Lazy Lama looks at Relaxing in Natural Awareness

By Ringu Tulku

This book looks at how we can experience our true nature, starting with learning how to relax. This is the art and heart of meditation. But all too often people become discouraged or lose focus when they start to meditate, especially when they find they don't make the kind of progress they were expecting to. Rather than providing us with a forma

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bodhicharya Publications CIC
• Release date: May 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781915725226

Ringu Tulku

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche is a Tibetan Buddhist Master of the Kagyu Order. He was trained in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism under many great masters including HH the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa and HH Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. He took his formal education at Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Sikkim and Sampurnananda Sanskrit University, Varanasi, India. He served as Tibetan Textbook Writer and Professor of Tibetan Studies in Sikkim for 25 years.Since 1990, he has been travelling and teaching Buddhism and meditation in Europe, America, Canada, Australia and Asia. He participates in various interfaith and 'Science and Buddhism' dialogues and is the author of several books on Buddhist topics. These include Path to Buddhahood, Daring Steps, The Ri-me Philosophy of Jamgon Kongtrul the Great, Confusion Arises as Wisdom, the Lazy Lama series and the Heart Wisdom series, as well as several children's books, available in Tibetan and European languages.He founded the organisations: Bodhicharya - see www.bodhicharya.organd Rigul Trust - see www.rigultrust.org

Book preview

LAZY LAMA LOOKS AT

Relaxing in

Natural Awareness

RINGU TULKU RINPOCHE

Number 6 in the Lazy Lama series

First Published in 2015 by

Bodhicharya Publications

24 Chester Street, Oxford, OX4 1SN, United Kingdom.

www.bodhicharya.org email: [e-mail]

Text ©Bodhicharya Publications

Ringu Tulku asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. Please do not reproduce any part of this book without permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-915725-22-6

First Edition. 2015.

Edited by Conrad Harvey, Jonathan Clewley & Mary Heneghan, from original transcripts by Conrad Harvey, Maria Hundörf-Kaiser & Carole McMeckan.

Typesetting & Design by Paul O’Connor at Judo Design, Ireland.

Cover Image: PeskyMonkey at iStock

Internal illustrations: Conrad Harvey

Lazy Lama logo: Conrad Harvey & Rebecca O’Connor

Editor’s Preface

This is the sixth booklet in the Lazy Lama series, in which Ringu Tulku Rinpoche discusses how to relax into realisation, and experience the true nature of mind. It draws on teachings given in Europe over the course of a 12 year period, particularly those at: Dzogchen Beara, West Cork, in January 1994; Conway Hall, London, in 2005; Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery and Tibetan Centre, Eskdalemuir, in April 2006; and St Marks Unitarian Church, Edinburgh, in May 2006.

Conrad Harvey

2015

Introduction

Buddhism is a path, not purely a belief system. It is a practical way of training ourselves how to feel and experience in a way that reduces our suffering, and increases our happiness.

We don’t want pain. We don’t want suffering. We want to avoid the causes of suffering. Ideally, we want satisfaction, contentment and happiness. And not just for a short time. We want lasting happiness. The trouble is that we can’t remove or avoid everything that might cause us problems. We will become sick. We will become old. And we will die. We will lose what we want to keep. We will encounter what we want to avoid.

We can’t clear a lifelong path free of problems, but we can transform the way we experience and react to things. This is where practice comes in.

How we are experiencing right now is a reflection of our habitual tendencies. On one level we can change our conscious attitude towards things. We can learn that our way of reacting is unhelpful. That it is dualistic and leads to suffering. So, one approach is to work with the situation at a conscious level. The first section of this booklet looks at this approach.

The second, deeper, level is not purely at a conscious level. We need to work at this more subtle level if we want to change our way of reacting. Because, the problem is, we don’t choose our emotions. They just happen. Our ways of reacting could be called our habitual tendencies. This is why meditation is necessary, so that we can get to the