Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche - 3
By Matthieu Ricard on September 15, 2011The ceremonies connected with the Parinirvana of Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche, who left this world on September 2nd, are continuing at Sitapala, near Kathmandu. They are now focused on the practice of Guru Yoga (Union with the ultimate nature of the teacher) and of the Buddha of Compassion (Thukje Chenpo Deshek Dupa, according to the Mindrolin...
Ceremonies for Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche's parinirvana
By Matthieu Ricard on September 12, 2011Offering ceremonies related to the departure of Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche from this world are continuing at his residence near Kathmandu in Nepal. Everyday, around 50 Lamas, monks and nuns perform a ceremony (Vajrasatva) in the main room, while hundred of devotees pray in the garden around the house. At night a few monks take turn to practice ...
Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche left our world
By Matthieu Ricard on September 07, 2011Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche (1924-2011), one of the most revered spiritual masters of our time left our world last Friday at his newly built monastery, near the great Stupa of Swayambunath in Nepal. He was the closest spiritual friend, both student and teacher, of Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, a very close disciple of Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoc...
The pursuit of selfish versus altruistic happiness
By Matthieu Ricard on August 27, 2011Developing our own positive inner qualities is the best way to help others in a more effective way. At the beginning, our personal experience is our only reference point. Our personal, self-centered experience, which tells us that we don't want to suffer, can become the basis for a much larger point of view that includes all beings. We are al...
Dialogue with father Ceyrac - 3rd part
By Matthieu Ricard on August 19, 2011M.R.: The worst yet is to imagine that we can be happy in an selfish way. A selfish happiness is fundamentally dysfunctional. Some imagine that they can build their happiness on the suffering of others, while our happiness must necessarily pass through the love and happiness of others. In Buddhism, there is a practice that consists in exchang...
A dialogue with Father Ceyrac
By Matthieu Ricard on August 13, 2011M.R.: I am also convinced that every human being has within him a potential for loving-kindness, even if at times he strays from this basic goodness in monstrous ways. When people feel a deep anguish that they cannot define, it is perhaps because they have a doubt concerning this potential for love and goodness that is within us. Without this...
A dialogue with Father Ceyrac — Part 1
By Matthieu Ricard on August 07, 2011Father Ceyrac is now 97 years old and still lives in India close to those to whom he gave so much help and so much love. With limited means, this French Jesuit Father, who has lieve in the Indian Tamil Nadu region for nearly half a century, has succeeded in rescuing from a state of utter neglect 45,000 poverty-stricken children, whom his netw...
The tragic flaws of torture
By Matthieu Ricard on July 31, 2011Torture is still widely practice all over the world as a supposedly efficient way of extracting confessions from allegedly guilty people. Torture certainly works to obtain confessions, the problem being that such confessions have, more often than not, not much to do with the truth. In countless cases, the target confesses something as the onl...
Dialogue with Jane Goodall -- Part 3: The Endless Killing of Animals
By Matthieu Ricard on July 21, 2011Matthieu: Human intelligence can produce Gandhi and can also produce Hitler. But a superior intelligence does not give humans the right to slaughter at will billions and billions of animals every year. It seems that the value of an animal is practically zero compared to that of a human. During the episode of the Hoof and Mouth Disease, for in...
Dialogue with Jane Goodall : Part 2 Becoming Aware of the Suffering behind Eating Meat
By Matthieu Ricard on July 16, 2011Matthieu: It seems also that slaughterhouses are guarded as if they were top-secret military facilities. You can't see anything. But if it were shown even a little bit to people, they would find it intolerable. Jane: There is a wonderful woman in America. She got a job in an abattoir and managed to secretly film what was going on. But th...