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Study group members with Messina Mayor Renato Accorinti (in Free Tibet t-shirt). Photo courtesy of Shakyamuni Study Group.
“What’s happening in Messina these days has been amazing,” wrote Guglielmo Margio coordinator of Shakyamuni Study Group in Messina, Sicily.
The study group organized a retreat on lo-jong, attended by more than 20 people. The group has also arranged meetings with the new mayor of Messina, Renato Accorinti, who has met His Holiness the Dalai Lama on several occasions in recent years. During these meetings, they have discussed making the city of Messina officially the “city of compassion,” which they believe would positively influence many initiatives in the future. The new mayor intends to invite His Holiness to come to Messina, Guglielmo reported, and there is hope to make His Holiness an honorary citizen of the city.
“[We’re] happy and proud for the work done,” Guglielmo wrote. “It’s the beginning of a great, great adventure for the benefit of all sentient beings. … Each of us needs, especially at this particular time of economic and social crisis, to develop a calm mind and a good heart and to cultivate hope.”
Mandala brings you news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and of activities, teachings and events from over 160 FPMT centers, projects and services around the globe. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi receiving offering from Geshe Sherab at long life puja, Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, July 2013. All photos by Tan Seow Kheng; courtesy of ABC.
In July 2013, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi accepted his first long life puja in the presence of some 200 students and well-wishers at Amitabha Buddhist Centre (ABC) in Singapore. Khen Rinpoche, who is ABC’s resident teacher as well as the abbot of Kopan Monastery and Nunnery, said he enjoyed receiving the puja, which was organized to celebrate his 51st birthday.
For 10 years, Khen Rinpoche joked, he was used to being the one making the offerings during the long life ceremonies for Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Khensur Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup. This time, the ritual master was Geshe Thubten Sherab, who had accepted the invitation to travel from Kopan Monastery for the occasion. The puja itself was led by the chanting master of Kopan Monastery, Geshe Lobsang Sherab. The resident teachers and directors of the three FPMT centers in Malaysia also made a special trip to Singapore to be part of the celebration.
Khen Rinpoche spoke before the puja on how to make the practice meaningful:
We all know what Lama Zopa Rinpoche has mentioned before about the long life puja. Mainly when we offer long life puja to the gurus, we have a Dharma connection with them. From your heart, when you make strong requests for the gurus to live long, that helps the guru to live long. The whole point why you are requesting is because you see some benefit for the guru to live long. If you can see from your heart why the guru needs to live long, then make single-pointed request to the gurus. When you request the guru to live long, at the same time you yourself have long life. That is the benefit. Both of you [guru and disciple] get the benefit.
When you do the long life puja, it is mainly the practice of Guru Puja. Remember to visualize or think that your own guru is in front of you. It doesn’t have to be me. Those who have a close Dharma connection with your own gurus, you can visualize them. Then you make these extensive offerings to the guru from your heart, and make strong requests for the guru to live long.
Make sure, as you are doing the Guru Puja, to make it meaningful for yourself. When you do it well, that means you are closer to the gurus. That means you are closer to enlightenment, closer to the Buddha, closer to the Dharma, closer to the Sangha. Make sure you do that. I think it is extremely important.
ABC vice-president Fred Cheong and director Tan Hup Cheng presenting Dharma wheel, Singapore, July 2013
Among the procession of offerings presented to Khen Rinpoche was an impressively large Dharma wheel, a gift from the center and the second batch of Basic Program students whom Khen Rinpoche has taught for the past two years. Representing the center and the students, ABC’s director Tan Hup Cheng and vice-president Fred Cheong presented the gigantic wheel to Khen Rinpoche together with a strong request that he would continue to teach at ABC for a very long time.
Besides the Basic Program, Khen Rinpoche teaches a weekly lam-rim class that is translated for Chinese speakers, and a monthly “Dharma for Seniors” class. Khen Rinpoche has also formed a bond with some of the youngest members of ABC, including ten-year-old Melody Wee, who offered a song. Her mature and captivating rendition of “If We Hold on Together” held all the grown-ups in misty-eyed rapture.
Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi with Melody Wee, ABC, July 2013
At the end of the puja, Khen Rinpoche offered an insight into his life and why he has continued to stay as ABC’s resident teacher:
I was born in 1962. I spent 12 years with my family. After that I spent six years in Kopan Monastery, then I spent another 18 to 19 years in South India, then I spent 14 years in Singapore.
When I look back at myself, how I became a monk is because I met Lama Yeshe, the first time when I was aged 12, in 1974. Lama Yeshe came all the way to my hometown and I met him there. Because of that I was able to become a monk, to be ordained. After I became ordained I spent six years at Kopan. I was able to stay as a monk because of the late ex-abbot Lama Lhundrup. When I was 15 to 17 years old, my mind was always wandering. It was not an easy time, under different conditions. Because of his advice, I was able to remain as a monk at that time. After that I moved to South India. I had all this education [at Sera Je Monastery]. All this depended one hundred per cent on my teacher [Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Tsering, ex-abbot of Sera Je Monastery]. Because of his kindness, I was able to complete my studies at the level of geshe. After that, I came to Singapore.
Being able to live here for 14 years is all from depending on Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice. I mentioned before, when I came for the first time to Singapore, I thought I would stay just one year. I told my friends, everybody, I would try for one year. After one year I will be back, I said! Somehow I have stayed until now, because of Rinpoche’s advice.
Why I have stayed here so long is because of the members and students of Amitabha Buddhist Centre, because they all have some interest to learn Buddhadharma. That is the main thing that has made me stay here, so far, because I see that people have interest, put in effort. Some of them really, for 14 years they are here with me, without missing class, twice a week. When I see their lives, how busy they are. They have to work from morning to night. Also, they have families, have to go out with the family, need time for the family, but still they put in so much effort and come to class. So really, that really makes me stay in Singapore, here, to teach. That is the main reason. How long I stay here all depends on that. Entirely depends on that.
Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi during long life puja, ABC, July 2013
In keeping with the occasion of celebrating Khen Rinpoche’s birthday, there was a festive mood to the puja. And true to Singapore’s culture, the celebration was made complete with hearty eating, a Thai-style lunch buffet treat for everyone from ABC’s Executive Committee, who requested Khen Rinpoche to accept the long life puja and who also organized it.
Mandala brings you news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and of activities, teachings and events from over 160 FPMT centers, projects and services around the globe. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
Tsumpas harvesting grain, November 2012. Photo courtesy of Jane Marshall.
In 2012, Canadian travel writer Jane Marshall visited Nepal’s remote Tsum Valley while researching a book about Kushok Lobsang Dhamchöe, a Tibetan Buddhist monk originally from Tsum and now living in Edmonton. “It’s a place etched permanently in my memory,” Jane wrote about her journey. She shared an account of her travels in the online edition of Mandala October-December 2013:
“After the last navigable road, the path begins; it rises and falls along the steep sides of the Budhi Gandaki ravine before breaking east toward the Tibet border. Elevations range from around 500-4,500 meters [1,600-14,800 feet] and the religion transforms from Hinduism to Buddhism,” Jane wrote.
“Tsum Valley only opened to travel in 2008 (though a handful of intrepid researchers and travelers were given restricted access prior). Once part of Tibet, it was swallowed into Nepal and thus escaped the devastation of Chinese occupation. Ancient Buddhist traditions were preserved and, within this protection, I searched for links to Kushok’s past. His birth village is only a day’s hike from Tsum.
“Rhesus monkeys danced in the trees; I pressed my body into a cliff wall as another mule train descended. The spires and peaks of Shringi and Ganesh Himal danced like goddesses on the blue sky.
“At the top of yet another ridge, after slogging amongst marijuana bushes and stinging nettles, through puddles of donkey urine and over unstable rock, I’d think, ‘Yes! I’ve made it! That wasn’t so hard.’ Then I’d see four more rises and my ego would crack. My bones groaned, my emotions balked, and my mind would form a mini hell for awhile.” …
From Mandala October-December 2013
Ven. Margaret at Kopan, 1976. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
Australian nun Ven. Margaret McAndrew arrived at Kopan in 1974, and like many long-time students of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche who attended the Kopan Courses, she saw her life changed profoundly. Mandala has been collecting these stories in our ongoing “Road to Kopan” series. Here Ani Margaret shares her experience of first meeting the Dharma in the October-December 2013 “Road to Kopan.”
When I think back to my first days with the Lamas and the Dharma, it is strange to look at how much has happened since. We were a group of eager, enthusiastic people, mostly quite young (although I was relatively old at 30). In those days, there were a lot of young people from many countries drifting round Asia on the cheap, mostly influenced to some degree by the hippie movement. But you didn’t say they were “hippies” – you had to call them “freaks.” When anything interesting was happening in that part of the world, the news would spread like wildfire through the travelers’ network, and one of the big items of interest was “the Kopan courses” and “the Lamas.”
… Even when the Lamas weren’t there, Kopan was a fascinating place, with the lively young monks running around supervised by a very special being, Lama Lhundrup, and by the impressive Lama Pasang, against a colorful background of the Nepalese countryside and its traditional people. The contingent of Westerners included a number of charismatic personalities, such as Anila Ann McNeil, who led my first meditation course. The only dark note was our discovery about Lama’s bad health. Again and again, Western doctors gave him only six months to live, but somehow he kept on going, staying with us for 10 years from the first time I met him.
… There was no doubt that the Lamas knew our minds and could respond to our prayers and unspoken thoughts. In the early days at Chenrezig Institute [in Australia], when the Lamas were visiting, I very much wanted to have a one-to-one meeting with Lama Yeshe, but didn’t feel entitled to request one. Instead, I prayed to Lama to make it happen if that would be good. One day, in a big sunhat, he just popped up out of the long grass that grew all over the hill in those days, where he had been sitting waiting. We had quite a good talk before the inevitable group of students started to gather. …
From Mandala October-December 2013
Wisdom Publications staff, Somerville, Massachusetts, US. Photo courtesy of WisdomPubs.org.
It’s a big week for Wisdom Publications, a leading publisher of Buddhist books and an affiliate of FPMT. The Somerville, Massachusetts-based publisher announced a new website with a new blog as well as a new distribution arrangement with the international publisher Simon and Schuster.
“We look forward to working with Simon and Schuster to better fulfill our mission of nurturing communities of readers and authors by being a source of high quality, polished and carefully chosen works,” said Tim McNeill, Wisdom Publications CEO.
While Wisdom publishes books from all major Buddhist traditions, the publisher’s catalog of Tibetan Buddhist titles is unparalleled and includes the exceptional Library of Tibetan Classics series as well as titles by many 20th-century Tibetan Buddhist masters.
Wisdom origins stretch back to Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s early days of teaching Dharma to Westerns at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Ven. Robina Courtina and Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive director Nick Ribush were involved in the early development of Wisdom Publications. Tim McNeill, a long-time FPMT student and current member of the FPMT Inc. Board of Directors, has led Wisdom and its impressive staff for the past 25 years.
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Image: Dreamstime
In the print edition of Mandala October-December 2013, we spoke with Alan Carter, who served as resident teacher at Chandrakirti Centre in New Zealand and now works as a life coach, about how self-acceptance is key to a successful Dharma practice. We continue our interview with Alan here, talking about his background, a few more thoughts on self-acceptance, and how to bring Dharma into the community.
Mandala: You talked about how self-acceptance is the foundation of Dharma practice. And how accepting one’s self and accepting others are related. How can we work with this in our Dharma centers?
Alan: I think within centers it is important to have open discussions. I think it is important to get together and take the risk of people scrambling for words and saying, “Oh, I’m not quite sure, but this is how I feel,” and having that sense of acceptance by others as to where we are at. And that acceptance of others helps with accepting ourselves.
This is very much Carl Rogers’ person-centered therapy with the client: you accept that person. You don’t dislike or like any aspect of them, you just accept that individual, and through accepting that person for exactly where they are at, then that person learns to accept himself or herself. Within Dharma centers, this is an ideal opportunity for us to get together and talk about these issues in a very open way in an accepting environment. I think that process for acceptance would help within Buddhist centers.
… Mandala: Talk a bit more about your work bringing Dharma into the community. I know we all think about doing that. What does it look like for you in your work?
Alan: Since my retreat last year, I actually do more volunteer work within the community. At centers sometimes it seems that volunteer work is very much focused on doing work at the center. It is like, “OK, if you do things at the center, there is an enormous amount of merit because you are working for the guru and supporting part of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s mandala,” which is very wonderful. But sometimes that feels like it creates distance from actually being out in the community and just being a nobody helping out, whereas at a center, we are more of a somebody than a nobody. As an example, I work in a hospice on a fortnightly basis for a couple of hours. I find the greatest experience is going in there and just doing whatever people need, which could be just talking to the patients. I switch off who I am in a way, and I find that really quite special. …
From Mandala October-December 2013
Young monks from Sera Je benefit from the meal provided by the Sera Je Food Fund. Photo courtesy https://photos.app.goo.gl/C4MnbETKrdyayPtU6
In Mandala October-December 2013, Geshe Thubten Jinpa writes about the benefits of the Sera Je Food Fund, an FPMT Charitable Project dedicated to offering three meals a day to the 2,500 monks of Sera Je Monastery.
A 78-year-old monk walks back and forth two times every day for the meal being served in the main prayer hall of Sera Je Monastic University, situated in South India. After each meal, he comes back with a half-loaf of bread that he did not finish. I thought the leftover bread would go in the garbage bin, but I was wrong. He puts the bread in the sun and lets it dry. Later in the day when his young disciples come back hungry from class, he offers the dry piece of bread as a snack with a cup of black tea.
This old monk has been doing this for decades. Now it is just a habit, but 30 years ago he started this ritual out of helplessness and responsibility. In those days, senior monks who had young disciples had to save half of their food so that their young pupils could eat and be able to continue their studies in the evening without an empty stomach.
… Today, the Sera Je Food Fund provides highly nutritious meals, hygienically prepared for thousands of monks every day. Since the food fund started in 1991, the health of all the monks improved dramatically. They are now able to devote their full time to their Dharma studies without worrying about their meals or if they will have enough food. The most significant impact of the Sera Je Food Fund can be seen by the increase of numbers of the monks, and that senior monks like Geshe Wangchen are now able to accept as many new students as they can without worry.
From Mandala October-December 2013
Currently, the Sera Je Food Fund offers over 3 million meals annually. You can learn more about the fund and make a contribution to the project online.
Amy Cayton with two cats at their first foster mother’s place. Photo by Amrita Cayton.
Long-time student Amy Barton-Cayton shares how she used Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice to turn cat rescue into Buddhist practice as part of Mandala’s October-December 2013 online content:
In 2007, I had a huge karmic upheaval, mostly manifesting in my body. Among other things where karma had run out for me, I was no longer so able to travel through the FPMT world giving trainings as my form of service to Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
“Uh-oh,” I thought. I interpreted my situation to mean that following purification, I needed to create merit. How would I do this since many of my former avenues of merit-making were no longer open to me? Perhaps, as life was pointing to a less active way of “showing up,” I could spend more time meditating. The only problem was that mental focus was one of the many things that had suddenly shifted and become elusive.
… When I eventually saw Rinpoche, I suggested maybe it was OK for me now to see a few people in my role as therapist and then try to help some sentient being of the cat variety. Rinpoche gave me some advice about practices for really helping the kitties, and since then, cat cuddling according to Rinpoche’s instructions has been a huge part of my practice. …
From Mandala October-December 2013
José Cabezón, Maitripa College, Portland, Oregon, U.S., May 2013. Photo by Marc Sakamoto.
José Cabezón is a respected professor of religious studies and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama Endowed Chair in Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He studied at Sera Monastic University in South India and completed his Ph.D., studying with Geshe Lhundub Sopa, at the University of Wisconsin. Mandala spoke with José during a visit to Portland, Oregon, in May 2013.
Mandala: Having experienced both monastery life in India and also non-monastic life in the United States, where do you see the intersection of Western culture and Buddhist culture going?
José: That is a very big question, and I think there is no single answer. It is more where our different traditions – or even within traditions – where our different organizations are heading. I think there are many different answers to that. Some traditions still emphasize relying on teachers that come from an Asian background. Other traditions are training their own Western teachers and are trying to make the move to create a Western Sangha that can kind of take over from the Asian teachers. I think it is too early to generalize from one tradition to another.
I’ll tell you a story. It is one of my favorites. When Lama Yeshe invited His Holiness to Spain for the first time [in 1982], I was translator for His Holiness. I never knew Lama Yeshe very well; but one day during this trip, Lama Yeshe invited me to have a meal with him. He asked me, “What do you think about the future of Buddhism in the West?” And I said, “I don’t know. My nature is somewhat pessimistic, so I don’t know. The West is so materialistic, and I don’t know whether authentic Buddhism will really be able to take a foothold.” Lama Yeshe said, “No, I think it will. Maybe not just in any place, but Spain is the place of the future.” So it struck me that then Tenzin Ösel Hita was recognized in Spain. I always took that as a kind of sign that Lama Yeshe saw something as being special about Spain. When I heard that his reincarnation had been recognized in a Spanish boy, I didn’t find it strange.
From Mandala October-December 2013
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His Holiness the Dalai Lama recognizes and greeted Chandrakirti Meditation Centre translator Tenzin Thubwang, July 2013. Photo courtesy of Phillipa Rutherford.
In June 2013, His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited New Zealand before making his way to Australia for his ninth visit to the country. As part of the Mandala October-December 2013 online content, we offer three stories on the visit.
FPMT co-director of Chandrakirti Centre in Richmond, New Zealand, Phillipa Rutherford, shared with Mandala a short summary of the “very intimate” visit by His Holiness plus a couple of photos of His Holiness meeting with devoted students in Dunedin.
His Holiness in an Akubra hat with a wombat, Adelaide, Australia, 2013. Photo courtesy of DLIA.
Sally Dudgeon, who was involved with His Holiness’ most recent visit to Australia, shared a report on the four-city tour themed “Beyond Religion, the 14th Dalai Lama on the Benefits of Living Ethically.” The organization Dalai Lama in Australia (DLIA) managed the tour as well as most of the previous tours by His Holiness’ to Australia. DLIA is a non-profit company formed in 2001 by George Farley and Alan Molloy, both students of Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
The June tour included a stop in Melbourne to teach the Heart Sutra and the Eight Verses of Mind Training at Quang Minh Temple, a Vietnamese Buddhist temple in the suburb of Braybrook. Cynthia Karena captured the perspective and feelings of some of the volunteers at the “happy and joyous” event.
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Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Tushita Meditation Centre, Dharamsala, India, June 2013. Photo by Ven. Sarah Thresher.
In Mandala October-December 2013, Lama Zopa Rinpoche responds to a long-time student who wrote to Rinpoche in thanks for his “blessings, guidance and protection” over many years. The anonymous student currently takes care of her mother who suffers physically after a series of strokes. As a method to deal with the challenges of caregiving, the student visualizes taking care of Rinpoche when taking care of her mother.
“I know I have not developed special qualities,” concludes the student. “Without your teachings, without your example and blessings, without your guidance and protection, it would have been unbearable to face all this.”
First of all, it is really great the meditation you are doing: serving your mother and thinking you are serving the guru. When I was in Tibet (not the last time, but the time before) our journey took us to Reting, Lama Dromtönpa’s monastery, which he built on the advice of Lama Atisha. I didn’t know, but our guide directed the tour through His Holiness the Karmapa’s monastery in Tshurpu. We stayed there one day and slept outside the monastery in tents for two nights. I went to visit nearly every temple in the monastery. The monks were doing puja and I personally made money offering to each one, handing them the money myself. As I did this, I started to think that each one was my guru, His Holiness Trijang Rinpoche or Lama Yeshe (maybe the first one). This is what I was thinking as I gave the money, so I collected the most extensive merits and accumulated the most powerful purification because I was thinking of each monk as the guru.
So first of all, this life’s parents are very powerful objects of merit. Even very small negative or positive actions done towards this life’s parents are extremely powerful. Therefore, as a result of offering service to your mother, you will have so much happiness even in this life, your wishes will succeed and you will have a very good life. And the result is experienced not only this life; each positive action of offering service that you create towards the parents will bring benefit for thousands of lifetimes. It brings a good rebirth and unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable happiness while you are in samsara. I’m talking about each small service; every one results in happiness for thousands of lifetimes. So can you imagine the result of twenty-four hours of service? Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Then, if the service is done with bodhichitta, each one is the cause of enlightenment. The merit of every small service, every virtue created is so powerful. …
From Mandala October-December 2013
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Cover from the new Mandala October-December 2013
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has recently been commenting on the need for FPMT students to actualize the lam-rim teachings and achieve realizations. You can read Rinpoche’s recent advice in the just-published Mandala October-December 2013:
Special group of retreatants
First of all, I want to say that the FPMT has been developing now for many years and over that time people have been studying and practicing the Dharma according to their ability. Generally, when I look at the FPMT organization, what I see is that the students have developed more compassion and good-heartedness. This is extremely worthwhile because compassion for all sentient beings is the very heart of Buddhism; it is the most important Dharma practice for the happiness of the individual students, for their families, for society, for the country, for the world and for the six realms’ sentient beings.
There has been a lot of study and the study is going well; there is Discovering Buddhism, the Basic Program and the Masters Program. Particularly in the Gelugpa tradition there is a lot of teaching and learning philosophy, and in the FPMT organization we have been doing that. Buddhist philosophy is now being studied in almost every center, especially where there is a resident geshe. We even have Western students who have completed the Masters Program and can teach philosophy where there is no geshe, or even where there is a geshe. There are more centers teaching the Masters Program and some centers have already taught the Basic Program several times. People have been learning about Buddhism, and especially the lam-rim, for quite some time now in the FPMT and there are some who are also trying to meditate and practice the lam-rim.
Now what is needed are people who will sacrifice their lives, as they did in India, Tibet and Nepal, not just to study the Dharma like at a college or university, but to actualize the teachings in a monastery or isolated place. In Tibet, the mountains were full of caves like ants’ nests, where people would go to practice without distraction. When I came from Solu Khumbu [in Nepal] to Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Tsang [Tibet] and then on to Pagri [in Tibet] there were many caves along the road where meditators would practice with hardship and the realizations of guru devotion, renunciation, bodhichitta, right view and the two stages of tantra would all come. Wow, wow, wow. It’s unbelievable! That’s why the country of Tibet is so blessed and so precious because there are many, many caves where meditators, like Milarepa, for example, achieved different realizations, such as the rainbow body.
This is how Buddhism really comes alive – when it is not just words, not just scholars, but really living Buddhism. When study and realization come together, Buddhism will really last. Wow, then like an ocean in the heart and the mind, it will spread and be preserved. …
From Mandala October-December 2013
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