Claim OwnershipTibetan Buddhism: The Elegant Mind
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Description
This podcast site shares thoughts and perspectives concerning practical notions and methodologies for all -- regardless of level of experience or knowledge -- who are curious, interested or an ongoing student/practitioner of Himalayan (aka Tibetan) Buddhism.
These podcasts are products of The Chenrezig Project, a Buddhist study/discussion group located in Boulder County, CO. Mark Winwood, a member of the undergraduate Psychology teaching faculty at Naropa University in Boulder, is the Chenrezig Project’s founder, resident Dharma sharer and host of these broadcasts. We are involved in an ongoing variety of teachings, writings, community events, etc. To learn more, please visit our website at www.ChenrezigProject.org.
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Our podcasts feature music composed and performed by Bobby Vega. Bobby has been playing and creating music for more than four decades. He began his professional career as a bass player in 1973 (at the age of 16) on Sly Stones’ single “I Get High on You.” A Bay Area musician’s musician, Bobby has played with artists ranging from Joan Baez and Etta James to Santana and the Jefferson Starship and was included on Bass Player Magazine’s list of ”Top 100 Bassists of All Time” in 2017.
An accomplished composer, Bobby has collaborated on the soundtracks for the TV documentary Vietnam: A Television History, the Francis Ford Coppola film One from the Heart, and the Sega video game Sonic The Hedgehog. Four decades and nearly 5,000 gigs after he first began playing bass, Bobby Vega continues to develop his complex and heady blend of rhythm & blues, rock, funk, technique, and tone, “laying it down” with incredible feeling and groove. More about Bobby and his music may be found at www.bobbyvega.com.
Elegant Mind Podcasts.
© 2018-2023, Mark Winwood.
All Rights Reserved.
Contact:
mwinwood@gmail.com
These podcasts are products of The Chenrezig Project, a Buddhist study/discussion group located in Boulder County, CO. Mark Winwood, a member of the undergraduate Psychology teaching faculty at Naropa University in Boulder, is the Chenrezig Project’s founder, resident Dharma sharer and host of these broadcasts. We are involved in an ongoing variety of teachings, writings, community events, etc. To learn more, please visit our website at www.ChenrezigProject.org.
** ** **
Our podcasts feature music composed and performed by Bobby Vega. Bobby has been playing and creating music for more than four decades. He began his professional career as a bass player in 1973 (at the age of 16) on Sly Stones’ single “I Get High on You.” A Bay Area musician’s musician, Bobby has played with artists ranging from Joan Baez and Etta James to Santana and the Jefferson Starship and was included on Bass Player Magazine’s list of ”Top 100 Bassists of All Time” in 2017.
An accomplished composer, Bobby has collaborated on the soundtracks for the TV documentary Vietnam: A Television History, the Francis Ford Coppola film One from the Heart, and the Sega video game Sonic The Hedgehog. Four decades and nearly 5,000 gigs after he first began playing bass, Bobby Vega continues to develop his complex and heady blend of rhythm & blues, rock, funk, technique, and tone, “laying it down” with incredible feeling and groove. More about Bobby and his music may be found at www.bobbyvega.com.
Elegant Mind Podcasts.
© 2018-2023, Mark Winwood.
All Rights Reserved.
Contact:
mwinwood@gmail.com
63 Episodes
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Ignorance, Anger, Confusion, Greed, Jealousy, Arrogance, Cynical Doubt, Laziness, Wrong Views, Low Self Esteem, Fear.
In Buddhism these are known as Kleshas, mental hindrances that cloud our mind, setting the stage for unwholesome (i.e., self-centered) intentional actions.
They are stubborn -- sneaky, lurking -- like highway robbers, always ready to pounce . . . contaminating our perspectives while bringing about unfavorable moods and vulnerabilities.
But they are transient . . . just thoughts, and so . . . enter Lojong (Tibetan mind training).
(Length: 12 minutes)
Written and shared here by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project (mwinwood@gmail.com) with musical accompaniment by San Francisco Bay-area musician Bobby Vega.
We often cannot change our external environment. We certainly cannot change many (or most) of the people we encounter.
But Mindfulness practice can lead us to clearly 'see' -- and help us to genuinely understand -- what is happening in the present moment (i.e., as it is happening) rather than being confused and/or lost in our thoughts, opinions and reactions.
Through experiential mindfulness, we can insightfully change in remarkable ways.
And consider: once we are changed, everything changes.
(Length: 17 minutes)
Written and shared here by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project (mwinwood@gmail.com) with musical accompaniment by San Francisco Bay-area musician Bobby Vega.
From a divine 17th century French Canadian cathedral . . . to a young couple presenting Medicine Buddha-oriented offerings in the midst of northern Colorado's 'Rawah Wilderness' -- a tale of bountiful faith and practice touching distant times and realms.
(Length: 14 minutes)
Written and shared here by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project (mwinwood@gmail.com), with musical accompaniment by San Francisco Bay-area musician Bobby Vega in collaboration with Chris Rossbach.
"Tonglen" is a Tibetan term that implies 'exchanging oneself with others’.
It refers to a meditation practice found in Himalayan/Mahayana Buddhism which allows the awakening of genuine compassion. "Tong" translates as 'giving or sending', and "len" as 'receiving or taking.'
Tonglen practice is experiential; it gradually wears away our habitually obsessive grasping at a false sense of self (e.g., stubborn ego fixation / relentless identification with the personality).
Through meditative visualization(s), Tonglen effectively reverses our familiar pattern of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure. As this occurs, we finally liberate ourselves from the deeply rooted -- and destructive -- prison of selfishness.
(Length: 45 minutes. Included herein: Tonglen discussion followed by a guided meditation which begins at approximately 20 minutes.)
Written and shared here by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project (mwinwood@gmail.com).
Reflections on Buddhist Dharma, Indra’s Jewel Net and the Trees with which we share our planet . . . as metaphor for the vast intra-connectedness of phenomena, ideas and life.
Since all things are intimately -- and infinitely -- intertwined with one another, every action is echoed throughout time and space, creating a butterfly effect across the cosmos . . . and practically, within each moment of our experience(s).
Let your contemplative imagination take wing . . .
(Length: 14 minutes)
Written by Mark Winwood and presented here by Kathy Ambrose, both of the Chenrezig Project. Accompanying music composed and performed by the renowned San Francisco Bay-area musician Bobby Vega, joined by the Turtle Island String Quartet.
For your contemplation: Appreciative thoughts and kindness-empowering visualizations are shared in this gentle meditation.
As the River flows . . . May all beings be happy -- May all beings be safe -- May all beings be well -- May all beings be peaceful and at ease.
Sit comfortably, focus, center . . . approach and enter your meditative mind. Or simply listen.
(Length: 28 minutes)
Written and shared here by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project.
It is auspicious awareness for Dharma practitioners to remain mindful of how each of our lifetime's event/moments present opportunities for empowering wisdom to arise and abide.
Then, as insights blossom, long-held perspectives and self-oriented attitudes, no longer useful or relevant, may transform in vastly unexpected ways.
Consider: the flourishing of these insights -- and how we engage with them -- depends on no one but ourselves.
(Length: 13 minutes)
Written and shared here by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project with accompanying music composed and performed by the San Francisco Bay-area musician Bobby Vega.
The inherently potent merging of Tibetan Buddhism-supported mind states, in concert with the vibrational qualities of Sanskrit sounds and syllables, provides a direct, enriching stimulus to the energies -- and results -- of our Dharma practice.
This has been understood and experienced by practitioners for centuries, who will recite teachings and prayers in their own Tibetan language but have preserved and practice their mantra recitations in Sanskrit, knowing a mantra's intrinsic 'merit' lies mainly in its vibrational qualities rather than in any psychological meaning that society, culture, civilization or humans have placed on it.
But initial 'mantra practice' challenges are not uncommon here in the West . . .
(Length: 15 minutes)
Written by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, shared here by Kathy Ambrose with accompanying music composed and performed by the San Francisco Bay-area musician Bobby Vega.
Everything is changing, advancing . . . collectively and individually . . . moment-by-moment.
Until instinctive insights begin to manifest, reactions to impermanence set many of our challenges into motion, swirling into what Siddhartha termed afflictive mind-states (aka kleshas) of "dukkha" – ignorance-sourced confusions and complications leading to insecurity, discontent, stress, anxiety . . . catchword “suffering”.
But with understanding comes appreciation and, once embraced, impermanence becomes profoundly fertile . . . vast and empowering . . . bringing forth perpetual opportunities . . . fluid, evolving, blossoming.
Impermanence -- it's the Greatest Show on Earth . . . fantastically alive . . . playing non-stop, both outside and inside your mind.
(Length: 12.5 minutes)
Written and presented by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, with accompanying music composed and performed by the San Francisco Bay-area musician Bobby Vega.
Visualize a vast railroad terminal resembling New York City’s Grand Central Station, with newly dead people entering all the time, mulling around, eventually moving from the waiting room toward the track on which their departure train sits, ready to take them away on a sojourn through the Bardo of Becoming to their next destination.
And while we will all be there one day, the specific train for which each of us is ticketed differs, and the experiences of our journey upon it -- as well as the conditions resident within our destination -- are not randomly determined.
Rather, they are earned by Why and How we do the things we do in this life.
(Length: 10 minutes)
Written by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, with accompanying music composed and performed by the San Francisco Bay-area musician Bobby Vega. Read by Kathy Ambrose.
The legendary Lao Tzu was living and teaching a harmonious way of being -- simple, modest and true -- traveling throughout China centuries before Siddhartha's birth.
Upon achieving enlightenment, Siddhartha Buddha refined, deepened and shared similar ways to all who were inclined to listen. Then, after his death, these teachings were assembled and gradually morphed into what we today know as Buddhism's Mahayana curriculum.
The teachings of Lao Tzu . . .
The awakened Bodhisattva path . . .
Both so ancient, yet so relevant today.
(Length: 13 minutes)
Written by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, with accompanying music composed and performed by the SF-bay area musician Bobby Vega.
Consider: How convenient would it be to have a 'Karma' Replay Command Center into which we could call when needed to replay an action or moment we had participated in?
An at-the-ready 'redo' button for any occurrence that, upon reflection, we'd like to correct or fix the 'why' or 'how' we behaved with others . . . and thereby repairing or 're-contenting' the unwholesome karmic seed that had been planted in our mindstream.
Nice to have? You bet.
Useful? Sure thing.
Necessary? Let's talk . . .
(Length: 12 minutes)
Written by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, with accompanying music composed and performed by the SF-bay area musician Bobby Vega.
"How does my mind work?"
It was a question posed to the 21st Century Bodhisattva at the conclusion of a teaching.
After pausing to collect her thoughts, the Bodhisattva smiled sofly and began to speak not only about the experiential mechanics of mind-flow, but of the path of progressive engagement that empowers one to begin to understand for themself.
(Length: 14 minutes)
Written by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, with accompanying music composed and performed by the SF-bay area musician Bobby Vega.
1The historians tell us Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, lived more than 2,500 years ago in Northern India. Having uncovered and freed the enlightened mind, it is said he taught the path of similar achievement to others for 45 years, until his death at the age of 80.
Precious work, done remarkably well; obviously the Buddha and his teachings have had a uniquely far-reaching impact.
But consider: While affirming and honoring Siddhartha's awakened accomplishments, perhaps Buddhas are a little more 'everyday' . . . ?
(Length: 12 minutes)
Written by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, with accompanying music composed and performed by the SF-bay area musician Bobby Vega.
Posed by a student to the 21st Century Bodhisattva at the conclusion of a teaching:
"There's this nagging question, What do I want? The truth is, it's slippery. How can I ever know what I truly want when everything is always changing . . . including my flip-flopping mind, the basis of my entire experience?"
"Do you have any advice for me?"
After some moments of thought the Bodhisattva began to speak . . .
(Length: 15 minutes)
Written by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, presented by Kathy Ambrose . . . with accompanying music composed and performed by the SF-bay area musician Bobby Vega in collaboration with Chris Rossbach.
Absolutely everything (i.e., anything) we can point to as 'this' or 'that' is occurring in a dynamically ever-changing manner . . . organic . . . on the fly . . . at times seemingly chaotic . . . the sum of its parts . . . perpetually compiling and re-compiling . . . including the profoundly complex occurrences we refer to as You and Me and Us.
All phenomena emanate from a myriad of causes . . . sounds, tastes, aromas, sights, thoughts, feelings . . . aggregated causes give rise to effects, which then evolve into the causes for new effects . . . on and on . . . ad infinitum.
The methodological science of this process of "dependent origination" resides deep in the heart of all Buddhist perspectives.
(Length: 12 minutes)
Written and presented by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, with music composed and performed by the renowned SF Bay-area musician Bobby Vega -- special guests: the Turtle Island String Quartet.
Reflection upon a foundational Diamond Sutra verse yields a clear and relevant message to those on the Mahayana path: Every sentient being is equally worthy of our attention, caring, cherishing, virtuous intentions and actions.
This understanding -- from which the great mind of equanimity, compassion's fertile ground, arises and abides -- is profoundly empowering.
Feel free to allow your most inclusive visions to emerge and clarify, discover and embrace perspectives beyond your (no longer) comfortable mind boundaries, let your imagination soar . . .
Sentient beings come in all bodies, shapes, colors and sizes . . . and we are everywhere.
(Length: 10 minutes)
Written by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, presented by Kathy Ambrose; with music composed and performed by the renowned SF Bay-area musician Bobby Vega in collaboration with Chris Rossbach.
This time of year can be difficult for many -- obligatory family gatherings, stress, pressure, stale relationships, contrived cheer, discomfort.
But consider: perhaps there's no more fertile setting for meaningful Dharma practice than within our own families.
Because while time shared with those with whom we're most familiar can be challenging, it just might present our greatest opportunities for wholesome growth, and the profound rewards that accompany it.
-- Herein, a tale in which a modern day Bodhisattva provides some thoughtful perspectives . . .
(Length: 16 minutes)
Presented by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, with music composed and performed by the renowned SF Bay-area musician Bobby Vega in collaboration with Chris Rossbach.
Teachers -- those we learn from; they are everywhere . . . and always have been.
Consider the people of your life -- in your past and those who are here now.
Try to clear your mind of feelings of attachment and/or aversion and ask yourself, with an openly honest heart: “What has this person taught me? How have they influenced me, enabling me to be the person I am today?"
Be patient with this, allow contemplation . . . perhaps you will experience the clarity through which you see and appreciate them (and yourself) in increasingly -- and profoundly -- empowering new ways.
(Length: 13 minutes)
Presented by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, with music composed and performed by the renowned SF Bay-area musician Bobby Vega.
A Tibetan craftsman created the Thangka for her, depicting a luminous Buddha surrounded by empowering deities and Dharma protectors.
Over the years she has spent many hours in its presence; fondly sitting with it, adoring and appreciating it as one would a precious friend.
The Buddha at its center had never spoken to her.
Until now.
(Length: 12 minutes)
Presented by Mark Winwood of the Chenrezig Project, with music composed and performed by the renowned SF Bay-area musician Bobby Vega.
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