Mark your calendars for a viewing of Rigdzin Shikpo’s Heart of Buddha teaching “What is Buddhism?”, this Friday! Cinema Shikpo is an opportunity to watch previous recorded teachings of Rigdzin Shikpo together with other members of the Longchen Foundation. There will also be time for a short discussion afterwards. This…
Join Our New Open Meditation Group! Starting this Thursday, May 19, join us for the Longchen Open group, an hour’s session of teachings and meditation open to all. The hour starts with a Longchen instructor giving simple instruction on formless meditation, followed by roughly 20 to 30 minutes of formless meditation practice. The…
From Heart of Buddha: Mandalas and Longchen, Longchen Rabjam’s Notions of Mandalas (Oxford 2015) Longchen Rabjam talks about the mandala of reality, the mandala of the deities themselves that are—and I love to use this phrase that comes from a Guru Rinpoche text—“like the rays of the sun, distinct and…
The word Longchen refers to a person, Longchen Rabjam, the great 14th century Nyingma figure without whom there would be no current Nyingma tradition, there’s no doubt. Longchen also refers to the great long, the vast space in which being permeates or being itself acquires this aspect of vastness. Trungpa…
From Heart of Buddha: Mandalas and Longchen Rabjam’s Notions of Mandalas (Oxford 2015) And it’s said in the Buddhadharma that this sense of the un-satisfactoriness of everything is much greater than we imagine. The reason why it doesn’t seem so universal at first is because we manage to shut our…
From Heart of Buddha: Openness Clarity Sensitivity (Oxford 2016) The mind becomes bored very easily, so it begins to create things to make life interesting for you. It starts creating its own picture show. And the picture show is just thoughts, images, feelings. Sometimes they’re happy; sometimes they’re not. Funnily…
Both the Oxford and Bristol Path of Freedom groups are starting new courses this week as we ease into the summer months. Both courses are part of our Path of Freedom programme, a curriculum that is open to all and establishes a basic grounding in Buddhist ideas and practice through…
Meditation is most powerful and effective when we start with the right kind of view. View, in this sense, is a way of seeing that leads to a deeper understanding of the nature of experience, rather than holding a particular dogma or set of beliefs. Our ordinary worldview is something…
From Mandala Principles in the Dzogchen Tradition (Heidelberg 2016) If the buddhas are able infinitely to help sentient beings, why is the world in such a mess? Well, you must never forget that everybody who isn’t a fully enlightened buddha is a confused, unenlightened buddha. And that means you can…
From Rigdzin Shikpo’s talk on Mandala Principles in the Dzogchen Tradition The most important thing perhaps in a dharma mandala is that the central principle should be what is called bodhicitta, the awakened heart, which is wisdom and compassion in union. And what you want to send out, as it were,…
