It is so very good to connect with you.
My name is Choyin Dorje. This name was given to me by my Tibetan teacher, and so I treasure it highly, as the four syllables that make up the name also point to the qualities that I can share with others. I didn't just make this up. You could say an intelligence higher than mine or that of my physical parents' gave me that name.
I live in Goa, India. Although I am not Indian, I have been living on the west coast of India for over 15 years. It has become my home, somehow to my own surprise. Among other activities that I engage in for livelihood purposes or just for the heck of it, I sometimes teach a modern form of Tibetan yoga - albeit, not too often and mostly in small groups of people who have taken Buddhist refuge with me and known me for a while. I have also invited my Tibetan teacher to Goa, and he gladly came and has taught here in 2013 & 2014. He may even return in 2015, who knows. Which would be fantastic.
From the shreds of biodata given above, you may correctly conclude that in the articles to be published in this blogspot in the future, we will share with you a Buddhist perspective on yoga.
In some ways the Buddhist approach is quite different from the common hatha- vinyasa and, you name it, branches of modern physical Indian yogas. The exercises are different, and so is the framework in which they are presented. You could even say, it's a totally different world altogether. But to make a claim to something like complete "otherness" also somewhat misses the point of the common ground of all phenomena. One should never try and become too special, isn't it...
Anyway, in our articles we will focus on two main subjects:
1. Present day Buddhist yoga without any direct (but an implied, more hidden) connection to a traditional lineage
2. Traditional mahayana and vajrayana teachings as taught by Tibetan Vajrayana teachers like my Guru.
Some may dispute the validity of mixing these two, the 'modern' and the 'old', but according to my 35 years of experience with practicing and sharing the Buddha's teachings in the present-day world, these two approaches actually go very well together.
You need to reach people where and how they are, and you need a strong bond with the tradition in order to not get lost in this hapless cheesy 'new age' feel-good mode. A living tradition that reaches back into the distant past always makes you feel humble, which is not a bad thing at all.
Like with the Buddhist refuge. I didn't decide one fine day that giving mahayana refuge would be a swell thing for me to do. Rather it was my teacher who one morning in 2006 casually remarked that he had just bestowed his refuge lineage on me (which goes back to the time when Ananda, the Buddha's cousin, asked for it). Going back to the time of the Buddha, it is very old, very worthy of respect, and absolutely not common or easy to obtain. After the Lama had baffled me with bestowing his refuge lineage as nonchalantly as I have described it above, he proceeded to point to the person who should be the first to whom I grant refuge. -
This is how tradition works. No self-appointed masters in it. Which is why I have never appointed myself to anything that I share with others. You could say it's sort of a safety valve to delusions of grandeur, and it partially works.
I guess this should suffice by the way of introduction. As one of my teachers said to one of his students many years ago, "It will take us six years for us to get to know each other. Three years for you to get to know me, and three years for me to get to know you. So, come and see me again in six years, on the 10th day of the third month." Hilarious!
Well, it may not actually take that long for us to meet in cyberspace again, but knowing, yes,… Knowing takes a while. Unfortunately many people don't have the time… and so they'll never know.
No comments:
Post a Comment