20th – 27th January 2021
The events will be live streamed here:
Rinpoche has informed us that his mother, known fondly to his students as Ama-la, passed away quietly after a short illness on Christmas Eve, 24th December. The whole family were with her in Gangtok. Her cremation took place in Sikkim on Sunday 27th December and prayers were said by Lamas from Rumtek, Dodrupchen and the Sakya monasteries in keeping with principle of the all inclusive rimé school central to the teaching and practise of Ringu Tulku Rinpoche. If you would like to make an online donation for prayers to be said for his mother, there is a link at the bottom of this page https://bodhicharya.org/about/. Rinpoche has asked specifically that we keep Ama-la in our own prayers at this time. Please see his message below.
My mother passed away a week ago.
I miss her deeply but not sad.
68 years I basked at her loving presence.
This is the time to celebrate that fortune.
She only thought of what to give.
Never lost her genuine smile and good heart.
Even in our worst days
She never let any visitors to leave
Without a cup of hot tea.
I wish to thank all who sent me love
And kind messages
I wish you all a wonderful New Year
With health, wealth and harmony
And lots of kindness.
Ringu Tulku
31.12.2020
Gangtok
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Greetings to the Bodhicharya Sangha, in Ireland and beyond. At this year's virtual Summercamp, hosted by the Tsering Paldron and the Portuguese Sangha, with an Irish/Finnish technical team, Rinpoche was able to give teachings on Je Tsongkhapa's text, The Principle Aspects of the Path, under the broad title of 'Training and Path.' Practice and dialogue sessions were hosted via zoom by various members of the international sangha in Germany, US, UK, Ireland, Finland and elsewhere according to timezones and availability. There was a daily social breakfast which is continuing: please please see below.
The team hosted webinars and dialogues, and question and answer sessions with Rinpoche–who is currently based in Gangtok–throughout the week. The whole week provided a marvellous international forum for people to meet and exchange ideas as well as connect with Rinpoche as if he was in our own homes. It also served to connect folk with each other on every continent across the world, from New Zealand to India, to Colorado and Brazil, South Africa and Europe; many who might for various reasons otherwise feel fearful and isolated giving a strong sense of unity and hope.
The Irish Bodhicharya Sangha, facilitated by Ani Karma Trinley Paldron (Pat Murphy) met daily to practise the short White Tara Sadhana adapted by Tenga Rinpoche and the subject of a commentary and reading transmission by Ringu Tulku Rinpoche in June 2020, which can be accessed in the Bodhicharya Archives.
There will be a regular practice session for White Tara every Sunday morning at 11 am UK/ Irish time beginning 9th August 2020.
Karma Trinley also hosted an evening discussion group throughout the Summer camp and this will continue on the first Tuesday of the Month, 7-8pm UK/Ireland,
Karma Trinley pat.murphyspace@gmail.com for access to White Tara and discussion groups.
Andy Lowe globalnomad999@gmail.com for access to the monthly Zoom breakfast meetings. ( 2nd Sunday each month). All Bodhicharya Sangha are welcome to join these sessions wherever you are.
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Philippe Cornu, ‘La Crise Covid-19: une opportunité pour changer?’ (An opportunity for change?) Second of two Television programs in the weekly series ‘Sagesses Bouddhistes’ (Buddhist Wisdoms), Sunday 14th June 2020
In his second broadcast on France 2, Philippe Cornu considers the implications for change in the present situation, indicating a radical solution which could come out of the current disorientation.
He began with a consideration of the fundamental Buddhist idea of interdependence, in which the coming-into-being of a phenomenon causes the self-destruction of other phenomena and so on ad infinitum. In this way all phenomena are both transitory and interdependent: it is impossible to consider one element without reference to the whole, and to all the individual phenomena that have contributed to its coming-into-being. This applies, naturally, on both the personal and the collective level.
Although it is in Buddhism that we find this philosophy developed to its most sophisticated level, it is to be found elsewhere, for example in the Stoics, in Spinoza and, perhaps most radically, in the 18th century Scottish philosopher Hume.
The present crisis, argues Cornu, is a direct result of a market philosophy in which everything has become delocalised, and we have become dependent on a global economy over which we have no control. This vertiginous situation was perhaps necessary to oblige us to reflect on the implications for the future, to examine where present suppositions are leading: for example, the implications of a world subject to the demands of the GNP, to growth at all costs. The very concept is nonsense, declares Cornu: how can we have infinite growth in a finite and closed world? Why do we always want more, when more will never be enough? But behind this will to endless expansion there is an increasingly obvious vulnerability, because we have not recognised our place in the whole, we have not taken account of interdependence. Here Cornu evokes the well-known French ecologist and writer Pierre Rabhi who, living on and from the land, claims that we should be aiming at a ‘sobriété heureuse’ (a happy sobriety), learning to do without many of the gadgets and accessories that the market increasingly tempts us with, claiming that the very survival of humanity is at stake. The astrophysician Aurélien Barrau, engaged also in the politics of climate-change, is right to be warning the world in increasingly urgent fashion of the dangers of our current way of life. We need more scientists of his calibre, argues Cornu, and we should listen to what they are saying. It is nothing short of a transformation of our civilisation that is necessary, he declares, enumerating the areas that need our urgent attention:
· Our food. Without necessarily becoming totally vegetarian, we should limit our meat intake, firstly thinking of the animal suffering that is involved in their rearing, slaughter and consumption. Animals should be allowed to “have a life”: we eat them only because our minds ‘make them into things’ (the French is “chosifiés”), rather than our companion living beings on this earth. Let us reflect on the old adage ‘we are what we eat’.
· The rearing of animals for slaughter consumes an enormous amount of water, an increasingly rare resource, and also cereals, which could be better used to feed people. The present agro-alimentary system is disastrously wasteful, and contributes to the destruction of the environment.
· Transport. This is another destructive aspect of our current civilisation that calls for a revolution in the way we think. In France at least, we should no longer think of taking an internal flight when there is an alternative train service, even if, paradoxically, the train can be more expensive. This is a choice we should consider making on an individual basis, as is the rather automatic way in which some of us still take several long-haul flights per year, with no thought of the cost to the environment.
· Water is an increasingly scarce resource, with some communities already desperately short of it, having to walk one or two kilometres to fetch it. We should think of that as we take a shower that lasts for half an hour, or draw a bath of water. We must learn to respect it as something precious and essential to life. As such we should pay for it ungrudgingly as individuals. The glaciers are already receding at an alarming rate, and as a result less water is being channelled into the rivers. The time may come when we have to pay for clean air too!
During lockdown, paradoxically, we have been able to appreciate nature better: we can hear birdsong once again, the animal world no longer fears us in the same way and ventures out into the space that we had occupied. The animals that humans accuse of being responsible for the Corona virus were never intended to be consumed by humans. Their habitat is deep in the forest, from which they have been driven by deforestation. Being more respectful of our environment is one of the reflexes that we must develop if we want to survive into the future.
To the interviewer’s question as to how we might reinvent human creativity, Cornu replied that this must become much more interior. We must stop projecting our desires outwards, as if we were somehow outside nature, a stance that betrays our belief that nature is there to be manipulated by us. We are also responsible for sterilising and impoverishing nature, in the form of the soils in which we grow things, leading to loss of nutrients and hence the increasingly poor quality of the food we consume. Humans are in fact the virus of the planet, whose multiplication and heedless behaviour destroy their environment.
If we do not want to be this virus, we must learn to think differently, turning inwards in order to make better contact with others – not just other humans, but animals, plants, nature in general, so that this planet may once more be good to live on.
Since the pandemic, we have become accustomed to take leave of people with the formula ‘Take care’, and in fact, without care for oneself, we cannot take care of others. The first thing to cultivate is a good relationship with oneself.
In these two short talks, Philippe Cornu gave a thoroughly convincing demonstration of the way in which Buddhist philosophy reaches into every aspect of our lives, and a powerful plea for a more caring attitude towards the planet we occupy and towards the other creatures and natural phenomena with which we share it. Cease wanting more – material goods, space, entertainment, things outside ourselves – and rather look inwards to reacquaint ourselves with the essential. In this way we may ensure a future for the planet.
Pat Little
Saint-Geniès de Malgoires, 19/06/20
Part two of the original interview can be viewed here
