Tue, 31 Oct 2006
Better with Buddha
Courtney Love has turned to Nicheren Buddhism to help cure her of her addiction to alcohol. As I recall, Biy George did the same to cure his heroin addiction. Nicheren Buddhism has a funny demographic, appealing both to a poor urban community as well as to wealthy celebrities. Here's what Courtney has to say:
Love insists her hard-partying days are behind her and claims her conversion to Buddhism helped her remain sober. She explains, "I'm a Buddhist now and I chant every day. I chant for a long time. "Some people that chant, I'm just going to out them, Orlando Bloom chants, Tina Turner, they do half an hour a day. "But I was doing four and five hours a day sometimes. With smoke breaks!"
Four to five hours a day of chanting is pretty fierce dedication.
Mon, 30 Oct 2006
My Worst Critic
My worst critic is myself. When I look at what I've written, it all rings false. I wonder how I could presume that my opinion on Buddhism would be worth anything. Which is why I haven't posted anything for the past several days. Which is a bit of a dilemma, as a weblog is like a cat that demands to be fed every today. So I'll just fob off some more of Gene Wolfe's work as my own, from the end of his short story, Forlesen.
"Didn't you read your orientation? Everyone's entitled to an Explainer--in whatever form he chooses--at the end of his life. He--"
"It seems to me," Forlesen interrupted, "that it would have been more useful at the beginning."
"--may be a novelist, aged loremaster, National Hero, warlock, or actor."
"None of those sound quite right to me," Forlesen said.
"Or a theologian, philosopher, priest, or doctor."
"I don't think I like those either."
"Well that's the end of menu as far as I know," his son said. "I'll tell you what--I'll send him in and you can talk to him yourself; he's right outside."
After a moment the small man came in carrying his bag, and Forlesen's son placed a chair close to the coffin for him and went into the bedroom. "Well, what's it going to be," the small man asked, "or is it going to be nothing?"
"I don't know. I want to feel, you know, that this box is a bed--and yet a ship, a ship that will set me free. And yet...it's been a strange life."
"You may have been oppressed by demons." the small man said. "Or revived by unseen aliens who, landing on Earth eons after the death of the last man, have sought to re-create the life of the twentieth century. Or it may be that there is a small pressure exerted by a tumor in your brain."
"Those are the explanations?" Forlesen asked.
"Those are some of them."
"I want to know if it's meant anything," Forlesen said. "If what I've suffered--if it's been worth it."
"No," the little man said. "Yes. No. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Maybe."
Thu, 26 Oct 2006
Comings and Goings
Drupon and Lama Gyaltsen got some local press when they constructed a sand mandala at a Bethesda grade school. According to the article they spent four days doing it. I wonder who drove them there and back to Frederick. There's a nice photo of them making the mandala with schoolgirls in the background looking on. The caption says:
Tibetan Buddhist monks Lama Gyaltsen and Drupon Thinley Ningpo Rinpoche create a "mandala" made of multicolored sand as third grade students watch at the Holton-Arms School. The monks worked on the sand painting, then swept up the sand and poured it into a creek when it was complete -- symbolic of the Buddhist belief that all things are impermanent.
KTD has put its schedule for the first six months on their website. They'll be having two visiting teachers. Mingyur Rinpoche will be teaching on Mahamudra, always a popular subject. And Garchen Rinpoche will be teaching on the Four Thoughts as he swings through America. It's unusual for a Drikung Kagyu lama to be teaching at KTD, since it's a Karma Kagyu center. I think it shows the hugh regard that he and Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche have for each other.
Wed, 25 Oct 2006
Health Freedom in Maryland
A new coalition is forming to push for health freedom legislation in Maryland in the next legislative session. It's calling itself the Free State Health Care Coalition (FSHCC). They're meeting tonight to lay down a strategy. Here's what they have to say for themselves:
We are going to Annapolis in January 2007 to advocate for freedom of choice in health care in Maryland through legislation. We have short term and long term goals. Using as our model the efforts of other states and organizations, FSHCC will work with Maryland legislators and citizens to protect the right of patient and provider in the pursuit of health care and delivery services.
There have been several incidents where alternative practitioners have been persecuted in Maryland, so a change in the law is definitely needed and I hope this effort succeeds.
Tue, 24 Oct 2006
Astronomy Questions
At the Space Telescope we get lots of questions from the public. The astronomers don't always have time to answer these questions, so as a public service, I thought I would help out.
Q: Why not tow the Hubble and permanently attach it to the Space Station. Then it would be easy to service indefinitely and the space station would actually be producing some useful science.
A: Zoning regulations won't allow it. The space station is in a residential orbit and the Space Telescope in an orbit zoned for industrial use.
Q: I have downloaded APOD [Astronomy Picture of the Day] images for several years now, and have over a thousand saved. BEAUTIFUL!!! My question, 'WHERE DO ALL THE BILLIONS OF STARS IN THE UNIVERSE GET THEIR LIGHT?'
A: Stars are made of hydrogen, which is the lightest element in the universe. That's where they get their light.
Mon, 23 Oct 2006
Progress Report
This weekend's retreat with Lama Gursam leaves me a little speechless. Which is a pretty bad position for someone who writes a blog to be in. The football which was/is Vajra Konchog Ling got moved forward. Lama Gursam is in the process of setting up The Bodhicitta Foundation as a charitable organization and wants VKL to be part of that. He also said it's okay to host other teachers, specifically the lamas from TMC, but he doesn't want us under the organizational structure of TMC. That seems to be agreeable to everyone involved, so I guess we'll move forward on that basis. As I've mentioned before, I have the problem of divided loyalties between the different teachers I know. I've given serious thought to quitting KTD and throwing my lot in with TMC, especially in light of recent disagreements I've had with the staff there. But for the present I'll just let things stay as they are and see what develops.
Sat, 21 Oct 2006
Lama Returns
As I mentioned in my last post, Lama Gursam is back to visit in Baltimore. Thursday night he gave a Medicine Buddha empowerment at Breathe Bookstore, the local spiritual bookstore. There's a group that regularly does Medicine Buddha practice at the store and they were there along with the die hard Buddhist regulars. Afterwards I spoke a few words with Susan, the owner of the store. She remembers me from the days I was timer at the Sunday meditations at the Shambhala Center. It seems I built up a reputation as a good meditator solely on the ability to sit still in lotus position. Never before has such an undeserved reputation been built on such a small basis. Friday night Lama gave a talk on precious human birth. It was short, but had some good points. I have notes and they'll go up on Lama Gursam's web site in about a week. Today we got the empowerment for Vajrasattva practice and an explanation of the practice. I didn't have my Alphasmart with me, so I took notes on my Palm. I'll have to see how they come out. The Vajrasattva practice is taken from the Drikung ngondro practice that's done in three year retreat. TMC seems to be pushing this practice lately, maybe to build interest in the three year retreat. Tomorrow we'll have Vajrasattva practice. More later.
Wed, 18 Oct 2006
Lama Biographies
Get all your biographies and photos of the great lamas of Tibetan Buddhism in one place at Maha- Kala.com. Here's a story about the great Drikung meditator Drubwang Konchok Norbu Rinpoche.
One day Drubwang Rinpoche traveled with a couple of his attendants to the district of Manali, and visited some very remote places. One area he visited used to be a Buddhist place, but because it was so remote and had lots of snowfall in the winter, over time there were no longer any teachers or lamas available there to teach. It had become place unknown to Buddhists. He found that there were still some ancient temples walls, paintings and a prayer wheel there. However, the prayer wheel was no longer turning and the doors were all closed up by a stone wall. There were only these signs of the past Buddhist activities, but no longer were these temples or sacred prayer wheels being maintained or taken care of. When Drubwang Rinpoche arrived in this remote area, many people came to see him and receive his blessings. He asked them to open up the blocked windows and doors to reveal the old prayer wheel hidden inside. The people were very curious why he was opening up this old prayer wheel. After they had done as he asked, and everything had been cleared away, Drubwang Rinpoche sat down outside the doors to the large prayer wheel and he began to meditate. The people there also joined his meditation. After about 15 to 20 minutes, the prayer wheel began to spontaneously turn. The people began to make prostrations and their devotion to him began to increase. Drubwang Rinpoche stayed there for a couple of months and gave many teachings and personal advice to the people there. During that time the people were very devoted and made a lot of offerings to him. When it is was time for Drubwang Rinpoche to leave that place, he left all the donations he had received there to the people in order for them to restore the old monasteries and ancient prayer wheel.
Lama Gursam will be in town the rest of the week, so postings may be few over the next several days.
Tue, 17 Oct 2006
Reminiscing
Kenneth Greene was one of the top figures in Chögyam Trungpa's organization, Vajradhatu. Both he and his buddy Thomas Rich, who later crashed and burned spectacularly after assuming control of Vajradhatu after Trungpa Rinpoche's death, were originally students of Swami Satchitananda. Kenneth recounts his days as a student of the Swami in the the latest interview on the Chronicle Project, the Shambhala web site preserving Vajradhatu's history. It's a window into the life and times of spiritual practice in the Seventies. They lived in an ashram in Hollywood, where they had a good old time while ministering to the rich and famous. Ah, the sweet days of my youth.
It was splendid. At any one time there were about ten to fifteen people living there. It was an ashram and a commune of sorts, but it never got sloppy. We were very neat, especially Narayana [Tom Rich], and the place always looked impeccable, and in many ways we had a lot of discipline. We woke up early. We did do our meditation and yoga. We taught. We did retreats, and we were pretty orthodox about certain things. And about other things we weren't.
So Narayana and I became friends with Carole King who was a lovely person, very self effacing. She never wanted anyone to know she was this famous person. And other Hollywood celebrities started to come by: James Taylor, Tina Louise, who played Ginger in Gilligan's Island, Felix Cavaliere of the Young Rascals, Stacey Keach, and a whole array of folks from the music, film and television world.
While I'm reminiscing, Laura, who lived at KTD with her parents when she was a child, has some photos from the old days on her weblog. Here are some old photos of Khenpo Karthar and some photos of the Sxteenth Karmapa at KTD and in the Yukon. I met Laura when she visited KTD two years ago.
Mon, 16 Oct 2006
Recycled Crap
I feel like I'm about to come down with a cold. Here's a comment I posted to Brad's blog.
Since reading Brads book i have developed a keen interest in Buddhist beliefs and have recently started to practice zazen.I struggle with it and feel some times that i just don't get it but persevere in a blind faith that the penny will eventually drop.
Meditation practice does have the infuriating quality that you feel you just don't get it...if only you work a little harder, then you'll see it. The problem is, you're looking in the wrong direction because of your preconceptions. The only advice I can give is to sit without any hope of getting anything or fear of missing it. Just simple minded practice every day. Eventually your preconceptions will show themselves for what they are: just more thoughts. And when they are dropped, the truth that was always there will stand revealed.
Oh, and one more thing. You also need a teacher you can trust to keep you from going off in the wrong direction. In my experience the biggest problem people have is attachment to meditation. Usually beginners are attached to the external form of practice and older students to the sense of peace they get from practice. (Yes, practice starts out boring but doesn't stay boring.) Also, sometimes people will trip out on some theory. The teacher is there to shake you up when this happens.
Please don't let minor problems stand in the way of finding a teacher you can work with.
Sun, 15 Oct 2006
Ramble Mode
I visited TMC today with Pete. It was just the usual Sunday practice, nothing special. In fact it was quieter than usual, because there was a Green Tara retreat going on down at the lama house. Khenpo Tsultrim gave a short talk and my notes on part of it are below. Unfortunately, I lost about half of my notes because of a glitch.
After the practice we had a look at the stupa. Since I was last at TMC, over Labor Day, they've filled and sealed the bumpa at the top of the stupa and covered it with cement. So it looks to be well on the way to being done, though the finishing details will probably take as long as the rest of the work. I heard that they're going to start work on retreat facilities, though it wasn't clear to me exactly what they plan to build. And we helped Khenpo take down the awning that was over the porch. That's about it.
All mother sentient beings are the object of our bodhicitta. But when a huge object is in front of us, we cannot see it all. So keeping all sentient beings in mind is difficult. If we try to start with all sentient beings we will never develop love and compassion. We should start with those we care about, such as our parents, children, or spouse. It could be anyone who is kind to us. From that we can go bigger and bigger until one day we can have love and compassion for all sentient beings. When you care about someone you will wish that they are happy. That is what love is. There are two kinds of love. The first is a kind of commitment. But I don't know much about that. The other is caring. The first is not so strong and can break easily. The second won't break, whatever happens. We wish that others have happiness and joy but when we look deeper others always have some problems. If you have a home, there's so much to take care of and worry about. And if you don't have a home, that's even a bigger problem. So having or not having is a problem. For this reason we should feel compassion. You can make people happy by solving their material problems, by giving food or clothing. A longer term solution would be to get them a job. Even better would be to lead them to enlightenment, which is unending peace and joy.
To do this we must first attain enlightenment ourselves. It's not sufficient to become an arhat, who only liberates him or herself. A bodhisattva practices in order to liberate all beings. To do this they must generate a great accumulation of merit and they do this by practicing the perfections. By doing this they eventually attain Buddhahood. No matter how high your birth in samsara you are always suffering. We celebrate the Buddha's decease, but that is more a Hinayana tradition. They believe the Buddha no longer returns to samsara after his death. And they believe any rebirth is suffering. But in the Mahayana they believe that when you are beyond attachment there is no suffering. So you need to have compassion and the realization of emptiness. Atisha said practicing only one is not the complete path. Realization of emptiness has three causes. The first is confidence in emptiness, the second is devotion, and the third is the accumulation of merit.
Sat, 14 Oct 2006
Trogawa Blog
There's a new article about Trogawa Rinpoche up on his weblog. It contains some recollections of the man who did so much to promote Tibetan medicien in the West.
In addition to being a great lama and physician, I found him an interesting man in his observations about Western life with a subtle but wicked sense of humor. He had his quirks which always endeared me to him. One never knew what kind of odd ingredient he would request for his medicine preparations. He was my first real introduction to undiluted Tibetan culture. I will always hold him in high esteem.
Fri, 13 Oct 2006
Tergiversation
Tergiversate is a fancy word that means to renounce a belief and return to another belief you previously held. It's the title because I was asked why Eric lost his faith in Buddhism. I can't give a complete answer, but here's what I know. Eric started and ran the Towson Dharma House for several years. He was a novice monk (getsül) who took ordination with Garchen Rinpoche about a year after he became a Buddhist. He worked enthusiastically to promote Buddhism, giving most of his time and money to promote the Towson Dharma House. Here's a description he wrote of it at the time:
Serving as a private home for a few Western ordained Buddhist monastics with room for visiting teachers and a shrine room for practice and public teachings.
So it was a surprise to see him lose interest in Buddhism so quickly. What he told me is that he had trouble accepting emptiness. Emptiness is one of the central ideas of Buddhism and means that all phenomena have no existence over and beyond what is established by convention. (That's my personal postmodern spin on emptiness, but I digress.) For a while he was studying the Jonangpa, who put a more positive spin on emptiness, almost like a Buddhist version of Advaita. He did a retreat with Lama Dawa and I hear that Lama Dawa tried to explain emptiness to him, but he wasn't accepting it. So that's what losing faith in Buddhism meant to Eric. He stopped believing in emptiness and from that he lost faith in all of Buddhism.
Of course, there probably were other reasons he left Buddhism. Being a monk is hard and I think he had a hard time giving up sex and rock and roll. (He was a drummer in a punk band before becoming a monk.) I don't fault him for that. Hell, I'm not a monk because I know I couldn't do it. But I think the strain of being a monk caused problems. Because of his personality, Eric couldn't do things half way and return to being a lay Buddhist, so he gave up Buddhism altogether.
So that's all I know about Eric's tergiversation. It's not the happiest subject, but I was asked.
Thu, 12 Oct 2006
Married
I got a surprise today when I got an email message saying Lama Gursam has married a Canadian woman, Amber Moore. The notice says that they were married in a private family gathering in Kitchner on September 23rd. Congratulations to both of them. I haven't met Amber yet. I wonder if she'll be travelling with Lama Gursam next week. The word of Lama Gursam's marriage came via Ari-ma and Nyima, thanks to them for forwarding it.
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