Time is short, Life is long: How to Meditate

Wisdom Quarterly; Jack Kornfield (spiritrock.org); FPMT, Inc. (video); COUNTDOWN: -3

A definition and purpose for meditation, how to sit, how to set up a meditation session, different meditation techniques, and how to deal with obstacles. Follow this course FREE at the FPMT Online Learning Center and learn more about Discovering Buddhism.

Time, which contracts and expands at will, is short -- whereas "life" (samsara) is long, endless on its own, except that it's always ending. But it renews again the next moment. 

Each moment divides into three sub-moments, an arising phasing, turning, and falling. This is the incessant "rise and fall" the breath mimics at a much slower speed. Moments pass too quickly to discern -- as showers of particles and mind-moments rise, turn, and fall -- just on the inhale, to say nothing of the retention phase and exhalation.

This becomes much clearer as consciousness sharpens and intensifies and the invisible becomes visible. Mind is superior to phenomena, which can be discerned directly IF only the mind were purified and serene, lucid, and made wieldy by mindful application.

Western Theravada monk explains Thai forest approach (VY)

We are here. How will we get there? Every journey begins with a footstep, every meditation with an inhalation.

Another name for nirvana is "the beyond" or more literally the beyond-beyond, the "farther shore." We are here on this shore with all its dangers and fearful states. And we look beyond the flood, the body of water, the deluge. And we see on that side a farther shore, safe, free of fear, without danger. How to go from here to there, how to "cross over"?

 

Partially-enlightened former monk current lay teacher Jack Kornfield

A strong person, the metaphor continues, might flex a stretched arm or stretch a flexed arm and be there in the twinkling of an eye. We must sit, settle, remain attentive, and thereby be transported by effort to see things just as they are.
 
The major Buddhist schools -- Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana (a large Mahayana subschool) -- have their methods. Here a Western lama in the banned New Kadampa Tradition (Tibetan Vajrayana not affiliated with the current Dalai Lama) offers advice on how to meditate.

 

The 14th Dalai Lama on developing mind (2010)

• Why is FPMT not affiliated with the Dalai Lama? 
• The Shugden controversy divides Tibetan schools

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Dalai Lama: live online (webcast)

Mara Schaeffer, Wisdom Quarterly

Live webcasts: 18 Great Stages of the Path (Lam Rim) Commentaries

  

Kalmyk president with the Dalai Lama

Want to attend live Dharma talks in India with the 14th Dalai Lama? Here's how without flying to Dharamsala, his home in exile. Catch his talks evenings at: dalailama.com/live-english

Recently while listening to the end of the first session, I found myself surprised by his refreshing honesty and practicality. He was very specific about the details of practice: "Do this. Don't do that."

He spoke more profoundly than he usually does for his public talks while addressing both monastics and lay people. These talks are topic-centered, with quotes, citing specific page numbers, and covering a number of texts.

Many of the texts being commented on are available free online: jangchuplamrim.org/jangchup-lamrim/text-translations/text-translations-english

Teachings in Mundgod, India: Days 8-9 of 14, Dec. 7-8, 2012 (View)

 
Live webcasts of teachings on the 18 Great Stages of the Path Commentaries in Tibetan with simultaneous translations into English, Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian available. View

• Nov. 30-Dec. 13, 2012
• Morning Session: 7:30 am-9:30 am PST 
• Afternoon Session: 11:30 am-1:30 pm PST

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It's never too late (to awaken)

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart (Shambhala.com); Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly COUNTDOWN (TO EXTINCTION) CLOCK: -15

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream (onmarkproductions.com tenbu-montage).

Dreams of nightmares (fortytwotimes.com)

When I was about ten, my best friend started having nightmares:
 
She'd be running through a huge dark building pursued by hideous monsters. She'd get to a door, struggle to open it, and no sooner had she closed it behind her than she'd hear it opened by the rapidly approaching monsters. Finally she'd wake up screaming and crying for help.
  
One day we were sitting in her kitchen talking about her nightmares. When I asked her what the demons looked like, she said she didn't know because she was always running away. After I asked her that question, she began to wonder about the monsters. She wondered if any of them looked like witches and if any of them had knives. So on the next occurrence of the nightmare, just as the demons began to pursue her, she stopped running and turned around.

Q: Where The Wild Things Are? A: the library

It took tremendous courage, and her heart was pounding, but she put her back up against the wall and looked at them. They all stopped right in front of her and began jumping up and down, but none of them came closer. There were five in all, each looking something like an animal. One of them was a gray bear, but instead of claws, it had long red fingernails. One had four eyes. Another had a wound on its cheek. Once she looked closely, they appeared less like monsters and more like two-dimensional drawings in comic books. Then slowly they began to fade. After that she woke up, and that was the end of her nightmares.

Awakening

There is a teaching on the three kinds of awakening:

1. awakening from the dream of ordinary sleep,
2. awakening at death from the dream of life, and
3. awakening into full enlightenment from the dream of delusion.

Deva in garden (WeGoTwo/flickr.com)

These teachings say that when we die, we experience it as waking up from a very long dream.

When I heard this teaching, I remembered my friend's nightmares. It struck me right then that if all this is really a dream, I might as well spend it trying to look at what scares me instead of running away.

I haven't always found this all that easy to do, but in the process I've learned a lot about maitri [metta, the Buddha's teaching of loving-kindness, friendliness, and altruism].

American Vajrayana nun Pema Chodron on "Fearless Nontheism"

• HELP WANTED: Jobs waiting in Dharamsala
• The Pema Chodron Foundation
  

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So much news, moving to Kalmykia (video)

Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

  

Kalmyk flag, white lotus on blue and gold

(RD100) Elista, the only indigenously Buddhist capital in Europe, is also the Chess Capital of the World. It is the Kalmyk Republic's main city, a multiethnic metropolis with an industrious Eurasian population.
 

Kalmyk president, Dalai Lama (phayul.com)

The Kalmyks are descendants of the Oirats and other Mongol tribes from the time of Genghis Khan. They settled near Southern Volga along the Caspian Sea and fell afoul of Stalin during the Russian revolution.
 
During the time of imperial Russia, Kalmyks joined the Russian Army with the Cossacks. Lenin was part Kalmyk but an atheist rather than a Buddhist. The maniacal dictator Stalin did not take kindly to this minority ethnic group. 
 
So while everyone else around here heads for the Himalayas, I'm aiming for Europe. All I need is a Buddhist temple, a yoga mat, and a chess board. I can take it up with a little help from the friendly space-faring devas the former president of Kalmykia traveled with.

News overload

• Dark side to Mayan rumors
• The Buddha's advice on dealing with doubt 
• Ultimate Author Bootcamp, LA (FREE with RSVP)
• Killing for rare earth minerals (for electronics) in the Congo
• UN recognizes State of Palestine even as US, Israel balk
• VIDEO: Jesus (St. Issa) visions and visitations

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Europe's Buddhist Kalmykia to get Bodhi tree

Kalmykia.eu; Amber Dorrian, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Russia Today

(Kalmykia Tour) Gold Temple of the Buddha Shakyamuni. Хурул Золотой храм в городе Элиста. Калмыкия Европа. Буддийский храм "Золотая обитель Будды Шакьямуни".

 

The Golden Temple, Kalmyk capital, Elista

Kalmykia is an indigenously European Buddhist region in southwestern Russia. It practices Vajrayana Buddhism, an esoteric form of the Dharma blended with Siberian shamanism, establishing a long but little known history of the Dharma on the Continent.. Mongolian and Himalayan Buddhist kingdoms have apparently had a heavy influence its style of practice.

The Buddhist Dead Sea, Europe (kalmykia.eu)

HISTORY: The Kalmyks originate from Central Asia. Their ancestors -- the Oirats -- belonged to the western branch of Mongolian peoples. They represented a very powerful alliance of tribes, formations of the early feudal state under the dominion Mongolia found itself in during the first half of XV сentury. Consequently inter-regional conflicts and a number of military misfortunes caused the reduction of the Oirat Empire. More

Golden Buddha in Gold Temple abode

BODHI TREE: (Sandji Buvaev) On Nov. 27, 2012 the former president of the Republic of Kalmykia, billionaire Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, reported that he met with a Buddhist delegation from Sri Lanka.
 
It was agreed during that in the spring of 2013, a seed or cutting will be brought from the direct descendant of the world's oldest documented tree (the sacred fig or Ficus religiosa), under which the historical Buddha attained enlightenment. It will be planted in the European  Buddhist Republic of Kalmykia, according to KalmykiaNews. Recall that in 2011, the former Kalmyk president... More

• Buddhism in Europe: Girls of Kalmykia (kalmykia.eu)
• American actor Steven Seagal visits Kalmykia
• Non-Jonesian Indology and Alexander (RanajitPal.com)

Buddhism traveled West out of India (TSO)

Life in Siberia
The coldest place on Earth is not Himalayan Ladakh, Nepal, Tibet, or distant Bhutan, some of the highest inhabited places. It is the Russian republic of Yakutia, which makes up a fifth of Russia's land.

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"Karmapa - Two Ways of Divinity" (film)

KarmapaIssue; Tibet.net; Karmapa.org; Wisdom Quarterly

 

Om mani padme hum mantra (Tashi Mannox)

"Karmapa -- Two Ways of Divinity" is a unique, award-winning documentary on the current Karmapa and how China has used this Tibetan institution as a springboard for its politics leading to a peoples' violation of religious rights. The 17th Karmapa is not without controversy in Tibetan Buddhism also known as Lamaism, Esotericism, Tantrayana, Mantrayana, Bon, and even "Tibetanism" as distinct from Tibetan-Buddhism.

• Rights Groups: 5 Tibetans Self-Immolate in 2 Days (ABC)
• Six Tibetans set selves alight in China: exile government
• More Tibetans self-immolate as China's Party Congress opens

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"Buddhism for Vampires" (Halloween)

David Chapman (Buddhism-for-Vampires.com); Wisdom Quarterly HALLOWEEN SERIES
COMING SOON, BREAKING NEWS: Peaceful Buddhists go on murderous rampage.

European vampires were killed and given a special postmortem meal -- a stake. Here a female had a brick placed in her mouth to prevent her from feasting on blood (Daily Mail).

WQ has been sitting on this Bon/Black Magic exposé. For Halloween, we introduce B.F.V.

  

Cheater and Sap vamps (Life&Style)

“Buddhism for vampires? That’s silly. Buddhism and vampires don’t have anything to do with each other -- or do they?”

Surprisingly, vampires have played a significant role in Buddhism in Asia for centuries. They are not a Western invention.

Contemporary vampire fiction -- “preternatural romance” -- provides tools for presenting aspects of Buddhism that are otherwise difficult to communicate.

  

Vampires in Buddhist history

Vomiting blood (Buddhism-for-vampires.com)

There is extensive vampire lore [that preceded and was incorporated] within traditional Buddhism. This has been summarized in “The Tibetan Book of the Undead.” Apart from its intrinsic interest, this history makes it clear that one cannot dismiss “Buddhism for vampires” as bogus.

  

...No one can say this is an illegitimate topic or some kind of Western commercial distortion. One can combine Buddhism and vampires as a cheap gimmick -- but I believe it is possible to explain Buddhism accurately in the language of the undead. In fact, I believe some aspects of Buddhism are best explained that way.

Vampires, ambiguity, and paradox

Vajrayana is a mix of Bon and Buddhism

Buddhism, at root, is a method for facing the paradoxes of life and death with curiosity, appreciation, generosity, and joy. Its starting point is the experience of ambiguity. The natural tendency is to polarize: to say “this is this and that is that; I love this and hate that.” But experience is unavoidably undefinable.
  
Reality refuses to fit into categories; it is always in flux. When “this” inexplicably turns into “that,” and you love or hate the “wrong” thing: that is paradox. Rejecting ambiguity is, according to Buddhism, the primordial error, and source of all unhappiness. Paradox is resolved through non-duality: allowing the horns of a dilemma to co-exist.

   

"China accuses me of being devil" (Dalai Lama)

What has this to do with vampires? Consider the basic paradox of the undead. To paraphrase the great Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna, they are not alive, nor dead, nor both, nor neither. The undead are, as contemporary Buddhist philosopher Stephen T. Asma puts it, “liminal beings.”
  

China really dislikes Dalai Lama and Buddhism

“Liminal” means “on the threshold”; a defining feature of monsters is that they are neither one thing nor another. This is just the fundamental Buddhist paradox of emptiness and form, reflected in a pool of blood. More

• Halloween STORM likely to kill everyone on East Coast
• Meet the real-life US vampires (Smithsonian)
• "Vampire" skeletons found (Discovery News) 
• National Geographic finds real vampires
• China warns: Some paths are bad and evil!
• Evils of Communist Khmer Rouge in Buddhist Cambodia
• Lama sex abuse calls Buddhist taboos into question
• Name-calling in China: Hitler, Devil, HHDL
• Tibetans self-immolate, Americans use guns
• VIDEO: CIA's CNN dismisses the Kentucky UFO
• PBS: The investigative reporting crisis in America
• PHOTOS: Monster (yakkha) temple protectors
• China on Buddhism: Brainwashed with evils
• SCARY: 14-year-old student punished by Buddhist monk for refusing to learn Buddhism

"But who's more Gothic and Vampiric than us?"

3,154

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China: "Buddhism has a 'devil' as its 'Pope'"

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly HALLOWEEN SERIES

China thinks this humble CIA operative/asset (not "agent") -- spiritual leader and former head of state, Tibetan "God-King" or Vajrayana "Pope" -- is the devil (AP/Examiner.com).

  

Bon is the  pre-Buddhist black magic infused shamanism of Tibet and Bhutan. It blended with the missionary religion of peace and enlightenment from the subcontinent below.
  
But Buddhism did not displace Himalayan superstitions, necrcomancy, talk of spirits, banshees, and Abominable Snowmen. Wise old wives' tales remain and the necessity of doing something to ward off disgruntled ghosts, vile demons, and other unseen inimical forces.
  
The Shugden controversy is related to the worship of forces the current Dalai Lama believes resulted in the invasion of ancient Tibet by imperial atheistic-communist China.
  
In the exquisite photo above the 14th Dalai Lama uses his hands as horns speculating on the Chinese government's views of his freedom-fighting efforts. "His Holiness" has just completed 50 years in exile from Tibet, from which he was able to escape with the help of CIA agents out to subvert China and its expansionist Cultural Revolution.
  

China is a ruthless police state opposing Tibet.

In spite of their violent invasion, he (Tenzin Gyatso) remains remains compassionate, forgiving, and jovial about the situation -- one worsened by multiple self-immolations protesting Chinese police state tyranny. He hopes to return to Tibet, even if it remains a part of China, but the current Chinese government will not stand for it. The Dalai Lama frequently visits Washington DC and tours the US, drawing sell out crowds in massive arenas wherever he appears. Calling him "the devil" is an interesting commentary to confer on him. For no matter how he is attacked, he remains a leader in the campaign against injustice toward all living beings. (See official Website).

Dharamsala, India's Tibetan exiles hold candlelit vigil after Tamdrin Dorjee's demonstration-suicide in Tsoe Monastery, Gansu province, 10-13-12 (AP/Ashwini Bhatia).

   

Tibetan nun sets herself ablaze in China (AFP).

BEIJING -- Two Tibetan cousins set fire to themselves in their village to protest Chinese rule, bringing the total number of self-immolations this week to seven, the highest since the protests began last year, a rights group said Saturday.

  

The London-based group Free Tibet said cousins Tsepo, 20, and Tenzin, 25, called for independence for Tibet as they set themselves ablaze Thursday in front of a government building in their village in Biru county north of Lhasa, Tibet's main city.

  

Tsepo reportedly died and Tenzin's condition was unknown after he was taken away by authorities, Free Tibet said. 

Dozens of ethnic Tibetans have set themselves on fire in heavily Tibetan regions since March 2011 to protest what activists say is Beijing's heavy-handed rule in the region. Many have called for the return of the Dalai Lama, their exiled spiritual leader.

  

The protests have intensified as Beijing nears a once-a-decade power transfer in early November. More

Real vampire arrested in Texas, USA

What we think we become [because "Mind/heart is the forerunner of all conditions" (Dhp. 1)]. This means that it is important to think of ourselves in the best possible way. For as it is said since the days of Dale Carnegie's friendly-and-influential-popularity, "If we can conceive it and believe it, we can achieve it" (Napoleon Hill). It works to our detriment as well, wallowing in our depression, self-pity, "evil," or perceived shortcomings. We are without limits and capable of achieving anything -- even heavenly splendor, full enlightenment in this very life, even the ability to teach as a perfectly awakened buddha.

•  AUDIO: Mind is the Forerunner of all?

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Shambhala: Save on all Buddhist titles

Shambhala Publications; Wisdom Quarterly

Save 30% and get free shipping (by 3-31-13 when using the code BCAL12 at checkout, U.S. Media Mail only) on Shambhala's entire Buddhist catalogue now including Snow Lion. Want a sneak peek of the catalogue? Check it out online to find: new books and audio, special offers and discounts, excerpts and author interviews, articles and more!

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American to head Tibetan monastery

Kim Lawton, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly via Religion News Service

Nicholas Vreeland is the first Westerner to be abbot of Rato Monastery in India (RDF).

    

NEW YORK - The Dalai Lama has given [Ven.] Nicholas Vreeland [now Khen Rinpoche], director of The Tibet Center in New York, a daunting new assignment.

  

On July 6, Vreeland [was] enthroned as the new abbot of Rato Monastery in southern India, one of the most important monasteries in Tibetan [Vajrayana] Buddhism. 

   

He will be the first Westerner to hold such a position. In making the appointment, the Dalai Lama told Vreeland, "Your special duty (is) to bridge Tibetan tradition and (the) Western world."

• RatoDatsangFoundation.org

"His Holiness wishes to bring Western ideas into the Tibetan Buddhist monastic system, and that comes from his recognition that it is essential... that there be new air brought into these institutions," Vreeland told the PBS program "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly."

   

For many observers, the choice of an American for the role may be a surprising one, and perhaps even more surprising given the background of this particular American.

   

Vreeland had a privileged upbringing -- the son of a US diplomat and the grandson of Diana Vreeland, the legendary editor of Vogue magazine during the 1960s. More

• Dalai Lama wins Templeton Prize for science, religion
• Buddhist father-son struggle in “My Reincarnation”
• Buddhist news and trends (West Wight Sangha)

Huffington Post

Dalai Lama And Suu Kyi, Myanmar Activist, Meet In London

LONDON - Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama says he has held talks with Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in London. In...

Dalai Lama At LSE: Young People Are Our Hope (VIDEO)

The Dalai Lama has told young people they are the "force of our hope" and we should put aside our artificial differences and realise we...

Russell Brand Opens Dalai Lama Talk For Young People At The Manchester Arena

His Holiness the Dalai Lama was joined onstage by Russell Brand on Saturday as he spokes to thousands of youngsters at the Manchester Arena. The...

Tibetan Self-Immolates In China's Northwest

BEIJING - A Tibetan man set himself on fire Friday morning in northwest China's Qinghai province, advocacy groups for Tibetan rights reported. It adds to...

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Snowy Eastern Mountain (Tibetan chanting)

Wisdom Quarterly; Tibet: The Heart of Dharma; Chillout108

Shar Gan-Ri Ma ("The Snowy Eastern Mountain")

  

The universe is spinning. Flowers are growing. The world is changing. Lives are ending. Lives are beginning. Waves are crashing. The oceans are bulgding. Storms are coming. Leaves are falling. Trees are bending. Children are playing. The sky is shining. Things are vibrating. People are struggling. Beings are enjoying peace. Freewill is finding freedom. - Inspired by MrSNS.

The beauty of the Himalayas: "Hope for Enlightenment" (Lama Gyurme)

• Global warming (Jimmy Dore Comedy)
• Is B.S. Obama really G.W. Bush?
• Monks Without Borders
• "Goatman" is hunter in disguise
• Remodeling Mt. Baldy Zen Center

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The Great Liberation (Tibetan Book of the Dead)

Wisdom Quarterly; HCLivess

A presentation of NHK Japan, Mistral Films of France, and the National Film Board of Canada

  

The Great Liberation

This is a companion piece to The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a Way of Life. It is a short film that centers around the premature death of a 42-year-old man in the Himalayas. He has returned to his family from a long journey and is suddenly stricken with an unknown illness. The film serves as a practical introduction to the Tibetan Book of the Dead with stunning visuals from Buddhist India high in the Himalayan province of Ladakh. The area, near the Tibetan border, is home to a unique form of Buddhism known variously as Vajrayana, Tantrayana, and Lamaism. It is mixed with an indigenous pre-Buddhist shamanistic tradition known as Bon. It survives in spite of Chinese desecration of Tibet because it was once spread throughout various Himalayan Buddhist kingdoms such as Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, Mustang, Ladakh, and Shangri-la.  

• Native Americans and Buddhism 
• Buddhist nun shares the sound of music
• You and that heavy metal music of yours
• Finding Common Cause with Chinese Buddhists

World Buddhist Forum (china.org.cn)

(SCPR.org, 4th of 5 parts) In recent years, China's communist government has taken a new, proactive approach to religion. In particular, it has bolstered support for Buddhism, which provides needed charity work and financial aid -- and also serves as a counterweight to the explosion of Christianity in China.... This was the first World Buddhist Forum, attended by more than 1,000 monks, and held in China. Never before had the officially atheist country sponsored such a large religious conference. Tensions still remain in Beijing's relationship to Tibetan Buddhism, particularly given believers' loyalty to their exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

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Another "Buddha" - Padmasambhava (video)

Buddhist Films; Wisdom Quarterly
(DharmaPublishingBookstore.com)

This is the dramatic story not of Maitreya, the Buddha-to-come, but of the ancient Indian Buddhist missionary Guru Padmasambhava. He was born in Udhyana -- modern Swat Valley, Pakistan -- and traveled across mountains and icy desert plains, moving across the spectacular Himalayas and finally reaching the Tibetan Plateau. Benoy K. Behl created this film to tell his story of one of the most forceful personalities of all history. Padmasambhava, with his magic and flamboyant masked dances, dominated the Rooftop of the World within his lifetime and is still revered today.

  

Behl in Berkeley

Mangalam Centers and the Tibetan Nyingma Institute in Berkeley co-sponsored a special screening of art historian and photographer Benoy K. Behl’s film “The Second Buddha.” The filmmaker was present to discuss his work and take questions with Mangalam Research Center director Jack Petranker. The program included Sylvia Gretchen, the Dean of the Nyingma Institute, on the importance of Padmasambhava in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
  
“The Second Buddha” follows the journey of Guru Padmasambhava, an emanation of the Mahayana “Buddha” Amitabha who is regarded as the founder of Vajrayana Buddhism in Tibet and Bhutan.
  
The 25-minute film traces segments of Guru Padmasambhava’s journey across the Himalayas and the cold, high deserts of the Tibetan Plateau. According to Behl, the film tells “one of the greatest true stories of the world and is also the story of one of the most forceful personalities in all history.” More
   

(Myo Edizioni)

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