Travel Day 1058-62 – Kopan Monastery, NEPAL
Since we went to bed early yesterday and I was still used to the trekking schedule, by 6am I was already awake, washed my face and went down for the morning tea…
Familiar view from Kopan Dining Hall
It was funny because everything reminded me of my Discovering Buddhism experience form two years ago and while I was sipping my hot milk tea in silence, I couldn’t help but smile because everything felt so familiar again. The daily schedule that we received yesterday seemed 15 minutes off from what it used be, but luckily that didn’t provoke and disturbing emotions quit yet and so our morning meditation started at 6.45am. Actually both former 1 hour meditation sessions had been reduced to 45 minutes as per the new schedule:
- 6.00 wake up bell
- 6.15 morning tea
- 6.45 morning meditation
- 7.30 breakfast
- 9.30 teaching
- 11.30 lunch
- 14.00 8 discussion groups
- 15.00 break time
- 15.30 teaching
- 17.00 afternoon tea
- 17.45 meditation
- 18.30 dinner
- 19.45 questions and answers
- 21.00 quiet time
Meditation before Disturbing Emotions
The morning meditation itself consisted of two different parts. In the first part we did a breathing meditation while concentrating on the sensation of the air moving at the tip of the nose, while in the second half we were told just to sit quietly and let go of any arising thoughts. In-between the two different meditations we had a two-minute break to stretch the legs. At the end of the entire session we then had to visualize Shakyamuni Buddha while loudly chanting the mantra: TA YA THA OM MUNE MUNE, MAHAMUNAYE SOHA…
It was overall a great first session and while we were having our breakfast on the open terrace in complete silence, the mantra was still ringing with me. After a little bit of private time for taking a shower and doing some reading, we then had finally our first teaching about Disturbing Emotions. Our teacher was Ven Chonyi Taylor, a Buddhist nun from Australia with a Ph.D. in Psychology as well as training in Tibetan Buddhism and she seemed to be a great person to learn from when it came to training the mind…
Disturbing Emotions in Kopan Gompa
When we finally started talking about Disturbing Emotions and how to deal with them, we discussed that one either needed to be like block of wood and not react at all to arising emotions or if that was not possible, simply leave the situation. Ideally, in order to live a peaceful life, one needed to practice the Dharma and learn how to control the mind and the emotions. The biggest challenge when it came to controlling emotions were things like: habit, attachment and ego. So for example if a mother goes over the top with the care for her baby, it could be negative attachment, because she might be doing it out of ego, only to feel better about herself…
In the end we discussed that every negative or disturbing emotion seemed to always come from ego and attachment. And so we were not only told to read the book “Ego, Attachment and Liberation” by Lama Thubten Yeshe, but we also had to discuss the difficult question “How can I identify attachments in my own life?”
Find all Kopan Monastery 2013 Photos here.
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