Dharma Refuge

05/22/2026

❤️🙏❤️

Pema Chodron spends most of her time in retreat, but on her way back from teaching at Gampo Abbey in Cape Bretton, Nova Scotia, she stopped in New York where she sat down with Ezra Klein and the New York Times. Please enjoy this rare, frank, and extraordinary interview. You can watch, listen, or read it.

http://shmb.la/ezra-and-pema

04/03/2026

❤️🙏

If I have only little time, what should be my main practice and main focus?

🙏

The essence of all the practices, no matter how little time we have, is to capture our own mind. All practices including yidam deity practices, all boil down to our own mind.

The mind manifestation of yidam is nothing else than the manifestation of loving kindness and compassion.

That is what we have to practice. Whether we visualize ourselves as a deity, do mantra accumulations or other practices, it all has to come down to the essence of our mind which is loving kindness and compassion. It is true when we do our sitting practice session but also in all our daily activities.

As shown in the essence of the Bodhisattva Way of Life that the practices of the generation of bodhicitta (loving kindness and compassion) are methods to increase loving kindness and compassion where it is not yet arisen and where it has arisen, to protect it so that it will not decline, but to strengthen it further and further.

That is the essence of all the practices. If we have this motivation, we also get the energy to practice, be it on the cushion, be it in formal meditation and also in all our daily activities; if our mind is penetrated with this quality of loving kindness and compassion, our energy will increase and spread.

We can also do the vajra recitation of OM AH HUNG or other mantra recitations. The importance is the continuity of the practice. The base of this continuous practice is love and loving kindness. It is not enough to do it sporadically, sometimes and sometimes not. We need the continuous flow of our practice.

HE Garchen Rinpoche

Translation Ina Bieler

04/01/2026

Inner Pilgrimage to Kailash

In Tibet, Mount Kailash is a place that everybody wants to visit. It is the most sacred pilgrimage site and is the beating heart of the Tibetan people. Mount Kailash is revered not only by Buddhists, but by shamans, Hindus and Jains, and its shape is an amazing, almost otherworldly phenomenon. It is unbelievably sacred, so much so that people do not climb it.

When you go on pilgrimage, it can be very transformative because you leave everything behind: your comfort, your attachment, your family, your relatives, your identity. Sometimes we can get stuck with those familiars and our role, so that we don't really know who we are and what we long for. On pilgrimage, we purify our habits and mental propensities that prevent us from becoming truly liberated. We see our mental and karmic patterns and we naturally shed them. We let go of hatred, fear, greed, and of a lot of judgment and concepts. This powerful purification happens on the pilgrimage.You feel you are dying to your old self–you're dying to your old habits, your old propensities. You feel that you are renewed again and again.

But Mount Kailash is more than a mountain–it is a place that resides in each of us all the time. It is a place we sometimes call the dharmakaya, the Buddha mind, or rigpa, the pristine nature of mind. That pure awareness is the true Mount Kailash. And therefore it's not like we have to go on the pilgrimage physically–there's an inner pilgrimage. This is an invitation to be on that inner pilgrimage to the sacred mountain that has lived within you all along.

(Mount Kailash photo by Ondřej Žváček, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2525216)

03/31/2026

❤️🙏

MESSAGE

I wholeheartedly endorse the powerful appeal for peace made by the Holy Father, Pope Leo, during his Palm Sunday Mass. His call for the laying down of arms and the renunciation of violence resonated profoundly with me, as it speaks to the very essence of what all major religions teach.

Indeed, whether we look to Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism or any of the world's great spiritual traditions, the message is fundamentally the same: love, compassion, tolerance, and self-discipline. Violence finds no true home in any of these teachings. History has shown us time and again that violence only begets more violence and is never a lasting foundation for peace.

An enduring resolution to conflict, including the ones we see in the Middle East or between Russia and Ukraine, must be rooted in dialogue, diplomacy and mutual respect — approached with the understanding that, at the deepest level, we are all brothers and sisters.

I urge for and pray that the violence and conflicts may soon come to an end.

DALAI LAMA

31 March 2026

03/30/2026

❤️🙏

"We are this amazing flow of energy that cannot be captured in a box of identity nor can it be solidified in any one way (Choosing Compassion, pg. 75)."

Thanks to Ashraf Rahmani for this image.

03/25/2026

Calling all Bodhisattvas!

This Saturday is expected to be the largest nonviolent protest in American history with millions of people of faith turning out in the streets.

Join people of faith all over the country ➡️ https://www.interfaithalliance.org/rise-up-for-no-kings-iii-on-march-28th

03/21/2026

Special Music Event following this Sunday's teaching & meditation

Meditation & Dharma Talk: “Let Our Hearts Sing The Vajra Song”
Sun. March 22nd 10:00 am - 11:55 pm PDT (1 pm - 2:55 pm EDT)

Also all warmly invited to join in By This Light Music Celebration:
12:00 pm - 12:45 pm PDT (3:00 pm - 3:45 pm EDT)

Anam Thubten will introduce music from By This Light by Nina Wise, an album of chants and blessings crafted from the Dharmata liturgy. Enjoy sacred Buddhist chants set to layered music and interwoven vocals, creating a rich and meditative atmosphere.

03/20/2026

💕🙏👏🏼

Available in just one month! Thubten’s much anticipated commentary on Dudjom Lingpa’s Song of Realization. Preorder available now.

03/12/2026

❤️🙏❤️