Mandala

In “Reversing the Energy of Addiction,” Jindati Doelter writes about the life of Ngawang Chotok, one of Lama Yeshe’s earliest students. Chotok’s own addictions and recoveries have informed his meditations and practice profoundly.

From Mandala January-February 1996.

In 1999, Bryan Lipmann, CEO of Wintringham, a not-for-profit welfare company in Melbourne, Australia, celebrated its tenth year of providing the elderly homeless with affordable housing and high quality care services. “Unashamedly Beautiful Housing for Mebourne’s Elderly Homeless” is an extensive interview with this inarguably compassionate, strong-willed and insightful man.

From Mandala November-December 1999.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche always encourages everyone to prepare for the time of death. He also remarks that all his students should be prepared to help others coming to the end of their life by educating themselves on how to benefit the dying a dead.

From Mandala September-October 1997.

Ven. Lobsang Yeshe, Michael Cassapidis, has been a Buddhist monk most of his life, first at Kopan in Nepal, and then at Sera in south India where he was one of the attendants of Lama Tenzin Osel, the reincarnation of Lama Thubten Yeshe.

He is currently the translator for Geshe Doga at Tara Institute in Australia. “He Is My Guru and I Am Going with Him” is an interesting look at how he became a monk and his years with Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

From Mandala January-February 1996.

Just before his death in 1984, FPMT’s founder, Lama Yeshe, wrote a letter to Geshe Jampa Wangdu, one of Lama Yeshe’s closest friends.

From Mandala October 1989.

Following the September 11, 2001 tragedies, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the following advice entitled Avoid Negative Rejoicing, regarding how to think about any retaliative efforts against the organizers of the attacks.

fpmt.org is now featuring RSS feeds (Real Simple Syndication) to help you easily stay connected to announcements, blog postings and updates from FPMT, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Mandala Publications.

https://fpmt.org/rss-feeds.html

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With Love,

Your Friends at Mandala

At the time this article was published in 1998, Charles Trebaol (Ven. Thubten Kunga) had spent the last four years of his life in retreat. Although it has been 13 years since “The Hermit of the Pyrenees” was written, we’re positive you’ll find something to REJOICE! about in this inspiring interview.

Taken from Jonathan Landaw’s regular column, The Passing Scene, “How Kids Transform their Minds from Cloudy to Clear” shows how fairly dense Buddhist topics can be approached from different angles more appropriate for the very young.

Dear Friends,

fpmt.org has now been set up with a page which will house all official updates regarding Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s health. Please subscribe to the RSS feed of this page so you don’t miss any news.

https://fpmt.org/teachers/zopa/rinpoches-health-updates-and-practices.html

http://feeds.feedburner.com/RinpochesHealth-UpdatesAndPractices

With love,

Your Friends at Mandala

In the April-June 2011 issue of Mandala, Enrique Flames De Tienda, a Spanish FPMT student, reflected on what he had gained and given up following ten days of introspection in “No More Games!” This short account of personal transformation is well worth reading and sharing with others – and is certainly another achievement worthy of REJOICING!

We are always on the lookout for the amazing stories of FPMT students around the world who quietly complete retreat, commitments and progress further along the path than seems possible. If you have a story to share, or know someone whose practice achievements are worth celebrating, please contact michael@fpmt.org directly.

By Ven. Chönyi Taylor

My tomatoes have not ripened and it is nearly the end of summer.

I awoke this morning to a howling wind, rain and thinking that once again the washing will not dry easily. It was so easy to snuggle under the doona and pretend that the outside world did not exist. I wonder how many million people have the same thought on awaking.

Go away, real world. Here it is still summer. I want my tomatoes to ripen but they have to deal with this relentless wind and little sun. It is not hard to imagine a different world: pleasant day, soft breeze, lying in a hammock and soaking up the sun. Tucked under my doona, which is just what I do, ignoring the sounds of wind and rain. I stick my head up against the pillow. It is newly shaven and sensitive to this cold air. Now I am warm again. I do not want this comfort to end.

I abide solely in this warmth.

It is easy to abide in this way when all is pleasant and it is possible to ignore the rest of the world. Meditation can be like this. Go away world, I do not want to know about you. Call it navel-gazing or narcissism, or attachment to comfort. It is meditation gone wrong. It is meditation in which the post-meditation state is unwanted. We can abide in peace forever, it seems, while everyone else suffers.

If I am to abide in this world, then I am to abide in wind and rain. I am to abide in a world of imperfect people. I am to abide in a world where there is hatred and war and greed and jealousy. And, of course, I also abide in a world of sun and gentle wind, of kindness and sharing and humility. The point is that abiding means being present to all that is around us and not just our personal selection of what we would prefer.

This is often called “being in the moment.” Of course we cannot “be” anywhere else but in the moment. We cannot “be” in the past or the future. It is the enormity of the moment that is overwhelming. It includes the whole universe and everything in it from the biggest galaxy to the tiniest atom. To be in the moment, accepting whatever this moment brings without grasping or aversion, is too much right now. I need to choose which part of this moment to abide in.

Take this moment of watching TV as the images of people being shot and abused appear. If I am to abide in this moment, then I allow the full horror of the conflict into my mind, to feel viscerally the suffering on both sides of the conflict. It means to feel all this without being destroyed by my own awareness. I know I am not capable of being like that. I would need to be a bodhisattva now.

Becoming a bodhisattva does not happen overnight, however strong our intention. We still need to develop the skills. Maybe at this stage I can allow a little of the horror of war to seep into me, but not the lot. It is too much to handle. So I breathe out and relax. Training for me today will be to allow the wind and rain to continue without resentment, that is, with a mind of equanimity.

If my tomatoes ripen, then will I be happy and rejoice at being able to eat them as I pick them? No problem. If my tomatoes do not ripen, then will I be annoyed and frustrated at the wasted time and energy put into growing them? I hope not. So I can choose to use the success or failure of my tomatoes as another training in being a bodhisattva, to acquire a little more equanimity. With equanimity I can drop the good/bad classification of inanimate things, even tomatoes. If I stop classifying them, then I can see them as they are: tomatoes grown in difficult circumstances. That way I might be able to apply the same to animate things, to people, to emotional storms that come my way.

Children growing in difficult circumstances, like tomatoes, may become emotionally stunted, suffering adults. If my equanimity is well developed, I am more likely to see their child or adult self suffering and know what it is. If I can see their suffering, then maybe I can help. If I cannot help, then maybe I can train myself some more. I can grow a little more into bodhisattva-hood and maybe become a buddha one day.

Hmmmm. Who would have thought that worrying about tomatoes could be such good bodhisattva training?