‘About “Our Sangha’s Footprint”‘ Page
December 23rd, 2006Click on the “Our Sangha’s Footprint” page under ‘Pages’ in the righthand column of this blog to read about our sangha’s footprint. of course!
About “Our Sangha’s Footprint”
December 23rd, 2006Blog visitors may wonder about the purpose of this category of postings. As part of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, our sangha is committed to relieving the suffering of all sentient beings. We do this through meditation, ritual practices, and our lifestyle choices. It is now a widely accepted fact that human beings have wrought great environmental damage upon our planet, as evidenced by phenomena like global warming and the loss of animal and plant species and habitat. By reducing our footprint, that is, our impact upon the environment and the consumption of world resources, we seek to relieve the suffering of all sentient beings.
This blog category is intended to provide our community with an opportunity to share information and ideas about reducing our footprint and employing alternatives to our present patterns of consumption. It is not intended to promote political parties or candidates. We hope that its content moves you to examine your own choices. What size are your feet?
Almost No Evidence of Wisdom These Days
December 8th, 2006Properly applied the practices of Tibetan Buddhism facilitate shifts in consciousness to higher levels where true, far-reaching wisdom manifests. Real wisdom is so rare there’s almost no reason to mention it these days. Very few people know what it is, why we need it, how different things would be if, on balance, people had it or at least could connect to it. Given the set of challenges the human race faces NOW, not some time in the future, we urgently need problem solving based in transcendent wisdom. For this reason alone, everyone should engage in meditation every day. All people free to do so should be doing daily meditation practice. Start now. Adopt a daily meditation practice. WAKE UP.
KTC First Light 2007
November 27th, 2006KTC First Light Ceremony 6:30a.m. 1 January 2007
May the poison of malicious enmity
Never arise in the mind of any one of us.
With loving minds, like the meeting of mother and child,
May all the world be filled with peace and happiness.
From the closing lines of the First Light Prayers. Written by H.E. Goshir Gyaltsab Rinpoche.
KTC will be doing its 2nd annual First Light Ceremony on New Year’s Day, 1 January 2007, beginning at 6:30 a.m. First Light is a ceremony that originated at KTD, KTC’s parent monastery, where 108 lamps, carrying the collective prayers for peace and harmony of all those who have contributed to their lighting, have been lit every day since January 1, 2000.
The First Light ceremony is dedicated to bringing a world of peace. Everyone is welcome to attend, but we request that you make a donation for a butterlamp dedicated to world peace. You can sponsor a lamp even if you will not be at the ceremony. Each person participating in KTC’s First Light will receive a copy of the First Light prayers. which can be read every morning upon arising. Each day the KTC First Light lamps supporting your intention for world peace will be lit on KTC’s shrine.
The approximate schedule for First Light is as follows:
6:30 a.m. Chanting of the First Light Prayers. There are 3 short prayers done in a plain chant. Each prayer is chanted 3 times in Tibetan and 3 times in English.
7 a.m. Green Tara Puja with Tsok. You may chant or follow along silently. The puja is in Tibetan but is transliterated and translated into English. Chanting usually requires some practice. Green Tara puja, open to everyone, is done every Thursday morning from April - Dec at 5:45 a.m. at KTC. Check our online calendar for the odd exception to this schedule. If you want to practice, feel free to come to this group practice.
8 a.m. Closing prayers and dedication.
8:15 a.m. Tea and Treats.
First Light butterlamp donation amounts: $1.50 per day. $45 per month. $540 per year. Or other amount in multiples of $1.50.
Please RSVP your lamp donation amount, and whether you will join us to do the practice on 1 January, to Marva Bohen. To reduce spam here is her email address typed out: bohen001 at umn.edu. You should replace the word “at” with the “at sign” when you send your RSVP email. Materials need to be prepared for all participants.
SPACE - FAR FROM EMPTY!
November 2nd, 2006Every region of space is awash with different kinds of fields composed of waves of varying lenths - each wave has energy. When physicists calculate the minimum amount of energy a wave can possess, they find that every cubic centimeter of empty space contains more energy then the total energy of all the matter in the known universe.
This is the energy of a trillion atomic bombs in every cubic centimeter of space. Space is not empty. It is full, and is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves.
Michael Talbot in The Holographic Universe
ALL ENERGY
November 2nd, 2006All energy has intelligence. What used to be e=mc2 is now known to be e=i=m.
Deepak Chopra, M.D.
Consciousness
October 31st, 2006
Consciousness
Originally uploaded by KtcMinneapolis.
Human consciousness is stratified… layers that are wholes within wholes…
photo by Graciela Laura
Photo by Graciela Laura
October 31st, 2006
Picture by Graciela
Originally uploaded by KtcMinneapolis.
Main KTC Shrine, Amitabha Puja to assist Sonam’s father, Ogyen Namdol.
Hal, Namgyal & Sonam
October 1st, 2006
Hal, Namgyal & Sonam
Originally uploaded by KtcMinneapolis.
Working on the new steps in the Meditation Garden.
Sonam
October 1st, 2006
Sonam
Originally uploaded by KtcMinneapolis.
Sonam la on the new Meditation Garden steps.
Megavolcanos on Planet Earth
September 27th, 2006There are at least four mega or supervolcanos on Earth. When they erupt most, if not all, plant and animal life on our planet is wiped out. The largest of these megavolcanos is under Yellowstone National Park. It has a 600,000 year cycle. That is, it erupts every 600,000 years. It has been 640,000 years since its last eruption.
Nova, TPT Channel 2, 26.9.2006
Planet Earth’s Temperature
September 25th, 2006‘ The planet’s temperature has climbed to levels not seen in thousands of years, warming that has begun to affect plants and animals, researchers report in Tuesday’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Earth has been warming at a rate of 0.36 degree Fahrenheit per decade for the last 30 years, according to the research team led by James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
That brings the overall temperature to the warmest in the current interglacial period, which began about 12,000 years ago.
…”This evidence implies that we are getting close to dangerous levels of human-made pollution,” Hansen said in a statement.
…Hansen, who first warned of the danger of climate change decades ago, said that human-made greenhouse gases have become the dominant climate change factor.
…The study said the recent warming has brought global temperature to a level within about one degree Celsius _ 1.8 degree Fahrenheit _ of the maximum temperature of the past million years.’
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.pnas.org. Quote from Road Runner News 25.9.2006.
Ken Wilber on Consciousness Development & Meditation
September 19th, 2006“Developmental psychologists have looked at scales of development for decades. And once you start understanding these, the first thing you want to know is: How can we help adults move through these stages? … And, interestingly, there is only one thing that’s been consistently demonstrated to move people, on average, about two stages - and that’s meditation…
…Amrit Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, demonstrated that there’s never been a famine in a democratic country. A democracy stems from at least stage-five moral development. Since seventy percent of the world’s population is not there, the single best thing you can do to end world famine is to meditate. Meditation has a profound impact on the average level of consciousness in the world. It’s very, very important…
…meditation is a way to help you disidentify with finite objects and rest in that ground of being which is your very nature, your very SELF… meditation is extrememly important, and don’t ever let anybody tell you that it’s just not having any impact on the world. You’re changing the fundamental fabric of the cosmos when you meditate.”
Ken Wilber in what is enlightenment magazine, Issue 32.
Human Consciousness
September 17th, 2006It’s helpful to think about human consciousness as stratified and pluridimensional, with layers that are wholes within wholes, going from simple and rudimentary at birth, to increasingly complex and whole layers superimposed upon their predecessor in a way that includes the previous layer but transcends it. Formless meditation looks directly at the layer you are currently grounded in.
There are things to consider:
Biology & Humans on Earth
September 8th, 2006Evolution is based on cooperation, not competition.
We are now deep into the 6th mass extinction event to hit this planet. This event is unique because it has been caused by humans.
Biologist Bruce Lipton, PhD.
Dr. Lipton is the author of Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles, 2005 and earlier titles.