Originally released in 1985 in 16mm and beautifully remastered in 2021, The Lion’s Roar is an intimate portrait of the late 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, head of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.

Born in Tibet in 1924 and recognized as a reincarnated Buddhist master, the Karmapa set out to travel the world in 1974. While on tour he spent significant time in North America, commencing the building of a monastery in New York, visiting the Hopi Nation, and teaching countless laypeople. This archival documentary follows the Karmapa on his journey across North America, underscoring the Tibetan master’s timeless impact on the West.

This film will be available until midnight on Friday, June 3, 2022. 

The late 16th Gyalwa Karmapa | Photo courtesy James Hoagland

The Karmapa wearing the Black Crown | Photo courtesy James Hoagland

Photo courtesy James Hoagland

Photo courtesy James Hoagland

The post The Lion’s Roar appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Trinley Thaye Dorje, one of the claimants to the 17th Karmapa’s throne, the head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, married his childhood friend Rinchen Yangzom earlier this month in a private ceremony, his office announced on Thursday.

“I have a strong feeling, deep within my heart, that my decision to marry will have a positive impact not only for me, but also for the lineage. Following the wishes of my parents, and having had time to reflect, I deeply feel that I am being true to both myself and the lineage. Something beautiful, something beneficial will emerge for all of us,” Trinley Thaye Dorje, 33, said in a statement. “As Karmapa, I will continue to protect and preserve our beloved lineage, and strengthen the monastic sangha through initiatives such as the new Karmapa Center of Education.”

Trinley Thaye Dorje said he will continue his duties as Karmapa except for performing ordinations, which will now be conducted by the 4th Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, Karma Mingyur Dragpa Senge.

“Karmapa appreciates that the news of his marriage will come as a surprise to many, and has faith that his students will understand his wish to have kept private this personal element of his very public life,” the statement said.

Karmapa and Rinchen Yangzom, 36, are expected to make their first public appearance together at Kagyu Monlam in Bodhgaya in December 2017.

The 17th Karmapa title is also held by another claimant, Ogyen Trinley Dorje.

Learn more about Trinley Thaye Dorje in his Tricycle interview, “Diamond-like Resolve”

The post Wedding Bells for Trinley Thaye Dorje, one of the Two Claimants to the Karmapa’s Throne appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Planetary is a cross-continental cinematic journey that explores our future as a species with interviews from astronauts, environmentalists, anthropologists, and leading Buddhist thinkers.

Get the full film (10% discount for Tricycle subscribers with promo code TRICYCLE10) here.

The post How Meditation Offers a Planetary Perspective appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

To his followers, Dorje is the 17th Karmapa—the leader of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and the latest in a line of reincarnated Tibetan teachers, or lamas, stretching back to the 12th century. He’s been training for that role since the age of 7, when other important lamas recognized him as the reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa, who died in Illinois in 1981.

But Dorje is blazing new paths for his tradition, and for the broader Buddhist world. In a public lecture and a series of meetings at Harvard Divinity School Thursday and Friday (March 26 and 27), he spoke out on issues ranging from LGBT rights and improving the status of women within Buddhism to race relations and the importance of protecting the environment.

Like many religions, Tibetan Buddhism has often pushed to the side broader societal issues in favor of personal piety. Not only is the Karmapa talking about them publicly, but he is also taking action. He started an initiative to turn monasteries into centers for environmental sustainability, and he recently announced an effort to establish full monastic ordination of women for the first time within the Tibetan tradition.

“His Holiness is an inspiring embodiment of a new generation of Buddhist teachers who care deeply about pressing contemporary issues and how religious voices can contribute to global conversations,” said Willa Miller, an instructor in Harvard’s Buddhist Ministry Initiative who is also a teacher within the Karmapa’s lineage.

The Dalai Lama has been a teacher and mentor to Dorje ever since the young Karmapa made a dramatic escape from Tibet at the age of 14 to settle in India. There is a rival claimant to his title, but Dorje has the support of the Dalai Lama and the majority of Tibetans, many of whom believe he will take over the Dalai Lama’s leadership role when the 79-year-old Nobel laureate dies.

The Karmapa’s main event in the Boston area was a public talk, titled “Caring for Life on Earth in the 21st Century,” that filled Harvard University’s Memorial Church to capacity. In it, the Karmapa exhorted his audience to care for all life and spoke about the importance of cultivating compassion and concern for the environment.

“The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the air we breathe have all arisen interdependently,” he said, speaking through a translator. “We cannot survive alone. We cannot eat, wear clothes, or breathe alone. The more keenly we are aware of this, the more we will begin to take responsibility for the welfare of other beings.”

The lecture drew together a broad swath of Boston residents, from Harvard faculty and administrators to college students to local Buddhist practitioners and members of the Boston area’s large Tibetan community. 

According to Tenzin Wangchuk, 41, who runs his own construction business in Boston, visits by Tibetan leaders like the Karmapa and the Dalai Lama raise the Tibetan community’s profile and build awareness for its cause.

“With the Karmapa, obviously, it is awareness,” said Wangchuk. “People start reading about him, knowing about him, and then they want to know who he is and what’s the history. It’s all linked. It does kind of make a difference.”

That kind of community involvement is part of why the divinity school felt it was important to host the Karmapa in a venue like Memorial Church, where members of the public would have a chance to hear him speak.

In addition to his public talk, the Karmapa held a series of meetings with students in Harvard Divinity School’s Buddhist Studies and Buddhist Ministry programs. According to students who attended, those talks touched on issues like race, feminism, and sexuality that many Tibetan teachers have traditionally shied away from.

Rod Owens came to the divinity school to study ministry after completing a traditional three-year meditation retreat in the Karmapa’s lineage. As one of the few African-American teachers in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, he has been working with other teachers to address issues of race and racism within Buddhist communities.

“What he’s saying, essentially, is that we have to take our practice off of the (meditation) cushion into the world and become conscious of how we’re living together and impacting our environment—the physical environment and the environment of communities, relationships, and so forth,” said Owens. “I think it’s part of his effort to make Buddhism relevant.”

© 2015 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.

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On the morning of Tuesday, October 8, the prominent Tibetan lama, doctor, and humanitarian Akong Rinpoche was stabbed to death in a residential community in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, along with his nephew and monk attendant. The tragic ending of his life reflected his lifelong commitment to tasks and ideals that, to a degree exceptional among Tibetan lamas in the West, were difficult, controversial, and far-reaching in their implications.

Born in eastern Tibet in 1939 or 1940, Akong Tarap left for exile in India in 1959, a journey which led him to see hunger as the most basic of all human needs, and to strive to eradicate it. In the early 1960s, he was one of the first Tibetan tulkus to be brought from exile to Western Europe, along with the young lama Chögyam Trungpa, who would later move to the US and found what would become Shambhala International. Akong remained in Britain, overseeing the community at Samyeling, the first Tibetan Buddhist center in Europe, in a secluded part of southern Scotland that would be his home for the remainder of his life.

While Trungpa became celebrated in the US for his unorthodox but brilliant teachings, Akong was known for his avoidance of publicity and for the rugged determination and earthiness of his teaching style. But he shared with Trungpa an unusually clear-sighted and resolute, even forceful, approach to the work of a lama, and an utter fearlessness toward controversy, pursuing the objectives that he set himself irrespective of public opinion.

Unlike almost all Tibetan lamas in the West, Akong’s objectives were social and humanitarian as well as spiritual: he was a karma yogi, committed to the path of action. While he made sure that he was available to teach and assist his religious followers and preserve the traditions and learning of his heritage, the bulk of his life’s work was focused on providing social welfare to villagers, rural communities, townspeople, nomads, and monasteries in Tibet. His humanitarian concerns were nonsectarian and multinational, and he founded welfare projects in China, Nepal, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, as well as soup kitchens in the UK, Nepal, South Africa, Poland, and Belgium.

These initiatives were organized by a group, cofounded with the Swiss philanthropist Lea Wyler in 1980, called Rokpa, the Tibetan word for “help.” From 1990 onward, after seven years of negotiation with Chinese officials, he established the first of over 150 projects in Tibet, which came to include schools, clinics, orphanages, vocational training centers, and environmental projects, all oriented toward cultural preservation and sustaining Tibetan language.

Several exile Tibetans have developed valuable welfare projects around their own monasteries or birthplaces in Tibet, but Akong was the only one to have done so on this scale throughout the Tibetan plateau. He did so with little public profile, and often with very limited funding. Considering the extraordinary deftness in dealing with Chinese authorities that such endeavors required, this was an historic achievement, and one that we may not see again.

The larger significance of his skills became evident in 1992 when Akong became the key figure in an issue of international consequence: he led the search team within Tibet for the reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa. This was the first time that exile Tibetan lamas, led by Situ Rinpoche, had risked inviting the Chinese authorities to work with them on the search for a reincarnation. It represented a breakthrough, visionary moment in Tibetan-Chinese relations: instead of taking a child secretly to be educated in exile in India, as had happened in almost all prior cases, the agreement brokered by Akong and others allowed the child to be educated in his homeland, but with access to exile teachers.

This rare instance of cooperation between Chinese authorities and Tibetan exiles, including the Dalai Lama, would likely have been the basis for major improvement in Tibetan-Chinese relations, had Beijing’s policy not hardened sharply the following summer. As a result, Situ was banned from China, Akong was blocked from access to the central Tibetan areas (the Tibet Autonomous Region), and the young Karmapa, then the most influential lama in Tibet, was denied contact with his exile teachers and fled to India nine years later, where he currently remains.

Like all of Akong’s initiatives, this effort came at a great personal cost. Due in part to conflict with sectarian opponents, the Indian secret services were persuaded to treat him, Situ Rinpoche, and the Karmapa as being under some form of Chinese influence. No credible evidence of any kind has ever been produced to support these accusations; despite all his visits to China and his meetings with officials, Akong rarely said or indicated anything in public that could be used by either side politically. He possessed a deeply ingrained understanding of diplomacy, building bridges between erstwhile enemies by avoiding any public flourishes that might damage practical progress on the ground. Probably satisfying neither party, he gained respect from both, the depths of which are shown by the silence that both governments have tactfully maintained since his death, rather than claim his achievements for themselves.

Akong focused the rest of his life on developing his social welfare projects within Tibet and other countries, as well as overseeing the teaching community at Samyeling, which since the 1990s has been under the direct guidance of his brother, Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche. Now with 33 branches in ten countries, including three centers for long-term retreats, Samyeling houses one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist temples in Europe, inaugurated in 1988. Akong also worked to apply traditional Tibetan medicine to modern needs, and in 1990 founded a project called the Tara Trust to develop practical forms of psychotherapy and systems for identifying, collecting, and protecting medicinal herbs used in Tibetan medicine. The lama spent five months of every year visiting his projects.

It was typical of Akong to agree to meet the Tibetan, a monk and statue-maker who had worked for several years at Samyeling, when he demanded to see him at his residence in Chengdu in early October. The former monk showed up with two companions, and it was these three Tibetans who have been charged with the stabbing attack, reportedly after failing to obtain money that Akong brought to distribute to his projects. He refused to hand it over.

There was widespread speculation among Tibetans and others, fueled by confusing reports from the local police, that the deaths must have been a result of political conspiracy or sectarian conflict. But it is sadly clear that atavistic notions of honor, masculinity, greed, and blood-vengeance, deeply rooted in areas of Tibetan society, were the driving factors in these deaths. The murders are a reminder of the overriding importance of pioneering social and spiritual leaders such as Akong Rinpoche in the long project of rebuilding society and community in Tibet, as well as in the delicate effort to develop and sustain practical forms of Tibetan-Chinese cooperation.

The post The Life and Murder of Akong Rinpoche appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

When I entered my first three-year retreat in France, in 1991, the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, had been gone for ten years already, and speculation about how the next Karmapa would manifest and why the recognition process was taking so long was a common topic within our lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. The Karmapas are the supreme heads of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, and indeed the tradition of Buddhist lineages headed by reincarnate bodhisattvas formally began in the 13th century with the Karmapa line.

Eventually, the official recognition of new emanations of departed masters would be adopted and codified by all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The recognized incarnates are called “tulkus,” from the Tibetan sprul pa’i sku, a term that actually designates the material manifestation of an enlightened being. The most famous example alive today is, of course, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of the Gelug line. Over the centuries there have been many tulkus, among them men and, rarely, women, of great wisdom, power, and extraordinary kindness; tulkus who have been prolific, unorthodox, clairvoyant, exacting, adventuresome, artistic—or simply forgettable.

Traditionally, tulkus inherit qualities, responsibilities, disciples, and property according to their spiritual power and rank. They receive a special education, usually in a monastic setting. High-ranking tulkus have often formed allegiances with mighty leaders, notably in Mongolia and China, and tulkudom has also been subject to the intrigues and dealings that inevitably go hand in hand with temporal power.

I didn’t know much about the subject when I entered retreat. So some months later, when friends sent me a letter saying that the Karmapa had finally been identified, and included a photo of a handsome boy with ruddy cheeks, I was delighted. After all, this was the long-awaited return of the bodhisattva whose line we addressed our prayers to during our daily practices; the man whose predecessors had penned the Mahamudra Aspiration Prayer, the Ocean of Definitive Meaning, and countless other spiritual gems.

My heart teacher and retreat master, the late Gendun Rinpoche, was very close to the 16th Karmapa, who had entrusted him with establishing the lineage transmission in France. The next time Rinpoche came to our retreat center, I joyfully trotted up to him and showed him the photo of Ogyen Trinley. His reaction took me by surprise. He looked at it long and hard before stating, “That’s not the Karmapa. He’s surely a high-ranking tulku with great spiritual potential, but he’s not the Karmapa.” He then handed me back the photo and continued walking.

In the following weeks and months we learned that there were two main contenders for the Karmapa title, seat, responsibilities, and the black hat or crown that symbolizes his spiritual reach and connection to enlightenment on every plane of existence. Important Kagyu masters disagreed on which one was authentic. I had received transmission from all the 16th Karmapa’s dharma regents; my main retreat sponsors, some of my favorite teachers, and many dharma friends were connected to the “other” Karmapa, and we still didn’t know who “our” Karmapa was supposed to be. The situation was confusing and, frankly, irritating. These guys were meant to be realized bodhisattvas, after all. How could they be quarreling?

Gendun Rinpoche repeatedly told us to focus on our practice and assured us that the transmission we were receiving was unsullied and authentic. These situations happened, he said, when motivations and actions became polluted by veils, greed, and politics, but they were not our immediate concern. He also told us that once he himself had left this world behind, we would be well advised to follow the lead of Karma Kagyu lineage holder Shamar Rinpoche and trust his judgment.

Of course, we did learn who “our” Karmapa was: Trinley Thaye Dorje, a Tibetan boy whose parents were the third Mipham Rinpoche, a prominent master of the Nyingma school, and Dechen Wangmo, said to be a direct descendent of Tibet’s legendary King Gesar of Ling. He had been formally recognized by Shamar Rinpoche. His carefully orchestrated (and very hush-hush) escape from Tibet to India in 1994 received no media attention, and his low profile made it possible for him to continue receiving the education, transmissions, and practice time necessary to develop the spiritual qualities required for his calling.

I first laid eyes on His Holiness the 17th Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje, in late 2000 during his initial visit to Europe, which began in France. The Karmapa “situation” was in full swing back then, and Thaye Dorje’s supporters had had to deal with heavy political pressure, corrupt officials, misinformation, and worse; most likely those aligned with Ogyen Trinley had grievances as well. I’d learned a bit about Tibetan politics since coming out of retreat in 1997 and was fed up with it all. I was feeling disgruntled and cranky when our van rolled into a chic Parisian quarter for the welcoming ceremony. The pomp, the protocol—it really wasn’t the sort of dharma that inspired me. And then I saw the Karmapa, stood in line, felt his touch, received his blessing, and was instantly connected to something so vast, so open, so energized and pregnant with potential that I was very unexpectedly and thoroughly blown away.

Now 29 years old, Thaye Dorje has just wrapped up a 12-country tour. Unlike Ogyen Trinley, he has not yet taught in the United States or Canada, where it is not widely known that there is such a thing as a “Karmapa controversy.” At present, there is no formal resolution to the drama that has been unfolding since the early 90s, but communication between the two sides does appear to be more cordial than it has been in the past.

I still don’t like the politics, pomp, and protocol, and I have plenty of misgivings about the tulku system, which I’ve seen up close and personal enough to be awed and dismayed by turns. I can’t state with objective certainty that I know who the Karmapa is, or that the whole idea is anything more than a fantasy. But I am deeply inspired by the universal message of Karmapa Thaye Dorje, a soft-spoken young man with an ingenious sense of humor and a diamond-like resolve. I sat down with him for a conversation at Karma Migyur Ling in the Vercors, France, in August.

—Pamela Gayle White

Your Holiness, what is a Karmapa? Karma is a Sanskrit word that means action or activity. Pa is a Tibetan word; it means someone who embraces or holds that action or activity. In this case, the hidden meaning is a bodhisattva, meaning a person with a very kind heart and great wisdom, who holds and carries on the activities of the Buddhas.

The Karmapas are the supreme heads of the Kagyu lineage. Can you tell me something about your lineage? Beginning with the first Karmapa, Karmapa Düsum Khyenpa, the Karmapas have always maintained the Karma Kagyu lineage. Most often, the Karmapas and the Shamarpas recognize each other; they are the main individuals taking care of the lineage in turn. The different reincarnations of the Karmapas have transmitted the Buddhas’ knowledge, the dharma, through a very unique method, not in that it’s different from what the Buddha taught, but in terms of being expressed in a unique way. The teachings we hold are the Six Yogas of Naropa and Mahamudra, together with the Lamrim of the Kadampas.

What is their focus? Lamrim is basically a gradual path, a gradual process. This gradual progression is very important for anyone who wishes to reach a destination. To understand or accomplish something, we need to go from the first to the last step. There’s a gradual path to reaching the enlightened state of mind where one is free from the two main drivers of the conditioned world: klesha, disturbing emotions—in simple terms, confusion—and causality, karma or karmic debts. The absence of confusion is clarity, and the absence of karmic debts is that we have full control; we are not driven by karma. Actually, we can influence karma instead of karma influencing us.

The conditioned world also becomes conditioned in a gradual way—we don’t have sadness or crises or anything [snaps his fingers] just like that. They happen as a process. One misunderstanding after another, and on top of it, first a little bit of confusion, then judgment, and somehow in our pursuit of clearing the confusion or disturbing emotions we develop false ideas, and again more layers of confusion, and all of this becomes a habit, becomes natural to us. And we think that this is who we are, that this is human nature. As a result, we finally have a crisis. The gradual path is a way to reverse that.

Mahamudra is the absolute view of what enlightenment is. Basically, Mahamudra is the goal, and the gradual path helps us reach it in a very peaceful and nonviolent way. No one wants confusion; everyone wants clarity, transparency, peace. But the absolute truth can’t be shown or handed to you like that [gestures quickly]. Mahamudra is a means, a unique process of examples and metaphors that teach that one can experience clarity of mind and full control of one’s life.

Also, seeing that others who are just like us, with similar wants and needs, don’t have that clarity or those means leads to an inexpressible, unconditioned experience of compassion. It’s not our usual idea of compassion; it’s naturally there.

According to the classic biographies and texts, there’s a magical, superhuman side to the great realized bodhisattvas. Many of the Karmapas are said to have great powers, such as the power of omniscience. Do you have special powers? Are you omniscient? When one trains in the illusory nature of phenomena, there’s a point where one gains certainty [about that nature], and then it’s possible to sort of transform any kind of environment into a favorable one. But it’s quite different from magic, I think. In terms of realized bodhisattvas, what look like supernatural powers are not exactly magic; they’re just the realization of how things work. Like, for example, initially it’s very difficult to comprehend that a few hundred people are actually able to fly in space, in the sky, in a tube with wings. But if you realize that it’s because of this formula, that composition, the engine, and all that, it becomes quite normal.

When we hear the word “omniscience,” again it sounds like magic; that’s how we relate. But omniscience is not like that; it’s also very logical, I think. Basically, if you are skillful in gaining experience, you could be omniscient.

How were you recognized to be the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa? I was recognized by my teacher, His Holiness Shamar Rinpoche, around the age of 11.

There’s controversy concerning your recognition by Shamar Rinpoche. A good number of Kagyu masters, the Dalai Lama, and the Chinese government have recognized Orgyen Trinley as the Karmapa. Would you like to address that? There are always controversies, they’re a part of life. There is no life without obstacles, there’s no life without problems, there’s no life without controversies. It’s unavoidable. It’s impossible to say: “I have a life, and I would like it to be completely peaceful.”

As practitioners, as Buddhists, we try to use whatever obstacles are there and transform them into something meaningful. By doing so we actually learn so much about how to progress, and we develop a wider perspective of life.

How can a lineage, your lineage, be a positive influence in today’s world? Well, we are trying to adapt and see what works and what doesn’t work. We’re looking to found more open institutes or universities, as well as projects with an emphasis on the environment, medicine, things like that. For example, we’re in the process of building an institute [in Dordogne, France] so that people, particularly Europeans and young people, can have access to dharma—not in terms of promoting Buddhism, but giving access to knowledge: sciences of the mind, of the body, of the world. Prior to practice, we need to acquire knowledge.

Traditionally, our school mainly emphasizes practice; the Kagyupas are well known for their meditation. In terms of the core practice, the benefits of the lineage can only come from making sure we ourselves protect it, keep it as authentic as possible, and try to practice it in our lives. By doing so, we are able to overcome obstacles when there’s a big crisis, and we become an example for others. Naturally, others develop an interest.

So the aim is basically to have a great lineage of practitioners and to show that it does work: the Buddha’s teachings work. Just seeing that, I think, can bring some inspiration, instead of saying, “Well, you must practice this, otherwise the world is going to end.”

In a blog you posted on the UK Huffington Post last summer, you addressed the topic of wealth. Reading that blog brought home how radically different your world is from that of your sixteen predecessors. Could you please talk a little about what has changed, what has remained the same, and how the times impact your activity? I’m sure that starting from the first Karmapa until my predecessor, the 16th, each reincarnation had his own changes and had to adapt, definitely. But the 21st century has been the most drastically changing era ever—even in the last 10 years, so much change. We also have to adjust to change. But in terms of the method itself, it’s timeless; we don’t really have to adapt it. People are always trying to find new trends in terms of cars, clothes, food, drinks—all the time, yes? But still, classics are classics: they’re timeless. In the same way, I think these methods are timeless, they’re classic. That will never change.

The methods may not have changed, but the way that your activity unfolds has to have changed, hasn’t it? Of course. In the modern world, media is something that we cannot avoid and have to adapt to. We’ve come to an era where we have to connect with everybody and make known what we do and what others do. In a way there’s actually great positive potential there, such as through transparency.

I’ve been trying my best to learn how to adapt the practices and teachings to the contemporary world, so that if there’s a need for the buddhadharma and the Karma Kagyu methods, these can be made accessible.

How do you feel about the world? Optimistic? Confident? Pessimistic? I guess, in one moment of my mind, everything. All in one. Probably that’s the best way to describe it. There is panic because even with all these luxuries, people are still not happy. Actually, if my late grandmother were here, she would say—and I would agree—that modern society has everything that a human needs. Everything. So therefore it is quite shocking actually to see that there are still problems, you know?

I cannot understand why there is violence when you have everything. In underdeveloped countries, that you can understand, yes? Because they’re trying to develop, trying somehow to compete with developed countries, and a lot of anxiety and violence is the result. But in civilized nations and cities, still there’s violence. What is wrong?

Yes, what’s wrong? Well, it’s all about outer wealth, and in terms of greed, it’s endless, yes? First there’s desire, and then you develop greed—you just want more, more, more. When you have something, you’re not satisfied; you want something else totally. Of course, you need financial support to live, but money cannot provide everything. Material wealth has an end, and when the end comes, the mind is really disturbed.

It looks like only one thing can save us: the development of inner wealth. Then there’s a perfect circle, everything is good. When we’re in tune with our inner wealth—the qualities of compassion, contentment, patience, and so on—it’s endless, it’s timeless. Those are the qualities that we’re born with. Everybody. The whole process of meditation is all about trying to dig into this inner wealth, to access it.

How do we access our inner wealth? Better start looking here [touches his heart].

How? First try to see who has found inner peace. I’ll help you: you can find it through Buddhism. It seems to me that this is why the Buddha taught the dharma and we ourselves try to explain the meaning of dharma around the world. In particular, I think it’s very relevant nowadays in the contemporary world, where there are many forms of crisis. Mainly we talk about the economic crisis, which has a lot to do with a lack of inner knowledge, inner peace, inner wealth. All forms of wealth, inner and outer, come from the mind itself; without the mind, there’s almost nothing else. That’s why we target the essence, the inner state.

If you look, you’ll see that the path to gaining inner wealth begins with a calm mind. If you calm the mind, then everything around you calms down also. At least devote a little bit of time to cultivating a calm mind; you’ve sacrificed enough on many, many unnecessary things. Time and energy are priceless, but billions of people have sacrificed them on so many unnecessary things. Instead, if you invest maybe five or ten minutes every day to calming the mind through meditation, I can pretty much guarantee that something good will come out of it.

You’ve traveled the world and met people from all over. Any general advice? Yes, over the last 10-plus years of traveling, I’ve learned so much from the people that I’ve met; it has been really helpful for me to understand the difference of mentalities and of cultures. And to see so much diversity on one hand, and on the other that we’re all the same. When there’s a problem, it’s a problem. When there’s happiness, it’s happiness. That’s it. In fact, there are no barriers.

Everyone has the potential to be happy; we’re born with it. The way to access it is simply to have a decent life, to have the patience to transform our obstacles, be kind, and have very few wants. In Tibetan it’s known as dö choung chok she: having few desires and being happy with what one has.

Do you have a hero? Of course. We all have heroes.

Would you like to tell us who your hero is? [Pauses.] My hero has always been the yogi Milarepa. The poet with a white robe, or naked. Green. And who has everything.

Teaching

The following teaching is adapted from an introduction to the Vajrapani-Hayagriva-Garuda empowerment at Karma Migyur Ling, in the Vercors, France, on August 4, 2012.

In Vajrayana Buddhism, the empowerment ritual is a prerequisite to most deity visualization practices. Empowerments given by spiritual masters aim to connect practitioners to the wisdom energy of the master and meditation deities on several levels.

The purpose of empowerment is simply to achieve understanding and peace of mind. Empowerment involves taking refuge, generating bodhicitta, and developing pure view. We can seek refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; we can generate bodhicitta [awakening mind] and develop pure view, because it’s possible! Purification is possible.

But initially we have to work with what we already have. Right now we have an identity of you and I and we. It’s neither good or bad, it’s not solid. It’s there, it’s perceivable because everything is interdependent; nothing more than that. Just that only.

We don’t have to say “there is no I,” because there is, somehow, an “I.” If I pinch you, you will feel something, so we can’t deny this identification. But we don’t say, “Ah, I feel the pain, so I’m going to give up,” either. We can work with our identities; we can use them to our advantage. Taking refuge and generating bodhicitta is really about how we use them to our advantage.

In order to accumulate merit and wisdom, we seek refuge in the enlightened state of mind, the Buddha; the path itself, the dharma; and the guides, the bodhisattvas. From that base, we can build or develop something. What we can develop is merit and wisdom, and as we do, we develop understanding.

At the same time, our intention is very important, the intention to truly benefit others. It’s not about how many beings you can benefit; it’s simply the idea that you want to benefit others. It’s also not exactly about whether we can actually help or not— we don’t have to burden ourselves with this. As long as we have the motivation, that’s everything.

If we fixate and say, “I want to help, I need to help,” then if we cannot help we’ll feel agitated and frustrated. That’s why we simply generate this precious mind, this attitude that we are ready at all times to help. With this attitude we’re at peace.

We now have this experience of identity, of an I or me, but we don’t just stay content with this ordinary state. Actually, with the pure view [accessed through the empowerment and practice], our state of mind is that of true compassion, and we’re an embodiment of both compassion and wisdom. At all times we have this attitude of being of benefit and the means, the wisdom to make any situation beneficial. This means that if it benefits others for me to be a doctor, a cook, a painter, then I’ll be a doctor, a cook, or a painter. This attitude doesn’t make us feel superior or inferior about being or not being a cook. And it’s not because we see ourselves as wisdom aspects that we feel superior, or because we perceive ourselves as human beings that we should feel inferior. The only thing that really matters and gives us peace is to be very much at ease with this attitude of benefit. We don’t have to change much.

Most importantly, all of these qualities are so natural that we don’t have to buy or acquire them from somewhere else. They’ve been there from the moment we were born. We feel great joy when we realize that we have it all. So that’s what we’re doing.

Still, even though we know all this, the title of the empowerment—Vajrapani, Hayagriva, the phoenix Garuda—feels unusual, fantastic, and exotic, like something far away. In order to maybe make a bit more sense of it, we identify that it’s basically about removing obstacles. If we look it up on Google or Wikipedia, we’ll probably have some indication that it’s about removing obstacles.

What are these obstacles? Do they live out there as spirits or forces or—as mentioned in the Google search—in the form of nagas or demons, maras? If you keep things simple, you’ll see that, no, all of these outer projections really come from your own mind. Such forces or spirits begin to appear if the mind is conditioned. You can battle against your reflection or echo. You’ve conditioned your mind to such an extent that the reflection is somehow answering back and seems to be more than a reflection. You begin to forget that it’s actually very simple: it’s just a reflection, it’s just an echo. That’s why, in the end, the real mara or obstacle is actually one’s own habits, one’s own mind.

There is no truly existing mara. But if you live in that habit, one will come. And it will annoy you. Therefore we try to train the mind to realize that all of these obstacles are due to too much minding. Minding the mind.

But even after all this, we can still feel the pain of the pinch. Then we try to feel compassion for our habit; in a way, we can satisfy the habit. The habit says that there are outer appearances, outer obstacles and all that, and we say, fine, and accordingly we find a remedy. We manifest Vajrapani, Hayagriva, Garuda, and we develop a habit that because of this manifestation, the obstacles are gone. Then the habit is satisfied; it doesn’t nag any more. And as a result we’re happy, we’re at peace.

Now it should be clear, but if it’s too complicated and gives even more of a headache to hear all this, then just focus on taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha and generating bodhicitta. During the empowerment I would ask you to contemplate what I’ve just said or simply rest your mind in a calm and peaceful state. Simply develop the motivation to benefit others.

The post Diamond-like Resolve appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Climate breakdown is already impacting our lives and without urgent corrective action it will only become more devastating. Here in the Himalayan region, our climate is warming three times faster than the global average rise in temperature. This is having dire consequences for our great glaciers, which are part of the third largest store of ice on Earth.
-Ogyen Trinley Dorje, 17th Karmapa

A message from Karma Triyana Dharmachakra (KTD), the North American seat of Ogyen Trinley Dorge, 17th Karmapa,

Greetings Friends of Tibet and KTD Monastery,

An accelerated rate of global warming in the Himalayan region, disappearance of vegetation used in natural dyes, and forced relocation of Tibetan nomadic shepherds, threaten the ancient Tibetan textile-making tradition.

Join the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra (KTD) monastery community and friends at a, Reception for the Preservation of Himalayan Textile Arts; Wednesday, August 3 at 7:00-8:00 PM at the Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th Street, New York, NY.

Talks by Linda Cortright, Editor in Chief of, Wild Fibers Magazine, Ven. Khenpo Ugyen Tenzin of KTD Monastery and Dekila Chungyalpa of the World Wildlife Fund will frame the issues.

The first twenty (20) guests to respond will enjoy a free tour of the Rubin Museum’s, Patterns of Life Tibetan Carpet’s exhibit at 6:00 prior to the reception and complimentary admission to the museum galleries.

A donation to KTD Monastery is kindly suggested and may be mailed to the address below. OR donate online and receive an exquisitely handcrafted Tibetan rug: 1) log on to: www.kagyu.org 2) find “Green Monastery” on the home page, and 3) click on: Tibetan Textile Registry. Your donation toward the reception contributes to:

• the “greening” and Green Living activities of KTD Monastery
• safeguarding the environment
• preservation of the centuries-old Tibetan rug-making craft
• economic empowerment of Tibetan artisans living in exile

The 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinely Dorje, has challenged us to translate Buddhist aspiration into activity. Take this opportunity to learn about ecological devastation in the Himalayan region as it impinges on Tibetan textile arts, and ACT. KTD monastery looks forward to welcoming you to the Colonnade at the Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th Street, New York, NY; 7:00-8:00 PM, Wednesday, August 3. RSVP:(845) 679-5906 ex: 1121,
ktd.development.pbs-at-gmail.com
Sincere Regards,
Pamela

Pamela Boyce Simms, Office of Development
Karma Triyana Dharmachakra (KTD) Monastery
335 Meads Mountain Road
Woodstock, NY, 12498
(845) 679-5906 ex: 1121, ktd.development.pbs-at-gmail.com

The post Translating Aspiration Into Activity appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Uploaded to YouTube by wudu1982,

Amazing and very unique recording of HH16 Karmapa Interview which took place during His Holiness the Karmapa’s visit to the USA in 1976.
The Karmapa (officially His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa) is the head of the Karma Kagyu, the largest sub-school of the Kagyupa (Tibetan Bka’ brgyud), itself one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

The post Video: Rare 1976 interview with the 16th Karmapa appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

On January 28th Indian police raided the monastery of 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje and seized a large amount of cash. At that time, many damning and accusatory articles about the Karmapa appeared in the Indian media (that he is a Chinese spy etc.) Of the subsequent vast onslaught of information and commentary that then came our way, two things seemed immediately clear: The money was donated to the Karmapa from his many supporters throughout the world and the Indian media was acting irresponsibly.

Two weeks ago, when the New York Times published a piece on the situation, I posted a blog praising the Times’ level headed approach and stated that I felt it was a time “to wait for more facts to surface before jumping to any conclusions.”

It has now been almost a month since the raid and the Indian government has given the Karmapa a “clean chit” (freed from any question of guilt).

via Shobhan Saxena on the Times of India blog,

India must apologise to the Karmapa Lama

In the age of 24×7 TV channels facts are not sacrosanct and the only things that matter are screaming headlines, half-baked theories and silly opinions. The Karmapa affair is a good example of this malaise. Now the Union Ministry of Home Affairs has given a clean chit to the Karmapa Lama in the case involving seizure of foreign currency from ‘his’ monastery. But HP chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal has refused to comment on the clean chit to the Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorje, from the Central agencies which looked into the alleged violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act by the Tibetan leader.

However, while speaking to some Tibetan reporters at Dharamsala on Thursday, Dhumal sang a diiferent tune.  “Karmapa’s name in any way is not involved in any land related cases. Neither there are any cases against some particular monastery person,” said Dhumal. This is the same chief minister who has been going hammer and tongs at the Karmapa and the Dalai Lama and the entire Tibetan community in exile, making all kinds of wild allegations. To push his case, Dhumal even went to the extent of asking the Centre to reimburse the “entire amount of money spent by the Himachal government on the security of the Dalai Lama and Karmapa Lama”. Now, it seems he has lost faith in his police but he won’t admit it because the lies about the Karmapa have been repeated too many times.

Since lies spread faster than truth, these bizarre allegations against the Karmapa appeared in the media as the gospel truth. Stories coming from unnamed, anonymous sources were played on prime-time TV and splashed across the newspapers, leaving no doubt in some minds that the Karmapa was upto some mischief. First they blew smoke in the air and then began looking for the fire. With the state government and media hunting in pair, the Karmapa had no chance to prove his innocence. The Tibetan spiritual guru had already been declared guilty by suspicion. The entire Tibetan community in India had been put under the scanner.

 

Read the complete piece here. Shobhan Saxena goes on to address the specific allegations that Chinese currency was found at the monastery, that the Karmapa’s monastery is illegal, that he was sent to India by China, that he owns huge properties, and that he doesn’t speak against China.

*There is another claimant to the seat of 17th Karmapa, Thaye Dorje. Tricycle does not take sides in sectarian disputes.

The post India Must Apologize to Karmapa appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

“What I really like to do is go into action…When I am meditating on compassion I don’t want to keep it inside my own mind. I want to be able to show that power to others.”
-Ogyen Trinley Dorje, 17th Karmapa

via Buddhadharma,

Directed by Fernanda Rivero and James Gritz, Never Give Up: Karmapa 17 is a documentary film being made about, as Barry Boyce described him in his January 2010 Shambhala Sun cover story, “the third most important spiritual leader in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, and the one who may carry that tradition forward in the twenty-first century.” The films also centers on “the Kagyu Monlam prayer festival and three women inspired by the Karmapa into social action in Bodhgaya India, where the Buddha attained enlightenment.” Here’s the trailer for Never Give Up:

View the original post here.

*There is another claimant to the seat of 17th Karmapa, Thaye Dorje. Tricycle does not take sides in sectarian disputes.

The post Watch: Trailer for “Never Give Up,” a new film about Ogyen Trinley Dorje, 17th Karmapa appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.