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Precious Gems from Domo Geshe Rinpoche
The Newsletter of White Conch Dharma Center
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Spiritual Thankfulness
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Nov 20, 2008
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Special Teaching for this Issue
Although Rinpoche is now on sabbatical, she wrote this special teaching on Spiritual Thankfulness, especially for this issue of Precious Gems. Enjoy!
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Across White Conch
The students of White Conch in California invite everyone to join them in weekly meditation via conference call on Monday evenings.
Details are available here. Listen to Dharma Radio with Dolma (regional coordinator in California.) Dolma has a weekly radio show on Tuesday mornings in Occidental, CA. Now available streaming on the internet. Join White Conch on the first Sunday of every month for the practice of Ganden Lhagyama, The Hundred Deities of the Land of Joy. Via conference call. Next occurring on Dec 7. |
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Related teachings by Domo Geshe Rinpoche
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Remembering Thankfulness
Tonight
we have an interesting and timely discussion about thankfulness
because Thanksgiving is coming up in a couple of days. There are many
preparations that are being done for Thanksgiving. I took myself over
to Trader Joe's this afternoon along with about 10,000 other people. I tell
you, when I left Trader Joe's I could have sold my parking place for a
pretty good price. (Laughter) There was a certain maniac gleam in one
fellows eye when he realized he was actually going to get a parking
place.
Nov 17, 2005
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Remembering Spiritual Thankfulness
Spiritual
thankfulness is related to love. This important dynamic works between you, your
activities and abilities and how you interact with the world. Your personality
needs the nourishment of thankfulness in order to become the person that you
always hoped you were inside.
Thankfulness
is a skill or tool that is first experienced energetically. It's good to feel
it, but there's also something that happens between you and the world.
That feeling of thankfulness which you
experience before you reach out toward an object is powerful, it is strong. It
can fill you with cultivated emotion that is so big that you might cry from
thankfulness. It is so strong that you might not be able to contain all of that
energy, so the excess comes out in the form of tears.
Domo Geshe Rinpoche
Nov 20, 2008
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Remembering Spiritual Thankfulness
Selection 2
For the
purpose of your practice, thankfulness is one of the dynamics which you must
have in order to transform. It's part of a complex dynamic by which you will
make a breakthrough. The inner process is experiencing changes all of the time. The real
you inside, your actual being, is experiencing changes of its energetic being.
You are feeding your energetic actual being various kinds of data that it is responding to with anger or
nervousness or happiness. Whatever is happening, it's responding energetically.
You want to encourage a process that is so sophisticated that you can relax into high thinking.
Thankfulness
is high thinking because it opens you to new experiences. You cannot
micromanage the results of high thinking. You can't do enlightened thinking yet
because you can't reproduce something that you never experienced. The state
that comes in the second moment after the arisal of thankfulness, or other kinds
of high thinking, is a perceptual shift that is coming from your energetic
center, your actual being.
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Rinpoche on Sabbatical
Between now and the beginning of winter retreat, Rinpoche is on her annual sabbatical. There are no teaching scheduled, but many teachings are available for you to hear on the White Conch store. Rinpoche is available to her students via e-mail.
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 Create a respect and desire to experience Thankfulness
You want
to be close to that dynamic. It will cause you happiness, and it will keep you
safe from harm again and again and again.
If you
don't have the ability to experience thankfulness, you will not make the
necessary
breakthrough because you do not have an appreciator inside. Thankfulness is a
powerful sense of appreciation, which allows you to open in a sense of
wonderment. This experience has a sense of wonderment about it where you can't
believe that you're actually experiencing what you are experiencing. It's
almost a liquid state.
The sense
of wonderment that comes with thankfulness says, "I'm alive! Lift me up in to a
higher state of being. I am ready". The
practice of remembering thankfulness means that you're alive to wonderment and
awe. You did it when you were young and fresh. Then you become hard and crusty. Enlightened
beings and advanced meditators deliberately cultivate a sense of wonderment.
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Upcoming Events
 Vajrayogini Winter Retreat in New Mexico
December 27th, 2008 3PM - January 4th, 2009 3PM
at the Madonna Retreat Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Vajrayogini
is one of the most beloved and powerful Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism.
She embodies: (1) the fully enlightened female, wild, fiery, and
energetic aspect of a Buddha; (2) the wisdom aspect leading to
Buddhahood; and (3) the dakini, inspirational aspect leading the
practitioner to enlightenment. Vajrayogini's practice is said
to be well-suited to those with strong desirous attachment, and to
those living in the current "degenerate age".
Register here. Single Room or Double Room or Make a Deposit to hold your space. |
Be Thankful for the Wisdom of Others; Express your Thankfulness
Be
grateful for wisdom from others without competition or jealousy. Listen to
people - without wariness who is going to give you a hard time. Listen to
wisdom in others without feeling competitive. Instill
gratitude toward others by being a good listener. Wisdom listening bypasses
ordinary mind. Alive listening is alert. Listen hard and look for the
opportunity to express it.
Express thru words and action how you feel.
If you do
not express gratitude or thankfulness, karmically you are open to the
experience of suffering due to lack of gratitude and thankfulness at the
correct moment. You want to remedy that situation. The thankfulness wells up inside you so strongly.
During
this time when many families gather together, some families experience poor
dynamics. Just because everyone around you wants you to join them in their
stress, it does not follow that you should to make them comfortable. The
challenge meditators have in Tibetan Buddhism in general, is to develop a
repertoire of skills that are all elements that can be drawn upon and carefully
gathered at a certain stage that allows you to be the experiencer of a
breakthrough.
Thank
your heroes; in your quietude there is a method by which you can thank them
inside yourself. You're not saying thank you enough. You can say thank you now, and
that will cause an energetic closure of something that needed to be said. Turn
toward enlightened being. Like the sunflower, you turn toward the sun and be
alive.
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"I
want you to touch that spark of one who holds the state of
mind of thankfulness."
~ Domo Geshe Rinpoche ~
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The Dharma is Free
Unfortunately,
the programs of White Conch require ongoing funding. Please support
White Conch programs, including the important hospice project. We are
also establishing a scholarship fund for those whose financial
struggles make it difficult to attend retreats and trainings. White
Conch is a 501c3 organization, and all contributions are tax-deductible in the US.
Donations may be mailed to:
White Conch Dharma Center
PO Box 14372
West Allis, WI 53214
or donate online via credit card through PayPal.
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The
powerful messages of the dharma speak for themselves. Share the dharma
by forwarding these Precious Gems to your friends and family.
May there be a rain of dharma
Ngawang Thekchen
White Conch Dharma Center
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