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During my childhood I learned from a close elder who was born in Ireland (and was herself taught the “old ways”) that a person must be attentive to the presence of sentient, invisible energies. All one’s bounty (I was told) is only attained with the collaboration of the “invisible beings” – the ageless sidhe.
Thankful acknowledgement along with alert observation of one’s actions in the natural environment (to be sure one is not being careless or rude to “the invisibles,” and to sense their response)… are taken for granted by people raised in the “Old Faith” of Ireland. One must stay on one’s toes, and never be ungrateful or arrogant.
Offering “clooties” tied to trees by a County Tipperary sacred spring.
Ireland’s old creation stories make it clear that the earliest successful settlers made a pact with the sidhe. They promised not only to thank and acknowledge such “invisible help” in creating and providing the natural bounty that the people receive from the land, the sea, the air. The early Irish also promised to teach their children, grandchildren and all Ireland’s future generations to maintain the same responsive, grateful relationship with the “invisible ones.”
It was hence with enormous gratitute that I discovered, when first encountering Tibetan Buddhism in my mid-20’s, that the Tibetan people (and my teachers) were also in the habit of gratefully acknowledging “the earth, water and sky beings” of the countryside, rivers and mountains. My heart-lama and first long-term teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was an earth-healer; a master of the mo system of earth-divination; and had been instructed in the arts of rain and hail-making (by becoming self-identified with the sky beings and energies). He also blessed farm animals and led seasonal observances of gratitude.
Trungpa Rinpoche proved to be personally fascinated with the comparable earth/sky/water-spirit practices of the Old Irish folks – people who understood intertwined-life as my grandmother did. He respected and had plans to use my training in that work. He involved me deeply (along with several others) in the design of his Maitri Buddha-family system of mind-healing and understanding of neurosis. He also trained me to use my natural sensitivities in a more focussed way. He made several visits during his lifetime to Ireland to investigate for himself.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche chose unothodox methods in order to reach and engage Western students – diverse people, most of whom were preoccupied with competitive materialism even as hippies (us even acquisitively grasping at “spiritual attainment” like a merit badge, for rising in social hierarchy). Nonetheless I have come to understand that he was firmly grounded in traditional Tibetan methods, principles and intended outcomes. He was not an “out-lyer” but rather a risk-taking pioneer, hoping we would catch up to the importance of the invisible world… if we could approach it humbly and respectfully rather than as a source of personal power and “oh, wow” ego entertainment.
Certainly even His Holiness the Dalai Lama, when asked what he believed was the outcome for everyone attending a teaching he had given in NYC, replied, “for invisible or for visible beings?”
The Irish have their own time-honoured means to listen to, and show respect for, the beings of the invisible such as leaving out bits of food and milk; tied-cloth offerings (clooties); thanking out loud those beings in one’s presence who have contributed to one’s well-being; or walking 3 times clockwise around the dwelling place of the person within (be she visible or invisible) while singing their praise… as a sign of respect.
Tibetan Buddhist practice encourages altar gifts (hopefully kept fresh and well-tended) as well as offering our prostrations; mudras made with one’s hands while offering to one or another invisible yidam (a perfected spiritual quality in cogent, sentient, timeless form); and torma. All such actions focus us to thankfully acknowledge the invisible energies inspiring us, moving about the world of beings on everyone’s behalf, and certainly “set in motion” by our visualisations and intentions.
This is the magic of our relation with the naturally-balanced universe.
Offering torma, with lamp & water offerings
Torma barley flour & butter (or, silver/gold, plasticine) sculptures attempt to directly display the true form of such energy beings… utterly foreign to the usual I-Thou “visual” world as perceived with our physical senses. Rather, these spinning discs and columns of “invisible” pure intention and energy are seamlessly interactive in the infinite fabric of all creation – what we call the Buddha (or as the Lakota suggest, Wakan-tanka… the endless presence which cannot be known or described with words).
• • • Hopefully my limited grasp successful portrays these qualities in a non-grasping way. I dedicate my attempt to His Holiness Chetsang Rinpoche of the Drikung Kagyu. May All Beings Be Truly Happy.
Offered by ngakpa k jigme tonpa – Michael Cerulli Billingsley, today in Brattleboro, VT, USA
When I began this intermittent blog, my first reference was to the interconnected web of actions and beneficence that accompanies us, including having food to eat during the day. Using a photograph of tea-pickers, I wrote that no food or drink comes to our table without considerable and an equally-balancing sacrifice of energy and effort somewhere in the world.
Since that time and similarly to before I had first-publised this Mealtime Prayer, I have spoken it aloud at least once a day… wherever I happened to be. And the consequence has been that I’ve slowly “fine-tuned” the prayer to reduce ambiguity and to ease “seeing” the words as a tangible, energetic tribute.
So now, many months later, I pass along this refined version of our Mealtime Prayer. It echoes and contains all the elements of traditional Tibetan mealtime prayers. This includes 3 repetitions of “Taking Refuge” at the beginning… something not intrinsically expected of non-Buddhists (who may want to recite the dedication in the centre section, without the other Buddhist elements).
• In the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha most excellent, I take Refuge until enlightment is reached. Through the benefit of Generousity and the other Good Deeds, may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings.
• In the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha most excellent, I take Refuge until enlightment is reached. Through the benefit of Generousity and the other Good Deeds, may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings.
• In the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha most excellent, I take Refuge until enlightment is reached. Through the benefit of Generousity and the other Good Deeds, may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings.
• May the energy, effort, blessings, sacrifice and good will which created this meal and brought it here for me to eat, be transformed through my actions, words and thoughts for the benefit of all I may encounter in the coming day… or may affect in any way.
• May all the teachers, lamas and lineage leaders be equally well nourished and blessed.
This dedication of food and your own actions can become part of your own thoughtful “balancing” of the otherwise disproportionate wealth and nourishment we acquire at the unavoidable expense to others. Most Buddhist practitioners in North America and Europe are significantly better cared-for and fed than the people who provide us with our food and many household “goods.” The expenditure of their effort cannot be truly balanced by a few words, but our connection with them is inescapable and so knowing-that becomes part of a balance.
Our frequently-repeated conceptual evocation of this relationship (and our vow to transmute the food provided us into will and effort to benefit others) will absolutely keep all this in mind, and make “guilt” an un-useful outcome. Guilt is a closed system of self-blame. Dedication creates an open environment for beneficial intention… which consciously engages with outcomes for the entire connected world.
We can indeed use well the sustenance we have received… especially when such is how we truly intend the energy to be re-cycled and given to others. Like many other Buddhist prayers (such as the Four Immeasurables), when such a recitation is “perfectly” conceptualised when spoken, it has an excellent chance of becoming true. May it likewise be so for you.
A small collection of practice & meditation objects
Occasionally and for very good reasons, I must “go.” So it has become important for me define and provide for some kind of sacred space, wherever I travel.
Typically a sacred space is dedicated with special attention and “made special” by objects which assist with focus, practice, meditation and quiet contemplation/reading of texts. Hopefully this space is also adequately lit and ventilated, free from distracting noises (especially intermittent ones) and provides a modicum of privacy.
A sacred space can be bare. It can be spare. Or it can be crowded in amongst the objects of the situation, many of which may belong to other people – as part of their lives. Or it could be in a hotel or lodging house, where the activities of others around you may be focussed upon entertainment or business.
Certainly it is your/my own attention and focus which contributes most to the “sacred-ness” of a specially-made place. I have found that if I attempt to create a small shrine with offerings and key objects, it serves to anchor the room and also provide me with a good focus for unruffled, quiet meditation.
For myself, apart from my practice texts (which I keep off the direct floor) and a tiny gong I made for myself at age 26 from a brass incense-burner, I bring a few ritual objects (such as a dorje and bell set, a small damaru – hand drum, and perhaps my larger chöd drum) I also like to have reproductions of a couple of my favourite thangkas which have traveled with me since the ’70’s – one of Milarepa and one of Mahakali, as well as a photo of my key teaching lama. Lastly I always travel with a sweet little “sky metal” (meteoric iron) rupa… shrine statue… of Tara. Somehow this little black Tara has been a terrific focal point for my attention and motivation. Perhaps you have a similar shrine object.
A beautifully handcast Tara of meteoric iron, given to me by Ontul Rinpoche
My point is – make it easy for yourself to shift the energy of a borrowed space while in your temporary travel lodgings. Make it your own, and carefully pack everything which will help you focus and practice. You will have more energy and more balance for anything you might undertake.
May you succeed in finding the solution which works best for yourself.
News Deconstruct:
Source Article: Boy chosen by Dalai Lama turns back on Buddhist order
- TOR_robes
- Dale Fuchs in Madrid
- guardian.co.uk, Sunday 31 May 2009 23.11 BST
As a toddler, he was put on a throne and worshipped by monks who treated him like a god. But the boy chosen by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader has caused consternation – and some embarrassment – for Tibetan Buddhists by turning his back on the order that had such high hopes for him.
Instead of leading a monastic life, Osel Hita Torres now sports baggy trousers and long hair, and is more likely to quote Jimi Hendrix than Buddha.
Yesterday he bemoaned the misery of a youth deprived of television, football and girls. Movies were also forbidden – except for a sanctioned screening of The Golden Child starring Eddie Murphy, about a kidnapped child lama with magical powers. “I never felt like that boy,” he said.
He is now studying film in Madrid and has denounced the Buddhist order that elevated him to guru status. “They took me away from my family and stuck me in a medieval situation in which I suffered a great deal,” said Torres, 24, describing how he was whisked from obscurity in Granada to a monastery in southern India. “It was like living a lie,” he told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. Despite his rebelliousness, he is still known as Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche and revered by the Buddhist community. A prayer for his “long life” still adorns the website of the Foundation to Preserve the Mahayana Tradition, which has 130 centres around the world. The website features a biography of the renegade guru that gushes about his peaceful, meditative countenance as a baby. In Tibetan Buddhism, a lama is one of a lineage of reincarnated spiritual leaders, the most famous of which is the Dalai Lama.
According to the foundation biography, another leader suspected Torres was the reincarnation of the recently deceased Lama Yeshe when he was only five months old. In 1986, at 14 months, his parents took him to see the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. The toddler was chosen out of nine other candidates and eventually “enthroned”.
At six, he was allowed to socialise only with other reincarnated souls – though for a time he said he lived next to the actor Richard Gere’s cabin.
By 18, he had never seen couples kiss. His first disco experience was a shock. “I was amazed to watch everyone dance. What were all those people doing, bouncing, stuck to one another, enclosed in a box full of smoke?”
— end source ©2009 The Guardian Newspaper Group
My Thoughts:
First – Correction, His Holiness the Dalai Lama did not choose the boy – I believe Lama Yeshe’s helpers did and the boy’s over-eager parents enthusiastically signed on board (or vice-versa). It looked that way in the film, anyway. I always felt a tad sympathetic for the child, whose fate could easily match that of a Marjoe.
His Holiness just endorsed the choice – and that endorsement may have been subject to considerations (ie. as a way to settle internal semi-politicalized divisions between sects and/or after focussed contributions… the sort of the unheralded backroom dealings that grease the wheels of ages-old Tibetan Buddhism). Dunno. Anyway – one bad apple doesn’t spoil the oranges and other euphemistically optimistic aphorisms that flies can’t stick on him.
Correction #2 – if the boy paid attention during his lessons he would have heard that we’re all reincarnated souls, so Richard Gere would not likely have been an exception. Socialising with the supermarket check-out girl would have been equally valid as an opportunity to get close to another reincarnative being. It all works, young Buddhists are told. I think perhaps it was the reporter who didn’t pay sufficient attention.
Nothing to debate particularly (debate having different meaning outside the Gelugpa-based FPMT; inside of which skillful debate can become one’s life blood). But usually debate about anything but gossip… even if potential loss of a tulku is likely a juicy topic for someone’s buzz. I think basically this is just causing a lot of consternation and sadness. Maybe there will be a nice surprise at the end of it.
All in all a badly-written article from The Guardian, which should know better. The writer apparently neglected to put much time into research, and seems to project disdain for certain aspects of Vajrayana Buddhism. Too bad for a major international paper.
All water under the tusch.
Michael – Nkagpa K. Jigme Tonpa
p.s. how, I ask, in Buddhism is a boy put on a throne to be “worshipped by monks who treated him like a god.”? How does that go, exactly? Which god (in a world absent of them)? Monkey King? White Bone Demon? Zoroaster? Kali? Ed Murphy?….. eeech.
And Jimi Hendrix was no slouch… a few Buddhists would do well to quote him.
