A comprehensive account of Shambhala according to the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism.
The Realm of Shambhala presents the Kalachakra Tantra’s multilayered approach to Shambhala as taught by the Tibetan Buddhist Jonang tradition. Understood to be an ancient kingdom and physical place, Shambhala is also taught to be an exalted state of mind attainable by all through practice. Through cultivating peace and extending it into harmonious relationships with others, the transformative power of Shambhala can enter everyday life. This book details the tradition’s perspective on the origins of Kalachakra literature and includes extensive lineage narratives of Jonang masters who have upheld this tradition in India and Tibet.
Khentrul Rinpoche joins practical teachings with a vision for humanity rooted in ancient prophecy. The Kalachakra Tantra foresees a golden age, when the individual peace attained through Kalachakra practice spreads to humankind as a whole. The Realm of Shambhala lays out a vision for how we can cultivate an unbiased mind, overcome our collective afflictions, and usher in an era of perfect peace.
Recommendations
“The Realm of Shambhala is a creative discussion of the legendary Buddhist utopia, presenting both the traditional perspective and Shar Khentrul Jamphel Lodrö’s own unique interpretations. The concept of Shambhala as a pure realm on earth, famous as the source of the Kalachakra teachings, is here expanded to include Shambhala as a state of mind that practitioners aspire to bring into experience.” —Cyrus Stearns, author of The Buddha from Dolpo: A Study of the Life and Thought of the Tibetan Master Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen
“This book brings to light the little known Jonangpas’ perspectives on Shambhala and on the formation of the Shambhala tradition in Tibet. Khentrul Rinpoche here argues for various, mutually connected planes of Shambhala’s existence that can be experienced at different stages of practice, and he shows how Shambhala can be experienced in this very life. Therefore, this book will be of interest and benefit not only to scholars and students of Tibetan Buddhism but also to practitioners of the Kalachakra Tantra.” —Vesna Wallace, author of The Inner Kālacakratantra: A Buddhist Tantric View of the Individual
The book is available March 2nd at a variety of retailers where books are sold.
Hello, Tashi Delek all the students, Sangha members and practitioners.
Those who know each other, and those we haven’t met physically, but we know each other through the communication of the Dharma. Hello everybody!
Yes, I know we all have had a very big challenging year. But this is past and now we have a new beginning. So we are going to have a new chapter of the life. For the New Year, different traditions have different calendars. So the Tibetan New Year is 12th of February. So I’m going to celebrate that day because I’m going to finish quarantine, after returning from Hong Kong on the 11th. So it is great, so I’m going to celebrate that day and at the same time, I’m going to do a Sang offering fire puja. I will think of all of you and your beloved ones,and those who are sick, and those who have passed away. And also those still alive and the life is ahead of you.
We are going to have a great New Year 2021, and we’re going to have good luck. Every fortune is possibility because we had the Tara Fortune Palace and Wish Fulfilling Treasure Vase. As we have done this, we should have a great year, we are going to have great years.So everybody should be looking forward. But also the same time, the Tara and everything is, let’s say one thousand conditions for the good fortune.
But we still have to cultivate our study and practice, be mindful and become more wise, and more compassionate. More compassionate means we have more strength so we care others. Not just only care oneself. And we not just focused very narrow, but we have more wide focus and long vision. So that means being compassionate and have strength. And then we make decisions very nicely and clearly, because we become more wise.
So we have to do everything ourselves because we believe and understand is not God, or Buddha, or anybody save us. Instead, the God and Buddha within ourselves. Or we can do itourself. So, why we not need to rely on others? Of course, we just need to gather conditions.So I’m going to send you prayer with this. So this prayer is the best, the best prayer from the Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen, Buddha from Dolpo. And because why? Because this is not just like we say, “Oh, you have good luck and I pray for you”. It’s not like that. Is much more than that. This is digging from the most deepest of the Buddha nature’s meaning and all put together. The cause and conditions put together so well. So well because of his wisdom and compassion.
So that’s why now I’m going to send you this prayer. So then everybody play this, at least theNew Year time; 12th of February. And also you can play every day, in your car, or your phone, or anywhere. Then you can listen and one day you can read, and you can chant this as well. But this year we begin to send this.I’m very, very grateful for all your support and you support us as Dzokden, the Golden Age vision. And also, you study and practice for yourself, for your strength.
So I’m very grateful and also I’m very proud of you guys. We can even make better. And so we are looking forward to the New Year. So good luck everybody!
Here is an Auspicious Prayer to recite. It is the last one on the playlist below.
Auspicious – what dwells in the heart of all sentient beings, The selfness of all, the highest lord of all lineages, The producer of sentient beings without exception, great bliss, In that way, may auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – what in the triple world is pure form, Formless, good form, and form free of subtle particles, Indivisible with all living beings, Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – what takes form resembling eight prognostic images, Form that is indestructible like space, free of beginning, end and middle, Referenced as shunyata, Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – what abandons the habitual tendency to transmigrate, Bliss that upholds the bindu of body, speech, mind, primordial wisdom, Immutable Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now
Auspicious – the bliss where adherence to the senses is abandoned, That bliss which, arising from space, pervades space completely, As non-referential compassion, Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – what has the bliss of the ovum’s solar purity And the sperm’s lunar purity non-dually joined, The E WAM syllabled Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – what has the twelve-fold meaning of truth, This expanse of the sixteen-fold individual self-awareness, Vajra sun and moon Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – what has knower and known as a single body, The pure form of the three realms free of birth and death, Kalachakra Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – that non-referential great bliss The vajra that resembles eight prognostic images, referencing compassion, Hevajra Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – that indivisible, all-transcending bliss, The formless shunyata having all forms, Chakrasamvara Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – treasury of great secrets of all the conquerors, The bliss that binds the bindu of transmigration-free, breath-mind’s covenant, Guhyasamaja Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – that Maya which resembles a dream or a mirage, The supportless great bliss of self-produced primordial wisdom, Mahamaya Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – what transcends the dharmas of consciousness, What upholds the principle of shunyata as clear light and bliss in non-dual wisdom, Buddha’s bliss-sustaining Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – what is well-known as the seats of self, other, mantra and that very thing Which is the vajrayoga of fourfold liberation, Vajra Catuhpitha Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – what is free of skandhas and their domains Alternative skandhas and alternative domains the true domains of the skandhas, Conqueror goddess Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – what is free of senses and their objects, Alternative senses and alternative objects, the true objects of the senses, Male and female sattva Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – what is free of action and the power of karma Having as absolutely true alternative actions with the very power of karma, The male and female wrathful ones, Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
Auspicious – the great life-force of all sentient beings, Inconceivable heart-vajra vajra-expanse, Great mandala Buddha Nature good in that way, May its auspiciousness bring peace to you now!
At the request of a glorious teacher, this uncommon auspicious expression called, “Prayer to the Auspiciousness of Buddha Nature” was composed by [Dolpopa] Sherab Gyaltsen PelZangpo. May all be auspicious!
I agree there is many misconceptions about generosity. Like usually people think generosity is something only worldly benefits or sometimes the people think is like only enlightenment benefit. So people forgot there’s more than that, you know like, there’s more than that. There is many levels of benefits from the generosity.
For instance, there is four categories you can categorize as a four different generosity. One is the materialism gift like to give a wealth. And then of course uh, you can give the protection you know like, security gift. You save other people’s life these things. The other thing is Dharma giving. So dharma given, you have to be careful, because if you’re not qualified, then you can guide the wrong way.
Also more importantly, you have to be a role model. You have to be perfect, your behavior, your conduct. You have to set a good example. It’s not enough that you just intellectually knowing information and try to tell other people that. But the most important you have to be a good example, and then is a really giving dharma. So that is the best gift and best generosity.
So these people don’t have to focus on given material or those things, you know. The other one is given kindness, love, and kindness. So that means people have nothing to give like material wealth and even don’t have so much knowledge or wisdom, but still kindness as always their real gift.
So what the benefit is usually people think is somebody who is generous is good and everybody think it’s good, that’s all and people respect, and that’s only the care or sometimes even they just showing off. So that’s no good this is wasting your generosity, but some people think it’s all only generosity you need for a enlightenment, but it’s not that is because Buddha himself said it. If you want to be wealthy, if you’re even materialism or health and youth and very healthy or wisdom whatever, any kind of richness is important that you be generous. So that’s what Buddha himself said. So and, that means yes es of course, many people want to be prosperous and rich they want to have a lot of good luck and want everything to go well and always successful. People want that. And then people try to do many things for that, and some people just working very, very hard and you make yourself unhealthy.
And you know some people very, very stingy and then you try to save money. Some people like to try to steal or whatever things there to do.
But the most important, be generous. Be generous means, it’s not you have to keep everything away, but always try to think this four ways to be generous, which one can you do, like, are you qualified given dharma? (this one is not so easy), But you are definitely capable to give kindness to people and then kindness means usually more come to the action, so that means you help other people, you work for other people. You’re not always thinking something you have to payback. So that is already you are generous and also come to the materialism and you should always try to see the opportunity to give something. It’s doesn’t necessarily have to be something very big and something more than you can afford, but you have to see is something connected with holiness, something is holy or otherwise, something is very poor or like fragile, so wherever you see a need, you always you see it as an opportunity to make yourself to be a rich, to be wealthy.
Every time you see something to offer or to give something, either your work or either your time, either your energy, either your kindness, either your material gift or anything; you should see the attitude. You should see always like an opportunity, not like something to avoid, and even you buy something for somebody you try not to bargain too much. Instead, you have to think oh they should have the profit, I should give them a benefit and their livelihood, and their wishes, whatever their goals. Think that way and have opportunity for this, this way is the best.
In the west sometimes we have problem, because if somebody give free or very cheap, then they think it’s maybe not worth much. If it’s expensive, then you think it is really good and not necessarily, you have to think of the generosity you know. And Asians, I think some people pay for everything and the majority of people want to free for everything, and then always looking for the cheapest possibility. So that is long time habit, like a bad habit because Asia has been poor for a long time.
Like myself as a Tibetan, we have been poor for a long time. It’s kind of materialism is the poor. So that’s why I always shortage. So then it has already built a bad habit. So then even if you have enough of everything, still you feel like you don’t have enough and you are scared to lose everything. This is why in Asia we have the opposite to generosity, we have a problem that we bargain for everything, bargain down. So this kind of attitude is very hard to fulfill the accumulation of merit. Because merit means like the propensity to become a rich, to become rich means not only wealth, it also includes wealth, material wealth and the wisdom and the confidence, all the good qualities.
So that’s why it is very important when we say karma, I have no karma, karma means merits and high level merit means karma is different. Some people are free from karma and then still accumulate merit. But the lower level of karma and merits it’s the same, I mean not 100 % same and bad karma we don’t call merits, but all good karma you can call merits. So then if you not necessarily have so much merit, but everyday you have to see as accumulation of merit opportunity. In that way, you don’t have to be incredibly stingy. But also its important to sometimes like very generous to people, pay and, everything, and then you try to take advantage everything. And that means you making yourself longer and longer poor and other, the rest of your life and other future lives, you making sure yourself is a kind of poor poverty always have to be with poverty. So that’s what I’m doing.
So you have to realize no matter other people rich people and generous people how much help you, but also you need to realise I need some for myself for my own side. So it is not, you always receive something. You are not focused on receiving sometime, instead you should focus on how you give it, how you offer anything, this should be your focus and attention should be, not the receiving.
So receiving is in any way you receive. If you are a container, if you don’t have an offering nature, a kind of generous in nature, that means if you are like a container then your container is poor, it has holes. So it doesn’t matter how much you receive, it goes. Doesn’t matter how much you receive, it always goes, and you never become a rich, because your own accumulation merit is so poor. It’s is poor means, your accumulation merit is poor so it’s better to always have a generous attitude no matter what your capacity is currently. That’s why the Buddha during his time met a very, very poor woman, she has only little bit of oil to make the hair shiny and nothing else. And then she offered this to make lamps for Buddha. So then the Buddha realised that is more merit than the kings offering billions of dollars to offer the monks many days. Like today, even the rich people are paying something but you have to know their attitude. If their attitude is like ego, demanding competition or showing off, then it doesn’t matter how much they offer, they will receive incredibly little merits. But some people may be very poor, but their attitude is that they see it like an opportunity and honour to pay. So that’s why their merit could be huge.
People want to be rich and have prosperity and healthy or even a fast enlightenment path or anything, you should always feel honored whenever you have opportunity to offer anything, like your kindness, your action, like your work, your time, your money, and everything. If you have this kind of attitude, a offering honoring attitude, then doesn’t matter how small and your capacity because you are always accumulating merit and you will be rich very soon. And rich of everything, not only materialism, but everything rich. But currently no matter how wealthy you are, if your attitude is only showing off and pride and like that, then maybe better than zero, but your capacity to earn the merits could be too small. So that’s why I think you should be really careful and we have to watch our own attitude. Is it an honouring attitude, or it’s just bargaining attitude, this is what we really need to be careful of.
This is an important and misunderstood topic especially in the West. Stories of wondering yogi saints surviving on nothing and the site of monks in robes dominates the images of Buddhism. Many people mistake a lack of money and poverty as renunciation. Khentrul Rinpoche explains how this is very far from the reality. You can be a rich renunciate Buddhist. There is nothing holy or unholy about money. What makes money beneficial or bad is the intention and how it is used.
Student Questions: Can a Buddhist person be rich and also have renunciation? Do we need to or should we want to have nothing if we are Buddhist? Why would a Buddhist person do any prayers or practices for wealth and prosperity? Isn’t that just more greed, desire and attachment?
Khentrul Rinpoche’s Answer: Oh yes, yes, this is really important and often people have a big mistakes between poverty and renunciation. So, that means the wealth and prosperity is never wrong. Always is helpful. Always need it. Anybody, anybody need that. Then, okay then you may think, oh why then Buddha talk about renunciation? And the monks, the monastic people have restrictions, what they can belongings they can have, they cannot belong this. What about that? This is for beginner, for beginner’s training. Beginner’s training. Yes.
For instance, if we, our body, for instance our body, the medicine or food, or anything, we have restrictions sometimes. Particularly food, particularly medicine, we have restrictions because of the temporary of the health. Right? But when you overcome this problem, then you can have everything. You can, you can have more, you know. And you should have more. The food and everything, and nutritious food, everything you have the restrictions before, but now you should have more, you know. It’s the same thing.
You know, when we have too much problem of attachment, desire controls our entirety and we don’t understand the wisdom, you know, and the Nirvana, those things, we not, you know, seeking on those things. Instead we are just completely controlled by the worldly desire. And then of course the short, you know, for begin to start you have to make restrictions and make black and white rules for children we make, you know. When we are children, very, very young, we make black and white rules, simple rules to children. But then we don’t follow that. You know, we adult people don’t follow that and don’t need follow this. If you follow that, it sounds silly. So same thing.
So, is nothing wrong at all, or even always best prosperity, richness. But the problem is how you look at that. How you value this. And what is purpose for your you know, like wealth. These things is the problem. When you have understand the best purpose to use this prosperity, then you should have as much as wealth, and you can build even that wealth. When you are, while you are building that you know, big wealth, you could be appears even a stingy person. But reality, you cannot, you’re not be necessarily stingy and you know how to build this prosperity. And then you know how to use this prosperity. And then, you know, you have a good purpose, you know?
When you understand these things and when you have a good understanding, and you have that kind of wisdom, then every single your wealth is beneficial. Beneficial for sentient beings, you know. And sometimes even bigger benefits. Not just someone give you know, shelter, and food and clothes and medicine, but more than that. Could be more than that. You know, like, yeah, you can help somebody’s liberation. You know some, or you can say the quantity, you know, you can liberate a nation, or whatever, the world, or whatever. Otherwise why Shambala is so rich? Why all the Purelands we talk about in the texts, why they so rich? Is that wrong?
Is not the wealth wrong. Not the richness is wrong. We need richness. The ultimate richness is Buddhahood you know. The ultimate abundance, the ultimate fullness is the Buddhahood you know. So why we have to be poverty? Why we have to live in poverty? No. We only, you know, when we have no wisdom, we not understand. If you want live continue without wisdom, how to use your, you know, prosperity, how you build your prosperity, how you use the prosperity, if you don’t want to know that and you want to live without wisdom, and then yeah, sure, you know like you can live poverty. But otherwise poverty is not the answer.
Renunciation means you are not clinging on this, you know. Because clinging, clinging on the you know like, the money or all these things, and anything clinging on the person, a relationship, anything you are clinging on that, is opposite of renunciation, you know. Because that brings you suffering and more problem and narrow-minded, you know, come from narrow -minded. So, and yeah, short vision and narrow-minded.
But so, when you are free from this, you can have as much as wealth as you can. That’s beneficial. That’s why Bodhisattvas are born as, when we are Bodhisattvas, very, very high level of Bodhisattva, and they’re born as Universal Monarch, you know. We don’t have even Universal Monarch. As far as we know here in this earth, this world, this solar system, we know, we don’t have Universal Monarch. But, other world, other universe’s, there have Universal Monarch. Which means they are the Bodhisattva high level, very high level of Bodhisattvas, you know. And then we see the Shambhala is why reach at the Golden Age is described as rich or poor? Think about that you know.
So that’s why prosperity is never wrong. Is only wrong how we think, and how we clinging on that, and how we using this, and our purpose of the prosperity, the wealth is such a short vision and the narrow-minded. Then is a problem. You know, so for instance, if, you know like, you building the wealth, purpose only self-indulgent you know, because come from the short vision, narrow-minded, then is only self-indulgent and demand for the ego. Ego competition, ego competition, “ohh I’m better than my friends and I’m better than my brother, sister. I’m better than my community. My community I’m the best, I have the most wealthiest”. You know, whatever, whoever you showing off. Showing off, this is ego. Yeah, ego competition. Ego demands. You are the slave for the ego demands, you know. You are, yeah, you are servant or slave for the ego demands. Then the wealth is wrong. That purpose and that vision is wrong. But, if you have much more, better purpose, not self-indulgent and ego demands, then is wealth is never, ever, ever wrong. So that’s why.
Especially the Tantrayana. You know Tantrayana is, you know, for instance Buddha taught Tantrayana first time, you know, a human is Indrabhuti. You know, the king of Indrabhuti. Do you know what Indrabhuti told the, you know, the Buddha? Buddha tried to teach, you know, normal Buddhism, the renunciation dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, he talk that. Then his respond, do you know what means? He say [Tibetan]. Basically, what he’s saying is what ever the worst, even worst I have to born, I never want the path of have to abandon the prosperity. He never want this. Means even he say, he doesn’t want reject the desire. He doesn’t want abandon the desire. He want path with the desire. Don’t want you know, path without desire. Okay. So then Buddha knew, ohh, he is the perfect, perfect disciple you know. He realize, Buddha realize, of course Buddha realize already before, but maybe just pretending not realize for purpose of teach other people. But then he quickly, he make all the shravakas and pratyekas make disappear. And then he taught him Tantrayana.
So see? Tantrayana is path of everything we have, never abandon. And we use much better way. So that if simple vision, we can say is longer vision, much better vision and, you know, vast view, you know, broad view, vast view. According to that then is the wealth is nothing wrong.
Also when we say wealth, or richness, or prosperity, it’s not just the money, or the numbers, or electronic numbers. It’s not that, about that only. It is health. Think about health. Who don’t need health? You know, health is the wealth of the health, you know. Wealth of the health. Wealth of youth. Who don’t need that? There is nobody in this universe. Unhealthy and absolutely run down, old, nearly die. Nobody want that. So it is youth and health is the prosperity.
And then think about the wisdom and the compassion. Think about that, you know. That prosperity you know, wisdom prosperity, everything. The richness of wisdom. The richness of compassion. Compassion means, compassion means, real, real compassion means confidence. Confidence, and fearless confidence. Never scared for anything. You know, that is the real, real compassion, you know like. Of course then how to start, begin, yes, sensitive. You are not callous. You are sensitive. You understand other people’s suffering. Yeah, that to begin, start, but then how you care about that and how you solve that problems, you know, that is you need confidence and the fearless. So that is the real compassion. That is really the best prosperity. And the wisdom. You know wisdom means you understand. Your decisions never be wrong, you know. So this is the real wisdom.
So these things as also prosperity. So sometimes on the text say the best prosperity is that. Second best to prosperity, the health, you know, and youth. You know the last prosperity is the materialism. But the materialism also is very helpful for if you know how to use. If you have wisdom how to use, if you have compassion enough, how to use properly then is incredible helpful. That is so obvious. We already all know. But many people are just pretending they don’t want that. That’s is a really big mistake. You know.
So even we have lamas in Tibet call [Tibetan]. [Tibetan] means renounced, renounce the world, you know. You don’t want completely renunciation. And [Tibetan] you know, renunciation from [Tibetan]. He, some lamas say, Oh, he is not [Tibetan], he has so much wealth. And he has many, many, [Tibetan]. [Tibetan] means between yak and a cow. That females have a much more milk than any other female animals. So then in Tibet, of course, a lot of milk means is rich, you know. Wealthy. So then they say [Tibetan]. How can be he renounced? He has so much [Tibetan]. So then the other lama explain. Ohh, renunciation in the mind is not, you know, is not poverty. So like that.
So, I think this is really have to deep, deep think and deep reflecting. Otherwise people often mistake, you know. So basically, renunciation means you are not attached to the wealth and why? If you are attached, then you don’t have generosity, no opportunity to generous you know. And then if you have not opportunity generous, then you cannot, you don’t have even proper discipline, ethical discipline. If you don’t have ethical discipline, then you don’t have diligent. You don’t have tolerance and patience. You don’t have then diligent. Then if you don’t, then you don’t have concentration, you know. This concentration is not normal concentration. The meditation stability. You know the special power of mind. You don’t have that. If you don’t have that, then you cannot have perfect wisdom, you know. So this is all linked you know, This is all linked. But when you have these things, then the wealth is there, even material wealth is there, is nothing wrong at all, and incredible helpful.
So I think this is maybe take time people can understand and have to, yeah, it requires, need deep reflection. Okay, thank you.
Như mọi người đều biết rằng năm nay, chúng ta có những hạn chế đối với việc đi lại và giao tiếp xã hội trên toàn thế giới. Chính vì điều này, nên cá nhân Thầy đã coi đây như một cơ hội để tập trung vào bên trong, vào nội tâm hơn là bên ngoài. Vì vậy nên rất ít thời gian để xem TV hoặc lên mạng. Thầy vừa mới nghe tin rằng Việt Nam đang trải qua lũ lụt nghiêm trọng ở khắp mọi nơi.
Trái tim Thầy hướng về và nhớ về tất cả những người bạn và Phật tử thân yêu của Thầy ở Việt Nam. Thầy rất xin lỗi vì đã không nghe nói về điều này cho đến ngày hôm nay. Thầy xin lỗi vì đã không có mặt ở đó với các con. Thầy đang cầu nguyện cho các con và tất cả người dân Việt Nam trong những thời điểm thử thách này. Suy nghĩ chân thành của Thầy và lời cầu nguyện tốt nhất cùng với các con.
Mỗi năm chúng ta có nhiều thảm họa thiên nhiên khác nhau trên trái đất và nhân loại của chúng ta. Chúng ta phải hiểu tại sao? Đó là vì chúng ta thiếu tập trung vào Pháp Kalachakra. Từ bây giờ trở đi, chúng ta cần nhận ra rằng Kalachakra có liên quan đến trái đất và nhân loại. Chúng ta phải tìm hiểu về mối quan hệ giữa Kalachakra và sự hòa hợp hòa bình trên toàn cầu. Chúng ta có thể đạt được hòa bình bằng cách thực hành con đường Kalachakra. Hòa bình trên toàn cầu xảy ra ở nhiều cấp độ, không những chỉ giữa con người mà còn trong môi trường của chúng ta nữa. Nếu chúng ta hiểu được điều này, thì chúng ta sẽ biết rằng mình cần làm việc cùng nhau để biến thế giới này thành một thời kỳ Hoàng kim giống như vùng đất thuần khiết của Shambhala.
Vì vậy, các anh chị em của tôi, chúng ta phải tập trung vào hướng này. Chúng ta phải nhận ra lời tiên tri của Đức Phật. Hãy cùng nhau đi trên con đường chiến binh nhân ái này. Chúng ta sẽ mang theo tất cả những người thân yêu của chúng ta và xây dựng hòa bình và hạnh phúc cho mọi người. Chúng ta sẽ đạt được Kỷ nguyên vàng này và biến ngôi nhà của mình thành thế giới thuần khiết của Shambhala.
Khentrul Rinpoche Bài dịch của đạo hữu Bùi Hậu.
English Translation
As everyone knows this year, we have restrictions throughout the world for travel and social interactions. Because of this, I have personally taken this year as an opportunity to focus inwards rather than focus externally. Because of my inner focus, I have spent very little time watching tv or going online. So, I am just now hearing that Vietnam is experiencing severe floods everywhere.
My heart goes out to and remembers all my dear friends and students in Vietnam. I am so sorry I did not hear of this until today. I am sorry that I am not physically there with you. I am praying for you and all the Vietnamese people during these challenging times. My sincere thought and best prayers are with you.
Every year we have various natural disasters on our earth and in our humanity. We must understand why? That is because of our lack of focus on Kalachakra Dharma. From now onwards, we need to realise that Kalachakra is related to our earth and our humanity. We must learn about the relationship between Kalachakra and global peace harmony. We can accomplish peace by practising the Kalachakra path. Global peace occurs on many levels, not just between people but also within our environment. If we understand this, then we will know that we need to work together to transform our world into a Golden Age like the pure land of Shambhala.
So, my brothers and sister, we must focus in this direction now. We must realise Buddha’s prophecy. Let’s move on this compassionate warrior path altogether. We will carry all our beloved ones with us and build peace and happiness for everyone. We will achieve this Golden Age and transform our home into the pure world of Shambhala.
This transcript of Khentrul Rinpoche’s audio teaching has been lightly edited for easier reading.
Today, I’m going to talk about what is patience and forgiveness. What is the difference from the perspective of different cultures, different religions, and different philosophies? In general, forgiveness is something that is considered a good quality and we believe it is important to forgive. And not everyone can forgive, and only those that do have some deep quality can do it. But most people cannot do it. Even if they say they forgive and even if it looks like forgiving on the surface, still, in the middle of their heart, they are not really forgiving. So that is normal. That is international. That is universal.
But, according to Tibetan culture and Tibetan Buddhism, there is not really a common word that everybody knows as forgiveness. Tibetans only have different categories of patience. They don’t even have words that are different from patience, tolerance and forgiveness. They just say different types of patience. In English this is very clear. In places where Christianity is dominant, forgiveness is embedded in the culture where it is held up as an ideal, and something that everyone considers that most people should do it. Anybody who cannot forgive is quickly judged as so bad. But in other cultures, people are not so quick to judge those people who can not forgive. In some cultures those people who cannot forgive and even those people who seek revenge or fighting are judged is seen as a good quality.
The main thing I want to talk about today is the question: is forgiveness good for everyone, all the time, regardless of any conditions? We’ll examine that today. So the answer is yes, in general, people being able to forgive is a really good quality. I agree. But it does not hold true for any case, any time, any situation, any circumstances that we must forgive or not? That is a question mark.
For instance, when we say forgive, that means showing definitely the other peoples actions are something bad, they have done something wrong. Then forgiveness implies there is no reaction to someone doing something wrong. So should it be like that all the time, anytime, any situation? The answer is no. We have to think about why this person is doing bad things and just what is the degree of bad is it? Why do we forgive and what is the benefit of forgiveness? We have to consider all this.
Firstly, when people do bad things to other people, there are gradations. It can be bad, medium bad, or extremely bad.
For normal, ordinary people, they can not forgive all of these degrees. They always have a reaction, anger and hatred. But if we have developed a good quality, good consideration, a broad view and a little wisdom, even some compassion, then we can see if it is really necessary to react or not react. This means that some people’s bad actions are not really harmful. Usually what ordinary people think is harmful is not really harmful when you consider it at a deeper level.
Some circumstances may be very easy and simple to forgive and everybody should forgive in those cases. In some cases where it is very easy to forgive, some people aren’t really forgiving. They are ignoring or don’t care (enough to react.) When there are no consequences, everybody can do that.
That means, if without thought or any deep consideration, you think it’s bad, but it’s not really. Which means somebody says you are ugly, you are looking so bad or something. People can see it. You really looking bad or not. You really ugly or not. And you are, is it easy to see through people. Obviously our five senses detect very easily things, you saying something, judging something, much worse than they appear. These slights are easy to forgive if we have a little wisdom, a little broad view. We don’t have to react. Third parties can see the other person is wrong and you are so right. You are so peaceful and wise by not reacting. So those situations can be easy to forgive and everybody should do it without question.
However, there are some bad doings that are medium harmful. They are temporarily harmful, but not in the long-term harmful. In the long-term, this could even be beneficial or could be a little bit harmful, or it may become nothing. It is unpredictable. In the moment it seems temporary and maybe a little bit harmful.
This may be a little bit harder to forgive, but, if you consider it carefully, most of the time it is good to forgive. And if you are able to forgive, that means you are brave. You know, whoever can forgive is kind, and it is a sign of bravery. It is not only being kind, not only just being patient, but also you are brave. And it is also a sign of being wise.
Then there are very bad actions with very harmful consequences. Temporarily harmful, but also harmful for the long-term. For those kinds of actions, it is not necessarily best to forgive all the time, any time, whatever the circumstances. It is not like that. It is not that simple. You have to consider these circumstances very carefully. So when I say it is not necessary to forgive I’m talking about the actions. In the mind you always have some degree of forgiveness, which is always good. That means you are not really stuck in the resentment and anger and hatred. So that’s always good.
But at the action level, it is not always necessary to forgive. Why? Because if you forgive everything, no matter what the level the degree of the action, no matter what the consequence of the action, and whatever the circumstance is, you always just do nothing. No reaction. This is sometimes good, but sometimes these people can be corrupt. They can do more and more worse things. Why? Because they are, uh, what do you call that word? It’s not spoiled, but it’s similar. So this could reinforce a bad habit, where they think they can do anything to anyone. That is a mistake.
If they treat everyone like that, temporarily they damage many people, and in the long term they completely damage themselves. So that’s why it would be kind to challenge their actions where they can learn a lesson. If they can teach them a lesson it is very, very important if your motivation is right. Your motivation has to be based on love and kindness.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that your behavior is like kind kissing. You may take what looks like very rough action, very challenging action that comes from kindness and compassion. So you can do that. This means that when anybody does something harmful, you have to think about what is the degree of harm. What are the consequences of this harm, for yourself, for others, and for the person doing the harm.
And then, you have to react or not react, different reaction or no reaction. You have to do something suitable to the given situation. If you do that, then you are training yourself. You are also training the other person who has a bad habit of treating others very badly. Or maybe their attitude and motivation is very selfish. Or sometimes they don’t have huge motivations. They just have instant bad actions.
So you need to distinguish what’s going on and then apply something suitable to the specific circumstances. But of course, always your motivation must be based on love, compassion, and kindness. So that means, the physical action, body action, speech action may not look like its kind, but that doesn’t mean the motivation behind it is not kind and loving. So this we need to remember and be mindful. Everybody. And the most important, we have to focus and emphasis on our mind and our motivation. Is it based on love, compassion or kindness? Yes or No? This always should be our focus. Not the focus 100% on the body and speech for both the receiver and the one doing the action.
Of course, if there are some choices, even at the physical level, kind action and kind speech is of course the best, but sometimes that’s not suitable. That may not be the option because this person is not responding to those things. And if you become wrathful, awesome actions maybe they will respond.
So that’s why when the vajrayana, tantra according to tantra. When we say tamyam, that means someone who broke the holy Samaya, which means that the holy commitment was broken. In that case we should not have contact with them.
People often misunderstand this thinking, “oh we have not forgiven them, we’re not forgiving.” People think like that. That is a huge mistake. Why is that a huge mistake? Because tantrayana is the most profound teaching, practice and commitments. That is why, the holy commitments result in incredible, powerful benefits. But at the same time, if you do the opposite, they also have powerful harmful consequences.
When somebody breaks their Samaya vows on purpose, with disrespect, this is a serious problem. Even you know you broken the vow, even you know this is disrespect but still you do and if you criticize your holy teacher; if you criticize your holy siblings, the Sangha, the community; if you criticize the precious Dharma, the holy teachings; if you do that, and we think, “Oh, we must forgive whatever you’re doing,” and we stay friendly with you, there will be harm done to both parties.
Why? Because one party is holy and one party is the opposite. So if you keep connecting with them, then your holiness, the sacred teachings and commitment, everything becomes tainted. There is a bad influence. When I say bad influence, now I’m not talking about the obvious level. The obvious level of influence is also possible, but it is a subtle bad influence. Something we cannot see with our eyes and with our mind. Yet still, it is there. This is really really possible. Because the whole universe, materialism, everything even according to science, the subtle level things we don’t know but still there is something going on. There are many energies, there are many powers. There is a lot going on all the time. We cannot see it and we cannot feel it, but something is still going on. Similliarly according to this practice with this holy commitment and holy practice if you mix with these opposite of the holy people if you mix with these people. Your practice, your spiritual progress and your realizations can be delayed, and so it is for the other person. In fact, it makes far worse karma, more harmful. So that’s why it is better to stay away. Physically stay away. No sharing body, sharing speech, or sharing thoughts. But still you can have the compassion. You can still have love. You can still have kindness in your mind.
So this means you don’t give up on this person forever, but you give up this person temporarily. This is not a contradiction. Even one sentient being you forgive, you deliver to enlightenment to buddhahood. You give up this, you can not just to forgive one sentient beings. In the Vajrayana and even in the Mahayana, you do not forsake a single sentient being. But at the same time, you have to disconnect temporarily. This kind of person, who is deliberately breaking their samaya vows with no attempt to repair, you have to disconnect as part of Vajrayana practice.
If you don’t disconnect, then you are breaking your own vows, your own holy commitments. So then you also become similar to this person who is the opposite of a holy person. So if you don’t want to lose this sacredness, you don’t want to lose this holiness, you have to distance yourself from corrupt body, speech and thoughts.
You can give many lessons, challenging lessons, if it helps the other person to realize the harm they’ve caused. Hopefully he will realize the mistakes he’s made and have regret. At that part he is ready to start. That means this person has to show, confirmed this realization, this incredible deep regret, he has to show through his actions to the Sangha. If he does this, then the Sangha and the holy teacher, everybody can enter into negotiation. Only at that time, if he has voluntarily done everything purification process, there can be reconnection with the holy Sangha.
But until (there is the expression of regret and engaging in purification,) then you have to disconnect. If this person is not ready in this life to repair samaya and dies, you have to keep disconnected. And you always pray that he’s ready for next life or immediate nex tlife. or 10 life time next. You have to pray. Everybody. The whole sangha.
Everyone in the Sangha who share the same teacher, who share the same lineage, who share the same empowerment, who share the same holy texts and whatever else they share; those people have a responsibility forever. That responsibility and commitment is forever, not just temporarily. Temporarily, it is not good for both parties. People often don’t understand this because people have very simple judgments. They have a simple way to judge what is very complicated. A simple way to judge very profound things. So that’s why people don’t understand.
Profound Dharma becomes more and more and more profound. More and more and more complications for normal people. For holy people more and more profound means it makes sense more and more. But for ordinary people more and more profound means more and more complicated. So we have to understand everyone.
And then we have to see what kind of action takes place. Should we forgive? What kind of action do we not forgive? Which means through the obvious body, speech mind level. In the mind of course, we always forgive. But in the body and speech actions, you can not. A simple way of saying this is that in your mind you always forgive. What does this mean? You always forgive means that you are always kind and compassionate. You care, really care, for others spiritual wellbeing. But in human level, body speech and action. You have to stay distant. (When samaya vows are broken,) you have to stay at a distance. You cannot be like before. You cannot be like equal as the holy people, the real Sangha people, you have to have distance.
So in these things, if you think very carefully, then you understand at a more profound level. It’s not as simple as forgive or not forgive, black and white. So in all the circumstances of what I said, you have to think very carefully, then try to understand everybody and then it becomes very useful.
All my dear human brothers and sisters, I love you all. We all love each other. Today is the love day. Remember, we have to distinguish true love and false love. False love is pretending love. Pretending love means, desire, attachment, possessiveness, and selfishness. Pretending it appears as love. But yeah, it is not true love because we know what consequences will be. So that means the result is not the same. The appearance also is not the same, of true love and false love. But, more importantly, the result is absolutely not the same. The false love is selfish and possessiveness, underlying, and then outside you see as an object or person.
You may see them as very precious and appreciate them. And you may see them as very attractive, and it seems like you cherish it so much, but it is not true. How do you know is not true? Because it’s biased. You do not love everybody. It’s not attracted to everybody. You don’t see everybody as pleasant, very, very biased. So that means it is not a manifestation of true love. It is false love.
If it really is true love, then it is not biased and you love all sentient beings. That means, all sentient beings you see as very attractive and pleasant, and you enjoy it so much with anybody. So I’m not saying everybody has to have 100% true love. But at least we have to recognize and we have to distinguish why.
Because if we did that, then every day we improve, we can improve every day. The false love, some percentage you can turn or transform into true love. So whenever we have higher degrees of true love, we have high degrees of happiness. And also we have always causes and conditions for future happiness. So, therefore, today is also a very special day because it’s the day Jetsun Taranatha passed into nirvana.
So this is an incredible beautiful day. Why?
Because Jetsun Taranatha, he has true love. Even we can see very small examples. He did everything all the Vajrayana commentaries and organizing all this incredible preciousness of the Vajrayana he did for every tradition, not only just Jonang tradition. So that means, he has a true love for everybody. So today, if we can start true love and practice, then we will be successful our whole life with true love.
Enjoyness, enjoyable happiness, and future merits. So please everybody try to remember today is Jetsun Taranatha day today. Okay. So please remember that. And you tonight, you sleep with this, remember? So the whole night, your sleep and dreams turns and transform into great merits. And you will enjoy the greatest consequence of true love. Thank you so much. Your attention, my dear brothers and sisters of everybody. I will catch up next time. Please live with true love.
This transcript of Khentrul Rinpoche’s audio teaching has been lightly edited for easier reading.
OM SWASTI.
Hello, all dear Dharma friends. Are you enjoying practicing the real Dharma? Are you shifting your focus to the Dharma? Remember last time I said, the most important thing is to shift our focus to the right way, not the wrong way. Take this opportunity and use it well. To be wise or foolish are the only differences Will you take this opportunity or not? And how soon will you take this opportunity? At this time we have the opportunity to shift focus and turn inward with great reflection. Because of these unusual circumstances give us the opportunity to focus, shift to unusual inner focus, a deeper focus, remember?
We have been forced to not do our usual activities, our usual external activities, our typical activities that we repeat and repeat century after century, again and again even though it’s meaningless. Nobody has ever found real meaning from these activities but still, we keep doing them, Remember? So this time, our focus is shifted, but for most people the shift is on the virus and fear and worry and anxiety. But we are Dharma practitioners so we should focus on the opposite. You know, the real opportunity, remember? So these things I talked about last time, so I’m not talking about this too much this time. Just remember even if we don’t have a lot of outside activities if everybody shifts their focus to the internet and useless chatting and many distractions on the internet, if you do that then it’s just laziness. Remember?
Laziness, the act of laziness, wasting time. So again, this is an obstacle for real Dharma practice. Real Dharma practice means it is not your task, it is not your obligation. It is real self-improvement, real self-strengthening. Real development to your true nature of enlightenment. Remember? So just that. So this is very important. Today I’m going to talk more about elaborating on what Shambhala really is. And what a Shambhala Warrior really is. What does warrior really mean? So those things I’m going to talk to you about I’ll also talk to you about how the Kalachakra Tantra is special, and how it is superior, and how we deal with this virus and everybody’s mental problems.
Nowadays, it’s not just a virus. The far greater problem is mental problems. So how do we deal with this situation, how do we deal with this? We don’t need to have a lot of money, we don’t have to look to external activities, we don’t have to look for many other ways to deal with this. So, what we need is to just recognize what we already have. How we make good habits and engage with what we already have.
What do we already have? This means first we have to understand Shambhala. Shambhala has many levels. It’s meaning is purity, and the source of all happiness, enjoyment, and bliss. This is what Shambhala means. The levels of Shambhala we already have within ourselves. And we already have on this earth, we are already are, and this earth is Shambhala in many ways.
But usually, the traditional way of seeing makes everything narrow, we make everything small and we make everything difficult. Why? Because we have a small mind, an inflexible mind and that’s why we don’t understand Shambhala. That’s why we have so many problems, but we created these problems ourselves. So if we recognize that then we know how to stop making problems.
So that is our topic today. Put very simply; the ultimate Shambhala, the absolute Shambhala is your own true nature. You may not understand that yet, what Shambhala actually is, all divine pure light. You may think Shambhala is too far from you, but actually it is very close to ourselves. Even if we don’t understand this, we narrow down our mind to consider Shambhala or something similar to Amitabha Pure Land, or Akshobhya Pure Land and so forth. Even if we don’t understand this then what is it? It’s just that we don’t understand yet. A small mindset may ask, is Shambhala somewhere on our earth? Why would we ask if Shambhala was a particular place on earth? Because we don’t understand that the whole world is Shambhala and we don’t understand this because we have small mindsets. So then we have to say it is somewhere on our land. But even if we understand or believe it is somewhere on our land, that helps a lot.
That’s why the ancient texts explain it in that way. So just like a two-year-old child, who doesn’t understand really important things, you try to make a sentence small and simple, which is not one hundred percent accurate, but it is helpful for the child. And so you tell the child something they can understand. So the usual explanation of Shambhala as a place on this earth is like that. So, why is this very important? Even this beginning level of explanation of Shambhala is far better than any other description of pure lands. Even other religions or different Buddhist traditions’ description of Pure Lands, of divine, pure realms are not 100 percent clear, not so practical, and may come off sounding like some kind of fairy tale. Even if you ask many questions, there is no clear answer.
So Shambhala is not like that. Shambhala is explained much more in the Kalachakra tantra. The first Shambhala Dharma king, Suchandra, and Buddha Shakyamuni explain Shambhala in their discussion using questions and answers. That’s why it is much clearer than any other explanation. That’s one thing. The other thing is that it’s much more practical because of the Shambhala Pure Land and the Shambhala Pure Lands’ mission only talks of how to transform our earth, our world, our humanity. Any other Pure Land talks by different Buddhist traditions or other religions have very little description if compared to Shambhala talks. So that’s why Shambhala expounds on the most practical level, on a level we can connect with, it’s the most important for this earth, for humanity, for us.
So, if that’s the case, how do we make a great connection with Shambhala? The only way, the best way is the Kalachakra Tantra. You practice Kalachakra Tantra. You study Kalachakra Tantra. This is the best connection. Why? It’s very, very clear. Very simple. Because Buddha taught Kalachakra Tantra for the Shambhala King Suchandra. For the Shambhala Dharma kings, meaning Bodhisattvas. Another way you can understand Shambhala Dharma Kings is Universal Monarch. Can you understand Universal Monarch? There is no such thing as a Universal Monarch other than Shambhala Dharma kings. So if you know from somewhere else about a Universal Monarch that is not a Shambhala Dharma king, please tell me. But there is none, other than Shambhala Dharma kings and queens.
This Monarch, Shambhala Monarch, is the Universal Monarch. What do we mean by a Universal Monarch? This means they have the power to rule the whole universe. Rule doesn’t mean the usual samsaric king and queen (Monarch) way of ruling. It is liberation, for the liberation of all sentient beings, especially, the liberation of humanity. Humanity is liberated first. This is Shambhala’s mission. Who said that? I didn’t make this up. Buddha Shakyamuni says it in the Kalachakra Tantra in a discussion with the first Shambhala Dharma King Suchandra. So the mission of Shambhala is to liberate and transform this impure humanity; this impure, unbalanced world. That is the mission of Shambhala.
So, then what can we do, what should we do? We must understand this. Or, if you don’t’ really understand, you must believe, must believe in Buddha, must believe in a Dharma king. Why? Because this is the first step or condition to transform our world. You know, to liberate our world. That’s why we must believe. And then the second step, what should we do? We should practice. What is Shambhala practice? Maybe we cannot practice 100% of the Shambhala practices, but we must do something similar. What is similar? A similar practice is… love and compassion. That’s it. When I say love and compassion, you may think, oh, that’s not special. Every tradition of Buddhism talks about that. Other religions talk about love and compassion. Nothing special. Nothing new. Maybe that’s what you think.
But it is something new. It is special. Why? Because usually, people don’t understand what love and compassion are. There’s a misunderstanding. There is a universal misunderstanding of love and compassion. Why? Because again, we have small mindsets, we have inflexible mindsets and we have negative habitual patterns. So that’s why we don’t understand even love and compassion. How do we not understand love and compassion? When people say love they are typically thinking about attachment. The nature of attachment, desire, people only understand this way. Possessiveness, usually people only understand love like this, Oh, I really love this. I really want this. This is all they understand.
When you say compassion, again there is a misunderstanding. People think compassion is very sad. Other people’s suffering. We have this problem. Coronavirus blah, blah, blah. Most old people die. I’m very sad. People think this is compassion. Maybe this level of love and compassion is better than zero.
It’s better than being very insensitive. You are at least sensitive enough that you can see other people’s suffering. That is a little bit better than no compassion, no love, zero love, zero compassion. So this is, we can say a starting point, but real love and compassion are not this. Do you understand? Please listen carefully. So love is not about you wanting something. It is about enjoyment. You enjoy. When you love, you enjoy. It is not saying you want to possess something. It’s not saying you cannot be without someone or something. It is not that. You enjoy engaging with this. So that means, if you can enjoy many things, that means you have more love. If you can enjoy only very little, that means you have very little love. Please try to understand that. And then compassion is not about feeling sad and self-pity, or pity for others. It is genuine caring and not being scared not afraid; zero fear. No fear. It is the opposite of fear. Incredible determination and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm and no fear this is compassion. You see, you enjoy doing anything and you have no fear to do anything.
These together are the perfect union of love and compassion. Who doesn’t want that? Anybody? Everybody wants this. Definitely, everybody needs this and everybody has this potential already. You just try to get rid of bad, habitual patterns. If you do that, then you are a warrior. You are heroes and heroines. That’s what it means to be a warrior. A Shambhala warrior also means this. All Shambhala kings and queen’s and all Shambhala people are warriors. This is what it means to be a real Bodhisattva. Real Bodhisattvas are not crying and sad. Crying and sadness mean weakening your mind. As a starting point, yes. You see suffering, and you can’t cry, that means a callous heart, not so good.
But, if you go beyond that, then you don’t cry. You’re not sad. Why? Because it’s nothing new for you. It doesn’t change you or your mind. You already know this is the nature of suffering. But the good thing is you are not scared to transform this. And you are not fearful of transforming this.
People usually think, Oh, I liberate all sentient beings by myself. That’s ridiculous. Impossible. Do you know that? Everybody is struggling, organizing their own lives. How can you liberate all sentient beings? It’s so difficult to please one sentient being, how can I liberate all sentient beings This is logic. But this logic is for a limited mind. From the limited mind, the system produces this logic. So yes, according to this limited system, this logic is right. But if you want to be a Bodhisattva, you have to go beyond that logic. Okay? Because of the logic is limited because It comes from a limited mental system.
So you have to go beyond that. When you go beyond that, then everything is enjoyable. You love to do everything, and you are not scared to do anything. You have no fear to do anything. That means you have no fear or doubt to liberate all sentient beings. And you love to do this. You enjoy liberating innumerable sentient beings. Do you understand this? This is the priceless real jewel. Usually, when we say precious jewels we don’t really mean precious jewels. Just some stone. You know, something is rarer than the other stones.
But really, really precious jewel, the ultimate, absolute precious jewel is this mind. And we already have this mind, it’s just that we temporarily have some dirt on the outside covering this jewel. So we have to clean this jewel. We just have to eradicate these habitual patterns. But that’s not hard. Why not hard? Because you are willing. If you’re not willing, you have already given up before you start. Then it is really hard. That is not only hard, but it’s also impossible. But you wouldn’t do that because you have Buddha Nature. You have the perfect truth. You have the warrior nature. We just have to, it’s not discovered, but, we just have to unveil it. We just have to actualize our own truth.
So if you do that, then you transform this world. First, you transform your own world. This means you are stuck at home, you are stuck in a small room, self-isolated or whatever, or not completely self-isolated, but some of your family members you think are boring, you think you have so much, much more important things to do outside. But everybody thought like that for so many thousands of years and people didn’t really get anything important at all. So now, this is the time you can start your journey, your own mind, toward truth, your Buddha Nature, the absolute truth. Until now we are not living in the truth. We are in an illusion.
So now is time to start. You know this absolute truth. Explore the absolute truth. How wonderful is that? Think of that. Why do I say Kalachakra is so important? In general, yes all Dharmas talk about Buddha Nature and transforming everything. But how to transform, how we put this whole world, the three realms of external, internal, and the additional is only expressed so elegantly in the Kalachakra Tantra. That’s what I’m saying. So you see, for instance, the Corona Virus. So many people have so many fears. So much fear and anxiety, even depression. The whole world is looking now at what they are doing, what are their reactions?
You know, actually, this is nothing unusual. Absolutely. We have hundreds of thousands of death conditions every day, we are facing. But we don’t have the habit to think of it this way. We pretend we are not going to die, we don’t have death conditions, only Corona Virus, we think of it that way. So, I’m not denying there is Corona Virus in this world. I’m not denying there are many hundreds of people dying from this. But what I’m saying is this is usual, we have just shifted our focus this time. So that’s why we make a big deal. So, practicing Kalachakra Tantra is not this way. Practicing Kalachakra Tantra means you balanced the ecosystem. You balanced your body, health, mind. Healthy mind, healthy body, healthy attitude. Healthy perspective, healthy motivation. This is the Kalachakra practice. If you do that, then, you are transforming and balancing the external world too.
Either you think the virus is external or internal. Seems like it is a little bit external, but then it also cannot live without a human’s body. So that means it seems like it’s internal. But it doesn’t matter. The external world, the internal world, they are also temporary and different. They’re also a little bit of a different aspect. Same nature, different aspects. Either way, the virus is not something evil and nothing to do with other sentient beings. Nothing to do with this universe. It’s not like that. It is temporary and unbalanced small particles. So if our mind has the right attitude, right perspective, right motivation; these make us balanced. This is a million times better than any other solution. Do you know that?
Any other solution is treating a symptom, not the illness. But this is balancing our mind with love and compassion. Then it is treating the illness. The root of the illness. You can see even somebody has less worry and a better immune system in the body, this the disease is not affecting them. Why? Because that means a little balance in their body, in their mind. This is limited balance but, still, it helps individuals But, if we balance our minds and body with real love and compassion, the love and compassion I’ve described, not the usual habits we had, our small idea of love and compassion; if we do this true love and compassion in our mind and then with this right attitude, right perspective, this brings balance to the whole universe, not just our body.
So, maybe I have to explain a little bit about the right perspective or what Kalachakra means by the right perspective. The right Kalachakra perspective goes beyond this universe. But this universe is also Kalachakra’s appearances. Appearance means not real, but cannot appear without Kalachakra, So that means Kalachakra has full control of these appearances, this world, this universe. We have to understand this right view, right perspective. Then what is the right attitude? The right attitude is “oh, this virus is not something evil, this virus has some causes, which means something bad, something separate, nothing to do with the universe, nothing to do with us,” not like that. You are accepting, inclusive, this virus is an aspect of our own universe, our own body. So, we just need balance. We just need to equalize, equality. Not going too extreme. This virus temporarily brings a very small and tiny state of imbalance. This is not the only imbalance in our lives. We have a million other imbalances. We should treat them together to make balance, not just shift our focus only on this virus.
I’m not saying that you don’t try to isolate, that you don’t wear masks, that you don’t wash your hands. I’m not saying that. Those actions are part of the obvious temporary solution. Of course, we do that. But this is just trying to avoid some symptoms. if you really want to treat our root of the illness, then we have to understand this Kalachakra Tantra. That is the best solution. What is the right motivation? Right motivation means we want to balance the whole world, not blaming each other. You know, saying “somebody made this, it’s their fault”, not that. If somebody really made it, if somebody really wanted to destroy this humanity, and therefore made this virus, then they are going to be destroyed anyway, they are going to be destroyed by the Shambhala warriors anyway.
That means, not only the Shambhala warriors but our warrior nature of the mind, this love and compassion. They are going to be destroyed anyway. Why? They are not very strong, as Buddha already said in the Kalachakra Tantra, the extremists. But, he didn’t say extremist in a traditional way, a very small-minded way to explain because people didn’t understand at that time. People were very uneducated, village people who were fighting each other, trying to take over each other, killing each other. At that time, the Buddha explained that type of mind. So, in the 21st century, people still explain this in exactly the same way which is the wrong explanation. That’s why my Shambhala book explains everything in a better way.
So now I’m briefly explaining that. So, anything unbalanced, the Shambhala warriors, we wouldn’t say destroy, we would say that anything unbalanced, they will make balanced. In those ancient times, it was called destroy, the Shambhala army, the Shambhala soldiers are going to destroy this such and such. So then we identify it as some other kind of religion. These things are the wrong interpretation. The meaning is, anything unbalanced, if somebody made this Corona virus with the purpose to destroy humanity, then it means that whoever has this mind and the Corona virus will both be balanced. They are unbalanced and so they will be balanced through the Kalachakra Tantra practice.
Maybe we don’t have to wait for many years. If these imbalances come, this makes Shambhala arise, because Shambhala is the antidote of the imbalance. So that’s why we don’t worry. This is also temporary. So, we just have to make our own conditions in the right way, from the right perspective, with the right attitude, the right motivation, not bringing the bad habitual patterns. We take this opportunity to become a warrior our self, to become a Bodhisattva. Take this opportunity. Look inward, and first, make our own mind balanced. That means you are balancing the whole world, the whole universe. So that means you’re treating the illness of the virus, not the temporary symptoms.
Even if we make a vaccine, that’s still a temporary solution. But if we can make a real vaccine in our mind, you know, this real love and compassion warrior mind. This is a vaccine forever, for the whole universe, not just individuals. So that’s why. Everybody, can you understand? Can you do this for me? Can you do this for our universe? Can you do this for the Shambhala Dharma kings and sages? Can you do this for Buddha Shakyamuni?
I’m sure you can. We all can. Why? Because we all have the same nature, the Buddha Nature, like the Dharma King Suchandra, and the Dharma King Pundarika; the same nature as Manjushri Yashas, Kalki Aja. We have the same nature as all of them. We all have Buddha Nature automatically. Just temporarily, yeah, a little bit of a different level, so, we have the same nature. So don’t forget that, and take this great opportunity to study, at least to study. Understand what Kalachakra means. What Shambhala means. And then meditate on that. And what is real love? What is real compassion? You know, this love and compassion mean Kalachakra Tantra, inside the deity, Kalachakra masculine, and Vishvamata the feminine. Union together means this true love and compassion. Union together. Transforming this world means you enjoy the union of masculine and feminine. From this great blessing, reborn are the children of all the Mandala, the whole universe. That’s why the whole universe is pure, absolutely pure. So there is no room for a virus. There is no room for any dirtiness, any weakness. That’s why Kalachakra yab-yum, the union of the deities is within ourselves. So externally we cannot live without the feminine. We cannot live with the masculine alone. The feminine cannot give birth to anything without the masculine. Internally the same. We have to understand this nature. If you understand this nature then you are starting to understand Tantrayana. If you are starting to understand Tantrayana, then you are starting to transform your whole world. So please, be with Tantrayana, be with Kalachakra union.
There are four reasons why I felt that this book needed to be written.
Firstly, the tradition of Zhentong Madhyamaka is widely recognized and experienced by the lineage masters of all of the Tibetan traditions as being the view and doctrine which most clearly illuminates the very essence of the Buddha’s teachings. In accordance with this tradition, sutra and tantra are found to be completely non-contradictory and when dealing with the two truths, it is a most effective method for achieving liberation from conceptual fixation to the views of eternalism and nihilism. It also appears to have an extraordinary capacity to arouse the mind of enlightenment, bodhicitta—the mind that strives to bring ultimate benefit to sentient beings while also achieving one’s own ultimate liberation.
Therefore I thought, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if more people knew about this tradition and were able to realize it?” Inspired in this way and recognizing that these teachings are more valuable than the most precious of jewels, I, therefore, decided to write this text even though it is possible that I may offend those with fixated or biased views.
Secondly, throughout Tibet and also in many other parts of the world, the legendary kingdom of Shambhala is held to be a particularly precious pure land. For many, there is nothing more important than to take rebirth there. They know that through such a birth, they will definitely experience the genuine peace and harmony that comes from knowing the natural state of all phenomena.
However, achieving this result can only occur in reliance upon the Kalki Kings of Shambhala turning the wheel of dharma for the Age of Perfection. While some people are aware of this in general, they do not understand the specific reasons why this age is necessary, nor how it should be established. Since this is the principal focus of the teachings of the victorious Jonang tradition, I think it is very important that it is clearly understood.
Thirdly, throughout the world and especially in Tibet, thousands upon thousands of people have received the great empowerment of Kalachakra.
It is widely known to be a most incomparably exalted, profound and complete Dharma. However, most people aren’t fully aware or do not understand that only the Jonang are the principal holders of the complete textual and practice tradition of this system. This is largely due to the fact that they have historically avoided getting involved in politics and instead chose to stay in remote places where they could focus on practicing the Profound Path of Vajra Yoga in reliance on the view of Zhentong Madhyamaka.
However, due to these teachings being preserved only within the Jonang Tradition, many people in and outside of Tibet are not aware of them, nor do they understand them. If this trend continues, then these teachings are in danger of disappearing. Such a loss would be incredibly unfortunate not only for Tibet but also for the entire world. Therefore, it is my hope that by writing about how to embrace the view of Zhentong Madhyamaka, I will help to establish the limitless wealth of this incredibly precious treasure of the glorious and victorious Jonang tradition.
Finally, for the reasons stated above, so few people are even aware of the existence of the Jonang, let alone their profound view of Zhentong. Of the few that are aware, due to centuries of suppression that has continued up to recent times, there are many who think that the Jonang are a degenerate school of little import. Some even believe that the Jonang are completely non-existent. The fact that these views permeate modern Tibetan culture is extremely tragic.
I consider this extraordinary tradition of learning and practice to be established by some of the greatest minds that Tibet has ever produced. It is truly a great and profound treasure for this world. If we do not master it, then there can be no greater loss. For this reason, feeling a sense of great urgency to preserve this tradition in Tibet and also share it with the world, I have written this text.
Understanding these reasons, one may ask, “How did it happen that something so valuable could be neglected for so long?” Then I would answer that due to oppressive political views perpetuated over many centuries, these teachings were forgotten by the general public. Since the details of this history have been explained by many very intelligent people, I do not feel the need to discuss them further here.
However, even now, there have been a number of recent setbacks. Due to being short-sighted and dominated by attachment, aversion, and ignorance, there are those who continue to be swept away by the cycle of existence. Lost in the pursuit of their own ambition and desire, they allow their conceptual thoughts to consume them and therefore disregard the rights of others.
The natural decency which is common to all people in this world is now thickly wrapped in a sheath of shameless indecency and self-obsession. If we continue to act in this way, future generations will look back at this time with remorse and embarrassment at the way society has been driven by such greed and self-indulgent behavior.
With these teachings, we have the opportunity to immediately wake up from this deep slumber of ignorant behavior. Therefore, for the sake of our future generations, we must never again allow our minds to be infected by such noxious maladies. To this end, I have written this so that we may become masters of the hidden jewel of Tibet. By virtue of this effort,
I pray for an auspicious time in which this treasure of the Zhentong Madhyamaka is enjoyed as the shared legacy of all people in this world.
In this book, Khentrul Rinpoché shines the vivid light of wisdom on the very subtle distinctions which establish the profound view of the Great Middle Way as propagated within the Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Rooted in the flawless textual tradition of the Buddha’s own teachings and those of the Bodhisattva Kings, this widely misunderstood philosophical system emphasizes the clear distinction between the emptiness of conventional reality and the infinite manifestation of ultimate reality, known as buddha-nature. With this direct and fearless analysis, Rinpoché challenges us to transcend narrow modes of thinking and to discover the limitless potential we each carry within.
This transcript of Khentrul Rinpoche’s message has been lightly edited for easier reading.
We have to understand that death is an aspect of our life. There is no such thing as life without death. Ordinary people only understand the obvious level of death which means we only think there is one type of death-finishing life.
But if we understand this at a deeper level, we actually experience dying every moment. But dying is not an accurate word for this, it’s not really dying, it’s transforming.
So the whole of this life is part of the transformation, and death is considered the big transformation. This transformation is of absolute importance and of greatest opportunity. If we understand this we have no fear of death.
Death is not the problem, the problem is the fear of death and the attachment, not letting go of this so-called life. We cant accept this transformation, this is the problem.
We have to consider this: death is an incredible opportunity to forcefully transform ourselves to detach from strong attachments and let this transformation happen. Happily accepting and allowing this transformation is really important.
Usually, people try and make death comforting, “oh don’t worry Buddha or someone will help you”. Or some people put money in the dying person’s mouth so they have money to spend on their journey. These things are for a little comfort. The best comfort is understanding reality, in that this transformation is not bad at all, its a really good transformation, its a fact of nature, a part of living, a part of life, it’s not something separate.
Every moment we die, but every moment we don’t understand because our mind is so gross, it’s at a coarse level and we are attached to gross things. We need meditation/ mind training for this. Every night we sleep, that means we have a small death. This is included in the Bardos, but to understand this we need to train and habituate, be mindful, vigilant, and conscientious of this.
Then if we understand, this so-called death is even better, because it’s a big dissolving and an opportunity to connect with our ultimate/buddha nature.
Try and be happy about waiting for your buddha nature. The best achievement is connecting with fully enlightened Buddhahood. Or you are journeying to rebirth in a Buddha Pureland, or at least you will be in Shambala Pureland. Why? Because if you train yourself in accepting the natural fact that death is accurate with universal transformation, it leads to Shambala pure realm.
When you are in Shambala pure realm, you will see how silly and destructive we are. At that time you have the inspiration to manifest and return to help the world because at that time you have a better ability, you are not only one, you are living in Shambala but you manifest many other forms to come here and help. That means if you practice you will have a better transformation, you will come back to earth and help ignorant silly people understand this natural transformation.
Don’t be small-minded and think “I’m losing my life, I don’t know where I’m heading to”, just let go and remember its a natural transformation, you will be a liberator and better because of you will have this big transformation before others.
You don’t need to call the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas they are with you anyway, because if they have an omniscient mind and unconditional love and compassion, whatever you need they are with you anyway. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, they will forgive anyway. The best thing is to live in a peaceful concentrative mind, be happy and accepting.
Please understand this. Please understand this.
I always pray for you and I will see you in Shambala, and definitely I can guide you, no problem!.
This transcript of Khentrul Rinpoche’s audio teaching has been lightly edited for easier reading.
Hello everyone.
The most important message is, the universe, our mind made it. Our mind is the creator. The whole universe, all the mind made it. That means, there is some part we made together. So that part we see very similar together. But never be exactly the same. Why? Because an individual’s version of the world is an individual’s experience. Yes, there are similar things we can experience. But everybody has a different version. Why? Because everybody has mind, so the mind created this different version.
So we communicate at the similarities. We just say “oh this looks like this”, “this is yes, looks like this. Good, bad, ok, yes”. Some people agree, some people not agree, have different opinions. Because why? Because our mind made a different version from a different individual.
That’s why. But there is some similarity. Never be exactly the same, but very similar. So we have to understand this. If we understand this, then we are the creator. Not the God, not the Buddha. Nobody.
Ourselves. So that means we have control, we can choose. Ok. So that means, we control means, doesn’t mean we can control our next minute of the whole universe version. That’s not possible. Why? Because of our long time and everybody’s habit together. Sharing together. But we start it, having our freedom.
Real freedom, not this political freedom, or anything these fake freedoms. Not we talking about this. Not temporary freedom. Not these false freedoms. But we start real freedom whenever we understand that the whole universe is made from our mind. So that means whenever you understand this, and that day you start. You want to have a good or bad day is our choice. You want a good week, or a bad week is our choice. You want to be good, and happy, or not, it is your choice. You want a bad month or a good month. You want to have a good year or a bad year. You want to have a good life or a bad life, all is our choice. Our own choice. When you understand the mind made from our mind, the universe is made from our mind, then we have this choice. Until then we have no choice. So understand this, please.
In that case, the coronavirus, also made from our mind ok. I mean, not saying directly mind made this virus (Rinpoche laughs). But this effecting and not effecting, everything is, most of them is our individual mind made up. There are some similarities, something we share, similar things, but most…our focus. Our, wherever our focus, however our focus. How difficult, how easy, everything, made from our own mind. So be aware of that. So then you have some freedom. You have freedom of difficult, or easy, or much better, or great opportunity to have these circumstances. It is all our choices. Ok.
So the death conditions are usually a lot, millions. Always there, but we’re not aware of this. We don’t have a habit and focus on this. So coronavirus, yes it is a deadly condition, but is so small compared to the rest of all the death conditions, individually. There is very small tiny. So why do we take it as such a big deal? Because of our focus shifts on that. So please be aware of that and don’t worry.
The second most important is to be a warrior. Being a warrior doesn’t mean you have to fight physically. The true warrior is in the mind. And also you don’t have to be tough and strong and aggressive. The true warrior is understood as incredible love and compassion united together. This is the true warrior.
But when I say this please don’t misunderstand. The love is something you have no freedom. You fall in love so you have no freedom. It’s not like that. And compassion is not you are so sad because you are so sensitive and you have compassion, so sad for other people’s suffering. It’s not that. Please don’t misunderstand this ok. Think of the opposite.
The love is you love it. This means you enjoy, you enjoy everything. There’s nothing you do not enjoy. There is nothing you do not love. So that is true love. Can we do that? Yes, absolutely we can do that. Why can we do that? Because our true nature is like that. But we just have temporarily bad habitual patterns. So we just need to overcome this. This temporary dirtiness, that’s all. So it’s much easier to be with the true nature. So that’s why you don’t have anything you don’t love. And compassion means you have no fear for anything. So this union together.
So that means you’re not scared of coronavirus. You can enjoy these circumstances. Ok.
Because these circumstances change everything. Transformation. So this transformation is a great opportunity you can take or medium (opportunity), or you make the worst, it is up to you. Why?
Because everything is made from our mind. So that’s why very important to understand the warrior means no fear. No fear means not scared of anything, to do anything, and to be anything, to die. Not scared to die? Why? Because this is a natural transformation too. This is part of life. So you are not scared of anything. And you love to do everything, you enjoy to do
Everything. This is actually the most ultimate feminine and masculine union ok. So this is within everybody. You are not relying on external feminine if you are masculine. Ok. If you are female you’re not relying on external male quality. You already have within yourself. So please try to understand this. That doesn’t mean you have to be a monk or nun. It doesn’t mean you have to be celibate. Its meaning is you’re not relying 100% the external, you know, nurturing or the feminine natural nurturing. You are not relying on the protection, masculine nature. Because you already know within yourself. So this is, you can say, the union of love and compassion, or union of masculine and feminine. Or you can say this is warrior nature. So this is a hero and heroine. It’s within ourselves. So try to understand this.
So then we are not going to be affected by Corona virus. It is very, very small. If we are not affected by millions of conditions of death, why are we so affected by coronavirus only? So… we are not. Ok. Try to understand this, please.
So that doesn’t mean we are not going to be careful. Of course, you should be careful. Why you’re careful? Because that is only one condition. You are not transmitting the disease for yourself. You are not transmitting to others. Why? Because those people who not understanding this talk, not understand this philosophy, they have a limitation, so they are devastated to have this disease, and you know and everything. That’s why you not going to make, get this disease for you. You do not make this disease transmit to other people. That’s why of course you be careful. Logically, if you just wearing a mask and not washing hands, or you touching everywhere, those things are not helping. But you logically do everything, whatever the experts say. Follow them 100%.
Take as diligent, disciplined, as reviving your good qualities. And reviving your true quality enlightenment. This union of the masculine and feminine warrior nature of the great love compassion. Not the pity, self-pity, pity of others. Not that kind of compassion. Not love something you can’t let go and you are relying on someone. Not that love. The love of you enjoy everything. The compassion is of you are not scared of anything. You have no fear to do anything. Everything is perfect. You have no fear of death. You have no fear of disease, transmit. Everything, you have no fear. You be careful, at the same time you have no fear.
So no fear means peace of mind. Peace of mind means a better immune system in the body. That means you have much more protection from the disease. Everything. So if you do that way, the best protection. The best for everything. The best cure. Or even you have to die through this, this is you meant to die. You enjoy this death. You take this as a great opportunity, no problem. This way is the best way to deal with it. Any other solutions are ok.
All other solutions other people instructing you are treating the symptoms. That’s ok, no problem. But if you really want to heal the illness, if you really want to treat this, the root of the illness, then you need this warrior nature. The great love and compassion union. The most, the ultimate feminine and masculine union. You need this. This is the way to go.
Ok. Are you with me? I will help you on the way. All the way I will be with you and I will help you, if you accept.
This transcript of Khentrul Rinpoche’s message for Buddhist Practitioners in the time of Corona Virus has been lightly edited for easier reading.
Hello, all Sangha members in the world, followers of the Buddha Shakyamuni, especially Kalachakra sangha members.
So, this time many people are finding this to be a difficult time. But as we are practitioners, we have to think very deeply and we have to see many aspects of life and many aspects of this situation.
So if we don’t do that, what is our practice for? What is our dharma for? So, if we cannot do that, then we are not dharma practitioners. Then we are just ordinary people. Then all our dharma practice is just for hobbies. It becomes a hobby. It has nothing to do with the improvement of spiritual abilities. Dharma is how to deal with difficulties.
We need to know very well more than normal people, more than the everyday people. That is meant to be. So this is also a very good chance to test oneself.
What kind of practitioner are we? This situation is quite special. This gives us a chance to look inward and examine oneself and test oneself. What kind of a practitioner am I? This is a good time to think of that.
Then we have to look at what is ordinary and what is a practitioner? An ordinary person means when we hear about this virus, and then this isolation, this business of locking down everything, it makes us anxious. It makes anxiety and increases depression and everything as normal and usual. If that is the case, then we are just an ordinary person. We are not a practitioner. There is a saying in Tibetan, when you are warm with the sun and your stomach is full then you think you are a very good practitioner. But when these situations and crises come over you, then you realize you are very ordinary.
So, Tibet is, of course, cold and sometimes you might be hungry. It’s a harsh life. So that’s why the saying. Maybe nobody is hungry today, nobody’s freezing today, but when these situations come, people have a lot of anxiety and suffering.
So, that’s why we have to test and ourselves. We examine ourselves. Who am I? What kind of practitioner am I? Until now I claim to practice dharma and have bodhicitta and so forth, but, is that really the case? We have a very good chance to reflect.
So, this situation has forced us to reflect on ourselves. This is the first thing we have to think about.
And then, secondly, we have to think, even if you realize “I’m not really a practitioner. I’m not really special at all, but still, how can I deal with this problem?”, you know? We need to look at a level. We have to think about this. Is this virus really bad? Is this really the problem for the world? Or is this really a problem for me individually? Me and my family? Is this individually bad or this is bad for the world?
So firstly, we don’t really know, 100%, if this is really bad for the world people or bad for the world.
And secondly, of course, we don’t really know exactly how bad for the individuals, but if we have some assumptions and we have some superficial way of looking, even in that case, maybe a little bit bad for the world, for the economy everything is bad, in general, for the world maybe, but for individuals, this has definitely less, much less, chance to be bad. So first step, we have to realize that.
So what does that mean? That means for the world, if we look in a superficial way, this is affecting many things, the business, economy, everything is going to be bad. Many people are probably going to die in this case.
But for individuals why less? Why is this less, why? Why, because firstly, this reminds us of the impermanence of life, the certainty of death and the uncertainty of the time of death. It forces us to realize that, but at the same time, it is good because there are millions of conditions for death every day. But we usually don’t think about that, we don’t realize that, and we don’t think about that. Sometimes even we intellectually know that, but still, we don’t have a habit to think about that. But this virus is only one condition of death. This gives us a chance to reflect on all that, how death is very scary… And when death comes is there anything that can help you, in the whole world? You work very hard, from birth to death, all of them, are they meaningful? Are they of any help? No, nothing zero.
And it only helps if you have a special viewpoint, the special attitude of the Dharma. That only helps you. Nothing else. You have to realize that. So that means… this is not too bad, because so many things we don’t realize before. We don’t think of all these things. We have a bad habit to think in very superficial way, and we are anxious in silly ways. So this forces us to realize all this is not really the cause.
So only one condition for death added to millions and we become very, very anxious. And we have this to teach us. Why don’t you usually think about the impermanent time of death? And why don’t you think about the certainty of death? Why don’t you prepare for your death and journey to rebirth? Everything. You are only stuck on very superficial things and they take over your life.
So, this has given us that reflection now. This is really important. Okay, so that is the first step. Everybody should think of all these things.
Even if you don’t believe in dharma, you don’t believe in religion, you don’t believe in spirituality, but this is so obvious. So, for anybody, it’s worth thinking of all of this.
Okay, this is a second thing then, usually, people always really like dharma, like really high Dharma really, really like Mahayana. really like Vajrayana, so people think like that. Now it is time to reflect on ourselves. Am I really a Mahayana high practitioner? Do I really have bodhicitta,? Am I qualified to practice Vajrayana? Am I qualified to practice the highest yoga tantra? Vajrayana, Mahamudra, Dzogchen and so forth?
So first, if we try to check “Am I ordinary or I am a Hinayana practitioner?”. If I am ordinary, then this makes you sad. It makes you worried, it increases anxiety and depression, that is absolutely ordinary.
But if you have a little bit of middle way of thinking, at least “Oh! This is impermanent. This is nothing special. This is a part of life. And then I have faith in Buddha, Dharma, and the Three Jewels. Definitely they will help me. Definitely I will have much more chance to not be affected by this virus because I have faith in the Three Jewels”. If you think like that about it, you are a Dharma practitioner, a very basic Dharma practitioner, but you still are special. More special than ordinary. So, think of that.
So, this strategy is you want to be protected by the Three Jewels. And you have faith. You have a connection with the Three Jewels. That’s why you are much safer than others.
Okay, this has qualified you as a practitioner. But you are still a lower practitioner because you are looking for protection. Okay. you are looking for protection for only yourself. Then if you realize, if you are a little bit higher than this, then what do you do?
It is not about you being more worried about the world because you have bodhicitta, you have compassion. Because you have compassion for all sentient beings, that’s why you worry more than everybody else about the world. And then you have much more anxiety and depression because you have compassion. No, it is not that. Don’t think that way. This is the wrong way of thinking. It is not that. What makes you special is, you have to realize Tibetan expression, which means those who are real dharma practitioners, a little bit higher dharma practitioners, their mind sees this is bad condition – in normal, ordinary people realization – as the path, for you, this becomes the path. For others it is an enemy in the wrong place, it is not the path to reach, it is not the path to adopt. But for you, it becomes the path. This is a view that shows you are a real practitioner.
So why is it like that? Quite easy, think about it. If this had not happened, you would be in your normal, typical life, ups and downs, most of the time not really happy, okay, and nothing is changed. Years and years and nothing changes. This is the typical way.
But this virus, this situation, this lockdown for us, forces us to transform. It forces us to change. It forces us to look inward. It forces us to look deeper. So, think about that.
So before, I had no time because so many things to do, I had no time to practice dharma. I had no time to study, but now it forces you to have time. It forces you to have practice, because you have no job, you can’t work. Normally, you can waste time chatting with the people, spend time playing games with people, working hard, everything, you have no time.
Now, this forces you to have time to practice dharma. Does practicing dharma mean you just sit in a cushion, try to do some breathing in, breathing out or you try to meditate? It’s not only that. But it is forcing you to look inward. Looking deeper into life looking for more, much more conditions, millions of conditions of death all the time, not only corona-virus. Do you realize that?
But then why are people so crazy about this coroner virus right now? The whole world? It is only because of the focus shift. A focus shift, that’s the only reason. Otherwise, we could become crazy our whole lives like it is now because if we focus all the time on death conditions, we have millions of conditions every day. If we focus on that, we either become crazy or we become excellent practitioners who never waste one minute and always have a good attitude, incredible strength in the mind, incredible love, compassion and wisdom in the mind.
We could become like this, but unfortunately, usually, our focus isn’t there. Our focus is on superficial things. But today, the virus shifts your focus only to the virus, so everybody shifts focus to this. So that’s why, most this crazy situation today is because of a shift in the focus, it is because of that.
There are some exceptions because of this virus, okay. But the most important is what? If anybody can transform this into an opportunity, can turn this into a path, if it can force you to have a good approach to a deeper meaning in life, and force you to have more knowledge, more study more mindfulness, even if you are really sad, you are really anxious or anything, but if you see this as transformation, the process of transformation, it is good if you think that.
In the worst scenario, even if you’re going to die this time, still this has forced you to prepare for death, to be already prepared. So many years on your life and you didn’t prepare, but this time you prepare yourself. Can you take it like that? Can you study dharma more deeply and completely engage in that? Can you study all the Bardo process, everything, so you are completely focused on that, completely engaged on that? Can you do that? If you do that, that’s fantastic.
Even if you don’t die this time, you prepared everything to die, but you didn’t die, in the future, it is even better. But if you’re going to die this time, it is still fantastic. It is a fantastic death, because this let me prepare, okay?
And also if you get and you don’t die, that also gives you a lot of experience in how we react to things and what is a reality, you know, and in the future, we learn a lot. So there are so many things, if you are wise enough, if you are intelligent enough, there are a million things you can think of this as really opportunity, really good qualities for us, especially individually. Okay, so think of that.
Of course, the majority of the world, yes, they don’t think that way. They definitely consider this as a crisis, but individually, especially as you are a sangha member, as you are a practitioner. Then you should think, firstly “I am so fortunate to be a practitioner. Secondly, I am even more fortunate to have this situation to force to focus on the Dharma”. You should think like that and you should act like this.
Okay? So we all should do this. I’m not saying you shou do it and I don’t have to do it. I am not saying this. We all should do this. We all should be together, you all with me. Please be with me and we all will do this, okay.
Especially if you consider you are in the bodhisattva path, if you consider you are a Mahayana practitioner, you try to practice bodhicitta. So, what does it mean bodhicitta? Bodhicitta means you don’t care about what the world is, what the suffering is. I mean, you don’t care means you don’t care how bad it is, you already know how bad it is, but bodhisattva means you go beyond that. So, your mind and your aspiration go far beyond how bad the world is. Do you know that? Bodhicitta means that.
Bodhicitta doesn’t mean: “Oh! Sentient beings are suffering so much, this Corona virus, I am so sad, I can’t take it anymore”. That’s not Bodhicitta. Bodhicitta means the warrior mind, you know how bad it is, but your aspiration and everything, your strength and your enthusiasm, your determination go far, far beyond how bad the world is, how bad this virus is, how bad this crisis is, this financial crisis, everything.
So that is bodhicitta. So please try that, especially if you think “I’m not just Bodhicitta practitioner, I practice Bodhicitta with a Vajrayana path”. In that case, Vajrayana means that the base of your practice is not only Bodhicitta. Bodhicitta means you want to overcome all these problems. You take responsibility to overcome for everybody, all sentient beings. Overcome means there is something to overcome.
But Vajrayana practice is based on there is no need to overcome. It is already perfect. What does that mean? Anything that is bad is illusion. Anything perfect is the truth. Anything perfect means the absolute truth. Anything not perfect is illusion. So you do not drown in illusion, your focus shift to purity, your focus shift to perfection. So that is what it means, in a simple way. “Oh, Vajrayana practice, I do this yidam, I do this mantra, I have to do these many mantras”. Well, you know, it is not that way. That is a very narrow-minded way, narrow strategy. But the essence is, you know, you focus on purity, you focus on perfection, this is Vajrayana.
Especially if you are fortunate enough, a practitioner of Kalachakra. This is the best. Why is this the best? Everybody talks about Bodhicitta, everybody talks about purity, the purity of the world, the enlightened world, everything is deities on the mandala.
So this is Tantrayana talking, why is Kalachakra so special? I tell you. Yes, everybody talks about Bodhicitta, but who has more details and more focus? Again, the focus shift. In Kalachakra the focus shifts from anywhere else to the Warrior Nature.
So, that’s why. Kalachakra went to Shambala and developed in Shambhala and transformed Shambhala. So, Shambhala becomes more than any other pure land. So the Shambhala mission is transforming this world. Why? Because of the nature of the Kalachakra practice.
Kalachakra means Tibetan expression, Kalachakra means you go beyond the three realms, yet you appear as the three realms. So that emphasizes the purity so elegantly. So that is why Kalachakra practice is the most special transformation. Because Kalachakra Tantra fully emphasizes how you transform this world. Shambala warriors take this path as a reality, take this mission and took responsibility. So what we have, a little Kalachakra in our life, maybe a little bit in stages, early stages, but this is linked and is connected with Shambala warriors.
Do you know what the Shambala Warriors’ mission is? What is Shambhala’s mission? How to transform our world? Free from extremes. Some people misinterpreted this in a very narrow way, but if you look more broadly, with a deeper view, then it is free from two extremes. What are the extremes? One is the material world, materialistic people. One extreme is the fundamentalist, very narrow, incredible narrow view. If we are free from these two extremes, then we don’t have any chance of a problem in this world.
So maybe this coronavirus and blaming each other is maybe the start of the Shambala mission. There are a lot of arguments, who made this Coronavirus. Americans say Chinese. Chinese say Americans made this. These arguments. What does this show? It is exactly pointing to what Shambala warriors are going to overcome. Whoever made this disease purposefully, if this is possible, then it is definitely part of Shambhala’s mission to destroy [this kind of conception].
If nobody purposefully made it and it’s naturally transforming, the process of transformation, in that case, what is the real solution? Only Kalachakra. The ultimate solution is only Kalachakra and who carries this power? The Shambala warriors. Shambala mission is the only ultimate answer.
So, we are so fortunate, especially practicing the Kalachakra path, even you have a little realization, or no realization and you only have faith and devotion. We are still the most fortunate people on this earth. Why? Because we are the transformers, you know? So, shift your focus on that, not on small-minded pity. “Oh, it’s too difficult, this is hard!”. No there is no difficulty, the only difficulty is that you did not shift your focus. But if you shift your focus then it is perfect.
So please focus on the excellent path of the Kalachakra and the excellent mission of Shambala. Be a warrior, ok, be heroes and heroines. Don’t keep self-pity on your minds. Are you with me? I’m with you guys. Ok, we let’s do that.
From now until May 2, 2020, our global sangha will take part in a co-ordinated mantra accumulation practice and offering to help us realize the sublime teachings handed down through the Kalki Kings. It is an important year for the Dzokden International practice community as we unify as one vajra family to create the conditions for the Kalachakra Dharma to flourish.
We have the great fortune in this year of the Iron Mouse for the potential creation of two new Dzokden Kalachakra centers, one in Europe and one in Australia. In order to accumulate as much merit as possible to create the most auspicious conditions for these centers to fully manifest, we would like to offer two mantra accumulations, that of Shri Kalachakra and that of Dzambhala.
Kalachakra Mantra
OM HA KYA MA LA WA RA YANG SOHA
Dzambhala Mantra
OM DZAMBHALA DZALENDRAYE SOHA
We will offer the mantra accumulations on the Full-Moon of Nagpa Dawa, the most auspicious days of the year when Shakyamuni Budha in the form of Shri Kalachakra appeared to the Boddhisattva Kings of Shambhala and turned the wheel of Dharma teaching the Kalachakra Tantra for the first time. During this time, the power of the offerings are multiplied a million times over.
These mantras will be offered for the benefit of all sentient beings by Khentrul Rinpoche on behalf of the community at the Consecration ceremony in Australia on the site of our future Land of Shambhala Retreat Center. The land will be blessed by Khentrul Jamphel Lodrö Rinpoche and HE Rigzin Chenpo over the course of 4 days. In order for our community to create a karmic connection with this special occasion, we aspire to offer as many mantras as possible from as many countries as possible. May our sangha be successful in this great aspiration!
Practice for Connecting with the Sublime Realm of Shambhala By Khentrul Rinpoché Jamphel Lodrö An introductory practice suitable for training in the essence of Kalachakra—the heart of ultimate love and compassion; while also strengthening your karmic connection to the Sublime Realm of Shambhala.
For students who have received the Kalachakra initiation:
Enlightening the Heart By Khentrul Rinpoché Jamphel Lodrö A complete daily practice with extended visualisations written for the benefit of Western students. This text can be used as an alternative to practicing the Divine Ladder.
The Divine Ladder By Jetsun Taranatha The traditional practice manual which has been used for hundreds of years to cultivate the common and uncommon preliminaries of the profound Vajra Yoga Path.
Note: These practices can be found in the Profound Path of Vajra Yoga sadhana.
For each mala of 108 that you complete, count 100 mantras. There are 8 extra beads in a mala to accommodate for our human error in practicing. For multiplying days, the number of malas you count remains the same as the number you practiced. The multiplying increases the potency in the mind but does not change the overall number accumulated.
You can choose to submit your mantras as they are accumulated or upon completion of your 3 month long practice. We ask that you enter all of your mantras into the form before May 2nd, 2020.
Over the last several years, our precious guru Khentrul Rinpoche has traveled to over 24 countries around the world to spread the profound Kalachakra tantra. Despite occasional challenges to his health, he has worked tirelessly for our benefit bestowing teachings, transmissions and empowerments upon us of the most rare Kalachakra tantra. In gratitude, to support his long life and continued ability to benefit as many beings as possible, we would like to come together to perform the long life lama chöpa (guru puja).
At the culmination of Khentrul Rinpoche’s North American tour on September 22, the offering will be made by students in California on behalf of all of Rinpoche’s students around the world. It will be streamed live on facebook so that everyone can join in and participate. This is the first time Khentrul Rinpoche’s students outside of Tibet have made this offering. May our sangha be successful in this great aspiration.
[x_custom_headline type=”left” level=”h2″ looks_like=”h4″ accent=”true”]How to Participate[/x_custom_headline]
1) Mantra Accumulation for Khentrul Rinpoche’s Long Life
In order to support Rinpoche’s long life we will focus our accumulation on the Long Life Diety Namgyalma. In order to do this, take refuge, generate bodhicitta and then recite the short or long mantra of Namgyalma and dedicate to Khentrul Rinpoche’s long life. You can also add in the Supplication Prayer to Khentrul Rinpoche on page 311 of the Profound Path of Vajra Yoga. Enter your mantras into the website by September 20th so they can be offered to Rinpoche at the ceremony. This creates a direct karmic link between you and the offering ceremony.
2) Make Offerings to Support Rinpoche’s Great Aspirations
As part of the guru puja, it is traditional for the sangha to make offerings to the guru both real and visualized. In order to overcome the limitations of narrow and biased ways of thinking, Rinpoche believes that education is the key. In order to bring about Shambhala and the golden age of Dharma, Rinpoche has an aspiration to change aspects of modern education on a fundamental level in accordance with Kalachakra.
We have created Dzokden Foundation for Khentrul Rinpoche to fulfill his great aspiration. In order to make this long life offering as auspicious as possible we request the community to help us seed the foundation. Your offering will be made to Rinpoche during the long life offering ceremony.
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3) Participate in the offering Livestream on Facebook
Join us on Khentrul Rinpoche’s facebook page to participate in the live stream offering. The text will be available in English for you to recite.
Offering to the Guru By Jetsun Taranatha The traditional Jonang Lama Chöpa (guru puja) has been extended to include the turning back of the 5 dakinis, kalachakra tsok and Long Life Prayers for Rinpoche. The text will be available closer to the event in English under practice materials.
[x_button size=”global” href=”2099787210063676/”> href=”https://www.facebook.com/events/2099787210063676/” target=”blank” ]WATCH THE LIVE STREAM[/x_button]
For each mala of 108 that you complete, count 100 mantras. There are 8 extra beads in a mala to accommodate for our human error in practicing. For multiplying days, the number of malas you count remains the same as the number you practiced. The multiplying increases the potency in the mind but does not change the overall number accumulated.
Our community has grown over the last several years to encompass Kalachakra practitioners from all over the world. In celebration, we would like to come together to offer our precious guru, Shar Khentrul Rinpoche, 1 million mantra recitations of Kalachakra:
OM HA KYA MA LA WA RA YANG SOHA
The Kalachakra New Years officially starts with the month of Nagpa Dawa on March 18, followed by the full moon on March 31 marking the teaching of the Kalachakra Tantra. Between now and then please join us in practicing the Kalachakra mantra in dedication to Khentrul Rinpoche for his good health and longevity. This is our first time as a global sangha to take part in a co-ordinated practice and offering to help us realize the sublime teachings handed down through the Kalki Kings. May our sangha be successful in this great aspiration.
Practice for Connecting with the Sublime Realm of Shambhala By Khentrul Rinpoché Jamphel Lodrö
An introductory practice suitable for training in the essence of Kalachakra—the heart of ultimate love and compassion; while also strengthening your karmic connection to the Sublime Realm of Shambhala.
For students who have received initiation:
Enlightening the Heart By Khentrul Rinpoché Jamphel Lodrö A complete daily practice with extended visualisations written for the benefit of Western students. This text can be used as an alternative to practicing the Divine Ladder.
The Divine Ladder By Jetsun Taranatha The traditional practice manual which has been used for hundreds of years to cultivate the common and uncommon preliminaries of the profound Vajra Yoga Path.
Note: These practices can be found in the Profound Path of Vajra Yoga sadhana.
For each mala of 108 that you complete, count 100 mantras. There are 8 extra beads in a mala to accommodate for our human error in practicing. For multiplying days, the number of malas you count remains the same as the number you practiced. The multiplying increases the potency in the mind but does not change the overall number accumulated.
Upon completion of your month long practice, please submit your total accumulation of mantra for us to present to Khentrul Rinpoche on behalf of our community. We ask that you enter your mantras into the form before April 2nd, 2018.
Due to the efforts of authentic lineage masters such as Khentrul Rinpoché, the conditions are starting to manifest for disciples around the globe to receive the profound pith instructions of the Kalachakra Completion Stage. In order to safeguard the blessings of these most precious of teachings, the High Lamas of the Jonang Tradition such as His Holiness Tulku Jigmé Dorjé and His Holiness Khenpo Sherab Saljé, have issued a statement with respect to how the pith instructions should be disseminated.
Khentrul Rinpoché would like all of his students to respect and honour the tradition by acting in accordance with this policy. For this reason, he has included the full translation of the letter below. Please share this information with anyone that you believe would find it relevant. If you have any questions regarding this letter, direct your inquiries to: [email protected].
“What is clearly taught in many sutras and tantras was expounded by the Omniscient One Possessing the Four Reliances, Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen, as the profound dharma of the hermits whose minds are devoid of the eight mundane concerns, just like a symphony of cymbals, in the treatise entitled ‘The Mountain Doctrine, Ocean of Definitive Meaning’, which first proclaimed the fearless lion’s roar in the retreats of the snowy mountains of Tibet, the view that unifies the definitive meaning which is the intention of the Third Turning of the Wheel of Dharma and the profound, secret Kalachakra, the King of the Unsurpassable, Secret Tantras.
Accordingly, with regards to all the profound and extraordinary teachings of the Glorious Gyalwa Jonangpa, if one practices the proper stages of the gradual preliminaries by applying the three confidences and the four disregards, one will reach without any obstructions the superior state of accomplishment of unmistaken omniscience. Therefore, the Glorious Gyalwa Jonangpa are the genuine holders of the teachings of this practice lineage and have never sought mundane prestige or political prominence.
Moreover, if all of these extraordinary and profound teachings are commodified, it won’t be possible to experience the power of their blessings. Therefore, they are bestowed only on disciples who are worthy vessels for the powerful content of the pith instructions, and then, the commitments between lama and disciples are guarded as one protects one’s own life.
If one respects the secrecy of the profound meaning and takes good care of the commitments, one will certainly be able to be freed through realization and to swiftly progress on the bhumis and paths. This is not a mere belief. Rather, it is a doctrinal transmission of competent practitioners who kept record of their experiences. Therefore, since rules for spreading the profound dharma in the future are seen as having the utmost importance, the highest teaching of the Vajra Yoga, which is the profound path of the excellent lineage from the northern land of Shambhala must be preserved accordingly.
As for the Six Branched Yoga, the Completion Stage of the Kalachakra Tantra, qualified Vajra Masters of the Victorious Jonangpa must gradually lead their respective heart disciples through the common and uncommon preliminaries.
For the sake of those who have practiced according to the instructions and who have gradually completed the proper progression, the methods for practicing the pith instructions of the Six Branched Yoga and the associated techniques for removing the obstacles will be translated into their respective languages and then taught. Otherwise, if, recklessly translating all the pith instructions and the associated methods for practicing, we sell them in the market and so on, we don’t know whether this will bring benefit or harm. Thus, anything concerning the pith instructions that have an order-seal of secrecy should never be commodified.
Apart from the holders of the teachings of the Victorious Jonangpa, who possess the rights of ownership of these instructions, there are no other individuals nor organizations that have such rights. Therefore, the entire Victorious Jonangpa has decreed that, without the permission of the Lord of the teachings of the Victorious Jonangpa, it is not possible to commercialize this material as one wishes.
Making this appeal to everyone in the world, we sincerely request that everyone respects and honors this important matter.”
Written at the Dharma Palace of the Great Eastern Monastery of Dzamthang Tsangwa by the 47th Vajra Throne Holder Tsangwa Geitrul, Supreme Incarnation Jigme Dorje on the 15th day of the third month of the fire bird year during the 17th rabjung (May 10, 2017), on the very auspicious anniversary of the teaching of the root tantra of the Glorious Kalachakra.
In his first trip to South Africa, Rinpoché was invited by the Jang Chup Chopel Rime Buddhist Centre to give two weeks of Kalachakra teachings and empowerments in the capital city of Pretoria. After the empowerment he then gave students extensive instructions on practicing the common and uncommon preliminaries of the Vajra Yoga path.
From October 3 to 15, Rinpoché was in Graz, Austria to give teachings and guide students in back-to-back retreats at the Kalapa Retreat Centre. During these retreats, Rinpoché bestowed the complete set of generation and completion stage empowerments as well as giving instruction on the special Kalachakra meditation practice known as the Three Isolations.
From the 29th of September to 1st of October, Rinpoché was in Rome, Italy giving teachings on the Kalachakra Path in accordance with the Jonang Tradition.
Rinpoché returned to London from September 19 – 24, giving introductory teachings on Shambhala and Kalachakra. During his visit, he also gave a talk on the Zhentong View of the Jonang Tradition to professors at Oxford University.
From September 12 to 17, Rinpoché gave teachings in Bucharest Romania on the subject of the Six Bardos from the perspective of the Kalachakra teachings. At the end of the teachings he bestowed the empowerment for Vajravega and the Sixty Retinues.
During his recent stay in Vienna, Rinpoché was invited to give a talk on the causes for global peace and harmony at the United Nations Headquarters. It was a very special opportunity for the UN staff to learn about alternative ways to approach the subject of world peace.
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From August 25 to September 03, Rinpoché was in Hungary to give teachings and empowerments to his students there. After leading a short retreat on Vajrasattva Purification, Rinpoché gave a series of teachings which included empowerments for the wrathful form of Vajrasattva, Dorjé Namjom; the protecting form of Vajrapani and the King of the Wrathful Ones, Vajravega.
From August 17 – 21, Rinpoché bestowed the Higher Empowerments of the Kalachakra completion stage to a small group of dedicated practitioners. He then gave them instructions on the unique meditation practice of the Three Isolations.
From August 7 – 15, Rinpoché travelled through Idaho and Wyoming giving talks in Idaho Falls, Jackson Hole and Riverton. The visit culminated in a Kalachakra Empowerment which was given just prior to a full solar eclipse making for an extraordinarily strong blessing for all attending.
From the 1st to the 6th of August, Rinpoché was in Sun Valley, Idaho to give teachings on how to develop the Rimé Philosophy. During his visit, he had many insightful discussions with students and enjoyed the beauty of the Rocky Mountains.
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