The Power of an Open Question - Deep Contentment September 2, 2010
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism , add a comment
The way we know things depends upon the mind, nothing more. Most of us have moments of deep contentment when we don’t feel a need to alter, express, run from, or invest some special meaning in our experience in any way. Deep contentment shows us that, at least momentarily, our habit of cherishing and protecting ourselves from what we call “other” has subsided. In moments like these, we have stopped objectifying things. We can let things be. And when the mind rests at ease in this way, it accommodates everything, like space.
- Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, The Power of an Open Question
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel’s Tricycle Retreat starts a week from today on Tricycle.com! Join the Tricycle Community to enjoy the retreat and get her book, The Power of an Open Question, at 30% off.
[Image: DCSL]
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel Talk and Reading in New York City
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Books, Buddhism, Buddhist Teachings, Events, Tibetan Buddhism , add a commentIn the first of four talks for her Tricycle Retreat, Elizabeth says that standing on a street corner in Manhattan, she sees as many people in a moment as she might see in six months at home in Colorado. Well, lucky New Yorkers, she’s heading back your way! tricycle is proud to be the media sponsor of this event:
Sunday, September 26th
Threshold 521 West 26th Street 2nd floor
Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel - Public Talk “Finding Our Way to True Practice”
2 - 5 pm (2-2:30 is meditation)
$20
Followed by a reading from her new book, The Power of An Open Question at
6:30 PM. Book signing to follow. Free and open to the public. Refreshments
will be served.
Www.thepowerofanopenquestion.com
The Power of an Open Question: Fork in the Road September 1, 2010
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism , 3 comments
The purpose of practice is to habituate ourselves to openness. This means we need to understand reactive mind. How do we experience the difference between reacting and staying open?
At what point do we decide to go with the habitual tendencies of exaggeration and denial or try something new? Where is the fork in the road? We need to explore these two experiences: reacting… staying open… reacting… staying open… reacting… staying open again. We begin to see the difference. It’s a process of refinement. Our investigation cultivates a discerning intelligence and guides us in a positive direction.
We need to ask ourselves: “If our confusion finds its genesis in our habit of turning away from the open state, what would happen if we habituated ourselves to staying open?” Surprise: another koan. - Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, The Power of an Open Question
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel’s Tricycle Retreat starts September 6th on Tricycle.com! Join the Tricycle Community to enjoy the retreat and get her book, The Power of an Open Question, at 30% off.
[Image: whatknot]
The Karmapa on the Environment
Posted by Monty McKeever in : Buddhism, Environment, Mindfulness, Tibetan Buddhism , 1 comment so farI recently came across this interview in the Asia Sentinel with Ogyen Trinley Dorje, one of the two young lamas recognized as the 17th Karmapa. It is a great interview and I recommend reading the whole thing, but this passage in particular jumped out at me.
The distance between humans and the environment is becoming wider and wider and likewise, we are bringing more and more harm to the environment by using it indiscriminately. Actually, before using the environment, we should think; it is very important to think of the consequences of indiscriminate destruction of the environment. Lack of mindfulness is creating a lot of problems.
Therefore, it is very important to be mindful of what we are using now and from where those resources come from. For example, sweet cheeps of birds and lush green forests are beauties; they are not something that we have created; rather those are naturally created beauties. However, if we cut down forests and harm animals, we are depriving ourselves of the natural beauties we enjoy; it is as if we are destroying the very sounds, smells and good tastes that we enjoy. Therefore, it is very important to be mindful.
Read the complete interview here.
Image courtesy of the Asia Sentinel
The Power of an Open Question - One with Everything? August 31, 2010
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, food , 4 comments
When we don’t yet have a direct experience of interdependence and boundarylessness things can get a little abstract and vague. For instance, sometimes when first encountering the Middle Way people think, “Well if we can’t find the parameters of self and other it must mean that everything is one.” Have you heard the joke: “What did the Buddha say to the hot-dog vendor?” “Make me one with everything.” But what does that mean exactly? Does it mean that everything is the same? Most of us would argue that we don’t experience the world in that way.
The Buddha didn’t say that everything was one. He said that everything arises in dependence upon something “other.” I think when people say that everything is one, they mean that they feel connected to everything around them—now, this does relate to the experience of interdependence. When we pay attention to language, we begin to understand subtleties that change the way we see things.
- Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, The Power of an Open Question
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel’s Tricycle Retreat starts a week from today on Tricycle.com! Join the Tricycle Community to enjoy the retreat and get her book, The Power of an Open Question, at 30% off.
[image: roboppy]
The Power of an Open Question - Pull and Push August 30, 2010
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism , 4 comments
The Buddha realized that his search for an answer to the end of suffering assumed a a self that sought after happiness, yet was haunted by extinction. He understood how we try to maintain the familiar presence of self, whatever that means to us in each moment. Sometimes we affirm “me” and sometimes we protect “me.” We bring desirable things toward “me” and push unwanted things away from “me” so that the parameters of “me” keep expanding and contracting. All this pulling and pushing fans the flames of strong emotions, and we try even harder to drive home the point: “I exist.” Meanwhile, we live with the terror of an unavoidable death. We evaluate, organize, and struggle with everything we encounter in our attempts to substantiate the existence of a self. This is the relationship we have with our world.
Try to visualize your world without the tug of “me” with all its preferences: all its efforts to find stable ground in the world of things and protect itself from unwanted experiences. What would happen if, rather than organizing the world to suit the self, we stopped manipulating everything and just stayed present for our life?
- Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, The Power of an Open Question
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel’s Tricycle Retreat starts a week from today on Tricycle.com! Join the Tricycle Community to enjoy the retreat and get her book, The Power of an Open Question, at 30% off.
[Image: tonyhall]
The Power of an Open Question - Absolute Certainty August 27, 2010
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Buddha, Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism , 5 comments
If we think about it, life resists definition. How can we truly know things that continuously change, are impossible to pin down, and are always open to interpretation? Can we, for instance, ever reach absolute conclusions about the redness of a flower, a moment of grief, or the meaning of the universe?
We’re lucky that the Buddha didn’t simply reach a conclusion or settle for an answer. The world is full of answers. If you ask a simple question, you can get a million of them, no problem. In fact, think of how many conclusions we reach each day: think about all of our likes and dislikes, our views about the world, who we think we are and who we decide we want to be. But have we ever been able to reach a point of absolute certainty about anything?
- Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, The Power of an Open Question
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel’s Tricycle Retreat starts in 10 days on Tricycle.com! Join the Tricycle Community to enjoy the retreat and get her book at 30% off.
[image: Martin LaBar]
The Power of an Open Question—How beautiful August 26, 2010
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Buddhism, Environment, Tibetan Buddhism , 1 comment so far
Many years ago, when we first moved to Colorado, Dzigar Kongrul Rinpoche and I were driving on a winding mountain pass in the Rockies. It was September, and the aspens were turning. You don’t see a lot of yellow, orange, and red in the arid climate of the Rockies—except in autumn. In the autumn, the sunlight hits the leaves and they shimmer. I felt so overwhelmed by this beauty, I was almost agitated by it. I kept saying, “How beautiful it is, how beautiful, how beautiful…” Rinpoche turned to me and asked: “Is it too beautiful for you?” This got me thinking … even beauty can cause us pain when we objectify it.
- Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, The Power of an Open Question
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel’s Tricycle Retreat starts in 11 days on Tricycle.com! Join the Tricycle Community to enjoy the retreat and get her book at 30% off.
[Image: fwissue]
The Power of an Open Question - A Personal Koan August 25, 2010
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism , 5 comments
I have a personal koan.*
“How do we live a life we can’t hold on to?” How do we live with the fact that the moment we’re born we move closer to death; when we fall in love we sign up for grief? How do we reconcile that gain always ends in loss; gathering, in separation?
I don’t know if my question will ever find an answer. But I see it as a question to live by. I’ve always felt that if you have a genuine question you should explore it. All you have to do is continue to ask it and pay attention.
- Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, The Power of an Open Question
*In the Zen Buddhist tradition a koan is a paradoxical story, statement, question, or dialogue that is inaccessible to conventional thought. The practitioner uses the koan as a starting point for meditative inquiry. By focusing on a single question he or she seeks a way of being that transcends ordinary answers or solutions. This transcendence is similar to the mind of an open question: a mind that is engaged yet does not search for security or conclusions.
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel’s Tricycle Retreat starts in 12 days on Tricycle.com! Join the Tricycle Community to enjoy the retreat and get her book at 30% off.
This Buddhist Life
Posted by Rachel Hiles in : Buddhism, Interview, Tibetan Buddhism, Tricycle , 1 comment so far
For the Fall installment of “This Buddhist Life,” Tricycle columnist Noa Jones interviewed Wendell Garnett, a 32-year-old African-American man currently studying Tibetan in Dharamsala, India. Garnett—who spent his childhood in Panama—didn’t encounter Buddhism until as a college student he took refuge (unknowingly) at a peace march in Indianapolis. A decade later, he’s devoted himself to studying Buddhist dialectics and philosophy. Some highlights from the piece:
How did you get into Buddhism? When I was in college in Kentucky I met some Tibetan exchange students. We got to be friends, and I started helping out with their Free Tibet stuff. We went on a peace march from Bloomington to Indianapolis. One friend took me to a Manjushri initiation with the Sakya Trizin. I was like, who is this Native American dude sitting on the throne? I sat my ass down and was like, “Right on.” I was an utter neophyte. I just went along with it, throwing rice, doing funky signs. I took refuge unknowingly; it wasn’t until I came to India that I took refuge [with H.H. the Sakya Trizin] for real.
What do the monks think about you? For a lot of them I’m the first black person they’ve ever met. It’s like being a blue person walking down the middle of Manhattan. Indians come out of their houses, bringing the kids and the cameras. I’m cool with it, it’s just curiosity. They are all like, “Obama!” and “Bob Marley!” And I’m like, “Change! Hope!”
What does your family think about you pursuing this path? I think they are absolutely elated. Especially my mother. Before coming to India I was homeless for four years. I ran away from home when I was younger, and I was an utter vagabond, doing not much of anything. So for me to be here doing something like this, they are absolutely elated.
Read the whole interview here.