Rev. Danny Fisher

Just a Buddhist Minister Trying to Benefit Beings

Month: December, 2009

December 24, 2009

A Gift of Dharma for 12.24.09

Photograph by James Gritz © 2008.

Today’s dharma quote is yet another from the Vidyādhara, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939-1987), whom I previously quoted and wrote a little bio for here.  It’s from his book The Sanity We Are Born With: A Buddhist Approach to Psychology, pg.7:

In order to understand the interpersonal situation correctly, you have to know yourself in the beginning. Once you know the style of the dynamics of your own mind, then you can begin to see how that style works in dealing with others. And, in fact, on the basis of knowing yourself, the interpersonal knowledge comes naturally. You discover that somebody has developed his or her own mind. Then you can experience how the two minds interact with each other. This leads to the discovery that there is no such thing as outside mind and inside mind at all. So “mind” is really two minds meeting together, which is the same mind in some sense.

December 24, 2009

Heidiminx’s Video Interviews with His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, at Shambhala Sun Space

One of my fellow Shambhala Sun Space bloggers, Heidiminx, posts her video interview with His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje.  Way, way cool–take a look!

December 23, 2009

A Gift of Dharma for 12.23.09

Today’s quote is another from the Venerable Khenpo Karma Tharchin Rinpoche, whom I previously quoted and wrote a little biography for here.  This is it:

Purifying karma, abstaining from engaging in unvirtuous activity, and applying the practices is very much the individual’s responsibility. This brings to mind Buddha’s teaching in which he said to his student, “I cannot take away the suffering of sentient beings, like picking up an object with my hands. I cannot transfer the realization of enlightenment into the heart or mind of sentient beings.” What the Buddha can do comes in the next line: “What I can do is show you (instruct you in) the method of the practice–the means to purify obscurations–by introducing to you what brings freedom from pain and suffering and what brings happiness and liberation. There is the need to continue refraining from what is not virtuous. The rest depends on how quickly an individual achieves realization, which depends on his or her diligence, seriousness, and sense of responsibility.” In other words, realization is based on the individual’s consistency in the practice and on his or her consistency in avoiding unvirtuous actions.

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December 22, 2009

A Gift of Dharma for 12.22.09

Today’s quote is another from my first Buddhist teacher, the late Godwin Samararatne (1932-2000), whom I previously quoted and wrote a little biography for here.  This is it:

[Loving-kindness meditation is so important] in the sense that you learn to be your own best friend and if you can really make that connection with yourself, actually feel it, then I think your dependency on what others think of you becomes less, because whatever you need from others you get it from yourself. You will become self-contained within yourself.

Another way meditation helps us to work with this situation is through understanding the nature of plusses and minuses. It is very interesting that human beings have this very strong conditioning to give plusses or to give minuses in any situation, but we never pause to question whether these plusses or minuses are valid, on what basis are we doing this. It is funny, we really become victims of this mechanism but we never inquire into the way these plusses and minuses operate, under what condition they arise, what is really creating them, what is contributing to them. So when we explore this question we realise that these are really related to thoughts, concepts, which have come due to various reasons from the society that you have been brought up into. Then you see them as part of your conditioning, you see them as a strong habit that we have got used to.

It is funny that this is how we use thoughts. Now as we all know, from the time that we wake up in the morning up to the time that we go to sleep there are continuous thoughts going through our mind which never stop. If you become aware, if you become mindful of the thoughts that go through your mind, then you’ll realise that most of the time the way we use thoughts is in this habit of giving plusses and minuses. So when you see this clearly, then the power that we have given to them may become less.

Then you realise that sometimes it is just an innocent thought that comes: Maybe the other person doesn’t like me; maybe the other person is giving me minuses; maybe the other person thinks that I’m silly or ridiculous, and so on. So if you are mindful you’ll realise it is just a thought that you’re having; who knows whether that thought corresponds to any reality? There is a strong imaginary aspect in our thoughts. This imaginary aspect and the reality are two different things. So with awareness, with mindfulness, exploring, investigating, this may become clear to us and this will help us to work with and handle such thoughts, and their power will become less.

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December 21, 2009

A Gift of Dharma for 12.21.09

Today’s quote is another from the much-beloved Acharya Ani Pema Chödrön, whom I previously quoted and wrote a little biography for in this post.  This is it:

Buddhist words such as “compassion” and “emptiness” don’t mean much until you start cultivating your innate ability simply to be there with pain with an open heart and the willingness not to instantly try to get ground under your feet.

For instance, if what you’re feeling is rage you usually assume that there are only two ways to relate to it. One is to blame others. Lay it all on somebody else, drive all blames into everyone else. The other alternative is to feel guilty about your rage and blame yourself.

Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.

This place, if you can touch it, will help you train yourself throughout your life to open further…rather than shut down more. You’ll find that as you begin to commit yourself to this practice, as you begin to have a sense of celebrating the parts of yourself that you found so impossible before, something will shift in you. Something will shift permanently in you. Your ancient habitual patterns will begin to soften and you’ll being to see the faces and hear the words of people who are talking to you.

If you begin to get in touch with whatever you feel with some kind of kindness, your protective shield will melt and you’ll find that more areas of your life are workable. As we learn to have compassion for yourself, the circle of compassion for others – what and who you work with, and how – widens.

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