Satisfied Buddhist - Domo Geshe Rinpoche

If we want to become happy we must develop a happy mind. So we want to change.. It is reasonable to understand, (but only intellectually), that we cannot both change and stay the same. Now the interesting part: we would be crazy to fix what is not damaged. However, for what is damaged, we need to distance ourselves by removing essential identity and awareness from that part. When we have achieved that separation, we will shift to a more simplified view, using the remaining healthy perceptions until the damaged parts languish for lack of nourishment. This is Dharma! ~ Domo Geshe Rinpoche "Wenn wir glücklich sein wollen müssen wir einen glücklichen Geisteszustand entwickeln. Also wollen wir uns verändern.. Wir können uns nicht zur selben Zeit verändern und gleich bleiben. Nun kommt der interessante Teil: Wir reparieren nichts, was nicht kaputt ist Wir distanzieren uns von den beschädigten Teilen, indem wir unsere essentielle Identität und unser Bewusstsein davon entfer...

We experience weather as purely perceptual as well as having our body senses physically dependent on the previous moment. The physical body stabilizes into an expectation that the temperature, barometric pressure, sunlight etc will remain the same or it sends alerting signals. Hot, hot, hot means, take action to cool off. This is not actually dependent on the temperature, only change, because 60 degrees in June feels cold but 60 degrees in January would feel hot! When the weather changes from hot to cold too suddenly, or a rainstorm is coming, we might complain and feel oppressed. This is how weather is perceptual, when we become accustomed to crave to know how we emotionally feel about the signals of our physical world and body. Our habits and nature influence those feelings. For example, if we carry a lot of anger, we will feel annoyed at the weather. However, for someone with a peaceful or happy mind, there is no sense of suffering, even if it is cold, hot, raining or too sunny! Alt...

Here we are in central Bali on retreat, we have the opportunity to meditate here, enjoying the tropical breezes, and on two sides of our retreat place, we have beautiful rice paddies. To us, it is very decorative, is it not? We hear ducks quacking and rustling through the rice paddy, and it has an exotic and scenic feel for us. On the other hand, the backbreaking work required for many workers to create rice;…. to put rice in your bowl is an important part of the survival of earlier Asians. Even here, and in this modern time it is still not mechanized; there is a very simple connection with the earth; stooping to pull weeds and to gather the rice using a curved knife to cut the grain. So, we have a unique opportunity here to quietly sit here observing the direct relationship that Balinese people have with rice. They plant the rice, watch over and weed it, and when it is time to harvest, they cut it, dry it and eat it. However, your relationship with rice is more complicated, isn’t it? ...

Most Buddhist practitioners go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha at the beginning of their meditation, upon rising and often just before bedtime. The mind is ripe and tidy at that time, nearly holy, and refuge is reasonable and pleasant. Now do it more skillfully; take refuge when you are angry, sad, grasping, hungry, jealous, worried or overstimulated. These are called secondary minds, arising and falling away as moods or stimulated by outside influences. More than the "holy you", these aspects of you need to take refuge and become tamed. This is how we conquer the worst parts of ourselves easily. We bind them to refuge vows! ~ Domo Geshe Rinpoche~~~ ""Die meisten praktizierenden Buddhisten nehmen zu Beginn ihrer Meditation, beim Aufstehen und oft auch kurz vor dem Einschlafen Zuflucht zum Buddha, Dharma und Sangha. Zu diesen Zeiten ist der Geist bereit und aufgeräumt und beinahe heilig und die Zufluchtnahme ist vernünftig und angenehm. Nun sei dabei kun...

Individual karma that we are compelled to carry with us makes us like little old freight trains. We are heavily loaded with shipping containers of maybe Nike tennis shoes wherever we go. Another container might have toxic chemicals going to some far off waste dump, yet another, delicate refrigerated lettuce. This car here holds relationships we shoved back there so we no longer look at them, but still there clakity clacking on the track, not free to leave to explore the world! That one has pickles from Alaska, peaches from Alabama, or just junk we picked up in our travels. Cows in one car, tigers in another. All moving heavily along lifes’ track! ~Domo Geshe Rinpoche

I have heard about an early Christian sect called the Desert Fathers, solitary hermits who spent years in the wilderness, meditating. One hermit spent part of each day gathering twigs and branches building a huge pile only to set it on fire at the end of the year. It is said that the hermit rejoiced at the bonfire because it represented the value of the useless activities in comparison to true values. They were as nothing to him! I can relate this to the Tibetan hermit cave meditators such as Milarepa and the seventh Domo Geshe who cared nothing for worldly life. Milarepa would not leave his meditation even to stitch another clothing from the cloth brought to him. Instead, he tore off a piece and wrapped it around his finger that was becoming blistered from his prayer beads! The tree photographed accompanying this perhaps was done by a descendant of a desert father, knitting a cover for a tree to show us how useless worldly pursuits are. No matter if that was their motivation or not; I...

This world was meant to be a pure land, but it has become contaminated. There are yogic practices to enter that pure land by disconnecting from the contamination. However, to affirm that contamination is actually perfection does not help ~DGR Diese Welt sollte eigentlich ein reiner Bereich sein, aber sie wurde verunreinigt. Es gibt yogische Praktiken, um in diesen reinen Bereich einzutreten indem man sich von der Verunreinigung loslöst. Allerdings hilft es nichts zu behaupten, dass Verunreinigung tatsächlich Vollkommenheit ist. DGR