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...