​​
Closed to the outside world from the mid-1800s, the ban shielded Tibet from the hungry eyes of colonial Britain and expansionist China.

For her, incognito was the name of the game.

Alexandra adopted local dress, staining her clothes. She darkened face and hands with soot to match the weathered look of local villagers. 

She squatted by the track, out in the open, when she needed to poop.

Like I said, incognito.
​
Why make the dangerous journey?
​
“From my youth I felt attracted toward Tibet, drawn by its hidden hermits, its highest initiation, and the profoundest doctrines of Buddhism. I longed to reach the land where these teachings were still guarded by wandering yogis.” 
(paraphrased from her own words)


She'd long prepared for the trip, studying Tibetan language at the Sorbonne in Paris in her twenties.

Little did Alexandra guess she sparked an ongoing tradition: an active curiosity amongst Westerners for Tibet’s spiritual riches.


Ironically, when China invaded Tibet in 1959, the very knowledge-holders Alexandra had sought were forced into exile. Much was destroyed and millions of lives lost, yet a handful of yogis and scholars escaped into India and Nepal, carrying sacred texts, fragile manuscripts, and their living traditions.


By the time the footsore Tibetan exiles arrived, the 1960s had dawned. Hippies and seekers were on the trail: wide-eyed, curious, and more than ready for what the lamas brought with them.

​
To be continued  ...

​
STORY THREE

​Why tell the story of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche?

Why tell the story of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche?

Tulku Urgyen was father to four sons (being a householder yogi rather than a celibate monastic).


Each son, as gifted as their father in learning and meditation, shared a ready sense of humour.


1

Son Number One, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche was born in Tibet and escaped with his father and family, aged eight.
A student once asked Chokyi if he could read minds.


“No, no… I just watch your faces. They tell me everything.”  Then he added, “If you want privacy, relax your forehead.”



2

 Sadly, after a productive life overseeing monasteries, nunneries, and practice centres in Tibet, India, Bhutan, and Sikkim, the second son Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche died from a stroke-related illness in 2020, aged 68.


​
3

Son Number Three, Tsoknyi, was born in Nepal in 1966.

Once during a retreat, a woman told Tsoknyi Rinpoche she felt tense, tight, and spiritually “not good enough.” He listened, nodded, and replied:

“First thing: eat more chocolate. Then meditate."

She burst out laughing, just as he intended. Then he explained:
“When the body relaxes, the mind stops attacking itself.”



4

Son Number Four is Mingyur Rinpoche, born 1975. 

An airport security officer once asked Mingyur, a robed monastic, what he did for a living.

Mingyur Rinpoche replied, smiling: “I teach people to do nothing, very well.” The officer stared, confused, and waved him through without further questions.


An interesting detail about Mingyur Rinpoche is that he suffered debilitating panic attacks from childhood until a young teen. 


Surprising, eh? Wouldn't you consider someone from a long line of meditators to be above such things? Aren't panic attacks for common folk such as us?


What's that all about?


Find out in the next post!

Young Mingyur's panic attacks began around age seven or eight. His neck would tighten, breath constrict, and heart thump, bringing on fears of a heart attack.


Where did the fear come from?


The occasional violent weather of the Himalayas terrified him. 

"The snow doesn’t just come from above. It comes from every direction," he wrote. "Winds can be so strong that they shake the whole house. At those times, I would cling to a pillar to secure myself."

Stranger danger further unseated the shy child: "If somebody new came to my village, I’d get scared. If they came to my home, I’d panic."

His mother took him to doctors who gave him a clean bill of health. The next step was to consult his yogi father. 


Could meditation help? 

Tulku Urgyen taught Mingyur how to safely notice the sensations of panic with curiosity, rather than avoiding or fighting them head-on.

He showed him how to use breath and sound awareness as support for connecting with the wider sky of awareness behind the 'clouds' of panic.

In time, Mingyur discovered calm inside the chaos.

Learning to 'be with' and eventually overcome the panic attacks inspired the direction of Mingyur Rinpoche's teachings today.


 Retreat 

Meanwhile, young Mingyur's life didn't stand still. Despite the vestiges of panic, he embarked on his first three-year meditation retreat at age thirteen. 

That's right, thirteen. Although a very young age to start a long retreat, he badgered his father until he got the okay.

Think that's amazing? Wait till you hear the rest of the story. There's more to come!

​

​STORY FIVE

​

Imagine if your CV looked like this:

👉 Your first three-year retreat starts aged thirteen (unusual for your age group). Your longstanding panic attacks are gone by the time you emerge at 17.

👉 You start a second three-year retreat straight away, taking on the duties of retreat master (coz your learning is so remarkable).

That takes care of ages 13-20.

From ages 20-25, you’ll be assistant professor at the same monastery where you've been doing retreat and before long, abbot as well.

The monastery is the prestigious Sherab Ling in northern India, home to approx 750-1,000 Tibetan monks.

You'll pursue your own advanced academic Buddhist studies alongside your duties and take spurts of time for personal solitary retreat.

Busy boy about to get busier.


👉 The international stage awaits. 

By your mid-20s, you're teaching meditation and Buddhism internationally, garnering a wide audience both in the West and in Asia. 

Neuroscientists want you.

Leading neuroscientists invite you to participate in cutting edge research to measure the effects of meditation on advanced meditators. (You look quite a sight with your head connected up to the tabs and wires of an EEG machine).

Of course, the neuroscientists are blown away by the impressive results. 


👉 But wait, there’s more. 

You’re about to turn a big corner.


😮 YOU'RE ABOUT TO WALK AWAY. 😮


Age 36, your heart’s desire is to follow in the footsteps of the yogis of old in a traditional multi-year "wandering retreat".

A wandering retreat?

That is, wandering from place to place, for years on end, no fixed address, no maroon robes, no shoes, no status, no assistants, no money, no comfort, no contacts, long hair, total insecurity, completely incognito.

You'll have to beg for food. You'll dedicate your long, unoccupied days to meditation.

Here’s the kicker: to successfully pull it off, you'll need to slip out of the monastery unnoticed, in the dead of night.


Can you do it? 


Our upcoming final story tells how Mingyur Rinpoche quietly left his monastery one summer night, leaving a 'gone fishing' style note.


BTW, Mingyur Rinpoche authored a New York Times bestseller The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness, in 2007.
​

​

​STORY SIX


An empty room

One ordinary summer lunchtime in 2011, an attendant knocked on Mingyur Rinpoche’s door … no answer. Looking inside, an empty room greeted him with a goodbye letter on the desk.
“By the time you find this letter, I’ll have begun a long retreat. (Don't worry, I'm not having a mid-life crisis”). read the full letter here

He sent his love and promised to be back. Err, in a few years' time.

Years earlier he'd confided in his father, Tulku Urgyen, about his plans. (Remember him from email #2, the guy who’d escaped Tibet after the vision of the dakini?)

“If you really want to do this,” his father had cautioned, “don’t tell anyone, including our family members. Just go and it will be good for you.”


On return to his monastery in 2015, after four and a half years wandering penniless, Mingyur Rinpoche resumed his regular projects and responsibilities. 

He called on writer friend Helen Tworkov, to help pen a memoir recounting important insights from the first month of retreat, a period of adjustment which had been particularly difficult, challenging and instructive. (quotes below)

*In Love with the World: A Monk's Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and Helen Tworkov, Random House, 2019.


Alone


Slipping out of the Bodhgaya monastery had gone according to plan (tick ✔️).

But matters quickly went pear-shaped, emotionally.

Mingyur Rinpoche had not calculated the effect of being alone for the very first time in his life. It hit him like a ton of bricks.

As a special lama, he'd always had attendants and been surrounded by people who loved him. 

His practical skills were non-existent: he'd never even bought a train ticket.

On reaching the local Gaya station, exhilaration turned to horror on finding himself engulfed in the squalor and noise of a crowded Indian railway platform.


Train travel

Idealistically, he'd opted to travel third-class (a new experience). It would be a long ride, an overnight trip to Varanasi. (Have you ever encountered third-class on an Indian train? Intense.)

“I anticipated that getting onto the train would diminish some anxiety. But the time spent flattened against the door by a human wall instead provoked more anxiety. I assumed that things would be better when I found a place to sit on the floor, but the continuous contact with strangers falling against me made me feel isolated and agitated. I thought it would be more comfortable when I found a place on the bench, but shortly after, I panicked at the sound of the train whistle."

The hard stone floor of destination railway station, Varanasi, was his initial plan for the next three nights. However, rats running helter-skelter prompted a switch to the grotty dormitory provided by the station. 

After the stipulated three nights maximum, time to move on.


Where to now?

Nearby Kushinagar would do. It's a pilgrimage site marking the place where the Buddha went to die. Mingyur Rinpoche has a brief stint in a simple hostel until his money runs out. 
Every. last. rupee.
All. gone.
That night he dines on leftovers begged from a restaurant.


He sleeps in a grove near the Buddha’s cremation monument.

“As the light faded, I could not believe it … my first night outside. ... I was now adrift. ... All my life I had been in the presence of others, but I had not recognised the cushioned depth of protection they provided. … I was seized by the full weight of solitude, the feeling of being very far from safety and utterly undefended. “



Severe food poisoning


Prophetic. The restaurant leftovers turn out to be spoiled.

A serious bout of food poisoning that lasts days, ensues.

A dangerously high fever and he’s all alone.

The thirst! To get water means stumbling to a water pump under the unbearably hot sun. The repeated exertion, along with gastro, weakens him.

It gets worse and worse.

Oh dear, here it comes ... death (almost).



Rescue

In a stroke of good fortune, someone he’d met on the grounds in previous days happens to be passing by and notices Rinpoche’s limp body collapsed beside the pump.

Hospital.

He returns to consciousness strong, confident, grateful and in love with the world.


Long story short


For common folk like me, the whole thing would be a huge trauma.
Mingyur Rinpoche was, you could say, prepared.

Remember all that monastic training and the long retreats? His training had been all about the mind and the heart: in the waking state, the dreaming state and (a speciality of Tibetan Buddhism) through the process of death.

He was able to stay lucid and curious through the death process. (If you're finding this a bit of a stretch, I'm hearing you.)

Anyway, long story short, the near-death experience was transformational.

The upshot was courage and joy; he felt completely supported by the world, day and night, from then on. He was able to complete his wandering retreat on the plains of India in the winter and caves of the Himalayas in the summer.



In Rinpoche's own words:

Later, in an interview with Buddhist magazine, Lion's Roar:

What was it like to go from being an important Buddhist teacher living in comfort in a monastery to an anonymous sadhu, the ascetic Hindu yogis who beg and live on the streets of India?

"It was a good way to practice my meditation on letting go.

“The best part was being able to travel freely, with no commitment or schedule. It was complete freedom, like a bird flying in the sky. Of course, it was not without fear. I was homeless ... I would beg, and people would give me some money or food. Other times, they would just tell me to go away. 

“Now, through this experience, I feel I am free like a bird soaring high in the sky. I am free and can fly everywhere.

“(That doesn’t mean that I can fly, okay? Don’t think that I can fly!)




Warm wishes, Shakti 🧡

This is the final instalment in a series of six Tibet-related stories as a prelude to Anytime Anywhere Meditation. 

Go to Tergar International to find a teacher near you for the ANYTIME ANYWHERE MEDITATION, either in-person or online.


PS,

IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD


Rinpoche's book, In Love with the World, is interspersed with remarkably clear observations about mind and life, and about managing difficult feelings like fear and pain, which Rinpoche relates to his own challenges during the wandering retreat. 

For example:
​

• Fear weakens when it is fully felt and observed, rather than avoided, analysed, or controlled.

 

• The more rigid our sense of self, the more surface we provide for the arrows of pain to hit.

 

• The universal orientation towards happiness and away from suffering points to an innate quality: our basic goodness.

 

• We can practice noticing the spacious awareness that is with us in the background all the time and be supported by it.

Understanding that many of us don’t have much time but still seek meaningful change, Mingyur Rinpoche created this short, comprehensive program to make meditation accessible and practical for modern life, drawing upon his extensive training and personal experiences.

You know what it's like.
​

You pick up your phone to do something specific, and before you know it you're scrolling through a bunch of videos.

Catching my eye the other day: a baker moulding dough into a massive balloon that constantly shifted shape like a creature alive. 
​
Hands folding, slapping, turning, stretching the dough. ​

Letting in the air.
Filling the dough with space.


That's what meditation can do for your mind.

Make it flexible, stretchy, workable. A good dough.

How? Through a simple, disciplined training.

Yup, the serene meditator, still as a statue, might look like they're blank inside, peaceful, thought-free. Kinda checked out, mentally.
​

But that's not the case.

They're actually busy fielding incoming thoughts, looking for gaps, stepping back, observing the circus, making space.

​

If you're reading this before February 2024, it's not too late to join the Finding Spaciousness course! (places allowing, I favour small groups of up to eight participants so you can get personal attention and meet your meditation needs.)

Join me to discover how meditation can knead space and flexibility into the dough of your daily mind.

​

​

Grab a cuppa, fluff up the pillows, settle in.

Here's a tale about my mother-in-law Aileen, who moved to Kyogle from Sydney in 1996 at the ripe old age of 80. Motivated by escape from Sydney winters, her sights were on Southeast Qld but there was a catch: her older brother Keith. ​

Keith had suffered from bi-polar since his late teens. Out of all nine siblings, big-hearted Aileen took it upon herself to see he was looked after through the decades. Nish, as a kid, remembers Keith over at their place, talking to the mantelpiece.

Aileen wanted to move but refused to leave Keith behind in Sydney at the Salvos home where he lived.

What to do? She wanted him nearby, where she could bring him the regulation carton of cigarettes, but there were no beds for him in Queensland.




THICK AS THIEVES


Enter the knight in shining armour, my partner Nish, who had a spectacular brainwave. "How about I try Kyogle, mum?" He rang Kyogle aged care (in those days housed at the old hospital building). 


Miracle of miracles: they had a bed! Available straight away!


The very next DAY Keith was flown up from Sydney (for free). Aileen followed soon after. We'd found her a lovely flat in Kyogle Rd; her sale in Sydney came through just in time. 

Two years later our son Ned was born; grandma and grandson became thick as thieves. Keith passed away; Aileen and Ned endured until she died the year Ned was in Year 6. Sadly missed!!





SAVOURING PRACTICE


I tell this story in connection with the negativity bias, the ingrained habit of the brain to focus on bad news and overlook the good. And its remedy, gratitude and savouring practice.


For months, for years on end, Aileen never tired of recounting the chain of auspicious events:
​

• We found a bed for Keith immediately that brought her to wonderful Kyogle.

• He was up here the next day.

• She had a lovely new unit, she couldn't have asked for better. And in walking distance to Keith.

• Kyogle is wonderful, the people are wonderful, she rarely has to vaccy, and doesn't have to wear stockings.

• We’ve given her an adorable grandson.

By recounting the feel-good moments again and again, Aileen was demonstrating, without meaning to, a sure-fire route to flourishing mental health.



CLINICAL STUDY


A study from 2017 gave worriers the chance to try one of two practices: mindfulness meditation or savouring various activities. The result? Savouring offers benefits similar to meditation—and some additional ones.

Both mindfulness meditation AND savouring improved participants’ anxiety, negative emotions, and curiosity. The marked benefit of savouring over mindfulness meditation however, was to boost participants’ positive emotions. (Though to overcome negative rumination, mindfulness meditation won the day).




A BOOST


Savouring practice isn't something unfamiliar; it's similar to gratitude, tho takes it a bit further. 


Both gratitude and savouring are proven reliable methods for increasing happiness and life satisfaction, while boosting optimism, joy, pleasure, enthusiasm, and other positive emotions.


Savouring is unique in that it includes a somatic component: drinking in the good at the level of body sensation. You absorb the good feelings. Marinate in them.

Your nervous system will love you for it.



copyright Shakti Burke 2023

Photo by Maria Kovalets on Unsplash

​

​

​How do you like your towels?

Rough and scratchy? Raspy as sandpaper? Not a fan of gravel rash? Me neither.
 
Soft and fluffy! Lovely on the skin and does a better drying job, too*.


 
You can create a soft, silky environment in the mind when your meditation includes self-kindness.

​
​
With guidance, you'll discover a simplicity that is supportive and rejuvenating. No matter how antsy you are at the start.

 
Meditation points you to your north star. The place you feel comfortable with yourself.



Happy just being.
​

Cheers, Shakti x


 
*Apparently best practice for a fluffy towel is (1) not too much detergent (2) not too much heat: a hot wash and hot drier batters cotton fibres.

JOIN MY ONLINE SELF-COMPASSION INTENSIVE

OVER FOUR EVENINGS IN MARCH 2023


A chance to cultivate warm-heartedness and support your wise heart.
Four Wednesday evenings 75 minutes each
March 8th - 29th 2023

6pm - 7.15 AEST (Australian eastern standard time)

AUD $80
early bird $70 by 25th February
​

Not up for a read? Listen instead.

 
SUSPICIOUS?
 
Our bravado culture is suspicious of self-compassion.
 

• What if it saps our motivation?

• Loses my drive, my edge?
• Isn’t it a bit soppy?
• Self-centered?
• Self-absorbed?

 
 
Helloooo.

Who ever felt better from self-criticism, overwork, aggression, shame or feeling unworthy?
 
The stoic approach?
No one wins.
 
In fact the opposite is true.
 
 
 
VETERANS

 
Clinical research by Dr Kristin Neff (University of Texas at Austin) into PTSD in returned veterans found:
 
The factor determining whether the veterans would slide into PTSD was not the amount of combat they’d seen.
 
It was their level of self-compassion.
 
Whether they could be kindness toward themselves. Instead of self-flagellating or feeling like a failure.
 
 
SELFISH?
 
A study of 100 couples, trained in self-kindness, showed they have the edge on un-trained bods. They are:

• More caring.
• More capable of intimacy, and kinder.
• Less controlling, grant more freedom in the relationship.
• Get angry less often.

 
It seems when we’re wrapped up in our own shortcomings, failures, mistakes and misdemeanours- ie, not self-compassionate- we have less to give to others.
​

And more blame to dole out.
 

Listen to the FAQ:

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN I NEED SELF-KINDNESS?


You’ll be:

• “Shoulding”

Look out for the “shoulds”! I should be …, I should have, they should have …

• Overthinking

During difficulty, we panic and throw everything at a scrappy quick fix.

• Blaming

Blaming seems easier than feeling the feels.

• Avoiding

We push away the feel of discomfort by overdoing other stuff (food, substances, streaming)

• Feeling alone

A big part of self-kindness is taking the birds eye view and recognising that suffering is a familiar and shared human territory. We're not alone, we're connected!

 


WHAT'S THE HARDEST THING ABOUT SELF KINDNESS? 
​

• Recognising you need it.

Empathy towards our self is never our first reaction. Fear always takes precedence.

• Feeling guilty about needing it. Or superior. Or unworthy.
•  Self-centred, weak, soft, soppy?

The opposite proves to be true.


Self-kindness has us strong and resilient. It expands our horizons.  We’re better able to step outside our head and see a situation clearly. We're no longer absorbed by our thoughts or captive to harmful reactions.


​
What's not to love!!!
​
Self-kindness: it's the strength you need.

Illustration by Art Attack on Unsplash

 Shakti Burke is a mindfulness enthusiast based in northern NSW, Australia.
www.joyfulmind.net.au
Invite me to be a presenter at your online course.
​

They do that, spiders. Dash. Out of nowhere. Suddenly.

Son, who has a serious spider phobia, squeals, shrieks and  squirms.
 
“Oh for heavens sake” I mutter, calm cool mum. “It’s only a spider”.
 
There's lots of them around here, it’s bushland. Of an evening they spread their hand-sized bodies on window or wall, fleuro green night-eyes glowing like  sci-fi jewels.

 
ACTION STATIONS

Here we are, the car and the wriggling, squealing son.
The nonchalant mother.

As far as huntsmen go, it was quite a small one. I wasn’t too concerned.
Until… until!
 
All of a sudden the spider sprints over to my end of the dash.
 
It races down the upholstery towards the steering wheel ... crikey, soon its furry crawly body will be all over my hands!
 
I slam on the brakes, thud to a stop, jump out the door screaming “abandon ship!”
 
Agghhhhhhhh!
 
To this day, my grown son calls the story (amid his hilarity), ‘abandon ship’.

 
RUN AWAY!
 
The story is a good example of the “flight” side of the autonomic nervous system. Flight to escape.
 
Flight as opposed to ‘fight’.

(Fight, for goodness sake, who’s about to engage in hand-to-hand combat with a ginormous spider!)

'Fight or Flight' go hand-in-hand in discussions of the stress response.
 
"Flight" in this instance was automatic, instantaneous. And appropriate. I didn’t have to think too much about it; it just happened. 

 
APPROPRIATE?
 
But ‘flight’ is not always appropriate. 
 
Thing is, in our post-stone age world, the knee-jerk 'flight' aspect of the nervous system is often ... err, stone age. Great for escaping spiders … but look how it carries over to humdrum situations, reaching into our body and keeping our system on high alert.


FLIGHT SITUATIONS 

Less appropriate flight is when we're:

• Seized by the desire to run away during a tedious argument with spouse.

 

• Over-indulge in stimulants to escape our woes.

​

• Watch endless Netflix re-runs instead of getting down to that damn assignment/run/whatever/ we promised our self.

​

• Wishing we were somewhere else instead of content to be where we are ... even when that is actually quite a nice place.

 
Flight is when we flit into a doorway to avoid the difficult person approaching down the street. It’s in action when kids gaze out the window to escape a boring school lesson.

It's when we can't concentrate.

It's physically compelling. Flight is not abstract. It reaches deep into our body, sparking electric sensations, confusion, restlessness.
 
Flight is escape. It’s the desperate, undeniable need to run away, abandon ship. Flee the spider. Leave the premises, whether that premises is an external place or somewhere in our heart and feelings.

 
LEARN TO NOTICE FLIGHT
 
We can learn to recognise the sensations of flight.

​Start to notice how it feels in the body. How it trips the mind. Just noticing, as it's happening, gives you the power to intervene. To chose your response rather than be dumped in it. 


 

.

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