receive our newsletters
join Friends of FPMT
Mandala
From December 31, 2011 to January 10, 2012, His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave teachings and the Kalachakra initiation to over 300,000 people in Bodhgaya, India. High lamas, Sangha and students traveled from around the world to attend this event, which empowers them to practice the yoga of Kalachakra tantra. Mandala received five distinct reports from students on and around the teaching grounds in Bodhgaya. Their stories cover the initiation itself, the environmental impact of such a large gathering, plus some of the charitable work happening around the event and at ongoing projects in Bodhgaya. In addition, we have compiled a photo gallery illustrating moments during this special time as seen though many different sets of eyes. From Mandala April-June 2012.
In this teaching excerpted from Lama Yeshe’s commentary on the Manjushri yoga method in England, September 1977, Lama Yeshe discusses briefly the “yoga method” found in Buddhist tantra and “calm abiding.” Edited by Nicholas Ribush, Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
From Mandala April-June 2012.
While you wait to receive your print copy, please enjoy our newest online content featuring a new Retreat Resources page, highlighting archival Mandala articles and interviews on retreat from the past 15 years. If you aren’t receiving Mandala and would like to, please consider joining our Friends program.
I know it can smell revolting. I know that possums and rats get a good feed from it. I know that it contains only leftovers, discarded peels and old food from the fridge, shredded paper from my office and dead leaves. But since I cannot sit next to a rotting corpse and meditate on death, why not sit next to the compost bin instead? It is almost as revolting a place to meditate as beside a corpse.
Impermanence and death feature high in my mind. I read, in the lists generated by FPMT Prayers for the Dead, how many have died at an older age than mine and how many at a younger age. The balance is tipping. Once they were mostly older people, but soon it will be mostly younger people. This is a good reason to prepare for my own demise. One day my body will be as loathsome as my compost bin.
When my compost is at its most loathsome, it is time to turn it over and put it on the garden, recycling the rubbish (at least that which has not already been eaten by the local fauna) to create good soil, good humus. The plants will benefit and produce pleasure or shelter or food. And so my compost meditation takes a new turn. My inner rubbish can be purified and become of benefit. It can provide food for others … “don’t make my mistakes.” As it rots away, only that which can benefit remains … “my efforts at improving my mind may be slow and may feel loathsome, but that is the purification process, after all.”
Loathsome? Well it is to me, but obviously not to the possums. Merely labeled “loathsome.” Aha, a new way to meditate on my compost!
But let me meditate on the positive side of my compost bin and its contents. In the end it creates humus, good soil, opportunities for growth. This label, “humus” has a number of interesting links. It is derived from Latin, where “humus” means “ground” or “earth.” Words like “human,” “humor,” “humility” and “humiliation” all go back to this rootedness in the earth. Now my compost meditation can spread in many directions.
Humility and humiliation have the same root, but very different meanings. They both refer to being low, at ground level, but we can choose to be there or we can be forced to be there. We can be grounded or ground up. Who gets to clean the toilets? Usually, the lowest rung of society. Humility means choosing to clean abhorrent waste and seeing it as an honor. If an inanimate object could be humble, then surely that would apply to my compost bin. What a laugh. Those who do the worst jobs have the opportunity to create the great spiritual quality of humility. Humor also comes from the same root!
Now my compost bin meditation has led me to the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation. The second verse says, “When in the company of others, I shall always consider myself the lowest of all, and from the depths of my heart hold others dear and supreme.” This is a statement of humility.
Saint Isaac, the Syrian, a 7th century Orthodox saint, put it this way: “How can a man acquire humility? … By an unceasing remembrance of errors; by an anticipation of approaching death; by inexpensive clothing; by always preferring the last place; by always running to do the tasks that are the most insignificant and distasteful; by not being disobedient; by unceasing silence; by a dislike of gatherings; by desiring to be unknown and of no account; by never holding to one sort of work exclusively; by shunning conversations with numerous persons; by abhorrence of material gain.”1
Tibetans look at a person who holds himself above others and they say that person is like someone sitting on a mountain top: it is cold there, it is hard and nothing will grow. But if the person puts himself in a lower position, then that person is like a fertile field – a field of humus, a person of humility. My compost bin has many teachings if I care to listen.
Lama Yeshe gave a teaching on the nature of the mind at Latrobe University, Melbourne, Australia, in March, 1975 called “Everything Comes from the Mind.” Published in Mandala, May 1998, edited by Nicholas Ribush.
In April, 2010, Ven. Holly Ansett sent Mandala five recent videos of Lama Zopa Rinpoche in action benefiting others. This collection of videos “on the road” with Rinpoche show Rinpoche’s characteristic kindness and ability to transform every moment into Dharma practice.
An introduction to the concept of “karma” by Lama Yeshe. From Mandala, February 2004.
“Creating the Work You Love.” By Ernie Spears. From Mandala, March 2003.
The latest Postcard from Ven. Robina is released. Covering teachings and travels in the USA from Soquel to Santa Fe to Portland and Seattle. This post includes a photo of Ven. Robina, former editor of Mandala, with managing editor Laura Miller, and editor Carina Rumrill.
Mandala celebrate’s this Losar with a collection of intimate reflections about FPMT’s most precious founder, Lama Thubten Yeshe, who passed away 28 years ago on Losar. Much of this content was generously offered by Adele Hulse who is writing Lama Yeshe’s biography, Big Love, to be published by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive soon!
From Mandala April-June 2009
“Confidence to Change the World” by Lorne Ladner with Lama Zopa Rinpoche. From Mandala, January-March 2010.
The last group of teachings Lama Yeshe were at the end of the 1983 Kopan meditation course on December 9th and 10th. They covered refuge, the five lay precepts and bodhicitta. This teaching extracts from the teaching on bodhicitta. From Mandala July 1996.