Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, eldest son of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939-1987) and spiritual director of Shambhala International, is unique in the world of spiritual leaders. Having grown up and been educated in Tibet, India, Scotland, England and Boulder (including part of a year at Fairview High School), he bridges East and West. Mipham Rinpoche¹s father, Chögyam Trungpa, founded Naropa University and a Buddhist organization, Vajradhatu, which became an international network of meditation centers.

      Mipham Rinpoche received teachings and empowerments from many great teachers of Tibetan Buddhism. In 1995, he was formally installed as Sakyong, leader of both the spiritual and secular aspects of Shambhala, a Buddhist tradition emphasizing the basic goodness of all beings and teaching the art of courageous warriorship based on wisdom and compassion. The enthronement formalized Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche¹s lifelong commitment to work with others towards creating an enlightened society.

      Mipham Rinpoche recently visited Boulder as part of an international tour to promote his new book, Turning the Mind into an Ally (Riverhead Books, 2003). When not traveling, he lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Mipham Rinpoche spoke with Nexus publisher Ravi Dykema in Boulder about his youth, about the meaning of enlightenment, about the art of meditation and the path of spirituality.RD: I have read that you have a lifelong commitment to creating an enlightened society. What is an enlightened society?

SMR: In Buddhist tradition, there is a bodhisattva vow, a vow to dedicate your life to others. I think that¹s an ideal. Then there¹s what we¹re really able to do we make a commitment to be able to help others, to move forward or live together in an enlightened spirit or enlightened way, to be more compassionate with each other. If everybody is working together to benefit others, then society is more livable. So, rather than a fictional Utopian place, an enlightened society is more of a path-oriented practice.

      I think everybody has some kind of fundamental, basic goodness, and I think there¹s a meeting place where we all can move toward creating an enlightened society. Everybody has their own journey. In the Shambhala tradition, we have particular meditations and practices which we do so we can contribute to the world at large. That is very broad, but you can have an enlightened society within your own family, within your own community, within your own meditation center.

      One of the practices that is central to creating an enlightened society is meditation. But when people go to a meditation center, they often become very focused on themselves. In the beginning, getting healthy and knowing yourself is really important. But at a certain point, thinking about myself ceases to be fulfilling. Thinking about others and having the genuine motivation of what we call aspirational compassion or aspirational love becomes more inspiring.

      One misconception is that people think meditation is about being a recluse. But in meditation, ideally, you¹re training your mind and getting to know yourself. That gives you the strength and potency to actually see the suffering of others and then benefit them. That can be done in a small way, whether it¹s just letting somebody go in front of you in line or saying a kind word. If you make enough of these small gestures, it begins to build up. A monumental action isn¹t necessary.

RD: Tell us about your past. You spent a significant part of your childhood in Boulder, didn¹t you?

SMR: Yes, but I also traveled a lot to India. I went to one year of high school at Fairview, then I was pulled out to do a retreat and spend time with my father. When I was in school, I would always have to go to programs and seminars and things like that. It was difficult keeping any kind of continuity. I never graduated from high schoolmy father got very sick, and then he died, and I just never went back. Then the Tibetan lamas wanted me to go to India and study, so I did that. I was always trying to balance this life of being American and being Tibetan.

RD: And you speak English with virtually no accent.

SMR: When I came to the United States, I actually had a heavy Scottish accent, because I learned English in Scotland. Then I moved to Sussex, which is in the south of England, so I talked like this [he changes his accent] when I came over here.

RD: You were born in Bodhagaya, India, while your mother was on a pilgrimage so she was on a pilgrimage when she was very pregnant, which strikes me as an odd time to travel if she didn¹t have to.

SMR: Well, it was an odd situation. My parents escaped from Tibet in 1959. They had met in Tibet she was a nun, and she had just come out of retreat, where she¹d been for 13 or 14 years. My father was a High Lama visiting the area to do annual teaching. He had a vision that he would meet her, but he was a monk and she was a nun.

RD: Their union went against their celibacy vows, I assume.

SMR: Oh, sure. But my father felt that it was important for him to get married and have children. Obviously, some of the people in the monastery weren¹t very happy about that. But one day, together they escaped the Chinese who had invaded Tibet and then went to India. My father told my mother, ³You¹re going to have a child, and this child¹s going to be good for the Buddha dharma² (dharma is the teaching) and so forth. He wrote what we call a lungdten< it¹s like a prophetic letter. One of the things he told her was that she should try to go on a pilgrimage, especially to Bodhagaya and Varanasi.br>       So she went, and when she was in Bodhagaya, she gave birth to me in a cave. We went from there, maybe a week later, to Varanasi, which is about six hours away. My father was waiting there. He said I should stay in India for a certain number of years, and then he wanted me to come to the West. When I was a couple of years old, I was recognized as a tulku, an incarnate lama. But my father didn¹t want me to go to the monastery, as would have been customary he wanted me to come with him to the West. Until I was eight, I lived in refugee camps in northwest India with my mother.

RD: Those years in the refugee village must have been very significant for you. I assume you have many memories from that time.

SMR: When I think back, I remember that it was tough in terms of physical surroundings. But I didn¹t know any different. That was just the way it was. I think Tibetans tend to have a resilient nature and to be generally cheerful and optimistic. People were together, and there was plenty of food provided by the Indian government. And at one of the main camps, there was a monastery being built, so we were associated with this monastery. The other thing is that in Tibet, tent life is very common. We understood what it was like to live in a tent.
 
RD: Was there any kind of status difference among the people in the camp?

SMR: Sure. Everybody knew where people came from and who was who. My family background especially my father¹s side, being connected with King Gesar and that whole Shambhala lineage, and also his being a very high abbott had relevance. I was being trained to be a lama. If you were just an ordinary person, a nomadic child, people didn¹t expect you to do that.
      When I was seven, I went to live with my father at Samye Ling Meditation Center in Scotland for a couple of years. I moved to England after that, and I was educated in English schools, before moving to Boulder to join my father in 1971. In Boulder, I continued my Buddhist studies along with receiving a Western education. I also received training in contemplative arts like kyudo (Japanese archery), calligraphy and horsemanship.

RD: During this time, I assume you were being prepared for a role of leadership in Tibetan Buddhism. At what point did you decide you were going to go along with that?

SMR: I think I¹d always known. Even when I was in India, when I was a boy, my mother says I would always get up in the middle of the night or early in the morning and pack my bag and say, ³I¹m going to Dishumluungba.² She said, ³I don¹t know where you got that idea from, but you were possessed by it.² It wasn¹t a real place I made it up. And also very early, I would say, ³Take me to the monastery. I want to do the puja.² I always wanted to do the puja (a religious ceremony) and to be in the monastery, so I had some kind of connection to the dharma (the teachings of Buddhism) very early on. It was certainly not forced upon me.
      Some of the other young lamas were told what to do and where to go: ³You have to go to the puja, you have to do this and that.² I always had a certain intention of wanting to be involved in the dharma and Buddhism. My father was very supportive, but he never pushed it. I never felt like I had to follow this path. At the same time, when I was in school, I realized that was the only kind of normal freedom I would get, because I knew as I got older, I was going to have to do more and more.

RD: Did you, at some point, rebel?

SMR: I went through a period where I wanted to make my own decisions and do things my way. And there were times when other people would say, ³You should do this and this² and I¹d say, ³Well, I don¹t want to. I¹ll do what I want.² That¹s still happening. People expect me to follow in my father¹s footsteps and do things the way he would have done them. Even as it applies to my daily schedule, or doing retreats or teaching. I think in a role like mine, you get a lot of projections. Everybody wants you to be a certain way.

RD: Let¹s go back to our discussion about enlightenment. What is the state you would call enlightenment?

SMR: What you call enlightenment, we call chang chup or chang chup sem, which means purified and generated or developed. What¹s generated or developed is wisdom non-dual, non-conceptual wisdom that¹s beyond perceiver, subject and object. That¹s what we can define as awakening. I think we can define what enlightenment or awakening is, and what the qualities are, describe it. But ultimately, it¹s a first-hand experiential thing.br>       That point at which one is experiencing emptiness and luminosity is what we call sem le dapa or ³beyond the mind² we take our conventional mind as far as we can take it, learning as much as we can about what we think reality is and going beyond a self-centered approach. Then, at a certain point, conventional wisdom leads to that ultimate insight or ultimate reality. That experience is beyond existence.
      When we talk about emptiness, people think, ³Oh, that means there¹s no self.² But that would be nihilism. In conventional reality, things either exist or don¹t exist. But the notion of enlightenment is it happens when we understand things to be neither existing nor not existing, both and neither. It¹s beyond our level of comprehension our minds can¹t understand beyond that point. That, from a Buddhist point of view, is the notion of enlightenment. It resides in our mind stream, and in the process of life. It¹s not like one day I¹m going to wake up and the situation is going to be different.

RD: Are you enlightened?

SMR: Well, I hope not.

RD: What do you mean by that?

SMR: Well, because if this is it, then I¹m in trouble, and so are you! No, I don¹t think I¹m enlightened. I see myself as a practitioner. I feel myself learning more and more every year. Enlightenment is a long journey. From a Buddhist point of view, you can achieve enlightenment in one lifetime. But even if it were to take a million, billion lifetimes, you¹d be happy to do that. It¹s funny, because sometimes someone will say, ³You¹re telling me that my enlightenment is going to take more than one lifetime? I can¹t handle that.² But if you can¹t handle just a few lifetimes, how are you going to handle the enormity of all reality?
      A lot of people like Buddhism, but they can¹t do the many-lifetimes thing. For most Tibetans, the whole point is it¹s a many-lifetime deal it¹s a constant unfolding. I think many people want immediate gratification. They want to be enlightened right now, so they can enjoy it. Of these people, I would ask, ³Well, who are you and what¹s the enjoyment?² And, ³Are you willing to give this enjoyment up? In the level of reality we¹re talking about, you would see beyond the physical body. It is said that discovering selflessness is an experience of a small amount of emptiness, because we really think we are something.br>       It¹s said there is a little insect that eats the inside of a sesame seed, then it looks around. It¹s like a frog in a little pond, thinking that the pond is the universe. The ultimate enlightenment is going beyond that little space, discovering the ocean. It¹s a journey. If we ask, ³Well, how can I get there?² the answer is, ³One step at a time.² And that one step may be this entire lifetime.

RD: The writer and Boulder resident Ken Wilbur talks about ³radical transformation² that utterly shatters our ordinary idea of who we are. This is in contrast to much spiritual work that seeks to improve or heal our separate self. Does Buddhist philosophy subscribe to this kind of transformation as well?

SMR: I think the idea of transformation is critical, and it¹s a concept I try to emphasize. A lot of people come to the spiritual path being inspired, but at the same time being very stubborn. They don¹t really want to change. And change is critica not in the sense of, ³I¹m not okay, I need to change,² but fundamental change in terms of our outlook and how we perceive things.
      There is a conventional reality or perception of how things are, and then there¹s a deeper level of understanding. That takes contemplation and meditation and really looking at ourselves and others. That¹s the kind of change we¹re talking about in Buddhism. A lot of people who have been Buddhists for 30 years are saying, ³I realize I¹m coming to the point where I now am willing to change.² It¹s a process of becoming ready and willing to wholly enter the path.
      The spiritual path is not an easy path. A lot of people think the conventional world is no good, and they need to go to the spiritual world. The spiritual world those people might be seeking is one that makes them feel better by eating right, by getting the right kind of friends or therapy or whatever it may be to balance themselves. But if we¹re going to define spirituality as that transformation towards enlightenment, it takes a tremendous amount of potency of mind. It requires looking at other¹s suffering. If we can¹t even handle our own suffering, that can really shake us.
      For many people, spirituality is simple, and involves trying to do the right thing in terms of being kind to others and taking care of themselves. For people who are willing, who want to move beyond those basic principles and go on to transformation, this is a good time to do that.

RD: After 9/11, after terrorist actions and war, I¹m curious how you can see goodness in everyone.

SMR: I was in New York right after September 11, and I saw the outpouring of people from across the country who wanted to help, and the cooperation of those who were in New York. It seemed the first instinct everyone had was to reach out and help each other. I was surprised, because you hear about New Yorkers being aggressive and not very nice, but I felt like I was in a small village. It was amazing. Even in a situation like that, there is some kind of automatic response of compassion and understanding.
      Having said that, I think the conditions in the world are not going to get any easier. People are so into consuming in Buddhism, we call this the realm of desire. It¹s continuously wanting for something, whether it¹s material desire, meditative desire, wanting to feel better, whatever it is. That rampant desire consumes natural resources; at the same time, we¹re all trying to get our personal space. As I travel around the world, it¹s shocking how much the world has shrunk even within the last 10 years. People have less physical space and less mental space.
      As for terrorism, as long as there are human beings, there¹s going to be terrorism, because we have aggression. Does that mean you just give up and say, ³Okay, it¹s over, you¹ve won?² Of course not. In Buddhist teachings, we say all sentient beings have that Buddha nature, that enlightened nature. It¹s a matter of asking, ³Can we bring it out? And can we inspire others to bring it out?² That is the journey to an enlightened society.
      Many people are already working toward that ideal you¹re publishing this magazine, I¹m doing what I can. We all have to do what we can. Great things come from a series of small things, rather than one or two monumental actions.br>       That¹s especially important when it comes to leaders and top decision makers. I¹ve had the opportunity to meet various leaders. As you get closer and closer to the top, one small decision affects a lot of people. If we could influence or change how leaders make decisions, we could possibly turn things around.

RD: By ³turn things around,² what do you mean?

SMR: Right now, it seems like we¹re in a situation where we¹re all trying to figure out what quality of life means. What does it mean to be happy? What does it mean to live together in society? At the moment, it would appear the meaning of life has to do with the material. That is really the first stage of needs to satisfy physical comforts, to avoid being cold or hungry. Once you¹ve taken care of basic physical requirements, you can begin to recognize and satisfy other, perhaps more spiritual needs. But now, we don¹t have the luxury of doing one thing at a time. We have to address the material things and the psychological and spiritual things at the same time. When people reach a certain level of contentment, hopefully they¹ll consume less and give more.

RD: So it seems an effective meditation practice would lead to altruism and charity. Do you see evidence of that? Do communities of meditators have a higher rate of charity or giving?

SMR: Yes, I think so. For example, when you go to Buddhist countries, people are very generous. There¹s a sense of giving and offering. I think that quality of generosity doesn¹t always transfer or translate to the Buddhist groups in other countries. Within our own organization and in other Buddhist groups, we talk a lot about compassion and giving. But there aren¹t many programs for charitable contributions.

RD: I bring this up because meditators are sometimes criticized for being self-occupied.

SMR: That¹s true, but it depends on what we mean when we talk about meditation. What some people call meditation, I wouldn¹t really define as meditation. They¹re not really contemplating and generating compassion. I¹ve talked to people who have said, ³I guess I haven¹t been meditating I¹ve just been sitting there thinking about what I want.² From that point of view, their practice may be working out pretty wellthey¹ve been thinking about what they want, and they go do it.br>       But if you¹re really meditating, you¹re developing that mind of altruism, so when you get up you feel much more inclined toward compassion and generosity. If you sit there during meditation focusing on yourself and where your problems are, you¹ll have very different results. Not that that method of meditation is necessarily bad. It depends on how you look at it. If you tell somebody to go sit in a room and meditate for a while, it can be helpful. It cools a person off, and they may be much more helpful to society that way. If nothing else, you got them out of their ordinary situation.
      On the other hand, if people are able to meditate and generate a sense of compassion or altruism, then they are able to help. The way I look at meditation is that the act of meditating or sitting on a cushion is just a microcosm of what else you do in your life. All you¹re doing physically is slowing down. Yet mentally, you¹re always meditating. You always have an object of meditation, whatever it may be. When you¹re meditating formally, using breathing techniques and settling the mind, then you¹re focusing on that particular situation. But when you finish sitting, and you get up and go out into the world, you¹re also meditating in a particular way.
      Suppose you wake up with fear that something is going to go wrong. That is your meditation. Or you may wake up with pride, or jealousy. That is your meditation. Meditation just means becoming familiar with. So now you¹re getting familiar with the jealousy or fear or pride, or whatever it is. We¹re always meditating. When we sit down on a cushion, we¹re just changing the channel.

RD: What kinds of meditation are most beneficial?

SMR: It depends on what tradition you¹re coming from. If your mind is very scattered, if you¹re all over the place and have a lot of emotions, just follow your breath and relax. That makes you more stable. Suppose you¹ve done that, and you¹re more centered and at ease. You¹re on your next meditation, which may be compassion or selflessness, or contemplating your impermanence. Then you may have some insight; you may say, ³Okay, I don¹t need to chase my tail thinking everything is permanent, or that I¹m the only one in pain.² Then you¹re able to get up from your cushion and actually change how you approach life. I think that¹s the progression that needs to take place. If during meditation, you¹re totally self-absorbed in your pains and problems, you will have a different experience. This word, meditation, is sort of generic. When we begin to look closely at it, we find there¹s a lot more going on than just sitting on a cushion and being still.

RD: And what you mean by the word ³meditation² is a group of practices and states of consciousness?

SMR: I think so. You basically have two kinds of meditation. You have what we call ³shamatha,² which is stabilizing and building strength of the mind, and you have meditation based on wisdom. You need the first in order to have the second. Wisdom would mean realizing anger is empty, or recognizing selflessness, for example. But if you don¹t have a strong mind, you can¹t achieve that wisdom. You get up and you forget about it
RD: Tell us a little about your book, Turning the Mind into an Ally.

SMR: It¹s basically an introduction to the practice of meditation, and it is written for both Buddhists and non-Buddhists. It¹s about training the mind through meditation and peaceful living so that we can use it, rather than be used by it. The book gives some suggestions about ways to meditate, and ways to overcome obstacles to meditation. It talks about how to calm the mind to make it more stable, strong and clear. From that point, we can begin to cultivate compassion.
      The more I was teaching, the more people were saying, ³Where¹s your book?² because everybody in the East is peddling something. Until recently, I had to tell people I didn¹t have a book, and they would get very suspicious [laughter].

RD: So what¹s your second book going to be on?

SMR: It¹s going to be a yoga manual it will be very short! No, I¹m teasing. I actually have a couple of choices. I¹d like to do something a little more in-depth on Buddhism we¹ll see how this one goes. But I would also like to write another general book for the public. I think that¹s where it¹s really needed./font>