Photos from Samye Monastery, Central Tibet

http://www.mikeldunham.blogs.com/photos/from_samye_joderegroup_20/

Lama John`s Video Galerie

Videos of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche and others.

http://www.trettin-tv.de/videogalerie.html

Milarepa Movie

"... After Milarepa left Marpa, he pursued his practice continually, living mostly in caves in the desolate mountains of Tibet and Nepal. His austere habit of wearing only a single cotton robe year round earned him the title "repa," (cotton clad) which, added to his family name, became "Milarepa." Occasionally he interrupted his solitude to beg for food, and in return would recite extemporaneous teaching songs. Although Milarepa endured great difficulties, he always exhibited great courage, and his reputation grew far and wide. Milarepa was known for a wry sense of humor and for his candid and direct style. Milarepa never welcomed fame, however, and it seemed as if he often rejected would-be disciples; but this is one of many paradoxes of his unique approach. Judging from the number of his accomplished disciples -- particularly for someone who made such an effort to avoid people – he was extremely effective."

http://milarepamovie.com

The Game of Rebirth

" This game is adapted from the book "Rebirth: The Tibetan Game of Liberation" by Mark Tatz & Jody Kent. In it they present a traditional Buddhist game intended to teach a metaphysical system about reincarnation and its place in the universe. This is a greatly simplified version of the game, without a lot of explanation of the meaning of each place. The book has between a paragraph and two pages on each of the stages, I've cut this down to a few lines - I am neither a Tibetan nor a Buddhist, and do not try to explain things I don't necessarily understand or believe. On the other hand, I am a fellow traveller and the game is offered in the hope that by playing it you may be introduced to its believes.

You start in the present earthly human condition and move through a number of states or lives, doing and learning various things until you understand everything and achieve liberation. Ideally, as you grow in consciousness you gain more control over your direction and chance or outside influences play less a part in your wanderings. There are no links out of the game. Like life itself, you need to find your own way out! There are 104 steps.

In this level of reality, chance is determined by rolling a six sided die and then following the indicated number. This fortunately coincides with the six syllables of the phrase "Om, mani padme hum". You can either roll a traditional six numbered die and follow the resulting numbered link or trust to your karma and click on the prayer wheel (which is rolling the mantra) and be cast onto another page! Not all pages have six possible exits, some make you wait. Some exits take you to a better realm (ie: you learned your lesson) and some take you to a worse place. "

http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~s-slater/Dharma/

Meditate on This: Buddhist Tradition Thickens Parts of the Brain

"Meditation alters brain patterns in ways that are likely permanent, scientists have known. But a new study shows key parts of the brain actually get thicker through the practice."

http://www.livescience.com/health/051111_medidate.html

Yulokod - Pure Real of Tara Glass Studios

"Specializing in Images of Enlightenment, Fine & Sacred Art in Glass, Tibetan Buddhist Thangkas in Glass"

http://www.yulokod.ca/

Meditation Can Teach Your Brain to be Compassionate

"A team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has released the results of a study that shows that people are able to cultivate their compassion through meditation, a fact that could give an answer to people suffering from depression or the treatment of anger management.

The study, which was published on March 26 in the Public Library of Science One, showed that anybody can teach himself to be more empathetic to the mental states of others through meditation, training the self for compassion in a similar method as athletes learn how to be proficient in sports."

http://www.enews20.com/news_Meditation_Can_Teach_Your_Brain_to_be_Compassionate_06838.html

Buddhist Geeks

"Buddhist Geeks is a weekly audio show that presents ground-breaking interviews and discussions with Buddhist teachers, scholars, and advanced practitioners. Combining ancient wisdom with modern technology, Buddhist Geeks aims to catalyze a community of practice committed to awakening. Discover the emerging face of Western Buddhism."

http://www.fallingfruit.tv/buddhistgeeks

Sang Ngak - Secret Mantra in Daily Life

"This tradition is not new; Since the entry of Buddhism into Tibet, there have been two distinct approaches and lineages of spiritual work. On the one hand, the great monastic lineages of India were established in the land of Snows, and literally thousands of institutions were built to house celibate monks and nuns. Here they lived in relative isolation from the turmoil of daily life. While this allowed a focus on spiritual practices, it also was a dichotomy, limiting the relationship of spirituality to common life experiences. As the Tibetan Buddhist traditions entered the Western mainstream, many teachers and potential students have been unable to bridge the gap between a cloistered Tibetan context and the vibrant, chaotic world of the modern West."

"On the other hand, the siddha and tantric traditions of India, and the mendicant tradition of Taoism in China, also entered Tibet from the 8th century onwards. These approaches to yogic action in daily life came to be known as the way of the Naljorpa (yogi) or Ngakpa (mantra speaker), along with the corresponding terms of Naljorma (yogini) and Ngakma for female practitioners. This tradition teaches the the application of the profound truths and practices of Secret Mantra Path with all our actions and intentions of daily life. The constant difficulties and challenges we face then become an endless fuel for the brilliant fire of enlightened body, speech and mind. Such an approach is obviously well suited to our time, where demands of an engaged life make a monastic approach both impractical and thus meaningless. Additionally, this path is not limited by sexist, classist or other cultural foibles that were detrimental to the spiritual path, even in old Tibet."

http://www.sangngak.com/

Kalima

"Kali Ma teaches the Tantric Buddhist path of waking up from patterns of dissatisfaction, confusion and suffering to find our intrinsic awake-nature. The path to this awakening is relating to our minds in a new way so that we are able to see through the distractions and distortions that block our sanity and inhibit our capacity to enjoy the goodness of the world. Particularly, her teachings focus on how every aspect of life can be transformed into the path, a way of practicing Buddhism that comes from the MahaSiddhas, the earliest practitioners of Tantric Buddhism in India and Tibet."

http://www.kalima.org/index.php

Ngöndrö Practice

"Ngöndro is everything – the whole Vajrayana path! Ngöndro is like a wish fulfilling jewel that can manifest the deepest longings of the human heart. Ngöndro is a direct connection to the precious beating heart of lineage and the blessings of our heart lama. I want for you to understand the very depths of this precious practice so that you can embrace its wisdom and compassion, it power and beauty and bring this directly into you body, speech and mind. I would like nothing to be left unknown so that it does not remain idle speculation but becomes the fiber of your muscles and the marrow of you bone, the blood beating through your heart and the love awakening in your vision."

http://www.ngondro.net/

School of Tibetan Healing Cho

http://www.tibetancho.com/

The Story of Padmasambhava

"In order to propagate and spread the teachings of the Dharma in general, and particularly the secret mantra and Dzogchen teachings, he appears to every being of the three thousand billion world systems in a form to benefit them according to their personal karmic vision. In this way Guru Padmasambhava has countless unimaginable biographies, one biography for each being."

http://www.muktinath.org/buddhism/padmasambhava1.htm

Padmasambhava — The Statue of 10,000 Knives

"By all accounts, Khamariin Khiid thrived as a progressive, harmonious community, until on one occasion, a dispute in the camps escalated, resulting in the stabbing death of a Chinese man. Such violence was almost unheard-of there and the residents were greatly upset. Danzan Ravjaa acted quickly, sending out a message that any family that had faith in him should come and bring a knife from its household as an offering. So great was the response, that Danzan Ravjaa eventually collected more than 10,000 knives.

Summoning the most skilled sculptors and metalsmiths, Danzan Ravjaa had all the knives melted down and forged into an exquisite statue of the eighth c. lama Padmasambhava, the Nyingma lineage's progenitor who is commonly known as Guru Rinpoche. Because of the unusual material employed, the body and base are pewter-colored, with only the face and hands painted gold. Guru Rinpoche's expression is exceptionally intense and the details all suggest the suppression of evil, from the demon head upon which the figure sits, to the outstretched right hand holding a vajra in the gesture of the annihilation of obstacles. Once displayed, the figure became an object of pilgrimage known as the Statue of 10,000 Knives and peace prevailed at Khamariin Khiid, up until the untimely death of Danzan Ravjaa. — Source Konchog Norbu from his article, "Treasures of the Sand ©" — The Legacy of Danzan Ravjaa "

http://www.tibetan-museum-society.org/tibetan-art-museum-gallery/exhibit.php?id=10&sortby=deity

http://www.tibetan-museum-society.org/

Learning Tibetan Language with Minam Rinpoche

http://www.dharma-media.org/ratnashripj/tibetan/learning.html

Evolution of the Buddha Image

"The Buddha image, which completely revolutionalised, by its great dynamism, unimaginably diversified iconography, massive scale and unique spiritualism, the art scenario in ancient India, seems to have evolved upon human mind during the lifetime of the Buddha himself, although this image of mind took some six hundred years to emerge into stone or clay like medium"

http://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/lordbuddha

Buddha, The Gospel, Paul Carus, 1894

"Lest the fundamental idea of the Buddha's doctrines be misunderstood, the reader is warned to take the term "self" in the sense in which the Buddha uses it. The "self" of man translates the word atman which can be and has been understood, even the Buddhist canon, in a sense to which the Buddha would never have made any objection. The Buddha denies the existence of a "self" as it was commonly understood in his time; he does not deny man's mentality, his spiritual constitution, the importance of his personality, in a word, his soul. But he does deny the mysterious ego-entity, the atman, in the sense of a kind of soul-nomad which by some schools was supposed to reside behind or within man's bodily and psychical activity as a distinct being, a kind of thing-in-itself, and a metaphysical agent assumed to be the soul."

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/btg/

Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

"Mongolia and Kham : Achievements of the Geographical Association Expeditions in Imperial Russia v 1899-1901"

http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/

Chöd: An Advanced Type of Shamanism

"There is something attractively romantic about the mysterious, shamanic practice of ancient Chöd (Skt: ccheda-sadhana, Tib: gChod sgrub thabs). Chöd-practice, cutting through delusion's root, is haunting, strange and mysteriously beautiful all at the same time. This practice involves a whirling dance, accompanied by drum and bell. As the following essay will recount, Chöd is a special type of mysticism that unites shamanic practice with profound yogic meditation."

http://www.dharmafellowship.org/library/essays/chod.htm

Padmasambhava - A Short Biography - Jamgon Kongtrul the First

"Padmakara has influenced countless beings through the Vajrayana teachings and in particular through the activity of the profound terma treasures."

http://www.rangjung.com/authors/padmasambhava.htm

Discovering Buddha on Prison's Death Row

"Each night, he waits for the rantings of the condemned to fade and then rises at 3 A.M. to meditate in silence for 40 minutes."

http://users.aristotle.net/~anna/news/nytart.html

Sculptures from sand

http://www.laurel-travel.ru/kreo/sculptures.html

The Cloud Appreciation Society

" Clouds are so commonplace that their beauty is often overlooked. They are for dreamers and their contemplation benefits the soul. Indeed, all who consider the shapes they see in them will save on psychoanalysis bills."

http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/

The Ivan Illich Archive -- Energy and Equity

"While people have begun to accept ecological limits on maximum per capita energy use as a condition for physical survival, they do not yet think about the use of minimum feasible power as the foundation of any of various social orders that would be both modern and desirable. Yet only a ceiling on energy use can lead to social relations that are characterized by high levels of equity. The one option that is at present neglected is the only choice within the reach of all nations. It is also the only strategy by which a political process can be used to set limits on the power of even the most motorized bureaucrat. Participatory democracy postulates low-energy technology. Only participatory democracy creates the conditions for rational technology."

http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~ira/illich/texts/energy_and_equity/energy_and_equity.html