Dharma Glimpses with Judy Lief

In this episode, and in the next few episodes, we will explore the paramitas—what Trungpa Rinpoche referred to as “techniques of non grasping”  •  these techniques help us cultivate the two foundational qualities of wisdom and compassion  •  wisdom is cultivated through stillness, and compassion is cultivated through action  •  on the bodhisattva path, the six paramitas are considered supreme beca...

Bodhisattvas are those who dedicate their lives to attaining enlightenment themselves, and to providing situations that lead to the enlightenment of everyone  •  in approaching this high aspiration, bodhisattvas do not look to some heavenly figure to provide examples of how to accomplish the goals of the bodhisattva path  •  instead, they look to the elements of this ordinary world: the elements o...

Impermanence applies not only to the world around us, but to our internal world as well  •  we assume that we are a solid reference point, and everything else around us is changing  •  in reality, it’s more like changing is observing changing  •  if we turn our attention inward, we see that there is no solid point from which to observe all of this, because our inward experience is filled with chan...

In Buddhism some practices are designated as meditation practices, such as working with mindfulness and awareness  •  other practices, called contemplative practices, are focused on working with the concepts in our mind  •  one of the most important of these is the contemplation of impermanence, change, and death  •  we often have difficulty accepting the reality of impermanence; we create various...

Random labeling, or kuntag in Tibetan, is a two-step process: first we select some portion of our perception and give it a label; then, once we’ve done that, we fixate on it and make it solid  •  we make something that really doesn’t exist into something that’s seemingly solid, and we do that over and over again  •  there’s a famous saying: “Fish don’t exist”  •  there are lots of things swimming...

The Tibetan term for compassion, karuna, can be translated as “noble heart”  •  in the Buddhist teachings, compassion is almost always linked with another quality that actually changes the sense of what it might mean  •  in this episode I will talk about three such pairings: compassion with emptiness, compassion with wisdom, and compassion with skillful means  •  linking compassion with emptiness...

Recently I came across a disturbing study indicating that people who spend a lot of time in silent meditation practice can actually become less loving, less generous in their interactions with others  •  that made me think about the importance of balancing the simplicity of meditation with the cultivation of friendship, love, and kindness  •  my teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche, emphasized that meditatio...

When people go into meditation retreat, they often practice something called “noble silence” — the decision simply not to talk for a period of time, and explore how that affects one’s perceptions and way of being in the world altogether  •  through such practices, people have discovered that in order to touch the sacred, we need to be still; we need to be quiet  •  when we are still in that way, s...

The phrase, “When you lose your mind, come back” describes a lot of what happens in meditation: repeatedly losing our minds, and repeatedly bringing ourselves back  •  the moment we’ve noticed we’ve lost it is the moment we can return  •  what are we returning to? the simplicity of the present moment  •  another phrase Trungpa Rinpoche used quite a lot was, “Don’t think too much”  •  what are the...

In the dharma a great deal of emphasis is placed on integrating meditation practice and study  •  interwoven throughout is the need for discipline, the need to apply our training to the real challenges of life  •  if you look at the role of discipline in terms of meditation practice and study, it’s very simple: you have to do it  •  it takes effort and commitment to stick with study, to stick with...

Since we are the only ones who know what’s really going on during any session of meditation, or in life generally, we have a responsibility to be our own meditation instructors, working with the patterns that capture our particular mind from time to time  •  many years ago I was introduced to pairs of qualities that can help us in identifying different kind of traps, or extremes, we can fall into,...

I used to carry around a cartoon that depicted a beautifully robed monk with a Japanese shoji screen behind him, everything perfectly in its place—and behind the screen everything was complete chaos  •  it’s very tempting to create a façade of tranquility and peacefulness in our meditation practice and ignore what’s behind the screen: the roiling emotions and thoughts, the confusion and history an...

Emotions are a natural part of who we are  •  they can be powerful—even overpowering—or they can be subtle, almost an undercurrent  •  they can be very inspiring, or they can be very disruptive  •  if you trace negative emotions back to their source, you discover that they arise from an ongoing battle where everything is taken personally  •  if you trace that battle back to its source, you find a...

I recently had a problem with my computer—whatever I put in my "trash" would just stay there; I couldn’t empty it  •  I started thinking about how that could describe our personal “trash”—our freak-outs and obsessions, our worries and regrets, as well as what we read in the news  •  we can shove that stuff deep within us, and sometimes it’s not so easy to know how to let it go  •  one ap...

The eight everyday preoccupations are eight ways we occupy our minds in order to avoid experiencing things directly  •  they act as a kind of a central filtering mechanism, separating out the things that feed our ego from the things that challenge it  •  because of this filtering mechanism, we get jerked around into a very reactive way of living and thinking  •  all of our thoughts and actions cur...

Episode 68: Genuine Effort    [May 10] Effort plays a very important part on the Buddhist path; it’s one of the three main components of discipline, meditation, and knowledge  •  effort is where the rubber meets the road; it’s where things get tested and become real  •  Trungpa Rinpoche talked about effort in terms of combining discipline and delight  •  he used three analogies to describe three d...

Someone recently asked me, “Am I spiritually bypassing?” •  I took that term to mean using one’s practice or spiritual path as an escape, or relief, from the responsibilities of regular life in this world  •  it is a relief in a way, to take a break from the relentless struggles of daily life  •  is it possible to practice meditation in a way that’s not bypassing all of that, while at the same tim...

Today I’d like to explore the problem of becoming an adult  •  the world of children is filled with magic and fantasy and stories, with vivid perceptions and playfulness  •  but as we grow up we’re supposed to get over all that, and develop adult-like qualities  •  gradually, year-by-year, the magical world of childhood fades away; all of that playfulness gets subsumed into the busy, “important” w...

The word “compassion” can seem so overwhelming in the face of all the suffering in the world that it can stop us in our tracks  •  while we’re imagining all the great gestures of compassion that we might do, we can miss the small, ordinary, daily acts of compassion that really do affect our world  •  some of the hardest compassion to feel is just being present with suffering that isn't fixabl...

The attitude that’s encouraged whenever we embark on a spiritual journey is not to approach it simply as a means of self improvement, but to switch our normal way of operating so that we are thinking about others  •  traditionally this is talked about as beginning by raising bodhichitta and ending by dedicating the merit  •  when we sit down to practice meditation, or to begin any project, we star...

We are all familiar with meditation as a way to tame and quiet the mind  •  another important aspect of meditation is clear seeing, or insight: the power of meditation to reveal the intricacies of the workings of our minds  •  a traditional image for untamed mind is that of a pond stirred up by the wind: all the silt in the pond is mixed with the water, making it murky  •  as the wind dies down—wh...

Loneliness is a familiar experience, but it can feel very vulnerable and slightly threatening  •  we do lots of things to hide that feeling  •  my teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, emphasized the value of relating to our loneliness but he also emphasized the value of being in community  •  this may seem like a contradiction, but in fact, by developing the strength to accommodate our own fundament...

The idea of teacher on the simplest level is the need to connect with people who know more than we do about something  •  in some ways a teacher in the contemplative world is more like a coach than a teacher, training people in a particular skill or role  •  a spiritual guide or teacher is someone who has actually practiced that field themselves, and understood from the inside out how to work with...

Can you think of moments in your life when you’ve had a glimpse of something that might feel profound beyond words, and maybe slightly disturbing?  •  in those moments when we are stopped in our tracks we enter a different kind of space  •  it is as though there are two levels of reality operating at the same time  •  there is the conventional level, where we spend almost all of our time, just get...

Aspirations like the Four Limitless Ones are based on the recognition that our actions stem from simple thoughts in our mind; so why not put benevolent thoughts in our mind and see what comes of it?  •  but aspirations also present a challenge: how do we manifest and live up to those aspirations in our daily lives?  •  we begin by looking at ourselves — looking in an honest and curious but not har...