Customer Reviews

Change of Heart: The Bodhisattva Peace Training of Chagdud Tulku

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When all the huffing and puffing won't make your life the way you would like for it to be, read Change of Heart. It will shake up your thinking about the world and those in it. Change of Heart is an outstanding book consoling readers with knowledge, instruction and inspiration for living a radiant meaningful life. The reader, looking in the rearview mirror of their past, will be able to determine how the unplowed ground of the future will be. Change of Heart is broken down into three parts along with a list of meditations.

The compiled teachings takes you on a voyage of discovering areas of yourself you had never been keenly aware of before as you stride toward spiritual freedom. The book outlines a course of instruction called Bodhisattva Peace Training, which is friendly to all faiths. The reader will find help for troubled relationships, family, workplace, community, and/or world problems and situations. Bodhisattva Peace Training "is meant to serve as a mirror with which to examine ourselves". It explains how fear, self-interest and impulse toward self-preservation attracts negative energy. The book continues on to outline and teach you how to make "good heart" the foundation of all your commitments.

Statements like "awakening good heart is like finding a precious gem in a mound of filth" and "commitment to free all beings from suffering" are simply teasers for the mound of philosophical information to be had by reading this book.

The shared conversations with Rinpoche are unforgettable and chronicles the questions about life and soul proving the more crowded life gets the more insulated people make themselves which leads to a life of boundaries rather than freedoms. As the book points out the choice is ours. It goes one to explain about karma, being in hell, and the hungry ghost realms.

I found particularly interesting the four powers of purification which are support, acknowledgment, taking responsibility, not repeating mistakes and purification. The intense and direct conversations about karma are awe inspiring and engaging. As the book states wealth and poverty are a state of mind. When you finish this book you know that something of importance is at stake - you. Change of Heart shows you how to live your life with courageous honesty. I learned a lot from this jewel of clarity and insight and will re-read it many times.

Sherry Russell GMS
Author/reviewer
Midwest Book Review

"To bring forth good heart," explains Chagdud Tulku, "we must use spiritual methods. We are never too old or too young to do so. One of the key points of these teachings is that everyone can apply them." Change of Heart is a compilation of the Bodhisattva Peace Training sessions of Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, a beloved Tibetan lama who passed away in 2002. Tulku's stories and analogies to teach us how to counteract old habits through meditation. The practical and effective meditation exercises increase our awareness of our connectedness and expand our capacity for love, joy, and compassion.

As Westerners, we might find it difficult to relate to some of the Buddhist concepts regarding karma, suffering, past lives, and impermanence. It's not necessary that we embrace these concepts, only that we contemplate them. The purpose of these teachings is not to impose the Buddhist beliefs upon us, but rather to provide a method for increasing outer and inner peace for all beings. It doesn't mean we need to retreat from the world or abandon our normal lifestyle. "It is a matter of bringing love, compassion, and awareness to everything we do," says Tulku. "The merit of helping others, dedicated to all beings, is boundless and becomes a powerful force for positive change. Continually contemplate impermanence and cultivate nonattachment. Practice contemplation and relaxation. Review your day, reflecting on the virtue and negativity. The point of our practice is not to have visionary or clairvoyant experiences, but to reduce mind's poisons and enhance our positive qualities. Ultimately, change is the key - to change the heart, to discover mind's true nature."

Tulku advocates a meditation technique that alternates between a state of contemplation and relaxation. "Contemplating without resting is like stirring the sediment in a pond. On the other hand, resting without contemplating is like practicing archery without a target. We cut through mental dullness and attachment to emptiness through contemplation. Then we cut our attachment to concepts by letting the mind rest.. We go back and forth, so that we are neither consumed by swirling concepts nor lost in a dull or comalike state of free thought." One of my favorite exercises is to contemplate that we have all known each other during at least one lifetime. It helps me dissipate the tension that can arise when I'm around people who are angry, prejudiced, or resentful. "There are no real strangers anywhere;" Tulku theorizes, "we have previously been intimate with every being as we have been with our own mother in this life. No matter what role someone plays now, that being has at one time been our parent."
Regarding parenting, Tulku encourages us to be sincere with our children. Young children respond well to stories that convey a lesson. And above all, he advises that "The most effective way for parents to teach their children spiritual values is to live them - to demonstrate respect, loving kindness, and compassion."
Acceptance and compassion are the foundation of effective communication and relationships. "When we work with others," Tulku reminds us that "it is most important for us to be accepting. No matter how right you may think you are, trying to impose your opinion on others is wrong."
The Western world is a self-centered society. Many people remain focused on our own well being and take little action to ensure the well being of the world community. This is manifested by our obsession with the acquisition of material goods, supersized homes, and exclusive ideologies. Tulku comments that "To be of greater benefit, we must develop equanimity, an equal regard for all beings; compassion, the wish that all suffering come to an end; love, the aspiration that all beings find both temporary and lasting happiness; and the ability to rejoice in others' good fortune. Our challenge is to let go of our judgements and biases, including the distinctions we make between victim and aggressor."

The Bodhisattva Peace Training of Chagdud Tulku is an excellent tool for cultivating inner peace and helping us removing the veil of our misperceptions. "We have a deeply ingrained habit of believing that our everyday reality - this long dream we call life - is inherently true. This is ignorance. Because we don't realize that we're dreaming, we have attachment or aversion to the different circumstances that arise. The mind is like a television's remote control," observes Tulku. If we know how to change channels, we can change the picture."

Based on the oral teachings of one of the most accomplished teachers to come to the West from Tibet, this book demonstrates the wise teaching style of Chagdud Tulku. Since the book contains many question and answer sessions, the reader is able to see this teacher in action as he zeros in on the questions behind the doubts and confusion of Western students. The path to peace begins with us, with our daily lives and interactions with others. With the guidance provided in this book, it is a path that we can begin today. We should all be deeply grateful that this great wisdom has been made available to us in such an easily accessible form. Book also makes a great gift.

We don't all have the good fortune (karma) to meet a great Tibetan Buddhist teacher much less receive their teachings. With this book, Lama Shenpen Drolma has provided many of us with that precious opportunity. Here in straight forward terms are the basic principles we all need to understand how we can cultivate peace in our lives and in the world. After reading it front to back, I flip open the book almost daily as a practice for establishing a more contented life. This happiness is not just for me but also for all of the people that I encounter. Try it - you'll be surprised at how quickly you can make this change of heart.

Regularly, I am reminded of the depth and breadth of Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche's genius. His project, the Bodhisattva Peace Training, is a very good example of this. Lama Shenpen has done the world a genuine service by organizing these teachings into an approachable text, and by keeping the training going for professionals and others interested in helping. Chagdud Tulku not only generated the Peace Training, but also trained lamas such as Lama Shenpen to keep his work going and to help it grow. That is practical genius, motivated by a genuine desire to be helpful.

To be quicker: the Bodhisattva Peace Training has real intelligence behind it. It's the real deal, and I believe it can be of real use to people and the planet.

Gratitude!

Compiled and edited for contemporary readers by Lama Shenpen Drolma, Change Of Heart: The Bodhisattva Peace Training Of Chagdud Tulku is a collection of teachings and wisdom in Buddhist philosophy and practice conducted by His Eminence Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, a spiritual leader born in Tibet who came to the United States in 1979 and created centers for the study and practice of Vajrayana Buddhism throughout North and South America, Europe, and Australia, and taught passionately and tirelessly until his passing in November 2002. Dialogues brimming with insight, respect, and the personal responsibility of improving and transforming the self form the core of this powerful and very welcome addition to Buddhist Studies reading lists and reference collections.

This beautiful book should be required reading for every business student, politician, and employer in the U.S. It wouldn't hurt parents a bit to read it and work it as well. We all have occasions in our lives to exert power over someone else, and too often we act out of emotions that end up causing trouble for us, problems we never saw ahead. Chagdud Tulku's Socratic method opens our hearts as it quiets our minds. Glimpses and examples of compassionate resolutions to conflict are inspiring. I plan on giving this book to Mark Greif, a high school principal in Oregon who annually alienates students and staff at his school with his bullying, paranoid management style. The beauty of the Tulku's message is that even the karmic damage someone like Greif self-inflicts is reversible through compassion and greater awareness. Chagdud Tulku writes with a poet's insight, a spiritual mentor's heart.

--Robert McDowell ("The Poetry Mentor"), author of the forthcoming book, Poetry in Your Spiritual Practice)

This book is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read... it is really helpful to, literally, change your heart.
Apply the teachings and you'll see. Enjoy!

I highly recommend this book to whoever is interested in the path of compassion and having a kind heart. It is not about just being "nice". It is about having peace in one's life in the midst of so much change and challenge. This book is full of real life examples to how to deal with difficult situations and look at them in different angles that will make them easier to work with.