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Tsem Rinpoche
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Scroll down within the box to view more messages from Rinpoche. Click on the images to enlarge. Click on 'older messages' to view archived messages. Use 'prev' and 'next' links to navigate between pagesConcept: Tsem Rinpoche
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I must thank my dharma blog team who are great assets to me, Kechara and growth of dharma in this wonderful region. I am honoured and thrilled to work with them. I really am. Maybe I don't say it enough to them, but I am saying it now. I APPRECIATE THESE GUYS VERY MUCH!
Tsem Rinpoche
H.H. Kyabje Zong Rinpoche Explains Dorje Shugden Initiation and Benefits (With English Subtitles)
Dear everyone... This is a good condensed talk I gave on Guru Yoga of Tsongkapa. This is the one you should share with others when they are interested in a not too lengthy explanation. It is the perfect practice for everyone who wants simplicity yet effective blessings. You can share this with more people, it will be good.
~ Tsem Rinpoche
Powerful Dorje Shugden's mantras
Tsem Rinpoche on National TV's Wesak Day Documentary
'The Promise' book launch featured on NTV7 Primetime
"If you say you don't have money to help a animal shelter, why then do you have money to buy meat?"
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Eating animals is not our God-given right, but being kind to them is."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"What makes us good humans is not how we abuse animals, but how much we allow them to live and be happy freely."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"We need another and wiser and perhaps a more mythical concept of animals.... We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complex than ours they moved finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."
~ Henry Beston, The Outermost House
"Not eating animals is only unnatural when we are not used to it."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"We may encounter defeat, but we must not be defeated."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"What you are today, is the choice you made yesterday."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"You think you can choose your life? What an ego trip!"
~ Lama Yeshe
"If TODAY you are dissatisfied, you must make the changes to create different results for TOMORROW."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
“Meditating on Dorje Shugden while reciting his mantra will open the gateways to higher dimensions, blessings and protection.”
~ Tsem Rinpoche
“If one does the recitation of the Lama Tsongkhapa guru yoga prayer for even one month using one of the visualizations for great or clear or quick wisdom, one will definitely see development of that wisdom. It is proved by experience. There is no doubt that by doing the Lama Tsongkhapa guru yoga practice one can meet Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings from life to life. And furthermore, it gives one the opportunity to be born in the pure realm of Lama Tsongkhapa, Tushita, whenever death happens.”
~ Pabongkha Rinpoche
"I was 18 years old in 1983. That was a very special year as I met His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche and received innumerable precious teachings and empowerments from Him at Thubten Dhargye Ling Centre in Los Angeles, California. It was the best time of my life. A time that seems so magical and surreal to me. Kyabje Zong Rinpoche is Heruka Buddha and I met Heruka."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"If being me offends you, maybe I'm not the problem."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Never abandon your spiritual teacher no matter how many inner obstacles you need to overcome."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Actions to force something to be permanent makes all the karmas arise."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"The dharma is not easy to listen to… because some people take it as criticism. But Dharma should not be just feel good only for the moment but for deeper contemplations."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Whether we do work and suffer but for others or we do work and suffer for ourselves, either way we have to suffer. That is the nature of samsara. So let us suffer for others and then suffering has meaning."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Those who really want the dharma to grow within themselves and to grow for others should never fear hard work, timing, difficulties, struggles, disappointments because it is for a good cause. Working for Dharma is not a prison or work, but it is purely spiritual practice. It is purely collection of merit and purification. Actually not doing dharma work is the real prison."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"His Holiness Zong Rinpoche stressed the need to continue to practice even when we come up against obstacles, and that we should continually review our progress. He stated that a happy, luxurious life was like a good dream, and that obstacles and difficulties were like a bad dream. We should give them no significance, but simply carry on working towards real, everlasting happiness."
~ Ngala ’ö-Dzin Tridral
"Things in samsara always go wrong. That's its nature. Don't be surprised."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Knowledge never quenches the thirst, only application."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"I pity men who occupy themselves exclusively with the transitory in things and lose themselves in the study of what is perishable, since we are here for this very end-that we may make the perishable imperishable, which we can do only after we have learned how to approach both."
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Money amplifies negative characteristics and that can cause problems. To walk away from that was actually very easy. I didn't even consider it."
~ Angeline Francis Khoo
"I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud."
~ Carl Jung
"There is a devil there is no doubt, but is he trying to get into us or trying to get out?"
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"If you love someone, show it by being honest, respectful & honorable with them."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."
~ Henry David Thoreau
"If I can just be the way I am & you the way you are & we accept each other, world peace is near."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"I am Asian, you are some other beautiful color. Together we make diversity so beautiful."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"It's amazing how some people have never met me or know who I am, but based on a few things they read here & there & rumours, they have formulated a new personality for me & all the things I've never done they passionately speak about....I find it funny and entertaining now. I guess we can't spend our lives fighting rumours...we just have to work hard & then rumours get proven wrong on it's own as a by product. No point explaining repeatedly. Just do our work & show results!!"
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"There's a difference between patience and laziness. Patience comes from respect while laziness from disrespect of others."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Although outwardly we have so much, we have so many conveniences, inwardly we have become more unhappy, so, acquisition is not the secret to happiness. The more we get, the more we have, the more unhappy we become."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Before we experience any pain, we already had a fixed view of how things should be. When the experience we encounter contradicts our views, then the pain arises. The pain arises due to our fixed views not so much the experience itself. So the secret is changing the views. Re-educating ourselves on our views."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"You know since very young, for better or worse, I always did the things that others told me not to do. I wasn't really good at following the rules. Even now with how I share Dharma and my practice, I just do it the way I think it should be done but I do it sincerely. Not what others tell me what I can and can't do."
~ Tsem Rinpoche
"Love me or hate me, both are in my favor... If you love me, I'll always be in your heart... If you hate me, I'll always be in your mind."
~ William Shakespeare
"One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous or honest."
~ Maya Angelou
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Comments I like from
Abinav Thakuri Giles Hui Keng
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Dear Rinpoche, I wanted to post here to thank you for all of your teachings! They have helped me tremendously! :) I have been learning from the blog and video ... Read More I Thank You very much indeed, Rinpoche, it has been a priviledge talking with you and I do very much appreciate it. Please keep strong, healthy, and may all your ... Read More
This is the most wonderful introduction to highest yoga tantra teaching I ever got in my life. It is simply marvelous! Rinpoche elucidates the teaching in the most precise, ... Read More
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Dear Thorim,
There is no “highest” compassion meditation per se. All compassion meditation if done correctly leads to the same goal which is the development of compassion, but more than that it is the internalisation of compassion. This leads one to operate every minute of every day from this compassion.
When studying compassion, to ensure that the practice is successful, one should study, contemplate and train on a graduated path, as detailed in the various Lam Rim teachings. As the great Lama Atisha said, to have a firm practice that results in real transformation, “train yourself in stages.”
The most comprehensive of these teachings would be Lama Tsongkhapa’s Lam Rim Chenmo. However this work is rather large, so two good texts which are easily read and understandable are Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by Pabongka Rinpoche and Joyful Path of Good Fortune by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso.
I will concentrate on an explanation of Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. In this particular text, out of all the methods of meditating on compassion, Pabongka Rinpoche specifically mentions two particular systems.
Method One: Developing Bodhicitta through the Cause & Effect Instruction
This method works by primarily seeing all sentient beings as those you are attracted to (those you care about), rather than focusing on neutrality and those you have aversion for (those whom you dislike). This method was used by such great masters as Arya Chandrakirti, Chandragomin and Santarakshita. In a nutshell, there are eight sections to this method:
1. Developing immeasurable equanimity: through meditation on the three types of beings – those whom you like, are neutral towards and dislike.
2. Understanding all sentient beings to be your mother: through this one begins to develop compassion for all sentient beings and begins to understand that in previous lifetimes they have all been our mothers.
3. Remembering their kindness: Since all sentient beings have been our mothers, they have showed us immense kindness before.
4. Repaying their kindness: this leads one to start acting out of compassion rather than meditating on it intellectually. This creates a powerful shift and physical transformation in one’s life.
5. Love through the force of attraction: this means that now one meditates on all sentient beings as your children, therefore you have a strong disposition to want to look after all of them. This furthers your compassion and makes you act out of compassion even stronger.
6. Compassion: this is the stage of realisation that all sentient beings are suffering in samsara, there we develop the unshakable aspiration that all sentient beings, without exception need to be free from their suffering.
7. Altruism: this means that we take the responsibility to relieve all sentient beings from their suffering.
8. Bodhicitta: we come to the realisation that ultimately we will not be able to help all sentient beings in our current state, which is the same as theirs, helplessly being reborn again and again in samsara. Upon reflection we deduce that the only possible way to help all sentient beings is to become a fully enlightened being – a Buddha, who has the capacity to benefit beings spontaneously and effortlessly. We then develop the conviction that it is not possible to benefit others until we have achieve full omniscience and with this comes a yearning to attain complete enlightenment ourselves, in order to help others.
Some people think that this is too basic, and that they already have this wish. This view however is mistaken because this is actually an advanced and core practice on the path towards enlightenment. This Mahayana motivation to become enlightened for the sake of all sentient beings must be internalised correctly rather than a mere intellectual understanding. And this is one of the purposes of training in compassion.
–
Method Two: Seven-Point Mind Training (Advanced Tonglen)
This method works as at developing equanimity through exchanging self and others, focusing on equalising feels of like, dislike and neutrality. This method was used by the great Shantideva. There are seven sections to this:
1. Teaching of the preliminaries: which are the Small and Medium Scopes of the Lam Rim teachings.
2. Training in the two types of Bodhicitta: which are the Relative Bodhicitta and the Ultimate Bodhicitta.
3. Meditating on equalising the self and others.
4. Contemplating the many faults arising from self-cherishing.
5. Contemplating the many good qualities resulting from cherish others.
6. The actual contemplation on the interchange of self and others.
7. With the previous points as the basis, the way to meditate on giving and taking.
If you are practicing Tonglen, and would like to strengthen your practice. I would suggest that you read up on this section of the Lam Rim, it will help you greatly. I hope my explanation helps.