Welcome

Welcome

Welcome to the pages of BodhicharyaCaribbean. We hope you find them of interest. If you are new to these ideas and practices we hope you follow them up and, as the Buddha said, "See for yourself" if they work and lead to good results:

- to freedom from suffering for yourself and others
- to the 'noble happiness'
- to finding meaning - 'understanding birth and death completely'
- and to fulfillment through a life well lived.

Our great good fortune, especially considering that we are an island people in theCaribbean, is to have as our spiritual guide a tulku, a precious one or Rinpoche, Ringu Tulku, a highly regarded Tibetan born lama, an exceptional teacher.


Rinpoche had to flee Tibet as a young boy and after a long, difficult and dangerous journey ended up in Sikkim with those of his family who had survived. They still live there today. Although they were well off in Tibet (Rinpoche is from Rigul in Kham district of Eastern Tibet) they arrived in Sikkim with nothing. Since then the family has worked hard and done well.


Rinpoche was able to study Buddhism under several great masters including the 16th Karmapa and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. As well as that he was able to pursue academic studies and received a PhD in Tibetan studies from VaranassiUniversity.


He is a fluent English speaker and has been teaching in the West for over 20 years. He has a workaday understanding of Westerners and his teachings are marked by their clarity and good humour.


As well as having a monastery in Rigul with many Tibetan monks Rinpoche has established a meditation centre in Sikkim and has monastic and lay disciples inEurope and teaching centres there.


We present on this page some of Rinpoche's teachings.
Click on 'News' to get the latest news about the island groups.
On other pages you will find out about the Bodhicharya Caribbean groups , about Bodhicharya International and Rigul Trust - Rinpoche's UK based charity.


If like to contact us please do – use the gmail address monk.rinchen at - you know how to do it!

Video - The Purpose of Bodhicharya

Ringu Tulku Video - The Fourth Noble Truth

Ringu Tulku Video - Emptiness

Link to Ringu Tulku Rinpoche's YouTube Page

http://www.youtube.com/user/RinguTulku

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche speaks about Meditation

According to the instructions, first we keep our meditation postures right,

that is mainly to sit straight, and look directly in front of us.

We remind ourselves of the Four Reminders.

The first: life is precious.

There are lots of things in our life that we need to appreciate,

and we think about those.

We have lots of special powers,

so we can do something good for others and for ourselves as well.

We should not waste this life, especially by being unhappy

and just letting it go, trying to survive.

We have to find a way for lasting happiness for ourselves and others.

If that is not possible, at least we should find a way for ourselves

to be joyful in this life.

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche speaks about Compassion

Excerpt from a talk given by Ringu Tulku Rinpoche at Karma Dzong, Boulder, USA April 23, 1999

This time I am to talk about compassion. I usually prefer to share the most basic things that I have heard from my gurus and teachers. I don’t like to teach the high and profound things, because I don’t know them myself! And I find from my own experience, that however many high and profound teachings we receive, after we have received them, we have to go back to the beginning to practice - from the beginning. We can't really skip those basic things. And sometimes I feel that when we go in search of spiritual paths, different kinds of practices, understanding, sometimes we go for very profound things. We want more and more teachings; we want more and more high and more and more deep things.

Ringu Tulku Rinpoche speaks about Wisdom

Teaching given by Ringu Tulku Rinpoche, Edinburgh 2001

Transcribed by Gunnar Polte, edited by Corinne Segers

Now I don’t know what to say... I was supposed to say something about the use of wisdom. Can you explain to me what that means? [Rinpoche and audience laugh]

As you know, we talk a lot about wisdom in Buddhism. We always mention “wisdom and compassion”. Compassion is understandable, I think, where as wisdom seems a little more, obscure, doesn’t it? We also talk about wisdom at many different stages. Wisdom can refer to knowledge. Knowledge is what we learn, the information and understanding we get about things. This is, knowing or understanding things. Knowledge brings an insight on how to do things properly and how to act or react in a suitable way. This is also sometimes called wisdom. But sometimes we use the word wisdom to point to a more transcendent form of knowledge. When we talk about wisdom and knowledge as two separate things, then wisdom is an understanding, but understanding through experience. It isn’t just intellectual understanding, just information, but rather what we could call a direct experience of the truth, a direct experience of “the way it is”. That is Wisdom. And that is very important in the Buddhist way of thinking.