Columbus Karma Thegsum Choling – Buddhist Meditation Center in Columbus, OH

During the weekend of  March 16^th, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche will present a teaching seminar on “Loving Kindness and Compassion as the Path to Buddha Nature.”  Loving kindness is the wish that all sentient beings experience happiness and the causes of happiness; compassion is the wish that suffering and the causes of suffering are alleviated. During this teaching, Rinpoche will discuss how cultivating these qualities allows us to realize our inherent Buddha nature.  Lama Yeshe Gymastso will translate.

Rinpoche will deliver the weekend teachings the  from our home monastery, Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, KTD.  Simultaneously, the presentations will be broadcasted to KTC’s around the country. At Columbus KTC, we will host the live web telecast  with Rinpoche in our main shrine room. After each teaching session, our resident teacher, Lama Kathy Wesley, will be at Columbus KTC and available to answer any questions from our local Sangha.

Here is the schedule of events:

Friday:
7:00 p.m. Teaching

Saturday:
10:00 a.m. Meditation
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Teaching
3:00 p.m. Meditation
3:30-5:00 p.m. Teaching

Sunday:
10:00 a.m. Meditation
10:30 a.m.- 12:00 p.m. Teaching
2:00 p.m. Meditation
2:30-4:00 p.m. Teaching

On Saturday and Sunday, our Sangha Café will be serving a light vegetarian lunch in our community room downstairs.  The cost for the lunch is $5/per person.

Information on how to register for this event will be available soon.

By Kim Miracle

Many people at Columbus KTC enjoy participating in KTC book study groups.  The current book study is special in a few ways.  This time, the book study is being led by Lama Kathy, who is teaching on Vivid Awareness, written by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche. This book presents the  precious teachings given by Khenpo Gangshar.  Each time we meet, Lama Kathy summarizes the key teachings from the book assignment and then leads a group discussion.

Last September, many of us had the good fortune to hear Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche present Khenpo Gangshar’s teachings. Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and the author Kenchen Thrangu Rinpoche received these teachings from Khenpo Gangshar himself.  In 1958, armies invaded Kham in eastern Tibet, destroying monasteries and imprisoning monastics.  “…Khenpo Gangshar foresaw the difficulties that would soon fall upon Tibet and began teaching in a startling new way that enabled all those who heard him to use the coming difficulties as the path of Dharma Practice” (Vivid Awareness, back cover).

In Vivid Awareness, Thrangu Rinpoche tells us that Khenpo Gangshar’s teachings on Naturally Liberating Everything You Meet are called “mind instructions” because they do not involve analyzing external appearances, but rather, “look directly at the nature of our internal mind itself.  Mind instructions…are easy to practice and fit into any lifestyle” (p. 23).

Lama Kathy will guide us through this profound book during the remaining four Monday book study sessions.  We are meeting at KTC for these sessions but if you are unable to make it to the center, you can still join on the CKTC Book Study UStream channel (as long as technology cooperates!).  A donation of $5 per session, totaling $20 for the remaining sessions, is suggested; donations will cover security at the center for the evening sessions.

Find the UStream link and meeting information below, along with reading assignments for each book study session.  While sections of the book are assigned to each session, please feel free to come regardless of whether you have read them or even have the book–simply come and enjoy hearing Lama Kathy speak on these profound teachings!

Sessions are held at:

Columbus KTC,  231 S. Grubb St.  Columbus, OH 43215

Mondays, 7 – 9pm (dates below)

Live stream at:  http://www.ustream.tv/channel/maha-cam-test-3

by Adam Berner and Shruti Patel

Animals have the following order:

Elements have the following order:

2012 is the year of the Water Dragon.

On Wednesday, February 22^nd,  we’ll be organizing a sacred holiday retreat at Columbus KTC in honor of Losar.   The retreat will include special prayers, the lighting of 108 candles and an opportunity for open practice.  More details to follow soon.

On Sunday, February 26^th, we’ll celebrate Losar with our Sangha.   See list of planned activities below. Please note, with this celebration, there will be several changes to our Sunday schedule.

6:45 a.m. Offering 108 Lamps for World Peace

7 a.m. Green Tara sadhana

9 a.m. Medicine Buddha sadhana

10 a.m. Welcoming remarks and recognition of outgoing officers and swearing in of new officers.

10:15 a.m. Recitation of the 12 Deeds of Shakyamuni

10:30 a.m. Assembly makes offering of katas (silk scarves) to His Holiness’ throne and small gifts.

Afterward, light refreshments will be served.

We hope you can join us for both of these events!

by Kim Miracle

 Public Talk - February 10^th (Friday)

7:00 pm to 8:30 pm

Topic: Introduction to Medicine Buddha

Columbus KTC Shrine Room

Everyone Invited        Free

Day Retreat - February 11^th (Saturday)

9:00 am to 5:00 pm

Columbus KTC Shrine Room

Lunch break from 12pm-2pm

The practice of Medicine Buddha is done for the alleviation of suffering of body, speech, and mind of all sentient beings, including oneself.  Due to the vast aspirations made by Medicine Buddha, all are invited to attend. The retreat will be a group practice chanting prayers from the Medicine Buddha Sadhana, playing music, performing mudras and chanting mantras. Because of this being an all day retreat, we will have time to accumulate many mantras for the benefit of all.

The day will be broken up into four sessions: 9am-10:20pm; 10:40am to 12pm; 2pm-3:20pm and 3:40 to 5pm. You may join in or leave at anytime.

Lunch: vegetarian carryout from Tai Asian Bistro. Orders taken Saturday morning.

Fee: we are asking for $10 to cover the cost of heat and electric. If you are unable to pay, please come anyway. You presence is important for the retreat.

What to bring:  If you have a Medicine Buddha Sadhana, a Mala (prayer beads), Bell and Dorje, or Damaru, please bring. Sadhanas and musical instruments will also be provided for use.

Please also bring a blanket or shawl to stay warm and reuseable hot or cold water bottle.

Registration or Questions: please contact Cathy Lhamo Jackson at cathylhamo108@gmail.com.

Feb 10: Public talk from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. During this public talk Cathy Lhamo will provide an introduction to Medicine Buddha Sadhana practice. All are invited.

Feb 11: Medicine Buddha Retreat from 9 am to 5 pm. The retreat will be a group practice chanting prayers from the Medicine Buddha Sadhana, playing music, performing mudras and chanting mantras. All are invited to participate in some or all of the retreat.

Click here for details about each event.

Several members of the center shared memories of Bradley and their insights to his many contributions:
Cathy Jackson
“I remember when Bradley first came to Columbus KTC, he immediately wanted to help. Most people remember him because of his devotion to Columbus KTC as a Mentor, Meditation Instructor, Prison Project, his love of fixing our roof (joke) but I also remember him for purchasing the building.
Before Columbus KTC was at Grubb Street we were in a rented space on North High Street, in South Clintonville, North of OSU campus. The building was sold and we were asked to leave. In the summer of 1990 we quickly purchased the Grubb Street building through the generosity of loans from various KTCs and sangha members. Soon it became apparent that we needed a true bank loan, which was difficult for a non-profit entity. Bradley, the center director at that time, (after a lot of digging) found a bank that would give us a loan.  He asked me to co-sign the loan. I still to this day remember sitting across the table from him, realizing that we were both very nervous if there would ever be enough members to support the building!

As the years passed, his family grew and his love for life and everyone within it also blossomed. He constantly watched over our building, fixing everything, with the help of Ron Hess and others. Also, his practice and dedication to the dharma grew. Around 1997 I became director for 4 years. This is when I found out what he was up to, what he was all about! He worked so hard at the center that his home projects were being put on hold! Fortunately his wife Deborah, who I’ve known before she married Bradley, called me and informed me of this. He was that dedicated!!!

Also – many of you might not know this, but sometimes I’d be at a program/retreat at KTD or Karme Ling and he would arrive usually at a strange time. I guess he really liked traveling the roads less traveled! He loved going on side trips while driving to KTD. Anyway, he would make it for the teaching, but he usually would disappear soon after, because he was fixing or building something there!  At Karme Ling retreat I saw him install very complicated lighting for the Columbarium Shrine.

I am so very grateful for meeting and knowing a being so dedicated to the needs of everyone. He is the embodiment of the heart of enlightenment – Bodhicitta.”
Darrell Peters
“Bradley was kind, direct, down-to-earth and unassuming in his manner; a gentle but powerful influence on the center and other people. He left behind scores of friends and positive memories and endless kindnesses to others. It’s hard for me to imagine Columbus KTC without Bradley. He was a really good friend, a kind dharma brother and an inspiring human being.

Some of my fondest memories of Bradley are of his classes and dharma talks. It wasn’t only what Bradley said, but also who he was that was communicated. His sincere engagement and commitment came through in an unmistakable way. In his classes, Bradley embodied the Dharma, and he offered an example to be emulated.”

Lama Kathy Wesley
“I was looking around the KTC the other day, and realized there are few parts of the building that Bradley hasn’t touched.

He hung the banisters that assist people in getting up the stairs to our shrine platform and library;

He helped put up our new shrine room ceiling tiles and lighting fixtures;

He put in an attic exhaust fan;

He helped with the original furnace installation and asbestos abatement;

He fixed the roof – repeatedly!

When we had break-ins, he arranged for and partially paid for the glass block windows in the basement;

He got our original security system;

He arranged the installation of our outdoor security lights;

He arranged for our original doors to be installed;

And he led and taught countless meditation students.

In his last interview with Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, Rinpoche told him, “your practice – and your service [to the sangha] will stand you in good stead at this important time.”

This means that even those people more oriented to service than to formal practice will accumulate great merit, which will be of great help to them at the time of their passing from is life. Bradley was a living example of this.”

Eric Weinberg
Eric Weinberg and Bradley Butters worked with death row inmates at the Ohio State Penitentiary for three years together. These are some of Eric’s memories about that work, Bradley’s dharma practice and their friendship:

“Bradley was an amazingly creative person, he was an inventor at heart. He had discovered the work of Howard Zehr about “restorative justice,” which is a way of working with victims and criminals to try to achieve some kind of release for them through reconciliation. The State of Ohio instituted a program based on Zehr’s work, and Bradley was one of the first people writing letters to the department of corrections, encouraging them to pursue it.

Bradley had a certain kind of understanding that there was a relationship between criminals and their victims. Right at the end – literally the week Bradley died, one of the death row inmates told me that he had been contacted by the dept of corrections that works with reconciliations, and he said that the family of his victim might meet with him. I thought it was powerful that this news came the week of Bradley’s passing.

We became road buddies through thick and thin, ice and sleet – we were like the mailman – nothing stopped us from getting through to the penitentiary. I manage investment portfolios for a living, so in 2008 when the world seemed to be coming to an end, he would drive and I would plug my laptop into a converter in the car.  Then we’d go visit prisoners and I’d work on the way home. We were completely compatible and completely helpful to each other. He inspected electrical things for the state of Ohio. Sometimes he’d have too many inspections and we’d take detours on the way home.

Bradley really, truly loved inventing things, making things, so we were constantly designing new ideas for prayer wheels – wind-powered prayer wheels, solar-powered prayer wheels, perpetual motion prayer wheels. He did make a really cool wind-driven prayer wheel out of soup cans out on one the gables of his garage.

He liked to be hands-on. It wasn’t just that he was some saint who fixed the roof because no one else would, he was compelled to do that – he was a real maker of things. I know that his house went wanting at times when the center got all of the attention. He knew who he was and he just wanted to completely give whatever gifts he had over to the dharma.

When he was ill – rather than talking about the kinds of things you talk abour when people were dying, we talked about new prayer wheels. He got very far in the dharma practice – he liked to keep his style simple and he loved Chenrezig – it was the core of everything he did.

Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche gave him a White Tara practice to do and it probably extended his life by a year. At the same time Brett Hartman – one of our death row inmates painted him a  White Tara. There was an outpouring of love for him as he became sick and couldn’t go up there and visit the guys. I’m not sure that the inmate knew he’d gotten this practice, but it’s just another one of those examples of ways we’re all connected to each other.

I went to the hospital at the end. His daughters are evangelical and his brother said a very beautiful prayer. At some point he kind of looked up and said “okay that’s enough.” After they all left, he looked up at me, opened his eyes really wide and said “hit it, Eric, ” because he knew I was there to say Chenrezig and Amitabha.”

Here are a few stories from a volunteers who served Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche during his trip to Columbus KTC in September….

Anne McCain
This past September, I was offered the extreme honor of serving Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, and his translator Lama Yeshe, in the capacity of aiding one of his long time students, Cathy Jackson, coordinate interviews, appointments, and offering tea.

While Rinpoche was here (possibly a once in a lifetime opportunity) I asked my son if he would like to meet Lama Kathy’s teacher.  I had spoken about him so reverently, my little guy was a bit nervous, so I told him to come along, and if there was time, and it felt right, he could introduce himself, and ask him a question.

When the chance presented itself, Cathy Lhamo took him in the room (I was very nervous for him!), and when she came out,  he remained for a few minutes.  Cathy and I were grinning ear to ear!  When he came bouncing out, happy as a clam, I said to him “Well?  What did you ask him?!” he said “Oh….nothin.” with a little grin.  My son was holding out on me!  At the end of the interviews that day, as Rinpoche left for a teaching, I stopped Lama Yeshe as  he went by and asked him if my son had said something ‘profound’.  Lama Yeshe said that the question he had asked was initially interpreted and responded to as ‘How can I be a Buddhist?’, but was in fact ‘How can I be a Buddha?’. Lama Yeshe said when my son was asked if his question had been answered, he had told Rinpoche no, and repeated himself.

So……that was the time Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, an 87 year old Dharma Master, who had once eaten only snow for seven days in the middle of a mountainous foot escape from a Communist dictatorship, carrying the precious dharma in his heart and in his pockets over hundreds of miles,  visited Columbus….and was sass’d by my boy.

Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche’s peaceful, kind ways will forever be an inspiration to me, and certainly all others who have been touched by him.  The crown jewel was to see Lama Kathy together with her teacher, faces full of love.   Also, balloon hats.

Cathy Lhamo Jackson
Normally Rinpoche’s interviews at KTD are conducted with him seated on a chair and the translator and interviewees on floor cushions.  While recently visiting Columbus, the interviews were held in a  conference room at his residence.  I was so shocked upon entering the room at the conclusion of a group interview.  There was my Guru and all these people conducting a business meeting seated around a large table! You had to be there!

Jacob Clark
I was quite intimidated by the idea of serving Rinpoche, although it was just, as always, my own stupid fears and insecurities getting in the way:  Was I worthy?  What would I say to him?  What was the protocol involved in dealing with such an exalted figure in Tibetan Buddhism?  And more immediately:  What if he hated what I cooked for him?!

So I enlisted the help of Lorna Armstrong, and since she had already helped out with the dinner schedule, my fears were quickly allayed.  Ani Karuna ‘s presence also helped immensely.  She was caring, supportive, and kind to us, helping to reduce my anxiety.  I loved being up at the early hour helping to get Rinpoche on his way.  He loved my buckwheat/banana/dried cherry/crushed walnut pancakes (which I must admit were pretty darn good, especially with butter and REAL maple syrup), and even signed my copy of Dharma Paths.  Lorna’s slightly broiled yams also were a hit!!!

Would I do it again?  You bet!

Diana Fleming
May the Buddhas never leave our minds. Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche radiates blessings to all those around him. I cannot believe our good fortune to come in contact with him, and even greater fortune to serve him. It is always very, very intense and always full of blessings. Serving lamas stirs up a carnival of kleshas, but if one is determined to look at one’s own mind no matter what, the burning fire will turn into a rain of flowers. Words cannot express my gratitude to Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche for his never-ending kindness and tirelessness in holding the lamp. Anyone who has the chance to serve him should never hesitate to do so for any reason. Life is short and the chance to be with such a master is rare and precious beyond imagining. May we never be separated from our lineage, and may all beings benefit.

A very exciting development has been happening in our KTC online store.  If you haven’t visited the lately, be sure to check out the “Recorded Teachings” section.  There you will find a growing catalog of the audio teachings recorded at our center available for purchase and download.

Current audio selections include Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche’s recent presentation of Khenpo Gangshar’s “How To Liberate Whatever You Meet”, as well as numerous teachings by Lama Kathy Wesley including her teaching on Tonglen from the October Fall Retreat.  Also, the complete 2010 audio teachings by Khenpo Ugyen Tenzin and Lama Tashi Dundrup will be available soon.
Much time and work goes into making these recordings available, and so, a big thanks goes to the new audio recording team.  Many of you have seen volunteers such as Ron Hess and Paul Goldstein running the sound amplification and recording gear during dharma teaching sessions at our center.  Once the teaching is recorded, they are uploaded and cataloged by Marcus Casey.  Next, Matt Edler and Adam Berner take on the task of editing Tibetan portions from the recordings to “telescope” them for easier listening by our mostly Western students. The Columbus KTC board decided on this approach after doing some research. The owner of Vajra Echoes, one of the largest websites disseminating Dharma recordings in America, provided valuable advice on how to structure the recordings and how to price them. Once the audio recordings have been edited, Marcus uploads the final versions of the recordings to the Columbus KTC online store. Many thanks to Steve Phallen who has been crucial in creating and maintaining this website.
We hope this new endeavor will be a valuable resource to our local sangha, as well as anyone, anywhere in the world with internet access.  Funds collected through the purchase of these recordings help to fund the website itself, as well as other Columbus KTC activities, including bringing other wonderful teachers to our center.