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(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 of benefit!)

“Passion is not unbridled desire or obsession, but natural playfulness and interest in the world.” – @SakyongMipham

In my last post <please click here to see last post> I described a dream around my relationship with Alex (“Dream Man”), and the identity crisis that the dream triggered.

Feb 03, 2012 – Alex and I are lying on a king-size bed together. We are in the middle of it. Fully clothed. I am propped up on my left arm facing Alex who is lying flat on his back. Our strong karmic connection with and affection for each other is obvious. Two other couples lie at each end of the bed, again fully clothed. I do not know who they are. They are lying still. But their affection for each other is obvious. Alex asks me “Why aren’t we together?” I reply “because I would never leave you.” He whispers “Oh God.” I lean down and kiss him. He does not move. He says nothing. Then I put my head on his chest and,  simultaneously, I experience a feeling of sadness.

This crisis, not Alex, was the focus of that post.

In this post, Alex is the focus, or should I say, “Alex” in his incarnation as Cleopatra’s doctor.

Once upon a time there was a queen called Cleopatra  (69 BC to 30 BC)  who ruled over the land of Egypt. She had a doctor called Alexander (“Alex” in this lifetime) . They had a secret love affair. I don’t think it was secret because there was some edict that forbade a relationship between a doctor and his patient. At any rate, regardless of any “rules,” what queens want, queens get. But Cleopatra was married to Mark Antony! And Rome was presenting her to the Romans as a whore with whom Antony was besotted. She could hardly let another lover surface in public! Cleopatra’s relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony had political elements. But with her doctor, there was no politics. Just heart. And a deep and abiding love and trust. He was her confidant. Alexander  kept a diary which has been used as a source of information about his queen and the times, including my personal favourite by Margaret George. At any rate, this secret affair created karma, both positive and negative\challenging, for both of them.

This post explores that karma. 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 of benefit!)

Olympus, a friend of mine since 1969, moves into a rather rough area of his city in the early Autumn of 2011, an area where you do not go out after dark unless you have a car. And even then, you still have to get from your apartment to your car and vice versa.

He walks outside onto the street one day — and sees the same thing the Buddha saw when he took a stroll for the first time outside his palace grounds over 2,500 years ago! Suffering of all kinds. People poorly dressed, without boots and wearing thin clothing [ it’s now the middle of winter]. Those who are seriously suffering around mental health issues and addictions. Or, to quote the words of a buddhist chant:

An evil time, when relatives quarrel,
When people dress sloppily in clothes of rags,
Eating bad, cheap food,
…………………

Olympus’ experience of their suffering is raw.  He wants to run back into his apartment.

I think about the practices of wishing health and well-being to others. In other words, he can use his experience of rawness created by the suffering of others to change the default setting from thinking about himself and his own concerns to thinking about others.

If you want to be miserable, think about yourself. If you want to be happy, think about others. <source: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche>

I write to Olympus about this: 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 of benefit!)

The Tibetan New Year — the year of the Water Dragon — was on Wednesday, February 22, 2012.

Students from around the world gather for the festivities which include toasts to our dharma teachers.

One practitioner from Toronto, Canada tells us that while brushing her teeth that morning, she thought about what she would say in her toast to Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (CTR) later that day.

Given the result — a heartfelt toast — brushing one’s teeth obviously brings good results!

Saying that CTR changed her life, she touches on several vital points, one of which is how important it is to work with negativity.

After the toast, I run home to brush my own teeth. This is what arises. 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 of benefit!)

“I just wish this were over.”

How often we have said this to ourselves when dealing with something we consider unpleasant.

Similarly, when we consider a situation pleasant, we say “I wish this would last.”

So we indulge in discursive thoughts and daydreams to get through the unpleasantness, or indulge in wishes that the pleasantness were permanent even though we know it isn’t.

We are caught in a time trap of our own making where things have a beginning and an end. But analysis demonstrates that time is just another concept made up of segments that run from macro ones such as “time zones” to micro segments called “nano seconds.” We’re taught that “every minute counts.” It’s a useful concept, to be sure. But like any other concept,  “time” lacks any solid existence.

But there is an alternative to this see-saw on which we go up and down constantly, an alternative that is available to us every moment, one that helps us to step outside the concept of time.

What is this alternative?

Staying in the NOW, “the magic of the present moment.”  In the NOW nothing starts and nothing ends. No duality. It just is as it is. Neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

Added benefit: There’s no accumulation of karma in the NOW…. 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 of benefit!)

This post follows the one of December 11, 2011 immediately below.

In the Shambhala teachings, what are called the Four Dignities describe four stages in a process of realizing our basic goodness.

We want to live good lives. That involves making the right decisions. We ask ourselves:

“What is it that I want to do? What would be the right decision? I have the opportunity right now, what am I going to do? If I make certain decisions, I will get certain outcomes. That is the law of karma.”

Karma is the basic flow of nature, so — not to be too heavy — I think we need to really consider our actions, because we get into a lot of entanglement when we do not have this ability to be discerning, knowing what to do. We bumble into things and hope they work out. Dharma and the Shambhala teachings are saying that the first quality is Tiger — that quality of mindfulness, is meekness, not being overly arrogant.  (Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche: The Four Sessions of Basic Goodness)

So we practice discernment.

Then what? 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 of benefit!)

Every day I get an e-mail called Rigpa Glimpse of the Day. Up until now it has  been a kind of sleepy Sunday. But today’s message woke me up because of my lifelong interest in the outer, inner and secret aspects of karma.

We must never forget that it is through our actions, words, and thoughts that we have a choice. And if we choose to do so, we can put an end to suffering and the causes of suffering, and help our true potential, our buddha nature, to awaken in us. Until this buddha nature is completely awakened and we are freed from our ignorance and merge with the deathless, enlightened mind, there can be no end to the round of life and death. So, the teachings tell us, if we do not assume the fullest possible responsibility for ourselves now in this life, our suffering will go on not only for a few lives but for thousands of lives.

It is this sobering knowledge that makes Buddhists consider that future lives are more important even than this one, because there are many more that await us in the future. This long-term vision governs how they live. They know if we were to sacrifice the whole of eternity for this life, it would be like spending our entire life savings on one drink, madly ignoring the consequences.

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(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 of benefit!)

This weblog is dedicated to the subject of karma and its many facets and factors. Today is “Milarepa Day” in the Buddhist calendar. Milarepa, a murderer and saint is, for me, the best object lesson for karma!

When we hear the name Tibet, many people think of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Gentle. Compassionate. Humourous. Loving. Wise.

Milarepa, one of the greatest figures of Tibetan Buddhism, couldn’t present a better contrast to the perception we have of the Dalai Lama.

Mila was one bad dude. Got into black magic in a big way. Murdered his enemies to avenge some wrong-doing done to his family after his father had died.

But he is favourite of mine. Why? It’s really quite simple. He was a very naughty boy who went from sinner to saint. From a murderer to a magician and mystic. And did it all in one lifetime.

Milarepa’s message to me is: “I transformed a great deal of negative karma into enlightenment. So can you.” Well, it’s taking me many, many lifetimes. But Mila is my inspiration.

Let’s start at the beginning of his story. 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!)

We do not have to believe in reincarnation to benefit from this post or weblog. We only have to agree that present volitional actions have consequences in the future. 

Prologue: Based on my weblog page called Actual face of karma,what would the life of someone who is the present (fictional) incarnation of Queen Tiye (mother of Akhenaten), Queen of Sparta (aka Helen of Troy), Queen Jezebel, Cleopatra, St. Teresa of Avila and Sigmund Freud actually look like? In other words, what is the fruition of the karma (past volitional actions) of this portrait gallery of six historical figures when certain causes and conditions meet and the seeds of their past virtuous and non virtuous action  ripen in the present? To try to answer this question, I use diary entries like the one below.

* * * * *

I, Rainbow Desert Flower, enter these accounts of the last 40 years into my private diary. May it benefit all those who are trying to understand their own karmic package.

While it’s extremely helpful— indeed, necessary — to deconstruct the laws of karma, I started this weblog to demonstrate through real-life examples how karma actually works — manifests — in our present lives.

Here are some examples of the negative karma I had accumulated over many lifetimes through the ten unvirtuous actions that manifested in this present lifetime.

I went from

• being the extremely powerful mother of Akenaten, who plotted the death of of her grandchild Tutankamun in a past lifetime, to experiencing extremely negative karma with child for 22 years in this lifetime;
• taking away other women’s men for ego reasons in past lifetimes to no successful relationships for 22 years in this lifetime;
• being the richest woman in the world who abused her power in a past lifetime to financial poverty for 22 years in this lifetime;
• hatred towards my sister who had illegally seized the crown from our father in a past lifetime to severely unhappy relations with mother in this lifetime; and
  
• lying about one of my major theories in my last lifetime, to being slandered and deceived for 22 years in this lifetime.

In short, I went from abusing the power I had by virtue of the extremely high positions I held in previous lifetimes to being powerless for 22 years in this lifetime.

In that sense it has been the worst of lives.

Simultaneously, while the karmic s— — t was hitting the fan in this lifetime, I met enlightened, awake spiritual guides.

Learning about, inter alia [among other things]

• the  laws of karma — and how to cut through the habitual patterns that create and maintain that karma;
• how to tame my mind and cut through the confusion produced by ego through meditation; and
• the true nature of reality;

In that sense it has been the best of lives.

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Confined in the dark, narrow cage of our own making that we take for the whole universe, very few of us can even begin to imagine another dimension of mind. Patrul Rinpoche tells the story of an old frog who had lived all his life in a dank well. One day a frog from the sea paid him a visit.

“Where do you come from?” asked the frog in the well.
“From the great ocean,” he replied.
“How big is your ocean?”
“It’s gigantic.”
“You mean about a quarter of the size of my well here?”
“Bigger.”
“Bigger? You mean half as big?”
“No, even bigger.”
“Is it . . . as big as this well?”
“There’s no comparison.”
“That’s impossible! I’ve got to see this for myself.”

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!)

Many of us have found the concept of “emptiness” difficult to understand, to “get a handle on,” to “come to grips with.” Not surprising, as even the concept of emptiness is empty!

Why would I want to write about it? Because it describes the true nature of our minds, of reality, of the universe. Put another way, what we think exists in a permanent, solid way is just an appearance.

Phenomena are  like firecrackers. They flash (appear) in the sky, stay for a second, and then pass away. They have no inherent existence apart from the causes and conditions that produced them. You may have heard the phrase “the world of appearances.” That is what I am referring to here.  So everything that arises in our lives is actually an “appearance,” not some solid,  permanent reality.

I have come to believe that without an understanding of this true nature, we cannot really live the best of lives. Why? Because we are fooled, deluded, duped. That’s what is meant by the phrase “we are fooled by our own projections.”  The problem isn’t so much that we project, but that we don’t acknowledge it. Personally, I do not want to live in this state.

We experience this “emptiness” everyday: things change all the time, manufactured items like cars, a supper plate, etc. etc. fall apart. But while we understand the concept intellectually, it is emotionally difficult to accept. Why? Because our ego resists this truth.

So what? Who cares?

What possible usefulness is it to understand ideas like emptiness, appearances, the 12 factors of dependent origination, cause and effect. Read the rest of this entry »