Blazing Splendor. Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ scientific studies indicate such miracles may not be the stuff of imagination. For example one of the more intriguing aspects of these tales relates to recent findings on the beneficial ways long-term meditation shapes the human brain. While these studies are still in their preliminary stage, they nevertheless have yielded several eye-opening results on the very meditation methods applied by the masters of Tulku Urgyen’s lineage—particularly those undertaken during years of intensive retreat.

      For instance, brain imaging using functional MRI while lamas meditate on “boundless compassion” reveals that their brains show remarkable levels of activation in two areas: the site that generates happiness and bliss, and that for readiness to take action. These eight lamas had put in from 10,000 hours of practice time up to 60,000 hours, and the longer they had done so, the stronger their brain’s activity level. While ordinary volunteers who practiced the same meditation for a month had 10% increases in these brain regions, the lamas had, on average, ten times more activity. And for some lamas, the jump was as much as 80 times greater.

      As William James, a founder of modern psychology, suggested in his classic The Varieties of Religious Experience, our experiences while we register a temperature of 98.6 F may not give us the fullest account of reality. In other words, alternate states of brain function—and so consciousness—might allow perceptions of the universe that are just not discernible from the vantage point of everyday awareness.

      Religious traditions around the world offer accounts of altered realities by visionaries ranging from Meister Eckhardt and St. Teresa of Avila to Black Elk. Of course we don’t know what altered brain activity or extraordinary states might have allowed such visions (and we must acknowledge our own scientific bias in assuming that special brain states need be involved at all), but we do know that in every case the visions came after years of focused spiritual efforts. And neuroscience now tells us that the brain responds to sustained retraining by reshaping its own circuitry.

      We have yet to understand what the upper limits of basic mental functions like attention, visualization and memory might prove to be—for modern science is in its infancy in studying how training the mind can rewire the nervous system. On the other hand ancient spiritual traditions, like that of Buddhism in Tibet, have systematically urged practitioners to spend years honing their sensibilities through sustained training.

      What’s particularly intriguing about the stories in Blazing Splendor is the sheer length of time put into these practices by the masters of Tibet. While the lamas studied in modern labs have done at least three to six years of intensive retreat, it seems to have been routine for masters of Tulku Urgyen’s generation to have done three or four times that amount. Tulku Urgyen himself, for example, appears to have spent more than 20 years in intensive retreat, as was true of his late peer, the great Dilgo Khyentse. But some of the masters who lived their entire life in Tibet often did even more: Tulku Urgyen’s father put in 33 years of meditation retreat over the course of his life.

      Science has now verified how powerful just three years of retreat can be in sharpening mental faculties. We can only guess what 20 or 30 years might do. From that perspective, we might do well to suspend our judgments about the seeming “miraculous” powers routinely ascribed to these Tibetan masters of the past. Who knows what might be possible for a mind so highly and exquisitely trained?

      What might be possible remains further obscured by another element of Buddhist tradition, the remarkable humility about their own achievements that marks many highly accomplished practitioners. Thus Tulku Urgyen himself, who was venerated as a teacher by many of the most revered masters of his day (including the 16th Karmapa), repeatedly asserts that he is nothing special—just an ordinary person. This humble stance has another wrinkle: Tulku Urgyen’s line holds to the tradition of the “hidden yogis,” who routinely camouflage their spiritual attainments. Western readers, unaccustomed to this strong tradition of humility about one’s spiritual stature, might misread its signs, inferring instead an absence of accomplishment rather than its veiled presence.

      The reader confronts yet another dilemma: how to regard the many matter-of-fact accounts of what, from a modern mindset, are improbable or impossible events, even miracles. Some readers may simply dismiss them as embellishments, while others choose to take them all at face value, or to set aside a dismissive criticism for the time being—or simply being open to their possibility without coming to any firm judgment.

      For those steeped in the assumptions of rationality, these events are enigmatic, raising questions that cannot be readily answered. Are these accounts mere legends and folktales? Are they recounted as metaphors or teaching stories whose details or veracity are less important than the point they make? Did some of these seemingly impossible events actually occur only in the mind of those who tell of them? Or could it be they partake of a range of experience beyond the everyday “trance” created by our thoughts and fantasies, memories and daydreams?

      Each of us will have to decide for ourselves. But all of us stand to benefit richly in expanding the horizons of our own spiritual aspirations.

      A note to readers:

      I would urge the serious reader to take the time to go through the endnotes as you read along. Much rich context, detail and explanation will be found in the notes and the glossary, which in themselves could stand as a partial tutorial in the Vajrayana tradition of Buddhism. Reading the notes will make the narrative itself much richer. And for those new to this perspective, the notes offer an essential background, bringing clarity where otherwise there could be some confusion.

      Mendocino, California

      November, 2004

Preface

      This is not a traditional narrative of an enlightened master’s life in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition. In fact, Tulku Urgyen rarely if ever spoke much about himself or his accomplishments. At most he occasionally might tell a ‘teaching story’ from his past in order to convey a specific point to a particular person at a particular time. He would only mention details about his life when urged, and so this memoir results from Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche telling us stories about his life at our request, over a period of fourteen years.

      From these tales we’ve strung a storyline, piecing together vignettes he told at different times, much like beads on a rosary. The resulting mosaic offers a rich narrative of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche’s tradition and ancestors, tales of masters he knew or heard about, and many details of his life. We cannot claim that Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche wrote this, as he did not set out to narrate an autobiography. He simply responded to our requests by telling these stories, and he did so only after I promised that the main emphasis would be not on himself, but on the remarkable people he met or was connected to through other masters.

      When I asked him about the contents, he replied: “Just stick to the stories. Don’t fill it with photos of me. In Kham we call that self-aggrandizement. Include many photos of realized lamas, but there’s no need to include common people. Sacred places are very good too. It is beneficial for people to see sacred places like Bodhgaya if they haven’t been there themselves.”

      He also gave a suggestion for a title: “Devotional summary of the life-examples of sublime masters.”

      I feel we have stayed true to that spirit.

      In the course of looking for the thread that tied everything together one theme became paramount and that is the vital continuity of lineage. As the reader will see, the New Treasures—the revelations of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche’s great-grandfather—and the transmission from one generation to the next play an important role in this book. And in the end all streams of transmission converge in the ocean of the supreme incarnation.¹ The teller of these tales was such an incarnation. СКАЧАТЬ