Satisfied Buddhist - Domo Geshe Rinpoche

I'm not a feminist but I am listening to our dramatically changing times. It is apparent that women are no longer exclusively bound by traditional work, isn’t that so? Even as recently as forty years ago, Western women were expected to marr y, produce children and stay at home regardless of their own choices. At that time it was rare for women to pursue a full time spiritual career because their entire time and their expectations of freedom of personal choice were superseded by the choices of others. Society allowed women spirituality, but not a spiritual career. That has now changed. Intelligent men and women of the West are being looked at very carefully as the guardians, the next wave. ~Domo Geshe Rinpoche ~~~ "Ich bin keine Feministin aber lausche auf die Zeichen der Zeit. Die Frauen der heutigen Zeit sind nicht mehr an ihre traditionelle Arbeit gebunden, nicht wahr? Noch vor vierzig Jahren wurde von einer westlichen Frau erwartet, daß sie heiratet, Kinder bekommt und zu...

Part 2 We want to know and experience true love, a state described earlier as not being able to find it, but maintaining a flow toward a person, an object such as a passion for a hobby, or as a love of buddhist study. In the higher practices, we learn to maintain an intimate relationship with the objects of our buddhist studies; bodhichitta, emptiness or other cultivated attitude we need for transformation. Even in ordinary mature interpersonal relationships, there must be continuity, a steady undercurrent developed and cultivated that comes from a deeper place than the changeable mental functions. Love contains a capacity to maintain a kind of “not knowing” that helps us hold steady in our desire to maintain the emotion by not owning the object of love while still maintaining contact. Without the ability to endure our tendencies of changing our mind, from moment to moment, we would be in love, and then a minute later we would not be in love, and then again in love, and again not ...

Fifteenth in a series. Number Sixteen of Chandrakirits exposition Twenty Emptinesses: Emptiness That is the Absence of Entities: “ Since an entity arises from causes and conditions, it lacks the nature of being a composite. This emptiness of there being anything that is a composite is the emptiness that is the absence of entities ”. Entity is the self, the person or the object that arises due to causes and conditions that transcends the gathering of elements by giving it a name. What manifests as a single object does so in dependence on causes and conditions. For example, what is called a chariot is a single object that is different from the parts of the chariot even though it arises from the assembly of the parts. It did not exist as a chariot until all the parts were assembled, and the chariot disappears when the parts are disassembled, isn't that so? Therefore, it is not a true composite such as an assembly of parts that remain unnamed even though it may look like a char...

Fourteenth in a series. Even though systems such as science, eighteen dharmas, sacred geometry, chakras, and more describe in detail the minute distinctions between abstruse points while defining phenomena, the results of that specialized study and scientific inquiry will not cause what is transitory to be intrinsically real. There are often implied affirmations that the methods are wisdom truth devices that reveal the knowledge of true reality. Even sophisticated techniques considered secret or esoteric are empty of existence from their own side and are products of arising depending upon other elements, causes, and conditions. So, even if you created a machine that could tap dance on a star while we watched here from earth by magical means, and no one else knows how to do it but you, still it is empty of inherent existence from its own side. It is a product depending upon other elements, causes, and conditions. Great Sage Chandrakirti states in his analysis to ascertain reality poi...

Thirteen in a series . One of the obstacles to understanding reality is that your grasping is attached to your innate view that binds it to a compulsion to see it as real. It is then you will attempt to subjugate the analysis of ascertaining reality to your present understanding of your innate view as a demand for reality to be understood filtered through your innate view that you are not willing to give up. There is no transitional view to the emptiness of true nature. We cannot present a semi-truth other than the words that I use and what you are experiencing while reading these words that explain the nature of what you have not yet understood. This also includes the movement of your mind and thinking about how you feel about the experience " Well, I would like, and then it must…no, it is not that, and then oh, well I cannot…. " This activity of perception stimulating mental and energetic structures acts as a transitional view toward your understanding the nature of all ...

Twelfth in a series There are virtuous objects that are connected to preparation practices for transformation such as Buddha statues, holy texts, and one's lama guiding your progress. Other phenomena not to be discarded are bodhichitta motivation, your meditation practice, and taking responsibility for what you have promised and are able to accomplish in virtue such as Dharma service. This begins the commentary of point number Eleven, of twenty emptinesses analysis to ascertain reality by Chandrakirti. Emptiness of what should not be discarded. “What should not be discarded is empty of itself since this emptiness is its very nature. It is spoken of as the emptiness of what should not be discarded”. During analysis or eventually while meditating you are expected to enter into perceptual dissolution, the state without foundation which is closer to how things actually exist in their own nature. The fact that they do exist in the conventional sense continues to act as a support...

Eleventh in a series. For those who perceive the philosophical realities of True Paths, it is difficult to see past correct reasoning to the lack of inherent existence or essence. One must not give up True Paths in order to find its empty nature, but hold space for that correct dynamic with the path to transformation to emerge at the correct time. Point nine of Sage Chandrakirtis twenty; Emptiness of That Which is Beyond Extremes: “ That to which extremes do not apply is expressed as being beyond extremes. Its emptiness of its very self is explained as the emptiness of that which is beyond extremes ”. It is identified as that which is beyond extremes because it actually identifies the problems that exist. Since the Dharma contains the tools of “not this and not that”, dharma is acknowledged to be beyond the extremes of permanentism and nihilism. So, we do not give up the remedy because it describes the remedy, thinking that True Paths (higher functioning Dharma) might be the first...

Tenth in a series. Subtle forms that appear without the usual factors… I may be digressing from the official Buddhist interpretation, but I go on: Subtle forms that appears without the usual factors, such as long-lived beings having unknown origins or phenomena such as space that are seen by some to be the support of phenomena should not to be perceived as ultimate reality or permanent because they are empty of inherent existence. This includes God. This would have to include God. Chandrakirti states in his famous exposition Twenty Emptinesses, point eight; Emptiness of the Uncomposite: “ When arising, cessation and impermanence are not among its characteristics, a phenomenon is known as being uncomposited. They are empty of themselves. This is the emptiness of the uncomposite. ” One may object by noting that if there are no causes and conditions for forms or ideas to arise, it must mean that it is real. If the causes and conditions, the primary formula for identifying illusory ph...

Ninth in a series. I feel a strong sense of sharing in this series about the analysis of reality in order for many to benefit in the future by this teaching. The statements by the ancient Indian Buddhist sage Chandrakirti and my commentary are a step-by-step method to bring the meditator correctly and easily to a place where the mind has no place to settle in dysfunctional view. We now go on to ideas that are common at this point in the method. The mind is seeking solidity and comfort and that could be expressed as a wish to say, "Well, if I do not exist, then I take a sense of safety that the cosmos and the great constellations exist. I guess I do not care if I do not exist as long as that exists and I am okay just being an illusory speck within that cosmos. If that is the way it is, then that is the way it is." Chandrakirti says and I echo him. No! The cosmos and all of the stars, even the Hubble telescope do not exist in reality from their own side by having permanenc...

Eight in a series. Let us go directly to Chandrakirti point number seven of twenty: Emptiness of the Composite: “ Because they arise from conditions, the three realms are composite, it is taught. They are empty of themselves, and this, the Buddha taught, is the emptiness of the composite .” So, that means that all realms are held together in a complex structure comprised of primarily the needs of living beings that abide in them. Realms of humans, gods, and lower beings and in the animal, hungry ghost, and hell realms, arise from causes and conditions that facilitate their manifestation from energetic grid models in their interiors. In previous teachings I have given on how to be more effective doing world peace prayers as well as how the world actually exists, you might remember my explanation of how energetic grids act as transitional supports. Our particular realm has a certain kind of energetic grid that is a pre-manifestation of the human realm that we recognize as the ordin...