Rinchen Terzod: The Aftermath

The Rinchen Terzod has came to a close last week. Yangthang Rinpoche gave some teachings early in the week, did the traditional long-life empowerments on Wednesday, lead a practice day on Thursday, and attended a lovely tsok on Friday we held in his and Gyatrul Rinpoche's honor. On Saturday, we started clean-up, and today we continued with those tasks after a morning "fish free" at the Berkeley Marina.

It's been two months of the most amazing Dharma experience of my life. It has left a significant mark in many ways for many different people, but the single most important impact has been on my practice. Every level of it:

• I'm looking at the foundations (The Four Turnings, the Four Immeasurables, renunciation, Ngondrö) in a different light.
• I've been given instructions on how to re-examine Refuge, how to fully explore it, and how not to stop until it's been 100% assimilated.
  
• I'm reading the sutras again.
  
• I'm re-reading Jamgön Kongtrul's Treasury of Knowledge, and in particular, studying his work on Ethics.
  
• I've decided to start over with the 5 aggregates, 5 poisons, sense-bases and objects. This is going to become a regular part of my study and contemplation.
• Likewise with the 12 Links of Dependent Origination.
• I have begun re-reading the Bodhisattva's Way of Life and am going to make that part of my daily practice.
• My meditation has gotten an major overhaul with uncountable issues that need to be addressed, with things that need to be scrapped and redone from scratch.
• I have restarted integrating vase breathing and related exercises into my practice.
  
• On my list is a more complete examination of cause and effect, but I haven't gotten as far as making a plan for this one yet. I will be looking to Jamgön Kongtrul and Jigme Lingpa for inspiration on this one...
• I'm going to be starting over with Generation Stage. Gonna backup, and get this one done properly too.
• New ways of looking at pure view came up during the Rinchen Terzod, and these will be pursued with increasing enthusiasm once some of the foundations have been laid (earlier bullet points).
• I have begun placing much, much greater personal importance on bodhicitta, as well. We were given lots more tools to work with, for us to be more effective and generating relative bodhicitta and aspiring to ultimate bodhicitta. This is probably the seventh or eighth major readdressing of bodhicitta since I started with Vajrayana over 15 years ago...
  

As you can see, all of these entail a MAJOR overhaul.

And it's one I'm very, very grateful for. I continually thank Yangthang Rinpoche, Gyatrul Rinpoche, and Anyen Rinpoche for this amazing opportunity and the fires of insight that have burned everything down, allowing for rebuilding anew with more solid foundations.

Photo Credit: Jigze, © 2011