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Weekly Program Study Group
at Atisha Centre For the first
session Tony would like to discuss the format of the study group for
this year, and invites suggestions for this. This will be a
continuation of studying Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by Pabongka
Rinpoche. Tony will be present each week to lead. If you want to find out more about what is involved with the study group then please see John at the centre or ring him and leave a message on 5446 9033 Thursday Evenings
- First and third Thursday of each month. Mary is a nurse
and counsellor and, has two children. I have been counseling for over two years now and have commenced an Advanced Diploma in Counseling Psychology. I would like to offer my services to anyone. I use a solution focused approach, which will incorporate Buddhist principles and techniques. I will be counseling from Atisha Centre. My service is an offering to the centre and I will be asking all clients to also make an offering to the centre in payment for this service. You can contact me at home to make an appointment on 5443 3745. Mary Sunday Mornings Atisha Centre
Community Lunches Monastery Community
Lunch, Sunday February 27th Pujas Guru Puja,
Wednesday March 1st , from 7.30pm Tara Pujas, Sunday
February 13th from 7.30pm & Monday March 13th from 7.30pm Note that for all courses at Atisha Centre concessions are considered on an individual basis. Atisha Centre could not function without the many people who provide enormous amounts of both time and money including for example, time spent planning and organising courses and course materials, taking bookings, financial administration, cleaning, maintaining, and building the centre and its facilities. (if you are concerned or would like to know more about the price requested for any course please feel free to contact John after hours on 5446 9033) Note please arrive 30 minutes prior to the start of all courses in order to complete registration for that course. Registration is in the bookshop / office. Tony goes to
Daylesford "The Sunny
Sedgwick Music Festival 2000" Working bees Labour Day,
March 13th we will need to hold a working bee in order to clean up
the centre and make it absolutely spotless for Lama Zopa's visit the
following Friday. The working bee will start at 2pm "The Path
of Peace" an Introduction to Buddhist Meditation Dates: March 25th
& 26th Cost: $65 ($55
members) About Tony Beaumont About the Course Purification
Residential Weekend Retreat Lama Zopa's visit
to Atisha Centre Lama Zopa Rinpoche is a renowned Tibetan Buddhist lama and accomplished meditator. After co-founding a monastery in Nepal, Rinpoche spent years there with his main teacher Lama Yeshe, offering spiritual instruction to thousands of students from around the world. As spiritual director of the network of centers these students later started in their home countries, Rinpoche now devotes most of his time to teaching and ministering to his students' spiritual needs. Rinpoche is spiritual head of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, a network of over 110 meditation centers, monasteries and schools around the world. Lama Zopa Rinpoche
tour of Australia 2000 Melbourne: Sydney: Queensland: Dates and times have not as yet been finalised, so you are advised to contact the individual Centres for more information. Draw the Buddha
Day A one day workshop
to explore / learn the traditional drawing techniques used in creating
thangka images. (thangkas are paintings of the different Buddhas) Drawing the image of a Buddha (enlightened being) correctly is very powerful karma. Also it will become much easier for us to visualize the Buddha in our meditation, and of course at the time of death. Creating beautiful Buddha images has a very good effect on others who see them. The workshop will be led by Dale Wright, an Adelaide based artist. Dale is a student of Khensur Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. In 1995 he spent 6 months at Sera monastery studying with Tibetan monk / artist Tubtok. Dale has also received instruction in painting techniques from Lama Zopa Rinpoche. He has taught this popular course at Buddha House on several occasions. Dale will also bring with him examples of his own work. (he now paints thangkas on a commission basis) We hope that in the future we can get Dale back here, to give an ongoing series of courses. What to bring: Participants will need to bring pencil, rubber, ruler and cartridge paper or sketch pad. A drawing board would also be useful. Cost: $40 members,
$45 non members
Geshe Tashi Tsering John's Blurb Gyatso News Ulaan Bataar is
terribly ugly, communist style apartment blocks but very well heated
from a city-wide central heating source. Provided it does not break
down, which they say can happen. Trouble is, the coal-fired heating
plant and the cars on the road cause huge pollution in the air. Trying to learn Mongolian numbers, but everytime I memorize "two" I forget "one" and then when I remember "one" I forget "two." G'day. I have
indeed participated in mare's milk, lucky I'm a Hayagriva practitioner.
Otherwise the food's fine. There are many little "supermarkets"
where you can buy just about whatever you need. So Deborah and I cook
ourselves, occasionally going to a Chinese or a Pizza restaurant.
My students give me bags of goodies, including many half-chickens,
the freezer is full of them. I've decided to be a carnivore for a
while. Food in the "supermarkets is exorbitantly Winter starts
after the solstice, they say. The present -25 by night and -15 by
day is a heatwave, they say. But you get used to it, everything's
relative. It was -8 a few days ago and we were sweating. I am teaching
quite a lot, have just started another class, teaching the Three Principles
GMR style to a class which attend the small centre he has started.
I am stealing one of his translators, Mongolian lass, speaks good
enough English and very Dharma oriented. We will hire her full-time
to help manage the centre and translate for me. US$100 a month or
a little more, almost twice what she is getting in her present job.
George's excellent translator, another Mongolian student of GMR has
gone But the next Enlightenment Experience Celebration is happening here in Summer of 2004. You must come, okay? I'll get a good camel for you. My general impression
of Ulaan Baatar is that it is a cross between Moscow and Blade Runner.
Despite the -25C of the last few days, there is sunshine, but it does
nothing to the air. The streets are full of activity, few own a car
and people walk and bus everywhere. There are open-air pool halls,
guys taking their game very seriously in the freezing air. And, of
course, no public toilets. Against walls everywhere are vast glaciers
of frozen piss, not to mention piles of frozen turds in more discreet
corners. Can't wait for
the sweet scents of the springtime thaw. The buildings are slowly
progressing. You water the ground before digging to make it soft.
Here they burn car tyres on it all night to melt it and make it diggable.
Adding to the toxic smog which nobody seems to mind. It's definitely
getting cooler, my eye-lashes freeze together when I walk down to
the visa office these days. I'm teaching once
a week at Geshe Michael's centre, as well as the other teachings,
so quite busy. Don't know when the new buildings will be habitable,
certainly not until spring, probably even Rinpoche will
What's on at
Tara Institute Nyung Na Lama Zopa Rinpoche
To Visit Australia In March 2000 For further information on courses at Tara Institute contact Sheena on (03) 9596 8900 Automatic payments Please also let Kerry know how much and what time of the month the payment is being made. Book Review The Tibetan
Book of Living and Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche Living Buddha
Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh In this book Thich Nhat Hahn explores two of the world's great contemplative traditions. In lucid, meditative prose he explores the crossroads of compassion and holiness at which the two traditions meet, and reawakens our understanding of both. A Message from
the Dalai Lama for the new millennium We have had many experiences during this century - constructive as well as extremely destructive ones. We must learn from these experiences. We need to approach the next millennium more holistically, with more openness and farsightedness. If we are going to make the right kind of efforts to make the future of the world better, I believe the following matters are of great importance. 1. While engaging in material progress and taking care of physical well-being we need to pay equal attention to developing peace of mind and thus taking care of the internal aspect of our being. 2. Along with education, which generally deals only with academic accomplishments, we need to develop more altruism and a sense of caring and responsibility for others in the minds of the younger generation studying in various educational institutions. This can be done without necessarily involving religion. One could therefore call this 'secular ethics', as it in fact consists of basic human qualities such as kindness, compassion, sincerity and honesty. 3. This past century in some ways has been a century of war and bloodshed. It has seen a year by year increase in defense spending by most countries in the world. If we are to change this trend we must seriously consider the concept of non-violence, which is a physical expression of compassion. In order to make non-violence a reality we must first work on internal disarmament and then proceed to work on external disarmament. By internal disarmament I mean ridding ourselves of all the negative emotions that result in violence. External disarmament will also have to be done gradually, step by step. We must first work on the total abolishment of nuclear weapons and gradually work up to total demilitarisation throughout the world. In the process of doing this we also need to work towards stopping the arms trade, which is still very widely practiced because it is so lucrative. When we do all these things, we can then hope to see in the next millennium a year by year decrease in the military expenditure of the various nations and a gradual working towards demilitarisation. Human problems will, of course, always remain, but the way to resolve them should be through dialogue and discussion. The next century should be a century of dialogue and discussion rather than one of war and bloodshed. 4. We need to address the issue of the gap between the rich and the poor, both globally and nationally. This inequality, with some sections of the human community having abundance and others on the same planet going hungry or even dying of starvation, is not only morally wrong, but practically also a source of problems. Equally important is the issue of freedom. As long as there is no freedom in many parts of the world there can be no real peace and in a sense no real freedom for the rest of the world. 5. For the sake of our future generations, we need to take care of our earth and of our environment. Environmental damage is often gradual and not easily apparent and by the time we become aware of it, it is generally too late. Since most of the major rivers flowing into many parts of south-east Asia originate from the Tibetan plateau, it will not be out of place to mention here the crucial importance of taking care of the environment in that area. 6. Lastly, one of the greatest challenges today is the population explosion. Unless we are able to tackle this issue effectively we will be confronted with the problem of the natural resources being inadequate for all the human beings on this earth. We need to seriously look into these matters that concern us all if we are to look forward to the future with some hope. January 1, 2000 Kopan Course
Nov 1999 Why Kopan though?
For two reasons. I wanted to experience the place where Lama Yeshe
and Lama Zopa first taught Buddhism to Westerners and which had been
the source of many stories over the years from Gyatso, and to enforce
my commitment to my dharma practice, a sort of pilgrimage. Brian was very
kind offering to stay home and care for our dogs, my annual leave
was organised from work, and with great expectations I flew out. This was the first
time I had been to Nepal. I didn't know what to expect, I was a bit
scared and somehow elated at the same time. I managed to get myself
safely to Kathmandu without any major incident, a taxi taking me from
the airport to Kopan where I registered and settled in for the next
month. Over 200 international
participants enrolled for the course, new and old students alike.
We were cared for with such kindness by Lama Lhundrub (abbot of Kopan)
and the monks of Kopan that mere words cannot express the gratitude
we all felt. Ven Fedor was the most wonderful course leader, his gentle
humility, engaging sense of humour and monastic anecdotes made the
course an unforgettable life experience. We were also blessed
by teachings from Lama Zopa during the second half of the course.
Rinpoche also offered Refuge, initiation ceremonies, interviews and
the most beautiful extensive dedications that I have ever heard. Rinpoche
stressed the importance of every second in the life not being wasted,
because in that second one has the opportunity to become enlightened.
Even in the split second before one dies, this precious opportunity
still exists. Therefore not to use this opportunity is making one's
life meaningless. A long life ceremony was offered to Rinpoche with over 400 monks and nuns, the local Tibetan community and Western course participants attending. It was a surreal occurrence which seemed like a dream. The monks performed the 'Dance of the Dakinis' which made the entire Gompa seem like an enormous sparkling Mandala offering to Rinpoche. Every day we followed
lam rim presentations as outlined in Pabongka Rinpoche's "Liberation",
which was the main course text, as well as Ven Karin's "Lamrim
Outlines" and Lama Zopa's "Perfect Freedom". The day
began at 5.30am with prostrations to the 35 Buddhas, followed by a
schedule of meditation, teaching and group discussion. Precepts were
taken in the last 2 weeks at 5am daily. We were divided up into smaller
discussion groups for the entire month which met daily for one hour.
This provided us with the opportunity to develop peer relationships,
to talk about the previous days teachings and to discuss dharma. It
was a great way to meet new people and make dharma friends. It also
provided support for those people who may have been experiencing difficulties. Analytical and
introspective meditations were conducted, with the nine round breathing
practiced every morning. We could often hear the monks chanting their
morning prayers in the main gompa, the sound pervaded the environment
making it seem like everything at Kopan was humming Om mani padme
hum. Being at Kopan
was, for me a wonderful experience which strengthened the lam rim
which I had acquired from our wonderful, precious teachers at Atisha
Centre. It also reinforced that which I already knew, how fortunate
one is to have a place to listen, think and meditate on dharma to
truly make one's life meaningful. To be accepted into the daily lives of the monks with love and support was a truly wondrous feeling. To live in a community of people with dharma practice as the focus of their lives is unforgettable, it validates the knowledge that there is a better way, a true path which makes life meaningful. This I will always have in my heart, a legacy from Kopan. How precious. Trees to be
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