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Location:    Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto, Canada

Event:       State funeral for the Honourable Jack Layton,
             leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition

Date:        Saturday, August 27, 2011

Jack  was always an innovator, a creator, often ahead of his time, as the expression goes. Click here for summary of career.

But he outdoes himself on August 27, 2011 when he uses his own funeral as the setting for his last political campaign!

Let’s go back a bit.

May 02, 2011 Canadian Federal Election: Jack, 61 year-old leader of the federal New Democratic Party, had just brought his party to its highest political status in its history on the federal level: he won enough seats to become Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.

August 22, 2011 – 04h45: Jack dies from cancer. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, understanding the great affection Canadians have for Jack,  regardless of their political affiliations, announces that Jack will be given a state funeral — most unusual because state funerals are given if a former prime minister or cabinet minister dies. Jack has been neither.

August 22 – 26, 2011: Tributes to Jack come from some of the many people he worked with and knew over his lifetime. The one I like is given by Robin Sears who makes a point that no one else I am hearing has made:  how Jack evolved as a politician. The concepts of evolution and transformation appeal to me. And that was my experience of Jack. When I first met him in the 1980s he seemed defensive and somewhat aggressive. Now he has the stature of a bodhisattva, those who serve others out of compassion without thought of what one can get for oneself.

August 27, 2011: The day of the funeral. Only 600 members of the public were allowed into Roy Thomson Hall for this event. There are 1,700 invited guests including the Prime Minister, other elected officials including mayors and cabinet ministers etc. etc. etc. I managed to be one of the 600.

Here are a few of my off-the-cuff notes from this past week of mourning and grief:

• The media reports describe Jack as “lying in repose” in his casket — I think to myself that it probably is the only time that Jack lay in repose in this lifetime!  He was constantly working on behalf of others.

• Jack was a wonderful example of a great Shambhala (Tibetan) Buddhist warrior — warrior in the sense of courage, not aggression and hatred. His compassion fueled his courage. The Tibetan name for Great Warrior is Pamo Chenmo.
• We cannot become a genuine warrior until out heart is broken. Jack’s heart was broken by the suffering in the world.  He truly manifested the genuine heart of sadness of the warrior. Juxtaposed with this sadness was his boundless uplifted spirit of optimism and hope.
  

• Jack for me embodied some of the qualities of the Great Eastern Sun — the sun shines on everyone. It does not distinguish between old, young, fat, thin, rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, etc. etc. etc. Jack helped everyone who came to him.

• Jack often spoken of as “passionate” about his beliefs, described as social democratic. Yes, he was passionate, but not fanatically fixated or obsessed.

• Jack as a loving warrior – I like this phrase because of the juxtaposition of two apparently opposite ideas: “loving” and “warrior.”

• Jack-in-the-box  —his body is in his coffin now, but Jack was someone who could think outside the box.

• I hear people says it’s “unfair” that he died at this time. I don’t think Jack lived his life in terms of these kinds of dichotomies, e.g. fair\unfair.  To me, Jack lived in the gap between all the dualistic, polar opposites by which we conventionally live and judge others. Again, some examples are stupid\intelligent; nobody\somebody; and the biggest one being the us-and-them dichotomy; etc. etc.

• Jack’s “political” message transcended politics and spoke to basic goodness  (Quebecers call Jack “Le Bon Jacques”)

• Great teachers — whether they manifest as politicians, doctors, whatever — sometimes leave this life relatively early….we now have to stand on our own.

• I hear people say “I never met Jack but….”  I think to myself “Yes you did. You meet Jack anytime you see someone taking time to help someone in a practical way. He did not tell people that it wasn’t “convenient” for him and maybe if he had time he’d get back to them. No. He just helped them. On the spot.

• Jack, despite his personal and political stature, provided the courtesies of everyday life to everyone he met. To me, these simple courtesies create peace.

• There’s a phrase in one of our Shambhala Buddhist chants that talks about becoming “gentle and tough” (page 3 of 4). To me, that was Jack.

Dear Jack,

Just a few last thoughts…….

I’ll bet you are making your journey through the after-death  bardo on your bicycle! That is fitting,  as you promoted the option of riding our bikes rather than riding the transit rails or driving our cars in the city of Toronto long before anyone else.

You’ll always be on my ballot whenever there’s an election.

Well done, our good and faithful servant.

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This past Thursday, my sister Stephanie Andersen came to visit Mum and I from Florida. We went out for Father’s Day brunch today at the Bloor Diner in Toronto — albeit without my late father who died on November 06, 2004.

Around 1969 Dad sold the family business that his grandfather had started several decades earlier. And at the age of 50 Dad began to sell commercial real estate.

He won numerous awards year after year as top salesman in his company. How? He told me his “secret” — he sold without selling.

The young salespeople in the company always tried to make a quick sale. I didn’t. I spent a lot of time with the clients to assess what their needs were.

It sounded very Shambhalian to me.

Mum and my sister and I clincked glasses in a toast of gratitude to Dad.

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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:

Read the rest of this entry »

We live in interesting times. Tunisia, and now Egypt, have overthrown their respective dictators. Natural disasters seem to occur with frightening regularity. No less than the karmic streams of these countries have been changed.

We are encouraged not to resist change by living in our cocoons and clinging to our own little lives caught in the vice of self-cherishing.

Join with others! Form communities so that we can be alone together and work for healthy changes. Just as we cannot find happiness in some external circumstance outside of ourselves, we cannot depend on others to “lead” us. We are our own leader!

Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
…….
…….

At this time in history,
we are to take nothing personally,
least of all ourselves,
for the moment that we do,
our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves.
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done
in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

<source: paragraph of a speech given by a Hopi elder in Oraibi, Arizona to the Hopi Nation circa October 28, 2001>

Here are two more calls to action from The Sakyong (Earth Protector) Mipham Rinpoche:

Especially recently, we have seen a series of natural and manmade disasters. It is as if the earth is asking us to be kind to each other and to itself. Now, more than any other time in history, the fate of our own planet is in our hands. (Sakyong Mipham, Rinpoche, letter to sangha, June 28, 2010)

……….

“If we expect somebody else to create peace in the world, we’re going to be waiting for a long time. We’ll become even more angry or anxious, because our unmet expectations will bring frustration, disappointment, and inevitably, more instability. But if we can stabilize our motivation and learn to cultivate peace and compassion, our willingness to take responsibility for changing the environment will inspire many others.”

© 2005 by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, from his address to the Sit for Change Meditation Marathon 2005. This excerpt first appeared in The Shambhala Sun.

We are the one’s we’ve been waiting for. We can change the karmic stream of our planet. Indeed, we will have to. Why? Because we are beyond the proverbial Eleventh Hour.

You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour. <source: section of a speech given by a Hopi elder in Oraibi, Arizona to the Hopi Nation circa October 28, 2001>

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What do sneezing and unexpectedly slipping while walking on ice have in common? We’re in the NOW. No discursive thought whatsoever. No concepts. Just the NOW.

Friends who’ve been in bad car accidents tell me that “everything stopped” while the car rolled over and over. They experienced NOW, a kind of stunned constancy (term from the Ocean of Definitive Meaning).

Another term for NOW is “the fourth moment,” the other three being past, present and future. When we experience the fourth moment, the concept of time is not operating.

The past is all of the things that have already happened and no longer exist.  The future is all of the things that have not yet happened and don’t yet exist.  The NOW is like the edge of a razor blade: so short and so sharp that there is no time for anything to exist in a substantial way.  We see that there is no time, and no substance, only clarity-emptiness, the nature of mind. <source: e-mail from Shambhala Buddhist student sent March 18, 2008>

My New Year’s Resolution is to be in the NOW as much as possible. My question is:  how can I do that without nearly being killed?

Here’s what happened exactly three years ago today.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Spring, 1976. I am the sole support mother of a beautiful four-year-old son.

The doctor says my son has to have his tonsils out.

Every night for one month I read a book to him that takes a child step-by-step through the process of what happens when the child enters the hospital for the operation. I hope that this information will calm his fears.

When my son is rolled through the hall on a gurney towards the operating room, he says to me “I not only love you. I like you.”

Even 36 years later, I am struck by the wisdom in this remark.

But what does it mean?

We talk about love a lot. But this remark suggests that somehow you might love someone, but not necessarily like them!

In order to gain some clarity, I did a contemplation exercise on loving and liking.  (Instructions for how to contemplate are provided in Appendix C,  Turning the Mind Into An Ally by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche)>

Here’s what arose for me: Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be beneficial!)

Even if you do not believe in reincarnation, live as if you do!

Why?

Your perspective gets much larger. More spacious. Less crowded. It’s easier to sort out what is important and what can wait.

On a light note, there’s also what I call the “just-in-case” principle: live as if you believe, just in case you find out that it is true when you die…..

My son pointed out some specifics of the benefits of acting as if we believe in reincarnation:

1. We have a larger perspective. We realize we don’t need to dwell so much on things have are happening or have happened in our lives. We’re working on a much larger scale.
2. There’s a long-term meaning to our lives, rather than the “It-doesn’t-matter-what-I-do-in-my-life-because-nothing-matters-anyway” attitude.
   
3. If we’re very materialistic, acting as if we believe in reincarnation helps us to shift our focus to the spiritual dimension of life.
4. The belief in past lives helps us to make sense of what happens in this lifetime in a much deeper way.

Post Script: you might find a transcript of Suzuki Roshi’s comments interesting – please click here and scroll about half-way down the page.

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We live in the mundane world, the relative world, the world of phenomena.
We do not live on the ultimate plane.

Nonetheless, we can make use of the ultimate plane in problem-solving.

How? Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be beneficial!)

Whenever I write about kindness, generosity, compassion etc., someone will ask me “Before we help someone, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves if the person deserves\is worthy of our help, generosity and kindness”?

Here’s what the Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche (SMR) tells his students in response to the view — (that our help should be conditional) that underlies that question:

Especially I think these days it is a sense very much of materialistic culture where everything is appealing to our sense of satisfaction and us wanting. And often when we need to give we become uncomfortable. We might actually feel like whoever we’re giving to is not worthy….. Being kind to another person doesn’t necessarily mean, or be determined by, the action of the other person. It’s just that kindness is appropriate. In fact, the more the other person is suffering or irritating, in a sense, the more kind and compassionate we should be. <source: from Seminary at Shambhala Mountain Centre, Colorado, July 17, 2010>

In short, while we usually practice conditional (“what-can-I-get-out-of-this”) kindness, we can now practice unconditional kindness. And while we might feel uncomfortable at first, we get to like it!

The benefits of practicing unconditional generosity:

• the mind becomes happier, less claustrophic, enoyable for everyone; and
• we create “tremendous merit and benefit personally for our own personal lives, as well as for the community…and the world as a whole” (SMR) because our intention is pure, not bound by ego.
• we are open to receive; if we are open to receive, then we grow.

There is no better reality than the one we live in – where a good heart can be realized. – Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche

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On June 28, 2010,  Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche addressed the Shambhala Buddhist Community on the disasters that the world has been recently experiencing. Here is part of the address. The highlighting and images are mine. The terms “warriors” or “warriorship” refer to courage, not aggression.

bird covered in oil from BP oil spill 2010

…….This has been a powerful and meaningful time. More than ever, I feel
how fortunate we are to have these teachings. Especially recently, we have seen a series of natural and manmade disasters. It is as if the earth is asking us to be kind to each other and to itself. Now, more than any other time in history, the fate of our own planet is in our hands. Read the rest of this entry »