Tashi deleg!
It is a pleasure to greet so many of my students and friends at once. There are so many ways I could think of to use this opportunity to communicate with you, so perhaps best is to focus on aquestion that you have asked me again and again: How do I integrate dharma practice and daily life? This question has special meaning when dharma activities gather momentum as Chagdud Gonpa's have, and draw you into a vortex of effort, often as compelling and strenuous as any other aspect of your life.
The essential answer to this recurring question is very simple: make every event of your life an arena for training your mind according to teachings of the sacred dharma and have confidence in whatever teachings you hold.
The most mature practitioners are not necessarily the ones who have heard the highest levels of teaching. They are the ones who let the light of dharma truth shine through the most facets of their lives.
A single word of pure dharma is a key that can unlock vast meaning and open to you the realms of the lineage lamas, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the infinite array of wisdom beings. A single word, explored to its fullest, can unlock the enlightened awareness of your innate buddha nature–there from the beginning, unrecognized until now.
But still you ask, "How can I balance the time I devote to my family, my work, the ordinary but necessary things I do such as walking the dog and going to the store, with dharma activities?"
It is not easy, especially at the beginning when your old patterns of using time are very strong. Still, if you practice as I have advised, what is superfluous will gradually fall away and what remains will become a pure, vital force in your life.
As for dharma activities, particularly the activities of Chagdud Gonpa, they provide a special arena for training your minds. It is not that obstacles do not arise, but that they arise while you are surrounded by other practitioners who reflect the teachings and in circumstances directly related to the teachings.
It is true that activities of Chagdud Gonpa involve continuous effort and a great gathering of resources. Translations and books are published, retreats are organized, land is cleared, roads cut, buildings built, statues sculpted, shrines painted, teachings given. Many conversations fill up with the business of the Gonpa.
In another way it is also true that all this activity is no more than the spontaneous and effortless display of the original intention that all beings find the unchanging bliss and realization of their own buddha nature.
If you participate in dharma according to either of these two truths, or if you recognize them as inseparable, vast merit is accumulated–and dedicated–for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Tashi deleg!
It is a pleasure to greet so many of my students and friends at once. There are so many ways I could think of to use this opportunity to communicate with you, so perhaps best is to focus on aquestion that you have asked me again and again: How do I integrate dharma practice and daily life? This question has special meaning when dharma activities gather momentum as Chagdud Gonpa's have, and draw you into a vortex of effort, often as compelling and strenuous as any other aspect of your life.
The essential answer to this recurring question is very simple: make every event of your life an arena for training your mind according to teachings of the sacred dharma and have confidence in whatever teachings you hold.
The most mature practitioners are not necessarily the ones who have heard the highest levels of teaching. They are the ones who let the light of dharma truth shine through the most facets of their lives.
A single word of pure dharma is a key that can unlock vast meaning and open to you the realms of the lineage lamas, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the infinite array of wisdom beings. A single word, explored to its fullest, can unlock the enlightened awareness of your innate buddha nature–there from the beginning, unrecognized until now.
But still you ask, "How can I balance the time I devote to my family, my work, the ordinary but necessary things I do such as walking the dog and going to the store, with dharma activities?"
It is not easy, especially at the beginning when your old patterns of using time are very strong. Still, if you practice as I have advised, what is superfluous will gradually fall away and what remains will become a pure, vital force in your life.
As for dharma activities, particularly the activities of Chagdud Gonpa, they provide a special arena for training your minds. It is not that obstacles do not arise, but that they arise while you are surrounded by other practitioners who reflect the teachings and in circumstances directly related to the teachings.
It is true that activities of Chagdud Gonpa involve continuous effort and a great gathering of resources. Translations and books are published, retreats are organized, land is cleared, roads cut, buildings built, statues sculpted, shrines painted, teachings given. Many conversations fill up with the business of the Gonpa.
In another way it is also true that all this activity is no more than the spontaneous and effortless display of the original intention that all beings find the unchanging bliss and realization of their own buddha nature.
If you participate in dharma according to either of these two truths, or if you recognize them as inseparable, vast merit is accumulated–and dedicated–for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Tashi deleg!
It is a pleasure to greet so many of my students and friends at once. There are so many ways I could think of to use this opportunity to communicate with you, so perhaps best is to focus on aquestion that you have asked me again and again: How do I integrate dharma practice and daily life? This question has special meaning when dharma activities gather momentum as Chagdud Gonpa's have, and draw you into a vortex of effort, often as compelling and strenuous as any other aspect of your life.
The essential answer to this recurring question is very simple: make every event of your life an arena for training your mind according to teachings of the sacred dharma and have confidence in whatever teachings you hold.
The most mature practitioners are not necessarily the ones who have heard the highest levels of teaching. They are the ones who let the light of dharma truth shine through the most facets of their lives.
A single word of pure dharma is a key that can unlock vast meaning and open to you the realms of the lineage lamas, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the infinite array of wisdom beings. A single word, explored to its fullest, can unlock the enlightened awareness of your innate buddha nature–there from the beginning, unrecognized until now.
But still you ask, "How can I balance the time I devote to my family, my work, the ordinary but necessary things I do such as walking the dog and going to the store, with dharma activities?"
It is not easy, especially at the beginning when your old patterns of using time are very strong. Still, if you practice as I have advised, what is superfluous will gradually fall away and what remains will become a pure, vital force in your life.
As for dharma activities, particularly the activities of Chagdud Gonpa, they provide a special arena for training your minds. It is not that obstacles do not arise, but that they arise while you are surrounded by other practitioners who reflect the teachings and in circumstances directly related to the teachings.
It is true that activities of Chagdud Gonpa involve continuous effort and a great gathering of resources. Translations and books are published, retreats are organized, land is cleared, roads cut, buildings built, statues sculpted, shrines painted, teachings given. Many conversations fill up with the business of the Gonpa.
In another way it is also true that all this activity is no more than the spontaneous and effortless display of the original intention that all beings find the unchanging bliss and realization of their own buddha nature.
If you participate in dharma according to either of these two truths, or if you recognize them as inseparable, vast merit is accumulated–and dedicated–for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Tashi deleg!
It is a pleasure to greet so many of my students and friends at once. There are so many ways I could think of to use this opportunity to communicate with you, so perhaps best is to focus on aquestion that you have asked me again and again: How do I integrate dharma practice and daily life? This question has special meaning when dharma activities gather momentum as Chagdud Gonpa's have, and draw you into a vortex of effort, often as compelling and strenuous as any other aspect of your life.
The essential answer to this recurring question is very simple: make every event of your life an arena for training your mind according to teachings of the sacred dharma and have confidence in whatever teachings you hold.
The most mature practitioners are not necessarily the ones who have heard the highest levels of teaching. They are the ones who let the light of dharma truth shine through the most facets of their lives.
A single word of pure dharma is a key that can unlock vast meaning and open to you the realms of the lineage lamas, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the infinite array of wisdom beings. A single word, explored to its fullest, can unlock the enlightened awareness of your innate buddha nature–there from the beginning, unrecognized until now.
But still you ask, "How can I balance the time I devote to my family, my work, the ordinary but necessary things I do such as walking the dog and going to the store, with dharma activities?"
It is not easy, especially at the beginning when your old patterns of using time are very strong. Still, if you practice as I have advised, what is superfluous will gradually fall away and what remains will become a pure, vital force in your life.
As for dharma activities, particularly the activities of Chagdud Gonpa, they provide a special arena for training your minds. It is not that obstacles do not arise, but that they arise while you are surrounded by other practitioners who reflect the teachings and in circumstances directly related to the teachings.
It is true that activities of Chagdud Gonpa involve continuous effort and a great gathering of resources. Translations and books are published, retreats are organized, land is cleared, roads cut, buildings built, statues sculpted, shrines painted, teachings given. Many conversations fill up with the business of the Gonpa.
In another way it is also true that all this activity is no more than the spontaneous and effortless display of the original intention that all beings find the unchanging bliss and realization of their own buddha nature.
If you participate in dharma according to either of these two truths, or if you recognize them as inseparable, vast merit is accumulated–and dedicated–for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Tashi deleg!
It is a pleasure to greet so many of my students and friends at once. There are so many ways I could think of to use this opportunity to communicate with you, so perhaps best is to focus on aquestion that you have asked me again and again: How do I integrate dharma practice and daily life? This question has special meaning when dharma activities gather momentum as Chagdud Gonpa's have, and draw you into a vortex of effort, often as compelling and strenuous as any other aspect of your life.
The essential answer to this recurring question is very simple: make every event of your life an arena for training your mind according to teachings of the sacred dharma and have confidence in whatever teachings you hold.
The most mature practitioners are not necessarily the ones who have heard the highest levels of teaching. They are the ones who let the light of dharma truth shine through the most facets of their lives.
A single word of pure dharma is a key that can unlock vast meaning and open to you the realms of the lineage lamas, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the infinite array of wisdom beings. A single word, explored to its fullest, can unlock the enlightened awareness of your innate buddha nature–there from the beginning, unrecognized until now.
But still you ask, "How can I balance the time I devote to my family, my work, the ordinary but necessary things I do such as walking the dog and going to the store, with dharma activities?"
It is not easy, especially at the beginning when your old patterns of using time are very strong. Still, if you practice as I have advised, what is superfluous will gradually fall away and what remains will become a pure, vital force in your life.
As for dharma activities, particularly the activities of Chagdud Gonpa, they provide a special arena for training your minds. It is not that obstacles do not arise, but that they arise while you are surrounded by other practitioners who reflect the teachings and in circumstances directly related to the teachings.
It is true that activities of Chagdud Gonpa involve continuous effort and a great gathering of resources. Translations and books are published, retreats are organized, land is cleared, roads cut, buildings built, statues sculpted, shrines painted, teachings given. Many conversations fill up with the business of the Gonpa.
In another way it is also true that all this activity is no more than the spontaneous and effortless display of the original intention that all beings find the unchanging bliss and realization of their own buddha nature.
If you participate in dharma according to either of these two truths, or if you recognize them as inseparable, vast merit is accumulated–and dedicated–for the benefit of all sentient beings.
