In Brief: Meditations on Living, Dying, and Loss

In Brief: Meditations on Living, Dying, and Loss

Posted: 12 Dec 2009 08:05 AM PST

med-living-dying-loss-sunspaceMeditations on Living, Dying, and Loss: The Essential Tibetan Book of the Dead
Edited and Introduced by Graham Coleman
Viking, 2009; 224 pp.; $23.95 (cloth)

We often ignore or evade death until we are confronted by it head on. But Buddhism encourages us to prepare for death so we may become better equipped to face this inevitability. The Tibetan Book of the Dead has received more worldwide attention than any other book of Tibetan teachings.

In Meditations on Living, Dying, and Loss Coleman offers introductory commentary on the Buddhist and Western views of death, paired with selections from the first complete translation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The complete translation took fifteen years to complete, and involved the attentions of the Dalai Lama, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Sogyal Rinpoche, and other spiritual masters. Taken from the complete edition is the Dalai Lama's introduction, which explores the theories behind how consciousness can continue from one lifetime to another.

Meditations on Living, Dying, and Loss is the perfect introduction to The Tibetan Book of the Dead for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. Ultimately, this book distils millennia-old teachings down to beautifully written passages containing the perspectives and insights most relevant to our modern experience.  —Claire Heisler

Interview with Tibetan monk in exile who fled due to taking part in a protest

Posted: 12 Dec 2009 05:36 AM PST



Translation

Interviewer: In 2006, His Holiness asked Tibetans not to wear animal skins, especially that of wild animals, because this shows that we do not care or are not concerned about animals' rights. I think you were in Tibet at that time, so did you take part in the burning of clothing made of animal skin?

Monk: Yes, I participated in that, because I saw that there were many reasons. The main thing is that when I last came to India, I received a lot of advice through His Holiness's speeches. His Holiness always tells other countries that Tibetans are interested in peace and democracy, and he highlights Tibetans as a good example for the rest of the world. But the Chinese government, without supporting Tibetans' religion or cultural traditions, points out that wearing animal skins makes Tibetans look bad to other countries. That is part of the Chinese government's plan to diminish Tibetan culture.
Sometimes, when tourists come to Tibet, the Chinese authorities order Tibetans to wear animal skins. When Tibetans wear these skins, the authorities sometimes give them gifts. This is mostly to get Tibetans to oppose His Holiness's advice. When I saw this happening in my area, I felt very disappointed, but there was nothing I could do. When I visited my friends in other places, I always talked about how we should stop wearing animal skins, but my efforts brought no results. Change takes a long time.

Later, in 2006, His Holiness gave a Kalachakra initiation in India. At that time, many people came from Tibet to attend. His Holiness reported that, "I have heard that these days in Tibet, many people are wearing animal skins, including the skins of wild animals. When you return to Tibet, you have to tell them that in India, His Holiness is living with shame in front of other people because of this practice." His Holiness also emphasized that, "We have to preserve our religion and culture, but wearing animal skins is not necessary."

We have only one His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and we usually believe and respect him. So, I feel that if I can follow His Holiness's advice, that is very good. At that time, we held a large prayer ceremony in our place. Then, I felt that I had to take part in burning the wild animal skins. But, I couldn't afford to buy a leopard or tiger skin, so I tried to buy a cloth that looked like animal skin, but was not real. However, I was afraid of what others would say if I burned a fake animal skin. I had also heard that people from other parts of Amdo, Ngapa and Rigong, were burning wild animal skins at Losar, on the 13th. Later, I bought a leopard skin for 6000 yuan, and I burned that.
The case for burning animal skins is that throughout the world today, many precious animal species have disappeared, or gone extinct. Also, I think that some animal skins were imported to Tibet from Afghanistan or Pakistan, and I'm afraid that the money from those skins is going to support terrorists.

Interviewer: In 2006, following His Holiness's speech about animal skins, Chinese authorities ordered people, especially officials, to wear wild animal skins at festivals and ceremonies. Is the main purpose of this to oppose His Holiness?

Monk: Yes, of course--it's not only to oppose His Holiness, but to express disdain for Tibetans. They want to show other countries that Tibetans are ignorant, just like animals. In our village, there was a man who bought a tiger skin a few days before Losar. He paid 10,000 yuan, and another man asked him to sell him the tiger skin so that he could burn it. But the man replied, "I don't want to sell it to you, I want to burn it myself." So he burned the skin, and many other Tibetans also burned wild animal skins. But the Chinese continued to order Tibetans in isolated rural places to wear the skins, while singing and dancing, and they recorded this in pictures and videos, declaring to other countries that Tibetans still wore wild animal skins.
Translated by Sangay sangay_4637@yahoo.co.in


This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Buddha, Bees and the Giant Hornet Queen

Posted: 11 Dec 2009 06:49 PM PST


Buddha, Bees and the Giant Hornet Queen (BBC Natural World)
There's no fiercer looking or more dangerous insect than the giant Japanese hornet. The film follows the life of a giant hornet queen as she emerges from hibernation and starts to build her colony in an old temple garden. At first she is vulnerable, fighting bad weather as she painstakingly constructs her paper nest. But as workers hatch, her empire gains strength and desperate for food the hornets start to search for their favorite meal – honeybee grubs.

A beekeeper monk witnesses the rising power of the giant hornet colony, and despite the hornets' attacks on his own bees he reveals a deep respect for these incredible predators.

FYI: Frame Rate seems to be a little fast on this, so if your using VLC player slow the playback a bit.

Torrent

Hotfile 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Peace Pilgrim: An American Sage Who Walked Her Talk

Posted: 11 Dec 2009 01:57 PM PST

I posted this over on SRF but I think it deserves being posted here as well. Peace.

Peace Pilgrim: An American Sage Who Walked Her Talk
This is a powerful documentary about an extraordinary woman. At age 44, Mildred Norman left her life circumstances and became Peace Pilgrim -- walking coast to coast for peace for nearly 30 years, living on faith and sharing her wisdom and exhuberance generously with people across the land. This 60-minute documentary is a poetic and musical exploration of her life and message, which is as relevant today as ever. Also included are interviews with Dalai Lama, Maya Angelou, John Robbins, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, and many of Peace Pilgrim's friends, admirers, and relatives, along with newsreel footage from the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's, when Peace was on her walk for peace. The video is narrated by Reverend Michael Beckwith. This video was scripted and edited by Sharon Janis (Kumuda) of Night Lotus Productions, using materials that had been filmed and gathered over two decades. You can order a copy of this video or Peace Pilgrim's books or audio materials from Friends of Peace Pilgrim Foundation at http://www.peacepilgrim.org . In accordance with Peace Pilgrim's belief that spiritual teachings should be given rather than sold, all of her materials are offered without charge (although donations to continue their work are welcome)

Youtube

Be Generous to the Human Condition

Posted: 11 Dec 2009 10:35 AM PST



I had a meeting Wednesday evening with our teacher at the meditation center. Zen people tend to call these meetings dokusan, although the way it unfolds can be anything from a one minute blundered koan presentation to a long conversation about life - it really depends on the teacher's style, as well as the circumstances behind having the meeting in the first place.

During this meeting, the content of the conversation seemed to lead us both to the phrase I titled this post with: "Be generous to the human condition." It has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? But what does it mean exactly?

U.S. President Obama gave his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech yesterday. These lines are, as far as I'm concerned, the heart of what he said:

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.


There are so many delusions in the last paragraph. We will never know if non-violent, or at least much less violent, movement could have stopped Hitler's armies because there was never any massive effort to try such methods. The European neighbors of Germany routinely turned their backs on warning signs during the early days of Nazi era, primarily, in my opinion, because they were, at best, indifferent to the fate of the Jewish people. That last sentence is riddled with commas, each a pause for how often we fail to see how the oppression of one group always ends up creating the oppression of many others. My nation, the U.S., has no moral high ground on this issue either. We didn't care until it was too late to do any but join an already smoldering war effort.

Beyond the World War II example (I can already hear the WWII defenders shouting from the balconies), the other example the president gives - Al Qaeda - is really something of a boogyman these days. The kind of terrorism groups like this are doing have no national boundaries of origin, no central headquarters, nor any set of stable leadership. President Obama defends a war on a nation-state, Afghanistan, that is supposedly about protecting the U.S. from terrorism. There's no way this is possible - even "winning" a war there, whatever the hell that means, won't address the root causes of terrorism (poverty, deep feelings of powerlessness, rejection of modernisms, distortion of religious doctrines, etc.)

Ah, and then there's the "Evil in the world" argument - a classic approach that divides the world in two, failing to see that the seeds of evil are within us all, that any of us is capable of creating suffering, destruction, even murder if the "right" set of causes and conditions come into play. Some of us may be, due to our spiritual practices or deliberately developed ethics, much less likely to create such evils as rape or terroristic murder, but that doesn't mean we are completely beyond such acts. There is no way to eradicate evil in the world through warfare because the only way to do so would be to kill us all, every last one of us. I don't think even the most misanthropic person wants this, no matter how much they might glorify things like nuclear warfare and the end of the world.

Warfare is, ultimately, a surface approach to a deep below the surface set of problems. You can cut off the top of a dandelion again and again, but it's only through uprooting it completely (and eating it's health-giving body :), that you'll be rid of it.

So, when I heard about this speech, the old ball of nastiness came up within. I thought about posting some snarky line on my Facebook page about the Hope and Change and the President just to stir people up. And then it hit me, "Be generous to the Human Condition." Posting some cynical line may be fun for a short while, but all it does is add a drop of cynicism to an already cynicism-filled population. There's enough disappointment and despair about President Obama's first year without me adding an "I told you so" line.

Being generous to the human condition is about, among other things, recognizing all the foolish and destructive behavior that comes from our individual and collective delusions - to recognize all that, and then just breath it in, hold what it's like to be human in this world at this time within. Not because you're better than anyone else - you're not - but because doing so is one of the ways to soften the edges, develop compassion, and see that we're all in this together.

So, instead of the snarky, smug words I thought about posting on my Facebook page, I said the following:

"Our president is completely delusional about matters of war and peace. This has been true of all U.S. presidents throughout history. May we someday have a leader who isn't delusional about these issues, and in the meantime, may each of us "regular" citizens strive to embody true peace in our lives."

A small drop in the water, but that's how it goes mostly. At work yesterday, a student who I, and the rest of my class have great difficulties with, was the subject of many disparaging thoughts and comments on my part. I really would just love to toss her out my class forever, and still might do so. But at the end of the day, I came back into the classroom one last time on my way out, and there she was still putting her coat out. There was a moment of wanting to just ignore her, and then the line "Be generous to the human condition" arose again. She said something about how cold it was, and how she was having trouble getting to school because of the snow and lack of transportation. I know this issue all too well.

I turned around, and told her I understood. That I, too, had had to wait a long time in the cold for a bus to come, and been late to wherever it was I was going. And then I said "Have a good weekend" and I walked out.

Part of me really resisted even this, but at the same time, I knew that it would have been just petty to completely blow her off.

This practice, the life in general, is hard work. Not always certainly, but often. And so part of being generous to the human condition is also to be kind to yourself. I extended my hand out to this student a little bit, but didn't try to force it any further. Maybe next time, I'll do a little more. Or maybe she'll cross that final line, whatever that is, and I'll toss her out of class. I'd like to think that such a tossing can be done in a way that is, also, generous to her and to all of us. May it be so.

Double Tall Eggnog Latte with a Slice of Dharma

Posted: 11 Dec 2009 10:35 AM PST

Custom Buddha Boxes Created for a Customer to share with friends & family

Last night we attended the final talk of a 4 part series by a Tibetan teacher. The talks were based on the teachings of Dodrupchen Jikme Tenpe Nyima. We started by going around the room and each reading a portion of the text. There was something simple and lovely about this. Then Kalzang gave a little talk based on the text. He told a wonderful teaching story about a Tibetan lama, who was confronted by a thief. The thief asked the lama his name which turned out to translate as "golden leg". The thief poked him in the leg with a needle and the lama cried out and winced in pain. "You don't have a gold leg. You are the same as me. You wear a sheepskin coat, you ride a horse, you eat meat," the thief chided him.

At that point, the lama realized the truth of what the thief was saying and bowed to him. In an instant he saw his pride in his position, his belief that he was somehow better and different than others and he saw that his behaviour did not always correspond with the Dharma. After that, as the story goes, when reciting the names of his teachers he added the thief in as his root teacher because he had helped him see the truth.

It was a great tale and posed the question to us, when someone tosses an uncomfortable truth in our face, are we willing to look or do we just feel righteously indignated? Do we criticize their behaviour (how rude of that person to say that to me!) or do we lob an insult of equal weight back in their direction (your mother wears army boots!) Can we, are we willing to learn from these encounters? Or do we simply want to protect our vulnerable little self, build a larger protective shell around our delicate coating of ego? Can we accept that tapping on our shell, do we let it crack open and grow and expand to become our true self?

It is pretty humbling to face the truth in this way. An encounter with a neighbour years ago showed me that I had a lot of anger inside. Her "poking of me" offered insight into the depth of that anger and how close to the surface it was actually riding. I liked to think of myself as kind and quiet, reasonable and gentle. But I got to see the unforgiving, prideful, vengeful side of me, how I clung with great self righteousness to my position. It was a very painful picture to behold! Yet it was the beginning of my sincere dedication to the Dharma.

I see these events as some of the most difficult teachings. Teachings that are really thrown in our face, most often by people we find difficult. Our habitual way is to grumble about these people and justify our own behaviour but if we really are dedicated to the work of the spirit (in whatever tradition that might be) we will sit up, pull out the thorn, mop up the little pool of our own blood, and have a good look at our bruised egoic self. What made me so angry, so defensive? What truth am I avoiding about myself? It is really the work of going deeper, the work of purifying the heart. It is one of the most difficult things for us to do, to bow down and say thank-you to those who have criticized or offered us the bitter taste of humiliation. It is one step on the journey toward loosening the grip of the self; a step toward true freedom. We can use these painful experiences to help us see who we really are (or who we are not).

So where will we find our teaching today; when we get cut off in traffic, when a shop keeper treats us with indifference or rudeness, when our mother-in-law offers us unwanted advice? Where are the frayed edges of our tolerance? I suspect we will all meet this teaching out in the world today, in big or small ways. Are we willing to mix the bitter taste of this offering with our double tall eggnog latte?