Tales With My Lama: What is the New News?
Pastor David has been a student of His Eminence Tsem Rinpoche for over 15 years and within the ‘Tales With My Lama’ series of articles, he explores his spiritual relationship with Rinpoche, sharing anecdotes, stories, observations and little Dharma nuggets. It is all told to inspire others for their own spiritual relationship with their teachers.
What is the New News?
His Eminence Tsem Rinpoche had a way of conveying the Dharma and instilling the positive qualities of compassion and awareness in his students. In fact, Rinpoche had tremendous and inexhaustible energy when coming up with new and innovative ways to teach and instil the Dharma in his students. One of these methods was to get me to come up with ‘new news’ on a daily basis, which I would need to tell Rinpoche either in person or via messages. It was Rinpoche’s way of keeping track of what I was doing and my mental attitude, especially on days when Rinpoche was too busy to see me in person. Naturally, Rinpoche didn’t tell me what it was all about, he just told me to do it on a daily basis, but I eventually figured it out.
‘New news’ was coined by Rinpoche to refer to the latest happenings, but this did not mean the latest CNN International News update. When it came to ‘new news’, Rinpoche stipulated that I should give an account of what I spoke about with people or what I had observed of people or situations at work or home. I was requested to come up with five ‘new news’ a day and they had to be interesting ones. That meant I had to put some real thought into it and not simply a one-liner. Rinpoche really didn’t like me reporting on the news unless it was something that directly impacted someone. In other words, it had to be news that had significance, not just something random I pulled from a news website or a newspaper.
Over time, it became very obvious that it was really an exercise to develop greater awareness of people and situations around me. I quickly noticed how hard it was to find news to fill my daily quota as I was very much cocooned in my own thoughts, likes and dislikes. I also noticed how I was unaware of what was going on around me and so I strove to increase my awareness and interaction with people and to be more ‘in-tune’ with what was happening around me. I began to do my best to look for ‘new news’, from conversations with people, friends, loved ones, family and colleagues. Every day, I had to think hard and, on some days, it was easier but, on most days, it was harder as there weren’t many opportunities to interact with people.
If Rinpoche felt I had rushed through my ‘new news’, he would get me to redo all five ‘new news’ and sometimes even to double up. Rinpoche was particularly strict about it and insisted I adhered to the discipline. This happened quite a lot in the beginning for me until I got the hang of it. In addition, when I was unable to fulfil my ‘new news’ requirement, Rinpoche had me make up for the days I missed. I recall sitting down and coming up with 50 ‘new news’ at one point because I was travelling at the time. It was no easy feat but it was all to shape me up to be disciplined and do it in the manner of doing one’s daily sadhana, or meditational practice.
What Rinpoche really liked was news that contained observations and conversations that offered valuable insight into a person’s character – likes, dislikes or even if they had a particular issue with their electronic device. Rinpoche was always on the lookout to replace their electronic devices or anything else that they needed, especially for those working for the Dharma in Kechara. This was something that I noticed for many years. Rinpoche depended a lot on the conversations and observations of his students and friends and from that, Rinpoche developed mental profiles, which were uncannily accurate. Even for people that Rinpoche never even met personally. At times, Rinpoche would know a person better than the person describing a situation to Rinpoche.
Rinpoche absorbed all this information like a sponge and somehow, Rinpoche was able to retain such information on a large number of people, especially regarding conversations and what was said. Naturally, Rinpoche astounded us from time to time with his out of this world recollection of conversations. Whatever was stored away in Rinpoche’s mind was always put to good use as he was always on the lookout to assist and encourage his students and friends.
Rinpoche had once explained that developing greater awareness is derived from developing concentration. He explained that all of us have concentration but it is focused on very mundane things. Most of these things are actually self-serving in one way or another. So, we are very used to it and when we are required to focus out towards others, we perceive very little and are clumsy with what we see. Therefore, when we shift our concentration more towards others, we find that we perceive much more of their needs and that becomes one of the initial crucial steps in developing compassion for others.
That was my teaching with regards to my ‘new news’ assignment. It lasted a couple of years and initially, I had to email Rinpoche my ‘new news’ daily and then, Rinpoche had me type it out and message him. Over time, I knew I was doing well with my ‘new news’ assignment when Rinpoche hardly asked me to rewrite them, and that he actually talked to me about them and offered suggestions to help or interact with a particular person. In the end, Rinpoche told me one day that I no longer had to write out ‘new news’ officially but he would still verbally ask for it from time to time. Later, I heard Rinpoche also gave this assignment to some of his other students.
For more interesting information:
- Tales With My Lama: Rinpoche Felt He Was More Indian
- Tales with My Lama: What Does Rinpoche Like About Liz Taylor?
- Tales With My Lama: Daily Practice
- Tales With My Lama: Laugh Away Your Ego
- Tales With My Lama: Why Rinpoche Has To Suffer
- Tales With My Lama: Larger Than Life
- Tales With My Lama: Manjushri
- Tales With My Lama: Audience With Tsem Rinpoche
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I would find it very interesting if Rinpoche asked me to tell him new news everyday as i’m a very inquisitive person. But it might make me sound like a spy or a busybody too. Lol!!!😜🤣Thank you Rinpoche and Pastor David for this interesting sharing!👍😆
This is a unique way of training in mindfulness that only Rinpoche with his great compassion and inexhaustible creativeness could think of. It must be most effective especially when his students responded to it with the necessary focus, care and discipline. The result of this successful training speaks for itself , as Pastor David realized that he had really become more aware of the people and situations around him and their needs and hence was able to manifest more compassion in his interaction with others.
It was also a means by which Rinpoche, who was always looking out to help those students who were working for the Dharma in Kechara, could get to know what they needed. It also helped Rinpoche to mental profiles of his students and friends, which were most “uncannily” accurate.
My own experience of Rinpoche developing uncannily accurate profiles of people, including people he hardly knew, was his “profiling” of my beloved late Mother when he visited her in the last couple of weeks before she passed away. By observing my mother clutching her Chinese news daily in her hand, and listening to us giving some snippets of her grief for my dad, Rinpoche was able to accurately build a profile of my mother as a lady with a rare , deep and noble love, devotion and faithfulness to a husband who had passed away so many decades ago.It moved me to tears as I hadn’t seen my mother with such great sensitivity as Rinpoche had done.
Thank you Pastor David for the sharing on Rinpoche’s innovative way of instilling Dharma, mindfulness and compassion in his students, using the “New News “
Our Lama Tsem Rinpoche was a gift to us and the Tibetan Buddhism world who just keeps on giving , teaching Dharma and cares more than himself. Rinpoche was definitely one Lama that gives much more than another one else. Well known for his compassion, Rinpoche had guild rather train his students from day one where they are today. Rinpoche had observed , on the lookout to assist and encourage anyone of us and friends. Rinpoche had used the ‘new news’ an exercise to develop greater awareness of people and situations around. Wonderful way , to instill the positive qualities of compassion and awareness in us. Reading this post , I learn something new.
Thank you Rinpoche and Pastor David .
If given choices, I don’t really like this ‘daily new news’. Maybe I have the thinking where ‘It’s other people’s business, why should I care. Better not to kaypoh (busybody)’ . But then, after reading this article of yours, I think that’s exactly why I should care isn’t it? It’s the attitude of carelessness that leads me to have very low level of awareness. I’m not very quick in so called profiling others and because of that, I feel that I don’t really understand others much. I can’t relate to their stories or their current state of mind. Maybe I should give this method a try. Starts with my relatives, perhaps. I wonder what kind of answers Rinpoche really wanted and their examples.
Anyway, really thank you for sharing this Pastor.