It’s March 05th, the Tibetan New Year, a time for celebration within the worldwide sangha (group of practitioners).

Every year the students of the Sakyong [Earth Protector] Mipham Rinpoche gather in their respective shrinerooms to hear his address through an onlinehook-up, which includes centres and groups from six continents and over thirty countries around the world .

But this year is even more special because Rinpoche [the Precious One] has just completed a year-long retreat.

As the Sakyong enters the shrineroom in Boulder, Colorado, 8,000 students stand up in their respective shrinerooms from Argentina to the United Kingdom. The bagpipes are played. Rose petals are tossed into the air.

The Sakyong takes his seat.

He looks well. As sangha member Madeline Conacher said in an e-mail message to me “Did the Sakyong not look radiant and peaceful!”

He begins his address:

“I’m back. I’m rested. I love you all. …..That’s it!”

(I’m reminded of Julius Ceasar’s Veni. Vidi. Vici. I came. I saw. I conquered. I note that both Julius Ceasar and The Sakyong are warriors. But that’s where the similarity ends: The Sakyong is a warrior without aggression.)

Laughter, some of it nervous.

That’s it? That’s all he’s got to say? After one year’s absence?

As it turns out, not quite.

Here follows a few points from my notes of his address to his students.The theme, in my view, can best be described in the following words:

The time has come. The time is now. Just go. Go. GO! <source: Dr. Seuss: Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now, 1972>

• We now have a real community.
• We all have the ability to be awake and to live up to our potential.
• Unless we acknowledge our own basic goodness, we have no future.
• If humanity does not look inward and find basic goodness, the future is bleak indeed.
• Our lives are an unfolding of how we feel about ourselves.
• We didn’t “sign up” for a global initiative. We think it’s about “me.” But we discover that it’s about the entire planet. It’s a choiceless situation in a good way.
• Creating enlightened society is based on the notion that humanity is good.
• Part of the notion of enlightened society is being with other people, in communities. Look people in the eye.
  
• We must examine what our intentions are around how each of us can contribute to the creation of enlightened society.
• Somebody is going to make decisions that create our future.  If we allow negativity to continue to grow, there’s a whole generation who will feel cheated.
• We must recognize the basic nature of mind (basic goodnesss). this will lead to generosity. Otherwise, we are just materialists.
• There should not be any split between the spiritual aspects of our lives and how we live our everyday lives.
• Creating enlightened society sounds like an impossible mission. We are doing something that hasn’t been done before. We’re in the profession of making what is impossible, possible.
• At the heart level it all comes down to one person being brave. This then spreads to others.
• It takes one person deciding that a moment of love and compassion is better than a moment of anger.
• When will we jump in and go deep?

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