Mangala Shri Bhuti - The Link

Speaker: Bob Reid. Bob discusses the four opportunities for rebirth after death, with emphasis on the two Mahayana opportunities for rebirth in a pure land or the human realm.

Speaker: Anya Hunter. Anya emphasizes the importance of cultivating kindness and taming our minds. To be kind to ourselves we have to challenge conditioned beliefs such as perfectionism and self-aggression; to extend kindness to others, we have to widen our perspective and care to include all beings. To attain these qualities, we need to heighten our awareness and discipline our minds through practices like the four immeasurables, tonglen, and shamatha.

Speaker: Dungse Jampal Norbu. Dungse-la offers his contemplations on bodhicitta and compassion as the universally profound, true source of courage. He describes courage as the flip side of fear, pointing to the source of fear as grasping, rejection and ignorance. Because of these three habitual tendencies, it takes a great deal of compassion, steeped in bodhicitta, to be truly courageous.

Speaker: Natasha Carter. Natasha meditates on how the longing to be free of suffering is at the heart of Dharma. It is important to understand this longing from a Dharmic point of view. Desensitizing ourselves to suffering will only render us immune to the Dharma; trying to escape it by pursuing worldly concerns will not work, either. The aim of genuine Dharma practice is to cultivate our capacity to cherish and care for all beings; to do so we have to remain open to suffering, surrendering to what is. Instead of trying to satisfy our longing we should view it as a source of inspiration and devotion, and as a sign of our connection to others. The yearning to free ourselves and all beings from suffering is the essence of "mugu" devotion.

Speaker: Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. This is a re-broadcast of a Shedra talk given to the sangha on September 16, 2012 at Phuntsok Choling in Ward, Colorado.

Speaker: Sybil Boutilier. Sybil reflects on the importance of meeting old age and death with wisdom and confidence. In our ignorance, we have imprisoned ourselves in a net of self-cherishing. To navigate old age and death with less fear and suffering, we need to cultivate bodhicitta, acknowledge our regrets, and forgive ourselves and others. Preparing for death in this way enables us to create the conditions that make it possible to have a good rebirth.

Speaker: Dungse Jampal Norbu. Dungse-la shares thoughts from his current retreat. Retreat is not vacation. The point is to face everything that arises in our mind. If we look closely, we see that in moments of fear and anxiety, we often default to the sense of self and the five afflictive emotions resulting in our acting with attachment and aggression. Moving beyond this worry, "what about me?" to asking "how can I benefit others?" opens up so many more options to us.

Speaker: Tomas Downey. Tomas relates how the practice of "allowing" enriched his Dharma practice. One way to connect to the Dharma and to progress on the path is to "fake it till you make it." While some people find this approach useful, Tomas discovered he benefited more from focusing on how loving kindness, compassion, and joy are already part of his nature. Instead of making an effort to arouse these qualities, he shifted his perspective and used an approach that simply allowed them arise naturally from his own experiences. He describes how warmth, peace, joy, awareness and awakeness arise naturally if we allow them to. He also notes that this perspective of allowing, which emphasizes our enlightened nature, is also a helpful way to approach Vajrayana practices that may initially appear strange or foreign.

Speaker: Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. Re-broadcast of LINK talk originally given on November 1, 2015 to the sangha at Longchen Jigme Samten Ling Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. Rinpoche provides detailed commentary on Gampopa' s ' Four Blessed Lines' prayer.

Speaker: Greg Moloney. Greg reminds us to keep our minds poised to recognize the magic that surrounds us and that provides inspiration, guidance, and support along the path. He identifies three categories of magic: the outer magic of the natural world and relative experience, the inner magic we discover through working with our minds, and the secret magic of the sacred world of the lineage masters, dakinis, and devas.

Speaker: Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. In a previously recorded LINK talk given on June 13, 2004 at Osel Ling in Crestone, Colorado, Rinpoche gives commentary on the text, "Vast As The Heaven, Deep As The Sea, Versus in Praise of Bodhicitta".

Speaker: Michael Velasco. Michael talks about the challenges and blessings of going on pilgrimages and how they contribute to our progress on the path. The challenges of encountering India can be disorienting, but the discomfort opens us to new experiences. The pilgrimage sites themselves offer transformative blessings that allow us to relate more directly to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the sangha.

Speaker: Bill Roberts. Bill reflects on the importance of relating honestly to the aggression both in our minds and in the external world. As Buddhists we are committed to recognizing our kleshas and to taming our attachments and aversions. The five poisons (aggression, desire, pride, jealousy, and ignorance) are the roots of suffering. However, we should also cultivate bodhicitta and extend our care to others. We cannot turn away from the suffering in the world by dismissing it as "just karma" or "just samsara." We have an obligation to relate to it skillfully, neither ignoring it nor making it our enemy.

Speaker: Allie Bauer. Allie reflects on how to purify obscurations and see through the allure of samsara. Taking refuge, generating bodhicitta, practicing the four immeasurables and making aspirations are all powerful antidotes to the deep fog of ignorance that confuses us when we succumb to the delusion that happiness arises from seeking happiness for ourselves.

Speaker: Chris Holland. Chris expands on the importance of developing, clarifying, and honoring our knowledge both of ourselves and of the Buddhist teachings. In coming to know ourselves deeply, we learn how best to engage on the path and avoid common pitfalls in relating to the teachings, the sangha, and the teacher. Understanding the teachings clearly is the most effective way to integrate them into our life and practice. Chris concludes his talk by sharing the guidelines he has developed to assess his progress on the path.

Speaker: Stephanie Kindberg. Stephanie discusses the importance of staying the course on the path of the Buddhadharma, and the power of aspiration for the upcoming new year. Several listeners shared their aspirations for 2022 for all to reflect upon, and Stephanie encouraged us all to join in making our own meaningful aspirations as well.

Speaker: Jennifer Shippee. Jennifer contemplates how dying without regret is possible only if we liberate ourselves from self-clinging and allow genuine compassion and devotion to arise. By developing mindfulness and vigilant introspection, we sharpen our awareness of our aversions and attachments, all of which are rooted in self-clinging. Confronting these habits enables us gradually to subdue our confusion, realize the nature of mind, and allow genuine compassion to manifest spontaneously. Just as contemplating self-clinging gives rise to compassion, contemplating the attainments, efforts, and kindness of our teachers deepens our sense of appreciation and gratitude, which are the roots from which genuine devotion spring.

Speaker: Amalia Steinberg. Amalia contemplates the tendency to fall into nihilism and eternalism and offers skillful means to adopt the view of the middle way. The view of nhilism rejects the idea of cause and effect and engenders fear, anxiety, and clinging. The view of eternalism engenders a false sense of permanence and solidity that leads to fundamentalism. The middle way is not "halfway" between these two view; rather, it acknowledges the interdependence of all phenomena and offers the opportunity to exert agency. In acknowledging our deep connectedness with all beings and situations, it fosters respect, kindness, and an open heart.

Speaker: Dungse Jampal Norbu. Dungse-la teaches from the most famous lojong text, Seven Points of Mind Training, drawing on commentaries by great lojong practitioners in this weekend program held December 4-5, 2021. Lojong, the Buddhist practice of mind training, gives us the tools we need to journey through our constantly changing lives and meet unexpected and unwanted experiences with confidence and clarity. The training begins with getting to know ourselves and finding solidarity and friendship with our own minds. Gradually the practice frees us from the negative habits that prevent us from realizing our full potential to benefit others deeply.

Speaker: Wendy Conquest. Wendy reflects on how she gained a deeper understanding of the root causes of a life-long experience of anxiety, and how she applied the Dharma to work with it. During the pandemic, engaging in new and challenging service to the sangha heightened her tendency to be anxious and to worry, and led her to resolve to re-examine the assumption that this habit was a sign of conscientiousness. The realization that it was actually a form of suffering generated by self-clinging led her to contemplate how to apply the Dharma to overcome this obstacle. By applying the antidotes of self-reflection, mindfulness, vigilant introspection, and supplication, she was able to cultivate more awareness and equanimity and appreciation for the sangha and for the benefit of service to it.