White Lotus Buddhist Center

The mystic knows that the principle of salvation is within him. He knows also that this principle will remain inert if he does not, with all his strength, seek it, find it and make it active. On the way of redemption, to which he has devoted himself, he has need of all his will-power and vigilance in order to put in motion the forces of his own psyche so that it, which keeps him bound, may furnish him nonetheless with the means of salvation, provided that he knows how to penetrate into his psyche and to subdue it. Giuseppe Tucci

Sunday Jan 17, 2021 Dharma Talk

For the New Year.... Garchen Rinpoche's teaching on the Prayer of Kuntuzangpo (Samantrabhadra) Everything - appearance and existence, samsara and nirvana, has a single ground, yet two paths and two fruitions, and magically displays as awareness or unawareness. During a solar or lunar eclipse, during an earthquake or when the earth rumbles, at the solstices or the New Year you should visualize Kuntuzangpo. And if you pray loudly so all can hear, then beings of the three rea...lms will be gradually liberated from suffering, through the prayer of the yogin and will finally achieve enlightenment. https://www.ratnashri.se/KuntuzangpoPrayer.pdf"

Our own mind being haughty, it vies with others and puts them down. Through the arising of intense pride, we experience the suffering of fighting and struggling with others. When the results of those actions ripen,... we are born as a god experiencing transition and downfall. Through this aspiration prayer of myself, the buddha, when sentient being s give rise to such haughtiness, may they let their mind relax in its own state, may awareness take its very own seat, and may the wisdom of equality be realized. -The Aspiration Prayer of Samantabhadra See more

"Devotion is the essence of the path, and if we have in mind nothing but the guru and feel nothing but fervent devotion, whatever occurs is perceived as his blessing. If we simply practice with this constantly present devotion, this is prayer itself. When all thoughts are imbued with devotion to the guru, there is a natural confidence that this will take care of whatever may happen. All forms are the guru, all sounds are prayer, and all gross and subtle thoughts arise as devotion. Everything is spontaneously liberated in the absolute nature, like knots untied in the sky." ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Sunday January 10, 2021 Dharma Talk

https://soundcloud.com/siddharthas-i//samantabhadra-prayer With gratitude to Dzongsar Khyentse...

Sunday November 29th - there will be NO live-stream prayers and Dharma practice. We will resume the following Sunday, December 6th.

Not realizing that phenomena are empty, that their mode of being lies beyond all conceptuality, ordinary beings consider as real what is unreal: they attribute existence to what is non-existent and selfhood to what is not a self. Therein lies their delusion. They long for happiness, but are ignorant of how to attain it. They struggle against all that seems hostile, and love and cling to what appears as friendly. Thus they are troubled in body and mind. In situations of joy... and pleasure, they distract themselves physically and mentally with dancing and song. But when adversity befalls them, when death occurs or the loss of livestock, or when something happens which they do not want, they suffer. High and low, strong and weak, rich and poor, for friends and family, for the wealth and pleasures they desire, everyone strives and competes with others. They slash each other with swords and stab each other with spears. Their possessions, ill-gotten through the sins of body, speech and mind, are the source of lives of great toil and sorrow, both now and in the future. People spend their time, their minds completely taken in by the paltry excellencies of life. - Khenpo Kunzang Pelden See more

Sunday November 22, 2020 Dharma Talk

White Lotus is grateful for the contributions made so far! Thank you all. For those who would like more information on White Lotus Buddhist Center and the Building Fund, OR would like other ways of making a donation - writing a check, wire transfer, Paypal account - please go to the website at: https://whitelotusdharma.org/1235-2/ Thank you all, and may you have a blessed and Happy New Year 2021! Together with donations made from the White Lotus website, over $4,000 has been donated thus far - with the Matching Donation challenge that means $8,000 to the Building Fund!

Sunday Dharma Talk Nov 15, 2020

Sunday Dharma Talk 11/8/2020

White Lotus is sad to report that last Thursday, October 29, a fire burned in the basement of the church building we occupy. One person died in the fire. This has been very hard on our Immanual Baptist friends who are now in the midst of mourning the loss of life and also the effort of the cleaning and repair of the entire structure. Although there was no structural damage to the space White Lotus occupies, a toxic smoke permeated the entire building. So we are, necessarily, ...involved in the extensive cleaning operation, coordination with the church and respective insurance companies. Yesterday, on the advice of several art conservators, we removed all thangkas and statues, brocades and other precious items before the first step of cleaning - which is to purify smells and surfaces by pumping the building full of ozone. Our research indicated that the amount of ozone being pumped in could react with pigment, brocades, drumskins, and metals. Consequently, the Dharma Center will be closed for an indeterminate time. Practice will continue via Facebook livestream and Zoom. We will contact you when White Lotus reopens.

No matter how much we sit, no matter how much we are not distracted, no matter how much we meditate, until you have the right view, you have done nothing. Until you have the right view, those things take you nowhere. You are still inside the net, you are still the fish being caught. ~ Dzongsar Khyentse

Mani Drubchen this morning with Drong Nyur Jangchubling in Florida - Drupon Thinley Ningpo Rinpoche.

Dharma Talk Sunday September 19, 2020

Sunday Dharma Talk September 13,2020

It was in the shadow of the great historical events of the thirties that I had my raya-Parvriti or spiritual rebirth. I shifted my truth-bearing section of society from revolutionary commissars to contemplative Buddhist monks and so my later work is directly continuous with my earlier one. - The Memoirs of A Modern Gnostic: raya-parvtti (Sanskrit). ‘The manifestation of the basis’, a term used in Yogcra works to describe the manifestation of inherent Buddha-nature once the mind has been cleared of adventitious impurities (gantuka-klea).

The world as we see it is too small to hold all the love and faith that are in the heart of man. - Buddhism Its Essence and Development

‘The University is a paradise, rivers of knowledge are there, arts and sciences flow from thencegardens that are walled in, wells that are sealed up; bottomless depths of unsearchable counsels The waters of rest, they flow from this good Master, and flow into him again; all knowledge that begins not, and ends not with his glory, is but a giddy, but a vertiginous circle, but an elaborate and exquisite ignorance’. John Donne

The primordial nature of the mind itself is the Buddha. And all beings are Buddhas, the Buddha said. This mind of sentient beings is the cause of Buddhahood. The Buddha is like this mirror. There is nothing there. It is clear and empty - it is not that it is nothing. Because it is clear, but it's also not something because it is empty, like a mirror. Due to this, if you have faith and trust in Amitabha and you instantly remember Amitabha, the mind becomes Amitabha. - Garchen Rinpoche

The Tao, which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgments. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained. The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value in its place is self-contradictory. There has never been, and never will be, a radically new judgment of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems orideologiesall consist of fragments from the Tao itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao and to it alone such validity as they possess. - C.S. Lewis

"I lost my way, I forgot to call on your name. The raw heart beat against the world, and the tears were for my lost victory. But you are here. You have always been here. The world is forgetting, and the heart is a rage of directions, but your name unifies the heart, and the world is lifted into its place. Blessed is the one who waits in the traveller's heart for his turning." I read these words...and tears welled ...for the love of the Guru...the words rang truth...for he lives in my heart...Love to All Beings...OM AH HUNG - Leonard Cohen