Real Conversion

Bodhisattva

Peace Summit

Learning to live again: Brooke Hopkins struggles through rehab after bicycling accident - Salt Lake

"One night a Tibetan Buddhist monk in maroon-and-saffron robes swept into
His wife, Peggy Battin, comforts Hopkins after a particularly grueling day of off-the-vent breathing and therapy. (Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune)
Hopkins' Bountiful rehab room and delivered a piece of ancient wisdom. The body is nothing; it is ephemeral,' the lama told him. 'The mind is everything.'

Hopkins remembered that sentiment when he saw, for the first time, his emaciated body in the mirror while being wheeled into the shower. He either could be depressed by the sight or celebrate his expanding mental powers and social skills, either indulge in self-pity or confront the challenges ahead with dignity and drive.

'The lama's words came back with their full force,' he recalls, 'and I understood them for the first time ... and my potential depression lifted.' Article
Audio

Lama Rangdrol wins film award

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Festival Canceled Due to Heavy Rain, a film about Lama Choyin Rangdrol's spiritual journey to Cambodia has been awarded the Aloha Accolade Award for Excellence in Filmmaking at the 2009 Honolulu International Film Festival.

The award notice said, "...judges felt that your film demonstrated superior and standout filmmaking and is deserving of one of our our most esteemed awards. Your film was among the very best of the several hundreds of films submitted from over 30 countries around the world."

Our HBCU world premiere was well received in America's bible belt at Nashville's International Black Film Festival and we are screening again at the Pan African Film Festival in Magic Johnson's theaters in South Central Los Angeles. An award from the film community of Honolulu, city of multi-generational Buddhists as well as hometown of president elect Obama, adds an exciting dimension of contemporary relevance to Rainbowdharma's achievements.

The award will be presented at the Closing Night Awards Ceremony to be held 10:00 pm March 8, 2009 at the beautiful and historic Hawaii Theatre in the heart of Honolulu. Join us! And if you can't make it, consider making an offering to help cover Lama's attendance. A donation of any amount, large or small, is a pure offering that supports the goal of promoting diversity, and spiritual health in America at a time it needs it the most.

We'd like to thank those who have supported Lama Rangdrol's work over the years. If you are new to the Rainbowdharm experience, we look forward to adding your name to our growing list of supporters, and keeping your informed about the film's progress.

make offering here:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=MB4JLJWL9R4FG&lc=US&item_name=Rainbowdharma&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted
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Festival Canceled

Lama, marriage, and teaching peace to the community

Many Western Buddhist students are confused about the freedom of Lamaism's student/teacher relationship. They bring their Judeo-Christian concerns about sexuality to the environment of Lamaism and become judgmental and fearful. Their misconceptions are also prompted by Buddhist traditions from Southeast Asia that hold celibacy in supreme regard. Southeast Asian monks and nuns are forbidden to have sexual relations even in their imagination.

The chaste Buddhist monk has been stereotyped to a degree Buddhist traditions to the contrary are mistakenly viewed as corrupt and exploitive. Western Buddhist students and non Buddhist onlookers disconcert with ideas of chastity and violation in ways that serve no one as well as diminish the idea that love can be a powerful vehicle of teaching in some Buddhist settings.

In Lamaism a student and teacher falling in love is not only acceptable but serves as a working example of the interpersonal blended with the spiritual at the most intimate level.

Here is a wonderful example of how a loving relationship between teacher and student can serve an entire community:

Lama teaches path to peace, happiness - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "By the time Grossmann decided to finish her doctorate, she and Lama had fallen in love. They got married and moved to Pittsburgh after Grossmann landed a post-doctoral research position at Carnegie Mellon University's Department of Engineering and Public Policy." Watch the video.