Lama Surya Das PowerPoint PPT Presentations

Daily Meditation & Dharma Talks with Ram Dass, Lama Surya Das, Mirabai Bush and Friends.

Pray to Him / Her / It (with or without words, from the heartfelt core of your being) for–blessings and encouragement, inspiration, grace, protection and guidance, timeless wisdom teaching and spiritual transmission

LoJong Meditation is a Tibetan Mayahan custom of Buddhism. Lojong refers to a significant change from a perspective in which we consider just ourselves, to a more illuminated point of view, in which we consider essentially others.

Sky gazing is a way to feel the release from the narrow boundaries of personality and ego. It connects a person to the enormous, expansive, clear, open, space of awareness that is their real nature. It brings relaxation, peace, joy, and a fresh, crisp sense of connecting to reality, the natural state of things.

Meditation is so superior for us on each stage - physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. If you will just get 10-20 minutes a day to sit silently, clear your mind, breathe and calm down, you will be amazed at the benefits. I’m so happy you’ve joined me for this Meditative Moment!

Tonglen is a Tibetan word that exactly means “giving and receiving”. This is a Buddhist meditation practice to grow sympathy, humanity, and courageousness. It also helps us by acknowledging our own worries and anger, dissolving decisions on ourselves and others.

Vajrasattva meditation practice is one of the best ways to remove negative karma from your life. Vajrasattva is the Buddha of sanitization. Through sanitizing our negativity our mind will increasingly become happier, our good behavior will boost and all our mental and physical problems will slowly vanish. During our connection with Buddha Vajrasattva we can reduce the awful behavior in our mind that reasons our troubles.

Natural Meditation is purely, resting as natural, choice less, effortless, silent and mindfulness.

We are all Buddhas by nature--we only have to awaken and recognize who we are and how we fit perfectly in this world. This is the teaching of the innate Great Perfection—Dzogchen.

Lama Surya Das gives us a powerful process to take love beyond words and make it an enduring quality within.

Meditation - Meditation, simply defined, is a way of being aware. It is the happy marriage of doing and being. It lifts the fog of our ordinary lives to reveal what is hidden; it loosens the knot of self-centeredness and opens the heart; it moves us beyond mere concepts to allow for a direct experience of reality.

Meditation is a conscious effort to change how the mind works. Meditation helps us to control our mind and thoughts and turn off our mind when we do not need it anymore. Meditation is essential to feel well and live a Happy Life.

Prayer is a conversation with God. It should be part of our spiritual journey, transforming confusion into clearness and suffering into joy.

Autumn leaves are turning red and gold throughout New England, The High Holy Days are for us, as well as the Day of Death (Halloween) is approaching- and my spiritual mind turns towards the poignancy of aging as well as death. Maybe it’s due to the fact my father passed away at the end of august and my mom in September. Or possibly is my personal later season nearing as well? Who knows? Life is tenuous. Lama Surya Das says: Handle with prayer.

Anger is an unpredictable thing. Everyone feels anger. However, as you know, anger is not always a unlikely emotion to have. Anger sometimes makes you less appealing as a person; it affects your work, your private life and your sense of well-being. This is particularly true when you feel constantly on the edge of having an emotional breakdown.

I saw the terrific Selma film yesterday, so reminiscent of many of us marching in the streets of Washington, DC and NYC in the mid-late Sixties, being tear-gassed and arrested-- and beaten occasionally too.

Spirituality isn’t concerning convictions – it’s concerning the method we tend to live and direct our everyday lives. Spirituality is concerned with those qualities of the human soul – like love and sympathy, tolerance, forgiveness, enjoyment, a way of liability, a way of harmony – that brings happiness to both self as well as other people. Spirituality is an important part of faith. Spirituality is often outlined as the in progress endeavor to grow in our relationship with God.

Wisdom is an endangered natural resource today, in our agitated and benighted world. We overlook and ignore it at our peril. Wisdom is as wisdom does. One would be foolish if enlightened only from the eyebrows up.

Happy belated Valentine’s Day, mutual lovers and secret spirit-sharers. I hope your heart is full and mind open, wings of spirit unfolding and soul nourished and at home.

I could wail on how a little Mindful Anger Management could go a long way to save endangered young  black men on the street, or how the credibility gap between the interested public and our government agencies and leadership, in this Over Information Age, seems to grow and fester; but it's the holiday season now and I'm looking at the three quarters of the glass that's full, rather than the half that's empty.

Only one popular Buddhist teacher has written a book about prayer, and that’s Thich Nhat Hanh. Many Western Buddhists and mindfulness practitioners today seem unaware of the numerous prayerful traditions and practices of Buddhism in the old world.

After a long delay, we finally have some words of wisdom from Lama Surya Das once again. This one is about the insight of impermanence – that change is the universal law.

According to Lama Surya Das co-meditation means, essentially, meditating with. This includes yet goes beyond human relationships. This kind of connection and meditation allows us to enter into the tantric world of non-separation and oneness, completeness, totality, what Buddhists generally call no duality (not two).

Buddhist thought and practice has always emphasized nonviolence, especially protecting and cherishing of all forms of life. This is based on the interwoven interdependence of all things–all of us, and all creatures great and small.

Spring greetings from the fragrant hills overlooking Malibu, where we’ve just completed our annual spring Dzogchen Center’s weeklong Southern California retreat. The Franciscan mission-style Serra Retreat Center– built long ago on the burned out ruins of an original hilltop mansion here, called “The Castle of Emptiness”, created a perfect atmosphere of gentle quietude for our week of Dzogchen practice, sangha friendships old and new, and “koinonia” (spiritual communion and transformation).

The power of one is inconceivable; let's harness this strength and energy by empowering ourselves and each other to assume the high road of altruism, peacemaking, collaboration and lovingkindness in action. We are all first responders for someone. Let's remember the power of one.

We all need to love and be loved, to be understood, accepted, included, and genuinely connect: to be seen, embraced, and belong. However, I think that the most important thing in any relationship is the tender empathy and mutual reciprocity of a warm and open heart. If our relationships aren’t nurturing the growth and development of goodness of heart, openness, generosity, authenticity and intimate connection, they are not serving us or furthering a better, more just and kind world.

Spring greetings from the fragrant hills overlooking Malibu, where we’ve just completed our annual spring Dzogchen Center’s weeklong Southern California retreat. The Franciscan mission-style Serra Retreat Center– built long ago on the burned out ruins of an original hilltop mansion here, called “The Castle of Emptiness”, created a perfect atmosphere of gentle quietude for our week of Dzogchen practice, sangha friendships old and new, and “koinonia” (spiritual communion and transformation).

There was a moment after my first cancer surgery when I experienced something extraordinary. I was sitting in a chair near a window in my hospital room that had a view of the East River. Sunshine was streaming in, and in front of me was a tray with cups of hot tea and red Jell-O. The sunshine was hitting the Jell-O in such a way that the dessert itself and the light around it looked to me like crushed red rubies.

Spring greetings from the fragrant hills overlooking Malibu, where we’ve just completed our annual spring Dzogchen Center’s weeklong Southern California retreat. The Franciscan mission-style Serra Retreat Center– built long ago on the burned out ruins of an original hilltop mansion here, called “The Castle of Emptiness”, created a perfect atmosphere of gentle quietude for our week of Dzogchen practice, sangha friendships old and new, and “koinonia” (spiritual communion and transformation).

Spring greetings from the fragrant hills overlooking Malibu, where we’ve just completed our annual spring Dzogchen Center’s weeklong Southern California retreat. The Franciscan mission-style Serra Retreat Center– built long ago on the burned out ruins of an original hilltop mansion here, called “The Castle of Emptiness”, created a perfect atmosphere of gentle quietude for our week of Dzogchen practice, sangha friendships old and new, and “koinonia” (spiritual communion and transformation).

Lama Surya Das is an American-born lama in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He is one of the foremost Western Buddhist meditation teachers and scholars, one of the main interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, and a leading spokesperson for the emerging American Buddhism. The Dalai Lama affectionately calls him “The Western Lama.” He has long been involved in charitable relief projects and in interfaith dialogue.

Recent reports from Mongolia that a recently discovered, 200-year-old mummified monk is not actually dead, but in a deep form of meditation, naturally sparked a good deal of skepticism in Western media.

Lama Surya Das keeps us current regarding the a variety of areas of Buddhism and meditation often with his own discourse and often via articles as well as content that sheds light on Buddhism.

Lama Surya Das, the “Buddha from Brooklyn,” is one of the handful of Westerners who have been teaching meditation for decades. And yet, he says we’re doing it wrong.

The secret to happiness is wanting what you got rather than getting what you (think you) want. This may not be as easy as it sounds, but it’s simple enough once you find the balance point between effort and acceptance, what could be and what is.

At-one-ment This is the high holy day season where I came from. At-one-ment is an excellent way to turn the ship around and start afresh, every annum, every day and every moment.

Lama Surya Das speaks about the importance of opening up to those around you—at home, at work, and in the meditation hall.

Join Lama Surya Das, bestselling author and recipient of the 2003 Infinity Foundation Spirit Award, in his newest work from his most recent release “Make Me One with Everything: Buddhist Meditations to Awaken from the Illusion of Separation”.

Students seeking to overcome stress and improve their overall academic and personal well-being have an opportunity to learn about meditation, yoga and other contemplative methods during an on-campus talk by Western Buddhist meditation teacher and author Lama Surya Das scheduled on Jan. 29.

“If you’ve ever felt ‘at one’ with something—your beloved or your child, a forest trail or a favorite song,” shares Lama Surya Das, “then you’ve experienced inter-meditation.”

Lama Surya Das: This is a juicy subject, well worth pondering. Holding on too long is one problem, for sure; on the other hand, letting go too soon and too easily is another extreme (unbalance) or mistake.

What did the Dalai Lama say to the hot dog vendor? "Make me one with everything!" It's a familiar joke, muses Lama Surya Das, and one that holds a profound truth: that in addition to inner peace, meditation is a path for all-inclusive connection. In Make Me One with Everything, he invites us to experience this through the art of inter-meditation and other original practices that allow us to see through the illusion of separation.

In 2006 His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who calls Lama Surya Das the American Lama, said to an American audience, “It is not enough just to meditate and pray, which are always good things to do, but we also must take positive action in this world.”

Lama Surya Das, the "Buddha from Brooklyn," is one of a handful of Westerners who have been teaching meditation for decades. And, yet, he says we're doing it wrong.

Lama Surya Das, the most highly trained American lama in the Tibetan tradition, presents the definitive book on Western Buddhism for the modern-day spiritual seeker.

Lama Surya Das, author of the bestselling Awakening the Buddha Within, is the most highly trained American lama in the Tibetan tradition.

LAMA SURYA DAS ON HUMOR, CONTEMPLATIVE EDUCATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE SECRETS OF TIBETAN MINDFULNESS A dyed-in-the-wool East Coast guy, Lama Surya Das — Tibetan Buddhist teacher; founder of the Dzogchen Center in Cambridge, MA; and author of such bestselling books as Awakening the Buddha Within and Buddha Standard Time – will be making the trek way out west next month for a special mini-workshop at InsightLA in Santa Monica, CA.

Lama Surya Das, a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, clarifies how Buddha described life as a string of subjective experiences that we string together with the crazy glue of our concepts and how understanding this can bring us bliss.

METTA Loving Kindness Meditation By Lama Surya Das Metta (maitri) is the practice of loving-kindness meditation and friendliness taught by the Buddha approximately 2,600 years ago. It is an important component of the Buddhist wisdom teachings and their daily practice as applied in life.

Every morning I wake and take a moment to appreciate the lovely view from my bedroom window. And every day, as I take in the stillness and beauty of my little pond and surrounding woods, I wonder: Who made all of this? Wordless gratitude fills my heart and mind, body and soul each day as I begin my morning ritual, and I sense the sacred Presence transcendent over all of us yet immanent in each and every one of us, by whatever name or image-ing.

I've just sent a letter inviting the Dalai Lama to Kansas City to help with interfaith peace and reconciliation dialogue, which is being hand-carried along with others by a Missouri delegation to Dharamsala, India, where he lives. Seems to me that public discussion about body cameras and technology ain't gonna quite do it regarding endemic racism and brutality in our system, conditioned by fear, aggression, and inequality.

I have just returned from ten blessed, restful, delightful days with my dear old ashram friend and mentor, Baba Ram Dass, at his home on Maui, a truly magical and healing place. Spending time with RD is awe-inspiring. Every moment of enlightened conversation or carefree laughter, dinnertime meditation or sacred chanting, opens up new worlds. Memory-making, I cherished and filed away an abundant array of happiness data as well as stories and teaching tales from the Great Path.  

Last month I was in Nepal at my dear lama friend’s mountaintop monastery, Druk Amitabha Gompa, overlooking the Kathmandu Valley. His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa was giving a series of teachings interspersed with special prayers and pujas, chants and rituals, dedicated for various purposes.

This is an excerpt from a talk given by Jack Kornfield during his regular Monday Night Class at Spirit Rock. The title of the talk is "Garden of the Heart" and the full audio version can be found on Dharmaseed.org. For more details visit here - http://www.surya.org/bio/

"For the listener, who listens in the snow, and, nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”