Tsoknyi Rinpoche's Blog, page 5

Enlightened Courage: Chants of the Tsoknyi Nepal Nuns

Recorded in October of 2020 at Tsoknyi Gechak Ling  by the Tsoknyi Nepal Nuns

 

 

I. Audio Playlist

#1: Drupwang Gyangbö – Calling the Lord of Siddhis from Afar – A supplication to the Lama from the Tsoknyi Lineage

#2: Dusum Sangyè – Buddha of the Three Times – A supplication to Guru Rinpoche from the New Treasures of Chogyur Lingpa

#3: Tsogyal Gyangbö – Calling Yeshe Tsogyal from Afar – A supplication prayer to Yeshe Tsogyal

#4: Chö-zè Nyukma – Exhaustion of phenomena in the natural state – A supplication to the Lama and the Lineage from the Tsoknyi Lineage

#5: Sheng-shik Pema – Arise! Oh Lotus Born! – A descent of blessings practice

#6: Rikzin gin-beb – Descent of Blessings of the Awareness Holder

#7: Chöd – Ying zak-mè – Uncontaminated Basic Space – A Chöd Guru Yoga practice

#8: Tsok-lu – A Feast offering (Tsok) melody

#9: Tsok gur – A Feast offering (Tsok) song

#10: Chöd – Ah gè dang mi-gè – A Chöd prayer called – Unborn Ah – virtue and non-virtue

II. Audio Download

Click here to download all of the audio recordings in one file (100 MB)

 

HOW TO DOWNLOAD FILES

“Right click” on the links to direct them to download to your computer. When you begin to initiate a download, your web browser should give you the option of where you will save the file. Remember this location by writing it down because it is sometimes difficult to find after the fact. These files are compressed .zip folders containing MP3 files of Rinpoche’s teachings.
Once the .zip has downloaded to your computer, “double click” the .zip to trigger it to expand into a folder containing the MP3 files.
When you have expanded the .zip files into folders containing MP3 files, you may discard-trash-recycle the .zip files to free up space on your Hard Drive. The MP3 files can then be imported into iTunes, (etc.) for playback. iTunes also allows you to burn CD’s of the teachings from an MP3 file.
If you choose to burn CD’s from iTunes, be aware that an Audio CD will only contain up to 80 minutes of audio, and most of these talks are in excess of 90 minutes. If your CD player or car CD player supports MP3 CD’s, then you can burn as an MP3 CD and fit most of the teachings on one MP3 CD.
If you have problems with YouTube videos please email Doug Beechwood at the address directly below.
Please use Google Chrome to download these files. Safari may give you timeout errors for downloading.

 

 

After going through these steps and If you need additional help with downloading, payment or playback of these files, please email Doug Beechwood at: media@pundarika.org.

Drubchen 2020 Tsoknyi Gechak Ling Nuns

A beautiful video capturing the recent Drubchen with the Tsoknyi Gechak Ling nuns.

Compassion and Mercy as Common Values Between Islam and Buddhism

https://tsoknyirinpoche.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/10-2020-Tsoknyi-Rinpoche-Islam-Buddhist-Forum-2.mp4

Rinpoche asked that we share this short video of a talk he gave in Malaysia on Compassion and Mercy as Common Values Between Islam and Buddhism. The conference was organized by the Vajrayana Buddhist Council of Malaysia and took place on September 28, 2020. If you are interested in the whole program, you can go to
https://www.facebook.com/339188887615/videos/2908155755951503.

Khandro-la Performing Covid Puja

Khandro-la, Lama Zopa, Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Mingyur Rinpoche perform a fire puja to help with healing the Covid-19 crisis. Each substance offered along with prayers purifies different obstacles.

 

Mount Madonna 2020 Retreat Cancelled

Dear Friends,

Unfortunately, we need to cancel the Mount Madonna retreat on Renunciation, Compassion, and Devotion scheduled this December (2020) due to the uncertainties around the Covid-19 virus in California. Mount Madonna Center has indicated that it will be closed for the rest of this year. All of us at Pundarika are saddened by this turn of events and imagine all of you are as well.

Rinpoche will give shorter on-line teachings from August 21 to 27, 2020, from Kathmandu. We will provide more details by the end of July on our website as to how to access them.

We recently created a resources page with teachings and meditations by Rinpoche that is on the tsoknyirinpoche.org home page.

Also, the Membership library has many full retreats and guided meditations. https://tsoknyirinpoche.org/membership/

We will be processing refunds for the Mount Madonna retreat beginning July 20th. If you wish to donate (tax-deductible) tuition payments that you have made to help Rinpoche and his humanitarian projects, you can email our Registrar that this is your wish in the next week, by July 20th. After that date, we will process refunds and given the uncertainty around future dates, we will not transfer fees to a future retreat. If you have questions about your refund, please email Susan, our Registrar, at registrar@pundarika.org

Our warmest wishes,

The Pundarika Staff

Transformation of Buddhism in the Times of Mutual Interference Between East and West

Q:  I want to ask a few questions about this context of the transformation Buddhism is taking these days, because there is a lot of interference and mutual influence from West and East, back and forth. I hope this interview benefits many beings.  

So, you are frequently crossing borders between East and West, and I have heard that you are living in the US now.

Rinpoche: Definitely. Not full-time in the U.S., but coming and going.

What influence has the West had on you? And how has your own migration transformed you and the way you teach?

Rinpoche: Oh, many, many influences! Mainly insight . . . I’ll gain new insight from my students. Insight is insight. Truth is Truth. Wisdom is wisdom. I get wisdom from my teachers and from my own little practice. The combination, then, opens my eyes to many things: “Oooh, this is the way! That’s it!” Then I put these two things together, insight and wisdom, and try to help my friends and students. Seems like it is helping.

That does not mean that I’m creating and sharing a completely new Buddhism. No, it’s the same old Buddhism. But the authentic Buddhism – it can be relevant to all the ways and situations in the world.

Wisdom is wisdom, whether it is newly discovered or discovered in the old days. The time is different. But what is actually discovered, the actual insight, is the same.

What was the Buddhist essence you kept even though you had lots of influence from the West?

Rinpoche: The essence is love, compassion and openness and freedom.

Thank you.  And how c an we Westerners learn how to distinguish between the essence of Buddhism and the cultural aspects? Do we already have a clear enough judgment to take away some of the aspects which we feel are cultural influence and therefore an unnecessary burden?

Rinpoche: I don’t know from the student’s side, it will take time. But every time a religion or Dharma establishes itself in one country, then it will have some of the culture.  A way, a method, part of the Dharma will be adopted from that culture. Now Dharma is already in the West for almost 50 or 60 years, and it is already adapting to this new culture. It is a new Buddhist culture. So I am not worried, it will change. Those aspects are changeable, they should change. But the core teaching is not a culture, like some kind of Buddhist culture. It is actual fact and truth. And that is everywhere, beyond culture. But sometimes the old culture may be helpful for a while. So why not maintain that?

But many people like to do away with it quite quickly in the West, that`s why I ask that question.

Rinpoche: Well, if they find wisdom and compassion without the culture, then why not?

Do you see a responsibility for Westerners to keep the authenticity of the Dharma in the West?

Rinpoche: Of course, yes, definitely! That will evolve, eventually, from a combination of their practice and their experiences and working with good teachers. The depth of study and realization, and that authenticity will be born out of those and will remain. And then this will become attractive, they will become very attractive because dharma is a jewel. Everyone likes a jewel!

Yeah, it is true. So, in which way do Asian practitioners still impress you, and what could we in the West learn from them, as they have different qualities than us?

Rinpoche: Right. There is innermost flexibility, adaptability. They have a lack of reifying, solidifying everything, but enough to function. They have that.

But sometimes, of course, the modernization comes and then it changes a little bit. But the pure Asian environment has some Dharma, it’s already been practiced. They have this balance. They are happy, but not over-the-top kind of happy. Their happiness has essence love; it is grounded and has some appreciation. And they are not that aggressive, to get or become something. It’s kind of beautiful, like a flower; without any purpose, just blooming. I  see that – not only in Asian Buddhists, I mean mountain people can have that. They are just living simply, not chasing something – and then with that the Dharma comes, and Dharma gives you some purpose and together with that, it is quite healthy.

Very good, thank you.

Many  practices,  like reciting long texts,  stem from monastic traditions in Asia, which we often feel are not really fitting here, or we have problems adapting to that.  How do you see the future of these forms of practice in the West and also long-term for the east?

Rinpoche: I think the elaborate forms, like elaborate chanting, will diminish, will be practiced less and less. And I think it will go back to the old Indian style. There’s just a few yidams, one or two deities, and then we connect with that and then chant a mantra. And a little bit of a short sadhana, and the sadhana is just a reminder for meditation. I think that will remain because mantra has power. It’s not culture only.

So this part I want to make clear: many people think mantra is a culture, but it is not a culture. It has its own unique power. So if you really practice Dharma in the Vajrayana way, sooner or later you will appreciate mantra. The power of mantra will have an effect on your practice.

Many of my students didn’t chant for many years. Then they started to study more and more about deity practice. The reason is that they actually like to chant. And they see, ooh, not the complex ones, but short sadhanas and mantras and the authentic way of visualization keeps them in the atmosphere of practice – with some reference point and then the referenceless.

Relative practice along with ultimate practice. So there is a better balance. Otherwise, if we just keep practicing Shamatha, Vipashyana and Dzogchen without any mantra, we can feel dry. Just like not much blessing. We need blessings. Blessing is not a culture. And pure mantra is not a culture. The core of mantra is part of the Mantrayana. not Indian culture, not Tibetan culture, not Chinese culture.

And the mantra is also emptiness. Emptiness also appears as mantras. Sounds are like empty forms.

Yes, all traditions have Mantra.  In the German Buddhist Union,  there are 67 different charities and they originally stem from all countries in the East. In a way, I see this German Buddhist Union with so many different practitioners from Theravada and all the traditions together trying to work out what the essence of Buddhism is, as a kind of a new Rime in the West.

Rinpoche: That is easy. The essence is easy: love, compassion, and peace. But then how you develop those qualities…we have all these different methods.

But also the Four Seals, Four Truths and all this we see as the essence. Rinpoche: But if you want to bring all the methods together as one package, then you will not come together. But around the core, you can come together.

But to develop that core, that essential value, there are different methods. Let them grow by themselves. When they come down like a mantra, it’s a particular way of developing. But if you try to bring mantra into another one of the methods, one of the other forms of wisdom, then it can be a problem. Mantra is one of the ways to develop pure perception and clarity, and change our karmic perception. And there is where you can meet with other traditions. Ooh, karmic perception! Then they can understand what we are doing with mantra.

How to purify karmic perception? There is the Vipashyana way, Mantrayana way, Dzogchen way, Zen way, Theravadan way – there are these differences.

In your book “ Heiter und gelassen…,” [Open Heart, Open Mind] you obviously used methods from therapy. Other Buddhist teachers say:  Therapy and Buddhism don`t go together. But with you, it seems to go together very well. Even though therapy in Western psychotherapy wants to build the ego and make it strong. But in Buddhism, the ego should be dissolved. So how does your method bring them together?

Rinpoche: Right. As I  mentioned today, there is relative truth and ultimate truth. Relative truth can have distortion, we call that the distorted relative. And we have to bring that distorted relative to a healthy state. And so we need therapy – Buddhist flavored therapy or normal therapy, to make the distorted relative healthy. Otherwise, if you bring Buddhist methods to the distorted relative, you can mess things up. You can destroy their life, actually. You can destroy someone’s life. So it can be better to not give any Buddhist practice. This can be better.

But also, we cannot say, “Oh no, I  am not going to give you any Buddhism,” that is also not nice. It is unkind. You have to be kind to everyone. Whoever wants to practice Dharma, they should get something. “Oh no, you are not healthy, so I’m not going to give you any Dharma practice”– that is not kind. So you give something. You make them healthy. You can give handshake practice with discernment: “Oh, how much of this issue is mine? How much is out there? What is the monster here? The monster is not me! It is just my leftover imprint, and I’m suffering from that. Something happened in my learned habitual patterns.” So we can hug those issues. And there we use the Buddhist methods. We understand by the methods of modern therapy, but wherever we transform, we use a Buddhist method. This is what I’m doing – mixing, mixing together.

The description from therapy can be very accurate. It is about learned habitual patterns. We usually only talk about karmic habitual patterns. But there are also learned habitual patterns from childhood until now. It obviously affects us. In Tibetan Buddhism, we call these “conditions.” We talk about causes and conditions. Causes come from past lives, conditions from this life. But we often don’t especially work with our learned habitual patterns.

We want to not learn, unlearn habitual patterns, isn`t it? Get rid of the patterns?

Rinpoche: The patterns are the learned habitual patterns, we learn them from childhood. Some habitual patterns are healthy, some are not healthy. The work of therapy is to make the unhealthy ones healthy. It’s the same for Buddhism.

So could Buddhism as a whole be seen as the ultimate therapy?

Rinpoche: I don`t want to give that kind of name, you know. We all work together.

You have a general message for Western Buddhists?

Rinpoche: Oh, just always … find essence love, our inner well-being. Find basic okay-ness. In the subtle body, in the feeling world. Not in the head. Bring Dharma into the feeling world. We are too much in our heads.

In the West we are educated to question authorities and to have a critical mind towards certain powers. And in a way, we seem to have lost a positive view of authority. So what would be a modern teacher-student relationship?

Rinpoche: I think it is to ask questions. If the student is sincere, and if the teacher is good, then you can ask any question. There should not be any problem with asking questions. And then, the teacher has a right to answer or not. Everyone has their own rights. Students have their rights. And traditionally also, students can check the teacher for nine years. But nowadays we don’t have time for that much checking.

And some didn’t know that. They immediately grab a teacher.

Rinpoche: Some didn’t know that. I mean, if you go through the old tradition, students checked teachers for nine years, and the teachers checked the students for nine or twelve years! Of course, we don’t follow all of that right now. But if it is a good teacher, we can ask them any question, and they are fine with that.

Great, Thank you very much, Rinpoche, thank you.

Samagaon, Nepal: Birthplace of Tsoknyi Rinpoche

The film includes beautiful footage taken in Rinpoche’s childhood village of Samagaon in the Nubri region of Nepal and highlights the life of women and the grinding poverty they experience.  This is where most of the Tsoknyi Nuns are from who arrive at Tsoknyi Gechak Ling. The family photo is of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Mayum-la, and Tsokyi Rinpoche and Mingyur Rinpoche.
 
The link to the film is here on YouTube:  https://youtu.be/j081VwwRyLg

 

Resources for Challenging Times

Dear Friends,

Tsoknyi Rinpoche and the Pundarika Foundation are offering several online dharma resources during this difficult time. Here is a list of our offerings:

Fully Being Online Course: free three-month subscription for those who are not already enrolled in the course.  Sign-up for this three-month free subscription ends July 15, 2020.
Forty-three short Video Teachings by Tsoknyi Rinpoche
A selection of Guided Meditations
A video of Rinpoche’s last retreat in the U.S at Garrison Institute:  When Confusion Dawns as Wisdom
Loving Kindness Guided Meditation by Sharon Salzberg

We hope these teachings and meditations are beneficial for you and your loved ones.

Rinpoche and the nuns at his various nunneries continue to practice and perform prayer rituals for all of us dharma brothers and sisters throughout the world, as well as all those suffering because of the coronavirus.

Please add your practice and dedication prayers.

With love,

Pundarika Staff (U.S.)

 

Crestone August Retreats Canceled

Both Crestone retreats scheduled for this coming August have been canceled due to the uncertainties around the Covid-19 virus. Rinpoche will give a shorter on-line teaching in August from Kathmandu. More details will be added to our website and announced on Facebook as they develop.

Crestone August Retreats Cancel

Both Crestone retreats scheduled for this coming August have been canceled due to the uncertainties around the Covid-19 virus. Rinpoche will give a shorter on-line teaching in August from Kathmandu. More details will be added to our website and announced on Facebook as they develop.