The Double Dorje: Modern Vajrayana Buddhism.

A bit about kanglings, including tips about forming the mouthpiece. Best seen on video at YouTube.

When Buddhist teachers give teachings to westerners, live interpreting into the main language of the locale is often crucial. It can be done well. But sometimes it is done badly. Here are some of the issues.

#interpreting #buddhism #tibetan

After a masterpiece of a life, Lama Lodro finally left us at the age of 100.

#Lama #Lodro #eulogy #Tibetan #Buddhism #Edgbaston

There have been a depressing number of scandals in major Tibetan Buddhist organizations, particularly (though not only) in the West.

It clearly has systemic roots - can the disease be identified?

PS. How unprofessional! I uploaded the sound file without the delightful music. This is now the correct one.

The podcast will have to take a back seat for some months as I work on a project aimed at publishing biographies of a few of the nuns, and the sometimes heroic journeys they undertook to arrive at the caves above Tsopema (Rewalsar) to live and practise.

A Tsopema Nuns blog gives a few details. It should help to find missing pieces in the jigsaw of names and places.

"To get enlightened" is such a watery explanation. Mindfulness largely misses the point. This was a retreat about a specific deity. Whatever that is!

#Tibetan #Buddhism #Vajrayana #Retreat

Really intended as a brief video on YouTube.

Is the Vajrayana "just" a clever technique within conventional Mahayana, or is it really something different.

Goodbye to Series 2 - and what of the future?

You've been looking at Tibetan Buddhism? You want to start? But you still don't know how? This might help.

Like it or not, magic is interwoven with Tibetan Buddhism. Is it symbolic? Or is it real?

Devotion (mögü) - another Tibetan word that doesn't quite correspond to its English usage.

How do empowerments actually work?

Should we read our texts in Tibetan? In English? Using phonetics? Does it make any sense to read phonetics without understanding the Tibetan?

Questions, questions...

Confession is a big thing in Buddhist practice. But there is no priest to forgive your sins on God's behalf. It is more nuanced than that.

Shop like a Buddhist! Majnu Ka Tilla is the wellspring of Buddhist art for the Tibetan world.

Horror, violence and disgusting soup in Tibetan-style Buddhism. Why don't they get as much attention as sex? Why is it obvious that these things are not for performance "as written", but some people assume that the sexual aspects are? Something to think about!

#Buddhism #Tibet #Vajrayana #Horror

If you do Vajrayana, you will say these syllables again and again. And again. What do they look like? What do they mean? Why does it matter?

Dos, don'ts, and who cares (some do) about wearing the red-and-white striped "Ngagpa shawl".

A crucial text for the mahamudra tradition of, in particular, the Kagyu traditions descended from Marpa the Translator

Season 2 is coming soon