The Australian Broadcasting Corporation‘s Eric Campbell managed to get a rare interview with His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, for the Foreign Correspondent program, as shown in this piece entitled “After the Dalai Lama“.
March 31st, 2010
March 30th, 2010
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Crazy Wisdom – A film about the life and times of Chogyam Trungpa
SYNOPSIS
Chogyam Trungpa, renowned Tibetan Buddhist leader, shattered notions about how an enlightened teacher should behave when he renounced his monk’s vows & eloped with a sixteen year-old aristocrat. Twenty years after his death, Trungpa’s name still evokes admiration and outrage. What made him tick? And just what is enlightenment, anyway?
Thanks to Tenpa for pointing out this wonderful gem.
March 29th, 2010
Vajrasattva
On Saturday morning I awoke with a peculiar desire to drive to Tamworth. I wasn’t quite sure why, but I figured I would probably find out once I got there.
When I got out on the highway, the first thing I discovered was that the radio in my car had been disconnected during some recent repairs and it now wanted a 4-digit security code before it would switch on. The security code which I did not have, as I had bought the car second hand and only just now discovered that that part of the manual had been torn out and put in a safe place long before I acquired it. (but that’s another story)
Once I got to Tamworth, the first thing I spotted was a shop I had never noticed before called Utopian Bazaar. There was a parking space right out front and it was at one end of Peel Street, the main drag, which I intended to meander up and down this day, to see what was new and different in the town.
I wandered into the shop and one of the first things I noticed was a Tibetan style Buddhist statuette (pictured above). I did not immediately recognise who it was, so I took a picture and tweeted it. Luckily, Bodhipaksa and Charmainewai recognised it immediately and let me know that it was Vajrasattva.
The reason I found this significant is that I have been doing a practice every morning for the last couple of years as part of my Ngöndro (preliminary Buddhist practices)[Dudjom Tersar], in which I imagine Vajrasattva above the crown of my head while repeating his 100-syllable mantra and going through three particular purifying visualisations. I obviously hadn’t been doing it very well, as I could not even recognise him when I met him in the shop. I’d spent so much time memorising the 100-syllable mantra and doing the purificatory visualisations, that I’d never bothered to really visualise Vajrasattva properly. The practice I had been doing, now seemed more like Chaos Magick than Tantric Buddhism.
Perhaps it’s time to go back to first principles and start my Ngondro practice over from scratch… it’s time to be a beginner again, and this time, maybe I’ll get it right…
March 19th, 2010
Byron Beach Buddhists
I only noticed this photo when it flashed up on one of my screens at work where I use the Flickr .net Screensaver.
I liked the look of it so I am showing it to you… Om mani padme hum… 
March 1st, 2010
Jade Buddha for Universal Peace
Wow… a blog free week… I’d better get back into it…
Pictured above is the Jade Buddha for Universal Peace on stage at HH Dalai Lama’s Awakening the Mind teachings in Sydney, December 2009
I’ve had some interesting ideas for posts… stay tuned… I’ll be back
February 15th, 2010
Monks at the Beach
By now it should be the Iron (Metal) Tiger year, all around the globe, so Happy New Year… 2137 on the Tibetan calendar [yeah, all you Gregorians are like, 127 years behind the times... ].
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama gave a New Year’s Address in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India, and urged Tibetans to eschew festive celebrations and engage in religious ceremonies and prayers in remembrance of the Tibetan people’s suffering.
His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, produced a virtual Losar card as a shockwave flash file on his website.
I cleaned the house and made dumplings… and today I hung some fresh prayer flags.
February 13th, 2010
February 11th, 2010
Sand Mandala dissolution procession
The photo above shows Geshe Tenzin Demchok leading the procession with the sand from the sand mandala featured in yesterday’s post being taken from the Byron Community Centre, down Jonson Street to be poured into the great Pacific Ocean, on the beach at Byron Bay.
They are walking past Fundamental Foods, probably my favourite organic cafe & health food store, and on the day there was a stall out the front where a couple of cool dudes were offering free t-shirts if you signed up to become a paid member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
February 10th, 2010
Buddha Mitrugpa (Akshobya) Sand Mandala
From the 14th to the 30th of January 2010, the monks of the Dakpa Khangtsen Drepung Loseling Monastery near Mundgod in South India and Geshe Tenzin Demchok, representing the World Maitreya Karuna Foundation of Australia, gathered upstairs in the Byron Community Centre and created this beautiful sand mandala representing Buddha Mitrugpa (Akshobya in sanskrit) and then swept it up and poured it into the sea.
There are more photos in my Buddha Mitrugpa Flickr set.
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