Tenzin Quotes

No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages 1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5. 3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.” 4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank. 5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13. 6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14. 7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15. 8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil. 9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19. 10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961. 11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936. 12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23 13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24 14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record 15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity 16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France 17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28 18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world 19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter 20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean 21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind 22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest 23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream." 24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics 25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight 26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions. 27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon. 28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" 29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas 30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger 31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States 32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out. 33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games" 34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out. 35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa. 36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president. 37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels. 38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat". 40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived 41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise 42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out 43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US 44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats 45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President

I believe each human being has the potential to change, to transform one’s own attitude, no matter how difficult the situation.

Chiron reminds us that only through recognising and accepting our inner wounds can we find true healing.

Tenzin said, “More popcorn, my boy.” Giovanni ripped the plastic bag open and held the paper bag. “This is ridiculous. I’m not a kitchen appliance.

It is not enough to be compassionate. You must act.

Because we all share an identical need for love, it is possible to feel that anybody we meet, in whatever circumstances, is a brother or sister. No matter how new the face or how different the dress and behavior, there is no significant division between us and other people. It is foolish to dwell on external differences, because our basic natures are the same.

for any practice to work, the mind which is meditating and the object of meditation must merge. Often they are facing each other. One has to become completely absorbed, then the transformation will occur.

A guard spoke. “Stop, both of you! You may not enter the castle with weapons.” Tenzin drew her sword in the space of a heartbeat, sliced off the head of the guard who spoke, and kept walking as the body crumbled to the ground. “Oh, really?

The true essence of humankind is kindness. There are other qualities which come from education or knowledge, but it is essential, if one wishes to be a genuine human being and impart satisfying meaning to one's existence, to have a good heart.

When in the body of a donkey, enjoy the taste of grass.

If there is one thing predictable about the male of the species, it's their sex drive and their fascination with fire. ... Most advances in technology occur because they're either trying to impress women or blow things up." [Tenzin]

One great question underlies our experience, whether we think about it or not: what is the purpose of life? . . . From the moment of birth every human being wants happiness and does not want suffering. Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affects this. From the very core of our being, we simply desire contentment. . . Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness.

When we are angry, when we are excited, when we are depressed, when we are elated, we are completely submerged in and identified with those thoughts and feelings. This is why we suffer. We suffer because we are completely identified with our thoughts and feelings and we think this is me. This is who I am.

If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another. If you wish to know that you are safe, cause another to know that they are safe. If you wish to better understand seemingly incomprehensible things, help another to better understand. If you wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness or anger of another.

If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.

We do not ignore the use of the meaning in dreaming. But it is good to recognize that there is also dreaming in meaning.

People think of animals as if they were vegetables, and that is not right. We have to change the way people think about animals. I encourage the Tibetan people and all people to move toward a vegetarian diet that doesn’t cause suffering.

We are each living in our own soap opera. We do not see things as they really are. We see only our interpretations. This is because our minds are always so busy...But when the mind calms down, it becomes clear. This mental clarity enables us to see things as they really are, instead of projecting our commentary on everything.

Ultimately, there is light and love and intelligence in this universe. And we are it, we carry that within us, its not just something out there, it is within us and this is what we are trying to re-connect with, our original light and love and intelligence.

Abiding in the space of the nature of mind, we not only are free, we are freedom.

Don’t kill the humans just for fun, Tenzin.” “I’m not a sociopath.” She paused. “Or would that be a psychopath? I’m honestly not sure what the difference is.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. – Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

We pass through elementary school, high school, and maybe college, and in one sense every diploma is an award for developing a more sophisticated ignorance. Education reinforces the habit of seeing the world through a certain lens. We

Normally we are so identified with our thoughts and emotions, that we are them. We are the happiness, we are the anger, we are the fear. We have to learn to step back and know our thoughts and emotions are just thoughts and emotions. They're just mental states.

she teaches that 'being' is often better than 'doing' and that taking time out to be still and think is often a better investment for future productivity than cramming every waking moment with feverish activity.

Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold....Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.

People, especially family, get upset if you are not attached to them but that's only because we confuse love and attachment all the time.

The highest practice is the one that is most effective, not necessarily the one categorized as “higher.

Count the steps and keep the number. Pick the white pebbles and the funny strange leaves. Mark the curves and cliffs around for you may need to come home again.

The whole of our Dharma practice is to reduce our Ego, not to increase it. We have to be careful of this. It is not good to become a professional Dharma person, making sure that everybody sees we are very spiritual, we are such good vegetarians, we never smoke, we don’t go to karaoke bars, we are not like those worldly people. We are professional spiritual people. We are very pleased with ourselves. Of course the Ego loves this. Ego really pets itself. “Look at me, I’m such a superior person to these deluded people around me, I’m so much more disciplined, I’m so much more controlled.” So we have to watch. We have to be careful that in the Dharma practice our intention is quite pure. Because our delusion and our tricky Ego can end up actually reinforcing the very problems which we are trying to eradicate.

According to His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, when you’re happy everything in life is bearable and grief and stress are just passing emotions. Happiness is not something that you feel after something good happens. It is a state of living that is present whether good things are happening or not, whether you’re suffering or not.

Every diploma is an award for developing a more sophisticated ignorance.

Your ability to experience the great bliss that comes from recognition of your true nature depends on nothing but practice.

Si quieres que otros sean felices practica la compasión; y si quieres ser feliz tú, practica la compasión. TENZIN GYATSO, el 14 Dalai Lama (2009).

Be Wise As A Owl But Kind As A Panda ❤️ #PandaWisdom Legend Of The Peace Panda Tenzin Tsultrim Timothy Pina

How do you live forever, Tenzin?” “You don’t live forever—you live now.

The more you realize, the more you realize there is nothing to realize. The idea that there's somewhere we have got to get to, and something we have to attain, is our basic delusion.

For example, when practitioners transform into Shenlha Ökar (Shen Deity of White Light), they visualize their bodies as being adorned with the thirteen ornaments of peacefulness that in themselves evoke the enlightened quality of peacefulness.2 Shenlha Ökar himself embodies all six of the antidote qualities of love, generosity, wisdom, openness, peacefulness, and compassion; so as soon as you transform into Shenlha Ökar, you instantly embody these same qualities.

Methods can become an obstacle to abiding in non-dual awareness if the practitioner believes that one must use the practice to renounce something or transform something. Practices are only used to connect to the natural state and stabilize in it.

In psychotherapy it’s common to think that problems begin at a certain point in life as a result of certain situations, and that the particular time and situation must be dealt with in order to remove the problems. This may be so for particular problems, but suffering begins long before childhood, long before birth. No matter how perfect the childhood, everyone will still have problems.

The law of cause and effect,” Tenzin continued, “says that, step by step, we can create the causes to experience reality in a way that results in greater contentment and abundance, and we can avoid the causes of unhappiness and lack of resources. Buddha himself summed it up best when he said: ‘The thought manifests as the word; the word manifests as the deed; the deed develops into habit; and habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, and let it spring from love born out of concern for all beings … As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.

So we have to develop a very open loving attitude in our relationships with people. With everybody we meet, whether they are nice to us or not, we must have that initial feeling of “May you be well and happy”. Just a good feeling. It doesn’t mean we have to be stupid or that we can’t see that some people are bad or are going to cheat us. To be non-judgemental doesn’t mean that we are not discriminating. It means that we see the situation very clearly, we see clearly the kind of person before us, but we don’t react with anger. We don’t have to allow ourselves to be pushed around, we don’t have to be doormats for others to wipe their feet on. We can be very clear about what this person’s motivation is; we see it, and so can’t be trapped, cheated or abused.

The essence of meditation is to induce a mind which is totally relaxed and at the same time totally aware. If you get into a lovely, dreamy, peaceful state where you don't want to move and you feel you could just sit for hours, completely blissed out and peaceful, but in a vague fog, you have gone completely astray.

What do people think spiritual development is? It's not lights and trumpets. It's very simple. It's right here and now. People have this idea that Enlightenment and realization is something in the distance- a very fantastic and magnificent happening which will transform everything once and for always. But it's not like that at all. It's something which is sometimes so simple you hardly see it. It's right here in front of us, so close we don't notice it. And it's something which can happen at any moment. And the moment we see it, there it is. It's been there all the time, but we've had our inner eye closed. When the moments of awareness all link up - then we become a Buddha.

One of the advantages of being born in an affluent society is that if one has any intelligence at all, one will realize that having more and more won’t solve the problem, and happiness does not lie in possessions, or even relationships: The answer lies within ourselves. If we can’t find peace and happiness there, it’s not going to come from the outside.

When we cease to exist, the world we make dissolves, not the world that other people inhabit. Our perception and the way we view everything ceases with us. If we dissolve our conceptual mind, the underlying purity manifests spontaneously. When we know directly that there is no inherent existence either in our self or the world, then whatever arises in experience has no power over us. When the lion mistakes his reflection in the water for something real, he is startled and snarls; when he understands the illusory nature of the reflection, he does not react with fear. Lacking true understanding, we react to the illusory projections of our own mind with grasping and aversion and create karma. When we know the true empty nature, we are free.

Although some Western psychologies believe that the dreamer should not control the dream, according to Tibetan teachings this is a wrong view. It is better for the lucid and aware dreamer to control the dream than for the dreamer to be dreamed. The same is true with thoughts: it is better for the thinker to control the thoughts than for the thoughts to control the thinker.

We also know life passes quickly and death is certain, yet in our busy lives we find it difficult to practice as much as we wish we could. Perhaps we meditate for an hour or two each day, but that leaves the other twenty-two hours in which to be distracted and tossed about on the waves of samsara. But there is always time for sleep; the third of our lives we spend sleeping can be used for practice.

Your blood will be part of that,” Tenzin said. “You’re not dying really. Your body will feed flowers and grass. Your tears will return to the sea. One day the blood that is leaving you right now will fall as rain on the grass that your people walk on, and your spirit will exist in them and in another form.” She turned to the girl, who was staring at the river again. “Nothing is wasted in the end. Everything has a purpose.

When we think of an experience as “only a dream” it is less “real” to us. It loses power over us—power that it only had because we gave it power—and can no longer disturb us and drive us into negative emotional states.

The fundamental precept of Buddhism is Interdependence or the Law of Cause and Effect. This simply states that everything an individual experiences is derived from action through motivation. Motivation is thus the root of both action and experience. FREEDOM IN EXILE: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE DALAI LAMA

By helping you discover a deep source of knowledge and wisdom, meditation practice can bring you to the sense of connection, completion, and fulfillment that you yearn for. Ultimately, it can help you arrive at the more profound sense of peace and happiness that comes only from connecting with your deeper essence.

The doctor paused, thought for a moment, and then said, “That is a good question. Sometimes evil knows that people will promptly reject evil, so it disguises itself as good and then attacks good as if it were evil. In the confusion, evil can accomplish its mission. Does that make sense?” For me as a Buddhist, this actually did make sense.

Through the teachings, the introduction by the master, the practice, and the blessings, you can gradually deconstruct and dissolve the karmic conceptual body and be introduced to another type of body and identity called the illusory wisdom body (yeshé gyumé lü). This second body is characterized by wisdom—realization of the truth—and by a positive sense of the illusory.

We are social animals. We have to live within the society. So it is very necessary to have the right kind of relation with and attitude toward the society.” “Please pay more attention about inner value.
That is the ultimate source of happiness and success for life.” The Dalai Lama “You can’t know wisdom, you have to be it.” Ram Dass “Constructively dealing with adversities and bravely jumping educational hurdles can quickly fine-tune a person to Nature’s Law. We may look to saints and role models for inspiration but we are the ones who make our own effort, and then make our own progress. We may lean on heroes and deities, but the person whose hurdle it is must always do the final and decisive leap over that hurdle.” Tenzin Kharma Trinley

It’s like a dance. And we have to give each being space to dance their dance. Everything is dancing; even the molecules inside the cells are dancing. But we make our lives so heavy. We have these incredibly heavy burdens we carry with us like rocks in a big rucksack. We think that carrying this big heavy rucksack is our security; we think it grounds us. We don’t realize the freedom, the lightness of just dropping it off, letting it go. That doesn’t mean giving up relationships; it doesn’t mean giving up one’s profession, or one’s family,or one’s home. It has nothing to do with that; it’s not an external change. It’s an internal change. It’s a change from holding on tightly to holding very lightly. – Tenzin Palmo from the book "Into The Heart Of Life

There are cultural differences regarding emotion. For example, fear and sadness are not often mentioned in the teachings, yet most of samsara is tinged with both. And the concept of self-hatred is alien to Tibetans, who do not have words to describe it. When I went to Finland, many people talked to me about depression; this was in sharp contrast to Italy, where I had just been and where people seem to talk about depression very little. The climate, religion, traditions, and spiritual belief systems condition us and affect our experience. But the underlying mechanism of how we are stuck—the grasping and aversion, the projection, and the dualistic interaction with what we project—is the same every where. This is what is negative in emotional experience.

Having this inner space enables us to view our thoughts and emotions at a distance, which means we do not immediately identify with them as they arise. Normally we identify so strongly with our thoughts and emotions. Because we identify with them, we make them opaque, heavy, solid, real...we create space and a sense of detachment that helps us recognize who we are and what our true nature is. This makes our everyday life much more pleasant because we have a quiet, calm center in which to take refuge.

I don't think there is anything like the awareness of space to process emotion. That space is such an incredible processor. There is no analysis equal to the processing capacity of open awareness. When you are trying to analyze something, you don't realize that the analyzer itself is part of the problem. Both the problem and the analyzer are constructions of the mind. But direct, open, naked awareness is not a construction of the mind but the nature of the mind itself, and therefore the greatest processor ever.

In the West everyone wants the “highest” practice, a wish that indicates a misunderstanding of the path. Everyone wants to hurry through the foundational practices (ngön dro). But great masters do these practices all their lives. They continue to contemplate impermanence, cultivate compassion, do purification practices, make offerings, and do Guru Yoga. It is not a stage to get over. The most accomplished masters and teachers do these practices and cultivate these qualities all the way to the highest stages of realization, because there is still benefit in doing them.

If we don't use our daily life as a practice, nothing is ever going to change. It's not enough to just go to Dharma centers, or even to just do a daily practice. It's not even a matter of how much intellectual knowledge we absorb or how cleverly we understand concepts and ideas. The question is whether something inside is really changing. Is our mind being illuminated by these practices? Is our heart really opening? Are we kinder people? Are we more considerate? Are we feeling real compassion from the heart? If the answer to these questions is "No", we are merely indulging in intellectual play.

In order to seal the results of each body’s dissolution, you must have confidence in a particular view. Confidence in this case is not likened to trust in a certain outcome—as in “I’m confident I will not get sick,” or “I’m confident you will repay my loan with interest.” That kind of confidence is strongly related to one’s expectations. Rather, confidence in a view has more to do with confidence in being open to the outcome, whatever that outcome might be: “If I’m meant to be healed, it’s fine. If I’m not meant to be healed, it’s fine too.” Confidence in a view is similar to confidence in space.

Consider that everything you possess at this moment is, by its very nature, guaranteed not to be yours. Sooner or later, every relationship you have is guaranteed to dissolve. Everything that lives will die; everything that is created eventually will be destroyed. If impermanence is the true nature of reality, this is all the more reason not to get too attached to your visions. People who feel a little more open are sensing indirectly or directly that this is the case. People who feel blocked are, indirectly, not realizing impermanence. They think they can hold on forever to relationships and possessions, yet everything they are trying so hard to grasp is only an illusion.

The wisdom eye cuts the root of samsara and allows you to see the truth of the conceptual body. If there is no wisdom eye, you will not understand the truth, enter on the right path, attain the illusory wisdom body, or ultimately achieve liberation. For someone who already has the illusory wisdom body, the eye of bön (bön gyi chenma) is needed in order to attain the changeless precious body. The eye of bön is essentially a capacity for remembering or awakening to the teachings when the need arises. If you have the eye of bön and something disturbing happens, instead of awakening to anger and a memory of what some hateful person has done to you, you will spontaneously remember the master, the teaching, or the practices.

So if we are feeling angry at someone, we sit and generate thoughts of loving-kindness towards him. We start by generating thoughts of loving-kindness towards ourselves. Then when that warmth, that sense of acceptance even of the anger, arises in the heart, you can give it out to others. Another way, depending on what kind of meditation we are doing, is to look at the anger itself. First you quiet the mind. Then you look at the anger to see what it feels like. Where is it? What is the physical reaction to it? What is anger? When we say "1 am angry," what does it mean? How does it feel? That's one way. Another way is to replay what made us angry and observe it from a distance, the way we would watch a movie. Then try to see whether we can replay that scenario in a different way.

There is a specific dzogchen meditation practice in which we bring ourselves to the place of stillness by closing the eyes and contemplating all of the body’s physical actions over a lifetime, action by action, day by day, year by year. Although we can’t review our entire life in a single meditation session, we can elicit enough physical memories to bring ourselves to the point of exhaustion. The instant we arrive at this point, we release all the actions into the stillness of the moment and abide without changing. “Abide without changing” means that as our thoughts and experiences continue to arise and dissolve, we continue to rest in our own nature and simply observe without elaborating. We try not to follow the past, plan the future, or change the present. We “leave it as it is.

I find it interesting when people say that a difficult experience has helped them to know themselves better. What this usually means is that they have come to identify even more strongly with their conditions and have established and reinforced their pain body as their samsaric identity. Other people find themselves in limbo after a loss because they continue clinging to what they have lost and they never experience completion. The right experience of closeness to one’s self comes not from connecting with one’s conditions but from connecting with the loss of one’s conditions. That very point where you start to feel like you are losing something and have no control over it can be the biggest moment of discovery. Everything that you thought you needed, you don’t need. You are complete.

differently. Some grasp more and some less. The more grasping there is—the more reacting from karmic conditioning—the more we are controlled by experiences we encounter. With enough flexibility, we are not driven by karma. A mirror does not choose what to reflect; everything is welcome to come and go in its pure nature. The mirror, in this sense, is flexible, and it is so because it neither grasps nor pushes away. It does not try to hold on to one reflection and refuse to allow another. We lack this flexibility because we do not understand that whatever appears in awareness is only the reflection of our own mind. In lucid dreams, we practice transforming whatever is encountered. There is no boundary to experience that cannot be broken in dream; we can do whatever occurs to us to do. As we break habitual limitations of experience, the mind becomes increasingly supple and

What is the closest experience to the body of light you can have at this moment? To get a taste, think back to the first time you met a key person in your life, someone with whom you became very close. The instant of your meeting was pure—at first glance you may have seen only the vague form of a stranger in front of you. But in the moments that followed something interesting may have entered your awareness—the way the person tilted his head, the cut of his hair, the sound of his voice, or even the way he remained silent. You might have thought to yourself, “I love the silent type!” Some kind of familiarity lent itself to that first impression. Either you were drawn to a certain quality that you yourself lacked or you related to a quality that you both shared. From this first impression, you began to cultivate attachment. Over time, the more you related with the person and the more you got to know him, the stronger the attachment became. The bond grew stronger, denser, stickier, and grosser.

There appears to have been institutionalized bias against women right from the earliest times. I don’t think anybody sat down and thought, “Oh, let us be biased.” It’s just that it was part of the prevailing social scene. As the years passed, everything was recited and recorded from the male point of view. I am sure this was not intentional, it was just how it happened. Because most of the texts and the commentaries were written from the male point of view—that is, by monks—women increasingly began to be seen as dangerous and threatening. For example, when the Buddha talked about desire, he gave a meditation on the thirty-two parts of the body. You start with the hair on the top of the head and then go all the way down to the soles of the feet, imagining what you would find underneath if you took the skin off each part; the kidneys, the heart, the guts, the blood, the lymph and all that sort of thing. The practitioner dissects his body in order to cut through the enormous attachment to physical form and see it as it really is. Of course, in losing attachment to our own bodies, we also lose attachment to the bodies of others. But nonetheless, the meditation that the Buddha taught was primarily directed towards oneself. It was designed to cut off attachment to one’s own physical form and to achieve a measure of detachment from it; to break through any preoccupation the meditator might have about the attractiveness of his own body. However, when we look at what was being taught later, in the writings of Nagarjuna in the first century, or Shantideva in the seventh, we see that this same meditation is directed outwards, towards the bodies of women. It is the woman one sees as a bag of guts, lungs, kidneys, and blood. It is the woman who is impure and disgusting. There is no mention of the impurity of the monk who is meditating. This change occurred because this tradition of meditation was carried on by much less enlightened minds than that of the Buddha. So instead of just using the visualization as a meditation to break through attachment to the physical, it was used as a way of keeping the monks celibate. It was no longer simply a means of seeing things as they really are, but instead, as a means of cultivating aversion towards women. Instead of monks saying to themselves, “Women are impure and so am I and so are all the other monks around me,” it developed into “Women are impure.” As a consequence, women began to be viewed as a danger to monks, and this developed into a kind of monastic misogynism. Obviously, if women had written these texts, there would have been a very different perspective. But women did not write the texts. Even if they had been able to write some works from the female point of view, these still would have been imbued with the flavor and ideas of the texts and teachings designed for males. As a result of this pronounced bias, an imbalance developed in the teachings.

Would ancient Tibetan medicine recognize the value of X-rays? “Absolutely!” the doctor said. “When patients bring me their X-rays from the clinic up at Khunde, this is extremely helpful in my treatment.” On the other hand, Dr. Tenzin was mystified by other diagnostic practices in Western medicine. “When they do urinalysis up at Khunde, all they do is stick a slip of paper into the sample,” he said. “But that can’t be enough. I just don’t think it is possible to diagnose a medical problem and propose a course of treatment without tasting the urine. Certainly I wouldn’t begin a diagnosis of your shoulder until I had tasted your urine. It tells so much about a patient’s health status.

I don’t want it, Tiny. You know I don’t. I’m too familiar with vampire life to idealize immortality.” He knew nothing. “Promise me.” Tenzin had made many promises over the years. She’d broken most of them.

There is a book you need to copy for me," Tenzin had asked. "Why do you need it copied? Isn't there a translation somewhere?" "No, I want this one. It's in Houston. Didn't you just move there?" He frowned. "I didn't move here so I could copy books for you, bird girl." "How do you know? Maybe that's exactly why you moved there.

The Parable of the Six Kinds of Beings There's a Buddhist parable that describes the generative, fictional function of awareness quite well. Here's how the 17th century Tibetan monk Ngawang Kunga Tenzin explained the parable: Ultimately there is nothing other than mind alone; nevertheless, because of delusion and karma it manifests as all kinds of things. This is similar to the different perceptions of water by the six kinds of beings. Water is indeed only one thing, but if the six kinds of beings were together at a river bank, when looking at it they would see it in different ways. A being of a hot hell would see a river of fire, while one from a cold hell would see it as snow and ice. For the hungry ghosts known as pretas it would be pus and blood. Animals who live underwater would see it as their abode, while those scattered on land would see it as drink. Humans would also see it as drink, and accordingly they would classify it into drinking or non-drinking water. The demigods called asuras would perceive it as weaponry. Gods would see it as nectar (amrita). So beings would see what we perceive as water in different ways according to their particular karmic perception and thus water becomes manifold. This is known as the karmic perception of one's mind. Ultimately things do not exist outside—they are only projections of the mind. —from The Royal Seal of Mahamudra, Volume One, A Guidebook for the Realization of Co-emergence

When we think of an experience as “only a dream” it is less “real” to us. It loses power over us—power that it only had because we gave it power—and can no longer disturb us and drive us into negative emotional states. Instead, we begin to encounter all experience with greater calm and increased clarity, and even with greater appreciation

The Buddha was, is—ever will be—the cosmos. His “body” is coextensive with all that is. He is reality. As such he seeks, through the drama of human embodiment, to relieve the suffering that comes to those living beings who do not understand that they are this reality as well.

The teachings here really blur the lines, you know? I mean, the first thing that they do is tell you that there is no such thing as good and evil. They remove the boundaries between what you think is good and what you think is bad. After a while, everything is relative. From day one, we are taught that pain is the result of desire, and enlightenment is giving yourself over to where boundaries no longer exist. Oh yeah, they love that. That way, when you feel the pain of them raping you, it is your problem—not theirs!

Oh?” said Ama. “That’s wonderful! Tenzin hardly ever sees visitors now. He’s not been well. And he certainly doesn’t tell stories anymore.

The Bodhicharyāvatāra has been widely acclaimed and respected for more than one thousand years. It is studied and praised by all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism. I myself received transmission and explanation of this important, holy text from the late Kunu Lama, Tenzin Gyaltsen, who received it from a disciple of the great Dzogchen master, Dza Patrul Rinpoche. It has proved very useful and beneficial to my mind.

Poco antes de llegar a Bombay, los suburbios de la ciudad le mostraron a Tenzin Drop la cara más triste de la pobreza: chabolas de cartón, construcciones de chapa y tierra se alineaban en los muros y el alcantarillado que corrían paralelos a la vía. Desde allí los ojos de los niños, siempre escrutando, siempre mirando, a la espera de un milagro

Una noche, a la hora de los postres, Kostas tropezó y la cafetera voló por los aires. El café escaldó a Tenzin, mientras que apenas salpicó al capitán. Éste reaccionó con acritud; aquél, a pesar de la quemazón, no paraba de reírse. —¿Cómo puede tomárselo así? —preguntó Giorgios. —En el Tíbet siempre nos reímos de las torpezas de la vida cotidiana —contestó Tenzin—. Si alguien camina por la calle, resbala y da de bruces contra al suelo, lo normal es reírse.

Tenzin meditaba. Pasó un par de horas en esta postura, dejando que las canciones desfilaran por la mente de su cuerpo cansado. La música sonaba a lamento, a anhelo de libertad; pertenecía a un pueblo diferente pero hablaba un lenguaje fácil de entender.

...The words Dalai Lama mean different things to different people, that for me they refer only to the office I hold. Actually, Dalai is a Mongolian word meaning 'ocean' and Lama is a Tibetan term corresponding to the Indian word guru, which denotes a teacher. From Freedom in Exile, the Autobiography of the Dalai Lama

Brigid smiled. “She’s not as ruthless as she pretends to be.” “I heard that!” came a voice from across the warehouse. “And yes, I am.” Lucien couldn’t see her in the shadows, but clearly she was listening. “Don’t kill the humans just for fun, Tenzin.” “I’m not a sociopath.” She paused. “Or would that be a psychopath? I’m honestly not sure what the difference is.” “Don’t kill anyone unless they try to kill you,” he said.

aegis would doubt the honor of the Eight Immortals. We stay here at your leisure.” After that, the hall turned back to the business of the night and hummed with energy again. Lorenzo was whisked away by Zhongli’s entourage, and Tenzin walked over to speak to her

lie. Tiffany stroked the long braid hanging down Tenzin’s back.

Tell them that they can trust their hearts and awareness to awaken in the midst of all circumstances.

And unofficial?” Makeda asked. “Here I am now”- Tenzin bared her odd, raptor-claw fangs-“entertain me.” Lucien tried not to shudder. Sometimes the old wind vampire was amusing. Other times… she was just creepy.

***Not Religious October 31, 2017 I am an ordained Lama of the Celtic Buddhist lineage, a multi-decade student of many great Tibetan Buddhist teachers, a student of Brahmin/Hindu, Taoist, Wiccan, Animist and other traditions, a daily practitioner of sitting and moving meditations, with earlier roots in Judeo-Christian mysticism. I have recently faced enough folks remarking about what a “religious” person I am that it warrants a response. My response is, “Sorry. That’s just not true and pretty close to nonsense.” It is a very understandable mistake, my friends. I appreciate that you mean it as a compliment and I love you for the very kind intention. But who I am has somewhere between very little and nothing at all to do with the standard definitions of “religious.” I very highly recommend that you see the Why Celtic Buddhism Is Not A Religion section on the CB Homepage at celticbuddhism.org for clarification. I don’t disparage anyone who is religious (as long as they don’t use their religion as an excuse to kill, subjugate, demean or otherwise hurt anyone!) but for myself, it is not a label that fits. Be well, amigos. Much love, Ten (Lama Tenzin Roisin Dubh) p.s. Buy and read one or both of the two books at this Fearless Puppy website, or at Amazon. I say this for your benefit, not mine.

Ben held her as they spun around the room, her body light against his. As they danced, his mind floated on a heady mix of champagne, triumph, and memory. He and Tenzin were laughing in a cargo truck driving through the Chinese countryside. They were dancing to scratched records on a steamy summer in Venice. They were sparring with daggers in a castle in Scotland.

Ben smiled his sweet, lazy grin and turned them in another circle. It was a crystal moment. A balmy summer night in Venice, the water lapping quietly at the dock as a beautiful boy danced with her under colored lanterns. A slow turn and whirl that reminded Tenzin she was alive. After everything… she was alive. She tucked the dance into a corner of her mind, next to the scattering of other crystal memories. A baby’s laughter. The feeling of stars inside her. A gentle brush of paint over bare skin. A familiar face stamped on the boy in front of her. An unexpected dance on a warm summer night.

He is talking to the person, not to the various masks they are wearing for the world.

That's why we are always stressed, because we are always looking at something in the distance. If you are always looking at the top of the mountain you are climbing, you cannot be aware of the grass and flowers growing at your feet.... If we lose this moment because we are thinking about something else, we've lost it forever.

What was the point of religion if it was joyless and tiring?

Because karmic traces are the roots of dreams, when they are entirely exhausted only the pure light of awareness remains: no movie, no story, no dreamer and no dream, only the luminous fundamental nature that is absolute reality. This is why enlightenment is the end of dreams and is known as “awakening.

memories, feelings, sense perceptions, or thoughts

Buddha’s Brain (Rick Hanson with Richard Mendius) The Hidden Lamp (Florence Caplow and Susan Moon, eds.) Mind in Life (Evan Thompson) Realizing Awakened Consciousness (Richard P. Boyle) Reflections on a Mountain Lake (Ani Tenzin Palmo)

Not yet.” He looked at them, then looked at the ground. “Just to warn you, I need to get significantly more naked to do this properly.” “That’s what she said,” Tenzin muttered. Ben looked up. “Tiny!” Tenzin looked surprised. “What?” “That joke actually worked.” Ben was astonished. Tenzin’s attempts at anything approaching a joke about sex usually fell very flat. “Good job.

Dammit, I need to figure some nickname for you. Calling you by your name just seems so formal.” “You could call him your life coach,” Tenzin said. “I did that for a while.” “Did he like it?” “Yes.” Tenzin nodded. “Very much.” “No. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like being her yoga instructor either.” “Oh, no kidding? I didn’t know you were a yoga instructor.” “I’m not.” He glared at Tenzin.

Tibetan Buddhist nun Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo points out that we often mistake attachment for love. She says, “We imagine that the grasping and clinging that we have in our relationships shows that we love. Whereas actually, it is just attachment, which causes pain. Because the more we grasp, the more we are afraid to lose, then if we do lose, then of course we are going to suffer.” Ultimately, holding on to the wrong person causes us more pain than letting them go.