New Member of Pema Kilaya.

That would be me. As of Nov. 22, Kilung Jigme Rinpoche accepted my formal request to be a part of the sangha. More about it here. Currently the Rinpoche lives here on Whidbey Island, at Yeshe Long House, and is going to spend the next month revisiting the sangha and it's organization and how he can best serve it. He has also begun an 11 month teaching program on the 7 meditations, which I have previously mentioned. The web site will get new attention, as Rinpoche swings into a new chapter of his dharma activities on earth, in which the members of the Ha Ha Ho Ho Sangha very unofiicial but fun name) on Whidbey Island, and of Pema Kilaya will be directly involved.

I believe this is what they call a ground floor opportunity....

Taking Refuge in Samsara

It's what happens with almost every choice.

" Please grant me blessings to realize there is no satisfaction in enjoying samsaric pleasures, and that their shortcoming is, they cannot be trusted; may I strive intently for the bliss of liberation. Bless me to cultivate this wish." - from A Short Meditation on the Graduated Path to Enlightenment, from Katleen McDonald's book, How To Meditate.

This is one of the four thoughts that turn the mind to dharma: samsara. Just what is samsara though? Samsara literally means cycles of existence, and it refers to the imprisonment in the cycle of rebirth because one is imprisoned by the three unwholesome roots of ignorance of one's true nature, desires or passions, and hatred. I have heard them as ignorance, passion and anger. A great way to remember them is by IPA, which is also an acronym for a currently popular beer style, India Pale Ale. Both samsara and nirvana are in the mind. So samsaric pleasures are those that we pursue because we want the feeling it gives us.

But this is far more than hedonism. This is about trusting. We trust in pleasures, be they physical or emotional, because we believe that we will get something out of it. It is our source of security. If we feel safe, we believe we are. If we feel happy, we believe we have joy. Yet in the state of samsara, those pleasure do little more than add negative karma because they don't eliminate the three negative roots, they reinforce them.

And that's what struck me the other day as I was reciting this verse while driving. We trust our samsaric pleasures because we expect something in return. We drink alcohol because we expect the buzz. It happens. Somewhere though we cross the line, and oops! The result turns into a hangover after the buzz. The question is, why did we want the buzz? What was ity signifying to us? A reward? Relaxation from emotional stress? The gloat of ego because it's a $50 bottle and we can afford it or have the discimination to taste it's subtleties? All of those are samsaric choices, and so it goes for all the choices we make.

Until we learn to make better choices that are for our benefit. Let me give you an example. The other day I was talking with a local colleague, and we were discussing the candidates for a local political office. One was a merchant in our town, and as we talked I expressed the opinion that I didn't feel this person would be a viable candidate. Rumors of the negative sort swirl around that person, and I wished their business well, but thought they should make the business a solid go before jumping into the political arena. My colleague on the other hand wished that person's business to fail. My colleague made the choice to state the words based on his feelings about this person. It gave him some sort of glee, or hope that this person they disliked would fail, and that would make them happy. Sometimes we judge ourselves better by the failures of others. But are we? However, the point is that all sorts of little pleasures occur in this line of thinking, and the Buddha's teachings are that we as practitioners wish for every one to achieve happiness.

Not for their demise, and not for us to elevate our ego's because we can now deem the other person a failure. Everyone around us are trying to be happy. They too are stuck in samsara, and are reaping the results of karma, and so may not know what circumstances they are actually in (ignorance). As we practitioners continue to study the dharma, we learn how to become aware of the ignorance and the remedy for it. And that applies to the passions and hatred/anger as well. We learn to deal with the habituations we develop in our minds and our thinking patterns.

What happens along the way is what closes out this little saying. We experience the bliss of liberation from the samsaric cycle. The bliss that cannot be altered, because bliss is part of the natural state we all have that we have buried, that we exchange for the momentary false hopes of samsara and pleasures that can't be trusted. We can enjoy them, as it taught, but we misplace our trust then. A better choice is to place our trust in what is unchangeable, which cannot be taken away.

It is a wish to cultivate. Not just a wish, but something we work on, be aware of. It is not unlike cultivating soil to grow plants. If we start becoming aware of the choices we make and why, we have begun that process. To cultivate means we need to turn the soil, and eliminate weeds, and plant seeds. Then water may need to be addeed, or compost, and weeds removed on a regualr basis. These are the actions of discipline, of studying, reflecting, meditating. Aside from the meditating, windshield time is a great time for practicing. My commute is usually about 10 miles. And I still get a lot of practicing in. All through the day I can cultivate, and lately I have returned to the habit of reading dharma before I go to sleep. Then I get up, and every morning I recite the very verse I opend this post with. And it's having effects of the choices I make.

So what would you like to trust? A temporary buzz, or permanent bliss?

Monday nights for the next 11 months are devoted to teaching students about the 7 Meditations.  Last night we started the first one, fitting the physical and mental levels into each other and the act of sitting. Then there wil be Shamatha, then a refinement of the first one, then Insight Meditation, and onto Open Mind, Pure Mind, and finally beginning Dzogchen.

For the month of December Rinpoche will commit himself to shoring up the new directions and forms the sagha will take.

Houston, we have lift off. I'm going for a ride....

Name Change!

But does the rose still smell as sweet?

Ah, Shakespearean alliterations.  Think I'll stop now. 

But a name change has occurred, as the header reveals. I have a new partner? No, I have a new name. New names are given when one takes refuge with a teacher. It signifies the qualities of the student. This ceremony was different than my first though.

The first time I took refuge was in 2003, and I went through a small ceremony, and repeated a few lines of which I knew nothing. Then I was handed a card with my refuge name: Jangchub Gyaltsen - Victory Banner of Enlightenment. Okay, cool. Enlightenment is what I am after. The whole process was rather low key and almost insignificant, or felt so anyway.

Not so this second time around. Rinpoche taught the three of us essentially what it meant to take refuge, and the relationship of refuge to hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana, culminating in Dzogchen. We repeated the refuge vows after each level. All in all, it summed up taking refuge in the Buddha nature we all have. Then he had us come forward, and he snipped off a bit of hair, and anointed our head with water. I recall the hair represents consciousness, and so he established a link between him and the three of us. Then he had a little bowl, and some folded up pieces of paper, and some that were rolled. The folded pieces had names for the males, and the rolled were for the females. Two of us, one of her. Typically, I fish around for the hidden one, the buried one, the underdog looking one. Not this time. I pick it and give it to Rinpoche, and so we all did.

Turns out I picked the name of Rinpoche: Jigme. Jigme Senga is the name I picked. It means Fearless Lion.

Gulp.

Suppose there might be some challenges around this name now? I'm not certain there is any significance in picking this name. I have formally asked Rinpoche to be my teacher before I took refuge. He is still reviewing my application, and my mind could easily think there is. But this is just a refuge name. I'm not a teacher or anything remotely similar. Just another sentient being on this rock making my way along the path.

Would I mind any significance? I suppose not, because right now it's irrelevant. If a time comes when it is relevant, so be it. I'll attend to my now as fearlessly as  I can, and see what happens. In the mean time you'll know why the name on the header changed. 

Taking Refuge

Tonight I am taking refuge with Kilung Jigme Rinpoche. When I was first asked if I would be interested in doing so, I said I already had taken refuge. Meaning, I thought it was a one time event. Lo and behold, I can take refuge with any teacher I want a connection with. And wanting to become a student of Rinpoche, well, it just makes sense. Yet what does it mean?

Every morning we wake up and take refuge in something. The money we make, the things we have, the food or firewood or vehicle to get us to work, our charming good looks (for those of you that have them), charisma, sense of humor, or any other myriad of things. It also includes spiritual beliefs, be they dogmatic kinds or karmatic kinds. We all take refuge in something.

In taking refuge, we place our trust in the Three Jewels, which in Buddhism are the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. What does that mean? Well, taking refuge in the Buddha means that I take refuge in the Buddha as a role model. We all have the potential for enlightenment, and so it means we take refuge in that aspect of ourselves as well, utilizing the Budhha and many other human beings who have become enlightened as role models. Taking refuge in the dharma means taking refuge in the teachings that have explained not only that nature, that vibrant, full emptiness which is reality, it also means the techniques and methods of learning that reality, mostly through meditation. And because there are people who are oriented certain ways, there are many forms of teachings. The end result is the same, the techniques just vary. And third, we take refuge in the sangha, the like-minded community. There is a saying of the monk Thogme, "When friendship with someone causes the three poisons (ignorance, passion, and anger) to increase, and degrades the activities of listening, reflecting, and meditating, and destroys lovingkindness and compassion, to dissociate from bad friends is the practice of a Bodhisattva." The sangha is that group of friends that keep you practicing is the best way to say it.

They also have fun with you. When I asked what was involved, they said I needed to cut my hair. Right now I have a bit of it. Did cut mean "cut," or did "cut" mean shave bald? They had some rather good poker faces. Rinpoche has fairly short hair, and I could go with that. Yea, my wife likes it longer, and I like her to like the way I look. And it keeps my head warmer during these rainy cool months. They actually let me hang on that for a couple days before telling me they were teasing me.  

All told, it sounds like I learn to trust in myself and my fellow humans. I can't think of anything more worthwhile. There are no false hopes to throw myself on, no false messiahs, just myself. My enlightenment doesn't count on anyone other than myself. It's called a practice for a reason. If you do it, you get results. No one can do it for me, no one can discover me for me, they can only offer tools that have helped them and I can see if it works for me. Which again reflects back to the many varied teachings of Buddhism: they are a whole bunch of different tools if you will. Some tools will work for me, and not others.

So when I wake up every morning, and when you wake up, whay will we put our trust in?

The Impetus of Suffering

Today I am beleagured by news of shootings. A guman in Texas kills 12, a gunman in Florida kills a former co-worker. I have known for a while that this sort of news makes a great way to sharpen some Buddhist practices. It opens the heart if we allow it.

For phowa practitioners, it's an opportunity to practice. The same goes for those who practice tonglen, and those doing the Chernrezig ngondro. These circumstances allow us to see that the shooter is a victim of their own choices, and that beyond those they simply kill, there are a host of other victims. There are those that are injured. There are the families of those slain: the parents, the  children, the spouses, grandparents, and siblings. There are uninjured witnesses. And then the community at large that. Will they all react to this sort of irrational violence with compassion? Not likely. Some will move a step closer to the anger and confusion that has driven these two shooters to do what they did: make a poor choice.

It isn't exactly easy to allow oneself to enter into this kind of practicing. It is in my mind though, what learning compassion is all about. In days gone by, we might never have heard about either. But these days, with instant news acceess, we do. Are we as people any different than our predecessors? I sometimes think so. Not necessarily better, but we are different.And the fact that Buddhism as we vajrayana practitioners know it has slipped out of the Tibetan high lands to grace the West leads me to believe that there is definitely something changing. Maybe it is the Age of Aqaurius dawning. I'm not too inclined to think it's the 2012 end of the world. A lot of negativity has been functioning in this world for a long time. It seems the positive energies are beginning to emerge in definite grassroots ways.

And we can help, just by practicing.

A New Direction

I was fortunate enough to be there when Rinpoche arrived at his new home. I'm sure there is some auspiciousness in that, but frankly I was mostly imitating everyone else in waving a tanka. I'm rather ignorant of customs, to be sure!

What really excites me though is that this man no sooner hit the ground then he jumped into the retreat we had, and then boogied off for more teachings across the country.  Now, I jumped over myself there. During the retreat, it was announced that the Rinpoche wanted to develop a new way of fund raising. This guy is responsible for a village in Tibet, where he still holds some kind of council seat, the monastic college and temple there, and most likely several other things. Which has required that he spend some his time raising the money for these responsibilities. 

Well, he wants to change that. He wants to figure out a new way to raise money so he can be more accessible to his students. New direction! What that means is his change can mean a change for all of us who are connected to him. Already, right here in Langley, not a mile from my house, he'll be teaching to the general public about meditation. I've never been taught from a teacher about that. Everything I know came from a book. Yes, watching your breathe as you sit and not think doesn't require rocket science to figure out. But there are other ways to meditate apparently. Then later this month there are three sangha meetings where we will all gather and figure out how to make this new direction flow smoothly and still meet the needs of fund raising and student accessibility. 

Is it any wonder I am feeling this desire to plug in? To have a living teacher, a Rinpoche no less, living 6 miles away? This could definitely mean new directions for my life as well as my practice.