Buddhist Sangha of Bucks County

A 501c3 Non-Profit Organization

HOSTED LAMA GURSAM FOR A
ONE-DAY RETREAT AT THE
YARDLEY FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE

Saturday JUNE 21st 2008
THANK YOU LAMA GURSAM

A Brief Biography  (retreat notes following)

At the age of six, Lama Gursam entered Drikung Kagyu Monastery in Tso
Pema, India, where he completed his basic education and studied Buddhist
philosophy, practice, ritual and conduct. In 1981 he began his college
education at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies (University) in
Sarnath, Varnasi, India. He earned his Bachelor's degree in 1988 in the
Sanskrit, Hindi, Tibetan, and English languages and in Buddhist philosophy.
Pursuing graduate study at the University, he was President of the student
union, and served two years as a Kagyu Committee member. In 1990 he
received his Master's degree in advanced Buddhist philosophy. Upon
graduation he also received a special award from His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

After graduation, Lama Gursam was requested by His Holiness Kyabgon
Chetsang Rinpoche to come to the Drikung Kagyu Institute in Dehra Dun,
India, at a critical time where there was a great lack of teachers and funding for
education. There he served as a volunteer for five years, teaching Tibetan
language and Buddhist philosophy and history. He also held the posts of
Instructor, Head of Examinations, and Assistant Director while serving as
secretary to His Holiness Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche, the head of the
Drikung Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. During this time, he also did a
one-year meditation retreat and received Dzogchen teachings and
empowerments from Khenchen Thupten Rinpoche and other lamas of the
Nyingma lineage. He also studied with Dr. Pema Gyaltsen, a specialist in the
Tibetan language.

In 1995, Lama Gursam was sent by His Holiness Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche
to the United States, where he taught Buddhist philosophy for five years. Lama
Gursam worked as a resident teacher in a Tibetan Meditation Center, also
serving as director of North American Drikung Kagyu Center. Then Lama
Gursam met His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche, whom he considers to be the
second Milarepa. Under H.E. Garchen Rinpoche's guidance, together with the
Venerable Traga Rinpoche, he became a yogi, and in 2002 he completed a
traditional three-year retreat in the United States, practicing Mahamudra and
the Six Yogas of Naropa. After a nationwide teaching tour, he then traveled to
India, Nepal and the border of Tibet, where he completed a six-month retreat in
Milarepa's cave at Lapchi. Lama Gursam continues to return every year to
India for teachings and retreats, and every year to the United States and
Canada to reunite with friends and students for teachings. His current sanghas
are located in Vermont, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, and
Arizona, as well as Montreal and Sault Sainte Marie, Canada. Additionally,
every 2-3 years, Lama Gursam leads a pilgrimage to Buddhist holy places in
India and Nepal. In 2006, Lama Gursam founded The Bodhichitta Foundation,
a U.S. non-profit organization officially recognized by His Holiness Chetsang
Rinpoche, head of the Drikung Kagyu lineage. The Bodhichitta Foundation
benefits the West with teachings, a future center and retreat land, and the
East, preserving ancient texts, Tibetan culture, education, women's rights, and
health.

TEACHING SUMMARY FROM THE RETREAT:

Lama Gursam Retreat Notes
June 21, 2008


Lama Gursam joined us at the BSBC for a second year and a fantastic one
day retreat. He seemed to go through all of the Buddha’s core teachings in
one day, with his ever-present kindness and patience.  We were all very
blessed to be there.  Since there were several analogies he gave us to work
with, here they are with some short notes, and finally, a little bit of the
meditation practice he offered.

Dust and dirt: Our minds are like dusty mirrors. We work with meditation to
clean them. When we do so, we are working with this dust, and it can be felt
strongly.  It can be strong attachments to emotions, some of them long buried,
some of them not so strong or dusty.  Lama told the story of his recent 5-
month retreat.  On retreat, a younger man came to him while Lama was hand
washing clothes outside of his meditation cave. The man said that he was
besieged by negative emotion.  Lama assured him that he would be OK and
pointed to the dirt seeping out of the clothing.  “This is your meditation” he
said, “you are purifying yourself, and so dirt will come out.”  The young man felt
much better after this teaching.

Clouds, Sky and Sun:  In its true nature, the mind is clear and vast, like an
open sky. The mind also is luminous and shiny, with energy like the sun.
However, clouds come and go. We should not mistake a cloud for anything
permanent. We should watch and study the cloud and understand that it will
pass.

He said when the sun shines on snow mountain, the snow has no choice
except to melt.
The radiance of our mind’s true nature will eventually, with sustained
meditation practice, begin to melt our icy hearts to feel the warmth of
compassion and melt our eyes to see with kinder vision.


Waterfalls, Rivers and Oceans: In the beginning, our meditation is like a
mountain waterfall, very noisy and a little overpowering. It is made of difficult
emotions and thoughts and has a lot of falling energy. This can be difficult, but
we pay attention to our breathing.  Later, it is like a river, quieter and more
serene. Yet, it is made of the same ‘water’ of us, including emotions and so on.
It moves at a calmer pace and we can watch it more easily. We do not identify
so strongly with these parts of ourselves. At last, the river flows into a great
sea. The sea is vast, like the space of the mind.  Upon closer inspection, we
see the waves are made of many emotions and thoughts and feelings.  They
are again ‘us’ but they do not disturb us. Waves cannot ‘fall upwards’ in the
way that waterfalls fall down and so cannot bother us. Our vision is wider.  
Also, if we do not work with ourselves to develop a wise mind, our negative
emotions are like a river in a cup, they burst out and flood, causing great
damage.

We must move through peace to clarity. Calm peacefulness in our meditation is
one experience but not one to be grasped at. Maybe this was when he was
using the metaphor of water flowing from the serene river to the waves of
peace or not peace that are the nature of the ocean.


Wind: Wind is like the energy of the body and mind. Children possess great
wind energy and do not come to rest until they go to sleep.

Trees: Lama used a tree as an example of something that is empty. Empty of
what?  Not that it is ‘nothing’ but that it is empty of a separate self. A tree is
made up of water, wind, earth, and is not permanent. It arises out of conditions.
Similarly, our ‘vision’ of a tree arises from the sense object (the tree) and the
sense organ (the eye), which leads to sense consciousness. This then leads to
liking, not liking, or being indifferent towards the ‘tree’.  If we deconstruct or
observe how our sense of things being permanent and separate arises in us,
we will be able to better relate; we will still have feelings and emotions about
things, but we will be less likely to cling to them for so long. We see that it is
our own mind that creates ideas about things which go far beyond their true
nature.

Food:  Lama said that our bodies are very precious. We should be especially
grateful in the West, where by and large, we have enough to eat. In fact, we
have too much and tend to value the taste over the nutrition, since we have
more than what we need. Perhaps the precious teachings of the Buddha are
like that also, and most of the time, we do not realize that we are hungry for the
teachings. We need good food, not something ‘special’. Lama said there is no
real teaching that can be ‘transferred’; rather it must be practiced.

The Mala: Lama had a beautiful coral mala (string of 108 prayer beads).  He
demonstrated how entanglements of the mind happen by coiling it about his
hand.  His hand represented a clear mind, and he wrapped the mala saying
“Oh, I love this mala it is mine” and again “It has a nice red color”.  This
obscured his hand. He said that attachment is like that. He said that meditation
is the awareness that the mind is attaching, and this frees and clarifies. In fact
he said, one experience of ‘uncoiling’ the mind by ‘seeing’ this attachment can
really help our meditation to take root.

Meditation Notes:

Lama talked at some length about the five hindrances: restlessness &
tiredness, attachment & aversion, and doubt. He said that restlessness
required a calming and centering meditation approach, with the eyes focused
downward, and tiredness could be worked with by moving the shoulders and
opening the eyes wide for a time.  He suggested that we might try meditating
with a sense of the inbreath being cleansing and the outbreath breathing out
all of our obscurations. Also, he suggested that we might try a brief forceful
outbreath once or twice before breathing meditation.  He said that since only
very advanced practitioners can meditate while asleep, we should strive to
remain awake.

He pointed out that all of the phenomena we encounter through the six senses
(in Buddhism, the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind) tend to be related to
by grasping, aversion or indifference. One of the goals of meditation is to
develop a calm mind so that strong attachment and aversion are no longer
present. Lama said that after about a half hour of sitting in meditation one's
feelings begin to "bubble up", usually negative emotions but sometimes
positive ones as well, in either case not to "touch" or "grasp at" the feelings but
let them pass, which  is particularly tricky with the positive feelings because we
want to cling to those.  He pointed out that unreleased negative emotions will
come out in negative ways, such as poor sleep and bad dreams. Lama
repeated;  "don't touch it"   ---be it the emotion, the object----let it arise just
"don't touch it"

Lama emphasized strongly that the primary purpose of meditation is to develop
a kind heart for others and ourselves. He advised us to commit to steady
practice, to practice with enthusiasm, and to always remember that positive
actions bring positive results and negative actions bring negative results.