August/September 2005
Cultivating
Relational Intelligence
Nina Simons
Crimes
Against Democracy: An Interview with Thom Hartmann
Jim Guiness
Rebirth
in the Forest
Will Sears
Right
Living, and Surviving, After The Age Of Oil
John Darling
Permaculture
and Place
Steve Gabriel
Think
of Local Food First
Wendy Siporen
Sustainable
Living at Solviva
Anna Edey
Year-Round
Gardening in Home and GreenHouse
Jeffrey M. Smith
The
Greening of Cuba
Caroline Whyte
A
Path of Peace, Kindness and Compassion
Jody Woodruff
From
Hurt to Heart
Eryn Kalish
Epictetus'
Handbook Revisited
Gay Hendricks & Phillip Johncock
The
Sky of Now
Katie Davis
The
Complete Book of Raw Food
Reviewed by Rachel Bendat
Whole
Foods Companion
Reviewed by Rachel Bendat
Cosmic
Calendar
Salina Rain
A
Path of Peace, Kindness and Compassion
By Jody Woodruff
Kagyu Sukha Choling, located in Ashland, Oregon, is a center for the practice and study of Tibetan Buddhism. It is dedicated to supporting individuals at any stage of their spiritual journey; open to all who seek a path of peace and a life imbued with kindness and compassion. Lama Pema Clark and Lama Yeshe Parke have been students of His Eminence Kalu Rinpoche and Venerable Lama Lodö Rinpoche since the early eighties. Kalu Rinpoche gave the name for this center, instructing the two women, “Pema, Yeshe, you are the ones who will work with this name, this activity, this lineage. I give it directly into your hands.”
Following is a conversation with Lama Pema and Lama Yeshe.
Two Caucasian women from a western culture, now Tibetan Buddhist Lamas establishing a teaching center in Ashland, Oregon. Unusual or not?
Yeshe: Maybe not so unusual these days. Our traditions do come from Himalayan cultures where the vast majority of lamas were male. With a few exceptions, females were nuns who chose practice over family, but the training was very different and not always equal. As Buddhism came to the west, the lamas in all lineages carefully observed our culture and shifted the way they taught and trained. There is a deep understanding that we are not a monastic culture—that householders are the meditation practitioners in our part of the world. In training such as a three year retreat, for example, women are as welcome as men. Consequently, there are many women teaching and writing.
Have these changes in the west had an affect on women in the Himalayan cultures?
Yeshe: Yes. The cultures are influencing each other, with those older traditions making a larger place for women who commit themselves to the Dharma.
I’m curious about what attracted you to Buddhism in the first place.
Pema: What I found in Buddhism was a tremendous practicality and good humor. Practicality was established by the Buddha with his teaching of the Four Noble Truths. The Buddha’s first teaching presented the truths of suffering, its cause, its cessation and the path to its cessation. He said that our life is filled with suffering and there was no fear or hesitancy to talk about that. Then he presented a very clear methodology by which we can understand that the causes of our suffering are not external to ourselves—that we have tremendous potential to establish peace and freedom in our own lives. So for me, the teachings were really accessible, practical and not based on anything mysterious. I was also inspired by the great teachers I witnessed who radiated such kindness and compassion, such clarity of heart and mind. I thought...who are these beings? They’re doing something right. I should find out what it is.
Yeshe: My initial attraction wasn’t the spiritual aspect. From a very young age, it was to the art that has come out of the Buddhist tradition: sculpture, brush paintings, haiku poetry, the bonsai and gardening techniques from China and Japan. As I experienced sitting in a Japanese garden or hearing a great poem from the Zen tradition, I wondered about the state of mind that would lead to this creativity—the peace and harmony and simplicity. But it wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I looked more deeply, propelled by the need to have a more peaceful mind. By that age I had slowed down so that I could actually sit for a moment or two. When I was younger, forget it! I wanted to be outdoors...hiking, camping and having fun. But as I craved peace of mind, I gained the willingness to harness my energy to see what would happen.
From that point on, you were inspired to become Lamas?
Pema: Not in the least. I never had the intention of becoming a lama. It seemed to happen on its own. I began looking for a teacher at a fairly young age, so I was exposed to a number of different lamas, finally taking the first Buddhist vow of refuge from Lama Lodö who has remained my teacher. Through him I met Kalu Rinpoche and some of the great teaching masters of the Tibetan lineage. These teachers inspired me to be even more diligent in my practice. I became more involved when Yeshe and I worked together editing some of Kalu Rinpoche’s and Lama Lodö’s books.Then in 1986 we watched some friends dedicate themselves to a three year retreat and were especially interested to see what these westerners would be like when they emerged. Would something good happen? Well, it was so impressive that I knew that I also wanted to commit to a retreat. It’s really the best environment to learn and practice all the teachings. Toward the end of the three years, Lama Lodö encouraged Yeshe and myself to begin to teach. After a couple of years, he gave us both the title of lama, which means teacher.
So during the retreat there was no pressure on you to be anything in particular?
Yeshe: Exactly. You didn’t have to be at the head of the class—or anything. Some of the training is highly scholastic, but a lot is experiential. How you progress with meditation is not quantifiable. There was nothing in the environment except to learn, study and practice meditation. I was innocent of the possibility of becoming a lama and I’m grateful for that. When Lama Lodö suggested teaching, I was shocked! I didn’t feel equal to the responsibility of representing the lineage in the west and it took me a while to grow into it.
In 2000, you moved to Ashland, Oregon, to establish a center. Will you comment on what you offer the community?
Pema: The emphasis of the center is to provide a place where people can learn meditation, particularly tranquility medi-tation, which calms the mind—and to do that in an atmosphere of like minded individuals. We also emphasize studies to become familiar with the basic tenants of Buddhist teachings in order to be able to discuss and pursue them with more than a superficial understanding. We offer a number of classes and encourage retreats of from one to seven days. We bring the lamas of the lineage here so people have the chance to learn from them and to see their high level of experience and realization. Actually, the program has mushroomed in a way that we didn’t ever plan.
Yeshe: Yes, it’s grown in a very sweet way. Not from the top down. It’s bubbling up from the needs of the practicing community and the willingness of quite a few people to help. We began with one meditation a week. Now there are five meditations each week and on three Sundays per month, plus ongoing classes. This entire program rests on volunteer energy.
Of your many classes, two apparently have special appeal to those interested in psychology as well as having an interest or curiosity about Buddhism: “Introduc-tion to Tibetan Psychology” and the intermediate class, “Buddhist Mind/Western Mind.”
Pema: Yes. We explore the comparison between western and Buddhist approaches to developing a calm and peaceful mind. There are similarities and differences but much of the terminology is the same. The western approach is through therapy to become less neurotic—to have a good relationship with one’s self and others, to function in the world effectively, to reduce conflict and anxiety. Buddhism wants that too, but the approach is different. Buddhism looks at the mind to see what arises. What are our thoughts and emotions? We get very familiar and friendly with ourselves, using various meditation techniques to calm the mind and not be so busy in our thoughts and conceptualizations. We learn to manage our own mind. Also, looking at the ego from both perspectives creates a bridge. It allows us to think about what’s going on internally and then decide on the most effective way to work with that.
The focus of western therapy is on developing the functional ego. From the Buddhist viewpoint we ask, “Does the ego even exist? Is that ego even necessary?” Of course we need to function, to have a sense of health. In Buddhism, we look at the psycho-physical aspects that formulate the ego and examine them to see if there is really anything independent in these aggregates. What we find are aspects of our being that are acting in concert with each other to formulate our experience, but that none of these aspects in and of themselves constitute anything that is a solid, independent, permanent “self”. This is a brief explanation of many sessions of the courses, which are both informative and experiential.
I’ve heard good things about your youth program.
Pema: One of our biggest pleasures is to meet with teenagers once a month—to listen to them, to present some of the stories and ideas of the Buddha’s life and teachings and to discuss those in the context of the teenagers’ lives. How are they useful? Ideas such as generosity, patience and ethics. What do these mean for a young person?
Apparently a number of people involved in your programs don’t follow Buddhism as their primary spiritual practice.
Yeshe: Anyone is welcome here and that really follows the Buddha’s style of teaching. Everyone was welcome to spend time with him and many of his teachings grew from those conversations. The greatest teachers tell us that we do not have to leave our culture behind. We do not have to leave the religion of our birth behind in order to benefit from the Buddhist teachings and contemplative methods.
I’d like to hear how you respond to those of us who have deep concerns with the chaos we experience on our planet at this time. How can we maximize the teachings to help us cope?
Pema: Good question. The greatest chaos that goes on all the time is the chaos in our own mind. If we don’t have clarity or calmness of mind, we can’t meet the situations that occur in our daily life. We can run around and try to solve all the world’s problems and it can make us crazy. But if we calm our own mind and develop clarity and compassion in our lives, then every activity we engage in is infused with that calmness and clarity. Then we can do amazing things.
Yeshe: This is where being in a community helps because we can support each other to develop the calm state of mind. Additionally, we can share our concerns and be awake to the ethical considerations of our everyday life, the way we interact with other beings, the way we use our energy.
Pema: There was quite an increase in the number of people who came to meditations after 9-11. People were really tremendously shocked and sensitized to death, impermanence and suffering. They wanted help with those feelings. And I think the most effective thing we do here is to encourage letting the chaos in our own minds subside to see what is the true essence of our heart and mind—which the Buddha taught is really spacious and clear and without limit, infused with kindness and compassion. Individuals become more empowered as they practice and experience meditation. They have more confidence and don’t respond in the same habitual ways, with the same emotional reactivity. We all have days where good things happen and other days that are difficult. Either way, some kind of steadiness in the heart and mind helps us to meet whatever conditions arise.
Yeshe: As we practice, we begin to see ourselves more clearly. We can be more honest with ourselves about the ethical quality of our lives—to be able to consider the way we make decisions and the way to use our energy in a beneficial way. Then when we approach our world, we have harnessed some of that calmness and strong ethical basis to act in an honest and direct way—a more courageous way in the world. The impact of what we do to alter and improve our world, especially the nearby world, can be more skillful, motivated by compassion and generosity.
Pema: When people say that they’re sensitive to what’s going on in the world, that’s great! It’s a sign that we have some concern for others. We could be saying the world’s a mess so let’s forget about it. But the meditation practice we do isn’t just to relieve our stress and to make us happy. We practice because we want to develop the motivation to benefit other beings. None of us wants to suffer, and this is a way we are connected to every other living being.
Yeshe: One of the most powerful principles of Buddhism in our conventional world is the concern with the welfare of other beings—human and non-human beings. All beings are important. Meditation is grounding ourselves in the face of what we witness so that we’re not overwhelmed by the massive difficult circumstances in the world. Cultivation of the calm mind is the foundation for going out into the world and being able to put into play what our heart wants to do, which is to help other beings.
Your comments sound hopeful and optimistic.
Pema: The Buddhist way is really very optimistic. Much of the time we think of ourselves in a limited way. Particularly in this culture we often feel a lot of guilt and uncertainty about our own worth. The Buddhist way says that we should be optimistic about who we are and about our potential.
Speaking of optimism, I hear enthusiasm from members of your Sanga about the plans to build a new Meditation Center in Ashland. It’s heartening to know that both Buddhists and non Buddhists are helping to finance the center. We are a country of diversity, and this is a wonderful opportunity for those of us who live here to embrace that truth. In a sense, this will be the neighborhood Buddhist church.
Pema: The wish for a new center came from outgrowing our present space. That’s a good problem to have because it means that there are many people who want to meditate and study. First we thought we’d just get a bigger house, but it’s not so simple as one might think. Then we came across an area in Ashland that had the correct zoning and the meditation community was able to raise the funds to buy the lot. We hope to build something that will meet the needs of the wider community for many years and affect the neighborhood in a positive way.
Yeshe: The designer, architect and landscape architect are all local people and the style of the building is a blend of Tibetan and American elements. Because we will be near downtown, the center will be accessible by walking and biking paths. Being near a wetland, it will draw human and non human visitors. People will want to enjoy the gardens and sit on the benches to witness the birds in the wetland and to look up to the mountains in this incredibly beautiful valley. A serene place to refresh oneself.
Pema: At present we are in a fund raising campaign in order to finance the building and we welcome assistance from anyone. Having the presence of a meditation center in this community is a very unusual and positive contribution not only to our practitioners, but to anyone who would enjoy having a place to rest the mind, to engage in contemplation. In terms of Buddhism coming to the west, there are relatively few buildings that have been constructed for the express purpose of being a center for the practice and study of Dharma. Many houses have been purchased and converted into fine practice centers, but most of the Buddhist construction has been for rural retreat centers. We see churches and synagogues and temples of all other religious traditions but it is rare to see a Buddhist center. This will help to ensure that Buddhism will have a continued presence in America.
To learn more
about the programs at KSC, the building project, or class and meditation schedules
go to www.KSCAshland.org or contact Lama Pema and Lama Yeshe at (541) 552-1769;
147 Granite St., Ashland, OR. Jody Woodruff is a writer living in Talent,
OR.
