Category Archives: Sakya

Glimpses of What Could Be

Buddha at Sakya Pema Ts'al in the Himalayas
What would it feel like if you could, after years of working hard at understanding life, sit under a tree and vow not to get up until you truly grasped the deepest most authentic nature of how reality works and how the mind operates in that reality? What would everything in the world look like to you at that moment? What would you look like to everything in the world?

Buddhist art has for over 2,000 years tried its best to depict an answer to those questions. Sometimes friends ask me why there are so many images of the Buddha when the Buddha himself asked people not to turn his image into a thing to be worshipped.

Do not be confused. The Buddha image is not what is to be revered. The Buddha experience, as suggested by all images as forms of art, is what we seek. Such artwork encourages us, and we take that encouragement to heart.

Here is the inspirational image from the main hall of my friends’ Sakya Pema Ts’al Monastic Institute at the base of the Himalayas. I will enjoy visiting and seeing this up close and personal.

And yes, I acknowledge it will be easier seeing that image than it will be seeing what that seer saw.

Phurba Pierces Problem States

Friends have asked me about some of the techniques that keep me intrigued with my Tibetan teachers who share with me their ageless lore of the Dorje Phurba “demon-defeating dagger”. Are you up for trying out an exercise?

The phurba dagger is a very real tool – a 3-edged blade like the famous commando daggers once used in western warfare but now banned in warfare for being just too fiercely deadly. Hand-held phurba spike daggers can be made of silver, gold, copper, or iron, or carved from wood of white, yellow, red, or black colors. However, the phurba is most important as a symbol of focused intention even more powerful than the hand-held blade.

What would you do with a weapon that could pierce through conditions in your life that stood in opposition to your fulfillment? What would you change right away if you had a tool that could nail into powerless paralysis any situations that caused lack or frustration in your life?

So here’s exercise one: Find one small condition that nags your life right now. Find something that you want but cannot seem to get, or something you dislike but cannot seem to dump. For this exercise, start with something relatively small, some little thing easy to identify, something that you will clearly recognize as being cured if or when a positive change comes about. We will save the big things for later.

Maybe you find some toxic condition you want to relieve – too much debt, excess body weight, unsafe car, co-workers or friends who bring you down, poor health, too much stress, overworked, etc. – something to purge in order to purify your life.

Maybe you will find some acceptable condition you want to expand – Mildly “OK” home or career or health or relationships or financial security or knowledge or appearance, etc. – but it could be and should be more satisfying and enriching.

Maybe you find your life missing key people, or positioning, or access to the kind of influence that would allow you to advance and accomplish – you lack the right allies, lovers, mentors, opportunities, titles, or outright patron sponsors – people or conditions to attract and bind to you in order to give your life the boost in momentum it needs.

Maybe you find your life invaded by people or groups or situations or conditions that seem to target you specifically and hold you back from what is rightfully yours – rivals, competitors, jailers, saboteurs, or outright enemies – some identifiable force to conquer and nail down out of the way in order for your life to be free to blossom.

Exercise One, part Two is to sit and take a deep breath and very clearly and explicitly identify with a vision in your mind’s inner eye and in as few strong words as possible just what you want to change. Stay with that for a few moments and repeat this step over and over to be sure you are focused. If you are comfortable with spiritual adventure, you could even press your palms together with the fingers of each hand gripping like claws the knuckles of the other hand as illustrated as Kuji no In Ge-baku-ken mudra in Chapter 5 in book 2 of Ninja; The Complete Collection. I will show you a minor adjustment of that sometime when we are together personally.

Exercise One, part Three is then to watch very carefully over the next week for any and all signs, coincidences, omens, hints, whispers, or offers that could indicate a possible solution to your challenge. Just remember to pay attention and look for even the most subtle of communications as to an answer. See what catches your awareness directly, obliquely, or in moments of distraction or even dreaming.

Try it and write me a comment on what you experience.

Help Build a Temple

Got a few extra dollars looking for something important and valuable to do?

An-shu Stephen K. Hayes is working to assist his friend Lama Kunga Dhondup, principal of Sakya Pema T’sal Monastic School in Pokhara, Nepal, in fundraising to build a traditional Tibetan temple at the site of his monastery for young Tibetan monks.

An-shu says, “My young monk friends hosted me and a few of our SKH Quest Center Black Belt students in their monastery a few times in years past. They generously helped me translate ancient Tibetan texts that teach important exercises for the liberation of the human spirit. These are teachings that will add great value to our spirit-building training in the Western world.”

Here is where we need to help. “Temple construction is well underway – and along comes a world economic disaster. Funds pedged to my friends disappeared. I promised the Sakya Pema Ts’al monks I would do all I could to help them finish the financing of their temple building. Rumiko and I have the Blue Lotus Assembly charity that we use to send donations to great causes like this. If you have a few dollars you can share, please join us.”


Instead of automated donation, contribution checks can also be sent to:

Blue Lotus Assembly

c/o SKH Quest

6236 Far Hills Avenue

Dayton, OH 45459

Avalokiteshvara – Kannon – Chenrezig – Yoga Meditation

HOMBU DOJO – DAYTON, OHIO
Wednesday June 30, 2010 8:30 – 9:30 pm

An-shu and guest Sakya Lama Rigzin Wangdu from Sakya Pema Ts’al Monastic Institute in Pokhara, Nepal, presented a meditation practice in generating awareness of our inherent proclivity towards compassionate intelligent encouraging engagement with the world, through identification with our own inner nature of being a “heroic bright light who hears the sorrows of the world”.

Sakya Lamas at Miami Valley Meditation 2008

In June 2008, An-shu Stephen and An-shu Rumiko’s friends Lama Pema Wangdak of New York Palden Sakya Centers, and Lama Kunga Dhondup, ritual master of Pema Ts’al School in Pokhara, Nepal, returned to Dayton’s Miami Valley Meditation with an initiation and teaching in the spiritual practice of White Tara longevity meditation. Participants travelled from as far away as Florida, Colorado, and North Carolina to be a part of the illumination.

Vajrapani Empowerment with Dagchen Sakya Rinpoche

HH Jigdal Dagchen Sakya Rinpoche of Sakya Monastery in Seattle, Washington, visited the Chamseling Temple of Dalai Lama elder brother Thubten Jigme Norbu and Kunyang Norbu (youngest sister of HH Dagchen Rinpoche) and presented this empowerment into Vajrapani “Grasping Unbreakable Truth” on Sunday September 19 2004 at Tibetan Cultural Center in Bloomington, Indiana.


The Vajrapani empowerment was sponsored by Stephen K. Hayes.
SKH Quest Marishi-Kai protection team members worked to keep the event smooth and safe for all as part of the TCC’s weekend Mongolian Cultural Festival.

Sakya Lamas at Miami Valley Meditation 2004

In June 2004, Lama Pema Wangdak of New York Palden Sakya Centers, and ritual master Lama Kunga Dhondup of Pema Ts’al School in Pokhara, Nepal, presented public programs on spiritual practice, ritual, and meditation in everyday living, and conferred on Stephen K. Hayes a 5-day depth instruction in the practice of Vajrakilaya – “truth like a dagger blade” that removes obstacles to brightness and wholeness in life.

Support the DharmaVenerable Lama Pema Wangdak has been a monk since 7 years old. A student of His Holiness Sakya Trizin, he graduated from Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Benares, India in 1980 with Acharya (Masters) degree. In 1989 Lama Pema founded the Vikramasila Foundation, and then Palden Sakya Centers in New York City, Woodstock, NY, Philmont, NY, Charlottesville, VA, and Cresskill, NJ. Lama Pema is the creator of “Bur Yig” Tibetan Braille, and founder of Pema Ts’al (“Lotus Grove”) Schools in Mundgod, India and Pokhara, Nepal, and Pema Ts’al School in New York City based on the curriculum at Sakya College, India. Lama Pema has been guiding western students for over 20 years through his marvelous command of the English language and his knowledge and compassion.