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Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche
Shambhala Day Address
Year of the Wood Monkey
Feb 21, 2004
Recorded in retreat, Scotland
Good morning, everybody. I would like to wish everybody a very cheerful
Shambhala Day. I feel very good to be able express my new year's wishes from
retreat, especially knowing that the mandala is in good hands. We have Mr. Reoch
and many other capable people who are now leading the endeavors and affairs of
the sangha. Being in retreat is timely for me, and I feel good about being here,
because I am able to practice, study, and do some writing. It seems like a good
period, and even though we have a tradition of my speaking to you in person, the
idea was that this year the celebration could be led by the sangha leadership,
and it would be a sangha event.
Although I am obviously thinking about everybody, this is really the
opportunity for the sangha to come together and appreciate each other. This is
the core message for us, especially after the Shambhala Congress, where people
gathered to express their feelings and concerns, as well as appeciation for the
mandala-where it is now, and what needs to happen in the future. It was
extremely good for that event to occur, especially with Mr. Reoch in the
leadership position. It is seems to symbolize that the people in the
community-all of you-really need to come forward. Obviously many of you already
have, but I really feel like the next stage is for even more of you to do so.
Even though I am continually in a position of leadership myself, I feel that I
can best be a leader by making sure that other people come forward.
So this is really a time of sangha, of community. In terms of what we are as
a community, as practitioners of Shambhala buddhadharma , and how we can help
the world, I think that one of the important elements is that we can be
inspiring to others. Obviously, we have many inspiring teachers. But what might
be most effective is if individuals in the community can get together and live
cohesively and enjoy each other's company. Obviously, the world is getting
smaller. Shambhala vision is how we can work together. The community should have
a sense of pride about being who we are. We should be able not only to get
along, but also to be able to flourish. The Congress was actually a sign, a good
omen in terms of the future, that we are able to come together, that we are not
all secretly trying to plan our escape. Rather, we are secretly trying to figure
out how we can help each other more.
The Tibetan word for sangha, gendun, means "those who are engaged in virtue."
At the basis, virtue really means always being concerned about others. A
community is people who are engaged in virtue together. That's interesting,
because according to the principles of Shambhala, what is windhorse? It is
having success, the ability to do what we want with our life. It is to
accomplish what we want with our life. What is the best way to do this? Always
thinking about others. In fact, it is said that if we can accomplish the welfare
of others, our own wishes are immediately or simultaneously accomplished.
We often go about our lives in a convoluted way where we feel like trying to
get things for ourselves is how to get what we want. But the teachings of
Shambhala and of buddhadharma are saying that the best way to actually get what
you want is to have others in mind. That is the notion of virtue-being generous,
being patient, helping others, thinking well of others, saying good things. It
doesn't matter that this is a difficult time in which to do this; in fact, it is
more important to do this kind of practice in a difficult time. I feel like
virtue should be the core of who we are as a community-not in terms of being
uptight or prudish or overly moralistic, but in a most basic way. According to
the laws of karma, nobody actually gets what they want by thinking about
themselves. That is just against the basic laws of karma.
If we are intelligent, we get up in the morning with a proper motivation, a
proper approach. What is it that we first think of in the morning? Are we
immediately concerned about what we want to get done, and then about how are we
going about that? If our first thought is about ourselves in that particular
way, then according to the teachings, it's guaranteed not to work. If we believe
the teachings about cause and effect and conditions, then we know that we get
what we want by contemplating others. If we think about others, we don't even
have to think about what we want to get done; it will happen simultaneously, it
will happen auspiciously. In the tradition of dharma, that's what we mean by
"auspicious."
I think it is an interesting time for us in that way. Engaging in practice
and study myself, as I meet people and look around, I think that this is a very
simple way of looking at life. Sometimes we don't pay enough attention to these
very simple things. We can detect that we're not paying attention by our
windhorse getting weaker. Many times when I talk to people, I can tell that
their windhorse is weakened. Essentially, they have gone around leading their
life in a backwards way. As they engage in life more, they accumulate more and
more obstacles, and have a harder time raising windhorse and doing what they
want.
When we do a lhasang to bring down the magic energy of enlightenment and
drala, the smoke of the lhasang is said to purify those obstacles that are
actually on us. It gets into our pores and allows us to have a fresh start. A
lhasang is considered to be very important, because it immediately raises our
windhorse. It connects us with the dralas, the enlightened beings. It is said
that how we lead our life affects our personal drala. We can weaken our personal
drala, or we can increase our personal drala, purely by how we lead our life. At
the core of how we lead our life is having the proper approach-the right
attitude and motivation, view, or direction. If we get up out of bed and we are
confused about what we are doing, then our life is going to unfold in that way.
For this particular year, I am hoping that people can find time to practice
together as a group. The time I am recommending is the fourth lunar month, which
would be roughly around June this year.* That would be a good time-it is
considered to be an auspicious month. It could be a time for sangha to practice
together and try to help each other in a very basic way, just orienting and
supporting ourselves. We are all going through life, and we all have our
difficulties, but we can gather windhorse as a group and individually.
There are different practices that we could do. Obviously, one of the most
basic and powerful ones is just taming our mind, having our mind walking with
us. There is also bodhicitta practice, and in addition, people have their own
personal practices. One of the ways we can orient ourselves is to contemplate
basic goodness, and I am hoping that we can do a basic goodness practice. I'm
calling this "the four sessions of basic goodness." We can do it together on a
particular day. I am hoping it would happen four times in that month, maybe once
a week-whatever is convenient for the various centers and people's schedules.
People can get together for a morning or all day, depending on their schedules.
The important thing is that people make the effort to be together, even though
we also have our own personal practice.
The four sessions of basic goodness could start by people getting together
and doing a little sitting. Then maybe they could do a little purification of
the body by doing some shamatha yoga. A lhasang practice might also be good,
because I think whenever we feel low, energy-wise, our mind is full of doubt
about our own enlightenment, our possibilities. If we have that kind of mind, we
are not going to be successful, we are not going to be able to do what we want,
so we have to raise our energy. The dharma has told us that our energy has to do
with our mind and attitude, so that has to be purified.
If we are not clear about what we are doing, we are probably going to go out
and engage in life becoming more and more obscured. In Tibetan, this notion of
contamination is called drip. It's a sense that wherever you go, you just make
yourself heavier and thicker, with less and less inspiration to do anything, let
alone practice. Drip is just a natural unfolding of karma. You get into
negativity and the result is negativity. If you get into positive situations,
you begin to think about positive situations unfolding in the future.
So the first part of this practice would be to do the lhasang and then to sit
down when we are saying, "KI KI SO SO ASHE LHA GYEL LO," and to use that as a
mantra. Everybody sits down and begins to contemplate, and the first thing to
contemplate is the Tiger and the principle of discernment, what we call payu in
Tibetan. Payu has a quality of contemplating and thinking about what your action
is going to be. It is very important that we have this level of discernment.
Tiger has this quality of meekness, because they are totally aware of karma,
they are totally aware of who they are. They also know how to make a decision. I
think many times we just are not able to make decisions or stay with decisions.
Many times we are simply too casual about what we are deciding to do. So payu is
the notion of contemplating what we are going to do.
Life is happening presently. Ideally speaking, we should be seeing life as a
magical experience. Every moment is a precious moment. Every decision we make
has repercussions in the future. So payu is not being overly paranoid; it is
just being careful, aware of what is going on, and deciding what we are going to
do based on that. We can really break that down into body, speech, and mind. Is
our mind full of jealousy? Is our mind full of wanting things? We can just
observe ourselves; notice those times when somebody else has something, and we
want it. We are coveting what they have. If we are caught in aggression, if we
are caught in jealousy, we can look at ourselves and see that this behavior is
not going to work out to well for us. So we just contemplate it. The result of
contemplation is that it finally begins to occur to us, "What is it that I want
to do? What would be the right decision? I have the opportunity right now, what
am I going to do? If I make certain decisions, I will get certain outcomes. That
is the law of karma."
Karma is the basic flow of nature, so-not to be too heavy-I think we need to
really consider our actions, because we get into a lot of entanglement when we
do not have this ability to be discerning, knowing what to do. We bumble into
things and hope they work out. Dharma and the Shambhala teachings are saying
that the first quality is Tiger-that quality of mindfulness, is meekness, not
being overly arrogant. We are entering into that kind of practice where we are
orienting ourselves.
So we begin to relax and contemplate, saying, "KI KI SO SO," very softly to
ourselves. The notion of "KI KI SO SO" is that we are raising our windhorse. How
is it that we are able to accomplish what we want? How is it that we have
confidence? We have confidence when we know what the right thing to do is. If we
know what the right thing to do is, the more confident we feel, and the more
inspiration, the more exertion, and the more ability we have to stay with it.
This comes from that element of being Tiger, being very sure of ourselves,
knowing what to do. This is inner strength, inner peace. We have enough calmness
of mind to reflect on our life. We are not so speedy that we cannot even reflect
about what we want to do.
What unfolds from here naturally is the next session of basic goodness, which
is the Lion. This has the quality of finally coming to a decision. We know what
we want to do. We want to do the virtuous thing. We realize that the way to make
a decision is to consider, "How is it beneficial for others? If I am going to
say something, is it going to help them? Or am I just going to say something
snide, or something aggressive? And what kind of good is that going to do?" If
we decide that we are going to say something aggressive or that we are going to
gossip, the reality is that the gossip and aggression is just going to come back
at us; people are going to be talking about us in that particular way. It is
just a cycle; this is the moment where we decide what to do.
This is being like a Lion. The Lion is high on the mountain. The notion of
height is a sense of joy. It feels good to know that one is doing the right
thing, so there is a sense of levity. In Tibetan, we always talk about the snow
lion being in the mountain meadows. There is a sense that we are leading our
life and it feels good. We just feel lighter altogether. If we are leading our
life and we don't know what we are doing and we are confused, it is probably an
indication that we are not leading a life according to these principles. We are
leading a non-virtuous life in which we are contemplating our own selves and our
own desires In reality, it is not working out for us. Now we feel a levity or
lightness or release from that. That brings us to the next session, which is
Garuda, outrageous.
There could be a gong between sessions, just to indicate that we've moved on
to the next one. Each session is orienting our minds, so we feel inspired and
more confidence.
The Garuda is outrageous, because the Garuda has gone beyond the conventional
way of doing things, which is to be totally fixated, totally attached. It is
outrageous. The most outrageous thing you could do in this world is to have
wisdom-prajna-and to have contentment. The Garuda is wise and therefore is able
to go expand in all areas. There is nothing that Garuda does not know. The
principle of Garuda, which is in all of us, can understand reality, understand
emptiness, understand the notion of selflessness. Most of us tend not to have
contentment. If we do not have contentment, satisfaction, we will never be
happy.
No matter how much money we make or how much food we eat, at some point we
just have to be content. Being content allows us joy in our life. When we have
desire, wanting just a little more, we have hope and fear. We are always wanting
something-our mind is perpetually wanting, wanting, wanting. At night we can't
sleep, hoping it will work out, and fearing that it won't. That is lack of
contentment, that is lack of Garuda principle, lack of prajna.
There is a very famous quote by Tilopa, who was talking to Naropa, saying
something like, "It's not the appearances that are the problem. It is not the
world out there that is causing suffering. It's our attachment, our holding on.
It is the mind, the mind holding on." It is not the ice cream saying, "Come and
get me," it is the mind wanting it. So we really have to consider contemplation
and meditation. We have to begin to let go. We are going to have to let go by
really digging deep and looking at the nature of things.
Obviously, people are at different levels of practice and study. True
freedom, true liberation, is going to come from egolessness, selflessness.
Contemplating that, we realize that if we are always going to be holding on,
then we will always get suffering, we will always be discontent, we will always
have anxiety. So the quality of Garuda is be outrageous, and the best way to do
this is be content, to be happy with what we have. Without contentment, we can
be the wealthiest person in the world, the one with the most things, the one
with the most success, and there will always be something else we want.
Outrageous is the sense of appreciating what we have.
Finally, we come to the Dragon. Dragon is the complete sense of
inscrutability, the Great Eastern Sun. We are fundamentally the Rigden, we are
fundamentally enlightened, we are fundamentally awake. We can sit here and just
have confidence in that. That is the final stage of realizing our true basic
goodness. We radiate a sense of warmth from our heart. We visualize the sun in
our heart radiating out, saying that we are here, that we are leading a good
life, that we are trying to help others. It is relaxed; we are not particularly
uptight about this whole thing. It is just basic reality. All the great teachers
have been telling us that we are fundamentally enlightened, so we should rest
and contemplate that, contemplate the fortune of having that.
At the end of the month of practice we could do a dedication for the centers.
It could be a social or some kind of event like that. During this time, people
can still do other practices if they wish. The point of practicing as a group is
we are orienting ourselves. If we enter the world in this way, we have a sense
of who we are, an orientation in our life. I think that the power lies in having
certain times of the year when the sangha practices together, when we do things
together. There are many activities and we have many projects happening, but the
fundamental ongoing project is for all of us to build our community and show
that we can live in a decent way. The principle is that enlightened society is
at least people trying to bring out the goodness.
Obviously, we are faulted in many ways. We do all kinds of things, but that
should not deter us. We should help each other and bring out the basic goodness
in all of us. The four sessions of basic goodness is a very basic
confidence-raising practice-that's how I like to think about it. We sit down and
then all of a sudden, with this kind of attitude, we feel like we can accomplish
anything. So hopefully that can happen. Even though people may not be able to do
it as a group all the time, you can try it at home-having a lhasang, a bit of
sitting, and contemplating these various aspects of who we are. It's a way of
increasing our group energy, and a good way of entering into the new year,
fundamentally reflecting and contemplating.
This is something I am trying to do even here in retreat, contemplating,
"What is the purpose of my life? How much time do all of us have? How can we
utilize it?" I'm thinking about how to balance. We shouldn't be too extreme,
being completely lazy and not doing anything, or-on the other hand-being
fanatical about everything. But we do need to have a level of exertion and a
level of discipline. I myself know and I think many of you know, that if we
engage in a little bit of discipline and exertion, what comes out is joy. So I
hope this is not too much for this morning.
Certainly, as you can tell, I have been thinking about everybody. I know that
many things are going on, and I will see some of you at the various teachings
that I will be doing this next year. But I feel good that I am able to mix
teaching with practice and study, and I also feel good that the community has
come together in terms of trying to figure out how we are going to move forward.
One thing that came out of the Congress is that it is really important for all
of us to feel like we are working on this together, and that there is a master
plan, which is that we will all attain complete perfect enlightenment.
Meanwhile, we should at least get along and have good lives. I don't think we
have to be completely alienated from each other; we can incorporate a sense of
working in our world with the dharmic view.
Again, I would like to wish everybody well. I would like to express my
appreciation for the leadership-Mr. Reoch, Mr. Lief, members of the Board and
the Council of the Makkyi Rabjam, the Dorje Kasung, center directors, and
everybody else-and obviously the practitioners who are engaged in this thing
called life. I hope we will be able to meet again and again. So many warm
greetings from a very warm Scotland, and I hope to see everybody soon. Please
have a good feast and celebration today. May many, many auspiciousnesses occur.
So be well, and tashi delek. Thank you.
*According to the Tibetan calendar, the fourth month occurs this year
from May 20- June 17, 2004
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