Satisfied Buddhist - Domo Geshe Rinpoche

Thinking about Shantideva, the great buddhist sage who lived around 800 AD. His famous work, "Guide to Bodhisattvas Way of Life" that is probably already on your bookshelf or bedside table. Buddhists often relate to him, viewing him as a very contemporary writer, because his words about arising and development of bodhicitta and bodhisattva behaviors resonate strongly with our modern world. It is as if he is still speaking to us about our modern problems. However, what ignites me at this moment is pondering whether it is possible that the enthusiasm and power of Shantideva was expressed from the whole person, and not just his writings that remain. I would like to consider that his life, as a person of that long ago time, was combined with his own inner and outer experiences. These were channeled into thought and direction that can be even more alive to us today by glimpsing into his holistic process. The challenge to us to become a bodhisattva hero to all living beings was se...

“Many people crave the alive feelings they had as a child. For them, the memory of an effervescent way of looking at life is remembered as feeling happy and vibrantly alive. When daily stress increases, they might begin to feel less and less alive. This is too bad, because their sense of feeling can also become mixed with feeling old. These two should not be connected as they are two completely different issues. The problem is, that without a stabilized energetic system, it is hard to break through to a fresh feeling, that special alive. As we all know, almost all children produce a tremendous quantity of fresh new energy that excites itself. Since they do not usually have a very clogged up energy system, they are able to be light, flexible and open to themselves and the world around them. They act and feel lively because there are not many experiences and discordance there yet to stabilize. As that child gets older, dense and sometimes painful physical energies, originally produced...

"What if a huge concrete mixer truck, filled with blueberry pancake batter, pulled up outside your house? Since you really love pancakes and ordered the maximum load, you are not surprised when the valve opens and pancake batter begins to pour out onto your front lawn. As it continues to pump pancake batter, there is now so much that it begins to creep across the lawn and eventually floods your whole front lawn. Reaching the open front door, pancake batter begins to flow into your front hall. Still not empty, it continues pumping pancake batter onto the front lawn, now creeping down the hall toward the kitchen. Filled with accumulated grass, sticks, and dirt, it finally arrives to the stove. Now this is exciting because we are all getting hungry and love pancakes so very much! However, it is on the floor, how ever will you get it into the frying pan so that you can enjoy the tasty flapjacks! It is like that; the delicious effects of outer spiritual practices such as reciting mantr...

"From Healing the Healer series..Everyone experiences the drop of energy, or small disappointments that make us feel unwilling to do more until we take a break. In other words, we feel burned out. This is true whether you work as a healer, work for a bank, school, or work for yourself. If you experience stress and burnout because you work for a bad boss and then remember that you're self-employed, there might be issues even stronger than the need for healing from burnout. Joking aside, first we need to identify whether that feeling of being burned out is superficial and temporary or a serious manifestation of a deeper frustration. Especially in busy office culture, there is a kind of fashionable and competitive burnout that is really only expressing everyday stress. You can often overhear conversations in cafes and bars; “I’m really burned out today. I have just had it!” Their friend objects, “I’m more burned out than you are.” “No, that’s not possible,” and on to the descript...

"Tibetan Buddhism is, at its heart, a yogic tradition. This also means, it is a training program containing many different kinds of meditations. However, these are not presented to the student like a buffet luncheon so that we pick and choose what looks tasty. They are based upon an enduring and trusting relationship with a qualified mentor who suggests the direction and offers tools for transformation in the form of meditation practices and support. There are meditations where a mind of satisfaction is developed. This rests and stabilizes previous strong realizations to become capable of continuing in a new way. It also heals and repairs stress that is coming from damage to the over reactive limbic system. However, to develop satisfaction at the wrong time is harmful to transformation because it can arise complacency. This could create an obstacle to a perhaps more needed quality of anxiety longing for the enlightened state. If we practice honesty, after reading the lives of the ...

"Buddhist Mahayana texts describe and link awakening to a very special mind, creating a powerful wish to be free. Because there are tremendous obstacles to achieving this, great opposing remedies must be used. It is somewhat like animal activists opening cages to free lab animals, but most just sit in their cages, the only place they ever knew, because they do not know what freedom is. As intelligent people,we have a natural awakening to wish to be free. It is an anxiety but a good kind that causes us to set out on a journey to still that inner disturbance. Perhaps we wish to experience the energetic rush of white-water rafting, go to Hawaii, or experience what it is like in sacred Machu Piccu to feel free. We want to fix the world around us to free us of this anxiety so we see our problem "out there.” “If only nuclear power plants were closed down, I know the world would be a happy place.” So, they shut as many as they can, and when they close down the last one, will the wor...

"There are many different kinds of compassion. When we examine compassion in order to grow stronger to help others, first of all, we remember how good it feels when someone else is compassionate toward us, true? Remembering that, we again appreciate the feeling touch of compassion. Then it becomes easy to generate spontaneously the idea that I also want to produce this compassion for others because I myself enjoy receiving compassion so much. This produces the enthusiastic energy to learn more. In the same way, we can be inspired to break through to the deep wisdom energy of great compassion, now called engaging bodhichitta. No one can give us its precursor, arising bodhicitta, working tirelessly toward transformation to arise the altruistic wish to benefit all living beings without regard for our present relationship to them. Bodhicitta cannot be given to you; only you can develop it yourself. For every living being that possesses a form, it is possible for them to arise bodhicit...