Satisfied Buddhist - Domo Geshe Rinpoche

The powerful, creative energy of the muse of poetry, painting, and other arts is thought by others to be a mythical personification of the spirit of creativity in beautiful and seductive female form, but not to the experiencer. Many artists entice and worship the muse who holds the key to their success. The often sudden departure of the muse is treated as more devastating than the ending of a love relationship, leaving the artist unable to function. There definitely are signs that this is equal to the female creative energy of higher tantric practices called dakini. Even the longing and requesting to appear that is experienced by the tantric meditator has great similarity to the creative geniuses that rely on the muse. In the tantric scriptures, the phrases such as, “May the Dakas and Dakinis...” refers to the powerful sacred energies of enlightened beings connected to transcendent development. The dakinis are always female and the males are called dakas. The early tantric societies...

In our Tibetan Buddhist tradition, we spend a lot of time, perhaps even most of our time, defining terminology. That might sound boring, however, I shifted from telling what a term means, to often asking others their present views of words and concepts. Modern society comes from so many ethnic origins, and interests, so by asking clog dancers about enlightenment, we might receive very different answers than university professors or Buddhist meditators. We do not know which view is more valuable, but understanding what clog dancers think about enlightenment is also important. Even members of a single family belong to various interest groups and in addition, are influenced by being in different generations. Nearly everyone is expected to hold cultural values from their ethnic background, family environment, as well as peer pressures. Expectations, by definition, demand that you be like them by holding values in common, but you cannot be like all of them, because some attitudes you are ex...

Opening the self-cherishing heart, giving love based upon a desire to own someone, is one form that natural selfishness is displayed in a desire realm such as the human realm. On the other hand, displaying true appreciation toward others is powerfully transformative in the very place we need to learn and establish a lovely dissimilarity between others and ourselves. It is possible to have a good and loving relationship with a special individual other, but it will be at the expense of an unusual feeling. For generally selfish or self-centered people, this feeling will be perceived as feeling vulnerable, so controlling others as possessions feels safer to them. Mahayana Buddhists cultivate a healthier view, seeing all others as dear, because at the level of our being needing healing and learning in order to become transformed, we must have a genuine desire to get along with others. Because it is not based on buying and selling of our self-love, it does not require others to be nice peopl...

“Some esoteric philosophies state that there is no real difference between good and bad, or even pure and impure thoughts, because energy is just energy. However, if we reason, even a bit, we can conclude that pure and virtuous thoughts are more beneficial than impure thoughts for a number of reasons. Since the actual action is the one done by the mind, corresponding karmic consequences will arise and accrue. It is easy to see how we bring benefit or harm to others based on how we behave in bodily actions and speech under the influence of positive or negative states of mind. In addition, to others who have inner vision, even the appearance of our thoughts, and the energy produced by our thoughts, are colored by the agenda of either uncontaminated or polluted thought impulses. Since impure thought is, by nature, confusion in motivation and arises from previous impure thoughts and distorted states of mind, their product, the unaligned energies, are nearly useless for good nutrition for ...

"Rough humor is meant to shock and embarrass, but integrates into the minds of others easily because of the heightened energy of laughter. This is intended to hurt others, either actively or in a passive aggressive manner, but it also hurts the joker. This is a harm identified and described by Buddhist teachings of the ten non-virtues called divisive speech and slander. Divisive speech is prevalent among intelligent people and sadly, has almost become a sign of intelligence by manipulating words and toying with the emotions of others to show off. We should use more skillful methods instead, because sarcasm and slander damages the mind of the speaker as well as causing the listeners to become complicit in the intent to harm others. They also become co dependent conspirators by allowing the harmer to believe that they are clever and correct. This is among the many damages caused by non-virtue. Some develop unskillful habits, such as divisive speech, which is slander, as a favorite m...

"Siddhartha, the soon to be Buddha, confronted his father to question his attempts to shelter him because he could see that those could not actually protect him from aging, sickness and eventual death. His journey of discovery lasted many years and led him to final preparation for transformation into the awakened state. This is a very special, specific awakened state, different than the goals of yogic siddhas at that time. Prince Siddhartha knew that freedom was of a different kind than the training offered at that time, even though there were many spiritual seekers. He could not accept that the goal of their process. Perhaps he could not even verbalize what he was looking for, but he knew what it was not. His special entry was into a paradigm free of confusion. The goals of yogic states offered by the spiritual practices at that time, were for the most part, an entry into various worldly abilities and powers. His firm goal was a state free from confusion. It is transcendent be...