Property:Letterofmotivation
From Tsadra Foundation Advanced Contemplative Scholarships
This is a property of type Text.
T
Please refer to my Motivation and Aspirations pdf submitted separately with the rest of the required documentation. +
V
Buddhism is my chosen faith. Faith, first, in my teachers, particularly my precious Guru, V.V. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, in the Three Jewels, and in all the other teachers who have helped and inspired me along the way. Faith, also, in the practice itself -- that this is the way to happiness and freedom for all beings. I believe that practice is not only a means to the end of achieving Buddhahood, but that it is, itself, enlightened activity -- the expression of our true nature. So, practice, even by an ordinary person such as myself, does truly benefit all beings. This motivates my practice every day. And when my resolve and energy weaken, I think of the suffering in the world and that practice can help -- that it does make a difference.
Buddhist practice is my way of life. I took vows to dedicate my life to the Dharma. I could think of no better way to make life meaningful and to be of use to others. V.V. Kenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, my preceptor, gave me this vow: “Make everything you do for the benefit of the Dharma.” So, besides formal practice, I have tried to integrate the teaching with my daily life, to do work in the world which is of benefit to others, and to make this an offering. Now and in the future, I endeavor to keep and deepen this vow, and retreat practice will help me do that.
My Guru, V.V. Mingyur Rinpoche, has requested that his students do as much retreat practice as they can. I wish to do as my teacher directs. I think he would be pleased by my going to retreat, and I will make my best effort to practice purely, both as an offering to him and for the sake of all beings. In so doing, I am in his presence. In so doing, I can serve him and receive his blessing. This is the greatest joy.
Lastly, the retreat at Vajra Vidya is a new beginning. I have retired from the world of full-time work, and I now intend to devote the rest of my life to contemplative practice and study. +
THE MISSION
When I write stories for children I consider it as going to work, and do not sit and wait for the Muses and inspiration to fall from the deep blue sky. To me writing is a job, which hopefully brings something useful to the young readers in their educative stage of life. They bruise easily, you know, and need encouragement. So I do my best and hope for the very best result.
Likewise, I see joining the retreat at the Vajra Vidya Center as work, mind work.
I am interested in making my mind harmonious and in touch with reality. I am inspired by great "mind knowers" such as Lama Lakha Rinpoche and Drupon Khenpo Lodro Namgayal, who have done this work themselves. To do this properly myself, I need help. Therefore, I feel fortunate to be allowed to follow retreat master Khenpo Jigme's guidance, because he, too, knows the right way to develop the mind correctly. To get instructions like this for a period of three years in a fully cloistered retreat without any other concerns is what I have hoped for since I participated in a three month Vajasattava group retreat some years ago.
à For me to go with Dharma-work, full time, is what I want to do.
Since the Vajasattva retreat I have mainly been living in monastic places in Nepal and India. I feel comfortable in these surroundings where I enjoy being inspired by the practitioners spending their life there. Their Ãdoing ità is prove that the methods for radical inner development are here and working, which has made me dedicate as much time and study to the teachings as I could for the last four years.
à I now want to commit even stronger by joining the three year training.
I will conclude this short motivation by saying that astanga yoga has been part of my daily routine for the last ten years, so I fell fit and thirsty to be introduced to the trulkor practices and the yogas of Naropa.
After the retreat I will be happy if circumstances will allow me to take Khenpo JigmeÃs instructions into a solitary retreat. However, Drupon Khenpo has just told me that it would be good if I return to Pullahari for more study and make an effort in the Tibetan language.
à Either way: after the retreat I will continue Mission Harmoniously Mind.
Practice. Practice is my primary aim. I want to practice, and to do so in the focused, penetrating way which only retreat allows, sustained over a period expansive enough that it cannot help but permeate my life.
This past May, I spent the final day of my seven month sojourn in Asia quieted away in the presence of Bokar Rinpoche's Kudung in Mirik, supplicating for blessing as I looked ahead to my three-year retreat on the other side of the world. Hours disappeared into the space of Ngondro and aspiration prayers. Sitting in the stillness of the shrine room, what filled my mind was the pith instruction to rely on the practice and be diligent in it. This teaching, inextricably linked to Rinpoche for me, swells my chest like a fresh breath whenever I am present enough to recollect him, or fortunate enough to encounter the genuine Dharma. With years of Dharma studies and practice informing my view and aspirations, three-year retreat seems the crucial next step for forging this basic truth more firmly into the fabric of my days. I want to engrave it deeply into the ephemeral yet tenacious habits of my mind.
It is not just the opportunity to cultivate the discipline of intensive practice that I hunger for. It is also the chance retreat affords to live in a situation focused on integrating Dharma into every moment of the day, where meditation and post-meditation work in symbiosis. Cutting away the coarse levels of distraction and confronting the time span of long retreat forces mind to drop its infatuation with the future. I look forward to my outer world shrinking to the four walls of my retreat room, my inner world expanding into the Kamtsang practices and blessings of the lineage. I yearn for the evolution that comes of attention being reigned in and refined.
My wishes to engage in this retreat are not for myself alone. I know far too well my limitations for helping others while I myself am so enmeshed in and by my kleshas, hampered by a paucity of skill, of experience, to draw from. Facing this helplessness as a teenager is what attracted me to Buddhism in the first place, drawn by the Dharma's unique altruism, where not only the spiritual path, but also the goal, transcends seeking merely one's own good. This is still at the heart of my drive to this day. This retreat will not miraculously transform me into some kind of savior. I have unswerving confidence, however, in the efficacy of Dharma and the process of retreat. I believe that the seeds I will sow cannot help but ripen into a greater capacity to benefit others, and myself.
In brief, I aspire to gain skill in being present, etching it into the marrow of my bones, and to unearth the rich ore of practice that fuels authentic service. I want to give living up to my best potential a shot, diving into it with no way back.
For me, three year retreat is a curious tipping point, a shift from maturity to novitiate. A culmination of years of study and practice, to be sure, but even more so, a beginning.
Like most beginnings (and the ends that make them so), I cannot peer over the top of it to glimpse what lies beyond. That has not kept me, of course, from imagining, and aspiring, and tallying reasons for an endeavor sure to alter the face of my life as I now know it.
Many of my reasons are highfalutin, to be honest. Trite, even. I could wax eloquent on the exalted purposes for retreat. (Vanquish the kleshas! Realize the true nature of mind! Establish all beings in buddhahood!) I do not mean to belittle pure spiritual motivations; I honor them. Ideally, they are right and true. But I am not there yet. For me to claim them as my present lived experience is too facile, too strained. This question calls, not for platitudes, but spare personal truths.
And so, in a nutshell, I wish to do retreat becauseÃ
I recognize the value of cloistering myself from the tyranny of too many options, if I am ever to immerse myself in practice.
I know such a submersion would be transformative, but I cannot know how. I am weary of not knowing how. I yearn to intimately experience that how, and perhaps a little bit of why. Also what forms the transformation will take, what they will feel like, what they will do. Who (if anyone) will go through the process and come out the other end?
I long to disengage my mind from its incessant groping for one hook after another to swing from, just to pass the time. I wish to slow mindÃs white-water rapids down to a more manageable trickle, then watch it up close. I frankly do not know how to accomplish this other than to let mind loose amidst an expanse of time whose perimeter it cannot deceive itself into sensing, then fill that space with Dharma.
I cherish discovering the seminal practices of the lineage that has sheltered and nurtured my spiritual life like nothing else.
I seek a crucible for mind training that compels me to grapple with my habits, encouraging me to see them for what they are (on myriad levels) with clearer understanding.
I need to cultivate a truly loving heart.
I believe in the process, and I trust Vajra Vidya to steward it well.
In turn, my aspirations are simple. I hope to fulfill the commitment I made in 2004 before my root lama, Kyabje Bokar Rinpoche, to do long retreat. I aim to implement the organic and dynamic approach to spiritual development I have learned over the last ten years from my teacher, Drupon Khenpo Lodro Namgyal. I wish to turn toward and suffuse my mind with Dharma, edging closer to pure motivation.
Put plainly, I aspire to complete this retreat as delicately and intelligently as I can.
With regards to a three year retreat, I really want the opportunity to study under Khenpo Karther Rinpoche who is an enlightened being such an opportunity is precious. Also, I have a karmic accident (car) that will be coming up in my life, and I want to attend retreat to purify that karma and hopefully save my life. +
To the Tsadra Foundation Scholarship Committee,
With gratitude for the outstanding contributions to Western contemplative practices this institution has offered, I write to share my heartfelt wish to join the upcoming 3-year retreat at Gomde Pyrenees under the guidance of my teacher, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche.
Since a young age, I have felt the call for spiritual practice. In one sense, I was moved by my own personal suffering, and the unnecessary suffering I felt permeated the world. In another sense, I was filled with deep curiosity—I felt there must be more to the ordinary way of seeing life and perceiving reality. This led me to begin meditation practice, at first through books and videos, and later through practicing zazen in the Sōtō Zen-shū tradition. I attended my first retreat at 13 years old, which gave me a taste of practice that had everlasting effects.
After discovering Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling in 2016 at 19 years old and meeting my teachers—Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Phakchok Rinpoche, and Chokling Rinpoche—this experience deeply touched and transformed me. I decided to devote myself full-time to the study and practice of Buddhism, joining RYI and focusing on the Tibetan language, as I felt it could be one of the best ways to contribute to Dharma, especially in Brazil, where we don't have many Tibetan translators.
It was also during this time that I came to know about the existence of three-year retreats through my friendship with previous retreatants and hearing their experiences. From then, I gave rise to the deep aspiration to be able to join one as well. Although aware of impermanence, my goals became clear: to complete my studies at RYI, master the Tibetan language, and engage in a long retreat afterwards.
Now the conditions for this aspiration to be fulfilled are coming together. As I stand to finish over 7 years of study, while still young but having acquired more maturity in my understanding of the Dharma, while my parents are still healthy enough to not need my care, and while purposefully not having immersed myself in marriage and having children, I feel this is the most beneficial and meaningful path I could engage in at this moment—for both myself and others. Following Gampopa's aspiration, I feel my mind has turned towards the Dharma, and now I want to be fully dedicated that it may truly become the path, that it may clear away confusion, dawning as wisdom. There is nothing I long more than to tame this mind and recognize its nature, expanding the qualities of compassion and love.
With all this in mind, I hope that through this retreat I may become more able to benefit others, even if in a small way, in whatever manner possible, or at least cut through as many self-centered habits that can be harmful to any being.
I deeply appreciate the opportunity that is being offered and your time in considering this application.
Victor Algeri Roithmann
I want to become enlightened for the sake of all sentient beings. That is what I must say although all components of that sentence are loaded. I can not, however, back off from it, it is the light on that porch in the distance, so it must stay on. But what does it really mean to me? And how does that connect to doing a great retreat?
When people have asked me why would I do a long retreat I have wanted to list very precise results. These have not rung entirely genuine. What has occurred to me is that I am making a trip like my grandparents made. They came to America, leaving everything they knew for what they were hoping was a better life. They were taking a chance, it was an experiment, the stakes high. This Great Retreat is the same. Only now out of the comfort that has been acquired from the last crossing, a new hope arises. The world I think I can find comes from inside and creates the outside.
In 1988, I traveled in Thailand, I knew nothing of Buddhism, but enjoyed sitting for hours in temples, watching the life, watching the Buddhas. I observed the Buddha sitting and thought I could sit, too. I sought out a monastery to meditate and found one outside of Chiang Mai. I did a solitary retreat for a month, afternoon consultations with the abbot. I had a BA in psychology, but after a month in retreat I thought "these people have really figured something out about the nature of mind". My experiential understandings felt firm, and this foundation, as it has grown over the years, has come to be a platform for my faith. That is all to say that this path, as it has been taught to me through the scriptures and my precious teachers has demonstrated extraordinarily skillful means. I have been guided gently and rigorously along the way to places I hadn't know existed. This pattern repeated over and over indicates that a great retreat is where I must go next.
As I write, a thousand questions bloom. How could I care about all sentient beings? Is enlightenment possible, if so how close can I get? How much do I really want it?
Do I have enough belief in the teachings and the teachers to follow them out the door?
Do I love my husband enough to leave him?
My reason for doing this retreat is despair and hope. Despair in that I have not served in an ultimately meaningful way even those small number of people I love. Hope in that these skillful means, that I have had the good fortune to experience so far, have the capacity to take me to the other side.
Y
As a sincere Buddhist practitioner, it feels counterintuitive to write about myself to secure funding for my retreat. However, guided by my Guru, Wangchen Rinpoche, I recognize that seeking this scholarship is a skillful means that could benefit all sentient beings if my retreat is successful. This understanding alone motivates me to apply.
I do not claim to know everything about the Dharma, but I have learned that receiving can also be a form of giving when guided by right view, and bodhicitta. This is the essence of my aspiration to undertake this three-year retreat. My practice has shown me that nothing in my life will be as beneficial—for myself or others—as understanding my own mind. No amount of wealth, fame, or family achievements could generate the karma needed to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. I understand this on a deeply personal level.
In this lifetime, I have lived many roles: recording artist, life coach, and business owner. If these experiences yielded anything of value, it was leading me to my Guru and authentic Buddha Dharma. Now, I have the opportunity to do something truly meaningful with my life. I feel that failing to seize this chance would be the greatest mistake I could make—and I have already made plenty of those.
When I met Rinpoche, I vowed that if my thirst for enlightenment remained as strong as it was after my first 25 Nyungne retreat, I would dedicate my life to practice after two years. Fortunately, I trusted this intuition rather than rushing in foolishly. After two years, I closed my business and moved to Ser Cho Ling. This significant step was only the beginning. Within a year, I traveled with Wangchen Rinpoche to India to take my Novice Monk vows under H.E. Tai Situ Rinpoche. Through these experiences, an unshakable conviction has grown within me, despite the modest sacrifices I have made. It is this same intuition that now guides me to undertake the three-year retreat—a ripening I could not stop even if I wished to.
It’s my sincere wish that you will consider this information when making your decision to accept my application for 3-Year Retreat. Nothing else in this world matters to me as much as fulfilling my Guru’s vision for me and completing my 3-year retreat.
With Warmest Wishes,
Yeshe Nyima
(Zameer Kurji)
Practice has been my life. I went in 3-year retreat with Group E (2004-2010) at Sopa Chöling. Although the retreat was certainly challenging, I had profound joy doing it and it changed my life. I certainly became more patient and mindful. My purpose in doing this a second time is to go deeper with the practices and to work with my karma in view of multiple lifetimes. I want to loosen the grip of fixation, develop more compassion, tolerance and strenght in a world that surely needs it. I also promised the Druppon I would help her in every way possible. +
Z
I have seen for myself that even a small amount of exposure to the dharma, with limited understanding, can bring great benefit and meaning to life and this gives me confidence that through the Mahayana path one can genuinely be of benefit to others as well. I believe that the opportunity to take part in this retreat would be a great help in going in this direction.
While even one month in retreat initially sounded daunting, attending the Palyul summer retreats and practicing at home have gradually instilled in me an aspiration to take part in the traditional three-year retreat. With all the free time and positive circumstances gathered, it's just easier to turn your mind to the dharma than in normal day-to-day life, full as it is with distraction. I am deeply grateful to my teachers for the opportunity that these Palyul retreats have provided; they have truly been life changing and I can't imagine where I'd be without them. At the same time, I've felt increasingly frustrated by the routine grind of life, with a leftover sense of yearning for the more immersive spiritual training that a three-year retreat offers. Tulku Dawa and I discussed it a few times over the past couple of years and he was always supportive of my aspirations.
In my limited experience, I've sometimes felt a clearer sense of the deluded habitual tendencies that are the driving force behind one's projections and suffering, and along with that has come a deep conviction that this pattern will simply go on endlessly if left unchecked. After a sense of once again being confronted with my own samsaric delusions during a week-long Green Tara retreat in rural Ontario this past September, I felt that now was the time to research the possibility of a three-year retreat more earnestly. Wanting to continue in the Nyingma tradition and having heard that Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche was conducting a retreat in France, I got in touch with the coordinator there. Listening to some of Rinpoche's teachings online, I felt deeply inspired by his clear explanations and evident compassion, and I greatly longed to learn from this master. Also, some time back I had been amazed by his father Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche's memoir, Blazing Splendor, which talks a lot about the Chokling Tersar lineage and this increased my interest to do this specific retreat. Bearing in mind the four thoughts, refuge/bodhicitta and the great force of habitual tendency, I believe practicing dharma in long-term retreat to be the ideal way to work with the samsaric state in which I find myself. This retreat in particular would be an amazing opportunity to go deeper into the tradition I feel most connected to, having at this point developed at least a little faith and connection to Guru Rinpoche through the blessings of my Palyul masters.
Over the New Year's holiday, I spent a week at Gomde Pyrenees while Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche was visiting to open up the then just finishing first three-year retreat. Along with the spiritual impact of meeting Rinpoche and receiving his blessing to take part, it was really helpful to speak with some participants from the first group. The whole experience made me feel much more confident going forward that it is really worthwhile (and actually doable), regardless of whatever challenges one might face. Drupbon Lama Tenzin gave a talk on the history and nitty gritty of three-year retreat and said (roughly) that if by the end we're not realized, there's no need to feel bad; we will know how to practice dharma and be on the path and that's enough. I've kept this in my heart since and consider it the greatest possible privilege to be included within this sacred mandala.
Especially as a beginner, the difficulties of trying to balance dharma practice with everyday life's endless demands, complications and confusion are many, and given the drastic state of the world right now, it seems really important to do what you can to try to work with your own ridiculous thoughts and develop at least some basic sense of sanity and compassion. For post-retreat life, my aspiration is that whatever change I've gone through during these few years will help me to more effectively bring compassionate energy and benefit to the world, if only in whichever very small ways I may be capable of, and that I may be somewhat better prepared for death, whenever it may come. I hope to return to playing and writing music (which has been my passion in life), to find some work and, most of all, to try to honor the dharma by practicing what I've been taught to the best of my abilities.
In conclusion, I may not be the most experienced or well studied of aspiring practitioners, but still, I think I'd make good use of this precious opportunity and I'd be deeply grateful for the support of the Tsadra Foundation in helping me to do so.Thank you for your time. (Sorry, I know this is a little long!)
Note: I am leaving for France on May 21st. Pre-retreat starts June 1st. Please contact retreat coordinator Mikk Tamme at [email protected] or [email protected] anytime after June 1st for any further questions/clarifications or to schedule an interview in the fall.
Sincerely,
Zack Burgess
