[Arrocousa]

I came across a website called "Rebel Buddha" which is the title of a book by the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.

I am posting an excerpt from the book and wondered if anyone would like to comment.

When Buddhism first arrived in the West and was welcomed by the pioneers of Western Buddhism, they had to break through certain barriers. They were not only meeting a foreign culture, they were also meeting alien concepts like “selflessness” and “emptiness” that made little sense to the Western mind. But they said “Yes” to meditation and working with ego. Now, roughly 50 years later, it is time for a change. We are stuck at a certain level of our spiritual development.

What at first woke us up, now barely stirs us from our thoughts. What supported our inquiry into who we are, now blocks our realization of that. Now, we have to ask ourselves how to break through again. This time, we are challenged to break through our attachment to all that brought us to this point—the spiritual cultures that we so respect and emulate that they have become another trap for us.

You may say, “That’s not my problem. Someone else may be doing that, but I am not that stupid!” If that is your view, then I would say, “Look again.” We are still collectively dragging old forms and ideas into the present. Without even noticing it, we are walking down the street wearing the clothes and paraphernalia of another time and place—metaphorically at least.

The reason we do this is because we still think spirituality is “over there.” We don’t think spirituality is right here with us, in our everyday life. That’s why we dream of going to Asia or finding someone called a “guru.”

When the Buddha awakened, he was sitting on a cushion of grass under a tree in a forest. There was nothing particularly sacred around him; he was not doing anything but looking at his mind. All that he had was his experience in life and his understanding of how to work with his mind. His only other possessions were his determination and his confidence that he could deal with whatever occurred in his mind and transform it into a path of awakening.

I have often told students to go outside and meditate—sit on a park bench, breathe in the fresh air, look up in the sky! It is so beautiful. Many find this difficult, though, because they think they are not in a “practice atmosphere.” They are without their shrine, their Buddha, their cushions and their meditation bibles. When it comes to practicing at home, it does not occur to them that they can sit on the chair passed down from their grandmother or a pillow they bought from IKEA. They think, “I need a Japanese zafu or a Tibetan gomden, the standardized ones with the correct dimensions from an official meditation supplier. Without these, I cannot meditate!”

In that case, I guess that the time we spend in a grocery store or driving a car or doing anything else is inferior to the time we spend doing our “real” practice in the shrine room. But please explain to me: what is the difference between your driving mind, your shopping mind, and your sitting mind? Do you have different kinds of thoughts and emotions?

When we adopt too many aspects of the culture we are learning from, we can begin to feel pressured by it. We stop relating to situations with any immediacy. Instead, we relate to what is happening in front of us through a filter of rules and regulations. Especially in the shrine room, there is the sense of an unspoken rule. If we do not follow that rule, we feel extremely uncomfortable.

The teacher comes in and we bow. That is a rule. We would be shocked if we were asked to do something different. We would feel like we were doing something wrong. Nevertheless, we don’t see the actual person walking in; we don’t make contact because we are already thinking, “Oh, he’s a great reincarnate being. He was recognized before his birth and trained in such-and-such a way.” That’s our conceptual bullshit.


Continued : http://www.rebelbuddha.com/2010/11/t...ural-cushions/

Comments?

[kjanyeaz1]

When the Buddha awakened, he was sitting on a cushion of grass under a tree in a forest. There was nothing particularly sacred around him; he was not doing anything but looking at his mind. All that he had was his experience in life and his understanding of how to work with his mind. His only other possessions were his determination and his confidence that he could deal with whatever occurred in his mind and transform it into a path of awakening.

I have often told students to go outside and meditate—sit on a park bench, breathe in the fresh air, look up in the sky! It is so beautiful. Many find this difficult, though, because they think they are not in a “practice atmosphere.” They are without their shrine, their Buddha, their cushions and their meditation bibles. When it comes to practicing at home, it does not occur to them that they can sit on the chair passed down from their grandmother or a pillow they bought from IKEA. They think, “I need a Japanese zafu or a Tibetan gomden, the standardized ones with the correct dimensions from an official meditation supplier. Without these, I cannot meditate!”

I think this is an important point. As Aj.Chah taught, The Noble Eight Fold Path is walked in every experience not just when we are sat in a Wat or in front of a shrine at home



It is important to have a quiet place to practice, expecially at the start of the practice. However real practice begins when you can meditate and practice the Noble Eight Fold Path in any situation. That can be on a bus to work, shopping for food, on retreat or on the death bed



I have noticed that in my own practice I was at first attached to certain conditions in order to meditate. I had to have a quiet area in a certain place. Then one day there was music playing somewhere else. At first I thought that it was disturbing me and so I couldnt meditate but then I realized the problem. There was attachment to silence. The music was just there just as the silence is just there usually. It was me making the problem not the music. After that I can meditate in most places now

[RsQhyZyR]

It is important to have a quiet place to practice, expecially at the start of the practice. However real practice begins when you can meditate and practice the Noble Eight Fold Path in any situation. That can be on a bus to work, shopping for food, on retreat or on the death bed

Yes...

[violalmina]

However real practice begins when you can meditate and practice the Noble Eight Fold Path in any situation. That can be on a bus to work, shopping for food, on retreat or on the death bed

I couldn't agree more. Practice is, by all means, day to day and in every moment. When you look at it that way, you will realize just how much more work we still have to do because we still have a lot of conflicts and friction in a lot of areas in our day to day lives rather than when we sit in a quiet place, within our comfort zones.

[rostpribru]

Ponlop is funny! When I saw Karmapa in NY, Ponlop was slinking around in the background, trying to hide from people.

But I really know what he is talking about. Tibetan Buddhist centers in America tend to be really bad about this. I ended up taking a near two year break from affiliation with centers for this reason... find my own practice within myself... it is like there are these two extremes in the community: adopt everything Tibetan, or think that you should (seems to be most popular amongst practitioners) or overly reject thinking that it is superstitious culture. Clinging to either one is a trap from my perspective.

From my perspective, I have to be genuine. If I practice Vajrayana Buddhism, I am still American. But I am not independent of Tibetan culture either because it has influenced me. Neither one of them is me or not me.

...if I practice ngondro it is because it is working for me, or because I am trying it out to see... that's it.

[temansertewek]

I quite liked this poem of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche's when I first read it a few years ago:


Heaven


So blue is the ocean,
Infinite is the mind.
So bright are the heavens,
Luminous is the mind.

Expanse of heaven
Meets with deep blue ocean.
Union at horizon
Takes me beyond breath.

Heaven is bullshit.
And hell the religion of fear.
Man needs no God
Freedom is innate.

Composed July 13, 1997, Canada.

[erepsysoulpfbs]

So blue is the ocean,
Infinite is the mind.
So bright are the heavens,
Luminous is the mind.

Expanse of heaven
Meets with deep blue ocean.
Union at horizon
Takes me beyond breath.

Heaven is bullshit.
And hell the religion of fear.
Man needs no God
Freedom is innate.

LOL Yeah, that's a good one.