By Loden Jinpa on Sep 11, 2007 in General | comments(2)
Am I silly or does this list make a whole lot of sense!
1: Don’t listen to your teacher.
2: Don’t put what your teacher has taught you into practice.
3: Don’t study the great texts.
4: Don’t meditate on what you have studied.
5: Don’t integrate what you have meditated on into your daily life.
6: Don’t pay attention during teachings.
7: Think that you know everything.
8: Think that your tradition is better than the rest.
9: Always look at what others are doing wrong.
10: Oh and of course to don’t forget to think…the Buddha was just plain wrong! I do inherently exist…
Can you add to the list?
By Loden Jinpa on Sep 9, 2007 in General | comments(0)
I just came across a blog by http://www.tysonwilliams.com/2007/09/your-natural-pure-presence.html
Where he eludes to the real purpose of dharma, and that is to change our minds not our location.
When I became a monk a friend of mine who currently works for Microsoft in the UK, said “Sometimes I wish I could go off and hide in a cave.”
I didn’t say anything at the time, but this is so far away from where the tradition of Buddhism I follow is. That is to say that although there is the notion of doing retreat and spending hours meditating. This in no way excludes living in the world! In fact the real purpose of retreat from a Mahayana Buddhist point of view is to help others. You meditate in order to develop more compassion, more wisdom and then your love and wisdom to be of benefit to others. Buddhism is a humanist endeavor…or I should say…a living being-ist endeavour.
