A spiritual teacher’s long and winding road from Baptist to Buddhist, New York to Utah

By Peggy Fletcher, The Salt Lake Tribune, May 17 2015

Salt Lake City, Utah (USA) -- In his search for truth, the teacher, religious leader, husband and father finds enlightenment, meaning and a mission — to rise above himself and lift others.

<< Jerry Gardner, also known as Lama Thupten Dorje Gyaltsen, during service at the Urgyen Samten Ling Tibetan Buddhist Temple, Sunday, April 25, 2015.

The first thing people want to know about the handsome black man, with the deep bass voice, shaved head and one shoulder poking out from saffron-and-maroon robes, is what to call him.

At Salt Lake City's Urgyen Samten Ling Temple, he has been known as "Lama Thupten Dorje Gyaltsen," or "Lama Thupten," for short, but recently was elevated to the honorific position "Rinpoche."

Buddhist community has set tone of tolerance and acceptance of other faiths

BY LIM YAN LIANG PUBLISHED ON MAY 15, 2015 8:27 PM

As Singapore celebrates its 50th birthday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called on the people to reflect on the values of unity and inclusiveness that have brought the country this far and will keep it going. -- PHOTO: ST FILE 

SINGAPORE - As Singapore celebrates its 50th birthday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called on the people to reflect on the values of unity and inclusiveness that have brought the country this far and will keep it going.

These values are not dissimilar from Buddhist values such as kindness, tolerance, compassion, selflessness and moral integrity, he said at a concert organised by the Singapore Buddhist Federation to celebrate Vesak Day next month and SG50.

Mr Lee also said he was grateful that the Buddhist community, as the largest religious group in Singapore, has set the tone of "tolerance and acceptance of other faiths"

Nature is the unseen intelligence

What is the Mind?

"Philosophers used to refer to 'mind and matter' as the two basic Principles of the world. But they fail to come to a unanimous conclusion as to what the mind is.

Psychologists began their task by probing the nature of the mind. But, when they cannot specify and characterize the mind, they turn to the behaviour of animals and men. Thus Psychology becomes 'the study of behaviorism' rather than 'the science of the mind.'

200 Buddhist monks, nuns killed in Nepal earthquake

PTI, May 22, 2015

KATHMANDU, Nepal -- Around 200 Buddhist monks and nuns were killed when about 1,000 monasteries collapsed in the massive April 25 earthquake and subsequent aftershocks in Nepal, according to authorities.

<< Nepal earthquake: Aerial photos of remote Gorkha district show entire villages reduced to rubble

Buddhist philosophy promotion and monastery development committee (BPPMDC), under the ministry of federal affairs and local development, said that all 215 monasteries in Sindhupalchok district were flattened due to impact of the earthquake.

A total of 150 Buddhist monasteries collapsed in Gorkha, 105 in Dhading, 60 in Rasuwa and 60 in Solukhumbu.

Seeing from only one angle (Part 2)

A more detailed elaboration from the earlier post of Goenka's quotation.

"We constantly blame external things, people or situations for our sufferings. ‘It’s because of that person I am unhappy’, ‘that person did or said something that displeased me, that’s why I am miserable’, ‘if this situation in my life changed, then I could be happy’. We believe 100% of our happiness or pain is caused by things out there and that if the world was just as we wanted it to be then we would be at peace; if we had everything and everyone we wanted then life would be perfect. What we fail to realize is that the external world comes and goes, people and places come and go, things just happen, they are neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, they just are. It is only in our reaction to them, and our labeling of them as things that either give us pleasure or pain that misery arises. 100% of our suffering is caused inside, by our reactions to the things we perceive as happening outside of ourselves.

For example, someone in your life acts in a way that displeases you in some way, they do not conform to what you would like them to do or be. That particular situation in itself contains no suffering, it has no intrinsic pain in it, a person has simply chosen to act a certain way, they are not forcing you to be unhappy. It only becomes a source of suffering when you perceive it as producing pain in you and you react, demanding that the person change what they are doing or be different in order to please you, to give you pleasure rather than pain.

Things happen and you choose to react and let them trouble you, no one else but yourself is causing the misery. It is always your decision to react. Buddha therefore discovered that in fact 100% of all suffering is produced by our reactions to sensations in the body apparently being caused by people and situations outside of ourselves, 0% is in fact caused by the people or events themselves.

With these realizations, Gotama set about developing a solution to this universal malady, and began investigating and dissecting sensations and this root level of the mind. The solution he found was a technique of meditation he referred to as ‘Vipassana’. "

Seeing from only one angle (Part 1)

"Seeing from only one angle, one imagines that one’s suffering is caused by other people, by an external situation. Therefore one devotes all one’s energy to changing others, to changing the external situation. In fact, this is a wasted effort. One who has learned to observe reality within soon realizes that he is completely responsible for his misery or happiness. 

For example, someone is abused by another person, and becomes unhappy. He blames the person who abused him for making him unhappy. actually the abuser created misery for himself, by defiling his own mind. The person who was abused created his own misery when he reacted to the abuse, when he started defiling his mind. Everyone is responsible for his or her own suffering, no-one else. When one experiences this truth, the madness of finding fault with others goes away." ~ S N Goenka

My first visit to DDM Taiwan

My recent visit to Dharma Drum Mountain (DDM) Center for Buddhist 
Education in New Taipei City, Taiwan is primarily to receive bodhisattva precepts, not another meditation retreat as thought by some friends.

There is a saying in Mahayana Buddhism: "Those who have precepts to 
break are bodhisattvas; those who have no precepts to break are outer-
path followers."

The above statement makes me not to have the sense of guilt if I break 
any precept. It does not mean that I should readily break any precept 
but rather if ever I have broken any precept, the right attitude should be 
to admit the mistake, repent, vow not to repeat it and move on. If I can 
keep all the precepts without breaking any, it means I am already a saint. 
If I were a saint, I do not need precepts any more.

Buddhists - most supportive of Evolution and Environmental regulation.