Reverend Lama Chimey

The Hourglass

I feel like I’ve been swimming toward the shores of no return since time beyond beginning. Especially since these last twelve years of my life have been an unwavering focus on the path.
Devoting myself entirely to the dissolution of my identities, structures, and internal programming, I’ve let everything else fall, but the path.

Following the sunlight of the wisdom teachings, sitting at the feet of the wise and the brave who have gone before me, sending out hales of purification prayers and bowing to the most profound truth.

I shaved my head and sent my long curly locks to a new destiny as wigs for children who had lost theirs due to leukemia and cancer. I left a successful business as a teacher-training facilitator and founder of my body-mind practice behind. I traveled through sacred places and received transmissions from those who have gone beyond. I journeyed deep into the Dharma, and watched everything else crumble into dust while the gifts and challenges beyond my imagination presented themselves.

All the while, holding on to the spiritual practices that I was given that spurred me on to a more in-depth uncovering of self and samsara. At the same time, trusting that at some point, there would be an end to the journey. An arrival at a point of no return, a stepping out of the veiled truth into the sunlight and on to the Absolute’s unshakable shores.

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I had begun to wonder if my capability to apply the teachings that would lead me to the other shore was just an overestimation of what was possible for me. I was carrying a significant undertaking on my shoulders while getting weaker and older with every step and already shortly felt crushed under its weight while I stubbornly kept on walking. Further on, I started to slip into the thought train that this might be the way things were going to be from now onward. There was no obvious way out. I had to crawl forward without any light insight.

And as is often the case with such a total and complete process of spiritual undertaking, it doesn’t always make sense to those around us. I couldn’t expect that others would comprehend my intentions nor my sound urge to follow the calling. All I could do was turn with compassion to those who loved me and worried for me as they lost their patience with the constant process of letting go that runs like a red thread through my life. Basking in the grace of the masters that have reached beyond became my rainbow tail to follow. Realizing that doing it my way and my way only was not sufficient enough and never had been. I was ready to surrender to the loving guidance from the force that knows.

Through all and any profound transitions that we undergo in this journey called life, it can be hard to reach through the noise of worldly concerns and samsaric whereabouts. To fully communicate to our loved ones what is going on, and let them know that we are genuinely ok inside of it all.

I had been nearing the crescendo of a massive transformation for years before this undertaking. And my whole being knew that I had to give space to the unfolding that was bursting inside me while being led by the Gurus grace. Arriving at the other shore seemed to be within my reach until it all subsided back into worldly concerns again—a humbling experience for a spiritual warrior who still has the taste of the indescribable on her tongue. The habitual tendencies were so dominant that they override the portal that had been opened. The portal left only a narrow opening left, where a tiny stream of light could seep through the crack. Karma, ignorance, habits, and all the rest that veils the absolute was still in play, and very much so.

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A serene passage towards awakening had revealed itself to withdraw again and land in the periphery just outside my reach. A progressive peeling of layers to make way for the strong undercurrents of non-personal transformation begun anew. Becoming enlightenment prone while still a samsaric being in a step by step process is an undertaking that many of us are facing right now. How ever, total transformation doesn’t happen overnight – until it does.

Dying and dying again, being born and being born again, traveling through the different bardos up and down and sideways and back again. Getting the teachings, having a genuine understanding beyond words, and starting all over again and again and again. For how many more times shall we do this? Appreciating this precious human life where we can practice until we drop dead and maybe maybe with the right amount of merits gathered free-fall into whatever was in the end.

Never giving up as His Holiness the Dalai Lama says. Its never too late to follow our hearts, but we have to realize that the clock is ticking. This human life is not forever. Listen—Tik-Tok, tik-tok, tik-tok. We are wasting our precious opportunity. The grains of sand are falling to the bottom of the hourglass. Let’s not waste our chances to awaken to our full potential anymore. Let’s ride the waves of a deeper calling and follow our hearts into the abyss. Lets free fall. Let’s go to the other shore of no return.

I pray that where I’ve been and what I’ve come through may serve as an inspiration and a warning to you and that whoever is ready to hear the urgent call to action for prioritizing your awakening will listen to that roaring call.

We have work to do, and yes, we can do this, so let’s get to it!

Blessed be,
Chimey

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Love Knows No Colors

Lama Chimey in Bodhgaya, India, 2011, at the seat of Lord Buddhas Enlightenment.

We need to walk in other’s shoes to feel what they are going through genuinely. Make their happiness and sorrow, worries and concern our own. We cant merely stay on the outside looking in. We need to embrace the fact that we are one humanity and that Earth seen from Space does not have borders like on our man-made maps. Every element flows and spreads without distinction, just like unconditional love does. When setting the intention to apply lovingkindness and compassion in our daily life mindfully, it’s easy to feel contrived to begin with. Still, since the mind is this universal tool for manifestation, it will follow our lead.

If we can learn to ride the waves of our thoughts and ground our selves in that knowing, there is nothing what so ever in samsara worth losing even one-night sleep over. By creating a daily habit of grounding ourselves and consciously creating the intention to feel others situations as our own, we are much more equipped to stay with whatever comes then without grounding and a set intention. If we leave compassion on the outside, it can become very ego friendly as long as we see ourselves as someone from ”over here” that are helping or carrying for those less fortunate ”over there.”

We need to see the difference between chasing a path that leads us to separation distinct from one of understanding interconnectedness. Love knows no color, race, gender, borders, etc. We do wisely to put each other not below, but beside each other, or else there is no happiness to be found. Happiness even multiply and become greater when shared just as sorrow is lessened when we let people in and share our hearts concern. We need to see that others happiness is as important as our own happiness. We are in this together – for real.

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We can seemingly go in the same direction, but depending on our intentions, it will bring different outcomes. Once we have decided to set out for a path of sustainable happiness, our peace and joy will prevail when we choose to be for not against. Go towards, don’t leave behind. Applying this equation shifts our mindset to one of abundance and possibilities. See your self and your potential. Meet the obstacles head-on and conquer them with conscious love. When we truly see each other for what we indeed are, we become enchanted by one another and filled with awe by meeting heart to heart. Bow in gratitude and joy to the pure qualities within, beyond, race, gender, etc. everyday. These qualities belong to you and your dear ones, those estranged to you and even your so-called enemies without distinction.

Genuine compassion and love doesn’t come in a limited form directed towards an exclusive group of individuals. It doesn’t belong to someone and not to others. No one is more worthy of it than anyone else. Compassion is not an act of giving others your pitty just as love is not true love as long as you have a selfish agenda; these qualities are pure, inherent, unlimited, and universal. Compassion is naturally wired into our intrinsic system, and we can tap into that source every day. When we discover ourselves to have complete access to these transforming powers without limitations of place, time, or particular object – it expands. And from there, joy arises naturally.

Love doesn’t have a particular house, a country a selected few friends and family that it’s limited to, its the very nature of things. The whole universe is pulsing and breathing and being love. We don’t need to wait for meeting that transformative power until we have a full-blown realization of oneness. Its what we are. We can be happy right now by merely knowing that we have unlimited access to these beautiful qualities. No password. No credit card. No V.I.P. list needed.

Choose happiness. Choose Gratitude. Choose Love. If that is not our driving force, then why?

These are some of the actual keys to Paradise within and without. It has to start with you, and it has to be now. Where else, when else and by whom else could it be done? Fill your cup to the brim with joyful, meaningful activities every day, who knows how long we have to live? Use every single day wisely. Knowing that the present moment is all we have got. Make wise choices. Rest assured that there is no switchboard to use for on and off access to the unlimited. We cannot choose to be limitless. We A.R.E. limitless. The dynamic transformation of the wholeness comes through transforming your mindset into generosity, gratitude, and carrying.

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To discover love, you need to love. It will not take place by reading about it or waiting for it to come and knock on your door. Even if you don’t know how to reach out to someone else, just be kind without distinction. If you don’t know where to start – just do it anyway. Pray that you will be able to forgive and develop compassion, while carrying a loving heart for yourself as well. Compassion always has to start with you, include yourself, your near ones, and those you are estranged from, as well as those you perceive as hostile.

In this life or another, we have all been each others Mothers and loved ones. There is no distinction between us. We are not our bodies or names. There are no borders, no race, no gender. Love knows no colors. Take the first step today. Breath for the world, help someone, pray. Fill your cup to the brim with the joy of meaningful activities, so when the day comes to move on from this life, you can joyfully indeed ride on the waves of merit of having consciously developed these valid keys to happiness. Do it right now. There is no other time.

Blessed be, Chimey

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Turning the Wheel of Time

Photo by Free Nature Stock on Pexels.com

The impact of natural time on our bodies’ rhythm to follow the moon, sun, and earth phases could be argued to be a forgotten wisdom. And along with it, the body’s capacity for change and renewal in line with nature, as well as our understanding of cosmos. By rediscovering our mind-body-cosmos connection and transforming the body from solely a material object to worship or to condemn, to a harmoniously flowing process in sync with the rest of the cosmos, we could align ourselves with how it always was.

The cells in our bodies are made up of stardust, containing the five elements; earth, water, fire, air, and space. This heap of components that we usually refer to as” I” can be explained as contracting and expanding particles, just like the rest of nature. They respond to how we act, sleep, what we eat, think, and say. So, to lead the body and mind back to a more balanced state in line with the rest of nature, we have to get back into natural alignment with the wheels of time.

“Turning the Wheel” is a metaphor for setting new teachings into motion. The first turning of the wheel includes the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha in the earliest historical period of his forty-five teaching years. These fundamental Buddhist teachings include the four noble truths, the eightfold path, selflessness, mindfulness, dependent-arising, the five aggregates, and more. Simultaneously,” the wheel of time” can be found within Shakyamuni’s later teachings.

Today – the twenty-fourth of July 2020 is the day we celebrate that these pearls of wisdom came into motion by the so-called first turning of the wheel!

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We can find the hidden matrix of what creates this ever-changing-rapidly-decaying-impermanent vehicle called our body that we live through every day of our life, through studying the wheel of time. This matrix predicts the ups and downs connected to our future through an examination of the planets, the lunar phases, and so on. Furthermore, this wisdom map includes a description of the physical nature of the world and how it came to be.

By embracing every day as new as it genuinely is and transcend the obstacles that afflict our bodies, humanity could find an equilibrium, a lost key of wisdom that, when used, could open the doors to a more harmonious state of peace and vitality, available to all.

The cycle of the planets’ interactions is reflected in the 28 days of shedding layers of skin cells, to hormone cycles, to the approximate seven-year period of renewing bone mass. This interplay between the universe and cells is based on the fact of interconnectedness. That also means that there is no benefit whatsoever in distorting the wheel of time, as in inventing a man-made 12-month calendar. Skin is shed, bone mass is changing, and we are moving on because we are made of stardust.

The natural ways have been neglected for so long, and man-made “solutions” applied for millennia, that we are now facing a world out of balance, and reaping its effect.

Could one of the factors to our distorted alignment with the turning of the universe be found in that we have incorporated a calendar out of sync with time, by adopting the twelve-month calendar? Has our way of interacting with the rest of nature been distorted because of this step away from the natural turning of the wheel of time?

Its likely one of all the factors that has added up to our current imbalance. And like any radical change acquires our full participation, so does this one.

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Since we are not going back to how things were, we could all benefit from consciously adopting this ongoing amazing planetary dance that we are part of through the study of and meditation on the outer cosmos of our realm of existence. By attuning to the natural half-forgotten standard of the thirteen-month/ twenty-eight days calendar, we could find a piece of harmony again.

With a natural way of being with the rhythms of time, a beat that altogether make up a perfect three hundred and sixty-four day year, we would no longer be distorting our natural alignment with cosmos. The thirteen-month calendar is nothing new. It has been in use by our ancestors for thousands of years. It was possibly more widespread among matriarchal societies in the past than in our current systems that have turned their backs on this wisdom. Our times lost perfection of aligning with nature further shows to be in starch contrast to the wise alignment with time when studying the available thirteen moon calendars. For example, these calendars divination of the quarter years can be counted into exactly ninety-one days each, which equals thirteen weeks of seven days per quarter. Perfect by nature!

We can incorporate this natural cycle in our individual lives to move into balance. Suggesting that we would not have to fight against time, jump between different lengths of months, and add an extra addition of a day every fourth year to keep the rhythm. Nor remain in opposition to what we are already a part of—merely relaxing in the natural flow of how we spin with the rest of the world. Never finding a reason to hold on to an unnatural man-made distortion of the same, ever again.

Keep in mind that all the thousand buddhas of this eon, (yes, there was never only one) after demonstrating the attainment of enlightenment came to sit at the Vajraseat in Bodhgaya in India and proceed to Sarnath to give the first turning of the wheel of Dharma. Within the wheel of time, this happened and is happening and will be happening – again and again, naturally.

It is said that Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha of our time, entered the magical mace of Benares (Varanasi) early one morning, made his alms round, took a bath, ate his meal for the day and, left the city through the east gate. From there, the enlightened one walked to Rishipatana Mrigadava, – a place that until this day and age is called the Deer Park. Well, there he turned the first wheel of Dharma, which we celebrate today. The teaching he gave, as simple as profound, which is the same wisdom that the Buddhas to come will reveal, can be summarized into these four noble truths:

There is suffering.
There is a cause for suffering.
There is an end to suffering.
There is a way that leads us out of suffering.

There is a map. We need to apply it.
Meaning – we too can change and get into alignment with the natural flow of time again. We, too, can wake up.

I hope this blog post has been beneficial to you.

Blessed be,
Chi-Mey (Deathless)

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With Every Step You Take

When we long for wisdom to take root in our lives, we’ve come to the right place by turning to the Buddha Dharma. It’s not an easy path, and no one said it was, but it will provide us with the reliable wisdom tools we are looking for, to awaken to our full potential, and growing a competent and capable nature along the way. This is a path proven to reignite our inherent wisdom and help us polish that diamond of light that lives within.

Most of us think of meditation when Buddhism is spoken of, but it is far from the whole picture.

Meditation is only a fraction of the whole palette of the wisdom teachings and one of the practical methods to” get it” rather than the method.

Meditation is practical. It is found in every moment of life when we live deeply. No one needs a special cushion for that, even if having one is a good reminder to use it to get into our formal practice, or keep it up – if we have one. Through meditation, we can experience the two realities of our everyday existence as a living fact—the relative and the ultimate, simultaneously. Even while living in the relative reality of so many challenges and distractions, we can touch upon the ultimate by staying present, aware, and making friends with how things are.

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If we never withdraw our heads from the busy ant nest of life, we will continue to suffer extensively. We need to balance our continuous sufferings and worries by resting in all there is, as it is, not as we want it to be, and the knowledge to distinguish the difference. By embracing the two realities, we learn how to keep a bird’s eyes perspective on our busy entanglements, and eventually realize that nothing distinguishes us from the completeness.

When we say that we see something out there, for example, a tree, the tree’s visual sight doesn’t happen from the side of the tree alone. Like everything else, it is empty of self inherent existence. All our experiences are resting in the hands of the cosmic law of interdependence.

For example, when having a functioning eye organ, the information of visually perceiving the tree runs through our eye-consciousness and is transmuted through our so-called sixth sense, evaluating the experience as good, bad, or neutral. What I here call” a sixth sense” is jet another consciousness, assess the experience, and, most of the time, is mistaken for being an I. A person. A separate self.

When we look closer, we discover no such thing as a separate self or a different tree. Its all bits and parts of a dance that is continuously changing. We can put labels on it and have opinions about it until we turn red and blue, but that will not affect the actual reality of how it is.
Many of us come to the practice of the Buddha Dharma to seek relief from the harsh currents of the relative reality, such as loss, sickness, and grief. Through the practice, we develop compassion, good-heartedness, patience, and generosity. And we can continue to grow on the path when we are allowing our hearts to delight in the presence of that which lies beyond nirvana. Provided that we are not relating to meditation as a tool to be worshipped, but as something to put into action.

This is where we get the deepest kind of relief. It allows us to get out of the obsessive grip of our busy minds and into the way of how it is. While meditating, we can more easily see that we are eternal winds that rides the nonexistence clouds, inseparable from everything around us, since we are that.

Each of us can awaken to a remembrance of the two realities as one. No one has to be a man or be born in the Himalayas to do that. All of us have always been resting in the grace of the two realities intertwined, unknowingly. That’s what we truly are.

We love meditation because it stills our minds and brings us home. No one should have to be deprived of that delightful genuineness of what an authentic path has to offer. There is guidance to receive; we just have to reach out for it. So as its all here, what is needed for us to sustain it and give it a place in our daily lives and the Western societies?

Sustaining a personal practice without guidance is hard. We should be asking for nothing less but a miracle to see this prospect through. And the miracle we are looking for is not to walk on water or dance in mid-air, the miracle is to be sincere about our spiritual development and start where we are by walking on this Earth aware of both our feet touching the ground with every step we take. Realizing that we are part of all that exists, the planet is not apart from us. We are nature. The miracle we should be praying for is that we wake up to remember right now that everything is possible if we put our minds to it.

Blessed be,
Chimey

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The Evolution we are in

It’s happening. We are in the middle of a vast and fast pace of Evolution that is throwing out the old paradigms in a blink of an eye. This transition is not limited to the so called top 1% of humanity, a particular race or country. Nor is it a gender question. We are all in this together, and our lesson is about embracing all the qualities that we have within, whether we label them feminine or masculine. The old paradigm is falling, and we are not going back. This new era will take some time to adjust to. Meanwhile, we can support our transition to this new way of life by dedicating ten minutes a day to checking in with our selves and rest in what already is. To help you with this transition and stay committed to this vital integration practice in your everyday life, I will, part from releasing the Swedish guided meditation album Jord on July 14th, soon start posting English guided meditation videos on my youtube channel. Subscribe for my youtube channel here.

I’m putting this out there so that your mind can get ready for what is coming. The Sky Dancer World is here to provide you with up to date alignment with the current flows of our existence so that as many of us as possible can benefit from the eternal and essential value grounds of the Buddha Dharma. This is not about innovations, but adoption. We are not straying away from the inherent truth. We are dancing along with how the current flows. I’ll write that again. We are not straying away from the inherent truth. We are dancing along with how the current flows.

A complete person is someone who’s balancing all these qualities that we call feminine and masculine within. Let’s take my primary teacher, the Gyalwa Karmapa, a master of sorts, as an example. He walks like a sturdy captain, AND his gestures are like those of a gentle goddess. And that’s just the outer appearance. Inside we all need the drive to move forward into action (so-called masculine quality) and trust to follow our intuition (so-called feminine quality) to whatever we are called to, for the better good of all humanity and the planet. To uphold and grow with the existence that we are part of, we all need to develop in the direction of freeing the heart from old, unresolved issues and limiting beliefs. Whether we take personal responsibility to be on board with this current shift or not, our world is leaping ahead into new territory. We don’t want to be dragged behind, right, so to make as a smooth transition as possible into a more balanced world where we can start to unfold our complete set of inner resources there are three things we need to do.

Still your mind and integrate the shift by meditating for 10 minutes daily.
Seeing the importance of taking joyful responsibility in the global change by committing to your meditation practice no matter what.
Stay focused on your commitment by applying the tools at hand of being mindful so that you, through your discoveries, can make sure you trust the path and never stray away from it.

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Your gender identification is irrelevant when it comes to balancing the predominant qualites you already have with those you are lacking. This is the time to balance these out and equalize all our qualities within. That’s where it has to start.

We have all been forced to stop in our tracks for some time now. Luckily it seems that most people are getting that there is a blessing in disguise going on with this. We have time to look deeper into that which scares us, unsolved issues, face our shortcomings, and spend more time alone or with our closest family and friends. These are just some of the gifts that this current situation is inviting us to.

Now we can choose to make conscious steps towards aligning with the new paradigm that has already awakened. It’s not a future scenario anymore, and the shift involves us all on a grand scale. Again. The best way to ride this current phase of evolution is to commit to a daily meditation practice and choose a path that you trust to support you with tools that work.
Until I have my videos up and running at my youtube channel, I suggest that you sit down in silence before you go to sleep or wake up in the morning. Direct your focus to your natural breath, and keep pulling your mind, gently but surely back to the breath as the mind starts to wander.

Life will present challenges to uphold even such a short and straightforward practice. So, before you start, whether you choose to do this in the evening or in the morning or any other time of the day, make the resolve that you will bring your awareness back to a place of stillness as part of your daily routine. Remember, you are not doing this alone; we are a universal grid of light that expands together, so once you’ve consciously logged in to this truth, there’s no reason to doubt its power. No need to invent anything just rest in what is already here. And if doubts come creeping in, remember that thought-forms are limited. Just like all compounded phenomena, they are interdependent and impermanent. See the doubt the insecurity and the worries before they take over you, acknowledge they’re fleeting existence, and then let them go. Place your awareness on your breathing, in, gap, out, gap. And if you like to sit longer, please feel free to do so.

Enjoy your meditation, and remember we can equalize this world into a more balanced and harmonious existence for all. It’s already happening.

Much Love,
Chimey

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From Earth to Earth…

In my early twenties, I had a personal close up encounter with death that became a close call to ceasing to exist from this current human life altogether.

I had been back and forth to a hospital for reoccurring emergency surgeries due to undefined stomach pain for some months. Eventually, during the third surgery preparations in a row, my mind spontaneously evacuated the body. I remember my last thought thinking: If there is anything left that I need to do in this life, I trust that this body will take care of this.

If it had not been due to my early practice days of meditation, I hadn’t been prepared for that moment with trust, surrender, and peace. Due to spending hours and days soaked in meditation, I had real tools to apply when my time to face the inescapable occurred. Without a spiritual practice that could have been a scary fact of life to embrace.

To prepare for this inescapable moment, it is crucial to step closer to that which might scare us. A lot can be learned from befriending death if we dare to stare the great riper in the eye sockets. When our bones become one with the earth, take roots, sprout and penetrate the surface, our interdependence with our surroundings become clear.

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In Buddhism, we talk about the links between our flesh and ignorance, our blood and desire, our bones, and aggression. If we instead of holding on to that which pains us due to ignorance, desire, and hatred, we can choose to acknowledge the pain right down to our bones, our pain and others, feel it, honor it and then let it go. Remembering that we are not confined by our bodies, names, or history that we are temporarily identifying with. Ultimately we are innate light, an eternal interconnected web, a storehouse of dancing truth.

Fifteen years ago, when we recorded “Jord” (Earth), I was still active with my body-mind-spirit method CM – Conscious Movement. The cello player Gertrud Stenung and I gave many kirtan concerts and worked together with acoustic music and dance as a healing art. “Jord” contains one of my trademark meditations from that period in time. It begins with a guided relaxation that takes you on a journey through the densest part of your body, your bones, as you let go and surrender into the earth. The relaxation touches on themes such as creation, death, interconnectedness, and surrender. It is followed by a seated meditation guided by visualizations riding on the natural breath through your spine. Through the practice of letting our current identification of self blend into the bigger picture, our surroundings, and fill that landscape with love, vitality, creativity, and compassion we can become aware of our interconnectedness.

The soothing accompanying music has been tried out live with many students who love what we are offering, long before this album was recorded. The music for Jord is composed and performed on cello, piano, and electronic glass piano by Gertrud Stenung. Due to these days of huge transition, I decided to make a new release of Jord and make it available digitally. May you find joy, peace, and truth in your own heart through this beautiful practice.

Jord will be available in all major online stores from July 14th, 2020.
10% of profits from sales of this album goes to water aid projects, as a contribution towards a more sustainable future for the world.

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May all beings benefit,
Chimey

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Challenges with bringing the Dharma to the West

After some years of studying, receiving empowerments, and being close to the masters in India and Nepal, in particular my main Lama, the Gyalwa Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, I went back to the West with his blessing. At first, I came to live in New York, at Karma Triyana Dharma Chakra, the Gyalwa Karmapa’s main seat in North America, where I served as the assistant shrine keeper.

After receiving an invitation of a Dharma organization in Malmö, Sweden, I accepted their request and moved there as their teacher in residence.

During these first couple of years that I was back in the West, I embarked on an ongoing investigation in how to apply and live the Dharma most beneficially. That investigation is continuing.

My mind was soon filled with questions like, “Where do we find the motivation today to uphold the Buddha’s teachings in a society that is filled with values and ways of life that are not always so helpful?” “How do we go from a place filled with encouragement for self-indulgence to a shared space of basic sanity?”

The process of investigation became an indispensable part of both my own and our collective progression towards a more awakened, compassionate, and wiser state of being. As a part of our culture, many Westerners come from a perspective that is highly suspicious of orthodoxy and religion. This makes hierarchical, medieval patriarchy such as the system that has been developed within Vajrayana Buddhism even more impossible to digest for many Western spiritual seekers. This skeptic approach can paradoxically be a strength when approaching the Buddha Dharma as many of our masters are emphasizing the foundation of studying the Buddhist teachings based not on faith alone, but also a rigorous investigation, just like a merchant of gold who buys the gold only after a thorough analysis of its purity.

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Buddhism appeals to this rationality by challenging ingrained ideas about death, suffering, happiness, and the nature of mind. Still, when we study with traditionally trained Tibetan masters, we often find that the teachings are intertwined with cultural assumptions that do not fit neatly with a strictly rational perspective and other Western-oriented perspectives. Here in the West individualistic needs and opinions usually come before community building and prioritizing the power of the collective, which is quite the opposite to the traditional Eastern habituation. These different standpoints create a fertile field for cultural clashes to arise. Applying rigorous inquiry to traditional Eastern Buddhist teachings is therefore more delicate than it might appear, and a lot is yet to be done to create a harmonious bridge.

There is a growing interest in Buddhism among the general public in the West. This has come about primarily through the popularization of Buddhist philosophy and core values, such as the seventh branch of the Noble Eightfold Path, mindfulness, along with many psychologists who are turning to Buddhism to find sustainable ways of caring for our mental health. This has also led to an increase in the confusion that may arise when students don’t know the broader perspective of the Buddha’s wisdom teachings, nor how to develop a healthy approach to their lama and monastic sangha. Students may be enchanted by the intriguing aura that often surrounds Tibetan lamas, and we may not have the emotional or spiritual maturity to distinguish healthy behavior from unhealthy patterns of emotional dependence. These co-created patterns are also due to teachers’ lack of bridging the Dharma from one culture to another. Western students may be seeking a “quick fix” to their problems or a spiritual experience, which may unconsciously manifest as excessive devotion to their teacher without a careful examination of the teachings or the teacher. Likewise, turning to mindfulness meditation in the same way you would go to the gym for an hour might not have such longstanding positive results. So to avoid falling into these situations of culture clash based on lack of knowledge and thereby potentially watering down the Dharma, it is crucial for both teachers and students to carefully investigate with whom we form spiritual relationships and how these relationships are carried out. We need to learn what to adopt and what not from another culture and above all how to adopt the Buddhist wisdom teachings beyond time and culture when integrating the Dharma on Western soil.

At this point, the Dharma has yet to be carefully nurtured in the West to grow into a steady and rooted tradition in our culture. We need to make a smooth bridge to our part of the world, learning from our Eastern sisters and brothers while knowing that we need to grow up. At this point there are but a few Western torchbearers out there who are keeping the light of the Dharma burning in the West. If it weren’t for them, those parts of the world would lack the compassionate and wise presence of the Buddha Dharma even more. I feel humbled at the prospect of following in the footsteps of such pragmatic and fearless heroines and heroes. My heart is yearning to keep bridging an ocean of Dharmic wisdom, art and activities into the open fields of these native grounds of ours, to be part of and to welcome a continuous blossoming for the Western Buddha Dharma altogether.

Blessed be,
Chimey

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A global citizens outlook

Knowing no borders nor clinging to a creed or fixed state of mind. Moving with the wind, faster than the speed of light. Reaching beyond and bringing it home. Welcoming all, both intellectual and drone.

I’m here because I have something valuable to share. I’m making myself available to the ever-expanding net of equality through voicing the sacred feminine, not as a preference, but in order to contribute to a more balanced world. I’m a skyrocket bound for the unlimited space of the multiple billion universes. Writing, laughing and crying through it all.

If you are looking for a forum to rest your mind, restore, get inspired, and engage – Sky Dancer World is for you. If you are looking for a Dharma partner in the field of various activities for the greater good, or an ordained Buddhist Minister who can officiate the ceremonies for the sacred moments of your life – Sky Dancer World is for you. If you have wished that there could be easy access to a Dharmic lifestyle in the West in line with Western culture and values by the Western Sangha, yet rooted in traditional Eastern dharma – Sky Dancer World is for you. Let’s meet, explore and nurture the origins of the Buddha Dharma towards an authentic embodiment in our own backyard, and grow together from there.

As the masters say; Start where you are, and that’s what this is all about.

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