The Retreat Hut (original) (raw)
How my ngondro practice sessions are structured. ( Read more...Collapse )
I find the practice really informative and transformative. I've read the Words of My Perfect Teacher many times, but in this format, I really have to memorize its essential details. Also the Guide [to the Words of My Perfect Teacher] was written by the previous incarnation of my teacher, and it's amazing. I haven't read that before and it's very illuminating.
Ok there's been interest already, so if you are interested, please go to 
chos_grwa to join!
Please only join if you are serious about wishing to study The Words of my Perfect Teacher.
We don't want lots of drama, we just want to study the books.
Namaste!
I have been entertaining the idea of studying a text or sutra in a group.
I now have a copy of WOMPT and the Guide to WOMPT, and I feel that this would make an ideal pair of texts to study in a group.
Now time is an issue for me - I'm disabled, I'm quite often ill or very tired, and I can't guarentee being awake enough to think about something deep at a specific time each week.
So why not online?
So I was thinking of setting up an LJ community for studying Words of my Perfect Teacher and the guide.
I'd email the publishers and find out if I can type up the passages to be studied each week so that not everyone has to have the books, though I'm not sure they'll allow this.
So, let me know if you're interested and if there are enough people, I'll form a community!
(This is more aimed at Tibetan Buddhists as it's a Tibetan text, but any one who seriously wants to study the text and discuss what it means is welcome)
X-Posted
I hope everyone's day is blessed and filled with joy!
Namaste!
OK questions first...
1. Name you want to go by: Djon Ma
2. Refuge name: Karma Dechen Djon Ma
3. Lineage affiliation(s) (if applicable): Kagyu, though my Lama is qualified in both Kagyu and Sakya Lineages, as his Lama is a Tulku of both a Kagyu and a Sakya Teacher.
4. Main Practice: Orange Manjushri
5. How you came to the Dharma: My Dad lived in Thailand for 17 years before he met my Mum. He counted himself as Buddhist, though he had not taken Refuge.
As a child I was always very interested in Religion and Faith.
My parents finally gave into my demands to be a vegetarian when I was 6.
I went to church with my Mum on Sundays.
I joined a Cathedral Choir and became the Crucifer.
I love certain aspects of Christianity (Jesus taught love, kindness and mercy), but I knew that overall it wasn't 'right' as such.
My Mum went to choir on Tuesday nights, the same night my Dad had started going to a local Buddhist group.
My little brother and I went with him; we'd sit at the back with another child and play around whilst the adults meditated.
Eventually I started joining in with the Meditation and listening to the talks.
One year we were on 'holiday' in the South of France - my Sangha owns some land and a barn there that we've turned into a Temple; every other year the Sangha go there for teachings. My Dad was going for the teachings, my brother and I for the holiday.
I realised that what was being taught was what I actually believed deep down.
It wasn't a sudden 'wow, this is what I want', it was more of an acceptance that I was going back to something I'd always believed.
So not long after I took Refuge.
6. Something fun about you: Fun?
Umm... I don't know.
Something strange and wonderful though:
My Dad is a Rooster (by the Chinese year animal). He thought he was a Dog, but it turns out in the year he was born, the Chinese Year was moved massively, so he was a Rooster.
I'm a Rooster too.
Oddly enough; my Dad took Refuge with our Lama's Lama, Karma Thinley Rinpoche, when he was here teaching.
The time I decided to take Refuge, Rinpoche had come over to England again, and so I took Refuge with him, with my Lama translating.
My Dad and I always find that to be a little strange, but in a good way!
In my practice i did another 120 refuge prayer/prostrations today.
I've pretty much got the refuge prayer memorized, now i need to actually start the prostrations while saying it and work out the rhythm or physical correspondence between the words and the prayer.
So i started the prostrations for the refuge part of my ngondro today. I only did 21. I would have done more, but i'm wondering if in the beginning, it's better to practice accumulations of the refuge prayer (which in the drikung ngondro is quite long= six or eight lines of varying length) and separate accumulations of the prostrations before then combining them. It's really hard to say the refuge prayer while prostrating if you're also trying to read it. Maybe if i do enough accumulatios of the refuge prayer, it will be memorized and then i can combine it with prostrations. It IS harder to memorize things when you don't know what each word means. Most of us can memorize long things. I could easily prostrate while singing the theme to Sesame Street. I guess it just takes repetition. Thoughts?
So i spent the day at Peter and Maureen/Ama-la's house, or well mostly anyway. I received the 'lung' for ngondro and Ama-la gave me her ngondro text and an 8.5x11 framed picture of a photo of Lord Jigten Sumgon. So, so kind. We made thukpa (tibetan noodle soup). I made the noodles. They came out pretty well. Then people began arriving for the practice session. We chanted the 100 syllable mantra for two hours. We accumulated 2000 mantras. My voice is a little gone though. I feel a little overwhelmed at the prospect of doing five sets of 100,000 accumulations of different practices over the course of the next 5-7 years. I'm really, truly looking forward to it though. I read through most of the text, and it was far more beautiful than i expected it to be. (Much more beautiful than the TRANSLATION of the Dudjom Tersar ngondro that i had. I'm comparing nothing more than the translation, folks.) Well....looks like i've got some prostrations to do.
| Poster: |  queerrocket |
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| Date: | 2004-01-26 13:35 |
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| Security: | Public |
so I'm now P'howa empowered, and we did the actual pracice sessions many times of the two day retreat. Traga Rinpoche is so wonderful! He's not quite as goofy as HE Garchen Rinpoche, but the same light, gentle quality--a real readiness to laugh.
This is the only empowerment that i've ever 'wanted.' By that i mean that i've received a bunch of others because that's what teaching was being given and it's always good to learn and receive blessings. The empowerment itself was not quite as elaborate as some others i've participated in because there weren't as many people in attendence (maybe 15 or 20), nor were there as many attendants to Rinpoche (in fact only a Gelugpa Geshe, who himself is quite a learned and realized lama). I've wanted this empowerment and practice for several reasons. First, it is possibly the fastest/easiest path to enlightenment. Second, once mastered, one can be helpful to others in a variety of ways. Lastly, it's one of the major trademarks of my lineage. Drikungpas are known, among other things, for our P'howa (Jag-tshug-ma; standing blade of grass).
Rinpoche also asked me to come wednesday so that he can give me the empowerment and blessing for the Drikung Ngondro.
Suffering is the reminder that we are in Samsara.
The real glory of meditation lies not in any method but in its continual living experience of presence, in its bliss, clarity, peace, and most important of all, complete absence of grasping. The diminishing of grasping in yourself is a sign that you are becoming freer of yourself. And the more you experience this freedom, the clearer the sign that the ego and the hopes and fears that keep it alive are dissolving, and the closer you will come to the infinitely generous "wisdom of egolessness." When you live in the wisdom home, you'll no longer find a barrier between "I" and "you," "this" and "that," "inside" and "outside;" you'll have come, finally, to your true home, the state of non-duality.
-Sogyal Rinpoche
| Poster: | queerrocket |
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| Date: | 2004-01-12 12:25 |
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to you ngondropas, how do you count prostrations?
There are many different methods. I have a friend that uses a regular mala. Some use short malas with big beads. Some people count stones. I have a tin with 108 pennies in it that i transfer from the lid of the tin into the tin itself after each prostration.
Saturday was Dudjom Rinpoche's passing away anniversary. Our Sangha here in Eugene had a Tsok. We did a longer version of Ngondro by accumulations of Refuge/Bodhicitta, Prostrations, vajarasattva and Varja Guru Mantra.
This was my second time to lead the prayers as well as being the Chopin (sp?). did you do any special practice for the anniversary?
Tell tell :)
I've been thinking a lot about going to the 3-Year retreat with Sogyal Rinpoche in the Rigpa center in France. A 3 Year retreat is a long time. Have you been through a retreat? If so how long?
| Poster: | tahgerelluh |
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| Date: | 2004-01-09 16:27 |
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I, too, am not sure that I particularly am a good fit to this community. I have yet to take refuge; I have no teacher. I was mostly hoping to glean knowledge of what practice SHOULD be, or what others experience it to be. Unjoin me if this in an unappropriate association.
Hi:
I'll try to answer the questions as much as I can:
1. The name I go by online is mamcu (LJ username is mamculuna). It's Welsh for grandmother, also what happens when I type my real name, nancy, with hands in wrong place. Most people online call me mamcu because there are so many named nancy, but I'll answer to either.
2. I haven't taken refuge yet (might want to discuss this with you in fact), so have no refuge name.
3. For the last few years I've been going to teachings with a geshe from the Gelugpa lineage ( but about 20 years ago I studied for several years with a group from Kagyu so had learned some things from that perspective).
4. My practice right now is sitting and trying to learn shamata, but go to teachings a good bit on Lam Rim. I also practice hatha yoga and have a teacher with a Buddhist background there, though these classes are not specifically Buddhist.
5. I came to the Dharma very gradually and have given in to laziness and lack of motivation in the past. I guess there is still some debate in my head about whether this really is the path for me. Buddhism is very intellectual, in certain ways, and sometimes I'm drawn to the more emotional aspect of certain kinds of yoga.
6. Some people would say everything about me is funny, but how about this: I think I'm the oldest person on Live Journal--I'm 61.
And glad to meet you all. Thanks for setting this up.
From the Tibetan Buddhist point of view, we can divide our entire existence into four continuously interlinked realities:
1. life; 2. dying and death; 3. after death; and 4. rebirth.
These are known as the four bardos:
1. the natural bardo of this life,
2. the painful bardo of dying,
3. the luminous bardo of dharmata, and
4. the karmic bardo of becoming.
The bardos are particularly powerful opportunities for liberation because there are, the teachings show us, certain moments that are much more powerful than others and much more charged with potential, when whatever you do has a crucial and far-reaching effect.
I think of a bardo as being like a moment when you step toward the edge of a precipice; such a moment, for example, is when a master introduces a disciple to the essential, original, and innermost nature of his or her mind. The greatest and most charged of these moments, however, is the moment of death.
| Poster: | kunde_yidang |
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| Date: | 2004-01-07 20:33 |
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1.Name you want to go by: Whatever the heck you want to call me (or Amalia)
2. Refuge name:Karma Tsultrim Zangmo
3. Lineage affiliation(s) (if applicable):Karma Kagyu
4. Main Practice: Right now I am just doing A basic meditation practice, since due to time restraints, I have had not much time to go to centers and meet with teachers, however, I will probably be starting Ngondro very soon, but my main goal right now is to keep up a steady meditation schedule and also a lot of study. Sadly, with so much business, I have been terrible about it. I hope that this community will help encourage me as I start on a more serious practice.
5. How you came to the Dharma:My neighbors ran the local Tibetan Buddhist center from their home and I ahve lived jnext to them since I was 6 months old.
6. Something fun about you or something almost TOO personal: I did have a cheesy conversion experience ;-)
1.Name you want to go by: Sam
2. Refuge name: Dawa Tsering
3. Lineage affiliation(s) (if applicable): Nyingma
4. Main Practice: Ngondro - Dudjom Tersar, slowly integrating Longchen Nyingtik.
5. How you came to the Dharma: Seeing His Holiness Dalai Lama on TV for the first time, and began to profusely cry.
6. Something fun about you or something almost TOO personal:
Once during a meditation sitting, I fell asleep and fell over backwards from my cushion.
1.Name you want to go by: Paul
2. Refuge name: Thubten Sherab
3. Lineage affiliation(s) (if applicable): Mostly Drikung Kagyu with some Dudjom Tersar Nyingma teachings as well
4. Main Practice: ngondro and soon to be Phowa
5. How you came to the Dharma: an old girlfriend's older brother got me into it when i was around 14.
6. Something fun about you or something almost TOO personal: my toes are so long that my mom says i can swing from trees.
A friend and I have decided to create this lj-community for dharma practitioners just to discuss dharma practice.
The community is a closed community, so if you're interested, check out the community bio, and let me know if you want in. The only clincher is that you need to have a formal practice that you're actively working on and willing to talk about to join. The reason that we decided to keep it closed was to ensure that it is a relatively small group of dedicated practitioners. Privacy reasons come into play some, and members will be deleted if they do not post AT LEAST every couple weeks (unless there is good reason). This isn't an ego trip; we just wanted to avoid a community of lurkers. It's also added incentive for some of us lazybones to practice more often to have something to write about. One's Dharma practice doesn't have to be constantly fresh and inspiring observations. But noting that it's stale and uninspiring is in itself a post-worthy observation.
In the Dharma,
paul