Carta de Yongey Mingyur Rinpoché

De Kagyu Samye Dzong Barcelona

Carta de Yongey Mingyur Rinpoché, entregada a Lama Tashi, amigo y asistente, con quien se encontró inesperadamente en junio de 2013 en el Nepal. Esta carta se escribió en septiembre de 2013, durante su encuentro:

Queridos madre, familia, comunidad monástica, alumnos y todas las personas con las que tengo conexión:

Gracias a las bendiciones de los maestros, gozo de buena salud y no estoy teniendo ningún obstáculo. Actualmente deambulo sin rumbo fijo de un sitio a otro. Ahora mismo estoy con lama Tashi, a quien me encontré de forma inesperada. Lama Tashi me pidió encarecidamente acompañarme, a lo que accedí. Me dio algo de comida, ropa y otras cosas que necesitaba. También me transmitió buenas y malas noticias, que me dejaron con una mezcla de felicidad y tristeza.

Lama Tashi ha practicado con diligencia hace poco las prácticas básicas (ngondro) y las prácticas principales de Mahamudra y Dzogchen. Por mi parte, deambulo sin rumbo fijo, quedándome en ermitas aisladas de montaña y lugares parecidos. He tenido sentimientos de felicidad y sufrimiento, que se alzaban y caían como olas en la superficie del océano. A veces la comida y la ropa han llegado con dificultad y he sentido frío, hambre y sed. Incluso cuando he pedido limosna, no he recibido más que insultos y palabras duras. Otras veces, he recibido comida y ropa sin esfuerzo, sin siquiera pedirlo, y en mi mente fue como disfrutar de los placeres de los dioses. Aunque he experimentado tanto felicidad como sufrimiento, lo más importante es que de lo más hondo de mi ser ha surgido una sensación profunda y sincera de certeza, de que no importa lo que ocurra, sé que la verdadera naturaleza de estas experiencias, su mismísima esencia, es la de la consciencia atemporal y una enorme compasión.

Esta claridad natural de la consciencia está con nosotros desde el mismísimo principio. Es la propia esencia y la verdadera naturaleza de nuestra mente. Día y noche, está siempre presente. Por tanto, hay que mantener el fluir de la consciencia pura como mejor podamos, sin meditar, pero sin perdernos en la distracción. El gran amor y compasión son también cualidades innatas de nuestro ser. Todos los pensamientos, las emociones destructivas y el sufrimiento que encontramos están, en esencia, totalmente impregnados de una enorme compasión. Como señal de esto, deseamos de forma natural disfrutar de felicidad y estar libres del sufrimiento. Aunque todos los seres tienen una gran sabiduría y compasión, esto no es siempre evidente. Ello se debe sencillamente a que no han reconocido lo que ya tienen. Así, además de limitarnos a reconocer nuestra propia naturaleza, no existe ni lo más mínimo en lo que meditar. Reconociendo la importancia de esto, he pasado mis días con alegría y satisfacción, deambulando por valles y montañas y quedándome aquí y allá. Os animo sinceramente a todos, de corazón, a que también practiquéis así con diligencia.

Lama Tashi ya ha vuelto a la ciudad con esta carta, junto con algunas fotos de mi retiro que me pidió. Espero que las disfrutéis. Rezo para que nos reencontremos dentro de no mucho y que nos reunamos con alegría y felicidad para gozar de la riqueza del Dharma.

Mingyur Tulku

2 de enero de 2014

actividades febrero en Dag Shang Kagyu

Del 7 al 9 de Febrero, enseñanzas y práctica de Chenrezig  Del 14 al 16 de Febrero, curso  de Yoga con L.Karma Tsültrim Dönyo. Del 26 al 28 de Febrero, Drubchen de Mahakala. Meditación en acción: Del 21 al 23 de Febrero Los que conocemos DSK somos conscientes de la necesidad de mejorar el entorno de las instalaciones del Centro. Nos referimos no solo a la necesidad de adecentar las zonas de mayor uso público sino a algo que se manifiesta cada vez más urgente: la limpieza del bosque en el que la maleza es cada vez mayor y el peligro de incendio es cada vez más real.   Para dar respuesta a esta necesidad os ofrecemos la ocasión de venir a colaborar en esta tarea durante un fin de semana de meditación en acción. No hablamos solo de ofrecer nuestro trabajo sino de su integración con la meditación dando un sentido más profundo a nuestro esfuerzo sobre la base de la atención consciente y su dedicación para el beneficio de  los demás. Por ello, cada jornada comenzará y terminará con unas sesiones de meditación en el templo. Nuestro  objetivo es implicar en este proyecto al mayor número de personas relacionadas con DSK: socios, vecinos, simpatizantes, todos estáis invitados. La estancia y comida de todos los participantes correrá por cuenta de DSK.   Los voluntarios deben dar su nombre en Secretaría antes del día 13 de febrero para poder organizar el trabajo, comidas y alojamientos.   Calendario 2014 Debido a problemas técnicos, la web de Dag Shang Kagyu no está operativa.Esperamos resolverlo pronto y os pedimos disculpas por las molestias. Y para facilitar que quienes quieran  puedan hacer sus reservas podéis descargar el calendario de actividades pinchando aquí.

Major Parts of the World Ignored by US TV News in 2013

Major Parts of the World Ignored by US TV News in 2013

The 2013 tornado season was in the top six stories. Here, members of the Oklahoma National Guard's 63rd Civil Support Team conduct search and rescue operations in response to the May 20, 2013, EF-5 tornado that ripped through the centre of Moore, Oklahoma. (Credit: National Guard/cc by 2.0)

Washington - If people outside the United States are looking for answers why Americans often seem so clueless about the world outside their borders, they could start with what the three major U.S. television networks offered their viewers in the way of news during 2013.

Syria and celebrities dominated foreign coverage by ABC, NBC, and CBS – whose combined evening news broadcasts are the single most important media source of information about national and international events for most Americans. Vast portions of the globe went almost entirely ignored, according to the latest annual review by the authoritative Tyndall Report.

Latin America, most of Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia apart from Afghanistan, and virtually all of East Asia – despite growing tensions between China and Washington’s closest regional ally, Japan – were virtually absent from weeknight news programmes of ABC, NBC, and CBS last year, according to the report, which has tracked the three networks’ evening news coverage continuously since 1988.

Out of nearly 15,000 minutes of Monday-through-Friday evening news coverage by the three networks, the Syrian civil war and the debate over possible U.S. intervention claimed 519 minutes, or about 3.5 percent of total air time, according to the report.

That made the Syrian conflict and the U.S. policy response the year’s single-most-covered event. It was followed by coverage of the terrorist bombing by two Chechnya-born brothers that killed three people at the finish line of last April’s Boston Marathon (432 minutes); the debate over the federal budget (405 minutes); and the flawed rollout of the healthcare reform law, or Obamacare (338 minutes).

The next biggest international story was the death in December of former South African President Nelson Mandela (186 minutes); the July ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and its aftermath; the coverage of Pope Francis I (157 minutes, not including an additional 121 minutes devoted to Pope Benedict’s retirement and the Cardinals’ conclave that resulted in Francis’ succession); and the birth of Prince George, the latest addition to the British royal family (131 minutes).

The continued fighting in Afghanistan came in just behind the new prince at 121 minutes for the entire year.

The strong showings by the papal succession, Mandela’s death, and Prince George’s birth all demonstrated the rise of “celebrity journalism” in news coverage, Andrew Tyndall, the report’s publisher, told IPS. He added that “a minor celebrity like Oscar Pistorius (the South African so-called “Bladerunner” track star accused of murdering his girlfriend) attracted more coverage [by the TV networks – 51 minutes] than all the rest of sub-Saharan Africa in the [11] months before Mandela’s death.”

Surveys by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press, among other polling and research groups, show that about two-thirds of the general public cite television as their main source for national and international news, more than twice the number of people who rely on newspapers, and about one-third more than the growing number of individuals whose primary source is the internet.

An average of about 21 million U.S. residents watch the network news on any given evening. While the cable news channels – CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC – often get more public attention, their audience is actually many times smaller, according to media-watchers.

“In 2012, more than four times as many people watched the three network newscasts than watched the highest-rated show on the three cable channels during prime time,” Emily Guskin, a research analyst for the Pew Research Centre’s Journalism Project, told IPS.

As in other recent years, news about the weather – especially its extremes and the damage they wrought – received a lot of attention on the network news, although, also consistent with past performance, the possible relationship between extreme weather and climate change was rarely, if ever, drawn by reporters or anchors.

Last year’s tornado season, severe winter weather, drought and wild forest fires in the western states constituted three of the top six stories of the year, according to the report. Along with the aftermath of 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, those four topics reaped nearly 900 minutes of coverage on the three networks, or about six percent of the entire year’s coverage.

“A major flaw in the television news journalism is its inability to translate anecdotes of extreme weather into the overarching concept of climate change,” noted Tyndall. “As long as these events are presented as meteorological and not climatic, then they will be covered as local and domestic, not global.

“An exception in 2013 was Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines,” he noted. That event captured 83 minutes of coverage among the three networks, making it the single biggest story by far out of Asia for the year.

By comparison, the growing tensions between Japan and China in the East China Sea – which many foreign-policy analysts here rate as one of the most alarming events of the past year if, for no other reason, than the U.S. is committed by treaty to militarily defend Japan’s territory – received a mere eight minutes of coverage.

Two other major U.S. foreign policy challenges received more coverage. North Korea and the volatile tenure of its young leader, Kim Jong-un, received a total of 87 minutes, including 10 minutes to visiting basketball veteran Dennis Rodman, of coverage during 2013.

Events in Iran, including the election of President Hassan Rouhani and negotiations over its nuclear programme, received a total of 104 minutes of coverage between the three networks over the course of the year, nearly as much attention as was given the British royals.

Libya received 64 minutes of coverage, but virtually all of it was devoted to the domestic controversy over responsibility for the September 2012 killings of the U.S. ambassador and three other officials there. The Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria and the civil war and humanitarian disaster in the Central African Republic received no coverage at all.

As for the Israel-Palestinian conflict which Secretary of State John Kerry has made a top priority along with a nuclear deal with Iran, it received only 16 minutes of coverage in 2013. “Palestine has virtually disappeared from the news agenda,” noted Tyndall.

As has Latin America, which received virtually no attention, according to Tyndall who suggested that the lack of coverage may be due to the growth of Spanish-language networks here. “The assumption seems to be that anyone interested in Latin American coverage would likely speak Spanish and find it in that language.”

Altogether, the three networks devoted just under 4,000 minutes, or about 27 percent of total air time, to coverage of overseas stories or U.S. foreign policy. That was somewhat under the average amount of 25-year average. Indeed, the 1,302 minutes’ worth of stories focused on U.S. foreign policy marked a nearly 50-percent reduction from the average.

“In general, foreign policy coverage has risen when the president is bellicose,” according to Tyndall, who noted that such coverage had risen sharply as a result of armed conflicts during the administrations of the two Presidents Bush and fallen under Presidents Clinton and Obama.

But the collection by the National Security Agency (NSA) of “metadata” on U.S. citizens and of private conversations and email of foreign leaders as disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden – a story with both domestic and international repercussions – also placed among the top 10 stories of the year with 210 minutes of coverage.

Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at Lobelog.com.

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