Karma Yeshe Tsomo

2009-08-02T04:00:00.001-07:00

Dear Bloggers and Searchers,

I'd like to recommend Jaimal Yogis’s first book entitled "Saltwater Buddha" - you can get more information at http://www.jaimalyogis.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL75y3ZbaW0

1st Conference on the Practical Application of Buddhism in Western Psychology.

2008-06-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

www.buddhisminpsychology.com
www.mindfulness.com.pl/

We are honoured to invite professionals from around the world to attend the 1st Conference on the Practical Application of Buddhism in Western Psychology.

The idea proliferated in the minds of different people as diverse as psychotherapists, psychiatrists, translators, business people and practicing buddhists who came together to create a forum for the cross-discipline discussion of important issues based on certain Buddhist techniques such as mindfulness and contemplative approach to psychotherapy, health care, self-development and organizations. From this inspiration the 1st Conference on the Practical Application of Buddhism in Western Psychology has been established.

Mindfulness can be defined as "nonjudgmental moment-to-moment awareness". There is emerging scientific evidence supporting this great buddhist insight about the benefits of "allowing" experiences rather than suppressing or avoiding them in Western psychotherapy and applied psychology.

Certain Buddhist techniques have already been incorporated in modern-day psychological interventions and psychotherapies, just to mention a few: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Contemplative Psychotherapy.

The aim of our conference is to be the platform of inspiration for scientific research, workshops, and training programmes on mindfulness and other Buddhist techniques. That is why we refer to a "practical application" and not just theoretical and philosophical concepts of psychology and Buddhism.

The conference also refers to the thoughts of the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, who was the first to investigate the relationship between Eastern Buddhism and Western psychology and established the first university in the world (namely Naropa University) to integrate these two traditions of thinking and pedagogy.
We believe that mindful, contemplative and compassionate approach can be combined with rigorous, empirical science.
The meeting is and organised by the Polish Mindfulness Association and partially sponsored by the Marpa Institute (www.marpa.pl).

On behalf of the Organising Committee,
Julia E. Wahl

Phakchok Rinpoche in Poland

2008-05-20T13:49:00.000-07:00

I'd like to invite you to participate in Rinpoche's programme in Warsaw, Poland.

Best regards,
Julia

Location: Warsaw
Date: about 20th Sept. 2008
Coordinator: Julia E. Wahl, karmayeshetsomo@gmail.com

Calligraphy again

2008-02-25T13:32:00.000-08:00

'Integrity' by Karen Swallow

Calligraphy

2008-02-25T13:23:00.000-08:00

'Dream' by Xiaoqian Li-Columeau (from http://china-phoenix.net/)

La obra de Joaquín Sorolla Bastida - 'Madre'

2008-02-21T11:29:00.000-08:00

'Safest Place' by Elsa Gidlow

2008-02-21T10:52:00.000-08:00

SAFEST PLACE by Elsa Gidlow

As I lay with you here
In the safest place I have ever known
Your breast beating in my ear
My cheek brushing the softness of you
I wander, in a half-dream
chasing wisps of ideas as they float all around me.

With my eyes closed
I flirt with the world
Inviting it to partake of me
Know me for who I am
and accept me.
I court the danger of its wicked mind
Its vicious tongue
and its damaging beliefs.

I take its hand
Talking to it as I would a child
And show it a gentler place

A place in my woman's arms
Where there is no hatred
No pain or worry
The safest place I have even known

Questions of Travel by Elizabeth Bishop

2008-02-21T04:10:00.000-08:00

ELIZABETH BISHOP

There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.

Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?

But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune
of disparate wooden clogs
carelessly clacking over
a grease-stained filling-station floor.
(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
Each pair there would have identical pitch.)
--A pity not to have heard
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.
--Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.
--Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.
--And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians' speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:

"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?

Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?"

That's how I feel

2008-01-29T14:49:00.000-08:00

Is it courage? Or is it being scared? Or is it both?

H.H. Phakchok Rinpoche

2007-12-31T06:23:00.000-08:00

H.H. Phakchok Rinpoche, my Guru

Nostalgic vision (in my dreams)

2007-12-29T11:35:00.000-08:00

Nostalgic vision (in my dreams)

Memories brought me again to the place that I have once beloved.

Proudly situated on the seven hills^{^[1]}, the city of Lisbon ---

Imperial past and the ocean’s presence,

The humming of the waves.

I can see myself walking through the streets of Alfama ^{^[2]},

I can hear the music of piercing nostalgia ---

Amalia Rodrigues^{^[3]}, the queen of fado^{^[4]} and the longing in her voice...

The pain of parting, disappointment and the romantic loss.

Narrow, winding alleys climb up high,

Portuguese matronas dressed in black,

they intently observe each passing person.

Life in slow motion, I’m drinking my galão^{^[5]}...

Stuffy air, the aroma of vino tinto and porto,

the smoke, the laughter.

The night has come, the city is ablaze with lights

The dream has to end...

^{^[1]} The seven hills of Lisbon: Castelo, Graça, Monte, Penha de França, S. Pedro de Alcântara, Santa Catarina , Estrela

^{^[2]} One of Lisbon’s districts; dated to sometime in 1100 (the name comes from Arabic Al-hamma), it's crowned by the old castle São Jorge

^{^[3]} the singer-songwriter who powerfully personified her country's beautiful Fado music

^{^[4]} Fado music (fate, or destiny) - Fado began as a howl out of the dives and houses of ill repute along the Lisbon waterfront. The lyrics dwell on themes of longing, sadness and fatalism, to a wistful accompaniment made up of guitars and woodwinds. Melodically, Fado draws on Arabic, African and Iberian influences. The Cape Verdean Morna style made famous by Cesaria Evora is a close cousin.

^{^[5]} Coffee (with hot milk) served in tall glasses with a long coffee spoon

Gas chamber of childhood

2007-12-29T10:56:00.000-08:00

Gas chamber of childhood

Julia E. Wahl

Little Adolf, he doesn't understand

His father's persecutions, his grievous acts.

Hitting him with a heavy belt, his father would say, "You have to be a man."

"Father, stop, please stop...”, the little voice begging.

There's no hope in the boy's eyes. Exterior silence, the soul is broken.

Adolf is bleeding, his father is taking the belt away.

He says, "Go eat your supper."

Any reason is good, all reasons are. Hiding in the corner, hoping not to be found.

The maltreation has no end. It will never stop.

30 years and 10 million skeletons later,

He still wakes up at night screaming - "Father, please, stop hitting me".

In the morning he commands to destroy another village,

"Kill the children," he stresses.

Copyright by Julia E. Wahl 2001

PEACE

2007-12-29T09:05:00.000-08:00

Julia E. Wahl

Peace

Zecher Yonatan
In remembrance of Jonathan

Salomon, your father standing there in the Auschwitz uniform, the Shield of David on his shoulder.

Esther, your mother lies naked on a pile of rotten bodies, she has a number tattooed on her forearm.

Rachel, your sister was already dead by then, she died in a ghetto in Łódź^{^[1]}.

And you were nine and you survived, the death march^{^[2]} did not kill you.

You came back to Kraków^{^[3]} but nobody was there anymore.

Your house was empty, only a Menorah standing on the table.

Your school had a Swastika^{^[4]} painted on its wall.

They had to put you in an orphanage, and there were other children with you.

Francio became your best friend, but you had to leave. “You’re going home”, they told you one day, and you didn’t understand but they took anyway.

You finally came to Eretz Yisrael^{^[5]} but it was so different from all that you knew.

And many years have passed but you have not yet found your peace, and every dream reminded you of Cyclone B^{^[6]}.

On your twenty-fifth birthday you married Ofra, a Sephardic^{^[7]} Jew.

“I’m your ‘ahava‘^{^[8]}”, she said, and you almost forgot about the childhood’s horror, about Rabbi Ibn-Ibrahim who was killed on the ‘Kristallnacht’^{^[9]}.

And you were almost free again...

Your wife gave you a son, Salomon you named him after his grandfather.

He was a beautiful boy and when he was older he joined the IDF^{^[10]}.

You were so proud and you would say - “My Dear Solek, what a great soldier he is”.

On the Yom HaShoah^{^[11]} your son was killed, shot by a Palestinian gunman.

You would then visit his grave everyday and pray to ‘Yahweh’ for your final rest as life had no meaning anymore,

And He would listen to your prayers and you would attain your peace.

One spring day you noticed a little boy, the child’s body was shaking with sobs

And you recognized the same fear that you once had in your eyes.

You covered the body of his Palestinian mother.

You took him home, and he became your son.

Peace, that was his name.

________________________________________________________________________

E-mail: KarmaYesheTsomo@gmail.com

________________________________________________________________________

^{^[1]} Lodz Polish city that was home to the first major ghetto in April 1940. 144,000 people lived in 1.6 square miles in September 1941. After growing in size with immigrants from conquered lands, many were sent to Chełmno and in 1944 the ghetto was liquidated and the remaining Jews were sent to Auschwitz

^{^[2]} When Russian armies moved in from the East, the concentration camps were taken apart and the prisoners marched to Germany, in camps such as Bergen-Belsen. A third of the prisoners died in January 1945.

^{^[3]} (Pol.); (Eng.) Cracow; (Ger.) Krakau - A city in Poland, not so far from Auschwitz-Birkenau camps

^{^[4]} Symbol of the Nazis, a cross with equal arms bent at a right angle. It was an ancient symbol of good luck and is a contemporary symbol of the Hindu religion. Some believe the Swastika was the root of the Indo-European scripts

^{^[5]} (Heb.) The Land of Israel

^{^[6]} Zyklon B While other gas chambers used carbon monoxide, Auschwitz used this cyanide gas made of prussic acid from a company partly owned by I.G. Farben

^{^[7]} of Mediterranean Jewish tradition

^{^[8]} (Heb.) love [n]

^{^[9]} "Night of Broken Glass," Nazi pogrom on Nov. 9-10, 1938; the worst pogrom ever, it marked the Holocaust's start

^{^[10]} Israeli Defence Forces

^{^[11]} Holocaust Memorial Day