Blog | Mandala Publications | The official publication of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition

June 3, 2013 by Michael Jolliffe

Making Peace with Our Inner Family

Illustration by Claudia Wellnitz

“Sometimes I meet Buddhists who seem to consider it a waste of time, despite the teachings, to look at the way their own selves are constructed, or study their personal psychological make-up,” writes Claudia Wellnitz, a student of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche since 1980, and who has studied Buddhist psychology, philosophy and Buddhist-based psychotherapy. “Personally I find that borrowing from some Western psychological models can help us to understand more thoroughly what our meditations should be directed at.”

“Many years of exposure to the Dharma or mere scholarship alone don’t guarantee that people will become more balanced and happy, or that their behavior towards others will improve. Sometimes it seems as if the very thing that was made to liberate beings is being used as an instrument to have power over others or harden people’s neurotic ego-structures. People – and I include myself – who have the best of intentions, who so much long to be like saints, fall prey again and again to power trips, fits of jealousy or anger, and create disasters in personal relationships. Often consciously declared intentions, and the things people do, seem to be many hundreds of miles apart. And merely remembering the rules of Buddhist ethics alone doesn’t help: The energies dominating the person are too strong.”

Chenrezig Institute’s New Art Studio and Entrance Gate

In late April, Garrey Foulkes, arts manager of Chenrezig Institute, shared with Mandala an update about the Chenrezig Institute Art Studio and the new entrance gate that welcomes visitors to FPMT’s oldest Australian center:

Chenrezig Institute new art studio allows artist to produce holy object while also receive some financial support, 2013. Photo courtesy of Garrey Foulkes.

Chenrezig Institute’s new art studio allows artists to produce holy objects while also receiving some financial support, 2013. Photo courtesy of Garrey Foulkes.

“For several months now our new art studio has been established enough for us to start production. Lama Zopa Rinpoche proposed, some 15 years ago, that it would be good to have a facility where Dharma artists could produce holy objects and at the same time have a means of being able to have some financial support. Up to this point, almost all of the work we have been doing has been voluntary and has been spread around in different people’s homes. So at last, the Enlightenment Project for Purification and Merit and the Garden of Enlightenment are all under the one roof, which is so much more efficient.

“The large upper mezzanine level is for fine-art and among other things, caters for regular, well attended, thangka-painting workshops with our resident artist.

The lower level of Chenrezig Institute’s art studio is used for tsa-tsa casting, among other crafts, 2013. Photo courtesy of Garrey Foulkes.

“Downstairs most of our work revolves around casting and assembling tsa-tsas, statues, stupas, prayer wheels and a range of other Dharma products. We hope to continue supplying local centers with items for their shops, expanding our range of products and continuing to offer holy objects to all of the regional centers and students, including those in Asia.

Students and volunteeers who were at Chenrezig Institue for a weekend of teaching with visiting ex-resident teacher Khen Rinpoche Geshe Tashi Tsering, 2013. Photo courtesy of Garrey Foulkes.

Under the new entrance gate: students and volunteers who were at Chenrezig Institute for a weekend of teaching with visiting ex-resident teacher Khen Rinpoche Geshe Tashi Tsering, 2013. Photo courtesy of Garrey Foulkes.

“I’m also happy to announce that after months of very heavy rain, we finally had an opportunity to erect our new entrance gate which has certainly helped create a feeling of ‘arrival’ for our many regular and, especially, new visitors.

“There is still a little more work to do with finishing the painting and some landscaping required, but it is great to have things up to this stage.”

Chenrezig Institute on Australia’s Sunshine Coast is an active and vibrant Dharma center, offering a robust selection of retreats, workshops and events. Check out their Facebook page for photos and announcements.

(Garrey Foulkes kindly offers to answer questions about stupa construction, please contact him directly: foulkes@powerup.com.au)

May 30, 2013 by Michael Jolliffe

Working with the Western Mind

“Drops of Life,” Nicholas Roerich Museum, used with permission.

While on a three-year retreat, Lama Palden Drolma began to see that psychological methods could be helpful for Western Dharma practitioners. Some years later, she became a licensed psychotherapist. She speaks to Jaffa Elias about integrating her work with her experience of teaching, studying and practicing Dharma.

Through Dharma study and practice, the path to complete liberation, we begin by realizing that we are never going to be satisfied through dependence on phenomena – other people, our homes, jobs, body, etc. – as they are impermanent and not ultimately capable of giving us refuge. It is only the Three Jewels that are capable of giving us refuge.

As practitioners we often come up against our own negative habitual patterns. Many varieties of Dharma practice are designed to help us purify and release these patterns. At the same time, the psychological practice of direct inquiry into our conflicting emotions could also be helpful. Some people have the good karma to work with obscurations purely from a Dharma perspective, but many of us need to look at these things psychologically, find out what’s going on and try to unravel it. If our emotional turmoil and/or behaviors are not getting transformed through our practice, it means that there’s some kind of big knot around which some psychological work may be needed….

Lama Zopa Rinpoche Recommends Mantras for Land of Joy’s and Other’s Success

FPMT News Around the World

Land of Joy Team, 2011. Photo courtesy of Land of Joy (www.landofjoy.co.uk/)

Land of Joy, a developing FPMT retreat center in the UK, received more encouragement and advice from Lama Zopa Rinpoche in January and February on how to proceed with their vision for a place “characterized by quietness, a simple lifestyle, provision of comfortable healthful shelter and nourishing vegetarian food, good views and opportunities for peaceful walks … accessible from all over the UK.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s January 11 words were simple and supportive: “I will pray for the success of the retreat place. Thank you very, very, very much.”

Later, on February 15, Land of Joy organizers received more advice. Rinpoche wrote that it is “very important” to recite the mantra of Buddha’s name and the mantra for success, which follow:

Chom dan da de zhin sheg pa / sa zin gyalpo la / chag tsal lo
Ta ya tha / om dari dari / daranyi bendah / soha

Then Rinpoche advised:

Everybody recite one mala [of each mantra] not only for [Kalachakra retreat and] Land of Joy, but also for any wish they have for success, especially to achieve paths and achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, this is what came out good to recite. I’m not sure when I can come to England. If at that time the retreat center has happened, then I can come to visit. Yes, I will pray for the success of retreat center, not only to find, but for it to be of most benefit for sentient beings, for anyone who comes to have realizations, correct realizations. In future when His Holiness the Dalai Lama comes to England, if you have center, you could invite, if that happens, easy.

Land of Joy provides numerous opportunities for volunteers, merit making, and financial offerings. Land of Joy encourages FPMT students and supporters to use the mantras Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommends, not only to support the success of the retreat center itself, but for “the fulfillment of any personal wish.”

If you like what you read on Mandala, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work. Friends of FPMT at the Basic level and higher receive the print magazine Mandala, delivered quarterly to their homes.

May 28, 2013 by Michael Jolliffe

Lama Zopa Rinpoche Spends Saka Dawa at Tushita Meditation Centre

Lama Zopa Rinpoche thanks Tushita Meditation Centre staff and volunteers, May 25, 2013. Photo courtesy of Tushita Meditation Centre via Facebook.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche spent Saka Dawa, May 25, at Tushita Meditation Centre in Dharamsala, India, engaging in a variety of virtuous activities. In addition to feeding the monkeys that live in the area and extensive blessings for Tushita’s three dogs – Nying-je Chenmo (Great Compassion), Yeshe (Wisdom) and Dekyi (Happiness) – Rinpoche gathered staff and volunteers together in Tushita’s newly painted gompa to thank them for their service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blesses Tushita’s dogs, May 25, 2013. Photo courtesy of Tushita Meditation Centre via Facebook.

“Your service is amazing,” Rinpoche told the group. “Doing so much for sentient beings!”

Tushita Meditation Centre is an active FPMT center in McLeod Ganj village, seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile. You can find more photos of the center’s activities, including a Chenrezig initiation with Denma Locho Rinpoche, Glen Svensson’s introductory Buddhist course, and a recently completed set of nyung näs, on Facebook.

May 24, 2013 by Michael Jolliffe

Life Among the Mount Everest Centre Monks

Mount Everest Centre students in Bodhgaya, India, 1974. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

One of FPMT founders Lama Yeshe’s and Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s earliest projects was to support and educate the monks of Mount Everest Centre, a group of local boys from Lawudo, Nepal, that later moved down from the high Himalayas to Kopan in the early 1970s, impelled by the harsh climate. Others would later join this group, such as the Western boy Michael Losang Yeshe, who asked to stay at Kopan when he was six.

Adele Hulse records some of Michael’s and his peer’s experiences at Kopan in Big Love, the forthcoming biography of FPMT founder Lama Yeshe. Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive will publish Big Love later this year and has been sharing excerpts from the book on their Big Love blog. The following is from a recent post:

By 1974 Michael Losang Yeshe, then nine, had spent almost half his life at Kopan. Olivia, his mother, now lived in Japan. One day Michael received a parcel from her. “Lama Yeshe heard about it and came to my room,” said Michael. “‘Where is the parcel?’ he asked. ‘Open it.’ He looked inside and handed me a set of colored pencils. ‘These colors, these are for everyone, not just you.’ He pulled out a shirt and underwear. ‘These you can wear.’ Then he saw the fancy Mickey Mouse watch. ‘You’re too young for a watch; you don’t know how to tell time. This for me. I keep for you.’ If I had kept it, I would only have lost it, or traded it for comics or something a few days later. He never did give it back,” said Michael.

Very occasionally the boys were given cash offerings at pujas. When Michael’s father, Yorgo, married a Nepali woman and moved to Kathmandu, he sponsored a big puja at his house. All the boys there received 100 rupees each. When they returned to Kopan Lama took all the rupees from them. They didn’t need money – Kopan did. Yorgo also donated buffaloes to Kopan so the monastery wouldn’t have to buy milk, and he often drove Lama around town on errands.

Lama Yeshe could shift at the drop of a hat from acting the clown to being extremely wrathful. Every inch the abbot, he would walk up and down the rows of small boys in the gompa, making sure they paid attention and not hesitating to discipline them with judicious use of his heavy mala where required.

“I was a naughty one,” said Tenzin Dorje Rinpoche, also known as Charok Lama. “I was lazy and he beat me on the shoulders with his big mala or with a stick. The big wooden malas really hurt. Many boys cried when Lama hit. The Western view is that hitting is bad, but Lama’s motivation and his way of hitting were different. Somehow I was always happy after he hit me. Of course, there were some boys who really didn’t want to be in the monastery and who didn’t like Lama either. But Lama always told us to have an open ear, to listen to everyone for a good education. That way we would develop bigger ideas, which are more beneficial.”…

Read the entire post by Adele Hulse on the Big Love blog.

May 22, 2013 by Laura Miller

How a Guru Becomes a Powerful Object of Merit

Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Khadro-la, International Office, Portland, Oregon, USA, June 2012. Photo by Marc Sakamoto.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Khadro-la, FPMT International Office, Portland, Oregon, USA, June 2012. Photo by Marc Sakamoto.

At the end of April, Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drolma (Khadro-la) advised FPMT centers, projects, services and students to engage in specific practices and activities “as much as possible” to support Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s health, including offering Long Life Pujas with the Five Dakinis.

At a 2006 long life puja at Chenrezig Institute, Rinpoche reiterated how a guru becomes a powerful object of merit (or as Rinpoche says, a “powerful one”):

… That means there’s no question any time that by offering to the guru then you collect more merit than having made offerings to numberless Buddha, Dharma, Sangha; numberless statues, stupas, scriptures. [It’s the same] even making offering to the “pores” of the guru. Why? Because the object is more powerful than numberless buddhas.

The power is a dependent-arising. Why the guru is more powerful, most powerful, is a dependent-arising; it’s not independent, that power’s not independent, not truly existent. The minute when you have taken a Dharma connection, even a few syllables of mantra, oral transmission or received two or three verses of teaching with the recognition that oneself is a disciple and that [person] is the guru, then the other person, due to this, becomes the most powerful one in one’s own life, [even] more than any of all those other powerful ones, starting from the parents of this life.

In addition to the long life pujas organized by FPMT centers around the world, students can support the FPMT Long Life Puja Fund which arranges long life pujas for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Rinpoche annually.

May 21, 2013 by Michael Jolliffe

Over $60,000 Donated by Lama Zopa Rinpoche to FPMT Puja Fund

Long life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Losang Dragpa Centre, Malaysia, March 17, 2013. Photo by Bill Kane.

In April 2013, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund offered US$65,187 to the FPMT Puja Fund, which sponsors ongoing pujas at the great monasteries in India and Nepal, with over 9,000 Sangha participating. All the pujas are dedicated for the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and to the success of all FPMT centers, projects, students, benefactors and those serving the organization in any way.

For Saka Dawa (this year, May 25), the Puja Fund offers the following:

Tukchuma Puja, 64 Offerings to Kalarupa, Medicine Buddha Puja at Kopan Monastery, Nepal
100,000 recitations of the Praises to the 21 Taras and offerings to Sangha at Kopan Monastery and Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery, Nepal
Offerings to all of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s gurus
Offerings are made to all the Sangha at international Sangha communities
16 Nyung Nä cycles and offering to the nuns at Potawa Nunnery, Tibet
Making and filling of stupas and lunch offering to participants at Chenrezig Institute, Australia
White wash and four giant saffron flower petals are offered to Bouddhanath and Swayambunath stupas in Nepal, as well as offering new umbrellas to the stupas’ pinnacles
A new set of robes of the most precious material is offered to the Buddha inside the Bodhgaya Mahabodhi temple as well as the Jowo Buddha in Lhasa’s Jokang and also gold is offered to the holy face of the Jowo Buddha

Some of the offerings to the Puja Fund were accumulated from what was offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the recent long life pujas in Singapore and Taiwan while on tour in Southeast Asia February through March. A long life puja was also offered to Rinpoche by more than 500 students in Malaysia.

You can read more about the FPMT Puja Fund online and in a recent article in Mandala April-June 2013.

May 17, 2013 by Michael Jolliffe

What Will You Do on Saka Dawa, May 25?

Lama Zopa Rinpoche reading texts while on his exercise bike, US.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche reading texts while on his exercise bike in Washington State, USA.

On May 25, FPMT celebrates Saka Dawa, one of the four great holy days of the Tibetan calendar, which commemorates the Buddha’s birth, death, and parinirvana. FPMT centers, projects, services and students around the world will engage in virtuous activities – such as taking the Eight Mahayana Precepts, completing nyung näs, and performing Guru Shakyamuni Buddha puja – recommended by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Rinpoche frequently mentions that on great holy days such as Saka Dawa, the merit generated by any wholesome activity is multiplied 100 million times.

FPMT International Office participates in the global Saka Dawa activities by honoring and supporting Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s tireless work for others through the annual Work a Day for Rinpoche campaign. Students and supporters of Rinpoche are encouraged to donate part of their salary earned on Saka Dawa (or visualize making an extensive offering) and recite the Sutra of Golden Light for Rinpoche’s health and long life.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche making offerings to a street person in Hong Kong, 2010.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche making offerings to a person in the streets of Hong Kong, 2010.

“When you’re with Rinpoche, the word ‘work’ takes on a whole new meaning,” shares Work a Day for Rinpoche coordinator Justin Jenkins. “I once saw Rinpoche teach for 14 hours straight and immediately after travel to the mountains to do hours of prayers by a lake. I’m happy to coordinate Work a Day for Rinpoche, which is part of my own way of working for Rinpoche and celebrating Saka Dawa.”

Funds from the Work a Day for Rinpoche campaign go to FPMT International Office, which works to support Rinpoche’s vast vision. Your offering benefits the creation of education programs and practice materials; aids all of FPMT’s charitable projects; supports Dharma centers, projects and services; sustains the vast resources on the FPMT website; and more.

May 16, 2013 by Michael Jolliffe

Longku Center Offers Special Practices for Lama Zopa Rinpoche

FPMT News Around the World

Pots filled with soil and worms were circumambulated around a table of holy objects at Longku Center, Bern, Switzerland, April 2013. Photo courtesy of Longku Center.

Pots filled with soil and worms were circumambulated around a table of holy objects at Longku Center, Bern, Switzerland, 2013. Photo courtesy of Longku Center.

On April 30 and May 1, Longku Center in Bern, Switzerland, performed some of the special practices recommended by Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drolma (Khadro-la) and other high lamas to support Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s health and long life. The center arranged the practices in accordance with FPMT CEO Ven. Roger’s April 24 request.

Spiritual program coordinator Regula Burri shared that students at the center “liberated 350 worms, recited the Golden Light Sutra nine times and recited the prayer of the Twenty-One Taras 108 times.”

For the animal liberation, students filled up pots with soil to make a comfy home for hundreds of worms. In the center’s gompa, trays were circumambulated around a table heaped with holy objects, mantras and texts collected by center members while students did practices for the worms.

Students and supporters of Rinpoche are encouraged to complete as many of the recommended practices as possible and report at the end of each month what has been done to director of Center Services Claire Isitt at International Office. These combined efforts will be offered to Rinpoche directly.