I love Vermont.

To me, it’s always been a magical place since I first went there in January 1974 to hear Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche speak on Zen and Tantra at what was then known as Tail of the Tiger land centre (now part of beautiful Karme Choling).

I travelled there again on September 02, 2011 for six days to participate in a retreat around Tibetan King Gesar of Ling lead by His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rabjam Rinpoche. On Tuesday, September 06, His Eminence gave about eight of us an interview — arranged for us by his student Gary Mass — that lasted for one hour!

We were invited to ask one question each. In this situation most of us ask questions around the dharma teachings.

This webpost is around the simple yet profound personal question asked by Shambhala Buddhist student Leslie Witt from Vermont: how do you see the world? This is what I remembered the next day of His Eminence’s answer — PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT NECESSARILY WHAT HE ACTUALLY SAID.

Highly realized persons have thoughts and emotions like everyone else. The difference is that they do not follow those thoughts. And because they don’t follow the thoughts, they do not engage in liking or aversion. So they they do not perpetuate negative karma of the three poisons.

As my weblog is around an in-depth exploration of karma, I appreciated this simple yet very profound description.

As I sat writing this post at the computer in the dining room at Karme-Choling, one of the programme participants suggested I speak to the translator, Vanessa Turner from Los Angeles, to get her recall. (Vanessa tells me that she has been speaking and translating for a number of years for her Tibetan teachers, one of whom is His Eminence, since she was 16.)

I hit the jackpot! This wonderful translator remembered what His Eminence said almost verbatim. [Please note that words in {   } are mine.] Here it is, unedited so that the reader can get the full flavour of His Eminence’s answer:

I’m really just the same as you.  I too have thoughts and emotions just like you do. But the difference between you guys and myself is that I have thoughts but I recognize the thoughts {as thoughts} and I don’t follow after the thoughts. Actually this is the fundamental difference bewteen ordinary people and lamas. Both of them have thoughts and emotions. The process of thoughts and emotions arising is the same for ordinary people as it is for lamas. The difference is that ordinary people follow after the thoughts and get caught up in them whereas lamas recognize the arising of the thoughts and do not follow after them. (He thinks for a moment.)

When I was young, I remember finding this uncontrived, spontaneous deep level of compassion that was like this feeling of compassion for all sentient beings that was not constructed or forced. It was like something that is always innately there.

I know all sentient beings. I know the way in which they are confused and lost in samsara {the world of confusion created by ego, our manufactured self} and when I see sentient beings lost in their confusion and out of that confusion engaging in creating more negative karma because of their attachment and aversion and ignorance, I genuinely feel just a sense of loving care for all of them. I really feel for them. It’s like they can’t help it. They’re confused. I see it. I see how they create suffering for themselves. I feel so much love and caring for them. So there is this feeling, this compassion, where it’s like I can see that the sentient beings and the nature of their confusion but I myself do not follow after that confusion. But I can see it!

And also some lamas who have really high level of realization they actually don’t see impurity anywhere at all. They don’t see impure sentient beings. They see only deities {wisdom beings}. They see only the display of the deity mandala. Everything that appears to them appears as the expression of wisdom as a display of the deity. Everything they hear (all sounds) arise to them as the sound of mantra. But to have that kind of view one would have to be really high level of realization.

However, I will say that when we are all gathered together in puja and sometime I just look out at all of you and I only see your goodness. It’s like I look at you all and I don’t see any faults in anyone. When we are in the puja together, all of you are wholly good. So maybe that is some reflection of a pure view because really don’t actually see any flaws in you when we are together in the puja. For lamas of really high realization everyone appears as the deity {wisdom being} and anyway I too have thoughts but I recognize the thought.  Recognizing the thought I do not follow after it. Or become entrenched in it.

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Event:       State funeral for the Honourable Jack Layton,
             leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition

Date:        Saturday, August 27, 2011

Jack  was always an innovator, a creator, often ahead of his time, as the expression goes. Click here for summary of career.

But he outdoes himself on August 27, 2011 when he uses his own funeral as the setting for his last political campaign!

Let’s go back a bit.

May 02, 2011 Canadian Federal Election: Jack, 61 year-old leader of the federal New Democratic Party, had just brought his party to its highest political status in its history on the federal level: he won enough seats to become Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.

August 22, 2011 – 04h45: Jack dies from cancer. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, understanding the great affection Canadians have for Jack,  regardless of their political affiliations, announces that Jack will be given a state funeral — most unusual because state funerals are given if a former prime minister or cabinet minister dies. Jack has been neither.

August 22 – 26, 2011: Tributes to Jack come from some of the many people he worked with and knew over his lifetime. The one I like is given by Robin Sears who makes a point that no one else I am hearing has made:  how Jack evolved as a politician. The concepts of evolution and transformation appeal to me. And that was my experience of Jack. When I first met him in the 1980s he seemed defensive and somewhat aggressive. Now he has the stature of a bodhisattva, those who serve others out of compassion without thought of what one can get for oneself.

August 27, 2011: The day of the funeral. Only 600 members of the public were allowed into Roy Thomson Hall for this event. There are 1,700 invited guests including the Prime Minister, other elected officials including mayors and cabinet ministers etc. etc. etc. I managed to be one of the 600.

Here are a few of my off-the-cuff notes from this past week of mourning and grief:

• The media reports describe Jack as “lying in repose” in his casket — I think to myself that it probably is the only time that Jack lay in repose in this lifetime!  He was constantly working on behalf of others.

• Jack was a wonderful example of a great Shambhala (Tibetan) Buddhist warrior — warrior in the sense of courage, not aggression and hatred. His compassion fueled his courage. The Tibetan name for Great Warrior is Pamo Chenmo.
• We cannot become a genuine warrior until out heart is broken. Jack’s heart was broken by the suffering in the world.  He truly manifested the genuine heart of sadness of the warrior. Juxtaposed with this sadness was his boundless uplifted spirit of optimism and hope.
  

• Jack for me embodied some of the qualities of the Great Eastern Sun — the sun shines on everyone. It does not distinguish between old, young, fat, thin, rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, etc. etc. etc. Jack helped everyone who came to him.

• Jack often spoken of as “passionate” about his beliefs, described as social democratic. Yes, he was passionate, but not fanatically fixated or obsessed.

• Jack as a loving warrior – I like this phrase because of the juxtaposition of two apparently opposite ideas: “loving” and “warrior.”

• Jack-in-the-box  —his body is in his coffin now, but Jack was someone who could think outside the box.

• I hear people says it’s “unfair” that he died at this time. I don’t think Jack lived his life in terms of these kinds of dichotomies, e.g. fair\unfair.  To me, Jack lived in the gap between all the dualistic, polar opposites by which we conventionally live and judge others. Again, some examples are stupid\intelligent; nobody\somebody; and the biggest one being the us-and-them dichotomy; etc. etc.

• Jack’s “political” message transcended politics and spoke to basic goodness  (Quebecers call Jack “Le Bon Jacques”)

• Great teachers — whether they manifest as politicians, doctors, whatever — sometimes leave this life relatively early….we now have to stand on our own.

• I hear people say “I never met Jack but….”  I think to myself “Yes you did. You meet Jack anytime you see someone taking time to help someone in a practical way. He did not tell people that it wasn’t “convenient” for him and maybe if he had time he’d get back to them. No. He just helped them. On the spot.

• Jack, despite his personal and political stature, provided the courtesies of everyday life to everyone he met. To me, these simple courtesies create peace.

• There’s a phrase in one of our Shambhala Buddhist chants that talks about becoming “gentle and tough” (page 3 of 4). To me, that was Jack.

Dear Jack,

Just a few last thoughts…….

I’ll bet you are making your journey through the after-death  bardo on your bicycle! That is fitting,  as you promoted the option of riding our bikes rather than riding the transit rails or driving our cars in the city of Toronto long before anyone else.

You’ll always be on my ballot whenever there’s an election.

Well done, our good and faithful servant.

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Around 1969 Dad sold the family business that his grandfather had started several decades earlier. And at the age of 50 Dad began to sell commercial real estate.

He won numerous awards year after year as top salesman in his company. How? He told me his “secret” — he sold without selling.

The young salespeople in the company always tried to make a quick sale. I didn’t. I spent a lot of time with the clients to assess what their needs were.

It sounded very Shambhalian to me.

Mum and my sister and I clincked glasses in a toast of gratitude to Dad.

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Every year the students of the Sakyong [Earth Protector] Mipham Rinpoche gather in their respective shrinerooms to hear his address through an onlinehook-up, which includes centres and groups from six continents and over thirty countries around the world .

But this year is even more special because Rinpoche [the Precious One] has just completed a year-long retreat.

As the Sakyong enters the shrineroom in Boulder, Colorado, 8,000 students stand up in their respective shrinerooms from Argentina to the United Kingdom. The bagpipes are played. Rose petals are tossed into the air.

The Sakyong takes his seat.

He looks well. As sangha member Madeline Conacher said in an e-mail message to me “Did the Sakyong not look radiant and peaceful!”

He begins his address:

“I’m back. I’m rested. I love you all. …..That’s it!”

(I’m reminded of Julius Ceasar’s Veni. Vidi. Vici. I came. I saw. I conquered. I note that both Julius Ceasar and The Sakyong are warriors. But that’s where the similarity ends: The Sakyong is a warrior without aggression.)

Laughter, some of it nervous.

That’s it? That’s all he’s got to say? After one year’s absence?

As it turns out, not quite.

Here follows a few points from my notes of his address to his students.The theme, in my view, can best be described in the following words:

The time has come. The time is now. Just go. Go. GO! <source: Dr. Seuss: Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now, 1972>

• We now have a real community.
• We all have the ability to be awake and to live up to our potential.
• Unless we acknowledge our own basic goodness, we have no future.
• If humanity does not look inward and find basic goodness, the future is bleak indeed.
• Our lives are an unfolding of how we feel about ourselves.
• We didn’t “sign up” for a global initiative. We think it’s about “me.” But we discover that it’s about the entire planet. It’s a choiceless situation in a good way.
• Creating enlightened society is based on the notion that humanity is good.
• Part of the notion of enlightened society is being with other people, in communities. Look people in the eye.
  
• We must examine what our intentions are around how each of us can contribute to the creation of enlightened society.
• Somebody is going to make decisions that create our future.  If we allow negativity to continue to grow, there’s a whole generation who will feel cheated.
• We must recognize the basic nature of mind (basic goodnesss). this will lead to generosity. Otherwise, we are just materialists.
• There should not be any split between the spiritual aspects of our lives and how we live our everyday lives.
• Creating enlightened society sounds like an impossible mission. We are doing something that hasn’t been done before. We’re in the profession of making what is impossible, possible.
• At the heart level it all comes down to one person being brave. This then spreads to others.
• It takes one person deciding that a moment of love and compassion is better than a moment of anger.
• When will we jump in and go deep?

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We are encouraged not to resist change by living in our cocoons and clinging to our own little lives caught in the vice of self-cherishing.

Join with others! Form communities so that we can be alone together and work for healthy changes. Just as we cannot find happiness in some external circumstance outside of ourselves, we cannot depend on others to “lead” us. We are our own leader!

Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
…….
…….

At this time in history,
we are to take nothing personally,
least of all ourselves,
for the moment that we do,
our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves.
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done
in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

<source: paragraph of a speech given by a Hopi elder in Oraibi, Arizona to the Hopi Nation circa October 28, 2001>

Here are two more calls to action from The Sakyong (Earth Protector) Mipham Rinpoche:

Especially recently, we have seen a series of natural and manmade disasters. It is as if the earth is asking us to be kind to each other and to itself. Now, more than any other time in history, the fate of our own planet is in our hands. (Sakyong Mipham, Rinpoche, letter to sangha, June 28, 2010)

……….

“If we expect somebody else to create peace in the world, we’re going to be waiting for a long time. We’ll become even more angry or anxious, because our unmet expectations will bring frustration, disappointment, and inevitably, more instability. But if we can stabilize our motivation and learn to cultivate peace and compassion, our willingness to take responsibility for changing the environment will inspire many others.”

© 2005 by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, from his address to the Sit for Change Meditation Marathon 2005. This excerpt first appeared in The Shambhala Sun.

We are the one’s we’ve been waiting for. We can change the karmic stream of our planet. Indeed, we will have to. Why? Because we are beyond the proverbial Eleventh Hour.

You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour. <source: section of a speech given by a Hopi elder in Oraibi, Arizona to the Hopi Nation circa October 28, 2001>

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Friends who’ve been in bad car accidents tell me that “everything stopped” while the car rolled over and over. They experienced NOW, a kind of stunned constancy (term from the Ocean of Definitive Meaning).

Another term for NOW is “the fourth moment,” the other three being past, present and future.

The past is all of the things that have already happened and no longer exist.  The future is all of the things that have not yet happened and don’t yet exist.  The NOW is like the edge of a razor blade: so short and so sharp that there is no time for anything to exist in a substantial way.  We see that there is no time, and no substance, only clarity-emptiness, the nature of mind. <source: e-mail from Shambhala Buddhist student sent March 18, 2008>

My New Year’s Resolution is to be in the NOW as much as possible. My question is:  how can I do that without nearly being killed?

Here’s what happened exactly three years ago today.

On Feb 05’08  I finished ten days of reciting what is called Pacifying the Turmoil of the Mamos designed to clear up any negativity that accumulates at year’s end before heading into the Tibetan New Year that would be celebrated on Feb 07’08.

On Feb 06, 2008, 14h00 — exactly three years ago today — I was at the corner of The Esplanade and Jarvis streets near the St. Lawrence Market in
Toronto……and narrowly escaped being killed. What a “wake-up” call!

Around 14h10 this afternoon, had been to the library + borrowed the Life section of the Toronto Star newspaper re The Year of the Rat….. Then shop a bit at St. Lawrence Market. Walk to the NW corner of Jarvis + The Esplanade. Then cross to the SW corner.

Press the button to signal that I want to cross over to the SE corner.

Before the light turns green, I notice that a huge passing truck traveling south towards the lake was making a lot of noise. Much more noise than usual. And the quality of the noise was different.

Then the traffic light turned green + I began to cross Jarvis Street.

I then experience another kind of state of consciousness. In a flash, I see a multitude of yellow metal objects on the street + think, “maybe that’s what is making the noise; maybe the truck was dragging those objects behind it intentionally.”

In the next instant, I am hit on the lower legs and right eye by some of these metal objects + try to keep my balance as I began to fall . I end up a couple yards north of where I had been initially standing.

The driver of the truck apologizes to me very sincerely. But I am more concerned about him because he has to pick up all the metal on the street that had fallen off his truck!

A woman approaches me + says that I was almost killed.

I am surprised. I hadn’t realized that.

“Oh yes,” she says. ”If you had been a few inches further on the road, the metal objects would have fallen on you.”

Hmmmmm.

MY NOTES ON CONTEMPLATING THE NEAR FATAL ACCIDENT:

• For a nano-second I was completely in the NOW. The closest I can come to describing something that cannot be described is that there is no thought. Just pure awareness. Not awareness of anything. Just awareness.
• It makes you realize how close death is to us. I recalled Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s statement that dying was easier than changing your clothes.
• my thought just preceding the glimpse of NOW — during the incident described above — that “maybe the truck was dragging those objects behind it intentionally” = of course, there’s no way a truck could do that in a city. They should have been tied down on the flatbed truck.  It just didn’t occur to me that the objects had fallen off the truck.
• Ironically, Dön Season had ended yesterday, February 05’08, at 23h59. Today there has been a beautiful snow storm. (“Dons refer to sudden attacks of depression, resentment, anger, or other negative emotions — like an unpredictable flu that takes us over. In the last 10 days before the Tibetan Buddhist New Year, it is said that one can be more susceptible to dons….” source: Shambhala Online)
• In the early morning of Feb 06’08 I dreamt that I was looking in a telephone book to try to find out where my son was living. I looked in the white pages and on the extreme right of the left hand page I saw “429.” I don’t remember if there was a street name.

“429” = 15/6. So I looked up the reading in my book about the inner meaning of numbers that the great mathematician Pythagoras taught to some of his students. The reading for 15/6 is mainly about changing some of my views. This is timely as it is the Tibetan New Year tomorrow.

• This incident demonstrates how timing and choices — and the
  volitional action that arises from these choices and produces
  karma — is vitally important,  e.g. 
  • if I had been any closer to the curb on the southwest corner I probably would have been killed or at least severely injured because I would have been much more moved around by the fast-moving metal objects.
  • If I hadn’t crossed from the NW to the SW corner — but taken my usual route of crossing from the NW corner to the NE corner,  I wouldn’t have been in the way of the metal sheets that fell off the truck.
  • I usually like to be home by 14h00 to watch the two-hour programme re babies, but I wasn’t today. But if I had kept to my usual schedule, I would have missed being nearly killed by the metal sheets of the truck.

In contrast to this process around timing and choices, being in the NOW prevents the accumulation of karmic effects. How? There are two components in the creation of a karmic effect: the emotion (klesha) and the action (karma). Being in the NOW prevents us for grasping to emotion. Emotions can lead to action which create karma.

But more than this, the NOW is all we have.

The cells of our body are dying, the neurons in our brain are decaying, even the expressions on our face are always changing, depending on our mood. What we call our basic character is only a “mindstream,” nothing more. Today we feel good because things are going well; tomorrow we feel the opposite. Where did that good feeling go?

What could be more unpredictable than our thoughts and emotions: Do you have any idea what you are going to think or feel next? The mind, in fact, is as empty, as impermanent, and as transient as a dream. Look at a thought: It comes, it stays, and it goes. The past is past, the future not yet risen, and even the present thought, as we experience it, becomes the past.

The only thing we really have is nowness, is now.

<source: Rigpa Glimpse of the Day, February 06, 2011>

Update: Tuesday – April 14’09

At one point just after I had been hit by the truck, a kaleidoscope flashed in my mind – the colours were orange, yellow + white. Today I read the following:

The self is not made of any substance at all: it is just a kaleidoscopic display of empty imagery, intangible, like a dream <source: Karr, Andy: Contemplating Reality: A Practitioner’s Guide to the View in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism (p. 38) 2007 ed.>

It is now Saturday, January 01’11, New Year’s Day. My New Year’s resolution is this: being in the NOW as often as possible without nearly having to be killed!

Two Sources:

Beyong Present, Past, and Future is The Fourth Moment - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Eckart Tolle: The Power of Now

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The doctor says my son has to have his tonsils out.

Every night for one month I read a book to him that takes a child step-by-step through the process of what happens when the child enters the hospital for the operation. I hope that this information will calm his fears.

When my son is rolled through the hall on a gurney towards the operating room, he says to me “I not only love you. I like you.”

Even 36 years later, I am struck by the wisdom in this remark.

But what does it mean?

We talk about love a lot. But this remark suggests that somehow you might love someone, but not necessarily like them!

In order to gain some clarity, I did a contemplation exercise on loving and liking.  (Instructions for how to contemplate are provided in Appendix C,  Turning the Mind Into An Ally by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche)>

Here’s what arose for me:

Genuuine love involves surrender of ego, overcoming duality. It goes a long way towards undercutting any negative karma that we might have accumulated.

Love is a state of mind without a centre or a self. ……It is free of aggression… This sort of open door policy is generosity. Of course, this is scary from a certain point of view…The ego devotes all of its time and energy to keeping the door shut. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Love’s power is so great that:

If you can love the sangha {group of practitioners}, you’ll be halfway to enlightenment. (source: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Harvest of Peace address, September 2007)

And:

‘Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love.’ Nagarjuna

For me, the general meaning of love is to wish every person happpiness and well-being regardless of how I feel about them personally.

But liking? Perhaps my four-year-old son meant that he loved me because I am in the role of his mother. But beyond that, he also liked me as a person!

I don’t really know. I remember thinking at the time:  “If I ever meet someone who feels that way about me, I’ll marry him.”

I never did.

Not surprising, as marriage and “romantic” relationships are not part of my karmic stream. At least, not in this lifetime……and that’s OK with me.

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Even if you do not believe in reincarnation, live as if you do!

Why?

Your perspective gets much larger. More spacious. Less crowded. It’s easier to sort out what is important and what can wait.

On a light note, there’s also what I call the “just-in-case” principle: live as if you believe, just in case you find out that it is true when you die…..

My son pointed out some specifics of the benefits of acting as if we believe in reincarnation:

1. We have a larger perspective. We realize we don’t need to dwell so much on things have are happening or have happened in our lives. We’re working on a much larger scale.
2. There’s a long-term meaning to our lives, rather than the “It-doesn’t-matter-what-I-do-in-my-life-because-nothing-matters-anyway” attitude.
   
3. If we’re very materialistic, acting as if we believe in reincarnation helps us to shift our focus to the spiritual dimension of life.
4. The belief in past lives helps us to make sense of what happens in this lifetime in a much deeper way.

Post Script: you might find a transcript of Suzuki Roshi’s comments interesting – please click here and scroll about half-way down the page.

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Nonetheless, we can make use of the ultimate plane in problem-solving.

How?

You’ve probably heard of the movie Room With a View. I’d like to propose that we can problem-solve more skillfully if we have a life with a view!

Before going any further, how do we usually problem-solve? No matter what way we choose, there is duality. There is always “me” at the centre. It’s “me-and-my-problem.” “Me-and-the-situation.” “Me-and-the-other-person.”

Example: I try to understand how I can work with a co-worker-from-hell! I think about the specific work situation; the larger work situation of the organization altogether; the roles of the other employees; the psychological components that may be coming into play etc. etc. etc.

I am not dismissing the myriad approaches that are offered in the thousands of books, DVD’s, personal training programmes etc. that are available to us today.

I’m offering an add-on. A view that differs from all other views.

And what is this view? It’s known as emptiness, which has nothing to do with nihilsim. You could call it the view that goes beyond all views.

Whenever I’m in any situation in my life, I try to flash on\touch in with this view. It helps me to let go. It somehow puts “my problem” into a more spacious perspective, allowing me to get out of the suffocating cocoon of habitual patterns that “me-and-my problem” have created. We connect with the mind of the Dragon.

It’s the constant interplay between the two that allows the situation itself to offer a “solution.” The “problem” doesn’t necessarily vanish. But things become more workable on a daily basis. After all, magic happens when one sees beyond the duality of the mundane world, when we close the gap between “self” and “other.”

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Whenever I write about kindness, generosity, compassion etc., someone will ask me “Before we help someone, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves if the person deserves\is worthy of our help, generosity and kindness”?

Here’s what the Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche (SMR) tells his students in response to the view — (that our help should be conditional) that underlies that question:

Especially I think these days it is a sense very much of materialistic culture where everything is appealing to our sense of satisfaction and us wanting. And often when we need to give we become uncomfortable. We might actually feel like whoever we’re giving to is not worthy….. Being kind to another person doesn’t necessarily mean, or be determined by, the action of the other person. It’s just that kindness is appropriate. In fact, the more the other person is suffering or irritating, in a sense, the more kind and compassionate we should be. <source: from Seminary at Shambhala Mountain Centre, Colorado, July 17, 2010>

In short, while we usually practice conditional (“what-can-I-get-out-of-this”) kindness, we can now practice unconditional kindness. And while we might feel uncomfortable at first, we get to like it!

The benefits of practicing unconditional generosity:

• the mind becomes happier, less claustrophic, enoyable for everyone; and
• we create “tremendous merit and benefit personally for our own personal lives, as well as for the community…and the world as a whole” (SMR) because our intention is pure, not bound by ego.
• we are open to receive; if we are open to receive, then we grow.

There is no better reality than the one we live in – where a good heart can be realized. – Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche

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