His Holiness Inspires Taiwanese Devotees as Teachings Commence
His Holiness Inspires Taiwanese Devotees as Teachings Commence |
- His Holiness Inspires Taiwanese Devotees as Teachings Commence
- Day Two of teachings by His Holiness on Atisha's "Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment"
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama Continues Teachings to Taiwanese Devotees
- From The Under 35 Project: “Cushion and Apron — On Meditation and Waitressing”
| His Holiness Inspires Taiwanese Devotees as Teachings Commence Posted: 05 Oct 2012 01:00 PM PDT October 4th 2012 Dharamsala, India, 01 October 2012 (Samuel Ivor, Tibet Post International) - At the request of a group of Taiwanese devotees, His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet commenced the first of four days of teachings on 'Atisha's Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment' to an audience from over 60 counties at the main temple in Dharamshala, India.
Amid a buoyant atmosphere on the morning of September 1st, one of the most revered spiritual leaders of the world led the teachings with a brief, yet insightful introduction into Buddhist itself. The main temple, which numbered crowds surpassing 2000, was packed with a colourful array of Tibetans wearing traditional attire from a wealth of age groups, as well as foreign visitors, Indian guests, and a delegation of over 800 Taiwanese Buddhists. Welcoming the guests eagerly, the Dalai Lama drew smiles and adoration from the gathering. Drawing upon a mixture of colourful stories, past experiences and His profound knowledge of Buddhist Dharma, He set to inspire and educate the rapt audience. The Dalai Lama also drew insightfully into the realm of science and history, highlighting the manner in which science has sometimes created negative consequences in the past, as well as enormously positive ones. While the 20th century witnesses the loss of an estimated 200 million lives to war and conflict, His Holiness suggested that the 21st century is an opportunity for peace: "The 20th century was one of violence and suffering. If non-violence and harmony could be developed, it would be through love and compassion". His Holiness also re-iterated His message of secular ethics: urging the audience to not simply to look within the borders of one single religion, but to reach out - respecting and learning from the beliefs of others. He added that it is the responsibility of individuals to behave peacefully, compassionately and in a loving manner, stating that understanding ethics in a secular way does not mean one should ignore or reject their own religion – in fact quite the opposite. Moral ethics and responsibility are vital when implementing this, He added.
"The next day, he was not wearing the hat" The Dalai Lama chuckled, as the audience burst into laughter. Importantly, he stated that: "What we have been through so far is the roots of the teachings [from Buddha]; the peripheral practices are not so important". Having introduced and instructed Buddhist principles to better understand His teachings, the Dalai Lama introduced the text: 'Atisha's Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment' (Jangchup Lamdron). In Buddhist, the stages of the path; 'Lamrim' are crucial lessons. Although there are many different versions, all derive from 'Atisha's Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment'. To be educated in the sacred text by His Holiness the Dalai Lama was surely a dream come true for the devoted guests. Having inspired the delegation for both a morning and afternoon session; and introduced the text, the first day of teaching concluded brightly and successfully. The second in the series of four teachings will continue on October 2nd 2012 in the Main Temple; Dharamshala. A live webcast, followed by translations into Chinese, English and Russian languages is available on: http://dalailama.com/liveweb    Read More @ Source 
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| Day Two of teachings by His Holiness on Atisha's "Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment" Posted: 05 Oct 2012 12:00 PM PDT Dharamsala, India, 2 October 2012 (Samuel Ivor, Tibet Post International) - Dharamshala: - Day two of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's teachings on Atisha's "Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment" continued at the main temple in Dharamshala, India. The spiritual leader of Tibet educated furthermore into the sacred 11th century text, on October 2nd2012: the second of four days of teachings. The gathering, which included over 800 Taiwanese guests and visitors from over 60 countries, entailed insightful knowledge by one of the world's most esteemed spiritual leaders; into one of Tibetan Buddhism's most innovative texts. Welcoming the audience warmly, His Holiness continued from the previous day by elaborating on how individuals can progress along their spiritual path; incorporating both body, speech and mind. His Holiness stated: "Buddha bodies cannot be obtained just by wishing for them; you have to follow the Bodhisattva paths", adding that this will lead to a more purified state. "In order to cultivate and experience compassion" the Dalai Lama affirmed: "one should care about sentient beings. One should also be aware of suffering"; emphasising that faith and confidence were vital to achieving this. Confidence is also vital to attaining a higher rebirth: confidence in your practices, as well as careful thought and rationality, allow one to engage in practices for a higher rebirth, His Holiness suggested. "With a biased attitude, one will not be able to see reality as it is. You should be able to make judgements with your intelligence, and pursue the path". "In Buddhism in general, it is very important to look at reason and logic. We have to be able to use reasoning; we should use both proof and reason".
"When I was in Lhasa, I used to watch the moon and the sunset. Through my telescope, I could see the moon had hills; and craters on the surface. The shadows on the moon would change as the sun would set". His Holiness recalls inviting teachers one night to witness this, and they agreed with the young leader. The young Dalai Lama concluded that although Tibetan tradition stated that both the sun and the moon had their own light, through science and logic one could see that this was not the case. He reiterated that Buddhist teaching must be tested, similar to science, as well as being believed. Towards the end of the teachings His Holiness warned against too much attachment, and grasping, in one's life. "When we fled Tibet in 1959, I couldn't take anything from my childhood, or [possessions] from the 13th Dalai Lama. In terms of resources, perhaps it is best to have friends and relatives" He said. "One has to be able to see what is beneficial; not just in the short term but in the long term" His Holiness explained. "Something which may be pleasurable now but harmful in the long-term must be avoided". Concluding, His Holiness drew the second day of teachings to an end for the afternoon. Having been treated to enlightening lessons in Atisha's "Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment", as well as the generosity of Tibetan culture, the guests wound their way out into the crowded streets of Dharamshala, surely eager for the next day of teachings to begin. The third in the series of four teachings will continue on October 3rd 2012 in the Main Temple; Dharamshala. A live webcast, followed by translations into Chinese, English and Russian languages is available on: http://dalailama.com/webcasts/post/255-lamp-for-the-path-to-enlightenment Read More @ Source 
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| His Holiness the Dalai Lama Continues Teachings to Taiwanese Devotees Posted: 05 Oct 2012 11:00 AM PDT October 4th 2012 Dharamsala, India, 3 October 2012 (Samuel Ivor, Tibet Post International) - Dharamshala: - Dharamshala - Continuing with the third of four days of teachings, His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet granted greater depth into Atisha's "Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment", given at the request of a group of Taiwanese devotees.
Having so far introduced Buddhist and its role in Tibet, taught on points such as how to pursue one's path, one's reliance on their guru, dependent origination within the Four Noble Truths, and the impermanence of death, His Holiness continued His teaching on the 11th century text. Crowds of over 2000 gathered in the main temple (Tsuklakang) on Wednesday 3rd of October to witness the revered spiritual leader speak. Opening the teaching after a series of prayers, His Holiness re-iterated that it is important to understand what the teachings teach: "When people ask what the teachings are, we should use one's own mind to understand the Dharma well" He stated. "Most people are rather biased when it comes to scripture study" Drawing upon His characteristic good humour, His Holiness joked at one point with the Taiwanese translator, who struggled at one point to recall what His Holiness had just taught; laughing that this had once happened in a Tibetan meeting before. 'The previous year's minutes were requested during the meeting' His Holiness recalled, and the response by the official responsible was that he couldn't possibly read what had been written last year, sending the audience in the temple, including the Taiwanese guests, into peals of laughter. The Dalai Lama emphasised to the gathering the need to actually practice religion, not simply to attend temples or state one's beliefs with words. Drawing upon all religions and beliefs, His Holiness added: "If you carry out the will of God, you should be just and sincere".
Regarding faith, His Holiness stated: "Whenever you don't put in effort, your faith will not grow". Practice was the key to this, He said. Accumulating merit, purifying negativities and increasing these merits through rejoicing were three points that His Holiness re-iterated during the teachings. He also drew upon the theme of suffering, and the notion of cause and effect. "Understanding emptiness is very crucial to understanding destructive emotions" He affirmed. "What we have to understand is the root of existence". The final in the series of four days of teachings will continue on October 4th 2012 in the Main Temple; Dharamshala. A live webcast, followed by translations into Chinese, English and Russian languages is available on: http://dalailama.com/webcasts/post/255-lamp-for-the-path-to-enlightenment. Read More @ Source 
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| From The Under 35 Project: “Cushion and Apron — On Meditation and Waitressing” Posted: 05 Oct 2012 10:00 AM PDT
On a quiet night in the restaurant, I leaned on the servers' side of the kitchen window to let the heat from the lamp warm my face and hands, then flipped to a fresh page in my orderpad and scribbled. "Its hard to see the poetry in this anymore." Maybe it seems strange, but there have been times when observing the patterns of restaurants brought me some satisfaction. The nights when every table in my section ordered an ice tea and a lemonade, when every child requested an apple juice and every woman ordered the portabella and I wondered about the possibility of some underlying stream of universal human consciousness. There have been days when I served people their fries and beers and thought about desire and satisfaction and the temporary solace of food, watching it evaporate as the crumbs went cold. There have been moments when being invisible to the people I waited on made me privy to fascinating moments of human nature and tiny poems of society. Marital strife laid bare, eating disorders lurking under napkins, couples on dates that spoke nary a word, but spent all their time pushing buttons on their phones. Declarations of independence made over diet cokes and tears falling on ice cream sundaes. All I see lately is human smallness. All I hear is demands. All I witness is monotony. There isn't any poetry in my perspective, just tiredness. If my mind is active the boredom of waitressing becomes unbearable, so I spend the first three hours of my shift slowing my thoughts down, transitioning into worker bee mind, and the last five hours slogging, numb. I get home and sit on the couch at one am and wait for a creative thought to resurge, because it is the hour when they have always visited me, but things are numb. Which is a blessing, I guess, cause I am hungry for sleep these days. I took some time off work this past weekend. Let go of the three hundred or so I knew I'd make in cash from Friday dinner and Saturday lunch. Let go of worrying about my savings fund for my upcoming maternity leave. Folded up my apron. And went off to sit on a cushion. There were moments at the beginning when I pettily wished I'd skipped the meditation weekend and used the time off to do something less demanding. Watching movies, perhaps. Walking to the beach with my dog and my husband. Baking something sweet. Sleeping in in the morning. Moments when I thought about the way I try to empty my mind of thoughts at work so I can be a Good Waitress, and here I was seeking to quiet my mind on a cushion, when I could have been curled on the couch, sipping tea and trying to spark creative thought with a pen and a blank journal page. There were moments sitting there on the cushion, when I remembered vividly the physical pain of my last meditation weekend, when my shoulders rebelled at the sitting and knotted into a ball of sharp ache that took over all of my attention. But they were only moments. In between them, I found myself sitting in a new, open space. In that new, open space, my mind still ran wild. I thought about laundry, food, writing, love, and the tiny person living in my abdomen. I also paid attention to my body, and shifted my sitting position before the ache had a chance to settle in. I followed my breath. I followed the person in front of me during walking meditation, and I returned to the cushion to attend to my body, and follow my breath. I thought about thousands of things, inconsequential and pivotal, and labeled each item "Thinking." Liberated my gerbil-wheel mind from the responsibility of dealing with the pivotal things. Smiled at the democracy of Thinking, in which laundry and home-buying and croissants and parenthood and birds flying past are of equal significance. No matter how profound or inane or life-altering or petty the thought, it is only that: a thought. A construction of my habitual mind. I felt like I was following myself through a park laced with trails, and noticing the ones I favored every day, trails I stepped into without realizing I was choosing them. The meditation instructor talked about cocoons, the way we enfold ourselves in habit to protect ourselves from being fully present. How we keep our talents and our deepest kindnesses locked away inside those cocoons, because bringing them out honestly into the sunlight makes us vulnerable in the present moment, and we would just as soon save vulnerability for some other time. It occurred to me that waitressing is one of my cocoons. A safe place to make money without laying bare my desire to be creative professionally. There is no chance of failing at being a Writer if I forestall any chance of failure by never trying, by claiming "its impossible to make a living that way, and waitressing pays the bills." It's my smelly little refuge from the creative job market, a source of professional-level income that asks nothing of my intelligence. I claim to hate the way customers don't see the person behind the apron, but on some level, I crave that anonymity, because its much safer than writing something and sticking my name on it. Sunday afternoon, I left the meditation weekend early. Somewhere else, across the country, two football teams were going to duke it out for an athletic title, and I was needed at work 2 hours early to serve game-watchers massive plates of hotwings and pitchers of beer. I'd tried to get the shift covered, but no one was able, and so a week prior to the meditation workshop, I resigned myself to leaving the cushion prematurely, and picking up the order pad once more. Resigned myself to combining two activities I'd come to resent tremendously: waitressing and professional football. As the weekend neared though, I began to see the humor in my scheduling conflict. I could virtually hear long-gone Buddhist teachers chuckling at my predicament. I talked about my early departure, and my fears connected to it, with my meditation discussion group on Sunday morning. We all acknowledged how difficult it can be to take this quieter mind back into the big world, away from the safety and structure and respectful quiet of the meditation center. When the time came, I said goodbye to friends, and Ryan and I drove back to West Seattle. I put my apron on, and I waited on a group of perfectly kind people who were there to watch the game. Yes, they shouted and cheered. Yes, they demanded beers without always making eye contact, and asked me questions while leaning out to look around my body to see the television. When my anger surged, I noticed it. When I let it go, I noticed it going. Many people said please and thank you, and when I felt kind toward them, I noticed it. When the game ended, they left. My section emptied, and I cleaned up and went home. Nothing profound has changed in my life because I went to meditation. But I am practicing. On the cushion, and in the apron.
To see the rest of our Under 35 Project posts, click here. To read more and submit your own work, visit the project's website. Read More @ Source
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