Thu, 29 Jun 2006
Off and Away
This will be my last post until July 10th. I'll be away at the annual ten day teaching at KTD, where Khenpo Karthar will be teaching on Karma Chagme's Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen. So don't think that I've fallen over and had a heart attack. Interestingly, I just heard that the Drikung incarnation of Karma Chagme will be back in the Washington area in November.
There's been a new development in one of the fronts of the long running "Karmapa Wars." Beru Khyentse Rinpoche who was the spiritual advisor of the New Zealand Karama Kagyu community, supports Thaye Dorje as the Seventeenth Karmapa, while most New Zealanders, and Karma Kagyu students generally, support Orgyen Trinlay, who just celebrated his twenty first birthday. Beru Khyentse tried to take control of one of the centers and dismiss the trustees. They fought back in court and recently the court ruled in their favor.
The Court of Appeal says it cannot rule on the wider doctrinal and spiritual dimension of the disagreement, but the spiritual director, Khyentse Rinpoche Lama, did not have the power to dismiss four New Zealand trustees.
The trustees Ð Ross Hope, Lama Karma Shedrup, Thelma Burchell and Ellen Duckworth Ð administer the New Zealand Karma Kagyu Trust, which runs the Karma Choeling Monastery at Kaukapakapa, northwest of Auckland.
Khyentse Rinpoche visited New Zealand in 2004 after a lama who had taught at the monastery resigned over criminal allegations. He brought with him a locksmith and a group of supporters. Police were called but declined to become involved. A short lived accord ended with one trustee forcing entry to the monastery and issuing trespass notices to the visiting spiritual director and supporters, the Court of Appeal said.
Khyentse Rinpoche responded by issuing notices saying the four were no longer trustees. The removed trustees asked the High Court to rule on the legality of their removal. The Public Trustee has acted as manager of the trust in the interim.
The High Court found in favour of Khyentse Rinpoche, but the Court of Appeal overturned that decision.
It said his general powers to supervise and assist the trust board did not extend to removing trustees. It called for an orderly handover of control.
This restores the stalemate between the factions: neither can dismiss the other.
Tue, 27 Jun 2006
A Project Finished
No time to say anything except to point you to my notes on Drupon Thinley Nyingpo's talk on fivefold mahamudra. This finishes getting all the notes I took online. Which frees my Alphasmart up to take notes at the Mahamudra retreat next week at KTD. Here are his opening remarks.
It is very clearly said that the fulfillment of the aspiration of one's practice depends upon the motivation of the practitioner, so establishing the proper motivation for practicing is important. When you practice with the motivation of benefiting all sentient beings, then your practice will be beneficial. Some may doubt this, thinking that if I practice for the sake of all sentient beings, that excludes me and I won't get the benefit. Milarepa clearly said that every action we do for others is also for our own benefit. There is also the possibility that for some of us, even though we say we are practicing for others, in our heart our own benefit is being given the priority. For instance, we might profess that we are practicing for all mother sentient beings, but you don't get along with your spouse and siblings. This is natural. It happens. Therefore in order to cultivate the motivation to work for all sentient beings, start from your home with your spouse or parents. Then broaden the number of beings more and more. Then the real test of whether you are a good practitioner or not comes about when you see if you get along with your family. From another angle, we know the dharma is pure and unstained. But much depends on the attitudes of practitioners. When you are able to make something possible that was impossible before, or you are able to do something you couldn't before, that will be noticed by around you. Even someone who knows nothing about Buddhism will be curious to see how it can make such a good human being. So that is the way we should practice.
Mon, 26 Jun 2006
Lineage in Gong Chik
I've put more of my notes from the Spring Retreat online. This time they're from Khenpo Tsultrim's teaching on Gong Chik and the importance of lineage.
The lineage of transmission should be unbroken from Buddha himself. It's not enough to have a proper lineage transmission. The lineage must be endowed with blessings. Even if a lama can give instructions, he should have transmission. When we say the transmission must be endowed with blessings, it means it should be free from broken vows and commitments of samaya. It's said the lineage should not be carried by a dog, which means a samaya breaker. We have to be careful with samaya. One Drukpa lama died because two samaya breakers attended his teaching. In old days teachers charged for attending an empowerment so the students would take them seriously. We think an empowerment is like a weekend vacation and relax. So we practice and don't get any result, because we take it too casually. That's the reason Marpa gave Milarepa a really hard time. If we don't get results that's not a problem of the time, it's a problem of how we do things.
Sun, 25 Jun 2006
Brand New Brand New
Brand New, a Long Island rock band with a passing resemblance to Taking Back Sundays, has finished work on their new album, their first since Deja Entendu in 2003. It should be out later this year. I have no idea what it will sound like. The whole emo thing would sound pretty dated now.
Our main focus for these past 10 months was to make the best record we possibly could...for us and you. With this in mind there was always a part we felt we could play better, or a part we felt could be improved. This tedious process explains why it has taken so long. We have all lost our minds on numerous occasions, and to be honest...still haven't found them.
I don't know. If they found their minds what would they do with them?
Sat, 24 Jun 2006
Teachings from Khenchen
Not much to say, except that I've put my notes from Khenchen's teachings at the Spring Retreat online. These teachings are on generosity and perseverance.
Dharma should be practiced with joy and not to make you miserable. We are practicing to liberate all beings, so we should be optimistic and joyful. We have a method to generate the results so we should be joyful and happy. Without a method, optimism is just delusion. "Oh yes, everything is fine." Without changing our mind, practice is like cleaning the outside of a bowl that is filthy inside.
Fri, 23 Jun 2006
Neobuddhist
Buddhism 2.0 is a website that aims to make meditation accessible to a larger audience, You can only push this stuff so far, but I think this site makes some interesting points.
Everyone wants to be happy and blissful. But what hardly anyone knows is that the path to bliss is increasing your tranquillity. It doesn't seem that would be so because when you think of being happy, you think of particular events. You get married. You win the lottery. Your baby is born. You think of exciting moments. Thinking of happiness in these terms, it would be hard to see that being happy in your daily life does not come about through achievements or big moments. No matter how fast you move, you cannot fill your life with these big events. To feel contentment and bliss, to feel really good most of the time, is a different story and the path is hidden by your own memories.
As you become calmer, as the stress is drained away and you are left with a tranquil feeling of inner peace, you will be happy. No matter what happens, you will be happy. And in the exciting moments, you will be extra happy.
Thu, 22 Jun 2006
Stuff to Do
Every year at Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Khenpo Karthar leads a Mahamudra Retreat. It starts on June 30th, which is fast approaching — just a week away. Before I go, there's stuff I have to / would like to get done. First, there's the project at work that has to be finished next week. Then there are the notes I took at the Spring Retreat at TMC. They need to be edited so I can make room for the next batch of notes from KTD. There's my ngondro. I'm shooting for 30,000 guru yoga mantras before I leave. And Lola, which I would really like to see running sometime this year. I've finished the unit tests on Metabase. The next step is to write unit tests for Objectbase, which is the base class you subclass to get your CRUDy web behavior. That's a lot, and the sad thing is how much more I've promised to do inside and outside of work. So I'm signing off and editing my notes.
Wed, 21 Jun 2006
Advayavajra
I found anothe biography of Maitripa on the web, this time under the name of Advayavajra (non-dual thunderbolt). It's curious that the guru yoga I do every morning traces the lineage back through Maitripa instead of Naropa. I suppose it's because Maitripa is identified more with mahamudra ans Naropa more with tantra. For a time Maitripa was a monk at Nalanada, the biggest Buddhist college at the time. He practiced tantra secret but then one day he was found out and expelled by Atisha.
While he was studying all the inner secret studies, a novice monk saw him and a woman drinking beer together and disputes arose within the monastic community over it. The Acarya spewed up milk, and as the novice drew near, he vomited up beer with no explanation for his action. Furthermore, once when the proctors and the rest had heard of this and come for him, the beer turned into milk and the woman become invisible or, as it is said, changed it a ritual bell. Later on while the monks were lying in ambush for him the Siddha was unable to disguise himself with mantras, and so they expelled [him].
According to the Blue Annals, he discovered two texts by Maitreya expounding the doctrine of Buddha Nature, hidden in a stupa.
According to the History of the School of bTsan, the Mahayana Uttara Tantra Sastra and Dharmadharmatavibhanga remained unknown to scholars. The Venerable Maitripa saw once a shining light coming out from a crack in a stupa, and having investigated it, discovered the two books (from inside the stupa), He then offered prayers to the Venerable Ajita (i.e. Maitreya) appeared before him surrounded by clouds, and expounded the books to him. Maitripa then preached the two books to Anandakirti.
Tue, 20 Jun 2006
Vandals
I mentioned earlier that the Tibetan Meditation Center in Frederick suffered some minor vandalism shortly before I did the Chenrezig retreat. Now I learn that the Vietnamese Buddhist center in Frederick has suffered more serious vandalism, including having a statue stolen. In both cases it seems to be drunk and rowdy local teenagers, tearing things up for the hell of it.
Within the last month, the intruders have been getting bolder, she said. They have smashed windows and broken into the meditation center -- a renovated barn surrounded by paths, statues and park-like landscaping -- and stolen or destroyed religious artifacts, paintings, candles and tools.
Old Story
It's an old, old story. Conventional medicine looks the other way, ignores evidence that alternative treatments work. The first case is a doctor at the NIH who thinks intravenous Vitamin C may work better the chemotherapy to combat cancer. Needless to say, it's also far cheaper and is completely non-toxic. But he can't find anyone to study the issue.
Interest is not growing, however, among mainstream oncologists, judging from conferences, publications, and interviews with some of them. The National Cancer Institute, with a $5 billion budget, is not sponsoring studies of intravenous C. Neither is the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The American Cancer Society and the American Association of Clinical Oncologists warn patients against high-dose C, as do leading cancer centers such as the University of Pennsylvania's and Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York.
At the prestigious Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., oncologist Edward Creagan said the idea that intravenous, but not oral, levels are toxic to cancer is "an intriguing concept."
"However, my own belief is that the vitamin C story is really ancient history," he said. "It would be very difficult for patients and clinicians to mount a lot of enthusiasm for another vitamin C study."
The second case is an Australian study showing that Omega 3 is more effective than Ritalin in treating hyperactivity. But don't hold your breath waiting for American doctors to change their prescribing habits.
The Australian researchers looked at the effect of fish oil capsules on a group seven to 12-year-olds with ADHD. Some were given the capsules, while others took a placebo or dummy capsule. Within three months, the behaviour of those on the fish oils had dramatically improved and, by seven months, many of the children were less restless and doing better at school. The most striking improvement was in concentration or attention, which improved by a third. When those taking the dummy capsules switched to the fish oils, they also saw their behaviour improve.
Mon, 19 Jun 2006
Unit Tests
Sorry, no dharma tonight. I was writing unit tests for Lola, more specifically for the flat file database, which I call Metabase. So far new and create pass their tests. I'm still working on add. I'd be more enthusiastic about testing if there weren't more lines in the test file than the code tested. I'm going to wind up writing 5000 lines of tests for a 2000 line file. Still, writing tests is addictive, like eating potato chips. Just one more test, get it to pass. Then the cycle starts again. Sixteen tests so far, fourteen pass. Which is why there's no dharma post tonight.
Sun, 18 Jun 2006
Da Vinci Code
I went to see The Da Vinci Code this weekend. It's mostly a puzzle movie, as the title suggests. It only half worked, in that I was interested in the puzzle but not enough that I tried to anticipate the solution. I thought there were two false notes in the film. The first was how they exaggerated the ascetic practices of the Opus Dei to make Silas look like more of a fanatic. (As if killing museum curators and nuns was not enough.) The second was how they misrepresented the Council of Nicea, which the movie said was about establishing the divinity of Jesus, when it was really about the Arian heresy, which it quite another matter.
One of the themes of the movie was that in denying Mary Magdelene's relation to Jesus, the Church diminished the feminine side of Christianity, turning it into a patriarchal religion. This is probably why Diana thought so highly of the book. I find this feminist critique rather shallow in that it misses the main point of what Christianity or any genuine religion is all about, which is ego transcendence. As Saint paul said in Galatians, "There is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Gender roles are just part of the baggage that needs to be left behind. Historically women have gotten a raw deal in all the major religions and this needs to be fixed, but that's a different matter than feminizing religion.
Venerable Tenzin Palmo, who has been working at improving the status of nuns in Tibetan Buddhism, recently spoke about women's ordination in Tibetan Buddhism.
In the past, nuns were regarded as girls who couldn't get married. In the last 10 years this has changed. They have met nuns from Korea and Taiwan and seen how confident they are, how respected and empowered. And it inspires them.
Tibetans should introduce higher ordination for nuns. Nuns should have the opportunity to become more educated, same as the monks, but this has been denied women. The lamas themselves are most keen to help teach the nuns. Certainly the ones who have taught our nuns love teaching our girls. And have been apologetic that they have not thought about this in the past.
Historically, the trend among women to not appreciate their own gender has not served aspiring nuns well. Their needs were not expressed. It is changing now, with a gentle, quiet revolution. Hopefully they will progress to advanced degrees. Now our concern is for higher ordination for nuns.
We have discussed the introduction of higher ordination for nuns in the Tibetan tradition. Things are moving along. Now young scholars are also researching the bikkshunis (ordained nuns) and how ordination has come about."
Lola
I haven't been posting much because I've been working on my new weblogging software, which I call Lola. While I was having trouble connecting, I finished all the remaining TODO's in the main package, Lola.pm.The next step is to start writing unit tests. The goals of Lola are similar to Blosxom, to make a simple to install weblogging package that places as few requirements on the host environment as possible. Where Lola differs from Blosxom is that metadata is stored in a flat file database separate from the posts. Much flows from this difference, First, you have to create a way to add posts through the web, so that you can collect the metadata along with the posts. That requires user authentication, so that only authorized persons can add posts. After attending the Python conference in February I decided to rework the code as another CRUD framework (create, read, update, delete), like Ruby on Rails. The difference between my code and Rails is that it uses a flat file instead of relational database, and software is written by subclassing a base class instead of using a code generator. The code which actually implements the weblog hasn't been written yet, Lola contains the base module from which it inherits. The point is that the weblog itself is just a small amount of code that defines the metadata fields, sets their values, and reads and writes the post to a file.
Thu, 15 Jun 2006
Electric Tibetan
I've been looking at the issue of producing Tibetan texts on the Macintosh. I've been using Xenotype's Tibetan font along with Apple's Pages word processor. That worked well enough for my Tibetan lessons, but I've been looking for better solutions. Nisus Writer Express is the only other word processor on the Macintosh that I know supports Tibetan text. Earlier versions were buggy, but it's now on version 2.7 and hopefully the bugs are worked out. It looks like it's got better foreign language support than Pages. Another possibility is XeTeX, a version of the TeX layout system that's been updated to work with the Mac.
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