Buddha at Sakya Pema Ts'al in the Himalayas

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.

Text of the CTA’s “Call for Prayers and Fasting”

Since the 2008 uprising in Tibet, the situation in Tibet has been deteriorating. Particularly, as of March this year, it has become ever more tense and urgent with the increasing cases of self-immolation by young Tibetans who find China’s occupation and repression of Tibet intolerable.
Tibetans in Tibet are driven to these drastic acts to resist political repression, cultural assimilation, economic marginalization and environmental destruction.

From the seven young Tibetans who self-immolated this year, the following succumbed to their injuries: On March 16, 2011, Lobsang Phuntsok (age 21), a monk of Kirti Monastery in northeastern Tibet. The second reported case, on August 15, 2011 was that of Tsewang Norbu, (age 29), a monk at Nyitso monastery in eastern Tibet. The third and the fourth cases were Khaying (age 18), and Choephel (age 19), both former monks of Kirti Monastery. They self-immolated on October 7, 2011 and died on October 8 and 11 respectively.

The conditions of the three others, namely Lobsang Kelsang (age 18), Lobsang Kunchok (age 19) and Kelsang Wangchuk (age 17) are still unknown.

The Central Tibetan Administration is deeply concerned about their whereabouts and well-being.

We express our solidarity with all those who lost their lives and with all other Tibetans who are incarcerated for their courage to speak up for the rights of the Tibetan people. We appeal to the United Nations, freedom-loving countries and people around the world to show their support and solidarity with the Tibetan people at this critical stage.

Given the undeclared martial law in Tibet and the increasing cases of self-immolation, the international community must press the government of People’s Republic of China to restore freedom and resolve the issue of Tibet through dialogue for the mutual benefit of the Tibetan and Chinese people. In this light, we urge the international community and the media to send fact-finding delegations to ascertain the situation on the ground inside Tibet.

The Kashag and the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile have jointly planned activities in India and the world-at-large to highlight the deepening crisis in Tibet.

We call upon all Tibetans and Tibet supporters in the free world to join efforts and organize activities in their respective regions. These events must be peaceful, respectful of local laws and dignified. On October 19, 2011, the Central Tibetan Administration will offer day-long prayers and encourage all Tibetans to fast on that day as a gesture of solidarity with Tibetans in Tibet.

To our brothers and sisters in Tibet, we stand with you in fulfilling our common aspirations, and we share the pain of your sacrifice.

Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile The Kashag

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 of the book Ninja Vol 2, Warrior Ways of Enlightenment. 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.

by Spriha Srivastava | December 5, 2010 17:38

What has a Ninjutsu Master got to say about His Holiness The Dalai Lama? A lot more than you know, for Stephen K Hayes was security advisor to His Holiness for the better part of the 1990s, and continues to be a spiritual friend.

What was your first impression of the Dalai Lama and how real was he compared to your perception of a Godman?

I first met the Dalai Lama in India in 1986. I was very much moved by the energy of his very presence and by his bearing. I later learned the Tibetans sometimes call him Kundun, which means “the presence”. I was impressed by the intense way he paid attention to each question I asked, and the way he answered honestly and directly. I was no statesman or business figure or celebrity, but he nonetheless gave me his entire attention for the hours I spent with him at our first meeting.

Read the rest on The Sunday Indian web site…

I was given the scroll as a present by the senior lamas of Ganden Shartse Monastery during a visit to Mundgod, India, in 2002. I had promised my friend Thubten Jinpa (translator for the Dalai Lama) I would assist the Ganden Shartse monks to get USA visas to facilitate a fund-raising tour through the United States.

Learn more about the monastery and how you can help at http://www.gadenshartsecf.org/become-a-friend/

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.”

Blue Lotus Assembly is registered with the USA IRS as a 501 (c) 3 charity, so all donations are legally tax deductible.

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

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”.

]]> http://www.bluelotusassembly.org/2010/06/193/feed/ 0 http://www.bluelotusassembly.org/2010/04/earthquake-victims-in-tibet/ http://www.bluelotusassembly.org/2010/04/earthquake-victims-in-tibet/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:54:03 +0000 skhayes http://www.bluelotusassembly.org/2010/04/earthquake-victims-in-tibet/

April 14 was Rumiko’s and my 30th wedding anniversary. We celebrated with joy and then were dismayed to hear about the Tibetan earthquake tragedy that day. More than 1,700 people have died and an estimated 10,000 mostly ethnic Tibetans were injured and left homeless in near-freezing temperatures after an earthquake struck a region of Kham, Tibet. More than 85 percent of the houses in Kyigudo, a town of 100,000 people nearest the epicenter, were destroyed along with a major monastery.

I encourage friends to donate relief funds, either directly to an appropriate organization like The Tibet Fund Emergency Earthquake Relief, or by sending a donation to Rumiko’s and my charity Blue Lotus Assembly to form a collection we will donate as a group.

May 13 update: I made a presentation to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on stage in front of the audience when he visited us, and requested that he add ours to his contribution to relief work. We collected over $3,000 in donations. That goes a long way in Tibet!

Please join us in keeping the victims of this earthquake in our thoughts and prayers and assisting financially if you are able. So far, the following friends have contributed:
Curtis Adkins
Jacob Bassham
Boulder Quest Center
Brent deMoville
Maison Dhondt
Daniel L. Dunn
Tori Eldrige
Michael Erwin
Tony Griffin family
Richard Harrington
Jackie Haviland
Marissa Hayes
Reina Hayes
Stephen & Rumiko Hayes
Rick Jurvis
Christos Karatsalos
Jesper Ljungquist
Joel Minton
Eamonn Mullaly
Neal Nemhauser
Russell Nemhauser
Newbury Park Martial Arts
Steve Pavlovic
Michael Piper
Robain Polly
Kyle Smith
Marco Tillmann
Richard Titcombe
Jerry C. Townsend
Gail Whipple

Stephen K. Hayes’ Volume I Spirit of the Shadow Warrior and Volume 2 Warrior Ways of Enlightenment, and the SKH Quest books Action Meditation, First Steps on the Path of Light and How To Own The World all have chapters dealing with some of the mind techniques available through the Blue Lotus Assembly training:

PRESENCE Meditation

Learn to be fully present in your life. Recognize how your mind’s restless nature works to prevent you from fully enjoying the richness of each experience, and then cultivate the ability to dwell in the “exhilarating calm” of being totally in the present moment and place. What a refreshing space to be in this world of overcrowded, overloaded, and overstressed senses, decisions, thoughts, demands, communications, and choices that so often overwhelm us to the point of numbness or oblivion. How would life be different if you were more able to move through your days with a sense of centered peace? PRESENCE mindfulness meditations are often described in words that negate frantic pace and busy attention with titles like calmingor centering or tranquility, or the Japanese term shi which translates as “stopping” the mind-spinning.

INSIGHT Meditation

Learn to look within for verification of truth as you question all your answers. Develop the capacity to recognize habitual dead-end thought and feeling patterns that can seem so natural, but that actually stem from cultural, social, family, and community conditioning. What an empowering breakthrough it is to realize we have access to the answers to the vexing questions as to why life can be a confusing, exasperating, discouraging, and heartbreaking experience. How would life be different if you had more power to determine the quality of your interactions and encounters? INSIGHT meditations give us the opportunity to explore how our emotions, beliefs, habits, thought processes, and interpreted memories condition and determine our experience of life, who we are, and how we operate in the reality we are creating.

STRUCTURE Meditation

Learn to engage powerful traditional tools for disciplined progress. Build a carefully structured form for daily awareness conditioning as a method for moving ever closer to thinking, speaking, and acting like the ideal person you have always wanted to be. What an inspiring opportunity to have these age-old statements of principle with which to re-align continuously in our commitment to living in integrity. What could you accomplish if you lived every decision from a pre-determined code for heroic living? STRUCTURE recitation meditations are sometimes seen as seeming to state the obvious, but the practice has a way of becoming ever more challenging and stimulating and inspiring in the most personal of ways the longer we work with and reflect on the techniques.

INSPIRATION Meditation

Learn to tap into the direct experience of your highest purpose in life. Discover ancient secret methods for accessing bright inspiration that dwells within grand and timeless archetypal potentials as healer, spiritual champion, protector, guide, or provider of blessing. How liberating it is to let go of any sense of being off-purpose or beaten-down, and instead find within a truer, nobler, grander identity as a spiritual beacon for self and others. Who would you be if you were totally living up to your potential? INSPIRATION visualization meditations are doorways to our truest or highest self that dwells hidden beneath layers of mental and emotional shielding developed over years of conventional trial and error identity forging on the to way defining ourselves and our roles in life.

TRANSMUTATION Meditation

Learn to embody the perfection of spiritual truth that can be grasped by working through the challenges of our deepest fears. Perfect ancient secret methods for transforming into spiritual elevation even those aspects of personal makeup that conventional spirituality often disdains. How healing it is to attain initiation into the deepest realization of why we have been given a precious human life, and how we can use every inclination, feeling, conflict, and discomfort as a means for elevating life into a brilliant realm of sacred qualities in action. Who would you be if you could transform into trophies all lingering shadows of guilt, shame, resentment, or regret? TRANSMUTATION highest yoga tantra meditations are magical processes for recognizing in the mundane workings of our bodies and personalities the keys to highest spiritual transcendence.

SCHOOLS OF MEDITATION

These different types of mind functioning each led to the development of a particular school of meditation. Each mental power is desirable – no intelligent being would turn down the offer of any of these powers. It is also true that each mental power must be cultivated and earned. Meditation is the practice by which hindrances to these different mind powers are overcome. Because the natures of these powers are different, the types of training are therefore different.

Meditation exercises described in Chapter 5 of Stephen K. Hayes’ Vol. 1, Spirit of the Shadow Warriordescribe shamatha “mindfulness” or “centering” meditation. You work to discover and access at will a centered and unmoved state of inner stability and clear vision and “stop your mind from spinning” to prevent thoughts from running away with you. This calming and centering of the mind, with emphasis on cultivating awareness of the “empty-of-distracting-forms” state of mind, might be thought of as most characteristic of Japanese Zen or Chinese Chan meditation.

Meditation exercises described in Chapter 4 of Stephen K. Hayes’ Vol. 1, Spirit of the Shadow Warrior and the SKH Quest Publications First Steps on the Path of Light and How To Own The World are vipasshana , or “insight” introspection meditation. In this meditation, you monitor the flow of realizations as they move through your observing mind and “watch your mind at work” to see how your mind does work. This watching the mind in action and gaining insight as to the functions of mind is most characteristic of Theravada (“School of the Sages”) meditation, especially strong in the countries of Southeast Asia, such as Thailand or Burma.

Meditation exercises described in Chapter 7 of Stephen K. Hayes’ The Mystic Arts of the Ninja and those in the SKH Quest Publications Action Meditation are close to mikkyo “esoteric” meditation practice. In “eidetic visualization” ritual meditation, you willfully program your mind to alter its conditioned perceptions of the world. Mikkyo is characteristic of Tibetan and Japanese vajrayana meditation. The exercises require you to be in a specific environment and “psycho-emotional atmosphere” in order to be transmitted. Therefore, such meditations do not usually appear in books because the initiation must be in the form of direct experience guided by a qualified teacher.