[...]... seers told his father, the king who was head of the Shakya clan, that the child who was about to be born would either be a very powerful king or a fully enlightened one According to their prediction, the Buddha could go one of two ways; it was one or the other No easy choice At the age of twenty-nine, the Buddha chose the life of a wandering monk because he wanted to understand suffering and the end... and the other lamas in his monastery were not jet-set gurus They were hunkered down to stay in their Himalayan hills There was a splendid view of the eternally snow-covered Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world, but the monastery was without electricity, phones, or hot water The only way to get there was by Jeep over a difficult single-lane road or by the old narrow-gauge train The. .. now scattered around the world, especially in North America— the land of the red-faced people” of the ancient prophecy, and they have brought their teachings with them Perhaps as a nation, the United States needs the wisdom of these spiritually accomplished reincarnations, and we are now, for the first time, open to hearing their lessons TIBETAN WISDOM ARRIVES IN THE WEST Until the Chinese invasion... a trail through the spiritual universe had already been blazed I learned that there was already a map, explicit directions, and guideposts, and there were ways to measure progress As I began to learn about the compassionate wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism, I saw that others had been to the mountaintop and they were able to help us get there too Here, I no longer felt alienated or separate There was a sense... it’s possible for any good to have come from the Chinese invasion, that good has been found in the dissemination of the teachings to so many new students Lama Yeshe may have been the first lama in Nepal to teach Westerners, but he was far from the last By 1971, the lamas in exile had realized that the only way for the Buddhism they cherished to survive was to pass it on These Tibetan masters remembered... over me and started asking questions I had a brass bowl-shaped gong with me, and at the end, we did the Gong Meditation: Follow the sound of the gong, see where it goes, and “just be there” for a moment or two with the sound The next day one of the women in the retreat came up to me at lunch to tell me that her eight- yearold son Ryan had come home and told her that something very unusual had happened that... Buddhism, on the other hand, is a profound philosophy that, over the centuries, has developed a systematic method of shaping and developing the heart and mind: a method of awakening the Buddha within The problem is that most of us are sleeping Buddhas To reach enlightenment, our only task is to awaken to who and what we really are—and in so doing to become fully awake and conscious in the most profound... twenty-five disciples began to discover these hidden treasures This is not just ancient myth Several of the lamas who unearthed these terma—including my teachers Dudjom Rinpoche, Kangyur Rinpoche, and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche—were able to transmit the precious teachings to Westerners Padma Sambhava introduced the practice of reciting the Bardo Thodol, known to Westerners as The Tibetan Book of the Dead,... considered a privilege to be born in a country where the Dharma is taught The Dharma is the most abundant gift of wisdom and like all true gifts, it benefits both the giver and the receiver The word Dharma is frequently used as a synonym for Buddha Dharma, the teachings of the compassionate enlightened Buddha, the founder of Buddhism who lived in the fifth century B.C in northern India Dharma is a... that the monk—me—taught them about God and Buddha and the Gong Meditation When his mother asked what that was, he said, “Well, he told us to watch where the sound went and to listen carefully I didn’t know you could watch a sound and listen at the same time It was very interesting He said that if you followed where the sound went, that you might get closer to God and Buddha And I did that.” His mother . be. Awake to reality, to truth, to things just as they are. TODAY, RIGHT NOW The seeker who sets out upon the way shines bright over the world. —FROM THE DHAMMAPADA (SAYINGS OF THE BUDDHA) If. want to know the unknowable; others want to know themselves; still others want to know everything. Some people want transformation; others want miracles. Many want to alleviate suffering, help others,. prayer wishes that we may all together reach enlightenment—that we may all find the Buddha within and awaken to who and what we really are. AWAKENING THE BUDDHA WITHIN Not that long ago, while