Buttercupchappati Chronicles

a new one

Two thousand and eleven, a year well launched with friends and family, laughter, dancing, singing, momo's, Texas chili, margaritas and The Rocky Horror Picture Show on dvd.

I suspect the horror part was all of us doing the time warp some time around midnight, but anyway...

It was cozy - and that is one of my main words for this coming year. I want to snuggle in and read, study, work, create, be myself; with occasional outings for travel where I do all that, just in a different place.

Key words for 2011:

reflection

meditation

mantra

reading

study

music - really listening, not just playing in the background

healing - myself and my patients

art

writing

solitude

gratitude

poetry

a dharma year
a catching up year
a year where I return to Amdo - always!
a year where I say hello to myself, everyday

well - resolution comes from resolve, so let's just see.
Intention is everything, I tell everyone else that! Best listen to my own awesome advice.

Happy new year everyone!
Peaceful, safe, prosperous and brilliant.

three years, three months, three weeks and three days

I have just had an interesting experience.

I was offered the chance to do a three year retreat in India. This is the standing goal of many dharma students. To take yourself out of the temporal world with all its distractions and meditate for three years, under the guidance and instruction of a teacher.

I did not hesitate.

I refused.

As the words were coming out of my mouth, I was shocked, but knew I was hearing a truth.

The first thing that I thought was, no, that's too long to be away from my Tibetan Medicine practice, it's too many people I would not be able to help. And in that moment I knew I have taken into myself as an un-shakeable belief that compassion in action is my path. Our great Master of TTM, Yuthok Yonten Gonpo said that when faced with a choice of doing your practice or helping someone, help, because that is your practice.

This probably doesn't seem like a big thing to anyone else, and you might be scratching your head or yawning and wondering why I bothered to share.

For me however, it's huge. I know on an instinctive level that the choices I have made over the last few years, the work, the study, the conviction that I was not fooling myself into a dead end, are all right for me. Because I did not stop even for a micro second when I said no. It was like someone else's voice leaving my body and telling my truth.

But it was  my voice, and I am so very happy to have heard it at last.

 

Trungpa Rinpoche nails it - again!

THE MAJESTY OF THE WORLD IS ALWAYS THERE

Look at the sun. The sun is shining. Nobody polishes the sun. The sun just shines. Look at the moon, the sky, the world at its best. Unfortunately, we human beings try to fit everything into conditionality. We try to make something out of nothing. We have messed everything up. That's our problem. We have to go back to the sun and the moon, to dragons, tigers, lions, garudas (mythical birds.) We can be like the blue sky, sweethearts, and the clouds so clean, so beautiful. We don't have to try too hard to find ourselves. We haven't really lost anything; we just have to tune in. The majesty of the world is always there.

From "Helping Others," in GREAT EASTERN SUN: THE WISDOM OF SHAMBHALA

I felt this when I read it this morning.

It was not like reading and taking it in with my conscious thinking mind; it was more a breathing in and feeling it in the solar plexus, breathing out and knowing it in my cells.

He's right, (he's always right).

So stop trying so hard - good advice to self - will she take it?

Go forth and tune in!

yes, it's me

I love Pema Chodren, she is like a beautiful dharma grandmother, even her voice brings you comfort!

This is my launching place for 2010.

I needed this reminder that all the tools, the wisdom, the advice, and the knowledge I need to navigate this coming year, are already in my life.

My practice room/meditation room /office/girlcave also has my library of dharma books. And Pema is well represented in there.

Just looking at those books brings me comfort sometimes.

I know that whenever I need it, I can just take one down, and words will pour over me in a stream of compassion, learning and even - maybe - a glimpse of enlightenment. And when it is kindness that I need, and understanding, and a hand over the rough bits (plenty of those), and a gentle nudge that all the teachings I need are in front of my face every day - then Pema Chodron is the one I reach for over and over.

So many times I bless the friend who pointed me in that direction, and have passed the blessing on to many others, as we should.

Thank you Pema, may all of your aspirations be swiftly realised, may you live long, happily and well.

Kora

Kora

Enjoy some armchair travel with the pictures at the link above, because a virtual kora is better than none! My pictures from my last day in Mcleodganj last year. LL and I took a long slow kora and I took all these to remind me how lucky I was to be there.

And it was good to re-visit them today, I needed the beautiful memories.

What is Kora you ask? wiki it here what is kora?

why we need Guru Rinpoche - now and always

"My father is wisdom and my mother is voidness.

My country is the country of Dharma.

I am of no caste and no creed.

I am sustained by perplexity; and I am here to destroy lust, anger and sloth."

Guru Padmasambhava

Guru Rinpoche handprint, Nepal

running on the spot

it doesn't take you anywhere! 

A busy week, but don't ask me what I've been doing because it feels like I've been staring at walls and out of windows. Quiet week in the clinic which is always dangerous because I am so bad at being bored.

What's that? I could study, well yes I could and when Dr Nida is back in April asking questions in class I will be wishing I had studied instead of day-dreaming. 

Or I could go watch Buffy instead.

Back in Melbourne this weekend, two TTM get-togethers, one on Saturday with the new Ku Nye students and one on Sunday with the TTM girls. I am looking forward to both so I don't really mind being back in the city for two days.

Trungpa Rinpoche always said the cure for boredom is to meditate or do your practice. Well he was the example of everything that boring and bored is NOT. Un-enlightened, non-crazy wisdom me finds it really hard to sit well when I am in that state of mind. This weeks mantra has been "love your practice, love your practice, love your practice", fired up the meditation students with it too. 

They got it. 

Am I loving my practice? Not enough.

Not even loving love this week, no poetry to share. Picked up Rumi,  put him down, same for Donne, Hafiz, Lorca, Wyatt, even my beautiful my beloved Neruda is hiding the love from me this week. e.e.cummings might as well be written in Greek.

And there is something else that is making me nuts... language.  How hard is it to find a teacher for Tibetan language, I mean really! I feel like this quest is just about up there with the Holy Grail. I calculate I've been looking for a Tibetan language teacher for a good four years now. I keep asking around, hoping, driving miles and miles up and down the highway to classes that vanish while I am in transit. Or someone who was teaching is now in India, well lucky bloody them! If I don't connect with someone soon, the part of my brain that does language will be dried up and look like a goji berry! 

Maybe I should take up LL's offer of her house in Mcleodganj and go and do the three month course at the library. And be done with it.

The pressure is quite real because when I do my internship (as part of the TTM course) at the Tibetan Medicine Hospital in Xining, no translators are provided. So a bit more than hello and thank you is going to be needed. 

At the very least I am going to need "where is the nearest alcoholic beverage" I'm sure!

We should all aspire so high

His Holiness the Dalai Lama's

Three Main Commitments in Life

Firstly, on the level of a human being, His Holiness first commitment is the promotion of human values such as compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment and self-discipline. All human beings are the same. We all want happiness and do not want suffering. Even people who do not believe in religion recognize the importance of these human values in making their life happier. His Holiness refers to these human values as secular ethics. He remains committed to talk about the importance of these human values and share them with everyone he meets.

Secondly, on the level of a religious practitioner, His Holiness second commitment is the promotion of religious harmony and understanding among the world's major religious traditions. Despite philosophical differences, all major world religions have the same potential to create good human beings. It is therefore important for all religious traditions to respect one another and recognize the value of each other's respective traditions. As far as one truth, one religion is concerned, this is relevant on an individual level. However, for the community at large, several truths, several religions are necessary.

Thirdly, His Holiness is a Tibetan and carries the name of the Dalai Lama. Tibetans place their trust in him. Therefore, his third commitment is to the Tibetan issue. His Holiness has a responsibility to act as the free spokesperson of the Tibetans in their struggle for justice. As far as this third commitment is concerned, it will cease to exist once a mutually beneficial solution is reached between the Tibetans and Chinese.

However, His Holiness will carry on with the first two commitments till his last breath. 

Where are our men, and women, of wisdom?

"Those who love peace must learn to organize as well as those who love war."

Dr. Martin Luther King

This was attached to something in my in box this morning and it hit me right in the solar plexus. Straight up, sensible, and such a truth.

But where are these people now, where are our Dr Kings, our Ghandi's, why is Aung San Suu Kyi still imprisoned? How can a young Iranian womans death become her fifteen minutes of fame? (I challenge you, ask five random people her name tomorrow and see who remembers) If we care enough to have the best broadband access so we can watch this stuff, maybe we should care enough to do something about it as well.

Feeling a  little disgusted with my fellow earth monkeys this morning.

On a more positive plane I spent a beautiful evening in the presence of His Holiness Sakya Trizin last night. He was giving Vajrasattva empowerment and refuge for those who wished to take it. 

At least that was the program! In true Tibetan style, he turned that upside down and offered refuge first, giving a really wonderful teaching on the meaning of taking refuge and what the benefits, and responsibilities, are. Then we received the Vajrasattva empowerment. 

His Holiness has a beautiful, warm and loving energy, so very kind. 

There are still a few events in Melbourne, http://melbournesakya.org.au/. 

Go and sit at the feet of a great master.

Beautiful day to study Traditional Tibetan Medicine

We had a wonderful first day for our TTM course. To read posts about it as the course progresses visit:

http://buttercupchappati.typepad.com/travels_in_tibet/

That's where all the news will be!