The problem we experience very much nowadays is that we are unable to tell the difference or distinguish between a spiritual tradition and those who practice it. When we encounter upheaval, adversity, disputation, or controversy in a religious or spiritual tradition, we immediately denigrate the tradition itself. We say, “Well, this religion or this tradition is simply no good.” But this comes from our misapprehension of the behavior of some of the participants or members of the tradition as something inherent in the tradition itself. This is a problematic misapprehension for us because it causes us to lose respect for genuine spiritual traditions.
Teachings by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche
In this category we present selected fragments of transcribed teachings by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche.
Bodhichitta Is Most Important
It does not matter whether you are practicing in your own personal shrine room or in the great and elaborate shrine of a Dharma center. If in your practice you have a fantastic generation stage visualization, you sit immovably with perfect meditation posture of the seven dharmas of Vairochana, and you recite the liturgy with beautiful voice and impeccable melody, even if you do all of that, if then you get up off the cushion, leave the shrine room, and there is no trace whatsoever of Dharma in your behavior, if your words are coarse of most degraded individual, if your mind is utterly unruly, then there is simply no point. It is said, “Those who become jaded with Dharma are impervious to it.” Once we become jaded with Dharma, then forget about helping anyone else. We ourselves are beyond help.
From the Time of Guru Rinpoche to the 21st Century
One of the other tertöns predicted by the Fourteenth Karmapa was Terchen Barway Dorje. Terchen Barway Dorje received from the Fourteenth Karmapa an empowerment that the Karmapa called The Embodiment of All Victors in the Three Jewels. It is a sadhana of Guru Rinpoche. When the Fourteenth Karmapa gave him this empowerment, he did it entirely from memory. He did not use a text. He gave Barway Dorje the empowerment, the transmission, and the instructions, and allowed Barway Dorje to commit it to writing. It was evident that this was a mind terma of the Fourteenth Gyalwang Karmapa himself. In the context of that empowerment, the Gyalwang Karmapa prophesied to Terchen Barway Dorje that he would also discover terma.