HH The Dalai Lama on Shantideva's Bodhisattva's Way of Life

I was among 5,000 fortunate beings who attended 5 x 2hour sessions by His Holiness on this wonderful text, written in the 8th century. The translation He used was by Stephen Batchelor, and varies in some respects to the translation I include in my list of books.

As always with His Holiness, He started off with a gentle hour or so talking generalities, then He turned to the text - and jumped straight to Chapter 9 - Perfection of Wisdom.  This is perhaps the most difficult part of the text, as deals in depth with Emptiness and the philosophical arguments to support the concepts. He stayed on this for the best part of two sessions.  He covered in some detail the conventional appearance of the five skandhas or aggregates, the understanding of which is so important.

There was one moment when, in a combination of His words and gestures, I knew "I've got IT!" - and then, in that same instant, IT was gone!  Maybe that is Emptiness?

Once again I experienced the joyfulness of just hearing His Holiness reading and commenting on the text in Tibetan.  Without understanding a word, I had the feeling I was receiving His teaching, and the teachings of all the masters who were His teachers, in a truly authentic transmission. Conceptual, cognitive understanding was unnecessary.  Just receiving the transmission was joyful, enlightening and beneficial to all sentient beings.

I urge all people who have the opportunity to attend any session by His Holiness to make every endeavour to attend.  Forget about motivation, understanding and learning, just be there.  You will find yourself becoming content with just where you are at the time and you will find yourself smiling a lot, not just at His frequent outbursts of humour.  It's just good to be with Him - and with any of the other authentic teachers that we are so blessed to have visit us so frequently.

Yours in Dharma,  Vajramate.

When Being Buddhist Gets too Hard

I have been away from engagement with my community for a year now.  I have barely seen my Rinpoche, even though he is less than 20km away, partly because of his illness with dengue fever.  Our community is not functioning well.  We catch up with other from time to time and every so often we meet for a practice, but somehow everything seems withdrawn.

Maybe this has been my year to churn over what this is all about.  I still practice in one way or another at least 5 days a week, and do some reading most nights. I am writing this tonight mainly to put something up and recommence  and reinforce my contemplation.

Next weekend I will be blessed by being able to spend 3 days with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Melbourne, where he is doing a teaching on Shantideva's Bodhisattva's Way of Life.  The book I most turn to for daily reading is a translation of Shantideva's teaching, as listed in my reading list.  So this teaching will have great relevance for me.  Another blessing is that the three monks from Kyegu are still here and will be at the teachings.  I include the photo of them at the last teaching by His Holiness in Sydney as a source of inspiration and gratitude for their presence.

I will publish this now, so I have some action on this blog.  I will be back within 2 weeks with a few words around the teachings, maybe even with a little wisdom to pass on. 

Thank you for being with me as I move through this illusion of Buddhism being Too Hard.

Yours in Dharma,  Vajramate