Q: Thank you for being here. So before the break you were saying that doing an intellectual research on Buddhism can be just internal, it will make you sharp but it will not help you in the real life situations when somebody is pushing your buttons. So like a month ago there was a monk from Menri Monastery, Bön practitioner, who demonstrated Tsalung [Trul khor], so I have been doing it ever since. Is there anything else practical that you could demonstrate or a visualisation or any sort of physical technique that I could do daily?
Kalu Rinpoche: Did you know how much you pay for the ticket? For that class… Okay pay me $1,000 I will do it for you! [haha] I will take the payment in full, upfront.
I teach Niguma yoga, but this is just the first time in Latvia right now, so we can keep that one for next year because we get to know each other right now. Otherwise it looks like “I am a yoga teacher” or something like that. I am not doing it as a job, it is just something that I contribute from the lineage of Niguma.
There is a sequence of 26 movements and there is also breathing exercises, the most of the movement is done whilst keeping the air in your diaphragm. It is not like a Hatha yoga.
Actually the previous Kalu Rinpoche have taught this Niguma yoga partially, during the 1980’s, and he called it the “Nangpé yoga”.“Nangpé yoga” means like a Buddhist yoga, he just customise it a little bit and usually that is only demonstrated in the 3 Year retreat, at the end of the 2nd year.
Only 2 years ago I decided to bring it out to the public because I thought Buddhism needs a little bit of big push. People are getting a little bit bored with the empowerment, at a certain stage, I mean. People say “I received this empowerment, I received that empowerment”, it becomes a little bit like a collection, like a trophy, you understand? Like “I received this empowerment from that Rinpoche, I received this empowerment from that Rinpoche, this Rinpoche”, not actually practicing anything but just more like collecting antique stuff. So that kind of perception is incorrect.
Even when I teach yoga, I teach with the Refuge, Bodhicitta, Compassion, Tonglen practice, and then also with the Cleansing AH. So the Cleansing AH is basically visualising a AH within the tetrahedron [chöjung] which is a specialty of the Niguma’s teachings and so on. So all these things we can do it slowly, next year.
His Eminence Kalu Rinpoche in Riga, Latvia
How to understand and apply the Buddhist wisdom of emptiness in everyday life (Q&A 3)
Ganden Center – September 2024 (50′ 22”)
To be continued…
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