Ken McLeod

Ken McLeod joins us to speak about Reflections on Silver River: Tokme Zongpo’s Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva.

One of the difficulties we have in our modern, information age is … information, of the overload kind. There’s so much to read coming out every day, it can be difficult for us to contemplate one more thing to digest. And sometimes we may have a tendency to set aside old works, particularly more obscure ones, simply because they are obscure. How good can it be if it’s not well known?

But the simple fact is there are many smaller, rare texts that speak to our contemporary life every bit as much as they did in their day, when read with the depth of attention we give to poetry. The richness of these works is often overlooked in our modern day haste, and sometimes we may want to slow down, smell the roses, and take another look.

Ken McLeod is well known as a translator of texts, practices, rituals, and structures into forms suitable for this culture. He was among the first westerners to complete the traditional three-year retreat training in Tibetan Buddhism, and then assisted in teaching during a second three-year retreat. Authorized to teach by the late Kalu Rinpoche, he has successfully pioneered a private practice model for teaching, made the esoteric traditions of Tibetan Buddhism practical and accessible in his book Wake Up to Your Life, and mentored teachers from various traditions of Buddhism. He has set up a number of teacher training programs, including “Passing on the Dharma” in 1999 with Yvonne Rand and Ajahn Amaro.

So, sit back, relax, and have a nice yak butter tea.

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Music for This Episode Courtesy of Rodrigo Rodriguez

The music heard in the middle of the podcast is from Rodrigo Rodriguez. The track used in this episode is “Beneath High Cliffs” from his CD, Traditional and Modern Pieces: Shakuhachi.