Meditation Retreat, Kagyu Samye Ling, 9 October 2016
The way our minds work is very strange. The smallest little thing we see or hear can totally change how we feel. Someone casts a smile in our direction or treats us in a way that we like, and that’s enough for us to love them and feel happy. If a few moments later that […]
Teaching on ‘The Four Dharmas of Gampopa’, Thrangu Vajrayana Buddhist Centre, Hong Kong, 29 June 2013
Something very important we need to be aware of, is that we don’t have good understanding of the dharma and what it is. Therefore we don’t really appreciate the dharma as much as we might think. It’s very important that we are aware of this. Here is an example that clearly shows how we think. […]
Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal, 4 February 2017
One of the biggest mistake I have seen Western Buddhists make when it comes to receiving dharma teachings, is feeling that somebody who can explain the teachings well, is a suitable teacher. There is no thought that the teachers themselves need to have the particular view which they are explaining. This attitude comes from a lack of understanding of the dharma.
Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Center, Nepal, 27 December 2016
This day, today, is of inconceivable importance for all of our myriad future lives. Why? Because what we do today has the potential to bring benefit or harm to those countless future lives. Suppose that today, through your practice, you reduce or dent your afflictions just a little bit, or gain a tiny nugget of […]
Most of the time, we don’t know what is really important. To give an example: if we were attending a puja and the substances were being distributed, but we didn’t get any, we would immediately make a fuss and say, ‘Excuse me, I didn’t get any.’ In truth it makes no real difference if we […]
From childhood until now, how have we been working? Our motivation and aim has been to block suffering, and gain happiness and pleasure. This has been our main driving force, and we have been working continuously on that basis. Yet still, we haven't managed to gain the happiness we seek, and neither have we been […]
“Your mother is my sister. My sister is someone else’s daughter. She is Tony’s sweetest love, and Sam’s bitter enemy.” She is one object, experienced in various ways. What makes for these very different perceptions of this one person? People’s minds. The mind is what determines our experience. Furthermore, this truth also tells us that […]
What approach is needed for practicing the Dharma? Firstly, we should not see the Dharma as merely a hobby, a pastime, or a matter of simply accumulating a certain number of repetitions of something. Instead, what we really need to think is, ‘I’m not going to waste this life, I’m going to use it to […]
A dharma practitioner would see retreat as being essential, because they know it as being a conducive environment where there are fewer triggers for desire and anger. For beginners, it’s impossible for practice to go well with many disturbances, thus retreat is essential. Does that mean that everyone who stays in retreat will gain understanding […]
Why are we taught to give up concern for this life in Buddhism? Because in giving up concern for this life, our mind naturally easies, becomes balanced, and just as it should be. Now all we do is for the sake of this life, we are constantly reaching out for happiness and pleasure, and trying […]
A Teaching by Drupon Rinpoche given on 24th March 2015, Introduction to the Preliminary Practices, Sekar Retreat Center, Nepal. We do not see the preliminary practices to be important although they are extremely important. Without them we cannot become true Dharma-practitioners. We are fake practitioners because our thinking is directed to this life, in Dharma […]
Excerpt from a teaching by Drupon Rinpoche on mind training on 27th January 2015, Sekar Retreat Center, Nepal In your practice you have to pay special attention to whether you are looking for a pleasant and peaceful state. This is our nos.1 enemy! To search for everything to be quiet, peaceful and easy, hoping for […]
Extracted from a teaching given on Vajrasattva by Drupon Rinpoche Karma Lhabu. Transcribed into English and Translated into German by Barbara Stütz Thinking about the way of dharma and that which stops us from developing, that which stops the dharma practitioner view from being taken up; what is that, principally? It’s our way of thinking, […]
Pride closes the door to learning Dharma. The attitude of thinking you know and understand it all is the biggest obstacle. Every single word of Dharma has many meanings. It can be interpreted on outer, inner, secret and most secret levels or according to the Hinayana, Mahayana and Secret Mantrayana view. Therefore, it is important […]
A teaching by Drupon Rinpoche given at Sekar Retreat Centre, 8th of March 2015. The obscurations are not solid. Mind is mistaken so it clings, and it is that mistakenness that stops us from seeing the Truth. We should examine our way of thinking, with its mistaken ways of seeing things, again and again until […]
