Hi

I received the transmission for Simhamukha. I have started to do it for the past 3 days.

I did 2 sessions yesterday and one today. In yesterday’s evening session and today, I feel very good internally but I do feel a rush of fear, and anxiety which is unexplained. Really uncontrollable.

After I went to bed and woke up it disappeared this morning but again today when I practice it started.

Do I continue with it.

Edit: After a while the fear disappears. A monk I know from Bhutan just told me it my first time doing this and slowly I will overcome it.

It is just for a short period and goes away so I’m not sure if it is her blessing to cleanse it.

I took notes on which Bodhisattva the shopkeeper said this was, but suspect I misheard something. I had thought he said it was someone called Ashravani…? Or something like that? I’m belatedly noticing flaws, but still think it’s a lovely piece.

I found a picture frame like this while shopping today and I thought it would be perfect to hold images for my altar. I know typically some images are kept covered so I thought the inside would be good for that. Now I’m sort of second guessing it. The “doors” close to cover the back frame to sort of explain my thinking.

Anyway, in short what pictures should I put in this frame for my altar? I have several empowerments so I know I could use images of thangkas for those deities but wasn’t sure if anyone had any better ideas. My practices are primarily from the Drikung Kagyu tradition if that matters.

Thanks for the suggestions!

In the spirit of mindfulness and interconnectedness, let us take a moment to honor the strength and compassion within each of us. The path we walk together, guided by the teachings of the Buddha, reminds us to approach every moment with kindness and presence.

May we continue to support one another in cultivating peace, understanding, and harmony—both within ourselves and in the world around us. Together, we can turn small acts of love and awareness into profound transformations.

With gratitude and loving-kindness, Timothy

Throughout my journey I have had my amulets, malas, holy objects passed to lamas to do 'blessing' or consecration during puja etc. Sometimes the monk chants and blows on it. Other times the monk applies a balm to it.

I have a silver amulet thats kind of tarnished. I want to wash it and restore it to its former silver shine. However I'm worried about 'washing away' the blessing. Does it work like that?

Thanks

Hi guys, next year I plan to go to Nepal for 3 months. I would like to know where I can find good donation-based meditation retreats at the Nyingma monasteries over there (like in Forest Tradition of Thai for example) where lay person can get initiated and get a good grasp on the practice.
Any advice?

In a world dominated by logic, schedules, and ceaseless mental chatter, the concept of intuition—your inner knowing—can feel elusive. Yet intuition is a natural, innate capacity available to everyone, offering insights that transcend the limitations of thinking. Learning to access your intuition requires cultivating a quieter mind, a deeper awareness of your body, and trust in your inner voice.

The Limits of Thinking

Our minds are extraordinary problem-solving tools, but they’re not all-knowing. Thinking relies on logic, past experiences, and learned patterns, which often create blind spots. While analysis can be invaluable, it’s not designed to handle every situation. Over-reliance on thinking can cloud our ability to see clearly, especially when emotions, doubt, or overanalysis take over.

This is where intuition steps in: a feeling, a gut sense, or a quiet voice that doesn’t always make logical sense but rings true at a deeper level.

Practices to Quiet the Mind

To access intuition, creating space for it to emerge is essential. When the mind is too noisy, intuition is easily drowned out. Try these methods: 1. Mindfulness and Meditation Regularly practicing mindfulness or meditation helps you cultivate stillness. In moments of quiet, you create room for subtle signals to arise. Start small—a few minutes a day of focusing on your breath or observing your thoughts without judgment. 2. Journaling Writing freely allows your thoughts to spill onto the page, releasing mental clutter. Over time, patterns and insights often emerge, revealing what your inner self is trying to communicate. 3. Body Awareness Intuition frequently communicates through the body—a sense of tension, lightness, or ease. Practices like yoga, tai chi, or simply scanning your body for sensations can help you reconnect with this somatic wisdom.

Trusting the Subtle Signals

Intuition often speaks softly. It might be a quiet nudge or a fleeting image. To strengthen trust in your intuition: • Notice Without Judging Pay attention to intuitive signals without dismissing them as “irrational.” Even if they don’t immediately make sense, they may hold value. • Experiment Test small intuitive hunches. If you feel drawn to reach out to someone or make a decision without overthinking, try it and observe the outcome. • Reflect on Past Experiences Recall times when you followed your gut feeling. How did it guide you? This reflection helps you recognize the voice of intuition more clearly in the future.

Beyond the Rational Mind

The key to accessing inner wisdom is balancing the mind and the heart. Intuition is not the opposite of logic; it’s its complement. By learning to trust your deeper knowing, you move through life with greater alignment, confidence, and ease.

In moments of doubt, remember: intuition isn’t always loud or dramatic. It often feels like a gentle current beneath the waves of thought—a presence waiting to guide you home to yourself. All it asks is that you listen.

I want to start a regular 21 Tara’s practice in order to push further my flexibility to situations and become more lenient in order to fulfill my bodhisattva vows. A recommendation about the tune, visualisation? Are offerings recommended, if yes 21 or one in all? If anyone could avail to me the Jigme Lingpa commentary, this would be great. Maybe you can also share your personal experience with this practice?

The most highly rated seems to be "Tibetan astrology" by Phillipe Cornu. Has anyone read it?

Really, I want a book on Kalachakra astrology, but I can't find a reputable one.

Some transmission is Oral instruction and some say energy. So if Oral, the teacher won't have capacity to transmit that to others. So a mute is doomed to become a Guru right?.

Or it is possible to make one realise his nature without a word?.

This might sound foolish, but I have to choose one for now. What's your opinion?. Even though both are different traditions, I have heard that Mahamudra and Dzogchen final results are the same. So what do you think should I buy ?

Kalu Rinpoche - The Buddhist Society Centenary Memorial Lecture on Tibetan Buddhism

Wednesday 27th November at 6.30pm GMT Zoom (link below)

Join Zoom Meeting https://thebuddhistsociety.zoom.us/j/87174090252 Meeting ID: 871 7409 0252

Speech*** wow if that's for telling of the post itself.

Hello all, I have been going through the Nobel Eightfold Path on and off for quite a few years. The one I find myself most challenged with is speech, particularly when it comes to consciousness. Something my therapist and I talked about was that probably about 98% of what I say just flys out of my mouth. I always have good intentions, but what comes out particularly is harmful to my own healing. For example: saying or offering help and support when it may in fact not be my task to take on, adding to my plate of what is already a full one. As an eldest daughter and natural caretaker, I've done this my whole life. A cycle I am working to witness and pay closer attention to.

All this said, are there good resources you've found on speech and consciousness? Moving closer to simply slowly down speech and witnessing?

Best - thank you.

Hello all, I've been studying Tibetan Buddhism deeper the last year of my life.

Lately, I've studied the Mahayana and Madhyamaka teachings more in-depth, along with the lojong slogans / tonglen.

Lately, I find myself in a place of such deep apathy towards life. I logically know that's not the intention of these teachings, but it's here for me.

These teachings of "all dharmas as dreams" or "life is an illusion" just has me feeling like what does it even matter then. Why should I even care to be compassionate when it's all illusory? Why should I strive to be on top of my life, why don't I just let it go into disarray since it doesn't matter ultimately? Thoughts like those are what I've been working with.

I used to be quite compassionate before engaging in these teachings, which makes me sad to feel so disconnected from that part of me. I used to care. It's like I honestly don't give a shit about anything.

For context: I do have teachers I can reach out to. I'm in a program where I'm learning this material. In the summer, I also attended a month long Tibetan Buddhist institute. I say this just to add that I know how important having a teacher is. I've reached out for support, but wanted to reach out to this community too.

Any suggestions would be so appreciated.

What is it, how it feels like, what's your personal experience with it. Is it possible to gain this grace without even meeting the Guru, but mentally paying devotion to the Guru Image.

If possible, whenever we do any practice, such as reciting a mala of OM MANI PADME HUM or whatever mantra, whatever we are doing—meditation or anything—at the beginning we must remember that “I’m doing this for everyone.” Otherwise, “sentient beings” becomes just on the lips. Then, even though there are skies of sentient beings, when those around us are angry, because of our obscured, proud mind, we don’t practice patience, we don’t practice loving kindness and compassion. When we actually meet them, they must be something else [other than the sentient beings we are trying to save]. Maybe they are not even sentient beings! Because all the people we have problems with are not sentient beings, they have to be killed. The sentient beings are in the sky. Actually, we’re not sure what sentient beings are!

It becomes like that if we don’t do the practice well. Then, when the sound of people living at the center or at home or wherever [annoy us], making us angry, they are to be killed. In the meditation texts, it says “sentient beings” but maybe they are just something in the sky, something like that. That is totally wrong. We have to start the practice with the sentient beings we can see around us. From there [we extend] to the infinite sentient beings. Our meditation, our prostrations, everything we do is intended for them. We have to do that. That is the Mahayana practice. We have to bring that awareness, that compassion and loving kindness, into whatever our practice is, like the seven techniques of Mahayana cause and effect on the basis of equilibrium meditation.

-Lama Zopa Rinpoche

https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/purpose-our-life

Wonder if I can put Vajrasattva mantra, Padmasambhava, Tara And emptiness mantras at the same time or does it collide?

I want to buy a statue of Avalokiteshvara/Chenrezig, but it is really hard to find a nicer tibetan statue in my budget. There are multiple Guan Yin/Kannon statues that are really nice and in my budget range, but I'm not sure how that would affect my practice, or what it would imply theologically. I am currently doing a four armed Chenrezig visualisation, so I'm not sure if this would mess with that in any way. Also, is Guan Yin even viewed as interchangeable with Chenrezig, or is she seen as a different deity by Tibetans?

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche is not only a teacher but an excellent film-maker under his director name of Khyentse Norbu. This is his latest film and those who have seen it have - generally: I can't speak for everyone - given it great reviews. It is shot entirely in Bhutan using many Bhutanese film-makers and mostly Bhutanese actors. It is in Bhutanese and English (variable!) with sub-titles.

I have raved about this film before. A truly wonderful and thought-provoking film which I can highly recommend. If you've not seen it yet, then this is, apparently, the last chance; the final virtual screening! Despite all our pleas, it seems as if it is not going to be released on DVD. I will be watching it for the third or fourth time.

The film will be live-streamed on Saturday 30 November 2024 at 7pm Brasilia time (UTC -3hrs). In my time zone that is 10pm GMT/11pm CET. It will be followed by a live Q&A with Khyentse Norbu. If you are unable to watch at that time, then it will be available to stream for the next 3 days although you can only watch it once as far as I know. Cost: $11.99 for the stream. The website is Pig at the Crossing where you can buy a ticket, watch a trailer and there is also a small synopsis of the story (on the buy a ticket page. You don't have to have bought a ticket to see the trailer or synopsis).

Wanna be very clear, I don't have any special knowledge or experience with Buddhism, Tibetan or otherwise, and - very respectfully - am not massively interested, in a religious sense.

However, I'm going through a book, Ward's A Lifetime's Reading - highly recommended, if the opinions of Internet strangers means anything to you - and there's this bit:

MILAREPA (1052-1135). Mila Grubum. Translated by Garma C. C. Chang as The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa (2 vols., University Books, New York, 1962).

This compilation of Milarepa's teachings was compiled (as was the Mila Khabum) by Sans. rGyas. rGyul. mTshan ('The Insane Yogi from gTsan') and is considered one of the most precious books in Tibetan literature.

Milarepa led an extraordinary life, to go by traditional accounts. After the early death of his father, it is said that his relatives ruthlessly stripped the boy of his inheritance. To avenge himself, by sorcery he caused the death of many of these relatives and destroyed the harvest with hailstorms. Having realised the evil he had wrought for evil, the young singer and poet sought the Buddhist Dharma as a disciple of the guru Marpa. To purify him and prepare him for endurance on the path to enlightenment, Marpa set him extreme penances, and tasks such as building houses on a mountain single-handed and then tearing them down without reason. In a dream, Milarepa saw his mother lying dead in his ruined house and his sister as a wandering beggar. He left for home, and soon found that these visions had been true. Visited by a sense of the futility and evanescence of human life, he retreated to isolation on a mountain, eating only nettles for twelve years, until his body turned green and he reached enlightenment.

His life thereafter was devoted to teaching the Way through practice and song. Avoiding the temptation to set up his own order, temples, or discipleship, he travelled the hard tracks of Tibet to sing of the Way in poems suited to the receptivity of his hearers, but often couched in ecstatic mysticism reminiscent of the canticles of St John of the Cross.

See W. Y. Evans-Wentz's Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa (Oxford U.P., 1951).

For the background, one might read R. A. Stein's Tibetan Civilization (Faber & Faber, 1972) or Tibet: its History, Religion and People (Penguin, 1972) by Thubten Jigme Norbu and Colin Turnbull.

For my money, the books Ward recommended are probably good to go. But, that book did come out in the 80s, and he wasn't a Buddhist scholar or anything of the sort, himself. So, I'd appreciate this sub's thoughts & advice on the suggested reading material, and possibly updating, replacing, and/or supplementing to it. Better translations, more nuanced and up-to-date background reading and commentaries, that sorta thing.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, my French is strong, in case there's uniquely good/great material on this subject in that language...

Hi everyone I'm a long time meditator with virtually no yoga experience. I notice that many fellow meditators are into yoga.

I'm wondering whether anyone has found that traditional Indian yoga (eg Hatha) has benefited their meditation practice?

If so how? And why do you think this is?