Cham Sem : A kind and loving heart, a mind of loving kindness

"For over a thousand years, the study and practice of buddist teachings have grown in Tibet, entering all areas of Tibetan society and life. The tradition of sport, education, art and culture which flourished during this period features among the most sophisticated in the Buddist world.

Unfortunately, the future of this exceptional cultural heritage is threatened today.

Since 2001 the Art’Tibet Association has actively supported schools, monastries and masters to help keep this invaluable culture alive. I genuinely support their work and am convinced of the importance of their actions to preserve our tradition." Sogyal Rinpoche

Among the different projects, Cham Sem is supporting the Manali School in many ways and you will find here a wonderfull report "life at school" illustrating the work done by the association...

You can support them by sponsoring a child or a nun but also by participating to a volonteer mission in India or Tibet (they are looking for english teachers for exemple) ! This could be a precious opportunity to put into practice the teachings and to contribute in a concrete way to help the Tibetans and support their culture of peace, wisdom and non-violence so vital for humanity.

Contact : tibet_chamsem@yahoo.fr

Website : http://www.art-tibet.fr/index.html

The Rigpa Youth thank you blues

Rigpa Youth is still very much alive and kicking, but unfortunatly we didn't get the opportunity to write about it. Recently we had a meditation retreat at Lerab Ling, called What meditation really is where loads of young peeps where present. We had some nice walks and lunches together, and at the end of the retreat some very creative members wrote a 'thank you blues' to thank Sogyal Rinpoche for all the teachings he gave on meditation. I managed to record the song, so enjoy!




[Written by Han]

Awake with Sogyal Rinpoche

Thanks to some creative peeps in Holland, Sogyal Rinpoche is soon going to steel the show in Amsterdam

"Awake! Awake in the morning, in your life, in the world, and on Wednesday 4 May. That’s when Rigpa Netherlands is organising the Buddhist ‘mind and meditation event’ entitled Awake with Sogyal Rinpoche, in Amsterdam’s premier music venue, Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ. "


For more info go to the Official Rigpa site or straight to the Awake site.

Reflections on black swan

recently saw the movie Black Swan--kind of a must-see for a ballet
enthusiast like me. It was really interesting to observe myself
watching the movie, which was not only a story about a dancer but a
deep psychological portrait about becoming a woman and discovering
your sexuality and your dark side. I was brought up with very little
in ways of scary movies, kind of always kept away from those because I
used to have a lot of nightmares. For that reason I was not sure
whether I would be able to cope with the horror-aspect of this movie.

It was here that I found another opportunity to bring my practice into
my daily life. As I saw all the blood and suffering, I reminded myself
that it was empty, and actually it really inspired and vividified (I
just made that word up ;-) my visualizations of the wrathful
deities. Because wrathful deities are just another aspect of
reality--they are the forceful energies that are behind strong
emotions like aggression. They show us that we don't have to actually
destroy ourselves or others when aggression arises, as the character
in Black Swan does, but instead we can transform this emotion to rise
above ourselves. Indeed, to become a powerful black swan, yet without
its maliciousness. I think these visualizations are one of the amazing
tools that Tibetan Buddhism has to deal with emotions and use them in
very creative ways.

It also occurred to me that I am so lucky to have the teachings. If
only the main character in Black Swan would have had a way to train
her mind--for it is the case that all fear and anxiety come from an
untamed mind. And she is so consumed by anxiety...

Finally, the movie powerfully shows how we create the world with our
minds, as the Buddha also said in the dhammapada (we are what we
think// all that we arises with our thoughts// with our thoughts we
make the world). The movie often left me wondering whether what I was
looking at what "reality" or just a delusion of the protagonist. But
of course reality does not exist, and everything we and others see is
to some extent a delusion. It's just that some may be more delusory
than others... And importantly, some are more painful than others.

Thinking about death...

In the days between Christmas and new year's I attended Sogyal
Rinpoche's annual retreat in Kirchheim, Germany. This year's theme was
death and dying. It was very powerful to receive and contemplate
teachings on such a topic. I think those teachings are particularly
poignant when you are young, because we tend to so professionally ban
death out of our lives here in the West. And yet, it is true that
death can happen at any moment. I often think of the accident I had
this Summer where I was hit by a car while I was biking. How easily
could it have turned out differently, and would I not have been able
to tell you the story... And as Sogyal Rinpoche often says, how do you
know that you will even wake up again tomorrow? Even young people die
sometimes. Just... randomly. You never know. For me remembering death
really makes me appreciate life, how lucky I am to be alive in good
circumstances. But more importantly, it helps me think about what I
want to do with my life. I notice that often I think that the most
meaningful things I do will happen in the future because right now I
am still learning. But what if there is no future? Then we'll have to
do with what is now, and what counts is whether we were kind to that
person we encountered on the bus, or whether we were pushing that
person aside because she was in our way and we needed to get
somewhere. Really every moment counts.

Another realization from that retreat was the idea that really, we
don't need to cram every moment with activity. If we take a moment to
rest in what is, that is the greatest teaching. Because when we die, we'll
enter into the bardos and if
we're not able to rest in what is, then we'll have an agonizing
time. Yet if you're young and ambitious like me, you have a tendency
to want to make everything either productive or fun, and you'll avoid
those gaps. So my reminder slogan has become "don't forget the gaps!"

A New Year's eve in meditation to open the year !

It’s been three weeks since the Christmas retreat at Lérab Ling concluded, but I can still feel the benefits of the precious teachings we received. We were 130 retreatants from all ages and backgrounds to spend seven days studying and practicing Sogyal Rinpoche's teachings. Practicing “shamatha” or mindfulness meditation was the central theme of the retreat. But there was also a focus on love and kindness practices.

Study groups were a key part of the retreat program. Each day, we had a one hour session devoted to share our daily experience with the members of our group. The “youth group” is a good example of the personal change which occurred during the retreat. Being a group facing similar challenges concerning studies, career, and relationships, we had specially rich and friendly exchanges. Having some difficulties at the beginning to express our doubts and limitations regarding the teachings we were receiving, we could witness how our mind and hearts opened after each practice we were introduced to. We learned that sharing is about talking about our own experience, but most important, it's about listening and learning from other’s experience. I hope that the youth group will continue growing together and supporting each other on this path.

Celebrating New Year often means making resolutions for the year to come. And what better way to conclude the year doing some inner work with the deep wish to transform our minds for the benefit of others!



Un réveillon en méditation pour bien commencer l'année.

Cela fait déjà trois semaines que la retraite de Noël à Lérab Ling s'est terminée, mais je peux encore ressentir les bienfaits des précieux enseignements qui nous ont été délivrés. Nous étions 130 retraitants, de tous les âges et milieux professionnels à consacrer sept jours à l’étude et à la pratique des enseignements de Sogyal Rinpoche. La pratique de « shamatha » ou méditation du repos calme a été le thème central de cette retraite. Un accent a été mis également sur les pratiques d’amour-tendresse.

Les groupes d'étude ont eu une place primordiale dans le programme de la retraite. Chaque jour, on consacrait une heure au partage de notre expérience quotidienne avec les membres de notre groupe. Le groupe des jeunes est un bon exemple du changement personnel qui a eu lieu au fil des jours, tout au long de la retraite. Comme nous étions un groupe faisant face à des défis communs concernant les études, la carrière et les relations avec les autres, nous avons pu avoir des discussions très amicales et enrichissantes. Ayant eu quelques difficultés au départ, pour exprimer nos doutes et nos limites concernant les enseignements qu’on recevait, nous avons été témoins de la manière dont notre esprit et nos cœurs se sont ouverts au fur et à mesure que nous étions introduits aux différentes pratiques. Nous avons appris que partager c’est parler de notre propre expérience mais c’est surtout écouter les autres et apprendre de leur expérience. J’espère que le groupe des jeunes continuera à grandir ensemble et à se soutenir sur ce chemin...

Célébrer la nouvelle année est une opportunité pour prendre des résolutions pour l’année à venir. Et quelle meilleur manière de le faire qu’en faisant un travail d’introspection avec le ferme désir de transformer notre esprit pour le bien d’autrui!

Miriam C.

Celebrating a Buddhist Christmas?

Every year around this time I start reflecting again on the question
what Christmas means to me as a Buddhist. Having been brought up in a
Christian country with respect for religion, Christmas has always been
important to me, and it has usually meant something like "peace on
earth." And of course, world peace is the final goal, isn't it?

As Christmas comes at the end of a year, I always feel the need to
reflect on what happened in the year, what it brought to me, what I
learned, and how I want to continue and grow in the next year.

Christmas is also a time to simply be with family and to appreciate
how lucky I am to have so many loving people around me, and a roof
over my head and delicious food in my belly. As I wrote about before,
gratitude is one of those things that makes people happiest.

Finally, Christmas is a time to really consider those who are not as
lucky as me. I often like to do a practice like Tonglen or Loving
Kindness to really think of those people and to wish them
well. Sending positive intentions into the world at this quiet time
(at least it's quiet in the West, especially when we have such a large
amount of snow!) is very powerful, I'm sure.

So although I do not celebrate Christmas quite in the traditional
ways, it is still one of my favourite holidays to be with my family.

The treasures of respect and gratitude

Maybe the above topics sound quite scary for a youth blog, but
actually I think respect and gratitude are things that can make us
really happy beings. I started thinking a lot about these topics after
some e-mail conversations with my ballet teacher. Namely, in ballet,
which has its roots in the 17th century courts, respect is very
important. For example, at the end of a ballet class, the students
typically thank the teacher and the pianist with a reverence
(bow). Interestingly, this culture of respect is very much present in
Tibetan temples and monasteries, too. It is rooted in the view that
every being has a buddha nature, and is a potential buddha. In fact,
you never know whether the being in front of you right now is in fact
a highly realized being.

I recently read the book The Power of An Open Question by Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel which is a
beautiful example of this open attitude towards the world. I think
real respect is not necessarily unquestioning; it rather is a sense of
openness to whatever presents itself to you, and then to investigate
it. If you are not respectful to that view, that you will only overlay
it with your own preconceptions, your own wants and needs. How often
do we not want the world to be different, our teacher to be different
(and sessions not so long), because in fact we are not ready to really
receive. In the world of ballet, the function of adhering to these
age-old traditions is to make you more open to what the teacher has to
teach you, so that s/he can take you into the uncomfortable zone where
you need to go if you want to progress. The same applies, I think, to
a Buddhist context, where our attitude of respect and gratitude for
the teachings and the teacher and each other can take us to the
uncomfortable zone where our ego is slowly being crushed.

Although ego-crushing sounds terrible too, I believe that cultivating
this open, respectful and grateful attitude is also what makes us
happy. We become happier when we see all the wonderful gifts we are
receiving at every moment, and focusing on that reduces our focus on
our discomforts. When we focus on our discomforts, we only become more
self-absorbed, and therefore we are not ready to receive. Instead of
being in a constant battle with life, we can be in a constant open
state, ready to receive whatever teachings may come our way.

International Forum on Buddhism and Medicine at Lerab Ling

It was forecast to rain but the sun shone brightly as almost 1,000 healthcare professionals and members of the general public descended on Lerab Ling recently for the Third International Forum on Buddhism and Medicine. In previous years the forum had been held in Montpellier and so this was the first time it was to be in such an environment, and indeed the first time many of these people had ever seen a temple like this.

As Sogyal Rinpoche said in his opening speech, this was a sacred place, and the atmosphere created by just being in the space of the temple was palpable. Some connected immediately, for others it was more challenging, but all were here to find out more about what such an ancient tradition had to offer them and the healthcare community at large.

Buddhism and medicine were deeply intertwined in the lives of traditional practitioners in the East, indeed Buddhism played an important role in the development of traditional Indian medicine as well as interacting with many indigenous medical traditions across Asia. In the West a much stronger separation between secular medicine and religion exists, but the two share a common goal, to free beings from suffering.

Buddhism's holistic approach of not recognising a dualistic separation between mind and body, as Jon Kabat-Zinn mentioned in his presentation, is now being confirmed by neuroscience itself. This shifting perception of the interaction between mind and body opens the way even more for a dialogue between the eastern science of the mind, Buddhism, and western science.

Many of the participants were completely new to meditation. The Buddha always said not to take his word for it, but to investigate for ourselves whether his methods worked. And here we were with world-renowned scientists such as Clifford Saron and Erika Rosenberg from the Shamatha Project, neuroscientist Sara W. Lazar, and of course Jon Kabat-Zinn, a pioneer of the secular use of meditation techniques, all of whom had put in the groundwork to show on our Western scientific terms that meditation had real effects and benefits.

Participants were also able to try out the techniques themselves in guided meditation practices. Speakers such as Lucio Bizzini and Ursula Bates outlined ways in which meditation and mindfulness were already being put into practice in health care settings, providing real inspiration and guidance for those wanting to integrate some of what they had heard into their professional lives.

Events like these are particularly helpful for young people who have grown up in our cynical, science based society. Seeing the research can give confidence in our own first hand experiences, and make it easier to explain our beliefs to family and friends who are not so receptive. From my personal point of view what was truly inspiring about the forum was the idea that Buddhism could reach beyond the walls of a 'religion' and be of huge benefit to those suffering around the world who are not open to it in its traditional form.

Jon Kabat-Zinn recalled what the Dalai Lama had said to him the first time he presented his work on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) to His Holiness. “There are four billion people in the world. One billion of them are Buddhists, but all four billion of them are suffering.” The world's population may have grown a little since then, but the sentiment remains the same. If we are truly striving for all beings to be happy and free of suffering, we have to recognise that it is not realistic or even skilful to expect everyone to be able to follow the same path. This does not diminish the importance of what Buddhism has to offer the world at large, and events such as the International Forum on Buddhism and Medicine are key in furthering the dialogue between the two worlds.

As the forum came to a close, one couldn't help but wonder where the research will go next and the different areas in which meditation and mindfulness can be applied. Even more exciting though was thinking about the people who attended and what they would now do with what they had heard. It is not hard to imagine some of them up on stage in the future, presenting their own ground-breaking research or application. The possibilities are as vast as suffering itself, and the potential for benefit immense.

Where practice really matters: an accident

It actually already happened a few months ago, but I was too busy too
blog beforehand. At the end of August, I was involved in an accident:
I broke five ribs and had stuff in my lungs (pulmonary contusions)
because I was hit by a car while I was biking. It was a great
lesson in the power of practice. Even though I am by no means a great
practitioner, I started to get a sense of what the masters mean when
they say that they welcome obstacles and suffering, as fuel for their
practice. It is during suffering that you can see how powerful the
practice is, even if you feel you are mostly distracted when sitting
on your cushion.

When the accident happened, somehow there was no fear, because there
is always the refuge in the lama, and in Guru Rinpoche. Guru Rinpoche
is such a powerful Buddha that you are protected, no matter what. When
an accident like this happens, I pray with all my might and feel his
blessing, as in the Heart Practice described in the Tibetan Book of
Living and Dying. After they had made all the diagnosis, I was taken
to the Intensive Care unit. My job was simply to breathe, because
breathing deeply would prevent the contusions from turning into
pneumonia. It was thus literally "breathing as if your life depended
on it," as Jon Kabat-Zinn likes to say. Since I had nothing with me,
not even a cell phone, I just spent the first 24 hours mostly
breathing, and meditating. It was like an involuntary retreat. What
was amazing was that the nursing staff seemed to really appreciate the
atmosphere it created in the room. I also spent some time doing the
practice of Tonglen, for all those people suffering much more than I
did, and especially for the driver of the car who had hit me. Focusing
on others' suffering really makes your own suffering decrease.

I also appreciated the teachings on emptiness when I had a lot of
pain. When you contemplate the impermanence and interdependence of
things, somehow the reality, including the pain, becomes less
solid. And it turned out the pain was really not so bad. In fact, my
suffering was so much eased by this tremendous gratitude that I had
the teachings, and that I had so many wonderful people around me who
came to visit, who called, who prayer for me, and who helped me in
many ways. I was really protected by the Buddha, the Dharma and the
Sangha.

Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche in Lerab Ling

I recently extended my stay in Lerab Ling, the upside of which was that I was able to be here for the visit of Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche. I remember when I first heard Sogyal Rinpoche teach, at the Myall Lakes retreat in Australia many years ago. I had seen some of his teachings before at a Rigpa centre and read a bit of the book (The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying), but I didn't really know what to expect from a live teaching. I was of course completely blown away by his presence and his message. That's how I ended up, much to my surprise, on the other side of the world living in a tent with a view of a Tibetan Buddhist temple.

Since then I have had the immense blessing of receiving teachings from many great masters who had been invited here to Lerab Ling, and each has been an inspiration and illuminated the teachings of the Buddha in a different way. Having said that, not since my first meeting with Sogyal Rinpoche have I been so astounded and invigorated by a teacher as I was after the public talk by Khandro Rinpoche. I had never heard of Khandro Rinpoche before (I'm not very good at knowing names of masters and lineages, I look to my shedra friends for help with that!), and so once again had not known what to expect and was thoroughly wonder-struck. Luckily for me Rigpa Youth would also have the opportunity to interview her.

Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche

The eldest daughter of Kyabje Mindrolling Trichen and the incarnation of the great Khandro Ugyen Tsomo, she grew up receiving teachings and transmissions from some of the most revered Tibetan masters of our age including Kyabje Mindrolling Trichen, Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche and Kyabje Tulku Ugyen Rinpoche. She has been teaching in the West for over seventeen years, has established and heads the Samten Tse Retreat Center in India, and the Lotus Garden Retreat Centre in America. She also heads a variety of charity projects and released a book in 2003 entitled “This Precious Life: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on the Path to Enlightenment”.

My personal impression was that she was clearly a formidable master with a sharp mind, impressively articulate in English, uncompromising in her approach, and with an excellent sense of humour. She was not interested in pretences or outward displays, but in piece by piece dismantling us and uncovering the heart of our being. It was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying.

Both the public talk and our interview were incredibly vast in content, yet inspiringly simple. What I found to be her main message was that the Dharma is at its essence about working with yourself. Not intellectually as we Westerners are prone to do, but courageously and honestly, through self examination and wholeheartedly putting the teachings into practice internally. It sounds obvious when you put it in a sentence like that, but as she described various pitfalls along the path I was surprised at what a little self examination uncovered.

Loyalist Buddhists vs Practising Buddhists

I'm somewhat sheepsih to admit that recently I have been, to use Khandro Rinpoches terms, more of a loyalist Buddhist than a practising Buddhist. That is I have been approaching the Dharma from a fairly intellectual standpoint, unable to deny the truth that resonated with me but unwilling to make any serious changes internally. It turns out this is a common occurrence. As Rinpoche pointed out, we are at an important juncture for Buddhism in the West where it is no longer something new but has been around for generations, and it is no longer sufficient to associate with Buddhism theoretically but, in the words of Khandro Rinpoche “it becomes very important now to actually engage with and experience the teachings as a practitioner”.

As the next generation of Western Buddhists, we have a certain obligation to help maintain the authenticity of Buddhism. But authenticity is not about being or appearing Buddhist, spinning your prayer wheel, doing prostrations, hanging thangkas on your wall or being able to recite scriptures by heart. As Khandro Rinpoche asked us, who would you rather sit next to on a long flight, a very knowledgeable obnoxious Buddhist or a very nice person? It may be rhetorical, but the real question is are we unknowingly on our way to becoming that knowledgeable but obnoxious Buddhist? Are we keeping the Dharma on an appearance level, or are we genuinely and authentically practising it? Not just thinking about it, but practising it. Rinpoche strongly stressed the importance of not becoming 'religious' about the Dharma, not taking it as something that you can just believe in but not integrate.

In our interview with her she made the point that the intelligent mind of the modern young Westerner is not content with following dogmas, we want the freedom to explore, the freedom to find our own way. The structure and the system are there to provide clues on how to progress along the path, but we want it to be our own “individual journey which is not dominated by people who say how things should be done, nor rules that should be followed if your heart doesn’t connect to it”. We don't want Buddhism the religion, something to just believe. We want to examine for ourselves, experience for ourselves. The problem however lies in our tendency to do that which we are trying to avoid, to intellectualise our understanding and approach to the Dhrama, preventing genuine change within ourselves.

Khandro Rinpoche urged us to “break free from such a pretentious connection to the Buddha Dharma” and reminded us that the path we are walking on is the path of really working with oneself. She inspired me to re evaluate how I was using the precious teachings that I had received from Sogyal Rinpoche over the years, and to be more honest, courageous and compassionate with myself along the path. In such a short space I am obviously not able to go into great detail about what she taught, such as the importance of a foundation built on contemplation of the four thoughts and the seven points of mind training.
We are already working on a video edit of our Rigpa Youth interview, but in the mean time you can listen to the audio here:
Khandro Rinpoche with Rigpa Youth (mp3)

Those that missed the live streaming can watch the complete public talk:

Compassion Versus Competition: An Essential Teaching on the Buddhist Practice of Lojong
Khandro Rinpoche - Lerab Ling, 1 October 2010

An interview without answers

Last night we had an interview with Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel at the Shambhala center in Amsterdam. Although not that many people attended, it was heartwarming that young students of different masters all came together: Shambhala, Rigpa, WakeUp and Dzogchen Community were represented.

With Rigpa Youth I've interviewed several lama's over the past two years and those have all been very cool and contained helpful advice for young practitioners. I thought this interview with Elizabeth would be just the same..
I had our list of questions and was curious for the fresh advice Elizabeth was going to offer us. But she did something even better: rather than just answering our questions, she engaged us in inquiry into our own questions. With shock I realised I hadn't really thought about these questions deeply myself, I was just waiting for teachers to answer them for me!

Elizabeth was saying that answers are static things but questions are always open and relating to things dynamically. When you think you have the answer, your mind shuts down and you're not receptive anymore. Asking an open question, enquiring in this way, is not searching for a static, fixed answer but keeping your mind open and engaged with whatever information comes from your life.

One of the things that struck me is that she encouraged us, when we sit on our cushion, really to ask ourselves: "what am I doing? and why?" From what I understood, this doesn't mean the usual "why do i have to sit everday? it's challenging, boring, etc.." or to try to come up with the traditional explanation from the Buddhist teachings.

Rather, it's trying to find a way to explain to yourself, in your own language, what the Dharma is about. Making it really personal, rather than struggling to impose on yourself something external, with a lot of "shoulds and should nots".

What I took home with me
Shoulds and high ideals are some of my main obstacles. Lately, i'm stuggling with doing a daily practice. I intuit that this kind of enquiry is just the thing I need, because part of my resistance comes from feeling that Dharma practice is imposed on me, like a pressure or burden. I feel like I need to improve myself because i'm not good enough and also that I have a responsibility towards humanity and my teachers to practice and live up to the extraordinary teachings I've received. This sounds quite big and I think that's exactly the reason I feel intimidated by my cushion.

I'm hoping that through engaging in this kind of enquiry, i can make my understanding of the Dharma and my motivation for practice more personal and let go of some of these external pressures i'm putting on myself.

All in all, Elizabeth didn't give me any clear-cut answers, but she showed me how to engage with my questions myself, to relate the traditional teachings to my own life and make the Dharma more personally meaningful and enrich my spiritual path.

Thank you so much! :-)

We're working on a video edit but you can listen to the interview here (70 minutes, mp3)