While it does not seem to be a common discussion within the Tibetan Buddhist community, there seems to be three primary different systems of study found within Tibetan Buddhism. There is the Monastery System, the University System, and the Retreat System.

Under the monastery system, a member becomes a monk, or an ani in the case of a woman. Training includes linguistics, rituals, art, monastery care, and eventually Tantric practices.

Within the university system, the structure of study is focused on academic analysis and understanding. Students begin with Pratimoksha, move on to Madhyamika and Prajnaparamita, and complete with the secret Tantras and practices.

Finally under the retreat system, the methods progress from outer preliminary practice of Ngondro, move on to various Tantric practices, and complete with esoteric Tantric practices of Atiyoga.

I think that it is a wonderful structure to provide a path for different constituencies and personal capabilities.

One of the matters of which I feel we should be aware, is that the form of teaching from a teacher could significantly differ depending on where the teacher’s primary source of study comes from.

A monastic teacher is going to emphasize structure and rituals associated with a practice. A university teacher is going to work with the philosophical methods and Views. A Retreat teacher is going to emphasize personal experience and realization.

I have received teachings from all three kinds of teachers. Each can absolutely take you along the path, they just have very different approaches. Rather than shutting out the value of a given teacher, be aware that the teacher may be approaching teachings from a different perspective depending on their background.

I am not big on rituals, so I have a personal aversion to the rules and regulation forms of Buddhism. I am susceptible to the intellectual analysis, so I am drawn to the university approaches. However, my own personal path is definitely most in-tune to the yogis of retreat practice. When I read biographies of lineage holders, I find myself most intrigued with the yogis who on the surface lived seemingly average lives or wandered as homeless beggars.

The most important point here is to be aware of your own path and follow that which works for you. Just make sure that who ever you follow is an authentic lineage holder. This is easiest when a teacher has completed studies through the monasteries and universities. Its somewhat more difficult when the teacher is from a retreat/yogic method.

I have recently reviewed teachings on 37-Practices of a Bodhisattva and found myself stuck on the Stanza in which Gyalse Togme reminds us to focus our attention on our own faults.

Stanza 31 of the 37-Practices of a Bodhisattva says:

Without making efforts to clearly analyze delusions we have and mistakes we commit,
We still may perform many non-Dharmic deeds even though outwardly practicing the Dharma,
For this reason, examine your mistakes and delusions, the faults we possess,
Then afterwards remove them completely-
Bodhisattvas all practice this way.

It’s a very concise teaching on where to focus our attention. As a practicitioner, I must continually remind myself to direct my attention to my own faults.

I may have the appearance of a Dharma practicitioner even fooling myself. I may remember advice of my teachers. I may recite practices, I may recall the words of teachings, however, if I fail to clearly analyze my delusions, faults, and mistakes; I am really just a false practicitioner.

Khenpo Choga Rinpoche says the essence of the teachings are to watch our thinking. Maintain positive thinking. Simply stated positive thinking can be summarized into the following five positive thinkings: Renunciation, Compassion, Faith, Loving-Kindness, and Wisdom.

The great and auspicious Padmasambhava had said “Though my View is as wide as all the Universe, My actions are as fine as powder [sand].”

Everywhere that I look, the essence of Buddhist practices is right in front of me. Watch our thinking and our minds above everything else. Each moment is a moment to be aware of our thinking, our words, and our actions.

Maybe once we have established some stabilization in our thinking, negative thinking, words, and actions disappear, however, it is not for my concern at this time. I have no stabilization and no realization ….just lots of delusions and mistakes to correct.

During a teaching this weekend from Khenpo Choga Rinpoche, he told us that when faced with others causing problems, we must first decide if we can help without loosing our own positive thinking. If taking action results in negative thinking in us, then it is better to do nothing. Because we can be of no true help if we have negative thinking.

For the last few days, I have been more aware of my thinking. Checking as emotions arise. I am reminded that I am of no help to others if my thinking is not positive and pure. I just continue to go back to checking my own delusions and mistakes.

Many Dharma Blessings,

Geoff

I had a wonderful discussion this afternoon. My son, 15, is starting to see how deceitful, dishonest, and cruel the world really is. Its amazing the rationalization that people will go through to justify their self-serving actions.

There are a couple of things that I wanted to him know:

(1) Yes. People throughout the world are dishonest, deceitful, and cruel. In fact, Patrul Rinpoche said Don’t rely on anybody. Don’t trust anybody. However, Don’t stop trying to do what you can to make the world a better place starting with yourself and your immediate community.

(2) You cannot change the world. Yep! No matter what you do, you cannot expect to change even the thinking of one friend no less the world. However, Don’t stop trying to do what you can to make the world a better place starting with yourself and your immediate community.

(3) Give up any hope that your efforts will do any good. At Best, you can help 20%, the 80% is up to them. They have to do the hard work themselves. You cannot stop, really stop, anyone from doing what they want to do. Someone wants to kill themselves, sorry but if they are set on it, they will do it no matter what you do or say. However, Don’t stop trying to do what you can to make the world a better place starting with yourself and your immediate community.

(4) Focus on your actions not the results. You have 100% control of your actions, your words, and your thinking. You have very little influence on the actions, word, and thinking of others. To the extend that the results depend on anyone else, you are not in control of the results. However, Don’t stop trying to do what you can to make the world a better place starting with yourself and your immediate community.

(4) Never give up on doing good. Never. Even at the sake of your life. Never. Never, Give up!

Many Dharma Blessings,

Geoff

(The following is dedicated to someone close to me that made a bad choice. Fortunately, the results of his actions are not disastrous. However, I pray that the experience can be an opportunity to awaken even slightly and not the beginning of a pattern which could lead to an unfortunate future.)

At every moment we are constantly making choices. Our choices define the direction of our lives.

Repeated choices can quickly become a habit.

Let us say that sometime in your life, you began to act outrageously in order to gain attention. It might be how you dress, how you talk, what you do.

The outrageous behavior gains you attention. Before long many friends and acquaintances begin defining you based on this outrageous behavior. When the “crazy” plans hatch, you are the one that everyone brings in. When something happens, you are the one that everyone looks to first.

While I can say that you always have the ability to change because you have the ability to make different choices, its hard to believe. The most common response is something like “Well, I can’t help it. That is who I am.”

I am telling you that this is not you!

These are your habits. Your habits are not you!

You can have good habits. You can have bad habits. What you chose to do and what you chose to repeat are what become your habits. Before you know it your habitual patterns are controlling you. Stop before its too late!

Khenpo Choga Rinpoche has said that anything repeated becomes a habit. If you repeatedly get angry, you will soon become regarded as an angry person. If you are continually helpful, you will become a kind and helpful person. Looking back, at one time you were not likely an angry person but over time, one moment after another you became an a person who got angry. Now the habit controls you.

Within Buddhism, we slowly but surely begin to become aware of our thoughts. We begin to watch how we “automatically” react to situations. We first train in becoming aware of the emotions and thoughts as they occur. We train our awareness so that we can avoid reacting based on our habitual patterns.

Later we begin to work on removing the auto-reactions all together. Within Buddhism, even the initial reaction, the seemingly automatic response to a situation whether it be fear, disgust, anger, anxiety, etc. are looked upon as habits as well.

So what are we to do? First start paying attention to your thinking and emotions. Watch your immediate response to a situation. Don’t act on your emotions. Don’t automatically do what comes naturally. It is likely a habit

You want to become aware of your automatic reaction to situations. Then, at the very least, stop before you transition from the emotional response into negative action. Create a break. Stop before you act.

Second, consider the benefit of small changes in your thinking and choices. Take a distant view of your actions. It is like looking through a telescope. At the eye-piece, you might make a fractional alteration of its position. However, what you are now looking at, way out in space, is million of miles away from the previous trajectory.

Small changes in our choices can make big changes in our future.

If you make a bad choice in life. Then take action immediately to correct. Whatever you do, don’t repeat it. Don’t turn a bad choice into a bad habit. It’s a lot easier to modify your behavior before it becomes a habit.

Please take note. Before its too late!

May you be free from suffering. May you find unchangeable happiness and the causes of true happiness. I send my love to you.

Many Dharma Blessings,

Geoff

November 12-16, 2005, the Society of Neuroscience is holding its annual conference in Washington, DC. Within an estimated 31,000 of its 37,000 members in attendance, this is the place for presentation of cutting edge research findings for neuroscience (http://web.sfn.org/am2005/ )

A part of the conference presentations revolved around studies related to the effects of meditation on the physical and operation of our brain. The Dalai Lama was the keynote speaker for the conference on Saturday, November 12. His Holiness’ keynote was reportedly a standing-room only sell-out.

Prior to the Conference, the Mind and Life Institute had held its own conference in Washington, DC. Entitled Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation” (see http://www.mindandlife.org/ for information on this and other activities sponsored by this organization). I point this out for anyone who might want to uncover even more research on meditation than what was reported at the Neuroscience Conference.

I wanted to share the highlights reported from the Neuroscience Conference because of its importance to substantiating the benefits of meditation on the brain and ultimately the quality of one’s life. (Read the press releases from the conference at http://web.sfn.org/content/AboutSfN1/NewsReleases/index.html )

First, The presentation of the H.H. Dalai Lama. His Holiness discussed why this research is so important. He states that rather than “supporting” meditation, he emphasized ways to improve the quality of life and “to gain insight into the human psyche.” If in fact, contemplative traditions as the Dalai Lama refers to them, can be shown to improve the quality of life, he is very interested in learning how and why.

Second, he drew a comparison between science and Buddhism in it methods of verification. The Dalai Lama states that in Buddhism, there are three primary sources of knowledge – experience, reason, and testimony – with that of experience clearly being on the top of the Buddhist list. He then points out that empirical evidence should always be put above scriptural authority. Similarly science is always seeking empirical evidence to test theories and obtain new findings.

He completed his remarks by reminding them that in today’s world scientist are held in greater respect. He appealed to them to maintain high levels of ethical principles in their research.

I think that part of this was a call to keep doing the research as scientist despite political and society pressure.

The presentations reported by the Society of Neuroscience on meditation are summarized in one of the releases on their web site. I am just going to give a brief recap of the four presentations reported.

Alteration of the Brain Structure: Sara Lazar, PhD, Harvard Medical School, reported on research on western-style meditators. Based on research with 20 meditators and 15 non-meditators, they found increases in the size and thickness of the brain cortex. This portion of the brain is commonly associated with attention and sensory processing functions of the brain. Normally this portion of the brain reduces in size with age, however, meditation seems to not only stop this shrinkage but actually increases the cortex.

Comparison of Meditation and Sleep: Bruce F. O’Hara, PhD, reported on research being done at the University of Kentucky. The primary findings reported in the release shows that while both sleep and meditation have restorative effect on the brain’s functioning, meditation seem to immediately improve performance on a test called the Psychomotor Vigilance Task. They further reported that significant improvement was noted even with subjects that had no previous meditation experience. The improvements applied to everyone.

Effect of Meditation to Aid Complex Mental Processes: Richard Davidson, PhD reported on the findings of his research at the University of Wisconsin on long-term meditation practices. Dr. Davidson’s research is based on long-term meditators, mostly Tibetan monks, with over 10,000 hours of meditation. The researchers measured “gamma band rhythms” which are apparently brain patterns associated with higher mental activity.

The research shows increased abilities to focus and attention after a period of meditation. More importantly, the base line of an individual were higher in the long-term mediators. The research seems to show the changes in the ability of the brain function as the result of long-term meditation.

Meditation and the Ability to Stabilize the Thinking/Mind: Olivia Carter, PhD, of Harvard University reported on their study of 76 Tibetan Buddhist monks with 5-54 years of meditation experience. She presented their research on meditation effects measured through the perceptual rivalry test used to test consciousness and attention. The findings showed that the monks had a significantly greater ability to focus attention (4.1 seconds vs. 2.6 seconds with no suggestions made by the researchers). Second and probably more important, the research showed even greater significance in ability of monks over non-meditators to focus their attention when instructed to do so. While the results to date, do not prove an ability to alleviate depression or stress, they are reportedly consistent with monks’ claims that they can in fact direct their thinking towards “a positive and calm state.” More research will need to be completed before they can make any scientific claims about alleviating depression and stress.

In summary, it is really wonderful what is being reported here. The studies addressed both immediate benefits of meditation as well as long-term benefits of adopting meditation practices. The studies showed benefits for both western “part-time meditation as well increasing benefits of committed monks. The research showed measurable increases in our brain’s performance, long-term changes in the baseline abilities of our brains, and significant changes in the actual size of important brain regions.

There is lot to study here. For us meditation practicitioners, we welcome the research if only to confirm what we already believe to be true – from testimony and personal experience.

Many Dharma Blessings,

Geoff