Letting Go While Leaving Room For Hope
September 2005
By Lama Surya Das
Dzogchen Center
Austin, Texas
I remember wading through thigh-high monsoon flooded streets in Chang Mai, northern Thailand, when I lived in Asia during the Seventies, and finally seeking asylum at a hotel above the floodline, along with other tourists and foreign journalists. Having an American passport helped, of course. Yet this week I was unprepared for the searing images of carnage and chaos in a great city in our own rich, proud and powerful country, even though my assistant has five...
Recently I was discussing with my friend and teacher, Gyalwang Drukpa Rinpoche, who lives in Nepal, the topic of my latest book, Buddha Standard Time, which deals with the hurriedness and harriedness of life today and the resulting stress caused by not having enough time. Many of our lives have become overwhelmed by not only family and work demands, but also keeping up with the latest, vast forms of communication and technology.
Rinpoche’s response was that time is what you make of it and how you prioritize. Later, in his blog he shared his wisdom on dealing with time sickness.
“So...
The Backyard Bodhisattva
A car mechanic's over-the-top generosity taught Lama Surya Das that bodhisattvas come in all guises.
By Lama Surya Das
Excerpted from "Buddha Is As Buddha Does; The Ten Original Practices for Enlightened Living," (HarperSanFrancisco, 2007). Reprinted with permission.
"The bodhisattva is like the mightiest of warriors but his enemies are not common foes of flesh and bone. His fight is with the inner delusions, the afflictions of selfishness and ego-grasping. . . . He is the real hero, calmly facing any hardship in order to bring peace, happiness, and liberation...
Published in The Dragon magazine- July 2006
SPONTANEOUS MEDITATION:
HIS HOLINESS’ 2006 VISIT TO DZOGCHEN CENTER IN BOSTON AND NEW YORK
by Lama Surya Das
His Holiness the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa flew into Boston on Sunday, April 30, from Mexico City, following upon weeks of teaching in Peru and Mexico. What a joy it was to meet him and his two attendant monks, Ngawang Zangpo and Khenrab, at Logan airport, and drive them to my home in Cambridge. It had been eighteen months since I last saw His Holiness at our retreat center Dzogchen Osel Ling outside Austin,...
Buddha’s Inner Science of Mind and The Joy of Awakening
By Lama Surya Das
Dzogchen Center
For “Science of Mind” mag., March 2004
“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of al things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description…. If there is any religion...
February, 2005
In these days of bitter partisan politics and a war on terror, which is itself a bit terrifying; I feel greatly inspired by spiritual activists such as Aung San Su Kyii of Burma, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and recent Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai of Kenya, whom I had the privilege of joining on a September 11 panel at a church in Harvard Square a few years back. These are individuals we could do well to learn more about and hear more from.
Like Nelson Mandela said in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, I think...
February, 2005
One day The Dalai Lama was invited to Yale University. That evening, the formal hosts’ pedagogues all went to get him. After knocking on the Nobel Laureates door, they were greeted by a man in maroon lama robes wearing a Groucho Marx mask: eyeglasses, nose and moustache. It was His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet himself, having a bit of fun. A jolly lama, indeed.
This is a true story.
I think we often take religion, and ourselves, far too seriously. Life ain’t much fun if we take ourselves too seriously, is it? The sacred realm is not meant to be a grim affair...
February, 2005
I was very moved by the recent new film "Hotel Rwanda", about the genocide
of the Tutsi people ten years ago while the world stood aside. I recommend
this new film to you. It follows along with other Downtown Lama pics
including "Dead Man Walking" and "Schindler’s List", fine examples of art
that raises social conscience and consciousness and can move us to
beneficial action.
However, I am tired of seeing these things a decade after the fact. When
can we see something like this while it is happening, given our modern
media? Then...
Six Steps to Anger Management
Instead of reacting with rage, Buddhist teacher Lama Surya Das says to take a sacred pause and transform your life.
By Lama Surya Das
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Excerpted from "Buddha Is As Buddha Does; The Ten Original Practices for Enlightened Living," (HarperSanFrancisco, 2007). Reprinted with permission.
Patience means not retaliating with anger for anger, or harm for harm, and voluntarily bearing up under difficulties in order to progress on the path of spiritual awakening. How do we actually do this? How do we slow down our conditioned,...
February, 2005
A Little Song of Self-Inquiry
What is the most important question for our time?
(Einstein said it was, in his:
Is this a friendly universe or not?)
My childhood Jeff Lowe, whom we called Coconut due to the feeling of hollowness inside his skull, in fifth grade transmitted to me my first Zen koan (existential conundrum), which I have never really satisfactorily answered:
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Mine:
What is authenticity, really, and what is true and real?
What do I really want and need?
Am I lacking anything?
Why...
