Teaching on the Precious Garland of the Supreme Path, HwaYue Foundation, Taiwan, 20 October 2017
The text talks about ‘worthy disciples’, sometimes this is also translated as ‘fortunate individuals’. This is talking about people who, when they encounter good conditions for receiving or practising the Dharma, become inspired and enlivened. They readily accept the teachings, seeing them as a way to transform their characters and root out their troublesome bad […]
Teaching on the Torch of Definitive Meaning, 27 September 2017 at Kagyu Samye Ling, UK
Most of our practice is exactly like theatre. Just like actors in a play dress up in costumes and put on masks to act out their parts, wiping off the make-up and slipping back into their jeans afterwards to get on with their lives; so we go about most of our practice. We put on […]
Advice given to western students in Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal, 12 April 2017
One big difficulty we face is that as the Buddhadharma spread, it gradually became so interwoven with the traditions and customs of the countries it spread to that it’s difficult for us to identify which is which. People have become so used to seeing them as inseparable that they often take what is merely a […]
Advice given to western students in Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal, 12 April 2017
The very purpose of studying and practicing Buddhism is to bring about a positive change in our minds. But that’s never going to happen if we hold to our own views, feeling that we need to defend them. It is taught that the number one obstacle on the path is holding one’s view to be […]
Understanding Buddhism is understanding desire; desire is not a tradition. Understanding Buddhism is understanding anger and ignorance; anger is not a tradition, ignorance is not a tradition. Understanding Buddhism is understanding suffering; suffering is not a tradition. To learn Buddhism is to learn how to be kind; kindness is not a tradition. Buddhism is the […]
Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Center, Nepal, 27 December 2016
This day, today, is of inconceivable importance for all of our myriad future lives. Why? Because what we do today has the potential to bring benefit or harm to those countless future lives. Suppose that today, through your practice, you reduce or dent your afflictions just a little bit, or gain a tiny nugget of […]
Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, December 2016
What is it to study the Dharma? It is not about reading books, memorising the words, and bringing them to mind. The very purpose of the Dharma is to change and transform the mind. It is very important that we relate to the Dharma in this way; instead of thinking that it is something in […]
Thrangu Vajrayana Buddhist Centre, Hong Kong. 20 November 2016
A big misunderstanding that many of us have is that we think daily life and practice are separate. For us, practice means to put aside all activities and sit with straight backs, reciting mantras or meditating; as if there is something called practice that is separate from everything else we do. For people who […]
Hong Kong Thrangu Vajrayana Buddhist Centre, 19 November 2016
Since conviction in the existence of past and future lives, and karma and causality are the very foundation of all our Dharma practice, it is essential that we check to see how much belief we really have in them. To gauge how convinced we are in the existence of future lives, we can ask ourselves […]
Thrangu Vajrayana Buddhist Centre, Hong Kong, 19 November 2016
For those of you studying and training in Tibetan Buddhism, if you can receive the instructions from your lama in their own language, you will get much more benefit. It seems though, that most people don’t give a lot of emphasis to learning Tibetan. For example, many of the Nepalese and Indian traders around Boudhanath […]
Kagyu Samye Ling, UK, Teaching on Calling the Guru From Afar, 25 October 2016
It is all too easy to hear a lot of dharma and miss the point. Say if we’ve spent a whole week receiving teachings from a lama, and then still need to ask for an interview to ask; “Um, now what should I do when I go home?” Then we have to realise that we’ve […]
Meditation Retreat, Kagyu Samye Ling, UK, 9 October 2016
When we are listening to the dharma, meditating or practising, if our way of thinking is along the lines of, ‘May this be good for me. May things turn out well for me.’ then our motivation is poor. If we take that as the foundation for our study and practice of the dharma, it’s not […]
Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Center, Nepal, 13 May 2016
The main thing when listening to dharma teaching is how our mind is focused and to betaking a lot of notes isn’t good. The direction our mind takes will be mistaken because we’ll pay too much attention to the words and not the meaning. The words and the meaning are different, and if we miss […]
Teaching to the staff of Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Center on The Precious Garland of the Supreme Path, 30 January 2016
A certain mindset is needed when it comes to receiving dharma teachings. It is similar to that of a sick person going to hospital. What is on our mind when we go to hospital? We are hoping to find out what is wrong with us or to receive treatment that will cure us. That would […]
Excerpt from Drupon Khen Rinpoche’s new Chinese book, Go slowly. Soon arrive. A teaching on Je Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path taught in Thrangu Vajrayana Buddhist Center, in October 2015.
We have to trace the source of our problems by looking at the problems themselves. Often we feel that we have to look beyond our present mundane state to gain wisdom and the bodhichitta, but in truth, they are to be found right here in samsara, in cyclic existence. We should look for the solution […]
