- painting by Soyolmaa Davaakhuu

When you have trained your mind thus and felt no longer even a moment’s wish for the good things of cyclic life, And when all day and night you long for freedom, you have found renunciation.

In short, if like the mother whose cherished son has fallen into a pit of fire and who experiences even one second of his suffering as an unbearable eternity, your reflection on the suffering of all mother sentient beings have made you unbearable for their suffering for even one second and the wish seeking awakening for their sake arises without effort, then you have realized the supreme precious bodhicitta.

Appearance is infallible dependent arising and emptiness is beyond any assertions; for as long as these two understandings appear to you as separate, you have not yet realized Buddha’s intention.

When you have understood the essential points of each of the three principal paths explained, seek solitude, my child. Make might perseverance, and quickly win your ultimate goal!

- From The Three Principal Aspects of the Path

BOOK RELEASE - "THE HEART OF CHÖ" AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

KHANDRO-LA'S CORNER

(Please turn on subtitles for clarity by clicking "cc" on the bottom bar.)

This is not so easy a journey. Like a mountain range path and ravine, sometimes it has a big cliff and the danger of falling off. But we have an antidote for that. All those great masters of the past provided it for us.  It comes back again and again to authentic humility and renunciation. Humility as inner serenity, loving-kindness and compassion, and most importantly, this authentic aspiration for waking up for the sake of all sentient beings. If we have that, the suffering we face becomes part of the journey. Always come back to this humility and to this basic Dharma motivation.

Buddha said, “The sign of not practicing the Dharma is not having renounced this life.” Each of us has to reflect on these worldly concerns. Am I still swinging between gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise, and blame? Of course, we get caught and habitual patterns come back. But if we know that and try to integrate that into our life, it's worthwhile, this journey.

This is the door to Dharma practice: the necessity of renouncing, or giving up, worldly concerns. On the basis of that, our heart opens to everybody, we're concerned about other peoples' suffering. It's very important to come back to this before we start to practice Chö. This journey is for the sake of all sentient beings; it's worthwhile only if we have the courage to embark with this giving up or renouncing worldly concerns.

Excerpt from Khandro-la’s teaching - The Necessity of Giving Up Worldly Concerns

STUDENT'S REFLECTIONS

Reflections on Renunciation

Renunciation has been an organic, gradual process for me, although not without its growing pains. While I began spiritual practice relatively young, and have always felt a genuine desire for a life-based in Dharma, my worldly desires vied back with equal strength. 

What I've found is that life itself will school you with some tough love when you refuse to cooperate with the process unfolding as a result of practice. I struggled in this tug-of-war for almost a decade before life finally "broke" me, and I began to better understand renunciation and why it is so crucial to further deepen into our true nature.

Some things I felt were "me" have simply left, and others have stayed but the motivation behind them has shifted, as I more authentically entrust myself to the path.

Amanda

DW Student

Reflections on Bodhicitta

Aspirational bodhicitta, the wish to benefit all sentient beings, lies at the core Buddhadharma. To close the gap between aspiration and efficacy, aspiring bodhisattvas train in the six paramitas employing them in overt and subtle ways. Whether it is refraining from responding in kind to provocation or sitting in the Seven-point posture of Vairochana and seeing a practice session through to the end, one or more of the paramitas are operating.

How dharma is presented can make all the difference as to whether one receives it as a leaky pot or empty cup.  From sitting with Khandro-la, listening to her teach, following along with the subtle body training, some leaks in my pot have been plugged. Khandro-la has shown me that imbuing any practice with a loving, generous welcoming spirit serves as an antidote to practice becoming dry and perfunctory. Her emphasis on body awareness and a fully embodied practice has enabled me to see where inner obstacles to practicing the paramitas can arise and be addressed. Khandro-la’s recent teachings on the Vajrayogini Cho Tsok for me combined both heart and intellect and I appreciated how such a profound practice can be imbued with the six perfections.

Mike

DW Student

Reflections on Emptiness or View

In the course of training for several healing modalities, I learned that we often form a mental relationship with chronic pain.  The pain often becomes a fixed idea, with certain defined qualities and location.  When viewed as dynamic energy we might experience moment to moment though, what we call “pain” becomes something different, something which can move and change.  In the course of my practice, particularly the Five Dakinis Sadhana, it has occurred to me that this relationship we can form with chronic pain is not so different from another habitual relationship idea – that of a fixed and separate, inherently existing self.

Sitting with the five-element Dakini energies is a dynamic, interesting experience.  Of course, I began the practice with external images of the Five Dakinis, and that’s important, but Khandro-la has also given us further teachings of how the elements and Dakinis exist in us, in space, as space.  This has then become a much more provoking self-exploration.  Where does the earth element reside?  Can I feel it?  What other elements does it interact with to move throughout my body or my subtle energy body?  Can I feel that?  How does the earth element enter and leave my body, as solid, in liquid, or in water vapor mixed with air?  Where did it come from; where does it go?  Where are the boundaries?  Are there any boundaries?

Who is experiencing all this?  Where is that?  I started with an idea that the five elements or at least four of the five (not to include space) are solid, defined things, part of making up a defined “self”.   Now I am wondering what’s next, and not just in my practice.  Khandro-la likes to refer to staying in Beginners Mind.  Well, these are certainly not the musings of an expert, but it is becoming interesting.

Peter

DW Student

Reflections on Why Ngondro Preliminaries

Impermanence shattered my life in 2010.  My husband died, his daughter committed suicide, and his son wanted to sell our forever property.  Three months before these events tore apart my so-called happy, complacent life, we had found a Tibetan monastery a few miles away from the school I had retired from after 32 years of teaching.  We had been part of a Rinzai Zen meditation group for over 20 years and had been with many other teachers along the way, even going to be with one in India in 1995.  Only my Tibetan Buddhist lama and my chosen White Tara practice could somewhat contain my grief as long-held friends fell away, and our property was to be sold.  Yet, I was confident I had found my true path forward.  In asking my lama how I could improve my meditation, he said my meditation was good, yet there was only one problem.  I wasn’t working on Bodhicitta.  As I had been learning, that was the most important thing needed! 

That was a humbling wake-up to what my life was and could be going forward.  In 2011  four sangha women said they needed a fifth person to get the transmission to start the Ngondro preliminaries of Refuge prostrations, Vajrasattva purification, Mandala Offering, and Guru Yoga.  I was clueless about Ngondro, but jumped at the chance, and marveled at the beauty of each practice through which I struggled, learning Tibetan, doing many prostrations, counting recitations on a mala, making offerings, using a prayer wheel, creating inner mandalas of refuge, and becoming deeply devoted to the process of awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings.  I completed the preliminaries, plus the special preliminary of Bodhicitta practice, early this year.  For all my struggles, I was saddened by the ending of each one.  Each had opened my mind to the purity, beauty, and depth of purpose that continues in my heart.  Without the Ngondro preliminaries, I would not have the interest, ability, or confidence to start the Dakini Journey to Cho Mastery.  Since 2011, my life and heart have opened up.  I have a new husband, a new home, and a new commitment to Bodhicitta for the benefit of all sentient beings.  Every important life activity takes time, commitment, perseverance, and dedication, but what better way to spend time in this world of so much suffering and so much beauty.

Betty

DW Student

ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT

NEW SANGHA SUNDAYS & DAKINI'S WHISPER SUNDAYS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

UPCOMING EVENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS - 

September Online Practices (All times listed as PST)

Sat, 9/5        7a-1p              Dakini Journey Retreat

                    11:45a-1p       including 5 Dakini’s Practice open to all

Mon, 9/7       10a-11:15a     Student-Led Chö

Sat, 9/12       10a-11:30a     Dakini Day! Vajrayogini Chö Tsok Feast

Sun, 9/13      10a-11:30a     Chö Mastery Retreat 

                     12-1p              DW Sunday (Public Meditation and Teaching)

Sun, 9/20      10-11:30a       Sangha Sunday -

                     12-1p              DW Sunday (Public Meditation and Teaching)

Thu, 9/24      1-2:15p          Student-Led Chö

Sat, 9/26       10:30-11:30a  Book Release Event hosted from Washington DC

Sun, 9/27       10-11:30a      Sangha Sunday

                      12-1p DW       Sunday (Public Meditation and Teaching)