Online Teaching from Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal, 7 June 2020
We can divide the dharma into the different vehicles, or into the three turnings of the wheels of dharma, or we can look at in terms of the different capacities of individuals. But it’s not about what we study or practice on an outer level, it’s about us, ourselves, our understanding and how we see […]
Online Teaching from Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal, 6 June 2020
The dharma is about showing us where we are mistaken, so we can remedy our mistakenness and become unmistaken. What is our actual situation at the moment? We have the afflictions – desire, anger and so on. So the dharma teachings that work for us are those that points to these things. With these teaching […]
Online Teaching from Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal, 5 June 2020
When it comes to making offerings to a lama, if they are a genuine lama they have no need for the material things that we offer. It is for our sake that we make offerings, to relinquish our clinging, to sacrifice or let go of something we treasure. Our clinging is what holds us back […]
Online Teaching from Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal, 4 June 2020
We are not really interested in putting the dharma into practice. For example, a number of people from the West have approached me with questions, asking me to explain a point in the dharma or a text because they want or need to teach it to others. Not many approach me for an explanation because […]
Online Teaching from Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal, 3 June 2020
The Practice Lineage is the lineage of those who follow a way of studying and practising that is not directed externally to words, texts, treatises and that sort of thing. It’s about what is going on inside. It’s also not about remaining in retreats or hermitages, it’s much broader than that. Tilopa and Naropa didn’t […]
Online Teaching from Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal, 2 June 2020
Namtars are not simply ‘life stories.’ ‘Nam’ refers to a master’s life, their way of living, what kind of life they had. In a way this can apply to anyone – we all have a life, and there are many life stories, but this is not what makes a namtar. ‘Tar’ refers to liberation – […]
Online Teaching from Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal, 1 June 2020
In order to be able to teach the lives and liberations of authentic masters you must be learned in both history and the dharma, they are a vast and difficult topic, so I am not someone who can teach them properly. But as practitioners we need to hear about these life stories as a way […]
Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Center, Nepal, 28 February 2020
I am not a lama, but I try to live like a lama. Since people think of me as being a Buddhist ‘lama’, I have this name ‘lama’, then I think I should at least try to be like a lama. And you too should try to be disciples, if you are considered, or consider […]
Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal, 16th May 2020
To understand meditation we must understand how our mind fabricates. When we understand the fabricated we automatically understand the unfabricated; then we are well on the way to proper meditation. At the moment most of us are stuck in the loop of fabricating what we think is an unfabricated state.
Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Center, Nepal, 16th April 2020
If to talk about or communicate your meditation to someone you need to rely on words like ‘the nature of mind’, ‘clear light’, ’spacious’, ‘peaceful’, ‘blissful’, ‘emptiness’, or even need to talk of thoughts and mind, there is probably an issue in your understanding of meditation. If we were to sit listening to two meditators […]
Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Center, Nepal, 27th April 2020
For those aspiring to practice the dharma there is nothing more important than meeting a good lama.
Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Centre, Nepal, 7th April 2020
Some who run dharma institutions feel that if their students or members were to direct all their time and effort to study and practice that there would not be enough people to look after the daily running of the centre. For example it has happened more than once, and in both the East and the […]
Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Center, Nepal, 12 April 2020
Do your best not to disappoint those who love you, care for you, who place their trust in you and want the best for you. Try your best to repay their kindness. Being able to recognise who has been good to one is a sign of a mature and intelligent person. Failing to recognise that […]
Teaching on 'A Torch for the Definitive Meaning' at Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Center, Nepal, 28th May 2015
Photo: Fr. Giuseppe Berardelli, a 72-year-old priest in Bergamo, Italy, who gave a respirator (that his parishioners had purchased for him) to a younger patient (whom he did not know), has died from coronavirus. Many people think that one becomes a bodhisattva by helping others, but that is not necessarily the case. Giving a […]
Thrangu Sekhar Retreat Center, Nepal, 24th Mars 2020
If you still have a worldly view, you could found a monastery and it would be a worldly act, you could start a dharma centre and it would be a worldly act, you could even teach the dharma and that too would be a worldly act. But if you have a dharma view, all that […]
