|
|
|
|
Precious Gems from Domo Geshe Rinpoche
Extracts from our First Four Issues
|
|
As
October comes to an end and November begins, the autumn leaves here in
Wisconsin are at their peak of color and will soon be fading. We have
wonderful thoughts of the many powerful teachings we received from
Rinpoche. We are pleased to share a selection of one of the first
teachings from this fall series. The seasons change, and we want to
welcome our own changes as we move towards enlightenment. This is a
joyous and beautiful time!
During her September visit to New Mexico, Rinpoche was interviewed by
Carly Newfeld for Goddess radio, which will air Thanksgiving weekend.
We have a copy of the recording. Listen to this delightful and powerful interview, which is linked from the White Conch home page.
In preparation for this, we are adding some audio and video teachings
by Rinpoche linked from the main home page. Check back throughout the
week, listen and become re-inspired by the dharma!
Click on links to order the teachings extracted in Precious Gems.
|
|
|
|
Nov 1, 2007
These
feelings of not feeling alive can be coming to you for several reasons.
One of them could be temporary, as in the case of practitioners. I'm
wearing my chogu, which is a symbol of the teachings, which means that
somewhere along here we want to be discussing inner development. So the
most important aspect of this is talking about the temporary not
feeling alive that practitioners all go through.
Who
has had times when they don't feel alive? That is because you are
changing into another paradigm of being alive. There is an inner
energetic period where you cannot be alive in inner development and
still maintain the kind of feeling or perception of what you always thought you were. That change doesn't occur by adding knowledge. In fact, change occurs by change.
You
cannot both change and feel the same (laughter). You want to change?
What is it that you want? Do you want to change or do you want to stay
the same? If you change, you're going to feel different. And if your
model of feeling alive does not have a flexible component, then you
will always think, That's what alive really is. This dysfunctional model of who I was 5 years ago "that was alive."
"I
don't know who I am now." This is what meditators think! All
practitioners should have a great sense of humor about identity.
Your
sense of identity is based upon a fantasy projection very often having
to do with how your body looks. At a certain point, there is a
cathartic change, and they say, Oh..my GOD! (Laughter) I am not the
body. And then you don't know who you are. You just recently discovered
you weren't the body.
You
cannot simultaneously grasp on to a fantasy position of identity, and
change and evolve. We keep a very careful sense of balance and a very
careful stabilization of energy, which we're going to talk about here,
so that we can be alive carefully. For meditators it's kind of like
this. You're feeling, How can I accommodate my identity, my idea of who
I am? How can I accommodate this idea about myself...Dang, this feels
uncomfortable! And finally you say, "Well, this is dumb". Why don't I
just be me? The sense of relief that comes from this is so powerful
that you feel alive again.
All
meditators go through it. You are not unique. What you need to do is
stop trying to accommodate a view that isn't you anymore - like holding
on to smelly socks (laughter). I don't know if your used socks smell as
bad as mine, but I bet they're pretty close.
When
people have made a commitment to wish to become enlightened, to wish to
become a benefit to all sentient beings, they want to change.
Domo Geshe Rinpoche
Sep 29, 2007 Identity, Change and Being Alive, CD and MP3
|
Nov 11, 2007
[In
this line,] you acknowledge that there are many different causes of
suffering. However, as a human being with a human consciousness, you do
not have the points of perception to fully understand the amount of
suffering that living beings are experiencing. You absolutely cannot
fathom it. You have a block or a veil which protects you from the full
knowledge of this mass of suffering. There is an inner mechanism which
literally prevents you experiencing that full amount of suffering.
This
is a good thing, because it's not the indicated thing that you should
enter into a kind of wallowing in the nature of suffering. It was never
meant to be part of Buddhist education or enlightenment preparation
education to be so pained that you cannot tolerate meditating, or you
can't tolerate being you, or you feel so guilty that you don't meditate
because it's all so terrible.
It is not
all so terrible. There is something you need to acknowledge but you
don't want to push against that door so strongly that you fall apart.
Understanding this [will give you] good balance.
This
entirety of suffering of living beings is too vast and too painful. And
the reason it is painful is because you are still among the suffering
beings. Your points of perception in your own experience are too raw.
As you begin to experience the suffering of others, it [can have the
effect of being] too painful in the wrong way, and it can bring up all
of your own suffering.
You
have to gradually or slowly lose the points of perception that hold you
to the [experience] of suffering. For example, let's say that when you
were a child you had a dog that you loved. Then your dog died, and
forever after that (you) hurt so much that whenever someone told you
about their dog dying! It caused you so much pain not because you're
interested in their pain, not because you're really feeling compassion - but because it alerted your own suffering inside.
This
is what is unacceptable. This is what has to be worked on in myriad
different methods. Some people say, "Oh Buddhism is only about
suffering." No it's not! It's about the elimination of suffering. We talk about it (suffering) in order to be able to eliminate it.
Domo Geshe Rinpoche
Mar 1, 2007 Universal Responsibility and Healing, CD and MP3
|
Nov 19, 2007
This
evening we're going to discuss another aspect of Thanksgiving. Some
families may have a long and thoughtful part of their Thanksgiving
before the meal, in remembering good times, remembering activities that
have gone on during the year; and other people say, Good gracious,
let's eat! and the whole thing becomes a process of food. However your
family does is how your family has done it.
However,
tonight there is an aspect to thankfulness which is extremely important
dynamic by which you (live) your life process, between you and your
activities and abilities; how you are interacting with the world should
have an element of thankfulness. It is a dynamic which you need to
have. Your actual being and you in your (outer) personality need to have the
nourishment of thankfulness in order to become the person that you
always hoped you were inside.
Gratitude
and thankfulness have a very similar meaning. But tonight we're not
talking about gratitude, although in the dictionary it shows that
gratitude and thankfulness are the same. Let's explore it as though it
was a different kind of word other than gratitude. What is the meaning;
what is the dynamic of thankfulness? Here tonight, I want you to reach
inside yourself, and I want you to touch that spark of who you are - as
someone who holds the state of mind of thankfulness. We want to
remember what that feels like so that that can be added to your
repertoire of active states of mind, so you can
experience thankfulness any time you wish and it doesn't require a
special holiday in order to do that.
What
is this thankfulness? First I want you to experience it energetically
and then I want you to think about what kinds of words or explanation
come to you when you're experiencing that. Let's take a moment here.
No, that's not it at all. Somebody is thinking about gratitude for the
things that they have gotten, and I give a big goose egg to that
thought. Someone has it, good. Another? Come on. (Pause) It happens here
in the heart. It doesn't happen in your memory. It comes from a big
place inside, but you are looking at thankfulness as a dynamic by which
you can interact with the world.
Good.
Enough of you have experienced it. What is the meaning that's coming to
you now? What are the words that are coming? Part of thankfulness is
being able to express something. It's good to feel it, but there's also
something that happens between you and the world. Part of the skill of
an evolved being is to have this skillful interaction between their
opinion inside and what happens when you start talking.
It's
almost as though there is a poetic word. It rises here and it comes on
to your tongue and you have the explanation. Go ahead.
Student:
I feel that it's smiling with joy at my life. I am having an experience
of joy that's turning up my mouth tonight and I am thankful. I feel
thankful to be in your presence and to feel the joy you're evoking in
me. That's the experience a smile at my life.
Rinpoche:
That's the alive. Don't let life beat that out of you. Don't let anyone
tell you that being an adult or being a responsible person means
putting a clamp on the meaning of your life. You have to have a careful
and nice inner process. Otherwise you could say, I'm thankful, and
really be saying, You people suck. People will know that. They hear it.
People who say that [energetically] should put a clamp on and just say,
I'm thankful and hold that word in their mouth.
Be
alive carefully, so that your words carry meaning, so that you don't
have to be pushed into a box. This relates to inner process, this
relates to inner practice so that you can feel skillful. And it
prepares you for a future in your actual being, the evolutionary
journey. It's ripe with the ramifications and the careful behaviors and
the energetic of it.
Who else wants to speak? What is the meaning of thankfulness?
Domo Geshe Rinpoche
Nov 22, 2005 Remembering Thankfulness
|
|
|
|
May there be a rain of dharma!
PO Box 14372
West Allis, Wisconsin 53214
262-370-5974
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
