Lama Surya Das talks about Buddha is as Buddha Does: The Ten Original Practices for Enlightened Living.
Lama Surya Das is one of the foremost Western Buddhist
meditation teachers and scholars. Born Jeffrey Miller, he was raised in
Valley Stream on New York's Long Island. After
graduating with honors from college, he traveled throughout Europe and
the East, and he has spent nearly thirty years studying Zen, vipassana,
yoga, and Tibetan Buddhism with many of the great old masters of Asia.
Za Rinpoche, a Tibetan monk, first came to the world's attention
when his life story was chronicled in the first chapter of Po Bronson's
bestseller, What Should I Do with My Life? While growing
up in a refugee camp in Southern India, Za Rinpoche was recognized by
the Dalai Lama as the sixth reincarnation of the Za Choeje Rinpoche. Now, in The Backdoor To Enlightenment,
he shares with us the keys to immediate, profound realization and
lasting peace, revealing the secrets to enlightenment that have
remained hidden in the distant reaches of the Himalayas for more than a
thousand years.
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways. The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.
Patrick Sweeney explains the gradual Enlightenment process in the Mahamudra Meditation. If enlightenment can
be thought of as the summit of a mountain, the Buddhist path to that
summit is, at times, a steep and sudden approach, and at times, a
gradual one.
Patrick Sweeney discusses the
quality of his teachers that attracted him the most: their radical freedom to be
spontaneous in the present moment. He shares how profoundly he has been
influenced by the work of Ken Wilber, in particular.
Patrick Sweeney continues his
beautiful discussion of nondual consciousness, the nameless, effortless,
self-liberating quality of awareness in which all distinctions between self and
other, this and that, inside and outside fall away completely, leaving only the
brilliant clarity of this very Moment, exactly as it is. Although this "Ordinary
Mind" is and always has been the ever-present condition of consciousness, the
separate self somehow rarely seems to notice that which it always already is—in
fact, it is fair to say that the majority of our actions and intentions as human
beings are in avoidance of this simple recognition, with all its ego-shattering
implications. However, we have all experienced this radical One Taste many times
in the course of our lives, if even for the briefest of moments.
Patrick
mentions accidents, orgasms, and death as typical moments of spontaneous and
profound realization, but these experiences tend to occur whenever the normal
continuity of life becomes suddenly disrupted—during which people tend to report
radically altered states of experience, including a sense of time dilation, an
overwhelming feeling of peace or oneness with the world, and everything simply
becomes much more vivid, vibrant, and present. Unfortunately, it can be all too
easy to miss these experiences without a stable contemplative practice, which
helps train our capacity to be persistently aware of ourselves and our
environments, making it much easier to recognize our own Original Face whenever
it chooses to reveal itself.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is a rising star of the new generation meditation teachers in the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He was born in Nepal in 1975 and entered a traditional three-years retreat at age 13. Currently he directs the project of building the Tergar Institute in Bodhgaya, India, which serves as an international study and meditation center for monastic and lay people. He actively teaching all around the world and also collaborates with western scientists to combine the ancient Tibetan wisdom with latest scientific research. His radiance and clarity have inspired and bring joy to many people.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is a rising star of the new generation meditation teachers in the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He was born in Nepal in 1975 and entered a traditional three-years retreat at age 13. Currently he directs the project of building the Tergar Institute in Bodhgaya, India, which serves as an international study and meditation center for monastic and lay people. He actively teaching all around the world and also collaborates with western scientists to combine the ancient Tibetan wisdom with latest scientific research. His radiance and clarity have inspired and bring joy to many people.
