Obstacle

In Chinese community, there is a strong belief that once beginning to practice Buddhism, one will have numerous obstacles on the way. I was even told that once practice the four fundamentals of Tibetan Buddhism, one will have some minor ache/illness along the way. It is because of the Karma. I am not sure why Karma will lead one to illness though.

Anyway, yesterday night, I had tire blown up in the freeway again. This is the second time within the last 6 months. I've never had tire blown up in the freeway after years of driving experience. The strange part is that they both happened when I went to the Pasadena's meditation on every Tuesday night. Last time was before the practice and this time was after the practice. My co-worker, while picking me up from the tire center today, immediately attribute it to the "obstacle" of the practice. I am not so sure about it though. I think this thing will happen all the time. For among the 6 billion people in the world, every one will have their own unique experience. Some I consider have a worse luck than me. Some I consider better. The good part is that when I had blown up tire in both time, I think I was pretty calm and I didn't get hurt. So, this may not be "obstacles" but pure luck.

Fake Buddhism?

I decided to get serious with Buddhism around April this year. During the search for a temple in my local area, I came across 真佛宗. My friend mentioned that the master of 真佛宗, 盧勝彥, is famous for his extravagant life-style and showing off of his Rolex watch and Rolls-Royce salon instead of an authentic Buddhism teaching. I had heard of him but didn't know much of the details. Recently, I found out this page about his anecdote. But I really like to see if there is any refutation from 盧勝彥 or his disciples.

Liberation

I often attend the meditation class at Bodhi Path Karma Kagyü center at Pasadena. Our resident teacher, Lama Khedrub, was not there on last Tuesday (08/02). So, we formed a peer group to study Chogyam Trugpa's "Cutting Through the Spiritual Materialism". The book is a record of teachings by Chogyam Trugpa in a series of talk during 1970 in Boulder, CO. We were studying the chapter "The Development of Ego". It is about how a being's hallucination binds oneself to the walls of confinement. Chogyam Trugpa postponed the discussion of liberation two times in the Q & A section. I was wondering why he didn't want to talk about it at that moment. Up until almost the end, I suddenly had an insight that probably, Chogyam Trugpa didn't NEED to talk about it becuase once the problem of ego can be solved, there should have no walls of confiement. Then, we don't need to talk about "liberation" anymore. I don't know if my thinking is correct but this is the first time I come up with the sense of Zen on my own. This is pretty much like the Sixth patriarch's 惠能 poem:

菩提本無樹，明鏡亦非臺；
本來無一物，何處惹塵埃！

There is no "I" at the beginning and there should have no liberation at all. Of course, the approach is quite different from his co-student 神秀's approach:

身是菩提樹，心如明鏡台；
時時勤拂拭，勿使惹塵埃！

Meditation

NPR has this story about meditation. The French monk Matthieu Ricard has really been gathering fame after the book "The Monk and the Philosopher". A general cite to the University of Wiscosin's "Mindfulness Meditation" study can be found here. The report is in here.

Subchu Rinpoche

I went to a retreat by 5th Dhicyag Subchu Rinpoche over the last weekend (7/15/05 - 7/17/05) in the BodhiPath center in Pasadena. I also went to the talk on 7/19/05 night too. It is a rare chance to talk to a reincarnated lama in such a short distance. I've associated with Buddhism idea for quite a long time, 16 years, to be exact. I've only get serious since Feburary this year and in April, I found out this BodhiPath center, a branch of Tibetan Buddhism (Karma Kagyu) under the guidance of Sharmapa. He clarifys a lot of confusion on meditation. I have some recordings of him at here. He is really young, 21, at this time. He likes music and his CD is really popular in Nepal. The Nepal Times has an article about him (please see pg. 6 "The singing Rinpoche").

Words of My Perfect Teacher

A practiced truth VS an ideal truth

A special characteristic of Tibetan Buddhism, and in general, Buddhism, is that it stresses the "practice", one of the major lacks I find in Western philosophy and to some extent, Western religion. As we grow up, we learn a lot of "truths" from different sources but we can't practice them because it is just a view of the world. Everybody can have different view and we end up don't know what is the ultimate truth. The approach in Buddhism here is to elevate your person achievements and then, you can contemplate a "revealed" truth step by step. Whether one believes this or not, it provides another way to experience the truth.

From the "Words of My Perfect Teacher", we can learn Tibetan Buddhism's moral viewpoints and we can practice them. The second part, inner preliminaries, as I am told, needs to have instructions from a lama instead of practicing yourself though. From Amazon.com, a lot of people are reading it through. This is absolutely ok but the book needs people to practice (e.g. meditation). When doing the inner preliminaries, I think it is best to seek advises from the teacher.