BT19

BUDDHISM TODAY
B O U N D L E S S J OY A N D F R E E D O M
TABLE of CONTENTS
FEATURES
06
Spring/Summer 2007 Number 19
DEPARTMENTS
04
Karma Guen: A Bridge Between East and West

By Roland Beck
Letters to the Editor

Our readers share their opinions and ideas
37 11
Meditation: Planting Seeds in the Mind

By H.H. Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche
Buddhism in Everyday Life

By Eugene Trak
40 18
Questions and Answers

By Mipham Rinpoche
The Six Liberating Actionsthe Paramitas

By Lama Ole Nydahl
43
Meditation Basics
By Steve James
24
Masculine/Feminine: A Fresh Buddhist Look

By Lena Leontiewa
48
Book Review
30
Buddhism and Quantum Mechanics

By Sasha Rozenberg
06
11
18
24
40
1
43
Editorial Board
Executive Editors: Aaron Crook, Kenn Maly Art Director: Anilou Price Copy Editor: Carin Crook Associate Editors: Chris Bixby, Cristina Ferrando, Joshua Johnson, Tomek Lehnert, Joseph Lyman, Bart Mendel, Alyson Talley Transcription: Jim Macur, Rachelle Macur Design Team: Heidi Bernhardi, Jeremy Kunzinger, Bozena Sudnikiewicz Photography Coordination: Marcin Muchalski Circulation Manager: Jonathan Bradley Subscriptions: Benjamin Ritchey Finance: Jennifer Wilson Tech Support: George Porrata, Ryan Singer, Ivan Smirnov Photo Credits: Julien Bataillet, Roland Beck, Ania Cieplinska, Gerd Heidorn, Stefan Jezierski, Mike Kociergin, Jeremy Kunzinger, Hania Lubek, Maciej Majewski, Marcin J Muchalski, Ginger Neumann, Gerhard Poschung, Anilou Price, Axel Waltl, Mathias Weitbrecht Buddhism Today is a bi-annual magazine published by Diamond Way Buddhist Centers USA, a California non-prot corporation. Contents copyright Diamond Way Buddhist Centers USA. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission.
From the Editors
Buddhism Today aims to be a living document of authentic Buddhist transmission intended for the lay person and yogi practitioner in the West. It is meant for people leading normal, active lives, who wish to understand and experience minds vast potential. Buddhism Today will challenge your mind by providing information and news that appeal to the discriminating individual. No religious truth can be above science or humanism, and Buddhism Todays aim is to work with and complement these areas of contemporary thought. For this reason, Buddhism appeals to educated, critically thinking people with fresh, independent minds people for whom nihilism rings hollow and existentialism provides no joy. The teachings presented here are benecial if taken at face value, but they can provide boundless levels of joy and freedom when applied at the Diamond Way (Vajrayana) level. This magazine supports an authentic transmission because of its direct connection to the hearing lineage of accomplished practitioners in the Karma Kagyu school. Whether you are a casual reader or a devoted practitioner, we hope to provide something in these pages to support your understanding and development. It is said that we live in interesting times. To some, these words reect the degenerative nature of the modern world in which we live. But to us, these words are a call to action and a statement of renewal, an opportunity for seeing new possibilities and openings. In either case, we promise to expound joy and humanism above political correctness or dogmatic assumptions.
Time passes quickly. And it is again time to send the new issue of Buddhism Today to the printer. Technology allows us to do things more quickly than beforesending les back and forth, all over the planet, within seconds. The awareness of the speed that is with us in todays world in a way that it was not there earlier...this awareness is part of our Buddhist practice. The coming together of the old and the newspeed, urban mindset, computer-centered professional and personal livesmirrors the coming together of the East and the West. One rounds out the other (East/West, old/new) in balance and depth, and for the benet of all. The articles in this issue of Buddhism Today manifest that coming together and rounding out. Tibetan lamas are reaching out to the West and providing us with their wisdom, which is the result of much traditional meditation and practice. Whether it is Mipham Rinpoche (the father of H.H. the 17th Karmapa Trinlay Thaye Dorje) discussing the most current issues in physics and science, or H.H. Kunzig Sharmar Rinpoche sharing his profound wisdom about meditationit is the goal and wish of Buddhism Today to bring Buddhist teachings from the East to the West. Lama Ole Nydahls article takes the six liberating actions at the core of Buddhist teachings (the paramitas) and gives them a fully contemporary Western avor. This making of Buddhist teachings accessible and useful for our fast-paced and urban lifestyle is mirrored in articles about the role of males and females in our society and about the interweaving of quantum mechanics and Buddhist metaphysics. Finally, in the story of twenty years of the International Retreat Center in Karma Guen, Spain, we see where Eastern Tibetan Buddhism is very much at home in the West! We hope that you enjoy this issue and nd things that can benet you in your Buddhist practice and/or your everyday life. Be in touch! Email us at editors@buddhism-today.org. We dedicate this issue of Buddhism Today to Hannah Nydahl, our loving teacher and inspiration, who died on April 1, 2007.
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BUDDHISM TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER 2007
Letters to the Editor

DIAMOND WAY BUDDHISM
KARMA KAGYU LINEAGE
Buddhism Today No.18 Fall/Winter 2006
I am so glad that magazines such

as Buddhism Today are being made available to everybody. It shows a very intelligent approach to Buddhism. And its byline, Boundless Joy and Freedom, says it all! Everybody wants to be happy. But as time goes by, many of the things that we think will make us happy lose their mystique, and we nd ourselves unhappy again. For one reason or another, our promised happiness runs through our ngers like waterour happiness changes, what makes us happy changes, we change . . . and nothing satises us for long. We do this all the time, this searching, and in time we might conclude that perhaps we are looking in all the wrong places (i.e., outside ourselves). Therefore, long before we become ensnarled in endlessly chasing these types of illusions, shouldnt we consider real alternatives, like looking inwardly? But we wouldnt know how to do that . . . would we? Kant said that a denition of enlightenment is mans emergence
from a self-incurred immaturity, and that mans self-incurred immaturity is nothing less than the inability to use ones own understanding without relying on the guidance of others. If he was correct, then all the wisdom of eternity must be found inside every one of us! What if we could courageously stop pursuing happiness and instead pursue an inward emptiness? Would the wisdom of the ages then shift our consciousness and introduce us to the possibility of spiritual enlightenment, a happiness that would never fail us? But, alas, most of us go through life continuing to search outside. Few of us are open to new ideas about real, lasting happiness. Few of us seriously consider transforming ourselves through our own understanding because we lack the condence to say no to those who want to merely plant images in our minds and tell us what to believe. We refuse to become proactive in nding our own truths, in nding the creative, genuine purpose in our lives. And what, pray tell, is this ultimate, creative purpose? We must make this discovery for ourselves, but keep an open mind. It could be nothing less than the constant and lasting reality that we inherently thirst for in this uncertain life, because as much as everything changes, a part of us remains the same. And when we become that unchanging part completely, we become nothing less than enlightened. E. Raymond Rock Fort Myers, FL Editors Note: E. Raymond Rock is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center.
He has practiced meditation for many years and has traveled widely. For some time, he practiced in the remote northeast forests of Thailand as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment, has just been published by Career Press/New Page Books.
continue to next step at the bottom, and you will be prompted for your billing information, where you can enter a different name and address. The printable form has been updated to include separate elds for billing and shipping addresses. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Buddhism in the City:

public lectures with LAMA OLE CHICAGO, IL MAY 18-20, 2007
NYDAHL
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18 [Buddhism Today Fall/Winter 2006], but I absolutely loved it!!! I read it cover to cover and told the others in our sangha that just this one issue was worth the price of an entire twoyear subscription! Thank you for a great publication. Garret Sorensen Winona, MN
I wanted you to know that Im so

pleased with the recent issues of the magazine. The rst one after the editorial makeover seemed a bit uffy, but then the next couple were absolutely wonderful. Thanks for such thoughtful articles. Lisa Grove Portland, OR Lama Ole Nydahl is one of the few Westerners fully qualified as a lama and meditation teacher in the Karma Kagyu Buddhist tradition. In 1972, after completing three years of intensive meditation training, Lama Ole began teaching Buddhism in Europe at the request of H.H. the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. He has since transmitted the blessing of the lineage in a different city nearly every day, traveling and teaching worldwide as an authorized lama. His depth of knowledge and dynamic teachings inspire thousands of people at his lectures and retreats in North and South America, the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, and Asia.
I wanted to subscribe online, but

give the subscription as a gift [to someone else] rather than receiving it myself. Your online subscription form makes that impossible, because it does not have separate billing and shipping elds. This means Ill have to mail in the form, but your mail-in form is no less difcult since it doesnt have elds separating shipping and billing information. So, essentially, Ill have to create my own form and mail it in. Ill do that because I want to give the magazine as a gift, but you should rectify the forms. Chris Dow Editors Note: Our online form does actually have separate billing and shipping information elds. On the rst screen, enter the subscribers information. (This is the person for whom you want to give the gift.) Then, click
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Karma Guen: A Bridge Between East and West

Roland Beck
In the hills above the Spanish town of Velez-Malaga lies a growing, vibrant place called Karma Guen. It is a Buddhist retreat and study center, part of a worldwide network of more than 500 Diamond Way Buddhist centers that all have a common objective: to bring Buddhas timeless teachings concerning true happiness to inquiring minds in the modmodern West. Karma Guen is a retreat place made by and for practitioners, and it is the most international of all the Diamond Way Buddhist retreat centers. It is not an abstract institution, but a friendly place to learn, practice, share experiences and developments, and actively participarticipate in the retreat centers daily life.
The Foundation Karma Guen was founded as a Karma Kagyu retreat center on the ruins of an abandoned Andalusian pueblo blanco in 1987. Development was slow and difcult in its early years, but accelerated greatly with the construction of a Kalachakra Stupa at the retreat center in 1994. This project was the rst outer sign of Karma Guens emerging role as an intercultural bridge. Under the detailed guidance and involvement of a great Bhutanese meditation master, Lopon Tsechu Rinpoche, the Kalachakra Stupa was the rst of its kind to be built in the Western world. It symbolizes the timeless nature of Buddhas mind and helps to unlock the buddha potential of all who see it or meditate close to it. It has been an inspiration for thousands of visitors who come from around the world to share in its benet. Since the stupas construction, growth has been virtually non-stop at Karma Guen and in Spain as a whole. Buddhism is coming to the West, and a true mixing of Western and traditional Buddhist cultures is now developing. An example of this is the fact that Diamond Way meditation groups and centers exist throughout Spain, from Bilbao to Barcelona in the north, to Madrid in the center, and to Granada, Sevilla, Almeria, and Malaga in the south.
At Karma Guen itself, a core team of fteen people from nine countries helps run the retreat center day to day. Team members come from Spain, Denmark, Tibet, Lithuania, Switzerland, Germany, Venezuela, Mexico, and Canada. Balancing daily life and work with volunteering in the retreat center, this team supports all those interested in Diamond Way Buddhismfrom the newly interested to experienced, hard-core practitioners from around the world who come to undertake retreats and study breaks. A Bridge Made of Many Parts From its simple foundation, Karma Guen has evolved into a multi-faceted place. While rst and foremost a retreat center, it consciously develops its role as an inter-cultural bridge, bringing the best aspects of Kagyu Buddhism that developed in Tibet to intelligent people in the West who hunger for answers to lifes deeper questions. This bridge is built of many parts. A large course is held annually in May or June with Lama Ole Nydahl, the main teacher who directs Karma Guen and all the Diamond Way Buddhist centers around the world. For this large course, 1,200 to 2,500 Buddhists from every continent come to participate in a practice called Phowa, a specialty of Kagyu Buddhism. In this meditation practice, transmitted to Tibet from India 900 years ago, one learns how to consciously transfer the mind out of the body at the moment of death so that it keeps developing in the best way until the next rebirth. Thousands of Westerners meet this practice for the rst time at Karma Guen, and many come back year after year to renew their practice. There is also an open university study course given by a team of teachers led by Hannah Nydahl (who is married to Lama Ole), Khenpo Karma Ngedon (a Tibetan doctor of Buddhist philosophy who is part of the resident team of Karma Guen), and Manfred Seegers (a German scholar of Buddhism). Students from around the world are given fresh insights into teachings about the nature of mind by studying classical Tibetan and Indian Buddhist philosophy, for example the Namshe Yeshe (Distinguishing Consciousness from Wisdom) written by H.H. the 3rd Karmapa Rangjung Dorje.
Karma Guen has hosted many empowerments given by some of the greatest Kagyu masters over the years. H.H. the 17th Karmapa Trinlay Thaye Dorje, H.H. Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche, and Lopon Tsechu Rinpoche have all used these opportunities to introduce Westerners to their own inherent buddha potential through the skillful means of empowerment. Many of these events have been held in the new Thaye Dorje Gompa. This huge project was a wish of the founders of Karma Guen for many years. After considerable effort, it was inaugurated in May 2004. With space for two thousand people, it epitomizes the blending of East and West. Its outer architecture and high tech support infrastructure are pure twenty-rst century Western Europe. But step inside, and you are transported into another world. The renowned Nepali/Tibetan painter Dawa Lhadipa and his understudies have been working virtually non-stop since 2004 to adorn all the inner walls with paintings in the traditional Karma Gardri style. Nowhere outside Asia has anything ever been done on this scale: In all, some 350 square meters will be painted in the nest detail, bringing a full exposition of this rare and unique style from its home in the Himalayas to Europe, where it can be seen and studied by new generations of enthusiasts. The themes
developed in the paintings are traditional Kagyu: One wall depicts the Great Seal (Skt. Mahamudra) lineage, another the full Karmapa lineage, and another the principal Kagyu yidams. Buddhas complete life story is developed over a series of six other sections elsewhere in the gompa. Karma Guen is not just about huge courses with thousands of people. Throughout the year, smaller, more intimate courses are also given by visiting and resident Buddhist teachers. Weekend courses are offered most months throughout the year, including teachings given by the great Tibetan master Mipham Rinpoche, who with his wife Mayumla and their faithful attendant Sonam Palden, lives full time at the center. Bridging Past, Present, and Future Looking into the future, a big part of Karma Guens work will involve supporting the International Institute for Tibetan and Asian Studies (ITAS). ITAS is a university program run at Karma Guen in conjunction with the University of Canterbury Christ Church in the United Kingdom that offers a B.A. (and eventually an M.A. as well) to Westerners in Tibetan translation. The aim of ITAS is to produce wellrounded, well-educated scholars who can spread throughout the West, giving ever greater numbers of people the
on bringing the Buddhas teachings to modern, inquiring people, thereby helping to transfer timeless wisdom about the nature of mind and happiness to a world in great need of both! At Karma Guen, you can truly experience the mixing of the best elements of old Tibetan and modern Western culture.... Come and see for yourself by joining us for our twentieth anniversary celebration, to be held on the weekend of May 25-28, 2007.
Meditation: Planting Seeds in the Mind

H.H. Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche
Glossary
GOMPA: Commonly referred to as the place where meditation takes place. Gompa literally means to meditate. It is the third phase of meditation practice, which follows receiving teachings and making an effort to comprehend them. Gompa is the actual pursuit of meditation. ITAS : International Institute for Tibetan and Asian Studies. The ITAS in Velez-Malaga, Spain, is a recently established independent institute of higher education, closely cooperating with the University of Malaga. Among other degrees, the ITAS offers a worldwide unique B.A. in Tibetan Translation. www.itas-uni.eu opportunity to meet with an ever greater number of newly translated teachings from the Kagyu lineage and other works of Buddhadharma. ITAS is rmly established now, and its student numbers are growing rapidly with people coming from as far as Russia and Australia to study. As a support for ITAS, Karma Guen is building a library with an archival facility that specializes in collecting rare texts from Tibet, Nepal, India, China, and other countries where practice-oriented lineages thrived in the past, thus preserving them for future generations. In all this activity, a common thread can be seen: Since its founding in 1987, Karma Guen (and indeed all Diamond Way Buddhist centers throughout the world) is focused KALACHAKRA STUPA: A very rare kind of stupa (Tib. Chorten) built to protect against negative energies. A stupa is a three-dimensional model of enlightened mind. There are eight sutra types of Tibetan stupas. Each represents an important event in Buddha Shakyamunis life. The Kalachakra Stupa is the one tantric type. PHOWA: Transference of Consciousness Meditation. One of the Six Yogas of Naropa, this meditation uses highly effective methods of the Kagyu lineage to realize the nature of mind.
This is a transcription of a question and answer session that H.H. Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche held at the Diamond Way Buddhist Center in San Francisco, CA, in the summer of 2006.
About Roland Beck

Originally from Canada, Roland Beck embraced Diamond Way Buddhism in 2001. He lives with his wife and daughter at the International Diamond Way Retreat Center in Karma Guen, Spain. When he is not working at the retreat center, he is traveling as a management consultant or dharma teacher.
Q: What would you say to someone who is trying to understand more about Buddhism and how it relates to Western society? Rinpoche: Buddhism teaches the nature of the truth, which anyone can understand. It teaches human beings how to develop their qualities. Before he became the Buddha, Shakyamuni was a prince, the son of a wealthy king in India. While he had everything anyone could want, he was not satised. He realized that happiness could not be obtained from material things, for they cannot satisfy the minds craving. He began exploring why that was the case. He saw many people with prob-
lems and a lot of suffering. He saw people suffering from old age. He saw women suffering from childbirth. He saw people dying, and others crying for the dead. He saw that this was inevitable. Buddha discovered that happiness must be developed in the mind, and that ultimate happiness is not achieved by being self-centered. Self-clinging is the cause of all problems. When you discover this root, you will discover the cause. Aggression is caused by agitation. Agitation is caused by self-clingingit is cause and effect. Cause and effect continually increase. The main root is this mistaken mind, the mind of self-clinging. It should be tamed through devel-
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Buddha Shakyamuni
Milarepa
H.H. the 16th Karmapa from suffering and liberation from self-clinging. Buddhist philosophy follows this natural law. It is not really a religion. Around the world, the word religion means worshiping something, a superior being, somebody above you. This is not the way of Buddhism. Buddhas teachings follow the natural way of how things truly are. Can you explain a little bit more about self-clinging? Self-clinging is when the mind clings to a self. You get angry when something happens that goes against this self, against what you like. Clinging to a self is very negative and brings grasping and attachment to what we desire. Unhappiness is the result. The mind is confused, so there is a lot of agitation. This all comes from ignorance. The agitation is not fundamental, but it has its effects. All living beings experience this self-clinging. It is a feeling of me and a strong grasping to that. If you search for a me or a self, you will not nd it; therefore, it does not really exist. But we mistakenly establish it as existing in the mind. Ive heard you talk about the practice of the ThirtyFive Buddhas, and you have also emphasized working with shine meditation. How do we resolve making the choices about which meditations to practice? The Kagyu school is one of the lineages of Buddhas teachings. Buddhas teachings are like the ocean, and Kagyu teachings are one of the rivers. We cannot teach everything at one time, so we must select suitable teachings for Westerners. When Lama Ole and Hannah Nydahl were in Rumtek in 1968 studying Buddhism, H.H. the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje taught them the practice of the Karmapas Guru Yoga, the Four Foundational Practices, and the Jewel Ornament of Liberation, written by Gampopa. After they were trained, Karmapa told Lama Ole to teach in the West. We have been holding the lineage of the Kagyu School for practitioners everywhere. The Thirty-Five Buddhas is a selection from the general Buddhist teachings, a teaching of the Buddha. All four schoolsKagyu, Gelug, Nyingma, and Sakyafollow these teachings and do this practice, as do many lamas in Tibet. Now, I am recommending that many people in the West
Lama Ole Nydahl teaching Phowa
H.H. the 17th Karmapa
oping the peaceful nature of mind. This is the remedy to cure minds confusion. This is what Buddha discovered. In the society at Buddhas time, techniques for cultivating peace of mind already existed. He learned these methods and accomplished the meditations, achieving the results of each in progression. He was very intelligent, going beyond what was practiced at the time and developing his own genuine meditation, until nally he became Buddha. The word buddha means blooming up or fully developed. After he achieved this profound result, he taught his students how to develop happiness. The disciples who followed Buddha and practiced his teachings became accomplished in the same way he did. Buddhas teaching lineage developed through great practitioners beginning at that time and continuing through today. Living beings dont understand the truth, the truth of suffering. Where does it come from? Suffering is not a punishment that somebody decreed. Buddha discovered that the truth of the cause of suffering is self-clinging. Once you cling to the self, then you push against anything that threatens the self, and all problems develop from there. What are the remedies? If you know the true cause of suffering, it is easy to nd the remedy. Buddha called this the truth of the path. Then you achieve the result: freedom
also do this practice. You can learn as many Buddhist teachings as you likeyou are not limited to the Kagyu school. If you have the time and energy, it is good to learn as much as you can of Buddhas teaching. Could you talk about the importance of the lama in ones practice? Lama means teacher, a qualied teacher, not some kind of spiritual ruler. Lamas should teach well; and students must listen and study well in order to follow their instructions. There are two types of teachers: an enlightened master and a good lama. An enlightened master, like Milarepa, can generate great blessings. One makes supplication to Milarepa in order to receive the power of his blessings. Since Milarepa was enlightened, he made wishing prayers for the benet of all beings. An enlightened teacher or bodhisattva has the capacity to generate great blessings toward all sentient beings because of his or her absolute and genuine compassion. When bodhisattvas achieve enlightenment, all the wishes they have made previously for sentient beings come to fruition. It can be hard to nd the time and money to go to a course or meditation retreat. To maintain a strong practice, how frequently do you think we should take the time for this, for instance going to Lama Oles phowa courses? Lama Ole teaches phowa, the practice for transferring ones mind to the pure land of Amitabha after this life ends. You have to learn that from him. So, the more time you can spend to learn that teaching, the better it is for you. After you learn it very well, then it is okay that you dont go all the time. If you learn everything completely in one day, its enough (laughter). But no, once is not enough. Whats the best way to dissolve the feeling that we are separate from everything else, to dissolve our attachment? Meditation is the remedy. Suffering occurs in the mind because of our attachment. All suffering that appears in the outer world is on the surface. Real suffering is in the
minds of living beings. When you overcome minds suffering, all suffering is gone. It is not you suffering anymore. Buddhism teaches that the fundamental suffering of mind is very subtle. It lies passively hidden beneath a great deal of confusion. The suffering that we most often think about is not this fundamental suffering. It is this mistaken mind, the root of it all, that invites suffering. So how does this feeling of me make so much trouble? Even a little bug has that feeling of me or I. That mind grasping onto itself, clinging to itself, is the root of all our problems. The goal of meditation is to free this mind that grasps on to itself as an ego. First, meditation calms the totally confused and agitated mind, in order to be able to concentrate gently. If you are aggressive and push hard in your meditation, you can create more problems. Meditation is the technique of resting in the true nature of mind. Shine meditation is developed in accordance with minds nature. If you apply too much effort, then you will suffocate, and the mind will not accept what you are doing immediately. Therefore, gently begin with shine practice. The progression of shine practice is well-conceived. When mind has completely accepted this shine technique, then mind is tamed. You free your mind from being agitated, from being busy this way. Then, mind can utilize its very sharp faculties and develop insight into minds nature. When meditation is very sharp and clear, mind can realize its true nature (i.e., a mind that is not confused). So, that
Shamar Rinpoche blessing Lama Ole Nydahl
In the society at Buddhas time, techniques for cultivating peace of mind already existed. He learned these methods and accomplished the meditations, achieving the results of each in progression. He was very intelligent, going beyond what was practiced at the time and developing his own genuine meditation, until nally he became Buddha.
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Ngondro: Prostrations
Refuge Tree
Diamond Mind
Mandala Offerings
Guru Yoga: Marpa the Translator
is how you progress through stages in meditation. Meditation is the real cure for suffering, through dissolving selfcentered confusion and grasping. Im fairly new to Buddhism. I have a background in Christianity, so Im curious how Buddhists view the Christian world. Christianity is not centered on meditation as is Buddhism. In Christianity there is a contemplative state, but the focus is still on praying to an outer god as a savior. God is the savior of human beings. I think in general Christianity believes that human beings cannot save themselves. Buddhists say that all living beings have the potential for selfliberation. There is no difference in this sense between humans and animals; each has a mind. Only the physical form is different, with animals having less intelligence and facility. All beings suffer, and they all can be liberated.
Sometimes I feel that animals are less neurotic than humans, because humans are either constantly in the past or in the future, never in the present moment. And animals never worry about their future or think about their past, right? Everything depends on wisdom. Liberation means to eliminate ignorance. A pleasant, innocent animal like a koala bear is just sleeping. But their ignorance is continuous. Its a matter of wisdom. Human beings, yes, are very materialistic. But, they have the capacity to know (better than koala bears) and to learn. Human life has better faculties and therefore carries a chance for liberation. It is not that we are prejudiced against animals; rather, humans have more capacity. Therefore, it is humans duty to serve animals, because we are more aware. So in your life serve humans and animals.
Buddhists say that all living beings have the potential for self-liberation. There is no difference in this sense between humans and animals; each has a mind. Only the physical form is different, with animals having less intelligence and facility.
If, in our lives as humans, we fail to make the world better, will we return to an animal state? It is very possible. Animals are one of the realms of suffering. There are many living beings in the hot re under the earth, and there are many beings in the cold ice also. Everything is possible. It is a good question because it invites a study of the subject of karma. Karma is a kind of mental event. Mind is like a eld, and all the activities of mind are like planting seeds. Everything you see now, all the physical forms, are illusions that developed from the previous actions of mind. So, these karmic seeds are creators of our experience. Dreams are created by small karmic seeds. Dreams are shallow and unstable, not like a waking experience. There is no difference in essence between dreams and our waking lives. The only difference is that small karmic seeds create unstable illusions; you just dream them, and they disappear. Strong karmic seeds planted in the eld of mind are connected to strong emotion and self-clinging. They create one big dream, this human life. We have earth and physical forms in which we dwell. We can communicate with one another. One dreamer interacts with another dreamer, and they experience each other. This is a deeply established big dream, but it is impermanent and will one day disappear, at the time of death. So, when this does disappear, that is the time when another strong karmic seed will develop and create another peak illusion of the next life. But, who knows of what? It is very uncertain whether we can avoid unfortunate births, those in which very intense suffering arise. Bardo is this period after one life has ended and before another has started, when many karmic seeds can ripen. So the most recent or most powerful seed that arises will produce its result, creating animal, human, or other forms
that can develop from mind. It all depends on your habitual patterns. So, this is the very reason we practice? Yes. Thats why prostrations to the Thirty-Five Buddhas are like therapy for the mind. Youre planting a lot of good karmic seeds in the mind with mandala recitation. These are the methods. This is how to accumulate a lot of completely pure and positive seeds in the mind, in your basic consciousness. This always produces good dreams. It gives you the opportunity to be free from samsara. Before you get completely free from samsara, you need good dreams. Human life has the potential for enlightenmentit is easier through good dreams.
osity; it is much better to make a wish for them. You spoke earlier about the vast number of teachings available. Wouldnt it distract the practitioner to open up to the many other teachings, even if they are good? Yes. Then you should know how to orient your practice, to bring everything to the focal point. Bring everything you learn into one practice, developing bodhicitta. Can you say something about expectation? Even in meditation we expect something. Expecting a result is a kind of unnecessary pressure. So, try to avoid that. It doesnt serve your meditation.
I live in the heart of the city, and it seems that in big cities there is a lot of suffering. Everyday when I drive home, somebody is knocking on my window, asking for money. And you realize you can give every single one of them ten dollars, but it wouldnt really reduce their suffering. Do you have any advice? Generosity practice is the best thing. It is the rst paramita. The six paramitas are steps toward enlightenment. Paramita means accomplishment. Generosity is the main practice that can develop all other merit. This doesnt mean that in order to accomplish the generosity practice, one should make this whole realm free from beggars. Dedicate as much as you can to all beingsthis is generosity practice. So, if you have little capacity to help the beggars, make good wishes for them with the right attitude. If you can do this, you will have genuine compassion. And that will help develop your capacity to eventually help all beings. So, generating good wishes is the best thing you can do. Giving but expecting gratitude in return is not pure gener-
Generosity practice is the best thing. It is the rst paramita. The six paramitas are steps toward enlightenment. Paramita means accomplishment. Generosity is the main practice that can develop all other merit.
I do the Guru Yoga Meditation on the 16th Karmapa. In the meditation, we visualize him and ask for his blessing. Since the 16th Karmapa reincarnated as the 17th Karmapa, can they both be there? This practice is not connected to the physical form at all. The vision of the 16th Karmapa is not separate from the 17th now or the 1st Karmapa from the past. Using the wisdom body of Karmapa is a method of receiving initiation to ripen the body-speech-mind qualities. So, it is not that you are focusing on another being and trying to draw his attention to you. This is a wisdom image from which youre receiving an initiation. It is not a human person from whom you are calling for help.
The evenings that I do the Guru Yoga Meditation on the 16th Karmapa, I have trouble sleeping. Is there a remedy for this? Dont be so tense. Just try to use less effort and relax during meditation. When you concentrate in meditation, like when you visualize Chenrezig, it is just concentration.
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At that time, it is very important not to apply so much effort. Just be gentle with it and let it be more natural. If you apply a lot of effort, then you are articially creating something. But energy is required. If you relax too much, then you will become drowsy. So, when you are sleepy, you should try to raise your energy. If you are visualizing, raise the image higher. Meditation is like weaving. If its too tight or too loose, the cloth will be uneven. So, with meditation you have to nd the balance. Too much effort creates agitation. If you relax too much, you will fall asleep. Concentrate gently; then it becomes more natural. This is the same when watching the breath during shine, or when doing Ngondro or yidam visualization. The Four Foundation Practices, or Ngondro, are designed to ush out all the negative karma and store a lot of good causes in the mind, as in Mandala Practice. Until you are fully enlightened, all your future lives are the ones in which you can help limitless sentient beings. These abilities and power depend on your accumulation of merit. Even one virtuous thought can produce limitless power to liberate all sentient beings. One thought. That is why you rst must take the Bodhisattva Promise and try to develop the bodhisattva attitude, which is the opposite of self-clinging. Bodhicitta is compassion and the realization of emptiness joined together. That compassion is not aggressive or strained by grasping. That compassion is very genuine and very, very pure. Develop pure compassion and then accumulate merit through practice, like offering mandalas and imagining the buddhas and bodhisattvas, and the beautiful universe that you dedicate to them. To have genuine compassion for sentient beings, you need to have the ability to help them, so for that you accumulate the power of merit. Ngondro are preparatory practices. So practice them continually and store all the virtue. Then, in all of your future lives, merit will never be exhausted. That is how the Buddha Amitabha manifested Dewachen; it was from his pure wish that this buddha-eld arose. Guru yoga practice is very powerful, because this is a direct method to invite the power of blessings from the compassion and wishes that great bodhisattvas have made for sentient beings. The wishes that great bodhisattvas have made and the devotion that you develop are the causes and effects that bring blessings. So guru yoga means connecting with enlightened bodhisattvas who have made the commitment to liberate sentient
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becomes limitless. But not grasping is very important; grasping creates self-clinging. Therefore, understand absolute bodhicitta, how all sentient beings and universes do not really exist. It is just a mirage. This is true; it is not just some way that youre forcing your mind to think. Everything is not of real existence. Pervade that view with compassion so that there is no clinging onto oneself. Compassion that you generate for sentient beings in this way is genuine compassion, which liberates you from the trap of samsara.
Right now your karma is limited; therefore, you are limited. If you dedicate yourself to all sentient beings, your mind becomes limitless. But not grasping is very important; grasping creates self-clinging.
Glossary
Bodhicitta: The enlightened mind or enlightened attitude. Has two aspects: On the relative level, perfecting oneself through the six liberating actions for the benet of all beings; on the absolute level, spontaneous and effortless activity without thought or hesitation. The experience of subject, object, and action as a totality makes this intuitive state automatic. Chenrezig: (Skt. Avalokiteshvara) Also called Loving Eyes, Chenrezig literally means the one whose eyes look at every one. A buddha that embodies the love and compassion of all buddhas. Dewachen: The powereld of the Buddha of Limitless Light (Skt. Amitabha, Tib. pame). The pure land of highest bliss. Pure lands are manifested by enlightened buddhas and are not places that can be located geographically; they are states of mind. As a human being, one can experience them here and now through meditation. Guru Yoga Meditation on the 16th Karmapa: Guru Yoga is a form of meditating on the Buddha in the form of ones teacher, here the 16th Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje. Guru Yoga is the most direct way to receive the blessing of body, speech, and mind by identifying oneself with the enlightened state of the teacher. Mandala Practice: (Tib. Khyil-khor, Lit. Center-circle) Power circle of a buddha on which one meditates in Diamond Way Buddhism. It consists of a central buddha aspect and all the other aspects assigned to the central aspect. A mandala is depicted as a painted picture or created with colored sand. Also, a universe full of precious things that is offered to the buddhas in the third Foundational Practice and during empowerments. Ngondro (Tib.): The Four Foundational Practices. A set of four progressive practices (Prostrations, Diamond Mind, Mandala Offerings, and Guru Yoga) that puries negativity, creates good imprints in ones subconscious, and is the basis of the Mahamudra. Mahamudra means The Great Symbol or The Great Seal, a term in Vajrayana Buddhism for the realization of the true nature of mind. Nirmanakaya: Emanation state (tulku or state of compassion). One of the three buddha states. A being who is consciously reborn for the benet of all beings with the wish and power to help them unfold their abilities. The word means illusionbody, a form that one has and uses, but is not dependent on. Samsara: Cyclic existence, the beginningless and endless wheel of rebirth; the completely deled state of the mind. Gampopa says samsara has three characteristics: 1. Its nature is emptiness; 2. Its appearance is illusion; 3. Its characteristic is suffering.
Shamarpa: The Red Hat Karmapa
The Four Foundation Practices, or Ngondro, are designed to ush out all the negative karma and store a lot of good causes in the mind, as in Mandala Practice. Until you are fully enlightened, all your future lives are the ones in which you can help limitless sentient beings.
beings and who have generated blessings through their wishes for sentient beings. Our own mind can develop the nirmanakaya. Our current body is developed from the clinging or grasping of our mistaken mind; so, our physical form that we have now arises from our connection to samsara, from ignorance. Nirmanakaya is developing a wisdom body that does not exist physically, and through this you can eliminate the habit of grasping to the forms of living beings. In guru yoga, you invite the wisdom body to you, and that wisdom body is absorbed by you. It becomes a kind of mold for your mind. Once you receive that seed, you can create that wisdom body by yourself; through guru yoga and the yidam visualization, this is developed. In guru yoga it is not that you are one human here and you are asking Karmapa to come and help you. Here, the wisdom body can be absorbed and can expand your inherent qualities. You can produce your own nirmanakaya. You need an outer cause to activate your inner cause, so in the guru yoga you can do that by manifesting the wisdom form as an initiation. If we do the practice of guru yoga and the yidams, we develop quickly and absorb the qualities. Right now your karma is limited; therefore, you are limited. If you dedicate yourself to all sentient beings, your mind
About H.H. the 14th Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche

H.H. the 14th Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche was born in 1952 in Derge, Tibet, as the nephew of H.H. the 16th Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje. He was recognized as the Shamarpa incarnation at the age of six, and he was taken to Yang Chen Monastery, the main seat of the Shamarpas in Tibet. He left Tibet at the age of nine, together with the 16th Karmapa, for Sikkim, India, where he lived and studied under Karmapas guidance. He received the entire teachings and transmissions of the Karma Kagyu School from the 16th Karmapa at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim. In March 1994, he ofcially recognized Trinlay Thaye Dorje as the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa. Shamar Rinpoche spends most of his time giving dharma teachings around the world.
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the Paramitas
Lama Ole Nydahl
Liberating Actions
positive acts do not liberate but should still be performed: They provide the basis for future happiness and mental freedom. Activity only liberates beings when combined with the insight that the doer, the thing done, and the receiver are all interdependent parts of a whole and that they possess no permanent own nature. Given that such satisfying wisdom is new to non-Buddhist cultures and in most cases will unfold only gradually, which skillful actions can best anchor them in ones life? The advised entry is through generosity, the rst paramita. One may well see the world as a splendid hall decorated for huge celebrations. Everything is thereevery richness of potential experience is presentbut if nobody starts to dance, no party evolves. One breaks any ice and afrms ones condence in beings ne qualities through giving, in this case by showing ones trust in what is shared. Since such acts are inspiring, others will pass them on for the benet of many. The traditional Buddhist texts mention three kinds of basic generosity, which will obviously be expressed in different proportions according to the prevailing conditions of the times, cultures, and countries involved. The rst kind of generosity is giving what people need for their immediate survival. It benets them for awhile but makes them dependent. Second, one supplies education, which enables people to take care of both themselves and others
Editors Note: Common to many Buddhist teachings is the role of the bodhisattva, one who has made the great and generous promise to rescue all beings from suffering and guide them to enlightenment. The work of the bodhisattva is summed up in the paramitas, the six liberating actions. The following text is an excerpt from the new and revised edition of Lama Ole Nydahls The Way Things Are (to be published in 2007 by O Books www.o-books.com).
Whoever wants to succeed in life, and perhaps also hold responsibility for others, will have to skirt a few constricting rules. With welfare states encroaching ever more on peoples lives and the search of human beings for freedom, it is hardly advisable to be totally law-abiding in the world. For this reason, Buddha taught the way of the bodhisattvas. It supplies the motivation and insight for practical people who maintain societies and have families. With this attitude, they can transform their everyday choices and experiences into steps toward liberation and enlightenment. Sanskrit has the word ita. It means an action that is simply good (i.e., that would be recognized as such whether on Greenland or in the Congo). Buddha, however, speaks of param-itas. What does this prex param mean? It means trans or that which takes one beyond. Normal kind deeds ll mind with pleasant impressions. They mature under given conditions as states of happiness, making mind condent. Mind then dares to observe that which knows and surrounds its experiences; that is, itself. As long as the notion persists that a subject does something to an object,
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during this life. Finally, one shares the liberating and enlightening teachings, which alone bring lasting happiness. Pointing to minds absolute qualities, they stay effective in this life, at death, and during all future lives, until mind recognizes its timeless essence and reaches enlightenment. For the 85 percent of humanity that lives today in overpopulated countries, poor and in misery, victims of religions that prefer quantity to quality in their human resources and, like Islam and Catholicism, forbid them the necessary family planning, this classical division among three kinds of generosity is still valid. In the richer countries, however, where many die from too much fat around the heart and where our cities surround people with so much glass, steel, and concrete that they can hardly get together physically anymore, the most important gifts on the rst two levels of generosity are probably sufcient neighborliness, trust, time, and warmth. The ultimate gift for idealists is more visible today than ever before: Guiding others in bringing enlightening teachings to them, one really helps them grow. There exists no better tool than generosity for showing how precious others are to us. The bonds generated through this ne quality are basic and should be developed meaningfully. Since they are such effective motors for growth, it is important that one not squander them through clumsy or harmful actions and words. For that reason, Buddhas second liberating action is meaningful behavior. Educated people cannot use the word morality for this. They know that the ruling classes worldwide always use morality against those below. For example, for over a thousand years in Europe, church and state worked seamlessly together, blocking the creativity of highly capable populations. Whoever the state did not catch in this life, the church promised to send to hell afterward. Still today, the Islamic world functions on fear and suppression, with some childish rewards for the afterlife thrown in. So it is surely dangerous to use one single word for such a wide range of lifestyles and behavior. It can be manipulated much too easily. To encourage people to reect before making knee-jerk judgments about others and to activate their life-experience, Buddhists prefer expressions like useful activity, intelligent comportment, or circumspective action. The terms refer to three actions of body, four of speech, and three of mind. And while Buddhas ten pieces of advice in the Small Way (Skt. Hinayana) focus on what it is better not to do, say, and think, the mindset of his more mature students on the Great Way (Skt. Mahayana)
The ultimate gift for idealists is more visible today than ever before: Guiding others in bringing enlightening teachings to them, one really helps them grow. There exists no better tool than generosity for showing how precious others are to us.
calls for a positive approach to causality. Here he shows the potential of beings three gates for useful actions: One may use ones body benecially to protect others, to give them what they lack, and for non-celibates to give them love. The task of speech is to say what is, to bring people together, to show them the world, and to guide them to meaning and joy. Finally, working skillfully with mind means wishing everything good to everyone, sharing joyfully in the meaningful actions that others perform, and trusting causality also in ones own life. Thinking clearly would today imply nding places for Western reasoning inside Buddhas life oriented real systems. These work and bring results in daily life. The third liberating action preserves the accumulated good energies. Under the heading of patience, it also includes perseverance and endurance, for example going through hardships to learn. Since anger so massively destroys the good impressions that one has built up, Buddha calls patience the most beautiful but most difcult garment that one can wear. Buddhas fourth recommendation is to develop enthusiastic effort, or the joy of doing. This means to gladly perform what brings benet, thereby overcoming laziness. Whoever lacks such expansive diligence will become older without becoming wiser, and nothing is more directly transferred from one life to the next than ones level of activity. Therefore, it is important to go beyond ones comfort zone and habitual limits. Regardless of what one may wish to learn or achieve, it requires energy. Even the rapid building up of muscles happens best beyond the threshold of pain, and results will only be satisfying if one leads ones projects with decisiveness and joyful effort. The benet of these four liberating actions should be evident to anyone with life experience: Generosity brings human connections. Meaningful behavior directs them well. Patience makes them rm. And enthusiastic action gives them power and growth. Whoever wants to increase their capacities and solidify their realization should denitely learn to meditate. Non-meditators cannot stabilize their mind, but instead shift from one emotion to another, often without being aware of it, and this wears them out. As recent brain research shows more and more, the results of meditation are visible and benecial in many ways. Research also shows that imprints of useful or harmful thoughts, words, and deeds (called karma) may be skillfully enhanced or dissolved through absorption, leading to condence and good feelings. If this is not done, such tendencies affect people as heavy moods and disturbing emotions. Worst of all, if harmful feelings control body and speech, one may easily destroy something expensive, lose face, and make enemies. Meditation, here the fth of Buddhas advised actions, encompasses both the simple methods for calming and holding mind to create a mental distance to events, and the more exquisite method of knowing mind. This may happen either through the
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ever one sets into motion and does not decondition through meaningful acts or meditation will necessarily return to oneself. The Bodhisattva Promise formulates ones wish to develop for the good of all beings. Above all, it targets anger, the most harmful of mental states. As it is an inner practice, logic and motivation are the realms to watch. Ones most effective tools are thus the transformation of feelings and seeing events as passing dreams. The recognition that beings behave the way they feel should evoke protective compassionbut not politically correct leniency toward criminal ideologies or behavior. In addition, one should spread the understanding that anger and brutality are signs of weakness and impotence, not power. This is to make such roles less attractive, even to the immature. Deep psychological methods for accomplishing this belong on the third and ultimate level: the Diamond Way. Until a few years ago, this part of Buddhas advice not to give attention to negative states but rather to transform or simply observe themwas not part of most recognition of emptiness and the view of the Great Seal (Skt. Mahamudra) or by awakening the bodys inherent wisdom energies through deep breathing. Most useful in all situations is identifying with ones preferred buddha form or lama. Using this last approach, called Guru Yoga, one may effectively retain the feeling of freshness and meaning also between ones meditations. Alternatively striving for minds development and at the same time relaxing any expectations, the afore mentioned paramitas are brought to the level of enlightenment by and also nourish the sixth of the liberating actions, that of wisdom. In the Buddhist texts, the ve actions mentioned above are often compared to strong legs. They provide the power to make ones life meaningful and to benet all. But where do they take one? The eyes that give them direction are the deep wisdom of Buddhas 84,000 teachings. Here, building on the liberating understanding of the Small Way that there exists no lasting or vulnerable self, ego, or I, Buddhas Great Way continues to negate any truly existing outer world. This goes beyond both materialism and nihilism, bringing about ones freedom from concepts and ultimately full enlightenment. The observation on both levels is that for something to truly exist there must be some permanence, but all things inner and outer change everywhere and all the time. Buddha expressed this truth through his statement: Form is emptiness, emptiness is form; form and emptiness cannot be separated. Contemporary scientists in Hamburg, Germany, recently collided quarks, the smallest parts of the atom, sending them back into space. Shortly after this, near San Francisco, CA, other scientists were amazed to see particles appear in an absolute vacuum. Removing disturbing feelings and then keeping ideas of being and non-being from limiting reality, Buddha frees mind to express its full potential. Here it is recognized that only awareness is lasting and all pervading. At this point, doing good becomes self-evident. And why? Because all things are interconnected. Thus, what-
and reaction function, and whatever one gives out always comes back. Something absolutely negative must therefore automatically self-destruct and cannot exist. Therefore, Buddha explains the root evil not as a mega-turbo-devil smelling of sulfur, but as levels of ignorance. They direct one to search for happiness through actions that can only bring the opposite result. However, being ultimately illusory, they can be removed. A dualistic view and any moralistic nger pointing are therefore meaningless. The ultimate essence of all beings is their buddha nature; and although one creates a potential for pain, mind has the power, through methods and view, to remove whatever has not yet matured. Evolving means enjoying what is pleasant as blessings to be shared with others and experiencing anything difcult as processes of learning and of minds freeing itself of negativity. One here wishes that all beings have not only joy but also its lasting cause, that of meaningful activity. What follows logically from this is the wish that they may also be without pain and the negativity that
The world needs beings with this view and a powerful, forwardlooking motivation, with little sentimentality and no disturbing feelings.
psychological theories. Still today, realist groups resist that view. If one compares the customers in this form of therapy, however, who get stuck in assigning guilt and in countless expressions of anger, or chronically unhappy feminists, with mature practitioners of Buddhism, it becomes clear that the thick-skinned Far Eastern approach is preferable. Although precise crackdowns on harmful behavior, including preemptive ones, are often useful and appropriate, anger and paranoia become a growing burden on everyone. Looking back over the last six decades in the quickly evolving West, blamealso for ones own shortcomingswas laid rst on the Nazis and Communists, then on imperialism, after that on society generally, and most recently on dominating mothers. To the many who cannot see the future danger of todays rampaging Muslim mobs, it is child-molesting priests or uncles. Whereas anything harmful to people should of course be stopped, the habit of blaming others is a serious shortcoming. It makes one feckless and weak. Whether one likes it or not, the law of cause and effect applies to all beings and things. What others do to one now, one must therefore have done to them in an earlier life and not managed to purify. Action causes it. Two further wishes round this inner disposition off and make it complete: that others may have the greatest happiness totally beyond suffering and that they may feel the same strong love for all, making their actions ultimately meaningful. Anger, on the other hand, halts ones natural disposition to benet others. It thus disturbs the human exchange, makes people lonely, and in addition destroys their good seeds for later happiness. The world needs beings with this view and a powerful, forward-looking motivation, with little sentimentality and no disturbing feelings. With that arises an unshakable conviction in everyones inherent buddha nature. It becomes logical that truth, to be absolute, must be all pervading and that one can only imagine enlightenment elsewhere because it is already inherent in one. Thus, the consequential way of the accomplishersthe level of Buddhist yogisis established.
About
Lama Ole Nydahl
Lama Ole Nydahl is one of the few Westerners fully qualied as a lama and meditation teacher in the Karma Kagyu Buddhist tradition. In 1972, after completing three years of intensive meditation training, Lama Ole began teaching Buddhism in Europe at the request of H.H. the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. He has since transmitted the blessing of the lineage in a different city nearly every day, traveling and teaching worldwide as an authorized lama. His depth of knowledge and dynamic teachings inspire thousands of people at his lectures and retreats in North and South America, the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, and Asia.
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Masculine/Feminine:
Buddhist Look
A Fresh
Lena Leontiewa
Translated from Polish by Ewelina Hebda and Anthony Warner
When we talk about the differences between the sexes, we have to remember that on the absolute level there are no sexes. Mind is not male or female. Both the mind of woman and the mind of man are like unlimited space, without center or limit, and contain all phenomena, qualities, and universes. However, when we start to describe the qualities of mind, a duality appears: It is empty, but at the same time it is luminous. Emptiness and clarity are inseparable. Exclusivity does not apply. Phenomena are actually empty. Usually we think in terms of either-or. But this is a mistake. The experience that both sides are not separate is very important. When we talk about phenomena appearing, some duality is always present as well. Things are bright or dark, cold or hot, appearing or disappearing, outer or inner, static or dynamic. To describe them, we always use two opposite terminologies. But despite having two eyes, we perceive
it is said that fatherhood and motherhood are beautiful. Buddha taught his lay students that having a family helps us develop generosity by sharing all that we have: time, energy, and material possessions. In a family, we limit our own desires in order to give happiness to the closest of relatives. That is why family is the best teacher of generosity, discipline, patience, and joyful effort. Buddha stated that if a lay dharma practitioner adds meditation to these daily activities, he or she would really be in a very good position to reach the highest wisdom of enlightenment. From the perspective of dharma, compassion is masculine while wisdom is feminine. This perspective is the opposite of what we are used to hearing in conditioned existence, where talk is always of the wise man and the compassionate woman. In Buddhism, compassion is the ability to act in a helpful and goal-oriented manner. Wisdom goes beyond that which we can learn from books. It derives
Wisdom goes beyond that which we can learn from books. It derives from the realization that we are not separate from space.
through them simultaneously. If we start to look at the world using only one eye, the world appears at. The situation is very similar with mind: To see the three-dimensional, we should perceive the phenomena from both sides. Despite minds not being male or female, there is a certain duality: We are born in different bodies. The gravitational center in a man is quite high; and his body is designed to move rapidly in space to conquer new areas. The female body, on the other hand, tends to remain in one place using that which has already been assembled. And we differ not only on the level of the body, but also in the way in which we perceive the world and the manner in which we live. It is good to remember this, because misunderstanding this point causes many arguments. From Family to Partnership Buddha said different things to different people, and he advised a monastic lifestyle for those who were too much disturbed by lifes difculties. But for more happy and more compassionate people with Mahayana potential, he greatly praised having families, explaining how it was benecial in helping to reach enlightenment. In Dharmapada,
from the realization that we are not separate from space. It appears by itself in the moment that we rid ourselves of the unnecessary and useless concepts in our mind. On the Mahayana level, the male and female bodies are seen as equally useful tools for reaching enlightenment. However, if the woman liberates herself from two of the biggest worldly attachments, then her potential for practice is greater than that of the man. The rst worldly attachment is to motherhood. It is not motherhood itself that forms the hindrance (Buddha praised this for its potential to help women develop skills in beneting others), but the attachment to it. We should not take refuge in impermanent things. Buddha wants us to be happy, but if we continue to take refuge in impermanent things, we will suffer when they misbehave or are gone. The only true refuge is mind. The second worldly attachment is the need to feel secure. Here, Buddha said that women can do a lot, but that on the inner level there is a vulnerable being that looks around in search of a strong arm on which to rely. But it is well known that many arms that initially appear to be strong later change. And in the end, all of them are imper-
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On the Mahayana level, the male and female bodies are seen as equally useful tools for reaching enlightenment.
manent anyway. The most important thing is to understand that whatever appears in mind will also disappear at some point. If we take refuge in that which appears, we are making a big mistake. So if a woman manages to liberate herself from these tendencies (despite this being very difcult), then the question is: Why is her potential higher than that of a man? Again, I found the explanation in the commentaries to Buddhas teachings: The average woman gains a greater experience of impermanence because of her daily occupations.
Glossary
Dharmapada: A collection of quotations from the Buddhas teachings given on different occasions.
Enlightenment: A state of realization in which the most subtle traces of ignorance about the nature of reality are eliminated and highest wisdom, the state of omniscience, is attained. Sometimes called the embodiment of the three kayas (dharmakaya, nirmanakaya, and sambhogakaya). Mahayana: (Tib. Theg Chen, Skt. Mahayana, Lit. the Great Vehicle) Practitioners of the Great Way have developed the wish to attain enlightenment to liberate all sentient beings from suffering. Also called the Bodhisattva Way. Its basis is the development of compassion and all-embracing wisdom.
I once received a letter from my very good male friend who lives in the United States. At some point in his life, he met monastic Buddhism and went on a half-year retreat, during which he worked in the kitchen. In the letter he wrote: Friends, I have understood impermanence. Being an architect, I used to spend all my life building houses. My creations have always been permanent xtures in space possessed of certain characteristics, such as their shape, and I have therefore always been able to relate to them. But during my work in the kitchen, whatever I created was gone in the next instant. Whatever I removed would appear again in the same place immediately. I have understood impermanence: Life is like a drawing made on water. After I received this letter, I understood what Buddha meant when he said that daily activities of a female give an inner experience of impermanence. When talking about the difference between the sexes, my lama often emphasizes that men are more joyful because they forget things more easily. If we look closely at Buddhas highest teachings, we see that they were given to people who could differentiate between harmful and benecial actions, who acted in a benecial way, and who were compassionate and helpful toward others. Besides this, they had more power, more joy, and a deeper trust in their own potential. Looking into Buddhas eyes, they could see their enlightened reection. Yogis asked: If, in Mahayana, enlightenment is the unity of male compassion and female wisdom, then why dont we talk about the unity of men and women? On the highest level, women and men need one another. It is said that truth pervades everything; it means that every life situation has the same enlightening potential. So, on the Diamond Way level, our bodies and sexuality are seen as something very noble. And partnership is another opportunity to reach enlightenment. Each of us has an unlimited mind, full of male and female qualities. When we are born into a certain sex, we have access mainly to the qualities of this sex. In some sense, the other qualities are hidden inside us. We express our qualities through our actions and the way we look at the world. As women, we have access to wisdom, a sense of what will happen (intuition), inspiration, and empathy. As men, we have easier access to activity, targeted actions, joy, and an understanding of the aim. The rest is rather hidden. It may express itself, but not always directly. And when we are together, our partner becomes our mirror in that looking into his or her eyes, we see our own hidden qualities. If we see our partner as a buddha, we develop the Buddhas qualities within ourselves.
In the relationship, women usually express these basic types of energy: 1. She acts as mother toward all men and the rest of the world. She takes care, protects, serves, and educates. 2. She acts as a wife. Here, her main characteristic is not to serve, but rather to act as a mirror that reects all her partners qualities. She acts as a balance, and she is a great life companion. 3. She acts as a lover. She does not serve or simply reect, but she inspires. She appears in the esh, shines brightly, and rapidly disappears. It is said that the third type of energy is present in all women. Even though the woman may be more of the mother, wife, or sister type, the third quality of inspiring will always be present. The true nature of the woman is dakini, which means inspiring, playful chaos. She changes in a way that is beyond, and not governed by, logic. There is nothing we can do about it; we can only relax and accept it. What men learn from their female partners is ve kinds of wisdom. These are: mirror-like wisdom, which is an enlightened quality to be able to see things in a clear way, like a mirror reecting everything; the wisdom of equality, which is the ability to see the same potential in all phenomena; discriminating wisdom, which is the ability to make the right choice and to differentiate between very subtle details; the wisdom of experience, also known as all-perfecting wisdom, a quality of enlightenment to know how to go about reaching a goal; and the all-pervading wisdom of intuition, an insight that comes with the discovery that we are not separate from anything. Women learn their activity from men. It is not as though women cannot act, but they tend not to embrace a very broad area around themselves. From men, women learn rst how to act with an aim and second how to act on a broader scale. With mens help, women who practice the dharma develop buddha activity, those activities that bring a permanent benet for sentient beings. Sometimes, we suddenly realize that we cannot help somebody. This is because of the lack of a karmic connection or if the other being is fully closed to us. We can still help, but only on the level of wishes. Sometimes there is a karmic connection, but because of some momentary hysterical drama, there is a lack of communication. In this case, we can only work to calm down that person. This is best done by those men that possess a calming down activity. They are open, and smile and talk a lot. They create a pacifying and calming atmosphere around them. Once the other person has been calmed down, it is
feasible to introduce them to new possibilities. This is an enriching activity. These kinds of men of enriching activity are not very large, and they behave like mice in that they are fast, talk to two mobile phones simultaneously, connect things, and therefore enrich things. The next kind of man is the kind possessed of a fascinating activity. They can easily attract the attention of other beings. All leaders have this activity. My lama warns women not to run immediately after this type, even if he is dressed in the latest fashion and knows exactly how to behave. Before anything else, women should check if there is something deeper, capable of sharing, behind this impressive faade. This type of man is advised to enrich his inner wealth so he can really offer something to those who are attracted by him. The last activity is that of protecting. It means that men can act rapidly to protect from that which is harmful. This is expressed in the ability to stand guard, no matter what happens. It is this kind of man with whom we can relax because he will remain next to us. He is trustworthy, and we can rely on him. He is like the captain who will leave the ship last. In partnerships, women are looking for safety and stability. The true nature of women is unlimited inspiration, and the true essence of men is that of the protector. The Effect of Past Actions We choose our partner on the basis of the activities that he or she represents. In the old texts, we can nd stories about lamas who gave instructions on how to go about nding a proper partner. According to these teachings, nding a proper partner is as rare and precious as nding
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The true nature of women is unlimited inspiration, and the true essence of men is that of the protector.
the wish-fullling jewel. If we have such a partner already, we should appreciate the true value of this. And if we look at the most desired quality of a good partner, it is compassion. A compassionate partner simply likes other beings, and the rest is irrelevant. Once, a friend of mine asked me to interpret for him, because he wanted to talk with his lama. He said: I have a new girlfriend, and the lama asked: Is she happy, does she like people, does she make your life easier? My friend got a little uptight because he knew that to be truthful, he would have to answer no to all of these questions. So he said: You know, Im not looking for an easy path, I do not choose women in this way. To this, the lama replied: I do it in the following way: The
partner should make your life easier, not more difcult. It is not about getting married in this life; it is about reaching enlightenment. It is easier to do so when our partner makes our life easier. Once the conditions for the connection ripen and we become a couple, it is, however, better to wait to start a family. First, we need to check each other out as to the level of potential (and whether or not the two people have similar potential) and the ability to work together for the benet of all. What binds us in this life is the result of what we did together in our past lives, and this is true for both positive and negative actions. Bad impressions from the
past generate negative feelings in our current relationships. It could therefore be that a couple is together, but that it is hard for them to communicate, that the relationship is difcult, and that a lot of energy is wasted on arguments, with no surplus for others. It is also possible that people who did a lot of good actions together in a past life will meet again in this life. In such a case, their relationship will be full of positive energy. It will be characterized by harmony and negligible differences in views that have the potential to lead to arguments. In this situation, it will be easier to know how to make the partner happy. We do not have to lose our time on long-winded explanations, and so we are capable of giving more to others. It thus becomes easier for the couple to support each other in a hard situation, and to share the surplus. It is good to have a certain unity and also create a space within which others feel comfortable. Now, we can also talk about separating. Buddhas teaching on impermanence says that, sooner or later, this will happen. In the end, death will separate us. Of course, we dont have to part voluntarily if there is potential in our relationship. It is said that there is no such thing as a perfect partner in samsara. Before we are enlightened, the world will have faults from time to time. Despite shortcomings, we should concentrate on that which is the most important for binding us. But if we decide to split up, we should do it as friends, on the highest level, in a noble way, aiming to preserve the good impressions and being grateful for the time and love our partner has given to us. We should keep a stiff upper lip, be compassionate, and wish all the best to the other. If we part as enemies, we destroy everything that we have learned from each other.
If somehow, despite our efforts, we end the relationship antagonistically, we should try to keep a positive picture of our ex-partner in our mind, and remember to wish him or her happiness and enlightenment. If this is too difcult, then lets wish them happiness and enlightenment, but as far away from us as possible. Despite the differences between men and women, or differences in the appearance of things, we should remember that all phenomena are essentially of the same pure potential. Phenomena may appear good or bad, but their impermanent outer image is not as important as their potential. This view is not easy to maintain, but this is the teaching on the Diamond Way level. At the core of all of this is spacecreating space and giving space. We give space by taking the attitude that the person concerned is an adult, possesses qualities, and is aware of what he or she is doing. We stop the tendency of correcting and assessing our partners actions all the time. Instead, we take a step back in our mind, and we trust that our partner is sure of what he or she is doing or trying to do, and that we will understand it shortly. In this way, the other person feels free, trusted, and respected. Trusting, respecting, and giving space are virtually synonymous. If our partner can do the same, then that is a very positive result. However, if he or she cannot do so, then the burden is on us to try harder! It is important that both partners develop equally. To be able to provide this space, we need to meditate. We should also try to create such situations in our partnership that our partner can show his or her best qualities. Our behavior should enable people to show their best qualities. Then, everything leads toward enlightenment.
About Lena Leonteva LenaLeonteva is educated as a mathematician, math ematician, and she is currently working and studying at Moscow Oriental University. She met Diamond Way Buddhism in 1992. For the past eight years, she has been living at the Moscow Diamond Way Buddhist Center.
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Quantum Mechanics
Sasha Rozenberg
The fabric of reality in modern physics is not as solid as we could imagine. Quantum physics is explicitly non-dual and operates between the extremes of being this or that: Quantum laws are simultaneously both-and and neither-nor. In general relativity, space, far from being a static background, can stretch, bend, warp, explode, and vanish. These concepts are very natural and logically sound in the Buddhist worldview. Not restricted to the inner world of sentient beings, Buddhism provides a superbly intelligent framework for external phenomena. In fact, physics often expresses in its precise language ideas that are familiar to a Buddhist audience in a different rendering. In this article, I try to show how quantum mechanics and general relativity have redened our understanding of the way things are, away from Cartesian dualism and Aristotelian substance. This newly emerging way of seeing the world then illuminates the Western understanding of Buddhism in a most critical way. One has a reason to examine, therefore, whether Buddhist philosophy is a more suitable framework to modern science than naive materialism.
Buddhism
The highest Buddhist teachings stress the inseparability of subject, object, and interaction.
that matter can be described by wave functions. Just as the waves can overlap, forming another wave, a quantum particle can be a combination of different wave functions. Non-dualistically, it can be in a combination of mutually exclusive states: It may take both this and that path; it can be both here and there and perhaps over there as well. In fact, one of the most fruitful formulations of quantum mechanics, the so-called path integral formalism, is based on the idea that a quantum object is taking all paths at once. This non-dual nature of quantum physics is most vividly displayed by the closely intertwined combinations (superpositions) of several particles. Such combinations are called entangled states because they are not reducible to collections of individual elements. Not localized in space, an entangled state spreads out as far as its constituents, without ceasing to be a single connected state. When acting on a part of an entangled system, all parts are simultaneously affected, since they are not other parts, but a single connected whole. Considering the (extraordinarily complicated) wave function of the entire universe, one may conclude that no part of the world is separate from any other part. The wave functional description of the world nds a closer parallel with the Buddhist idea of connectedness of mind, rather than with the Aristotelian atomization paradigm, which examines information about fragments of matter.
Quantum Mechanics
The ideas of Max Planck of 1900 and Albert Einstein of 1905 ushered in the quantum age and opened the Pandoras box of quantum paradoxes.1 Behaving like waves in most circumstances, sometimes light is seemingly composed of particles. These are mutually exclusive descriptions. Waves extend throughout spacethey may overlap and interferewhile particles are thought of as tiny cannon ballsindivisible, localized hard objects. With the advent of quantum mechanics, it was realized that the electron, one of the basic matter particles, could also behave as a wave. One cannot say whether a quantum object is a particle or a wave. It can be either, depending on the experimental setup or on whether we want to observe its particle or wave properties. Known as wave-particle duality in physics, this is perhaps the simplest example of the quantum non-dual, both-and logic. The fundamental Buddhist insight into the nature of phenomena also reveals the non-duality of the opposites. In 1926, Erwin Schroedinger took the idea of waveparticle duality to its logical conclusion and hypothesized
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What is it that breathes re into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?
Stephen Hawking
Einstein never fully accepted quantum mechanics. However, his persistence in asking difcult questions led to deep discussions about the foundations of the theory, and was instrumental in developing its philosophical underpinnings.
Inseparability of the act of observation, the state of the observed, and the observer is an inherent property of quantum mechanics.
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Buddhism often compares mind to space: It is empty of characteristics of its own, and yet contains everything.
the observer is an inherent property of quantum mechanics. Here, again, the highest Buddhist teachings stress the inseparability of subject, object, and interaction. Another unusual property of quantum mechanics (Quantum Field Theory, to be precise) is demonstrated in the Casimir effect. It derives from the fact that no quantum system can be completely still. Even when a region of space appears to be totally empty, it is seething with virtual particles that appear out of space, live for a very short time, and disappear back into space. It has been veried experimentally that virtual particles exert an attractive force on two metal plates in a complete vacuum, even though there is literally nothing real that could produce this attraction. The energy of this force is borrowed from space itself. The quantum connection between the observer, observed, and observation is in direct contradiction with the scientic method. Descartes divide of that which thinks and that which is out there (i.e., independence of the natural phenomena and the conscious observer) has been the paradigm of science for the past 300 years. Freed from ideological constraints of that which thinks, free to study that which is out there objectively, natural sciences have been taking a precise view of the world with phenomenal success. 2 No wonder it took several decades before quantum mechanics could shed the stigma of computationally precise but conceptually wrong formalism. Its paradoxical
There are notable exceptions, of course. The Nazis declared general relativity a Jewish science; Marxists in the Soviet Union and in France were trying to negate quantum mechanics as a bourgeois invention; today religious fundamentalists in the US are trying to pass intelligent design as a science.
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Over the years, the concept of wave function has been subtly changing physicists apprehension of reality. Indeed, a quantum particle can be simultaneously in many states, without being really in any one of them, and manifesting in a particular state only as a result of observation. As such, it directly contradicts the concept of independent existence, of objective reality. Inseparability of the act of observation, the state of the observed, and
properties were long regarded as a nuisance in a shut up and compute interpretation. Quantum mechanics was justied by its precise computational and technological recipes. According to Nobel laureate Leon Lederman, applications of quantum physics account for twenty-ve percent of the US gross national product. Indeed, quantum applications are utilized in a variety of everyday tools, such as chips, lasers (including CD players!), and various medical devices. Because of the success of its practical application, the foundations of quantum mechanics were thought to be mostly of philosophical interest. Recently, however, technological advances made possible direct manufacturing and experimentation with entangled states. Not only have the strangest predictions of quantum mechanics been triumphantly veried, but also new fantastic technologies are being derived from its strange properties. Since modern emergent technologies are directly based on the quantum weirdness, we clearly need to have a better understanding of the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. In the past fty years, several new interpretations of quantum mechanics appeared. For example, an Austrian physicist Anton Zeillinger pondered whether quantum mechanics is actually a theory of information. Paraphrasing him, we may say that a quantum state is a state of our knowledge about a situation. Information is pure abstraction and therefore cannot be said to exist, nor to not exist. Thus, many dualistic questions, such as existence or nonexistence of a quantum state, or the reality of it, become irrelevant from this vantage point, because a quantum state merely furnishes information. A wave function is in a certain sense the carrier of
information, for it contains the complete description of the state, it is present everywhere in space, and it does not require a physical transmission line. We may speculate that although possibly information and its manifestations are all there are, we nevertheless construe them as reality. Buddhism refers to this abstract nature of world as an illusion.
General Relativity and Cosmology

The theory of special relativity developed by Albert Einstein in 1905 establishes a deep connection between energy and matter, and makes the rst attempt to study the properties of space. Einsteins theory of general relativity, published in 1916, went further and combined space, time, matter, and energy in an exceptionally beautiful theory of gravitational force. Not an ordinary force, gravity is the property of space itself. The geometry of space in general relativity depends on what the space contains. For example, a massive star slightly curves and bends space around itself. Thus, any object traveling nearby will experience the curvature of space and will deect from the original trajectory, as if a force was acting on it. The more massive the star, the more space is warped around it, the more gravitational force is felt. A black hole is a bottomless pit in the fabric of space-timean object so massive that space is completely wrapped around it, such that whatever falls into it cannot escape. Nothing can move faster than light, and still not even light can escape from the interior of a black hole. Einsteins singular genius realized that space was not a dull background for other phenomena, not a mere at container, but that it was an active, dynamic, and evolving stage, unfolding together with what it contained. Interestingly, Buddhism often compares mind to space: It is empty of characteristics of its own, and yet contains everything. Far from being inert, it is active and connecting. When in the 1920s it was established that the universe was expanding, evolution of space became a recognized fact. Tracking evolution of the universe
A quantum particle can be simultaneously in many states, without being really in any one of them, and manifesting in a particular state only as a result of observation.
A quantum state merely furnishes information.
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backward implies that it started out from the initially tiny size. In the most rmly established cosmological model, an enormous initial explosionthe so-called Big Bang (no relation to James Bond movies)set off the expansion of the universe, creating space and time. Expanding and stretching space produced tension and created a reservoir of energy that transformed into radiation and matter. As the universe continued to expand, the super-hot soup of energy and matter became cooler; then, particles combined into atoms, molecules, cosmic dust, galaxies, stars, and the planets. During the 14 billion years since the Big Bang, the universe ballooned and reached its present vastness. By some estimates, there are ten times more stars in the universe than the number of grains of sand on all beaches and in all deserts of the Earth. If one holds a dime at an arms length, it covers the area of the sky with ten thousand galaxies, each of which contains 100 billion stars. The probability that this universe can support a carbon-based intelligent life is truly vanishing. Intelligent life in the form we know it requires, or in other words, is caused by, very special conditions. While the scientic method is based on observing and generalizing effects from their causes, extreme materialism, by denition, restricts the law of cause and effect to the material world, and attempts a patchwork known as anthropic principle in order to explain the improbable happenstance of intelligent life. Buddhism, on the other hand, understands that the law of cause and effect applies equally to everything, that all phenomena are conditioned by their causes. 3 The very improbability of biological organisms endowed with intelligence in the universe is an expression of their conditioned
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Nothing can move faster than light, and still not even light can escape from the interior of a black hole.
nature in the chain of causes and effects. Lacking inherent existence, the separation between material and mental is illusory, and therefore intelligence does not emerge from matter. The beginning-less chain of causes and effects as understood by Buddhism can be compared to the theories of the origin of the universe. The question, What was there before the Big Bang? is particularly murky, since the whole idea of there and before relies on the existence of space and time. Yet, space and time themselves appeared at the moment of the Big Bang. Facing the beginning of time, the next theory that explains the Big Bang will confront its own question of origin, leading to innite regress: What was there before the beginning? In 1983, Steven Hawking and Jim Hartle addressed this question in a beautiful theory called nonboundary proposal. In this theory, time has had no beginning and will have no end, and the Big Bang is a relatively smooth transition from another regime of the universe, which passes through the point of classically vanishing size. Without a beginning or an end, the universe in this picture cannot come into existence or disappear; it can only be, without anything outside it. As Steven Hawking once mused, I picture the origin of the universe, as like the formation of bubbles of steam in boiling water. Quantum uctuations lead to the spontaneous creation of tiny universes, out of nothing. Adding nowhere to this quotation, one can hardly come closer to expressing Buddhist understanding of the empty nature of the material world. Complementarily, the luminous nature of mind gives the Buddhist answer to Hawkings question, What is it that breathes re into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?
In the modern world, Buddhism and science are natural allies.
Buddha vs. Aristotle

Any creative development within a culture is built on the worldview of this culture, and is also constrained by it. For example, it is not by accident that zero was invented in India: Hebrews or Greeks, two civilizations with a lasting impact on Western civilization, could hardly accept the apparent void, whereas in Indian philosophy a sign of no object was a legitimate concept. Physical theories rooted in the concept of a material universe will not be able to explain the origin of matter and energy. However deep and small the fundamental physics goes, the question about the stuff that makes up the most elementary building block of the universe will linger underneath. Many physicists understand that a theory that goes beyond quantum mechanics or general relativity and unies them will be signicantly more radical than anything before itfew contemplate that it is the extreme materialistic paradigm itself that is questionable. Alternatively, a purely abstract origin and therefore a purely abstract existence do not require the primary cause or the primary source of existence. Perhaps for this reason Einstein once remarked, Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Buddhism is not restricted by materialism with its mysteriously emerging intelligence, nor is it burdened by scientically inept creationism. Free from the extremes of existence and non-existence, its materialism is of an intelligent sort. Empty of inherent existence, and thus immune to paradoxes of dualistic concepts, matter and interactions follow the law of cause and effect, which is played out as the laws of nature. In the modern world, Buddhism and science are natural allies. Buddhism provides a very intelligent and profound large-scale view, which science is uniquely equipped to complement with exact details. Looking from the opposite side, science is almost a religion of our age with unquestionable authority, nearly universal trust, and obvious benets to society. Therefore, convergence of scientic and Buddhist views on the theoretical abstract level sends a powerful message about Buddhism as a whole.
Buddhism provides a very intelligent and profound large-scale view, which science is uniquely equipped to complement with exact details.
About Sasha Rozenberg Sasha Rozenberg was born in Ufa, near the Ural Mountains in Russia. He came to the United States in 1992, where he achieved a doctorate in theoretical physics (string theory). He and his wife currently live in New York City, where he works as a quantitative analyst. In 2001, he met Lama Ole Nydahl and began practicing Diamond Way Buddhism.
The law of cause and effect is often referred to as karma.
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Despite the radical discovdiscoveries of quantum mechanmechanics concerning the nature of reality, many physicists continue to believe in material realism, the view that there is a solid realreality that can be described in terms of either elementary particles or superstrings. Buddhism contends that if we want to grasp the true nature of reality, we must engage much more fully with the philosophical conundrums that quantum physics has revealed.
The Quantum and the Lotus Matthieu Ricard & Trinh Xuan Thuan In truth, all objects exist only as sets of relationships or dependenciesbetween various objects and between the objects and the knower who mentally designates them. No core of self-nature or intrinsic essence supports our names, linguistic conventions, and projections. Nothing exists underneath our imputations or mental designations. Objects are none other than dependency relationships and names. In other words, all phenomena exist as a species of dependent arisingdependent upon causes and conditions. Time in Madhyamika Buddhism and Modern Physics Victor Manseld
Buddhism in Everyday Life
In Einsteins theory of relativity, the notions of space, time, mass, etc., are no longer regarded as representing absolutes existing in themselves as permanent substances or entities. Rather the whole of physics is conceived as dealing with the discovery of what is relatively invariant in the ever-changing movements that are to be observed in the world, as well as in the changes of points of view, frames of reference, different perspectives, etc., that can be adopted in such observations.
Physics and Perception David Bohm
Discovering the Power of Diamond Way Meditations

Eugene Trak
By the time I met Buddhism, I was 30 years old, divorced, with close to six gures in debt and a dependency on regular drug use. I was not capable of maintaining a civilized relationship with my family, driving a mile on the freeway without getting angry at everything that moved, or keeping a respectful connection with my co-workers. I was at war with the world around me. My perception of reality was far from joyful, and I was regularly depressed. Something was really wrong, but I had no clarity to recognize certain patterns and see the causes of my problems. Instead, I was placing the blame for my miserable condition on outside factors, like my annoying father, my unbearable ex-wife, my unscrupulous business partners, etc. This irresponsible view of life is widely accepted to be normal among people who dont know any better, and we can always nd support among similar cases. It would not be a problem if we could nd happiness while maintaining such a view. I was taking pride in being aggressive and reckless, a real man, while being genuinely and constantly unhappy. I felt completely cornered and at the end of my rope. It was at this time in my life, almost twelve years ago, when a friend suggested I drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco to meet a western Buddhist lamamaybe I would get some advice for my life. The proposition sounded strange. I had been brought up in Soviet Russia where any spiritual search was blocked effectively. I was not looking for any religion or spirituality. Although some power was clearly present in the way my friend described this lama, I was not ready to open up to anybody and declined the offer. However, after he and some other friends left for San Francisco, I realized that I had to go, too. In November 1995, at a ten-day course on Buddhism, I met Lama Ole Nydahl for the rst time. He had a powerful presence that he effortlessly maintained, without acting out or aggressively imposing on his surroundings. This deep condence was unusual in my world and attracted my attention. Of course, he was also intelligent, funny, and kind, with no fear of being perceived as weak or less of a man. I decided to give Buddhism a try, and I approached Lama Ole after the lecture to ask some safe questions without opening up myself too much. He embraced me as an old friend and took my breath away by pointing directly to the problems I was dealing with. I ended up letting him in to what a mess my life was. Lama Ole was extremely clear that there are no magic tricks and that I am the only one who can change the course of my life. He also said that if I practice Diamond Way meditations long enough, everything I need for happiness in this life would come and all nonsense would disappear of its own power. Somehow I could trust him, and my journey began. My initial interest in Buddhism was solely to remedy my own situation, like a very ill person seeking medical treatment. I was fairly successful in establishing a regular meditation practice at home. I tried not to miss a single
There is no nihilism inthe concept [that nothing intrinsically exists], no denial of reality or existence, but rather a profound view of the very nature of existence. If things do not exist in absolute terms, but do nevertheless exist, then their nature must be sought in the relationships that bring them together. Only these relationships between objects exist, and not the objects themselves. Objects are relationships. Physics and Beyond Werner Heisenberg
Self-manifestation, which has never existed as such, is erroerroneously seen as an object.

Mahamudra: Boundless Joy and Freedom The 3rd Karmapa Rangjung Dorje (1284-1339)
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meditation in the local Buddhist center, because I immediately felt the difference when I did. I was spending all my money on different meditation courses with Lama Ole around the world. This massive and orchestrated attack on my steel-plated ego caused me to be very miserable at times. I was regularly getting myself into unpleasant and painful situations with friends and family. It took me two years just to start smiling back at people. I would ask Lama Ole, Why do some people meet the teachings, say of course, and easily integrate the wisdom in their daily lives, while others have to cough out blood and push through so much inner and outer resistance? Known for his skillful ability to build people up, Lama Ole would answer that strong people need strong blows on the head to understand and pay attention, but not to worry. The same power that was there to get them in trouble and do useless things before would come in handy for tirelessly working for others in the future when all negative tendencies are transformed. Trusting that Lama Ole never said things just to be nice, I would go back to my practice. Soon enough, for the rst time since a long-forgotten childhood, I started to experience very convincing ups, which reinforced my trust in Lama Ole and the Buddhist methods he taught. I discovered that Diamond Way meditations are specically designed to uproot and destroy the hardest resistance of a confused ego. If I sincerely want to change
negative tendencies and become free, so I can be useful to other people, these powerful methods will bring the desired results. Like giant industrial stone grinders, these meditations crush, mangle, and turn into dust all our disturbances, personal trips, and stiff ideas. Needless to say, we need to be quite stubborn and brave to work with such methods. If we persist, however, we are inevitably transformed and shaped into bodhisattvas, beings who can see others on the highest level. It is possible only when we achieve a certain level of inner freedom and insight into the nature of reality. I understood that in order to be happy, we do not need to be ofcially liberated or enlightened. Diamond Way is not a causal vehicle, where the approach is to build causes for future enlightenment. On the contrary, it is a fruition vehicle, where the path is the goal. In other words, our daily behavior and habits are highly reective of our current, immediate level of liberation and enlightenment. At least, thats how I understand Lama Oles constant reminder that highest truth is highest joy, and we should behave like a buddha until we become one. Learning in this way that there is no need to pretend or be afraid of anything, I had an easier time developing the condence in my potential. For centuries, people have not had much support in this department. The dualistic religions, societies, schools, and family traditions of this world all aim at human beings constantly improving themselves, implying that we are not good enough. So when someone tells us for the rst time that we are already precious enough and dont need to spend all our time thinking of how to better our own situation, it feels good but a little awkward. My mind is perfect and in essence clear light sounds inspiring; but until it is actually experienced as such, we dont know what to do with this information. The habit of being self-centered and tense is still there, and it usually takes years of regular Diamond Way meditation practice to transform these limiting tendencies. Gradually, I became more condent in my abilities, accepted myself enough, and started wishing to share my inner richness with others, but now in a less personal way. I saw how, since I learned to recognize my own great qualities, I could now authentically conceive that all others have the same potential. This was a major breakthrough for me. I dont have to be patient because people are so
weak and needy; instead, working with their true potential helps them rediscover the happiness and unshakable reason in every moment of their daily lives. After all, if we are all buddhas, why experience anything less? When we have reached this level of understanding in our development, everything becomes less mentally stressful, although we usually nd ourselves busy working for others more than ever before. Naturally, when mind is clear and happy, the speech and body turn into a solid support for all the bodhisattva activity we are ready for. Having basic wisdom behind our actions, now it is all about nding the right means to communicate. In order to y, we need two wings, and skillful means are the second wing. We will always be there helping others reach the highest possible level of functioning; and, if we are to be successful, we need to develop intelligent ways to deal with people. Knowing the way things are is reduced to nothing if one angrily barks this wisdom at people. They will not listen. There has to be a deep sympathy and love for people to effectively nd the right words and methods to deal with every given situation. It does not happen over night, but
accepted it as the best thing for the whole family, since it tamed the beast responsible for so much pain and suffering. Actions speak for themselvesand much louder than words. I behaved myself and, as a result, half of my family took Buddhist refuge from both Lama Ole and H.H. the 17th Karmapa Trinlay Thaye Dorje. In my view, its the most precious gift one can give to people, and I am glad that it worked with my immediate family in this life. The same goes for friends, lovers, neighbors, co-workers, and pretty much anybody for that matter. We have a beautiful jewel to give to people in the form of this rare and precious opportunity to make a connection with timeless truth, and it is our responsibility to provide them with our own good example. Then, people will ask us what they asked the Buddha 2,500 years ago, Why are you so happy yourself? What makes you so kind and wise with others? So, lets keep this jewel in high respect and make it shine on everybody.
When we have reached this level of understanding in our development, everything becomes less mentally stressful, although we usually nd ourselves busy working for others more than ever before.
we should not be discouraged in the beginning and diligently follow the Nike slogan, Just do it! We can only learn and develop compassion by working for others and, as a result, we will gain even greater experiential insight into the nature of reality. This, in turn, will bring about more useful words and actions for the benet of all. It is a lengthy process and takes a little bit of patience. After I met Lama Ole and became inspired by Buddhism, I wanted to talk about it non-stop with my family and friends, but they were often cold and skeptical. In the past, much of what I was involved in had caused trouble, and I also had only an intellectual understanding of the things I was talking about with no intelligent behavior patterns to back up my words. But as time went on and Diamond Way meditations continued to be a big part of my life, I could not afford to blame others anymore. I wanted to nd ways to reconnect with my family, to show them authentic love and gratitude for always being there for me. It took some years and skillful means, but now nobody argues about Buddhism at the dinner table; and all have quietly
About Eugene Trak Eugene Trak was born in Russia and moved with his family to Los Angeles, CA, in 1988. He and his wife, Lara, manage their own web and graphic design company, which they started in 2001. Since the summer of 2002, they have been living in and helping to run the Diamond Way Buddhist Center of Minneapolis, MN.
BUDDHISM TODAY
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Questions and Answers

Mipham Rinpoche
If children are interested in meditation, what kind of practice is useful for them? We have obtained the opportunity of a human body or human life, with clear awareness and the freedom to study whatever we wish. This is very important and very fortunate. Having obtained such a good opportunity, we should study well. Then, if we can give up mistakes and adopt qualities in the right way, we have the possibility to obtain whatever happiness is here in this world. But more than this, we will also be able to develop immense wellbeing for innumerable future lifetimes. Furthermore, all phenomena in this world are impermanent; and if we do not make efforts quickly, our time and the good opportunity of this human life will be nished sooner than we expect. Nobody has the certainty when the fearful enemy of death will destroy us. Therefore, we have to make sure that we make use of our valuable human life to accomplish any benet. In order to do so, we have to know the short-term and long-term benet for everybody, and good methods to accomplish this benet. Therefore, rst it is important to study; and for these studies to be successful, one needs a good teacher. Having understood ones teachers kindness and reected on it, one should then rely on him or her in a proper way. In this way, one can achieve good results. Nowadays especially, at a time when love, compassion, and honest behavior are decreasing everywhere, and when it is apparent that the world is pervaded by negative actions such as envy, deceit, stealing, ghts, disputes, oppression, bullying, ill-will, torturebetween neighboring villages, neighbors, regions, peoples, institutions, or statesif one teaches children the right view and the meditation of love and compassion, then there will be great benet for themselves, others, and the whole universe. In ones personal world, ghts and problems with parents, siblings, and friends will stop. And, on a greater level worldwide, wars will stop, and inexpressible benet will arise. Editors Note: Due to a stroke, Mipham Rinpoche is unable to speak. Therefore, he does all his teaching by writing it down, either ahead of time for the actual lecture or on a board, in response to questions. For this article, he wrote down everything in Tibetan, and it was then translated into English. Helping with the interview and translating this text were Gabi Coura and Khenpo Karma Ngedn of ITAS, Velez-Malaga (www.itas-uni.eu). What is the best method to alleviate jealousy? If one looks at the merit of peoples positive actions, at their abundant wealth and qualities, and develops happiness about these things, then jealousy in general decreases. More specically, everybodys education, qualities, social status, and economic situation improve. Through the power of this way of seeing, good results will arise in the persons environment, in the region where he or
she lives, wherever it is, and in the whole world. So, it is useful to develop joy. Moreover, through the power of a persons wealth, his or her relatives and close friends benet. According to a Tibetan proverb, If the king has a good harvest, the beggar receives food. As it is said here, it is appropriate to cultivate joy for that person. But if someone considers a rich person to be his or her enemy and has negative thoughts about the rich persons wealth, then ones merit will be consumed; and people will consider him or her to be a dishonest and evil-thinking person. They will not consider the rich man as dishonest. If, under the power of ones negative motivation, one wants the wealth of the rich person for oneself, then in ones surroundings the growth of prosperity, happiness, and peace will be harmed. This is contradictory to ones positive actions, both those in connection with worldly affairs and those in connection with the dharma. Even if one accidentally just once makes a mistake toward ones enemy, this is ones own fault. So it is not suitable to bear a grudge against him or her. If one considers that person to be ones enemy even though he or she did not do anything negative, one sees a faultless person as having faults. Because one is ignorant of ones own mistakes, one belongs nowhere else than among the dishonest persons, one is similar for example to a crazy or drunken person. So, it is suitable for one to cultivate compassion. From generating compassion and positive thoughts, and from cultivating the same view of one another as a mother views her child, jealousy will diminish. How can you best comfort and have compassion for another persons pain, without taking it personally? If we can cultivate intense and one-pointed compassion toward another who is tormented by suffering, then through the power of this, in this very life, both we ourselves and others can easily become free from suffering. For example, a boy sees his own parents being tormented
by the immense suffering of poverty, hunger, and thirst. Because of this, if he can give rise to compassion toward his parents, then immediately this boy will protect his parents from poverty. Concerning the method of obtaining wealth, it comes gradually without big efforts or struggles. There is no doubt that in this way, we and others can gradually become rich in a short time. Therefore, compassion is like an inexhaustible source of merit and the essence of the dharma combined. It is the root for obtaining happiness in this world and for establishing a well-functioning society, and the leading and main factor for annihilating the suffering of ghts and quarrels. How can Buddhism and a modern life co-exist? Based on the progress of the economy and the livelihood we have at the present time, the conditions for accomplishing the noble dharma become more and more favorable. On the other hand, the ideas and conduct that people have nowadays are inappropriate. For example, since the rst and the second world wars, nuclear weapons have become predominant. These weapons have the capacity to destroy the whole world in a single moment. The Buddhas teachings, which have the view of love and compassion, can prevent this. Also, if modern science can be mutually interdependent with the wealth that the dharma can bringthe wealth that cannot be obtained by modern progress alone, the perfect state of happiness in this and the next life then this is a very good sign. So to me, it seems that the dharma is in harmony with human life and the progress of modern science in this century, and one can be happy about this. One hundred years ago, when physics rst became popular, scientists and followers of religions pursued contradictory views, and there were discussions and arguments. However, in the last one hundred years, major changes occurred to alter the situation as it was before. How did this happen? In the last century, in 1905, Albert Einstein established the theory of relativity. Then, in
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1913, 1920, 1930, and following years, the Danish scholar and scientist Bohr and others made use of quantum mechanics, and at the University of Paris intensive experiments were conducted, with very famous results. Because of this, many people changed their way of thinking profoundly. The Buddha, our compassionate teacher, had already foreseen this. Many scholars were very surprised and developed condence and conviction. Since then, they said, they took a big step toward the East and Buddhists. Scholars also say that the meaning established by quantum mechanics is similar to the word of the Buddha, which surprises people. The American professor of physics, Fritjof Capra, composed a book about how the view of modern science and Buddhism and other Eastern views are brought together, and he explains that these two views are very much in harmony.1 Within a period of fteen years, this book sold one million copies and was translated into twelve languages. Most readers welcomed and praised the book. Such things began to happen again and again. In 1987, and over recent years, many learned and accomplished Buddhist masters and Western scientists have had dialogues, both in the United States and elsewhere. They said they gained an understanding similar to that of discovering a new island in the ocean. Later in his life, Einstein, who obtained such fame so as to be called the father of modern science, wrote in his memoirs: If we consider religion and science as two separate domains, still these two are strongly interconnected. Religions without science are like blind persons, and sciences without religion are like cripples. Earlier he also said: The religion of the future will be special for the world. Unlike religions believing in a creator of the world, or those adhering only to scriptures, the subject matter will be the bringing together of environment and consciousness. Based on a way of thinking whose essence is religion, the main point needs to be the division between matter and environment on the one hand, and consciousness on the other hand.
1 The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism, Shambhala Publications, 2000.
Buddhist teachings are consistent with this. The Tibetan scholar Gendun Chophel says: Every part of our world viewthe basis, the path to go, and the qualities of the resultcan form the foundation for science. In brief, when the dharma, which shows an unmistaken method for beneting all and is unable to do even the smallest harm, is associated with honest people, then there is no problem. In our modern times, when science is making exciting discoveries, dharma practitioners need have no problem associating with science, because the Buddha himself said: I have no conict with the world. He also said: Whatever I have said, one should analyze it through logic and reasoning, in the same way as one discovers that gold is pure by examining it thoroughly. Practice preceded by logical analysis is held to be supreme. Through the open mind of learned and accomplished Buddhist scholars, scientists, and those with a vast knowledge of modern times, the mutual interdependence of Buddhism and science will ourish.
Meditation Basics
Getting into the Habit of Practice

Steve James
The American professor of physics, Fritjof Capra, composed a book about how the view of modern science and Buddhism and other Eastern views are brought together, in which he explains that these two views are very much in harmony. Within a period of fteen years, this book sold one million copies and was translated into twelve languages.
If you do a lot of meditation practice in one weekend, the ego can say, Hey, look at me, I meditated all weekend! But if you meditate regularly, then the ego does not have the same power. How do we get this precious habit of meditating each day? If we are lucky, it comes naturally. Maybe we developed it in our last life, maybe we did not. Either way, in this life we have already managed to acquire at least one useful habit. Sometimes we do it once a day, sometimes twice. And if we dont do it, there is a funny taste in our mouth at the end of the day. This habit is nothing other than brushing our teeth, which we can use as an example of how to develop a regular meditation practice. Imagine that when you were a child, your mother told you that if you brushed your teeth you would grow up to be rich and famous, and that this then became your motivation to do it. For many years you brushed away, patiently waiting for your rst big movie contract or to win big money in the lottery. At some time, perhaps many years later, you started to realize that this association was wrong. You felt disappointed, cheated even. You decided that brushing your teeth doesnt work, that youve wasted your time and energy for nothing!
About Mipham Rinpoche

Mipham Rinpoche was born in Tibet in 1949. In 1959, many Tibetans ed the country because practicing the dharma became impossible. Because he was seriously ill at the time, Rinpoche was allowed to stay in his monastery, Junyung Gompa. He spent thirteen years in retreat, learning Buddhist philosophy and practicing meditation. Later, he worked on rebuilding the monastery. Having suffered a stroke, he left Tibet in 1994 for medical treatment. He is a scholar and master of the Nyingma tradition, and he teaches in the traditional style. He is the father of H.H. the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa Trinlay Thaye Dorje. He now lives with his wife Mayumla at the Karma Kagyu International Retreat Center in Karma Guen, Spain.
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Well there is a parallel here to meditation. If you start to meditate because you want to become rich and famous, because you want to have some far-out experiences, then perhaps for awhile your motivation is strong, but it will soon weaken. And when you do not achieve your desired results, you become disheartened and reluctant to practice. The once frequent visits to the cushion happen less and less, and you search for an explanation. You think that this meditation doesnt work for you, that you should nd another meditation or another teacher. Or, even more commonly, you get the inkling that although other people can learn to mediate, you cannot. In both of these situations, we did not understand the reason for what we were doing. But while it is quite clear why we brush our teeth, it is sometimes less clear why we meditate. We meditate in order to see what is behind the thoughts, what is listening through our ears and looking through our eyes. We want to know the richness of our mind, the mirror and the pictures in it that come and go. Materialism and taking everything very seriously is painful because we cant keep what we want and avoid old age, sickness, death, and loss. It is like a lot of pictures but no mirror. On the other hand, nihilism and not caring about anything is like a mirror with no pictures. It is also not satisfying because there is no meaning or joy. And because we are not independent from everyone else, we meditate so that we can have the surplus and wisdom to really help others. But back now to getting the habit. What if you brush your teeth according to how they feel? You might be the
type that only brushes your teeth when they are absolutely covered in food or someone complains about your breath. Alternatively, you could only brush when your teeth already feel clean, so you could make them super squeaky clean. By analogy, this would be like meditating only at a crisis point, or only meditating when we feel very happy and the sun is already shining. If we think that we should practice only when certain conditions are present, then we block ourselves from doing it when they are not there. Asking ourselves, How do I feel? Is now a good time to meditate? actually makes it more difcult to meditate regularly. In fact, it is always a good time to meditate, and this has nothing to do with whether we feel well or not. Ive decided to brush my teeth now, but where did I leave my toothbrush? Oh, I left it in the car. But what about the toothpaste, where did I last have that? Hmm, I thought I left it in this kitchen drawer, but I cant seem to nd it. And where should I brush today? Oh, its so tough to start each day! Imagine that every day you had to go around the house gathering all your things so you could brush your teeth. There would be a lot of time spent looking for things sometimes you wouldnt nd things, and on other days you would end up with no time to brush. The same goes for meditation. Make yourself a pleasant place to sit down that is comfortable, clean, and well lit. Keep your cushion, text, mala (meditation beads), and any pictures all in the same place. Then, when you get the idea to start, it will be easier. When we are new to practice, we should make it as easy as possible for ourselves and support the habit. When the conditionslike the place and our postureare good, it will be more natural for our mind to settle. While we are brushing our teeth, we dont stop constantly to check how our teeth look in the mirror. We dont incessantly ask ourselves, Am I doing a good job? Am I a good tooth-brusher? Do other people look up to me as an example of good tooth-brushing, or do they laugh about me behind my back? We just start, do a good job, and nish. No fuss, no half-time analysis, no expert opinionswe just do it. We also dont try to simultaneously tie our shoelaces or vacuum the lounge; we just brush our teeth. And with meditation, we should also try to stick to just meditation. We can turn off our mobile phones, and most importantly, we can turn off our policeman consciousness that is always checking our performance. We can take the pressure off ourselves to do well or to do a certain number of repetitions because we know that, just as with brushing our teeth, it is simply good just to do it. And in letting ourselves relax, we give the opportunity for holes in the stream of our habitual thoughts to appear,
and for new insights to ll these. If we brushed our teeth with a chopstick, when we washed out our mouth we might see that the water was clean and think we did a good job. If we then used a brush and some toothpaste, the result when we washed out our mouth would be quite different. We would be happy that this method works and then happily wash it all away down the sink, since there is nothing else that we could do with it. When we take refuge and develop the enlightened attitude in the Prostrations and say the mantra in the Diamond Mind meditation (part of the Ngondro, or preliminary practices of Diamond Way Buddhism), we are principally trying to purify the mind. We want to remove all the clutter and excess baggage of strange ideas and habits that we carry around. So when things appear in our mind that disturb or distract us, rather than giving them a lot of attention, we could think to ourselves, Ah, the meditation is a good method, and now I can let go of these ideas. I dont need to go and tell everyone about them. They are like guests leaving at the end of a terrible party: no need to see them again. Although most of the work for cleaning our teeth comes from our daily habit, it is also important to see a dentist from time to time. This expert in dental health can quickly look inside your mouth and check to see that everything is in orderthat no cavities are developing and that you will keep your smile. Likewise, much of our development comes from the meditations we do either on our own or in groups, but it is also essential to see your lama or teacher from time to time. The teacher not only checks how we are doing, but s/he is also the example that inspires us and shows us what is possible. Finally, we try to remember that the only difference between ourselves and the Buddha is that he meditated more.
Glossary
Diamond Mind meditation: The second of the Four Foundational Practices (Tib. Ngondro). Practitioners use the one hundred syllable mantra of Diamond Mind (Tib. Dorje Sempa, Skt. Vajrasattva) to purify all the imprints of former negative words, thoughts, and actions. Mala: A chain made up of beads that is used for counting mantras, expressions of a buddha aspect on the level of sound. The end bead is called a stupa bead, signifying the truth state (Skt. dharmakaya) in which one has recognized the absence of ego or self, as well as all the inner qualities inherent in mind. The large bead below represents the great joy state (Skt. sambhogakaya) gained by understanding and recognizing minds potential. Prostrations: The rst of the Four Foundational Practices (Tib. Ngondro). The practice aims at clearing obscurations and accumulating good impressions. It is a very physical and powerful practice, focusing mainly on activities of the body.
About Steve James

Steve James took Buddhist refuge in 1993 and then helped establish Diamond Way Buddhism in the United Kingdom. He now works as a doctor in London, England, and lives with his partner Maya Mller and son Juri.
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Song of Realization
Milarepa
Editors Note: This spontaneous song of realization was sung by Karma Kagyu lineage forefather Milarepa (1052-1135). He expresses his enlightenment for the benet of three jealous scholars who were challenging him and lacked realization themselves. They later became his students.
When I practice Mahamudra, I rest myself in the intrinsic state, Relaxingly without distraction or effort. In the realm of Voidness, I rest myself with Illumination. In the realm of Blissfulness, I rest myself in Awareness. In the realm of Non-thought, I rest myself with a naked mind. In manifestations and activities, I rest myself in Samadhi. Meditating on the Mind-Essence in such a manner Numerous understandings and convictions arise. By Self-illumination all is accomplished without effort. Looking no more for Enlightenment, I am extremely happy. Free from both hope and fear, I feel very joyful. Oh, what a pleasure it is to enjoy Confusion when as Wisdom it appears!
From The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa translated by Garma C.C. Chang 1999. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publication Inc., Boston, MA. www.shambhala.com Milarepa (1052-1135) was born in the Gungthang province of Western Tibet, close to Nepal. Hehad a hard childhood and a dark youth. Milarepa was only seven when his father died andrelatives took over his fathers property, maltreating the bereaved family. His mother, bitter, sent Milarepa to train in black magic so he couldwreak revenge on those who had blighted her life. She was given her wish: Milarepa proved adept at the practices and unleashed a tide of destruction, killing many. But he came to regret his actions, and looked for help in shedding the bad karma acquired during his vengeful adolescence. He rst attached himself to a Nyingmapa Lama Rongton, who, observing that Milarepa had an afnity for Marpa, sent him to await Marpas return. Milarepas reward was to suffer years of testing at his masters hands. Among other trials, he built a nine-story tower to Marpas specications. Finally, Marpa gave Milarepa full transmission ofall he had learned from Naropa and other Indian masters. Practicing these teachings for many years, Milarepa attained enlightenment in one lifetime and became known for his songs of realization. Of his own students, Gampopa (1079-1135) became his lineage-holder andin turn was the teacher of the 1st Karmapa Dusum Khyenpa (1110-1193).
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Book Review
Last Rights: Rescuing the End of Life from the Medical System
by Stephen P. Kiernan
St. Martins Press 2006 ISBN-13: 978-0-312-34224-1
Aaron Crook
No truth of living is more poignant and sobering, yet at the same time more ignored and forgotten, than the fragile mortality of human life. Stephen Kiernans book Last Rights: Rescuing the End of Life from the Medical System examines how our ultra modern and technologically marvelous medical system dehumanizes one of the most genuine and true experiences that all of us will face: the moment of our own death. The Baby Boom generation is marching forward in time with no compassionate system to embrace them and their families as they face their mortality in the coming years. Kiernan implicates fear of dying and a culture of life at any economic cost as two of the basic causes. Kiernans award-winning work as a journalist and investigative reporter for the Boston Globe and the Burlington Free Press gives credence to his conclusions. This book is written with a masterful blend of scholarly reporting and human-centered story telling that shows the experience, wishes, and reconciliations of people using the vastly differing end-of-life medical care that our system is capable of delivering. These powerful stories range from patients fortunate enough to utilize hospice care (palliative in nature and focused on reducing symptoms), to patients and families who are medically uneducated and hold unrealistic hopes for recovery often fed by the for-prot medical systems and their own physicians fear of death and dying. Kiernan details the wide variety of experiences that patients and their families bear in their moments of dying and in being present at that moment. He gives voice to the concerns of patients and families who felt that their doctors did not hear them, speak their language, or even care. Having worked in emergency care for six years, I could not be more supportive of Kiernans conclusions. Imagine holding the hand of a woman whose husband is sprawled out on a stretcher with tubes and wires protruding everywhere. The physician approaches to tell her that her husband has suffered an acute myocardial infarction.
She looks to me for a translation and asks if he was in a coma. I know he will not live, yet it goes against the medical culture for me to tell her, and the doctor is unwilling, perhaps fearful, or perhaps conditioned, not to feel obligated to explain. Several weeks ago, I did a clinical rotation and was assigned to care for a woman with terminal brain and lung cancer. All of the staff in the hospital knew she was dying. Instead of telling the truth and giving the family time to grieve and come to terms with the imminent death of their mother, the oncologist decided that the family was not ready to hear the news. Thus, the woman and her family were made to needlessly suffer while spending their last days in a curative-based medical culture by a doctor who didnt want to tell the truth or accept another defeat. Unfortunately, this is not the exception but the rule. Kiernans book details the advent of the hospice movement as an opportunity for understanding and human development. Kiernan writes several beautiful stories where patients live their remaining days in the company of loved ones, taking time to mend old wounds, fulll last wishes, and afrm their living days. This is the moment when medical care is administered with compassion and the focus of care is on the experience of the living patient and his/her family, not just a medical record number or disease name. Kiernan seems quick to credit the success or failure of end-of-life care to doctors and physicians. To his own credit, he does mention nurses as important care providers, but his descriptions dont do justice to the boots-on-theground reality of the interdisciplinary nature of medical care. No doubt MDs make important decisions in the care of their patients, but the culture of institutional medicine is set by a diverse team of medical professionals of which physicians are only a part. He briey touches on the success of the interdisciplinary approach, but too often refers only to doctors when describing the administrators of medical care. Offering an olive branch to medical professionals who want to change their practices, Kiernan details his own familys blunders in dealing with his fathers death, and clearly hopes to lead by example. He shows how proper education and research about best practices in the care of the dying can lead to a revolution in the way that end-of-life situations are viewed. Kiernan argues that under the care of properly trained hospice professionals, there is no reason to die in fear or pain. From a Buddhist perspective, where ones state of mind determines all, especially at the moment of death, no better gift could be given.
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BUDDHISM TODAY

Spring/Summer 2007 Number 19

Karma Guen: A Bridge Between East and West

Letters to the Editor

Meditation: Planting Seeds in the Mind

Buddhism in Everyday Life

Questions and Answers

The Six Liberating Actionsthe Paramitas

Masculine/Feminine: A Fresh Buddhist Look

Buddhism and Quantum Mechanics

From the Editors

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Karma Guen: A Bridge Between East and West

BUDDHISM TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER 2007

BUDDHISM TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER 2007

Meditation: Planting Seeds in the Mind

About Roland Beck

BUDDHISM TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER 2007

Lama Ole Nydahl teaching Phowa

H.H. the 17th Karmapa

Shamar Rinpoche blessing Lama Ole Nydahl

BUDDHISM TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER 2007

Guru Yoga: Marpa the Translator

BUDDHISM TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER 2007

Shamarpa: The Red Hat Karmapa

About H.H. the 14th Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche

BUDDHISM BUDDHISM TODAY TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER | SPRING/SUMMER 2007 2006

BUDDHISM BUDDHISM TODAY TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER | SPRING/SUMMER 2007 2006

Lama Ole Nydahl

BUDDHISM TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER 2007

BUDDHISM TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER 2007

BUDDHISM TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER 2007

General Relativity and Cosmology

A quantum state merely furnishes information.

BUDDHISM BUDDHISM TODAY TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER | SPRING/SUMMER 2007 2006

In the modern world, Buddhism and science are natural allies.

Buddha vs. Aristotle

The law of cause and effect is often referred to as karma.

BUDDHISM TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER 2007

Buddhism in Everyday Life

Discovering the Power of Diamond Way Meditations

Self-manifestation, which has never existed as such, is erroerroneously seen as an object.

BUDDHISM BUDDHISM TODAY TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER | SPRING/SUMMER 2007 2006

Questions and Answers

BUDDHISM TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER 2007

Getting into the Habit of Practice

About Mipham Rinpoche

BUDDHISM TODAY | SPRING/SUMMER 2007

About Steve James