Satisfied Buddhist - Domo Geshe Rinpoche

In order to be able to describe how to meditate in the most efficient manner with the best results, we will need to ask other questions and explore other meanings. So, what is meditation? Since you want to know how , exactly what is it? Student: It is a method of going internal. It is a method of internalizing experience. Rinpoche: ok, a method of internalizing experience. However, what if you have just experienced eating a spoiled pizza? Student: Then you cannot meditate. Rinpoche: You should not meditate. So there is something missing in your answer. If you were explaining this to a rank beginner, they might ask, “I have just had a terrible day at work. Should I internalize those experiences?” Student: No, absolutely not. Rinpoche: Good. Student: What I was thinking of was not so much internalizing what is outside, but more paying attention to what is inside. Rinpoche: Alright. Now we have a very different answer. Paying attention to what is inside. However, why wo...

There is such a thing called performance art. I heard of one Japanese lady, a very famous performance artist who comes onto the stage with a big ball, like a snowball. She is actually wearing a snowball made of old rags covering her from the neck down to her bottom. As she shrieks, moans, and moves around the stage, layer by layer, she takes off one bit of rag that she is wearing and hangs it on a stick that she is carrying. As the performance goes on, leaping and shouting, eventually, this lady is wearing no clothes at all! She only has a big bunch of fabric hanging on this stick over her shoulder. What she does then is run up and down the aisle shouting at people and throwing branches and leaves on them. In one way, this is a very interesting method of expressing creativity. However, there are many expressions of creativity. Luckily, we do not have to approve of how people paint or sing. It does not require our permission. However, sometimes change for its own sake can pro...

I saw a story in Newsweek about nudist colonies. Now, I do not advocate a special Buddhist nudist colony. However, the article in the magazine said this is the natural way of being and it is much better, very open and healthy . This article made me think of being a mental nudist, a Buddhist mental nudist. In the privacy of our own thoughts, we would be healthier if we did not have pretensions with our self. A mental nudist would feel constricted with ideas of, “This is what I am like, this is what I am not like, I have to always act this way, I have to be this,” We could drop pretensions and enter inside to where our more real identity is waiting. In the privacy of our own space, we have choices that are not available in daily life. The pressures of office and the judgments that need to be made are like a teacher standing among seven-year-olds screaming and vying for attention. If the teacher could slow down and watch the children jumping slowly, to see what is actually happeni...

In Tibetan society, when someone becomes ill, he or she begins to practice hard. They redouble their meditation practice and their prayers. However, it is so interesting that in the west, sometimes this is different, but as soon as we get a little sniffle, we say, "I am not going to meditate today. I do not feel quite well enough." It should be instead, “When things get tough, the tough go to their meditation cushions!” The tough increase their meditation time. This is determination. I have students, when their pet passed away, stopped meditating for a long time because they could not sit, they felt too sad. It is better to pray for your pet's arrival in pet heaven or for a good rebirth, but do not stop meditating. Do not discourage yourself from meditating. Find ways within difficult situations that make it imperative for you to practice. In that way, the nature of diamond motivation comes alive in you. Do not be like marshmallow inside. Have diamond determi...

Student: When enlightenment comes, you dissolve into nothing, and that's what it is. You would know, because you would not know anything. Student:To receive blessings to become enlightened, we have to give up relationships with our loved ones and with those we choose to be near and dear. Maybe it's a Western idea; if you want to become enlightened, you must stand alone, leave your spouse and children behind, and that is sad to me. You have left everything that you like or been committed to behind. Or you kick them out? You have to sacrifice them. Rinpoche: The fact that it is not true bears no relationship to the way that you think it is. Many in the West are ripe for transformation, but cannot, because they were indoctrinated into strange ideas about what enlightenment is, or how you will be, how you will feel once enlightened. There you are: enlightened, poof! You disappear! I see bits and pieces of valid path here that have become fearful instead of balanced and ca...

There are three stages of training. Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana, as well as within each of those, the outer practices and the inner practices. New Buddhists should understand the different approaches most clearly in the similarities and differences between the first two stages. There were 18 original Theravadin schools in the earlier times, but none exists in the pure form anymore. They have evolved into Buddhism practiced in Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, as well as other places. Hinayana is a term used by the Mahayana. Hinayana means small vehicle. Mahayana means greater vehicle. You can see who named it. However, Hinayana practitioners call their tradition Theravadan or the path of the elders. The outer practices of the pure Theravadan emphasize a reduction in interest in samsaric or worldly involvement. We are calling this the first of three stages of training, which means that in Tibetan Buddhism, the Hinayana does exist, not as a process in and for itself. It is an...

Photo is in front of the Liberty Diner in Liberty NY where I enjoyed many meals in my just previous life before passing away in September of 2001. I remembered it well because we used to stop here after shopping in town. When I went in, I saw the hostess and remembered her face although I never saw her in this new life. I said hello, do you remember the small Tibetan monk who used to eat here often? She said yes I do, but I have not seen him in a long time. I said to her that is because I passed away. I am the reincarnation of that one. Oh, she said, I remember that I took a photo of him in front of the diner once. Yes, I remember that too. Then I sat down to order my usual vanilla ice cream. Place not change at all. a teaching I gave at the fantastic balloon festival- more than 1000 balloons! I am describing how advanced students behave before transformation and inner structure of higher level beings. Enjoy!