Letter to the Sangha from Rinpoche
22 July, 2006
Dear Everyone,
Greetings! As summer sets in, we hope everyone is well, and that your practice continues to be steady and strong.
Jetsunla and I returned after a two and a half month long teaching schedule in Europe, after having attended the wonderful Shedra at LG in the spring, and will be back on the road again tomorrow. We are delighted and truly appreciative of the tremendous hard work our administrative staff, residents and sangha members accomplished this year. It resulted in a superb and successful spring program.
The LG sangha was honoured and blessed by the presence of His Eminence Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. It can only be the blessing and fruition of all our virtues, to have the good fortune of receiving such precious teachings as we did. Words cannot fully express the depth of the gratitude we all feel, for the ceaseless stream of dharma and heartfelt advice that were showered upon us by Rinpoche.
The Shedra program was delightful. The sangha practiced a lot, and accumulated one million Vajrakilaya mantras, while studying the dharma, receiving teachings, and meditating with great diligence.
Besides the practice and study curriculum, LG has always aspired to create an environment and experience in community living, in the west. This year our senior practitioners, led by the Lopöns and the board of directors, spearheaded a new service. They contributed their cooking skills in the kitchen! Senior practitioners and sangha members, who came for the shedra, joined together on the cooking rota and prepared meals each day for over a hundred people. While continuing to fulfil their already many responsibilities, they joyfully stepped in to cook in the kitchen. We had Lopön cooks, a President cook, a VP cook, a drubpön cook, director cooks, participant cooks, chopön cooks and umdze cooks.
By doing so they set an example for others in understanding the immense importance of living life with flexibility, generosity, grace and dignity – in every activity. So often, I have often come across practitioners, particularly in the west, who become distant from shouldering any responsibility within a sangha. They attend teachings during a program, and live in a community as if they are attending a conference at a hotel. There is almost the sense, "that having paid I should get every cent's worth of an enlightened weekend!" At the same time those who do have or are given responsibilities during a program, can become very concentrated within their respective area and be fixated on a "role" and "place," and there are some who allow the vision of sangha service to be lost, by becoming engrossed in the pursuit of playing the part of a Buddhist bureaucrat. Sadly, not looking beyond their own work and ideas, they lose touch with the greater vision.
For a long time I have wanted our sangha members to understand what some of our masters and also the great Zen masters have always emphasized: "Training to tame the mind begins by learning to use the broom well." or "The practice of mindfulness begins in the kitchen."
When I was a child, His Holiness Mindrolling Trichen always made us sweep and scrub, saying, "The way you clean shows the level of diligence and awareness you have cultivated."
I would like to see all our sangha members understand the importance of seeing spiritual practice as how one lives one's life within the view of dharma and with the paramitas integrated in all aspects of one's life. This will bring suppleness of body, speech and mind into every activity, and culminate in a life that truly becomes a wish-fulfilling jewel for others.
I would like to thank all our Lopons, directors, residents, sangha members, the fantastic house staff and Dr. T for your wonderful effort and sincerity.
Jetsunla and I look forward to seeing many of you again for the Annual Retreat. I hope this will be the year when our senior Vajrayana practitioners will begin studying the traditional three-year retreat curriculum, and begin to prepare for extended solitary retreats. This involves receiving the required abhishekas and traditional practices, and learning them, and it includes concentrating further on many of the topics we have studied for several years.
As we continue our journey, I am sure that many new lessons will be learned by all of us along the way. I am happy to be travelling with you. I send everyone my love and prayers, and look forward joyfully to our meeting again.
Yours in the dharma,
KR