort.  Buddhist culture has an additional focus on cultivating bodhichitta and compassion, that we might one day be able to directly take on the sufferings of others so that they may not have to experience pain and hardship.  As practitioners, we are most benefitted by taking up both these kinds of activity–actual work as well as aspiration that is other-focused.

How are you working to train in both of these types of activity in your own life? We’d love to hear from you!

We will be excited to have Anyen Rinpoche back in Colorado for the Medicine Buddha Monlam the weekend after next.  Hope to see you all there!

Allison

www.anyenrinpoche.com

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Bodhichitta in Action

May 17

Posted by Anyen Rinpoche in Anyen Rinpoche Biography, Benefitting Others, Bodhichitta, Global Community, Teachings | 8 Comments

Sometimes we don’t feel like reaching out to other people…sometimes all we want to do is stay at home with the door shut!  There are so many aspects of our modern lives that make it difficult to reach out to others.  Or maybe I should say, that make it easier for us not to reach out to others.   I’m sure you can add to my list–but text messaging and internet shopping are huge ones.  Add video games onto that.  And how about  telecommuniting…?  Which I also love, by the way.  There are just so many ways to stay inside of ourselves and not venture out into the realm of humanity.

We are actually constructing a world where, one day, we may not ever have to interact with another human being.  What would that be like?   Or perhaps you think my view is too extreme.  We are simply making choices to limit who we interact with.

Is modern technology enhancing our lives?  Yes, obviously.  No one could say that technology is a negative thing in and of itself.  But what are we losing as a result of constructing a world that enables us all to be introverts?

One thing is for sure.   In our modern world, we lose many chances to practice bodhichitta in action.  We have fewer chances to brighten someone’s day by giving them a smile, a kind word, or a hand.  We also lose the chance to practice patience, to deal with difficulties face to face, and to become better at human relationships.  We lose chances to become more skillful at intimacy and friendship.

Personally, I love to shop on the internet.  I love those websites where I can compare every gadget that is similar to the one I want, literally hundreds of choices at my finger tips.  But in light of this, I’m also glad I have Dharma.   Dharma is the perfect compliment to modern technology.  It keeps us grounded, human and in relationship to others.  It reminds us that the difficult situations are worth engaging in, and that it enriches us to give our time and energy to others.  This weekend at our sangha garage sale, we all enjoyed the hard work–and doing that hard work together.  I heard people comment on it more than once.  That made the event successful!  Thanks to everyone who pitched in, and especially Ananda, who pitched in the most.

One more plug for the Monlam–register now!

http://www.anyenrinpoche.com/menla.html

How have you put Bodhichitta into action today?

Allison

www.anyenrinpoche.com

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Honoring Our Mothers, All Sentient Beings

May 8

Posted by Anyen Rinpoche in Anyen Rinpoche Biography, Benefitting Others, Teachings | 1 Comment

Courtesy of Yontan…!

Mother’s Day

The mahayana teachings enjoin us to treat all beings with the same kindness accorded our own mother – she who laboured so greatly to brings us into this precious human birth and who sustained our fragile body through years of self-sacrifice – in order to undermine the self-grasping that fetters us to samsara and to cultivate the treasure of bodhicitta that leads to enlightenment. How beautiful that the very selfless service that brings us into this world of suffering and nurtures us to life, is the very model with which we can ourselves give birth to and nourish that which will free us from being born!

Bodhisattvas beget buddhas; suffering begets bodhisattvas; appearance begets suffering, confusion begets appearance. Praise be to confusion, the timeless seed of awakening, ceaselessly spawning the bodhi tribe of enemies, trampling the Victor into non-birth. May the guru – the true and solitary mother of my own babymind – enjoy the aroma of ranting flowers blown on defiled wind this auspicious spring day.

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Medicine Buddha Monlam

Apr 27

Posted by AnyenRinpoche in Anyen Rinpoche Biography, Benefitting Others, Bodhichitta, Teachings | 1 Comment

I am so excited to be in the midst of planning the second annual Medicine Buddha Monlam (prayer gathering) in Denver, Colorado, June 4-7.  The year has gone by quickly…I forgot how much there is to do to prepare for such a large event!

Medicine Buddha is a unique practice not only because it is one of the four most powerful practices that can be done for the benefit of others during the “degenerate” (otherwise known as the present) time, but also, because  it can be done by any practitioner regardless of experience.  All that is required is a genuine aspiration of love and compassion in the heart; this is the basis of the whole weekend of practice.  I would describe the essence of the Monlam as a time when practitioners of all faiths and backgrounds can come together and recite the Medicine Buddha sadhana composed by the great Nyingma master Ju Mipham, and focus our common intention of love, healing and peace on beings who are suffering throughout the world.  Although Monlams exist in India and Nepal (and traditionally, in Tibet), we are able to attend and support the tradition of a Monlam in America by joining this gathering!

Here’s an article published by Snow Lion on the Medicine Buddha Monlam:

http://www.snowlionpub.com/pages/N89_11.html

Last year, I think all the practitioners who attended had an amazing experience.  There was a feeling among the group that we could truly “move mountains,” that our prayers had transcended mere aspiration and were directly beneficial to others.   It is rare that we have the chance to feel our own prayers amplified so much–but having the energy of all the others in the group as a support was enough to cause a small seed of faith to sprout in even the most doubtful of beings.

This year, we hope that even more people will join us in Denver for the event.   We are able to coordinate housing for most people–last year, no one had to stay in a hotel as our local sangha hosted all the out of town visitors.  And, also, if you live in Denver and are able to host someone, please let us know.

More information is available here, as well as the link for registration:

http://www.anyenrinpoche.com/menla.html

We’re looking forward to seeing lots of you at the Monlam this summer.  And feel free to let others know about it–the more people we gather together, the more healing energy we will generate and build as a group!

Allison

www.anyenrinpoche.com

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Enlightened Activity

Apr 19

Posted by AnyenRinpoche in Anyen Rinpoche Biography, Benefitting Others, Bodhichitta, Personal Transformation, Teachings | 7 Comments

This weekend found us in Ottawa, listening to lovely and profound (not to mention practical) teachings on the 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva.  Thanks to David and Nadine, who took so much time to plan the weekend and also host us…as well as Mel and Kelly, who did lots of cooking, Howie, who took us for a walk (in case you are wondering, he’s a Chocolate Lab just like precious Khampa Dorje), and David’s sons, who joined us for music and songs at night.  Ottawa is a wonderful place to visit, full of kind people who often tell stories about bears.

One highlight (of many): we were delighted by the story of Anyen Rinpoche crawling into a wolf den as a child of seven or eight and coaxing out a cub, who then became his pet until the neighbors complained that it was eating the livestock…

I have reflected at length on enlightened activity, mostly through Rinpoche’s years of teachings and giving commentary on Entering the Way of a Bodhisattva.  Still, it is amazing how much you learn from hearing a talk that you think you already *knew* (maybe “think” being the operative word there).  The 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva start in the very beginning, with taking the 3 Jewels as refuge, contemplating on impermanence, and generating Bodhichitta…then move into taking up everyday action as an expression of relative bodhichitta by cutting through attachment, hope and fear towards individuals and the outer world…and then moves to ultimate bodhichitta, or cutting through the mind’s grasping completely.

We spent only 3 days on this text, while Rinpoche said that he had spent a full 100 days on it.  As a daily practice, he suggested that we work with one stanza at a time, reflecting on that stanza for a few days and attempting to work with it in daily life as well as on the cushion.    This seems like great advice that could be used not only for this text, but any text if we want to start our own home retreat!

I hope this inspires everyone to keep working on daily practice in an ever-deepening way!

Allison

www.anyenrinpoche.com

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Disappointment

Apr 12

Posted by AnyenRinpoche in Anyen Rinpoche Biography, Benefitting Others, Bodhichitta, Personal Transformation, Teachings, Tibet | 12 Comments

How many times in our lives have we tasted the bitter flavor of disappointment?  Disappointment steals the wind from the sails of even the most optimistic and driven among us.  We feel heavy and weighed down, as though we can’t breathe.  And we experience true humility when we recognize, for painful moment (that sometimes seems to drag on forever) that we are not capable of controlling a situation and turning it towards our favor.

In Buddhist words, we have been caught in the net of hope and fear.  Like a tar baby, the more we struggle, the messier things get.

Anyen Rinpoche offers inspiring words and stories to do with disappointment.  The one I remember most clearly has to  do with his (and my) Root Lama, Kyabje Tsara Dharmakirti Rinpoche.

http://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Tsara_Khenchen_Chokyi_Drakpa

Khenchen Tsara Dharmakirti Rinpoche spent part of his life in prison.  During that time, one of his arms was broken and was never set properly.  It hung down, useless, on one side of his body.   This is just one example of  the extraordinary amount of suffering that was experienced in the jail. In other words, this must have been an excruciating experience of disappointment for all of the prisoners–it was a complete and total loss of freedom.

Later in his life,  Khenchen spoke of that time,  saying, “In this situation, you could really see who was a true practitioner and who was just pretending.  The true practitioners continued on just as they always did, they practiced diligently as if they were in retreat in a solitary hermitage.”  Other practitioners, though, were crushed by that formidable force of disappointment and hardship.

How do we cope with disappointment? I”m sure everyonge knows the unhealthy ways that we Americans tend to use–alcohol, drugs, relationships, food…the list can go on and on.  We use anything we can to avoid or  get rid of the feeling.

Rinpoche’s thoughts:

Reflecting on the truth of suffering is a powerful ally in this situation–simply reflect on the fact that many beings in the world are experiencing the same kind of suffering as you.  Rinpoche also suggests we reflect on impermanence, and gain confidence that this difficulty will pass.

I myself choose Guru Yoga, my favorite practice in any and every situation.  Over the years, I have found that focusing on my devotion in the Lama and Padmasambhava can be just the right medicine to bring me back into balance.

Allison

www.anyenrinpoche.com

PS Thanks to all of you who are now using the Khamdroling toolbar!!!

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The Power of Gathering

Mar 29

Posted by AnyenRinpoche in Anyen Rinpoche Biography, Benefitting Others, Bodhichitta, Global Community, Personal Transformation, Teachings | 8 Comments

Gathering is an important word or concept in the Vajrayana.  We translate it in all sorts of ways, usually based on some expression of the Tibetan word “tshogs.”  Literally, this word is used to describe: the retinue of wisdom beings, Buddhas or Dakinis, the offering feast or practice of tsok, the accumulation or gathering of merit and wisdom, or an assemblage of practitioners.   A basic idea behind all uses of this word is that by joining or collecting energy together, more can be accomplished, more benefit can occur.  This is a logical idea of course,  but when we actually do it, it is sort of magical.

The blessings of Medicine Buddha

The blessings of Medicine Buddha

Yesterday, we gathered together to practice Medicine Buddha, to pray for the benefit of all sentient beings everywhere.  This is something our sangha began doing last year, with the inaugural Medicine Buddha Monlam in Denver last June.    The idea behind gathering together to practice Medicine Buddha is that by gathering or collecting all of our energy together, we are able to benefit more beings through our prayer and positive intentions.  Snow Lion recently did a story about the Medicine Buddha Monlam that you may want to take a look at:

http://www.snowlionpub.com/pages/N89_11.html

Gathering together to focus on compassion and the good of all beings is a wonderful thing to do.  Literally, it feels wonderful.  Not in the way of “getting something” or of fulfilling desire, but the wonderful feeling of having a genuine wish to benefit others, the experience of Bodhichitta.  We hope many of you will join us for the 2nd annual Medicine Buddha Monlam this June in Denver.    You can find more information about the Monlam here:

http://www.anyenrinpoche.com/menla.html

The opportunity to gather is a wonderful aspect of sangha as well.  When we work together, we are able to accomplish so much–we can do things we couldn’t have done on our own.  And when we relate and truly care about others, we begin to experience the world with less selfishness and self-centeredness, since we have the chance to put others before us.    With sangha, we have the chance to extend outside of our (usually nuclear) families and be part of a larger community.

In the 21st century, it can seem like community is lost.  We are too busy, too spread out, too technological, too isolated.  But when we have sangha, when we gather, and when we work for a common goal, we have the chance to feel the blessing of gathering and being part of something greater than ourselves.   Although it can be another thing on our plate, another thing to work at, it is definitely worth the effort.

www.anyenrinpoche.com

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The measure of happiness

Mar 24

Posted by AnyenRinpoche in Anyen Rinpoche Biography, Benefitting Others, Bodhichitta, Global Community, Mindful speech, Personal Transformation, Teachings | 18 Comments

Today’s blog post is courtesy of Eileen C., who suggested that we reflect on the following (very interesting) article:”What makes the healthiest and happiest societies?”

http://www.alternet.org/story/145955/what_makes_the_healthiest_and_happiest_societies_hint%3A_it_not_rich_people_?page=1

Go ahead and browse the article–I’d love to hear your thoughts about it! In sum, the article presents the idea that it is not increased wealth that creates a happier and healthier society, but rather social and material equality.   The source of this research, epidemiologist (one who studies health and illness in different socities) Richard Wilkinson, explains that human beings feel more stress and a stronger psychological impact based on materialism in a highly stratified society.  He also asserts that in a consumerist society, we relate to ourselves as we are seen by others, which is why we compete for designer labels and expensive clothes.

As a Buddhist, I struggle with assertions like these.  On one hand, I find some Wilkinson’s ideas have the ring of truth.  And he appears to have some research to back it up.  For example, he says there are higher prison rates, teen pregnancy rates, mental illness rate, and homicide rates in countries with more social inequality (which, of course, includes the US).   Still, I wonder, even if true– how much of my time should I spend engaging in these ideas?   What benefit does it bring me to reflect on this deeply?

I am reminded of when I first met Anyen Rinpoche.   At that time, I was terribly unhappy and often confused about many things in my life.  I grasped  at (desired) others’ happiness and did not know how to find my own peace of mind.  Rinpoche’s advice to me was to reflect on the nature of samsara in every possible situation–to develop unfailing mindfulness and certainty in the fact that the outer world could never bring me happiness or satisfaction.  As a result of this serious reflection, I do carry with me confidence that the society I live in will never bring me happiness.   (This also reminds me of the discussion that developed out the last post on taking personal responsibility for ourselves and our own state of mind, rather than putting the blame on other things.   For more on this discussion, especially on the lojung slogan ‘drive all blames into one’ see the comments to the post on Imperfection).

http://mojofiti.com/anyenrinpoche/2010/03/22/imperfection/

I think my deep interest in Buddhist philosophy has caused me to have a bit of a falling out with a lot of the other types philosophy I used to subscribe to (and love to read and discuss, I should add).   Getting down to it…I think this is really what it is…I think I have lost faith in the idea of fixing society.  I have the suspicion that whatever I try to fix will still be unsatisfactory, or that patching up one part will just lead to degradation in another.   But rather than feeling disturbed by this, I think it just frees up my energy to work hard on my own spiritual practice, and do my very best to have positive and helpful interactions with others.  Perhaps this is just one aspect of “the mind’s ease.”

Allison

www.anyenrinpoche.com

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