Satisfied Buddhist - Domo Geshe Rinpoche

From the era of the great advice commentaries such as when the 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva were written, it was considered that almost everyone would be poor by their karma. Perhaps they had the poor karma to live where there wasn’t much  money and everyone lived in reduced circumstances or because they had a great deal of obligation. Poverty was common for dharma practitioners; by choosing a life of meditation, one does not have a wealthy lifestyle. Among choices made to have a life of meditation and practice, is deciding to have free time rather than money-making time.  We probably would be pitied as someone who is poor, and so becoming poor is something most folks avoid at any costs. Our fear of poverty is what drives us to work harder. I am not saying that making money is wrong. With children to support, house payments, electric bills, gas and insurance to pay, financial responsibilities are greater than in other places, or the way it was in the old days. However, the...

In higher standards, we will be judged by how well we learned to along with others and how we improved our compassionate nature. This is the value of a life well lived! ~DGR ~~~ Regarding the four Buddha bodies. Usually, we talk about Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya as the three bodies, but sometimes we see adding Svabhavakaya body, which is an important element in the teachings of the higher being. Svabhavakaya body is not actually a body, but a highly developed preactive mental state preparing f or a neutral entry into Dharmakaya: the absolute truth body. The Svabhavakaya referred to in classic texts translates into English as the emptiness of emptiness. This is emptiness devoid of all phenomena, even devoid of its own perception of the state of emptiness. This advanced state is a staging area, leaving all perceptions to enter into Dharmakaya. The Svabhavakaya is the state of neutral without phenomena arising, or the mind moving. It is not only the state of ...

Regarding the three bodies of a buddha: dharmakaya, sambogakaya and nirmanakaya. A meditator cannot assume an actual sambogakaya deity bliss body without already being a nirmanakaya (supreme human emanation). The meditator can only do this in a visualized manner as part of a tantric meditation practice. Emanation does not happen from human to deity level being, (from gross to subtle), only from subtle to gross. Sambogakaya bodies are the description of emanations of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas moving toward their working position of nirmanakaya. Of course, many (if not most) higher-level beings do not manifest in human form but remain in a working position of a sambogakaya being. Learners, such as advanced meditators or bodhisattvas on the path of clarification have another process, attached to a sambogakaya form deity for continued learning. A nirmanakaya, supreme emanation body cannot be constructed from an ordinary human being; one moment an ordinary human being, and ...

This evening is a bit unusual; we are in the middle of an inocular eclipse, a rare type of eclipse. If we were in the optimal viewing place, which I understand is San Diego; we would be seeing a ring around the sun. The moon moves between the earth and the sun creating a ring around the sun. Earlier today I went to the lumber store. There was an elderly gentleman and his wife there outside explaining about the inocular eclipse. He set up his telescope and turned it backwards to display the eclipse on a piece of paper. I stopped, looked at the paper on the sidewalk and at the eclipse in the sky. As I looked back at the paper, it felt like the image projected was not on paper but the original sun, moon event occurring very far away. My perception had bridged a gap between the appearance and the actual event that felt interesting. The newspapers encouraged my perceptions regarding the importance of this event. Earlier, at the height of it at about 6:30PM, I went outside. There was def...

Lord Buddha Shakyamuni said, “This is how I found the light and awakened mind. If you do it in this way, you also will awaken.” His method of explaining it was compelling, honest and clear. His accomplished followers later organized this process with Lord Buddha as the central jewel. The methods we use in the Tibetan system are sophisticated and inextricably energetically tied to the Buddhist path and unbroken lineages from Buddha Shakyamuni. These are reproducible effects that we have not only learned, but also enthusiastically disseminated to others. To do that correctly means that even today, it will have the same results. Over thousands of years, these inner lines of transmission have been carefully preserved so that when the actual breakthrough comes, the light of dharmakaya (1) wisdom fully permeates our being. Only then will we understand perfectly what the Buddha meant by awakened mind. Because the nature of dharmakaya is comprehensive it includes final preparation for extra...

Today I tell you a true story about two tiny little, skinny old Tibetan ladies dressed in their best clothes standing in a crowd waiting for his Holiness the Dalai Lama to pass by in his automobile. They arrived late and found themselves standing all the way at the back of the crowd with all of these nice tall people like you guys standing in front of them. Everyone is looking up the street waiting for the car to arrive except the old ladies. They can’t see what’s happening because they’re only maybe 4’10,” very tiny. Their desire to see His Holiness must have been fueled by their concern that they we so old this might be the last (or only) time to see him. However, Tibetan people are not aggressive, or we can say not in holy situation by shouting, “Let me through, let me through.” Most of the people were Indians or Western people so shouting at them in Tibetan would not have worked anyway. So, what these two old Tibetan ladies did was just lean gently on the person at the very back, a...