Mangala Shri Bhuti - The Link

Dungse-la speaks about Timuk- "a dull flat state of disconnectedness" and outlines various remedies including mindfulness, a keen awareness of one' s environment and how the practice of the four noble truths brings us back.

Rinpoche discusses the tendency for humans to feel the "privilege"of self-pity and contrasts this with the qualities of a mature mind. Rinpoche explores the differences of feeling burdened by the sufferings of samsara versus feeling encouraged to find a solution.

Rinpoche talks about the necessity of some suffering in developing a happy and cheerful mind that has stability. He goes on to discuss how to experience growth.

Elizabeth shares her personal experiences in relating with her teacher and describes the skillful means and "practice" in this relationship. Elizabeth describes what it means to be a student and the discipline of falling apart and letting go into humbleness.

Dungse-la observes that in our fast paced modern world, awareness often gets "stretched thin." Without awareness, there' s more of a chance that the five negative emotions will slip in and overtake our mind. So putting an emphasis on maintaining awareness as a bodhcitta practice bridges the gap between meditation and post meditation practice, allowing us to carry out working with the paramitas to counter the negative emotions in our daily lives, even with the speed of modernity.

Five Steps to Handle Chaos. Rinpoche explains five steps to skillfully handle situations when chaos arises in our lives, talks about the practice of acceptance and harvesting the pain of failure to gain success.

Exertion: honoring our Buddha nature. Sasha explores how to experience exertion as a natural expression of our Buddha nature.

How do we develop a certainty that is not static or about being a ' knower' ? Elizabeth delves into the question of having confidence in an uncertain world and upon what that confidence is based.

Ani Pema provides a commentary on the Lojong slogan, "Drive All Blames Into One", and gives us tips on distinguishing between what causes our suffering and what triggers it.

Jampal contemplates materialistic mind in the modern world and discusses the remedy to the mistaken belief that "things bring happiness".

Rinpoche describes how to skillfully use the power of inspiration that comes from being "starstruck" and gives clear examples of how to, and how not to follow through with that inspriration.

Natasha discusses challenges faced in retreat.

Rinpoche invesigates the five strengths.

Dungse-la reflects on the power of faith and gives suggestions on how to cultivate faith.

Rinpoche reflects on how the Cricket World Cup united one billion people of all classes, colors and ages in a moment of pure joy. He contemplated how we could cultivate this same sympathetic joy in our daily lives towards even the smallest act of savings a bug and the power of our mind to bring about real happiness and contentment in this way, despite our external conditions.

Scott describes the impact Kongtrul Rinpoche' s introduction to the way ego mind works has on our mind. With that knowledge, when strong clinging to the self comes about, we know what to do, though letting go at first may seem counterintuitive to the whole process ego sets up. So we must ' shoot the hostage' ... Listen to find out more.

In this talk Elizabeth discusses how to not close down around either beauty or suffering. She describes bearing witness as the inner practice of the Bodhisattva where as one serves one awakens and moves toward connectedness and interdependence.

Expanding the view beyond the self and the resultant relief from the suffering of the five negative emotions and the concept of "Small Self, Large Self".

2011 Losar Address.

The final talk in a series of four recordings of Rinpoche played in February, 2011, all taken from teachings he gave during the Fall/Winter semester at Guna Institute, 2010 - 2011.