2009 November 29 « Rev. Danny Fisher

November 29, 2009

A Gift of Dharma for 11.29.09

Today’s quote comes to us from Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, a Tibetan Buddhist nun in the Drukpa Lineage of the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism and the founder of Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in Himachal Pradesh, India.

Born in London, Ani-la converted to Buddhism as a teenager, feeling a natural affinity toward Tibetan culture. In 1964, when she was just twenty, she went to India to explore Buddhism more deeply. There she met her teacher, His Eminence the 8th Khamtrul Rinpoche, and became one of the first Western women to ordain as a Tibetan Buddhist nun. (She later received the full bhikshuni ordination at a special ceremony in Hong Kong in 1973.)

After studying with Khamtrul Rinpoche for six years, he instructed her to undertake intensive retreat practice at a monastery in the Himalayan valley of Lahaul. After several years of study there, Ani-la sought more solitude and began practicing in a tiny cave near the monastery. She practiced there for twelve years–the last three “in strict retreat.”

In 1988, she left India for Italy, where she spent a few years teaching at Dharma centers around the country. In 1993, at the request of her deceased teacher and the lamas of the Khampagar monastery in Himachal Pradesh, India, she began work on the creation of a nunnery. Constuction of Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery began in 2001 and is almost complete.

In 2008, Ani-la was given the title of “Jetsunma,” which means “Venerable Master,” by His Holiness the 12th Gualwang Drukpa, Head of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage.

She is the author of Reflections on a Mountain Lake: Teachings on Practical Buddhism, and the subject of Vicki Mackenzie’s extraordinarily popular book Cave in the Snow: Tenzin Palmo’s Quest for Enlightenment.

Here’s the quote, from Ani-la’s Reflections on a Mountain Lake:

There is a film called Groundhog Day, which is really a Buddhist movie because this is exactly what the plot is about. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s about somebody who had to relive the same day again and again until he got it right. He started out with an extremely negative attitude, and so throughout the first day he created a lot of negative causes.

People related back to him from his own level of negativity, and so he had a very bad day. Then the next day he had to experience the same day all over again. Then again, and again. He became desperate to find a way out. He attempted suicide many times, but the next morning, there he was again in the same room and the same bed. The date hadn’t changed, and the same song was playing on the radio. His attitude underwent many, many changes, until in the end he spent most of his time trying to help people. He forestalled tragedies he knew were going to happen because he had lived the day over so many times, and his whole attitude gradually turned around into working out ways to help others. As his inner attitude transformed, the day gradually got better and better. Finally, he was able to break through to a new day.

The important thing is how we respond to our situation. We can transform anything if we respond in a skillful way. This is precisely what karma is about. If we greet situations with a positive attitude, we will eventually create positive returns.

If we respond with a negative attitude, negative things will eventually come our way. Unlike the scenario in the movie, it doesn’t always happen right away. We can be very nice people but still have lots of problems. On the other hand, we can be awful people and have a wonderful time. But from a Buddhist perspective, it’s just a matter of time before we receive the results of our conduct. And usually it is true that people with a positive attitude encounter positive circumstances. Even if the circumstances do not appear positive, they be transformed through a positive view. On the other hand people with negative minds complain even when things are going well. They also transform circumstances, but they transform positive ones into negative ones!

Both our present and our future depend on us. From moment to moment, we are creating our future. We are not a ball of dust tossed about by the winds of fate. We have full responsibility for our lives. The more aware we become, the more capable we are of making skillful choices.

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November 29, 2009

A Flower from the Venerable

One of our Ph.D. students at University of the West, Venerable Hyun Gak Sunim, served as the English translator for Master Sul Jung Sunim, the P’ang Jang (or, spiritual head) of the Chogye Order of Korean Buddhism, during his recent visit to the United States. Master Sul Jung came to the Detroit Zen Center from November 5^th-8^th for a series of events, including lecture, a precept ceremony, and an ordination ceremony. Representatives of the Chogye Order of South Korea were tasked with selecting one venerable from all of the members of the Chogye Order in North America for this duty, and they selected Ven. Hyun Gak. This was not only a great personal honor for her, but a point of pride for our university to be able to say that one of our students did this. We in the Religious Studies Department were especially proud of her.

Ven. Hyun Gak has been a friend since I first came to the institution as a student. (If memory serves, we were the only two doctoral students to begin in the spring semester of 2007, so we did all of our orientation activities together.) Among other things, we travelled with some of our fellow classmates to Taiwan in January 2008. She has one of the best hearts of anybody I’ve ever known, and has been more of a teacher for me than a colleague.

As usual, she came back from her trip bearing gifts. I received the flower pictured above (the big one), which has been at my shrine keeping me company until recently. It has reminded me of something Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche wrote in his book Turning the Mind into an Ally, pg. 7:

A society of hard and inflexible minds is a society that is incapable of nurturing the flowers of love and compassion. This is the source of the dark age. We tend to question our goodness and our wisdom. When we question these things, we begin to use seemingly more convenient ways to deal with our problems. We are less ready to use love and compassion, more ready to use aggression. So we have to continuously remind ourselves of basic goodness.

November 29, 2009

“Buddhists Behaving Badly?” – This Week’s Post is Up at Shambhala Sun Space!

My latest “On the Buddhism Beat” post is now online over at Shambhala Sun Space. The biggest news developments this week revolved around what I referred to as “Buddhists behaving badly”: among other things, a prominent Singaporean Buddhist monk was convicted of fraud and sentenced to ten months in prison, and a Burmese monk caused a scare on an airplane by opening the emergency exit. Another story, though, deserves special highlighting here this week:

This via H-Buddhism (The Buddhist Scholars Information Network): Zen teacher Stuart Lachs and colleague “Vladamir K.” have co-authored a summary of a collection of letters held at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa Library Archives. In their introduction, the authors write, “The letters cover the period of 1964 through to 1984 and are devoted to the interactions, directly and indirectly, between [Diamond Sangha founder Robert Aitken Roshi] and Eido Shimano Roshi of the New York-based Zen Studies Society. Although there are some letters between Shimano and Aitken, and between Aitken and his Japanese teachers Soen Roshi, Yasutani Roshi, and Yamada Roshi, many are to others in the wider American Zen movement. The letters are concerned primarily with the…alleged sexual misbehaviour of Eido Shimano Roshi that first arose in 1964 in Hawai’i, where Aitken Roshi is based.” Until now, the letters have been part of a sealed holding of Aitken Roshi’s personal papers in the archives.

Read the rest here.