A few days ago i heard that His Holiness Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche attained parinirva at the beginning of this month, at the age of 102.

When i received this news i was very struck by these photographs of him.

These are images of a great Lama, a Lama of Lamas…an embodiment of the dharma, the result of intense unwavering practice.

In the beginning Chatral Rinpoche undertook the starting/ Ngondro practice fourteen times in all. This is a practice which is normally undertaken just the once (and completed with great relief  as each of the five constituent ‘nails’, or re-orientations, is repeated a hundred thousand times). So this would involve making a commitment of time, i think, well in excess of seven years but each time he came to the end of the practice he felt clearer and stronger and so began again.

Following this he received many profound teachings from the great teachers of his time and then set about putting them into practice.

At first living with the goal of attainment of the dharma for the benefit of all beings, and then living to bring the benefit of that practice into our troubled world in the manner appropriate to his way of being, he had different roles including that of a wandering practitioner hermit, a teacher to the most fortunate, a liberator of beings in captivity and also, later in life, as a husband and father. All this was accomplished with integrity – the  activity of compassion which arises directly as the expression of profound wisdom.

As far as possible he avoided worldly entanglements, would not waste his time teaching those whose hearts were not ready to accomplish what he could offer, and he was highly disciplined in his practice. Going to sleep at ten and waking at three, the day was filled mostly with practice… fitting in what else needed to be done in the late afternoon and evening. On retreat in the mountains he would use the practice of tumo to keep from freezing and lived on tsampa (ground barley flour) rations and whatever plant matter was edible when supplies ran short. However it would seem that like others i have met living under somewhat similar conditions his ease of being far surpassed those used to haut cuisine.  His ‘retreat centre’ was his little tent or a cave for shelter…no heating, air conditioning or piped water.  He lived very simply and the donations which he received were used to benefit others…no ‘lining of his pockets’ – no pockets to line! Also he completely eschewed politics.

So self-cherishing was long gone, realisation achieved, and his commitment to all beings could not have been greater….how many like him remain in the world?

His feet no longer walk the earth but, in those he taught and teaches – those touched by his heart – his legacy continues.

James received teachings from him and said that he found him to be very impressive and at the same time very kind, helping him a great deal.

Hopefully, for those of us who are practising the dharma, knowing a little bit more about this great being’s way of life is more inspiring than daunting and perhaps highlights what is of genuine value in the way we spend the remaining precious hours and energy of our own lives.

Whilst direct imitation is unlikely to be the way for (m)any of us! … any move we make towards a whole-hearted commitment to the welfare of all beings, to practicing so that we are bringing the dharma through and as us into each moment of the day, will act in some measure as a counterbalance to, or dissolution of, the turbulence of these times… and move us more and more in his direction.

With great sympathy for those close to him who feel bereft, and especially kind wishes to his wife from whose interview much of the above information was garnered.

Sarva mangalam

Here are some words of advice from a talk he gave at Bodhgaya posted on the Shambhala blog.

Some years ago I remember imparting some ‘definite knowledge’.  At the time I was talking to someone else as well as James, and i had my back to him. However I remember noticing that the quality of his attention had changed. Because, at the time, i was pleased at knowing something a little unusual, i could have imagined that this was because he was surprised or impressed.

Since then i  have had the experience of listening to many people telling me, and other people, the truth about me, about others, and about how things are, or how they should be done, and I suspect that he was in fact  noticing the tightening of the voice and body which goes with having the sense that ‘this is how it is, I know! ‘.
At that point i had lost touch with the ground and gone into a ‘world of one’… speaking out my confident assertion, with actually no particular regard to the listeners. So he was more likely to have been registering that change in me… from an openness to closed certainty.

There can be an artificiality, a tightness and lost disconnectedness, when someone is regurgitating ingested ‘facts’ with a desire to be the ‘one who knows’.  Although its quite understandable to want to be someone who knows, particularly in our culture where becoming a library of information is confused with wisdom, and especially if one’s ‘offerings’  have been disparaged in the past…however it is the discourse (monologue!) of the ego seeking recognition/affirmation.  It can be not very welcoming to others and can come with a, not very tasty, seasoning of pride.

Communication which is really addressed to the other, attuned in seeing and feeling how they are and what is helpful, cooked just for them… not too much and not too little… Even if it perhaps needs sometimes to be directive, it will be received and digested much more readily than a shower of ego driven ‘spears’.

BTW There is something very uncomfortable about the visual image of having a point of view and sitting rigidly upon it (oh…brings tears to the eyes!)

a nice flat bed of nails seems inviting by comparison.                  

Thanks to Tessa Rose of Arcturus publishing who has given permission for the use here of  these lines from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu. 

The highest good is not to seek to do good,
but to allow yourself to become it.
The ordinary person seeks to do good things,
and finds that they cannot do them continually.

The master does not force virtue on others,
thus she is able to accomplish a task.
The ordinary person who uses force,
will find they accomplish nothing.

The kind person acts from the heart,
and accomplishes a multitude of things.
The righteous person acts out of pity,
yet leaves many things undone.
The moral person will act out of duty,
and when no one responds
will roll up his sleeves and use force.

When the Tao is forgotten there is righteousness.
When righteousness is forgotten, there is morality.
When morality is forgotten, there is the law.
The law is the husk of faith,
and trust is the beginning of chaos.

Our basic understandings are not from the Tao
because they come from the depths of our misunderstanding.
The master abides in the fruit and not in the husk.
She dwells in the Tao,
and not in the things that hide it.
This is how she increases in wisdom.

This is from the arcturus publication of the translation by John H McDonald.  It’s a beautiful version of a brilliantly clear translation which is sadly out of print… however a few copies are are still available from Abe books.

So…flapping about when wasp are near really disturbs them and increases the chances of being stung. Understanding this can change our behaviour  and so decrease the chance of being stung. Having a benevolent attitude towards them either because we see them as helpful, or in a bigger way as part of what is, may also help. Creatures certainly can be sensitive to our attitude towards them.

Perhaps we have a similar approach to other human beings who we feel are a threat and may sting us – maybe we flap about in our anxiety – but if, either on a relative or ultimate level, we can understand the conditions operating in the situation then this can soften our tension and, if we are stung, allow a quicker release of the pain.

A dharma investigation will take us back to fundamental ignorance and the arising of the five poisons on the basis of that misunderstanding.

With that, the Buddha’s story about the man hit by a poisoned arrow is very helpful. How much time do we want to spend working out who fired the arrow and why, what the arrow – shaft and tip – is made of, and what kind of feathers the flight, before we pull the arrow out?

Our sense of injustice, with questions like ‘don’t they know?’ and ‘why can’t they see?’ and ‘how could they?’ can often simply answered by… ‘no, they don’t’, ‘because they haven’t looked’, and ‘because they are them’, respectively. The conditioned nature, with egoic centrality, does not invite a questioning tentative approach and, if we had their conditioning, we would behave exactly as they do. The spinning around these questions takes up a lot of time and energy, often to no good effect, and can keep the wound from healing – it’s like scratching the top off  a scab.

So perhaps there is something useful to be said or done, perhaps not. If there is then it is likely to work out better if we truly know who we are and so have the space to be curious about the other, holding gently in mind the question of who they are – both in their true nature and its current precise expression. With that approach our response will be to be more attuned to the actual circumstances prevailing at the time rather than a defensive reactivity based on the past or imaginings.

Sometimes when something hurtful is being chewed over and over I suggest this is a bit like picking up a poisoned dagger which someone has thrown towards you and sticking it in yourself over and over again. There is the possibility just to leave it on the ground where it fell ( if you’re not so ‘solidly defined’ then what will it stick to?).

And  while we are talking about what we and others get up to there is a saying I like which is – as one points a finger at the other there are three fingers pointing back at oneself or, as the Buddha said, ‘a man winnows the faults of others whilst hiding his own like a crafty gamester covering his throw.’ Turning the mirror around to look at what we’re up to is challenging, and sometimes we are too close to the mirror to see clearly, it’s all a bit blurry or we focus just on what seems attractive or unattractive to ourselves – which can be where a teacher comes in very handy – but it’s by altering our own way of being that we really can make a difference. Trying to be helpful while being tangled up is hard to do… we may just become more entangled. But if we can see that happening then, as we are trying, we are learning. To offer to help someone being swept along in a river is a kind expression but it’s more likely to be effective if you are standing on the riverbank with a rope and a lifebuoy than if you are being swept along beside them.

Which leads to Dharma practice… and the old Zen saying if you haven’t got time to meditate for twenty minutes you need to meditate for an hour!

The lads in my village take every opportunity they can to practice their tricks on their skateboards…. I talk with a young woman who is a keen rower and she makes sure to go to bed in time to get up for training…and we who are practising the dharma and trying to turn around the course of, or our relationship with, the supertanker of our conditioned habits and beliefs…how much effort/precision do we give to this?