September 21, 2022 • 50 mins
The seventh of a series of interviews around the religions from the World Peace Grids, which states: "May the followers of all religions and spiritual paths work together to create peace among all people on Earth." https://www.reiki.org/world-peace-grid-project
In this week's podcast, Jill explains how she practices Buddhism and how beautifully it aligns with Reiki. Give it a listen!
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Pam Allen-LeBlanc is a scientist, a businesswoman, and a Licensed Reiki Master Teacher with the International Center for Reiki Training. She is the author of "The Reiki Business Book" and a co-author of ICRT Animal Reiki training. Pam teaches Reiki, Animal Reiki, and Animal Communication online and in-person in Canada, the US, Australia
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pam (00:55):
On this week's podcast, I'm talking with Jill Thiel with our
Reiki religion series.
And today we're talking aboutthe beautiful and ancient
religion of Buddhism.
So Jill, I'd like to welcome youto the podcast.
Jill (01:11):
Thank you for having me.
It's great to be here.
It's great to be back, I shouldsay.
Yes.
Pam (01:16):
I call on you every now and again, and you're always you're
always great.
I appreciate your assistance.
When we want to learn somethingabout Reiki before we get
started.
I just want you to know that onthe farm we've got coming up at
the beginning of October.
A Reiki RMA class, which islevel one and two in masters.
Those are licensed classes thatcount toward professional
(01:39):
membership in the Reikimembership association.
That's why we call them RMAcourses.
I also have animal Reiki levels.
One and two in masters.
And at the very end of themonth, I have a holy fire, three
Kaurna Reiki class.
I also want to let you knowabout a series of six classes
coming up or six days of classcoming up in December, where six
(02:02):
days in a row on the Friday,Saturday at the end of November,
beginning of December, Thursday,Friday is level one and two
Reiki.
The weekend is animal.
Communication, I believe.
And Monday, Tuesday is animalReiki, level one and two.
So if you're an animal lover,those six days in a row will get
(02:23):
you completely up to speed withall of our Reiki and animal
communication and animal Reikiclasses.
And I also want to call people'sattention cuz I know it takes a
little bit more planning to thefact that in March I will be
teaching.
Five day RMA class level one andtwo in masters, as well as a
(02:43):
level one and two Reiki class inAustralia in just outside of
Canberra.
And Queenborough Berry in alittle place called Royal at my
friend's farm.
and if you'd like to join us inAustralia go ahead.
I'll have a link to my calendarin the notes of the podcast, and
I'd love to have you check itout.
(03:05):
Jill, what do you have comingup?
Jill (03:08):
What do I have?
You can always go into mywebsite, which is Reiki dot com.
I've got an animal Reikimasterclass coming up this
weekend and hybrid so people canjoin online or in person, most
of my classes are hybrid.
I have masterclass the followingweekend.
Then I'm off a week and then Ibelieve it's back to a one and a
(03:30):
two.
And then.
An animal Reiki one and two atthe end of the month, the
weekend of Halloween.
So
Pam (03:37):
that's lovely.
That's the, that's when actuallyI'm teaching the Kaurna class.
So we'll be teaching during thatSam hae holiday.
Jill (03:48):
good energy.
It will be good energy for
Pam (03:51):
sure.
Guys, I wanted to invite Jillbecause we're trying to just get
to know a little bit better.
All of the religions in theworld, peace grids.
There are 12 religions, 12 ofthe world's major religions that
are represented there.
And of course, one of theworld's major rep.
Religions is Buddhism and Jillis a practicing Buddhist and
(04:14):
Buddhism and Reiki.
She's also a licensed teacher aslike I am with the international
center for Reiki training, and Ithought she could help us shed a
little light on it today.
And so Jill, my first questionfor you is, did you always
practice Buddhism or is thissomething that that came later
in your.
Jill (04:34):
Yeah, it's actually something that came later.
I grew up in a Methodist family.
Okay.
And as a kid, I actually reallyloved going to church and I
loved spirituality.
I liked all the ritualisticthings.
I didn't mind.
I, as I grew up, there weretimes where I've questioned my
faith and, Things that came upthat, I had, talks with God
(04:56):
about stuff I'm sure.
We all did.
And the main thing for me was Idid have a hard time really
understanding it, the storiesand the way that it was
presented.
So even though I always had atremendous amount of faith and I
believed in this sort of higherpower some.
Stories that were written.
It didn't make sense to me and Ididn't really understand, some
(05:16):
of these big, Noah's Ark and itjust, my brain was like, how is
this possible?
Which led me to then in collegewanting to look into other
religions.
And so I expanded and spent timein college taking religious
studies and learning aboutdifferent religion.
Eventually then what hadhappened is that when I took my
(05:38):
first Reiki one and two class, acouple of years later, I ended
up meeting my husband and he'sBuddhist and he didn't push it
on me at all.
I just happened to know that hewas Buddhist and he grew up also
Christian, I think he wasLutheran.
But then as he went off tocollege, a bunch of his.
Friends got into Buddhism andsome of them went off and became
(06:01):
teachers and what would be likeLama teachers and wow.
And so we had a really good in,or he had a really good in to a
really good lineage.
And so he started practicingthis and a lot of his friends
started practicing this.
So I found it fascinating cuz bythe time I had met him, he had
been, doing it for 20 years.
(06:22):
Wow.
And so I was still just, veryopen at this point and
interested.
And one day I remember, and Ihad taken Reiki one and two, and
I think I, at this point I hadtaken the master class.
I remember I was riding my bikeand this was before.
Memes and quotes in Facebook andwhere people would, put these
(06:44):
ideas maybe into your head.
I just remember having.
Hearing a voice telling me wisethings.
And I can't remember exactlywhat I was hearing, but I was
like, who is this?
And it's and I remember this isthe Buddha and how ever that
sounds.
And I'm like, interesting.
How do I know this?
And it's you've always known.
(07:04):
You've always had access to thisinformation at the time.
I didn't connect it, that maybethere was something going on
with Reiki that had healed andwas tapping into other truths
that I had already known, but itmade me so curious that I had
said to my husband.
I really think I wanna go to oneof, one of your ceremonies,
(07:25):
because I think I'm hearing theBuddha talking to me right.
And so that's where it began.
From there.
Ended up going to, I guess myfirst class was a really special
occasion where I had theopportunity to take refuge and
receive a name.
And some people might bepracticing Buddhism for a long
(07:47):
time and may never have thatopportunity.
So the way it works is if you'relucky to live in a place where
you have.
A high Lama that you can visitand go to that teaching.
It'd be like similar before wehad internet.
You'd have to travel to Williamor to you, to Colleen.
And there are teachers who arearound, but our teachers, my
(08:07):
teachers lived in other statesand actually the lineage of
Buddhism that I practice hasmade it down to Brazil.
So there is a significant.
Branch of the Tibetan Buddhismin Brazil because our lineage
was guided to get Buddhism tosouth America.
And so I, as walking into this,I didn't realize how special
(08:31):
this was because in all of theyears that I've been practicing,
I don't think they've ever hadanother naming or taking refuge.
That I know of that's come backto Minneapolis.
So I was like, whoa.
Okay.
So it was really big, like therewas and these are all formal
ways of it would be similar to Idon't wanna say joining the
church, but and not even beingbaptized, but like confirmation
(08:53):
or something.
Yeah.
Like there's these otherritualistic sort.
Things where you're going, oh,this is a, really, this is a
commitment.
And I'm saying yes.
And I'm like, okay.
Yes.
I, because I, so you go up.
and it's, you're walking up inthe line and the teachers up
there on, on the podium and,blessing you and handing out
(09:13):
cards like, oh, okay, I'm LamaYeshi, and then you sign it.
Here's the date that you tookrefuge.
And in a way, that's thebeginning of it because taking
refuge is saying that like I'mcommitting to this, and.
And then having a teacher andhaving a name is another part of
that.
So then through that, there wasan empowerment that weekend as
(09:34):
well for red Tara.
And so then I received my firstBuddhist empowerment and that
was a.
A really special occasion.
And that, that is anempowerment.
Pam (09:45):
Jill, can you explain
Jill (09:47):
that to us?
Yeah.
It's similar to a Reikiattunement and it's actually a
ritual that awakens our capacityfor primordial wisdom, a.
And it's called an empowermentcuz when we receive it, we're
empowered to follow a particularspiritual practice and to master
it and to come into itsrealization.
So it's not actually they canonly be given by qualified
(10:10):
advisor masters and you have tomaintain a specific practice.
Similar to Reiki, you have tosort.
Maintain.
There's a practice that we havewith, and so there's various
practices that I do.
And it's based on Boso vows.
So you are doing this to helpother people to end suffering.
So your motivation is purely forfreeing other people from.
(10:33):
suffering.
And so the most commondescription of an empowerment is
that it's a transfer of powerduring a ceremony.
And it's gonna give recipientsthe authorization to hear study
and practice teachings.
But it's not actually, sometimespeople are like, oh, giving
somebody power.
It's not really like that sortof a thing.
(10:56):
It's actually an activation ofourselves that already exist
within us that we just haven'trecognized yet.
And so you get this empower.
Or initiation.
And then what happens duringthis is we ripen our mature to
like our Buddha nature and wow.
So Al beans possess this nature,this inner nature without
(11:18):
receiving this empowerment orsimilar like OIA attunement It
won't be possible to get towhere it is that you need to
without receiving this blessing,the
Pam (11:28):
blessing and the, that connection.
So that you're connecting withsome knowledge or something that
already exists.
It sounds like within you, I'mjust, I wanna backtrack just a
little bit, Jill, when you werehearing.
The voice that was guiding youand giving you wisdom.
It almost sounds to me likemaybe you were tapping into some
past life information and italmost sounds like Buddha was
(11:50):
your guide.
A lot of us have angels or archangels or Jesus or Krishna or
someone or Gana as a guide andit, it almost sounds like that.
Do you feel that there's, thatReiki may have awakened that in
you?
Jill (12:05):
Absolutely.
Because, when I started.
reading and researching anddoing the teachings and the
practices.
It started changing stuff in meand my mind and everything
became familiar to me and it waslike, I can absorb this
information and retain thisinformation.
(12:26):
And.
and it actually helped me tounderstand Christianity more.
I meet other Buddhist who saythat too.
There was an awareness therethat somehow I feel like in some
of the teachings with Buddhism,they have answers.
And so it's definitely not likea fear based mentality, real
religion or spiritual practice.
(12:47):
It's more of an empowermentpractice and helping people in
compassion and, develop.
Wisdom and, getting rid of thepoisons of the mind, like in the
Reiki precepts, getting rid ofanger and worry.
And so you're dissolving a lotof the.
negative qualities in there.
And so you have these tools.
And so I've always looked at itas tools and in some way it
(13:10):
helped me to understand whatthey were actually really saying
in the Bible.
And so I could look at thedeeper meaning versus beyond a
story let's say in some parts isI don't know that doesn't seem,
that seems a little.
How could that happen or, orcertain things, parts of it.
I was able to comprehend on adeeper level what they were
(13:33):
actually saying by working withBuddhism as a tool.
Pam (13:37):
It's interesting.
Yeah.
And so it sounds A couple ofthings.
It sounds like the Buddhistteachings that you've been, that
you've learned, been learningand that you've committed to are
they're much more formal than Irealized.
It sounds there's certainpractices and ways of doing
things and cuz I've long been afan of the Dai Lama read just
(13:58):
about everything that I canread.
I like to read about allreligions, honestly, because I
think what you said.
Understanding a little bit moreabout another religion helps me
understand my own a little bitbetter.
And I think just broadens ourmind.
And you see what sensei was aspiritual seeker.
He was constantly learning fromother spiritual traditions as
(14:19):
well.
Now he grew up Buddhist and wasa grew up in a community and
went to Tendi Buddhist.
Is it called temple?
Is it called?
Yeah.
Did he not?
Yeah.
And I
Jill (14:34):
different sectors like Christianity, you've got Baptist
and Catholics and so you thinkof like different branches and
then you've got like the Buddhataught, 88,000 paths to
enlightenment.
And so like the Cambodians havea Buddhist practice in the TIS
and then you've got the Thai,the Thai Buddhas.
If you notice they're likepointier.
(14:55):
Yes.
So there's different practices.
And if you think of 88,000different ways to achieve that.
There's 88 th and there's more,but it's that's the path.
And so when we think about it,it's so it's not all exactly the
same, but a lot of the, there'sa lot of the concepts, the core
things.
But then there may be differenttools and techniques just like
different Reiki systems may havedifferent tools and technique.
(15:18):
That's right.
In how they actually do thepractices.
So there's not just one rightway.
And different, there'sdifferent, Buddhist people like,
that live in caves and thingslike I have a dear friend, who's
part of my practice, who she'snot living in a cave, but she's
living in a, very simple.
In, in taking a vow silence for,three or four years going in to
(15:41):
advanced practices and things.
But there, there were actualpeople who do live in caves and
they, will depending on thevarious.
States that you're changing.
And what you're healing in thislife.
And so that meaning that,different paths and techniques
would be required.
And so I think this could bepart of what inspired a suey is
(16:02):
maybe this idea, or just athought of that.
There are different ways thatthere isn't just one.
That there isn't
Pam (16:08):
just one way.
And that's actually the wholeinspiration, this podcast
series.
I don't know if I will everfinish writing the book.
I did start it, but I heardstart learning about all of the
different, as many religions asyou can because all roads lead
home.
And I know when I interviewedMunai Mohamed he said, it's if
(16:29):
you.
If I lived in a mountain and youlived in the valley and we
decided to meet at a temple orsomething, my journey to get
there wouldn't even look at allthe same as your journey to get
there.
Mine would be downhillers wouldbe uphill.
I'd be coming through thisterrain.
You'd be coming through thatterrain.
But in the end we meet at thesame place and that's the, you
(16:51):
know what, I heard that, thatthere, there are all these
different ways to.
Achieve enlightenment, which88,000 ways, of course.
And to get home.
And one of the things that Ilove for instance, I know I love
for me personally, I love the IC R T philosophies around Reiki.
They just really resonate withme, but I also love that there
(17:14):
are so many other differentlineages out there.
What resonates with me might notresonate with someone else and
they might need another lineageto be more appropriate to them.
So it sounds like what you'redescribing with Buddhism is the
same, that, and the same is withChristianity.
(17:34):
There are so many different sexand with pretty much every
religion, there are so manydifferent sex and rather than.
Say my sec is the right sec andyour sec is the wrong sec.
I think we need to be reallyopen to the fact that, this is
what works for me and that overthere works better for you.
And that's fantastic.
And I think that's of a big partof the, yeah, the whole reason
(17:56):
for this podcast actually.
I
Jill (17:59):
know, I know
Pam (18:00):
exactly.
I love it.
And Jill, just talking about.
I've seen written on the web.
And of course, if it's writtenon the web, it must be true.
of course I say thatfacetiously.
I see, I have seen written onthe web that there are some
people who say that Reiki is aBuddhist tradition and.
(18:22):
I've always take and then thereare other people who say, oh if
it's a Buddhist tradition, thenyou're Muslim.
You can't practice it.
Or you're Christian, you can'tpractice it.
And they kind of use, use thatreasoning.
And I take a little bit ofexception to that because as far
as I understood Sei sensei was aspiritual seeker and he, we've
heard that it said that he wasChristian.
(18:42):
We've heard it said that he wasBuddhist.
I've been, I've heard that hepracticed Shintoism.
What I know is that he was veryinterested in all of.
And he does seem to have donehis best to learn as much as he
could about as many differentreligions as he was able to at
(19:03):
the time.
And.
So I I realized that he wasraised Buddhist, but I've always
felt that Reiki was morenon-denominational.
And I remember asking WilliamRand once, is Reiki associated
with any religion?
And he emphatically said no,because religions can divide
people and Reiki is appropriateno matter what your religion and
(19:27):
it works hand in hand with it.
And even if you're atheist orhave no religion, it.
It still works hand in hand withthat.
What is your thought aroundthat?
Because you have a lot morebackground in
Jill (19:39):
Buddhism than I do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I, I agree with what you'resaying, in, in regards to
Buddhism and so forth, again,because we have, so let's just
say that he was Buddhist, right?
Like maybe we don't know.
So let's just say that he was,and, but
Pam (19:53):
and he probably.
There's good
Jill (19:55):
change that he was, but the Buddhist philosophy is the
same as his philosophy ofwanting to spread it throughout
the world.
So there's nothing in Buddhismthat would say when I explain
that Buddhism.
So it was brought to the westbecause it was exiled and people
were exiled and where ourteachings come from, my
(20:16):
teachings come from, Tibet andNepal.
My teacher was from that regionwas exiled.
Came here.
With the shirt on his back andwas guided to bring it to the
west.
And when he brought theteachings of red Tara.
So think of where the Dharmayou've heard of the Dharma and
it's a wheel and it turns, sothe Dharma and it's, and the
(20:37):
Buddhism is always the wheel.
That's.
Turning.
And so what's happening is thatat times you have teachings up
here, but then at other times isthe world is changing.
These teachings go down here.
And this is part of these 88,000paths that are always happening
and continuously changing andevolving for what we need, just
like what Reiki is doing.
(20:57):
And so my teachers have alwayssaid to me, And I think about
this with Reiki too, is likebeing very careful about how you
represent it and so forthbecause you never wanna turn
anybody off from receiving it.
And so the fact that theBuddhism was brought to the
west, so Westerners could learnit very much, like how Reiki was
(21:19):
brought to the west when Tokatabrought it and made change.
The Buddhist make changes intheir texts.
You have sacred texts thatpeople are doing and these
teachings and rituals that goon, but as times changing, so do
the practices and so forthbecause the wheel is always
turning.
So when these practices, forinstance of the ones that I'm
(21:40):
learning, they're Tibetanpractices that were rewritten by
a Tibetan Nepali man.
Brought to the west.
So Westerners could learn themin a way similar to how de kata
did now.
The stories and everything areall kept authentic, because that
is one thing that Buddhist haveis like strong integrity with
their practices and they haveRelic holders.
(22:02):
And the process of becoming aLama is.
Process of being a Toku, whichmeans that there is like a
birthright, like you can't justbecome a Lama.
There is a lot of work and theylike looking at astrology.
There's different relics.
That the teacher before you, solike when you die, you would
maybe have the successor whowould then say, okay, Pam's
(22:26):
coming back as a woman in,Canada and we need to, but we
don't know.
We just know she could besomewhere in this region.
They have the ability to see allof this stuff around this
certain time.
And so a lot of times they maybe born in the regions of Nepal
and in the Himalayas and.
and then they send people outlooking and they have all of
(22:47):
their relics, like their Mala,their bell, all these things.
And then the Toku One years oldis able to determine what's
theirs.
They're able to come into thelife already knowing teachings
and practices that they neverlearned before.
And then they look at theastrology and they compare it
and there's all, there's a veryvigorous process.
(23:08):
And then usually it's would beblessed by like the Dai Lama and
so forth.
And so it's this birthright thatthey go out searching for.
These teachers, you have oneDali Lama, you have one Carma
you have about, a hundred CHES.
And then it goes on from there.
And those people that are intothat.
People can make their way intoteaching, but it's really
(23:31):
through a birthright processthat you come back with this
information.
And there are these rallyhunters that can find where
these sacred scripts and stuffare put away and know when to
bring them back out for theright time.
Yeah.
So is this huge thing of thesethings are going on and it's
happening and evolving.
So these teachings then werebrought to the.
(23:52):
For Westerners to be able toreceive Buddhism and then it was
brought to Brazil.
So it would be brought.
So the, so my, I guess my pointis that in no way, was it.
People aren't supposed to learnthis and we're supposed to keep
this for ourselves.
And right.
So there was an openness withit.
There's always been an opennesswith Buddhism and it's so
(24:15):
people, because the whole thingis to free yourself from
suffering, and it to remove fromattachment.
So you have no attachment tosomething and you are, and
you're healing your ego andyou're doing all of these things
of not.
This is my religion and only youcan do it and, and if there's
respectful ways of practicingand of course traditions and,
(24:35):
things that, that would go intoany sort of thing, but it's.
In my opinion, that if he wasborn at least a Buddhist person
and growing up in that way andstudy different religions that,
that common, like part of himthat wanted to spread Reiki
throughout the world comes fromthat Bodhi sofa, intention of
(24:56):
wanting to help other people,which in my mind is a Budd.
Philosophy, but you don't haveto be Buddhist to have that sort
of heart and wanna help people.
And so I think that even if hewas, or if he wasn't, we don't
have to have a label becauseonce he obtained that, state it
(25:18):
on the mountain where heachieved peace, he had moved
beyond all of those barrier.
Pam (25:25):
The thee or the perfect
Jill (25:28):
Sei that's right.
And so I think he, at thatpoint, he moved beyond that mind
frame of that separation.
But he used Buddhism as afoundation in a spiritual
practice as ways of helping toachieve that sort of that state,
that bud in nature, that he waswanting to achieve.
(25:49):
But he doesn't need to be, likeI'm Buddhist and there's people
who could be, Buddhist, but notpracticing Buddhism.
Pam (25:56):
That's right.
And a label a well, but now tellus a little bit about, say your
daily practices with Buddhism,because as you've described
them, I've realized that they'rea bit more formal than I thought
they were.
I know you, we've been togetherin Buddhist temples and you've
explained some of.
Teachings and some of theprayers and, the wheels and
whatnot, but what would be a Ty,what would be some typical
(26:19):
practices for you as a prac?
And how long have you beenpracticing Buddhism?
Yeah,
Jill (26:24):
For a long time for a really long time I wanna say,
geez, I hate, it's hard puttingdates on things anymore, but.
almost 20 years.
Wow.
So it's you've had a while, soit's a while, looking at exact
dates or whatever, it's youstart to go wait, I don't want,
(26:44):
you know what I mean?
It's oh, I gotta do math now.
No.
This time it's been a long timethough.
And so I've been practicing itfor a while and in Tibetan
Buddhism or in the lineage thatI.
You usually, you start with apreliminary practice.
So a preliminary practice issomething like red Tara.
(27:04):
That's a practice that I do.
This is a picture of the text.
If you can see this, for thosewho
Pam (27:12):
are watching on YouTube, you can probably see it, but
then for those who arelistening.
Yeah.
Jill (27:17):
And so then in that you have an opening prayer that you
do.
And then you go into dissolvingthe space around you.
And then through this, wepractice what's called guru
yoga.
So then you can embody throughthe empowerment.
It allows you to take form mergewith the, so Tara.
(27:38):
So red Tara is one of mypractices.
So then you're merging with, andgoing into Tara.
PRI wisdom.
And and then you are askingbasically for your obstacles to
be removed so you can obtainyour aspirations and help other
people.
Then we do an offering.
And and in offering a lot oftimes you're doing you're doing
(27:59):
gestures with that.
And there's different ones fordifferent practices as you're
offering.
And then you're basicallydedicating the practice.
And offering prayers ofaspiration and dedicating it to
other people.
So there's a way that you dothat and to get through it, I
mean like a self Reiki practice,how would I compare that you
(28:21):
could do as little or as much asyou want to.
And to really get through itprobably, if you're really doing
it and you're really in it, it'san hour, it's probably, it's an
hour.
When you have the ma and thebead of the ma.
And so the ma is to count yourprayers.
And so when you're doing yourprayers, you're doing your ma
(28:42):
and so you have to do for redtar, it's a hundred thousand jet
soons.
And so if you do so many.
Per day times this, it comes outto a couple of years, it takes
you to do that, to do thatprayer, do the re resuscitation
of that.
And so as you are re recitingthis.
(29:05):
What's happening is it'srewiring your brain because what
you're doing is instead ofgoing, oh, I'm so unhappy, blah,
blah, blah.
You're like now you're bringingyour brain into rewiring.
And so that's changing things.
And so this changings your mind,because you're literally
changing what you're saying toyour.
(29:26):
wow.
And so it becomes very powerful.
After you complete thepreliminary practice, then you
can move into Nuro and Nen.
Takes, if you're doing itactive, that's another set of
practices.
And that takes about three,three years, three months, three
days to really, to completethat.
(29:47):
And within the noro, you've gotfour different area.
That you're dissolving.
And so you're doing offerings.
You're also doing guru yoga.
You're doing frustrations, whichis a really vigorous process
that you may have seen before,where you see Buddhist, bring
their hands up and then they goonto the ground and then they
come back up.
(30:08):
Those are frustrations.
And you'll see, like in Tibetwhere they'll walk for, Hundreds
or thousands of miles doingthat.
And that's a way of purifyingyour body karma because it tones
all of the meridians and thechannels.
And what's happening when you'redoing that is while you're in
pain going, I don't want to bedoing this is the exact reason
why you're doing it.
(30:28):
It's just it's this agonizing.
Sounds horrible.
But at the same time, it's thisoffering of I would compare it
to Jesus where they're givingthe gifts and things like this
and so forth.
It becomes this it's like thisoffering.
It's like the highest offeringalmost in a way that you can be
giving are, and you have to do ahundred thousand.
(30:49):
And
Pam (30:49):
This is a lot more involved than
Jill (30:51):
I really that's.
Yeah.
It's pretty involved.
And then, you're contemplatingin permanence which, because one
of humans' main human sufferingis.
Sphere of death and in, and itdoesn't like make it easier.
But what it does is it helps usto work with one of the main
reasons why humans suffer,people suffer.
(31:13):
And so as you're going throughthis process, what happens is
that over this time, Thesefeelings, they start to dissolve
and it changes you, you can, andthen from there then you're
ready to move into zoo genteachings and zoo Z gen
teachings is, really what theDai Lama is teaching.
And interestingly enough, Theyaren't these hard things.
(31:34):
It's everything that we know,but all of a sudden it's I got
it.
and
Pam (31:39):
you know it on a different level,
Jill (31:40):
do you, or it on a different level, because what
I'll say is that, and likeReiki, We repeat ourselves a
lot.
we say the same things over andover again, in Buddhism.
It's very much the same way I goto these teachings.
I hear different things eachtime, but when I hear the Dolly
Lama or I hear teachers, they'realways talking and it's like
(32:02):
about the same stuff, becausethat's what it's about, and it's
oh great.
I wanna get to the deep stuff.
And it's that is the deep stuff,this is it.
But somehow over time it just,it's different.
And maybe it's comparing, takinga Reiki, one class to getting to
animal Reiki and you're going,wow.
My life is different.
Yeah.
It's a change like that.
(32:22):
It's a ch it's a measurablechange.
Where you're going, whoa.
Something different is going onhere.
And and so because of that andbecause of the motivation of
helping other people developingmore compassion, I don't see it
as being a religion.
I see it as being like a toolthat has helped me to be a
(32:43):
better person to be a betterteacher.
And somewhat to understandEastern teachings, there's times
where some of the practices andpeople are like why do they say
that in Reiki?
And it's, through the Buddhistpractice that things make, oh in
Buddhism.
And a lot of times I do refer tovarious and I'll say, Hey, I
don't mean to talk about it,this.
But I know this and this is whatI would say that this would mean
(33:07):
because it correlates it, withlanguage or various things that
might sound off, like maybe likehow the Reiki precepts are like
just for today do not be angry.
And some people are like whywould I say just for today, why
wouldn't I do it every day?
And it's cuz the Eastern conceptis being in the moment and being
present.
And and not being in the past.
(33:28):
And and so if we move away fromour.
Western philosophy on kind ofthe idealism way of everything
could always be better.
You can understand the Easternconcepts and that sometimes
helps people in classes tounderstand why some of the
things maybe are written the waythat they
Pam (33:47):
I know a lot of people, Jill, like this is fascinating.
I think I could just talk withyou about this all day.
Because I think a lot of people,I talk to a lot of people who
say, I'm very drawn to Buddhismand just drawn to the
generosity, the peacefulness.
The meditative aspects and thissort of thing.
And certainly I'm a huge DaiLama fan.
(34:08):
just, I devour every book thathe writes and every, it's just
fascinating philosophies.
And how do you find I, I didn'trealize you were so deeply into
the practice.
I knew you were Buddhist.
I knew.
but I guess I didn't realizewhat the practice entailed.
Do you have a temple or a churchor is this all pretty much,
(34:29):
mostly self-directed.
Jill (34:31):
In Minneapolis we have a group that meets up with COVID
things have changed and we dosome stuff online.
The, our, my main teacher, sheactually runs the center in
Brazil.
Okay.
There's another center R andLing, which is near San
Francisco.
And.
Cha good.
Cha good gunk is the foundationthat has a lot of different
(34:54):
places around the country.
Yes.
And so specifically inMinneapolis, we have a group, a
Dharma group, and my husband,one of his best friend and then
his wife, the one who's on thespiritual retreat because she's
moving into higher levels of hertraining cuz she's, gone onto
the silent retreat.
And so yes, she may be stayingout in San Francisco and working
(35:17):
at rigs and laying.
And then the husband is here anddoing his thing.
So that's an interesting, Hey,I'm going off and gonna be gone
for three years and So there's,I'm Buddhist, what do I do?
And things like that happen.
We have a group and they havebecause of their connection and
how long they've been doing it.
They can run our group, butthey're not in any way teachers
(35:39):
or people that can transmit theteachings.
They can though we can allpractice together.
And then they bring teachers infor us to receive the
empowerments and variousteachings that we need.
That's lovely.
Pam (35:52):
So they're more like facilitators, it seems yeah.
Yep.
Yeah.
Very cool.
And how does this all gotogether with Reiki for you?
How does that blend work?
Jill (36:02):
It feels like it blends really naturally to me.
I do still see myself as beingvery open spiritually, so other
guides come in, other people'sguides come in.
I work with other guides otherthan Buddhist guides.
But I do have I do have that.
And again, it's like my coresort of spiritual practice.
(36:23):
But.
A few years ago when holy firecame through, I wanna say when
the holy fire three came in, Iwas shown a technique that I
could do in my red Tarapractice.
And then actually charge myReiki grids as I merge and
become Tara.
And so I've been shown sometechniques.
(36:43):
I know other Dharma friends ofmine that have taken classes
that have also.
Said that I find that thelanguage is really beautiful.
There's a lot of similaritiesthere and things that it's very
easy and natural for me to talkabout it.
Because that sort of that truthis there.
William's done a great job at alot of the research that he's
(37:05):
done over the years.
And so there's a lot of thingsthat just resonate and I love
it.
When people from other religionslike are coming in and other
Buddhists are going, Hey, thisis like da dah, or this is da,
or, and it's yes.
And so it's really beautiful.
I love how Reiki surprisespeople too.
Like one of my friends grew upin a Lutheran and his father was
(37:27):
a pastor.
and he had said his whole life,he never really had spiritual
experiences, he's a TibetanBuddhist, and he never really
has had and Buddhism is likecutting through that.
Like those sort of mysticalexperiences are chatter.
It's Hey, can you do thatwithout that?
So it's not, they really wantyou to dissolve all the.
(37:48):
Side and the inside.
And so the duality is a hugepart of it.
And he would be talking aboutI'm in the, bamboo forest and,
it's the perfect thing.
And you're like, I got nothing,and then he's and then I come to
Reiki class and arch angel,Michael shows up and then he's
what any, and we laugh.
And it's of course.
And so I love to see.
(38:10):
Expansion of even moving beyondand just like being, I don't
feel limited.
And I've had good talks with oneof my teachers Lama searing, and
I've been blessed that some ofmy teachers are women through
the lineage that's been, andthat's something.
I've heard before where peoplehave said women can't hold
positions of power and Buddhismand, in, in some sex possibly,
(38:33):
but in the Tibetan lineage thatI'm in, there's actually a lot
of women.
We've also heard the Dai Lamatalk about that women maybe he
may be coming back as a woman Sothat, women are celebrated and
maybe in some sex, they aren't,but I just wanna know that women
are empowered in the TibetanBuddhism lineage that I'm in.
And there's several women andseveral women teachers.
(38:56):
And so one of my dear teachers,LAE, Everest she.
She had told me how I can workwith Reiki.
And I had an astrology readingwith her years ago before I even
knew the potential.
And she pulled some friendsaside and was like, who is that
girl?
If I'm gonna have a healer, Iwant it to be her.
And I'm like, what?
(39:16):
And I was like, She's nottalking about me, this was, I
was really like early on andinsecure, some of the stuff that
comes along with the Reiki andyou're like, wow, the changes
that, we tell people can happen.
And I was blown away that it waswithin my astrology chart.
And and just so she guided meand had told me early on.
(39:37):
And so I felt blessings from thevery beginning that it was okay.
And that I was empowered and.
By the people that were workingwith me spiritually.
And I felt like I had somereally solid teachers, that,
that couldn't be their, theycouldn't be disproven.
Whatever they, very.
High integrity solid foundationwith great practices and and
(40:03):
it's always been that way.
So I, I feel very lucky that itjust seems like it's all meant
to be.
And it's coming back, like yousaid, in the beginning, from.
Something that was like in apast life for me.
Pam (40:15):
Yeah.
And because I think in BuddhismI certainly in most religions
actually, and even in earlyChristianity before it was
changed, about 400 ad, Iunderstand that most religions
have a belief in reincarnation.
I didn't realize astrology waspart of, some of the Buddhist
traditions.
Are you, it sounded like yousaid it is it is, or it can.
Jill (40:39):
Yes.
Yes, absolutely.
Yep.
And one, and my teacher Lamas isa, is an astrologer.
So she does charts and she's areally good astrologer.
And they use it as a way.
And my teacher before Rimpochehe was a Tibetan medicine
healer.
He was astrologer, he was aphysician like he had the power.
(41:02):
To heal.
He had the power to call instorms if he, if they needed
rain.
He was a powerful person and notlike I'm powerful, but just, had
the ability to work with energy.
And so through that also comesthere's healing modalities
connected to this practice thatI.
Wow.
Pam (41:22):
It's energy all the way through, so Buddhism.
Yeah.
Really is it recognizes and, Ihave a lot of friends who are
astrologers and I do follow someof that.
And then even like the humandesign, like a lot of it goes by
astrology and it always astoundsme how accurate it is, whether
you believe in it or not.
When you do look at your birthchart and you look.
(41:43):
The different aspects of how youprobably show up in the world.
It always is amazing howaccurate it is.
Jill, what would you tell any ofour listeners who might wanna
learn more about Buddhism?
Where would be a good place forthem to begin?
If this was something thatthey've been curious about or
would like to learn.
Jill (42:02):
sure.
Turga is a great, you could lookthat up online, they have online
campuses and also local.
They're really open network, lotof different Tibetan practices
may come together there.
And so people may, if they'relooking for something it might
be a great way.
What I find is that some peoplecould get a little bit like,
(42:23):
whoa, that's a little over myhead, you walk into a thing and
people are doing Tibet andyou're like, whoa.
And and so I was lucky enough,like in Minneapolis that I knew
the folks that were running itand they're like my best
friends.
And so we can just be talkingand I'm like, Hey, what do I do
on that again?
Because you, it's not likeanybody's gonna go, you did that
wrong.
(42:43):
But if you're like, what are youeven doing?
You gotta get caught up.
Yeah.
And and so Perga is a reallygreat community with amazing
teachers.
That has preliminary practiceand other information that
people sort of basics and thingsthat I don't think that I got
when I joined.
No, it sounded like you jumpedright in with both teams just
jumped in.
(43:04):
It was hard.
And it was like, and I wasnervous oh, what do I do where.
Put the teachings, and it'sfine.
And some folks might go that'sfor me.
And rigs and Ling is in SanFrancisco and they hold
retreats.
And and so you could look intothat.
There's a lot of different.
Types of Buddhism.
And so sometimes what happens ifpeople don't resonate with a
(43:25):
certain teacher, it could turnthem off completely, so it might
be like, oh, I really wanna getinto Zen because they hear about
Zen and then they go and takeZen and they're like, Ooh, maybe
I don't wanna do Zen.
Cause it's like, There's a lotof chanting and there's a lot of
sitting and, and that's boringand, and just being honest, I've
got some wonderful teachersthat's we're done, we're
(43:45):
supposed to be done at six 30and you're going until 11:30 PM.
On and on, you're like, oh my, Ihave a teacher like that.
I gotta go.
But it's, I think it's importantto find it's really important to
find a good.
Yeah.
And so don't be turned off ifyou have an experience and maybe
it's not the right one maybethat's just not the right
lineage for you.
(44:06):
And so don't say, oh, I don'twanna do this.
Because of that, it just mightbe anything else, you're gonna
have.
Good and bad teachers throughyour life.
And and so that's a barrier thatI see if people are to talk to
me about Buddhism.
One of the things is, oh, I wasinterested in Zen Buddhism.
I was interested in this and Ididn't really get it.
Or and so then they're like, soI didn't go back.
(44:29):
And so look, keep looking.
Find a different teacher,there's many different lineages.
It's not all exactly the same.
Just like going to the Christianchurches.
They're not all exactly thesame.
Everything is different.
And so you just have to find theright teacher and now.
Teachers teach online.
You would have access to rigsand Ling and because they do
(44:50):
things online and teachers areteaching online.
You don't have to always travelwhich is a really neat thing
because it means that you can.
Be wherever you are and haveaccess to that.
So the rigs and Ling, would bewhere some of my teachers Lama
Padma is.
And as I mentioned, Lamas, she'sin, in Brazil Lama, cadre, I
(45:12):
think she's in New York.
And people, they move around andstay in different places.
Stuff.
And then they might be travelingthrough your area.
So you could also see and youcould look on the website
because there's differentpractice groups.
So like for instance, inMinneapolis, we don't have like
a teacher living here.
Except for, we do have Turga.
So we have Ming CHES here andhe's.
(45:34):
He's not, he moves becausethere's different parts of
Turga.
But but specifically the groupthat I'm part of is, the
practice group and people cancome.
The thing with Tibetan Buddhismis though is that you need to
receive the empowerments.
And so the empowerments it's todo the practice.
And so that's where you need.
If you really wanna do this,then you need.
(45:54):
Go get the empowerment right.
So you're empowered to do it andthen find your practice group or
start with something.
Like I said, look into Turga andsee a little bit different way
that it's set up might be a goodoption for you as well.
Pam (46:10):
I love that.
Thank you, Jill.
My gosh.
You've given us a lot to thinkabout, and I asked Jill if she
would lead us in a prayer or ameditation at the end of our
session, just so that we can allhave an experience with this.
Jill, I'm just, was thereanything before we move into
that, that you'd like to leavepeople
Jill (46:28):
with?
No.
So what I'm gonna do is justcall the seven line prayer.
I.
Say it first in the translationand then I'll do it Tibetan.
I'll do it.
Tibetan three.
Just so you can hear the flow.
So this is an opening prayer,and so it would start with on
the Northwest border of thecountry of origin in the pollen
(46:49):
heart of the Lotus, you attainmarvelous most excellent city
renowned is the Lotus born.
You are surrounded by a circleof many sky dancers as I
practice following in yourfootsteps.
I pray that you approach toconfer your blessings GU city.
(47:34):
Guru city origin drops on paid.
(48:03):
Guru.
City drop can guru.
(48:32):
Sudi who, all right.
Wow.
How did it feel?
Pam (48:42):
Like it changes something inside you, like it changes you
it's I felt that way.
In one of my earlier podcasts,Glen DWA went through.
The Thanksgiving address with usfirst in English and then in, in
MIMA in, and and I could feelsomething inside me changing and
(49:02):
it felt like that nice.
It felt very similar.
And even when you were readingit in English, I was just, I
could feel the shifting.
Jill (49:09):
Yeah.
It's powerful.
I, it really is it's like Reiki.
It's just you bring your handstogether and just.
It's a tool, you
Pam (49:17):
know, and it shifts in energy.
Doesn't it?
It.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jill, I can't thank you enoughfor giving us this insight and
this peak into what Buddhism isabout.
And it's funny I've done a fairbit of reading around it, but
you've brought a lot more outthan I realized was part of the
(49:39):
practice.
I really appreciate you spendingthe time with us.
Jill (49:43):
Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah.
It's been wonderful and I'm sohappy to share this information
and I hope that some people areinspired by it and look into it
if it, if they feel called toit.
I thank
Pam (49:57):
you so much.
And I thank you.
The listeners.
Thank you for Being with us.
We appreciate you.
I'll have Jill's contactinformation in the write up.
And so if any of you feel a needor would like to reach out to
her please go ahead, have abeautiful week.
Everyone Namaste.
On this week's podcast, I'm talking with Jill Thiel with our
Reiki religion series.
And today we're talking aboutthe beautiful and ancient
religion of Buddhism.
So Jill, I'd like to welcome youto the podcast.
Jill (01:11):
Thank you for having me.
It's great to be here.
It's great to be back, I shouldsay.
Yes.
Pam (01:16):
I call on you every now and again, and you're always you're
always great.
I appreciate your assistance.
When we want to learn somethingabout Reiki before we get
started.
I just want you to know that onthe farm we've got coming up at
the beginning of October.
A Reiki RMA class, which islevel one and two in masters.
Those are licensed classes thatcount toward professional
(01:39):
membership in the Reikimembership association.
That's why we call them RMAcourses.
I also have animal Reiki levels.
One and two in masters.
And at the very end of themonth, I have a holy fire, three
Kaurna Reiki class.
I also want to let you knowabout a series of six classes
coming up or six days of classcoming up in December, where six
(02:02):
days in a row on the Friday,Saturday at the end of November,
beginning of December, Thursday,Friday is level one and two
Reiki.
The weekend is animal.
Communication, I believe.
And Monday, Tuesday is animalReiki, level one and two.
So if you're an animal lover,those six days in a row will get
(02:23):
you completely up to speed withall of our Reiki and animal
communication and animal Reikiclasses.
And I also want to call people'sattention cuz I know it takes a
little bit more planning to thefact that in March I will be
teaching.
Five day RMA class level one andtwo in masters, as well as a
(02:43):
level one and two Reiki class inAustralia in just outside of
Canberra.
And Queenborough Berry in alittle place called Royal at my
friend's farm.
and if you'd like to join us inAustralia go ahead.
I'll have a link to my calendarin the notes of the podcast, and
I'd love to have you check itout.
(03:05):
Jill, what do you have comingup?
Jill (03:08):
What do I have?
You can always go into mywebsite, which is Reiki dot com.
I've got an animal Reikimasterclass coming up this
weekend and hybrid so people canjoin online or in person, most
of my classes are hybrid.
I have masterclass the followingweekend.
Then I'm off a week and then Ibelieve it's back to a one and a
(03:30):
two.
And then.
An animal Reiki one and two atthe end of the month, the
weekend of Halloween.
So
Pam (03:37):
that's lovely.
That's the, that's when actuallyI'm teaching the Kaurna class.
So we'll be teaching during thatSam hae holiday.
Jill (03:48):
good energy.
It will be good energy for
Pam (03:51):
sure.
Guys, I wanted to invite Jillbecause we're trying to just get
to know a little bit better.
All of the religions in theworld, peace grids.
There are 12 religions, 12 ofthe world's major religions that
are represented there.
And of course, one of theworld's major rep.
Religions is Buddhism and Jillis a practicing Buddhist and
(04:14):
Buddhism and Reiki.
She's also a licensed teacher aslike I am with the international
center for Reiki training, and Ithought she could help us shed a
little light on it today.
And so Jill, my first questionfor you is, did you always
practice Buddhism or is thissomething that that came later
in your.
Jill (04:34):
Yeah, it's actually something that came later.
I grew up in a Methodist family.
Okay.
And as a kid, I actually reallyloved going to church and I
loved spirituality.
I liked all the ritualisticthings.
I didn't mind.
I, as I grew up, there weretimes where I've questioned my
faith and, Things that came upthat, I had, talks with God
(04:56):
about stuff I'm sure.
We all did.
And the main thing for me was Idid have a hard time really
understanding it, the storiesand the way that it was
presented.
So even though I always had atremendous amount of faith and I
believed in this sort of higherpower some.
Stories that were written.
It didn't make sense to me and Ididn't really understand, some
(05:16):
of these big, Noah's Ark and itjust, my brain was like, how is
this possible?
Which led me to then in collegewanting to look into other
religions.
And so I expanded and spent timein college taking religious
studies and learning aboutdifferent religion.
Eventually then what hadhappened is that when I took my
(05:38):
first Reiki one and two class, acouple of years later, I ended
up meeting my husband and he'sBuddhist and he didn't push it
on me at all.
I just happened to know that hewas Buddhist and he grew up also
Christian, I think he wasLutheran.
But then as he went off tocollege, a bunch of his.
Friends got into Buddhism andsome of them went off and became
(06:01):
teachers and what would be likeLama teachers and wow.
And so we had a really good in,or he had a really good in to a
really good lineage.
And so he started practicingthis and a lot of his friends
started practicing this.
So I found it fascinating cuz bythe time I had met him, he had
been, doing it for 20 years.
(06:22):
Wow.
And so I was still just, veryopen at this point and
interested.
And one day I remember, and Ihad taken Reiki one and two, and
I think I, at this point I hadtaken the master class.
I remember I was riding my bikeand this was before.
Memes and quotes in Facebook andwhere people would, put these
(06:44):
ideas maybe into your head.
I just remember having.
Hearing a voice telling me wisethings.
And I can't remember exactlywhat I was hearing, but I was
like, who is this?
And it's and I remember this isthe Buddha and how ever that
sounds.
And I'm like, interesting.
How do I know this?
And it's you've always known.
(07:04):
You've always had access to thisinformation at the time.
I didn't connect it, that maybethere was something going on
with Reiki that had healed andwas tapping into other truths
that I had already known, but itmade me so curious that I had
said to my husband.
I really think I wanna go to oneof, one of your ceremonies,
(07:25):
because I think I'm hearing theBuddha talking to me right.
And so that's where it began.
From there.
Ended up going to, I guess myfirst class was a really special
occasion where I had theopportunity to take refuge and
receive a name.
And some people might bepracticing Buddhism for a long
(07:47):
time and may never have thatopportunity.
So the way it works is if you'relucky to live in a place where
you have.
A high Lama that you can visitand go to that teaching.
It'd be like similar before wehad internet.
You'd have to travel to Williamor to you, to Colleen.
And there are teachers who arearound, but our teachers, my
(08:07):
teachers lived in other statesand actually the lineage of
Buddhism that I practice hasmade it down to Brazil.
So there is a significant.
Branch of the Tibetan Buddhismin Brazil because our lineage
was guided to get Buddhism tosouth America.
And so I, as walking into this,I didn't realize how special
(08:31):
this was because in all of theyears that I've been practicing,
I don't think they've ever hadanother naming or taking refuge.
That I know of that's come backto Minneapolis.
So I was like, whoa.
Okay.
So it was really big, like therewas and these are all formal
ways of it would be similar to Idon't wanna say joining the
church, but and not even beingbaptized, but like confirmation
(08:53):
or something.
Yeah.
Like there's these otherritualistic sort.
Things where you're going, oh,this is a, really, this is a
commitment.
And I'm saying yes.
And I'm like, okay.
Yes.
I, because I, so you go up.
and it's, you're walking up inthe line and the teachers up
there on, on the podium and,blessing you and handing out
(09:13):
cards like, oh, okay, I'm LamaYeshi, and then you sign it.
Here's the date that you tookrefuge.
And in a way, that's thebeginning of it because taking
refuge is saying that like I'mcommitting to this, and.
And then having a teacher andhaving a name is another part of
that.
So then through that, there wasan empowerment that weekend as
(09:34):
well for red Tara.
And so then I received my firstBuddhist empowerment and that
was a.
A really special occasion.
And that, that is anempowerment.
Pam (09:45):
Jill, can you explain
Jill (09:47):
that to us?
Yeah.
It's similar to a Reikiattunement and it's actually a
ritual that awakens our capacityfor primordial wisdom, a.
And it's called an empowermentcuz when we receive it, we're
empowered to follow a particularspiritual practice and to master
it and to come into itsrealization.
So it's not actually they canonly be given by qualified
(10:10):
advisor masters and you have tomaintain a specific practice.
Similar to Reiki, you have tosort.
Maintain.
There's a practice that we havewith, and so there's various
practices that I do.
And it's based on Boso vows.
So you are doing this to helpother people to end suffering.
So your motivation is purely forfreeing other people from.
(10:33):
suffering.
And so the most commondescription of an empowerment is
that it's a transfer of powerduring a ceremony.
And it's gonna give recipientsthe authorization to hear study
and practice teachings.
But it's not actually, sometimespeople are like, oh, giving
somebody power.
It's not really like that sortof a thing.
(10:56):
It's actually an activation ofourselves that already exist
within us that we just haven'trecognized yet.
And so you get this empower.
Or initiation.
And then what happens duringthis is we ripen our mature to
like our Buddha nature and wow.
So Al beans possess this nature,this inner nature without
(11:18):
receiving this empowerment orsimilar like OIA attunement It
won't be possible to get towhere it is that you need to
without receiving this blessing,the
Pam (11:28):
blessing and the, that connection.
So that you're connecting withsome knowledge or something that
already exists.
It sounds like within you, I'mjust, I wanna backtrack just a
little bit, Jill, when you werehearing.
The voice that was guiding youand giving you wisdom.
It almost sounds to me likemaybe you were tapping into some
past life information and italmost sounds like Buddha was
(11:50):
your guide.
A lot of us have angels or archangels or Jesus or Krishna or
someone or Gana as a guide andit, it almost sounds like that.
Do you feel that there's, thatReiki may have awakened that in
you?
Jill (12:05):
Absolutely.
Because, when I started.
reading and researching anddoing the teachings and the
practices.
It started changing stuff in meand my mind and everything
became familiar to me and it waslike, I can absorb this
information and retain thisinformation.
(12:26):
And.
and it actually helped me tounderstand Christianity more.
I meet other Buddhist who saythat too.
There was an awareness therethat somehow I feel like in some
of the teachings with Buddhism,they have answers.
And so it's definitely not likea fear based mentality, real
religion or spiritual practice.
(12:47):
It's more of an empowermentpractice and helping people in
compassion and, develop.
Wisdom and, getting rid of thepoisons of the mind, like in the
Reiki precepts, getting rid ofanger and worry.
And so you're dissolving a lotof the.
negative qualities in there.
And so you have these tools.
And so I've always looked at itas tools and in some way it
(13:10):
helped me to understand whatthey were actually really saying
in the Bible.
And so I could look at thedeeper meaning versus beyond a
story let's say in some parts isI don't know that doesn't seem,
that seems a little.
How could that happen or, orcertain things, parts of it.
I was able to comprehend on adeeper level what they were
(13:33):
actually saying by working withBuddhism as a tool.
Pam (13:37):
It's interesting.
Yeah.
And so it sounds A couple ofthings.
It sounds like the Buddhistteachings that you've been, that
you've learned, been learningand that you've committed to are
they're much more formal than Irealized.
It sounds there's certainpractices and ways of doing
things and cuz I've long been afan of the Dai Lama read just
(13:58):
about everything that I canread.
I like to read about allreligions, honestly, because I
think what you said.
Understanding a little bit moreabout another religion helps me
understand my own a little bitbetter.
And I think just broadens ourmind.
And you see what sensei was aspiritual seeker.
He was constantly learning fromother spiritual traditions as
(14:19):
well.
Now he grew up Buddhist and wasa grew up in a community and
went to Tendi Buddhist.
Is it called temple?
Is it called?
Yeah.
Did he not?
Yeah.
And I
Jill (14:34):
different sectors like Christianity, you've got Baptist
and Catholics and so you thinkof like different branches and
then you've got like the Buddhataught, 88,000 paths to
enlightenment.
And so like the Cambodians havea Buddhist practice in the TIS
and then you've got the Thai,the Thai Buddhas.
If you notice they're likepointier.
(14:55):
Yes.
So there's different practices.
And if you think of 88,000different ways to achieve that.
There's 88 th and there's more,but it's that's the path.
And so when we think about it,it's so it's not all exactly the
same, but a lot of the, there'sa lot of the concepts, the core
things.
But then there may be differenttools and techniques just like
different Reiki systems may havedifferent tools and technique.
(15:18):
That's right.
In how they actually do thepractices.
So there's not just one rightway.
And different, there'sdifferent, Buddhist people like,
that live in caves and thingslike I have a dear friend, who's
part of my practice, who she'snot living in a cave, but she's
living in a, very simple.
In, in taking a vow silence for,three or four years going in to
(15:41):
advanced practices and things.
But there, there were actualpeople who do live in caves and
they, will depending on thevarious.
States that you're changing.
And what you're healing in thislife.
And so that meaning that,different paths and techniques
would be required.
And so I think this could bepart of what inspired a suey is
(16:02):
maybe this idea, or just athought of that.
There are different ways thatthere isn't just one.
That there isn't
Pam (16:08):
just one way.
And that's actually the wholeinspiration, this podcast
series.
I don't know if I will everfinish writing the book.
I did start it, but I heardstart learning about all of the
different, as many religions asyou can because all roads lead
home.
And I know when I interviewedMunai Mohamed he said, it's if
(16:29):
you.
If I lived in a mountain and youlived in the valley and we
decided to meet at a temple orsomething, my journey to get
there wouldn't even look at allthe same as your journey to get
there.
Mine would be downhillers wouldbe uphill.
I'd be coming through thisterrain.
You'd be coming through thatterrain.
But in the end we meet at thesame place and that's the, you
(16:51):
know what, I heard that, thatthere, there are all these
different ways to.
Achieve enlightenment, which88,000 ways, of course.
And to get home.
And one of the things that Ilove for instance, I know I love
for me personally, I love the IC R T philosophies around Reiki.
They just really resonate withme, but I also love that there
(17:14):
are so many other differentlineages out there.
What resonates with me might notresonate with someone else and
they might need another lineageto be more appropriate to them.
So it sounds like what you'redescribing with Buddhism is the
same, that, and the same is withChristianity.
(17:34):
There are so many different sexand with pretty much every
religion, there are so manydifferent sex and rather than.
Say my sec is the right sec andyour sec is the wrong sec.
I think we need to be reallyopen to the fact that, this is
what works for me and that overthere works better for you.
And that's fantastic.
And I think that's of a big partof the, yeah, the whole reason
(17:56):
for this podcast actually.
I
Jill (17:59):
know, I know
Pam (18:00):
exactly.
I love it.
And Jill, just talking about.
I've seen written on the web.
And of course, if it's writtenon the web, it must be true.
of course I say thatfacetiously.
I see, I have seen written onthe web that there are some
people who say that Reiki is aBuddhist tradition and.
(18:22):
I've always take and then thereare other people who say, oh if
it's a Buddhist tradition, thenyou're Muslim.
You can't practice it.
Or you're Christian, you can'tpractice it.
And they kind of use, use thatreasoning.
And I take a little bit ofexception to that because as far
as I understood Sei sensei was aspiritual seeker and he, we've
heard that it said that he wasChristian.
(18:42):
We've heard it said that he wasBuddhist.
I've been, I've heard that hepracticed Shintoism.
What I know is that he was veryinterested in all of.
And he does seem to have donehis best to learn as much as he
could about as many differentreligions as he was able to at
(19:03):
the time.
And.
So I I realized that he wasraised Buddhist, but I've always
felt that Reiki was morenon-denominational.
And I remember asking WilliamRand once, is Reiki associated
with any religion?
And he emphatically said no,because religions can divide
people and Reiki is appropriateno matter what your religion and
(19:27):
it works hand in hand with it.
And even if you're atheist orhave no religion, it.
It still works hand in hand withthat.
What is your thought aroundthat?
Because you have a lot morebackground in
Jill (19:39):
Buddhism than I do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I, I agree with what you'resaying, in, in regards to
Buddhism and so forth, again,because we have, so let's just
say that he was Buddhist, right?
Like maybe we don't know.
So let's just say that he was,and, but
Pam (19:53):
and he probably.
There's good
Jill (19:55):
change that he was, but the Buddhist philosophy is the
same as his philosophy ofwanting to spread it throughout
the world.
So there's nothing in Buddhismthat would say when I explain
that Buddhism.
So it was brought to the westbecause it was exiled and people
were exiled and where ourteachings come from, my
(20:16):
teachings come from, Tibet andNepal.
My teacher was from that regionwas exiled.
Came here.
With the shirt on his back andwas guided to bring it to the
west.
And when he brought theteachings of red Tara.
So think of where the Dharmayou've heard of the Dharma and
it's a wheel and it turns, sothe Dharma and it's, and the
(20:37):
Buddhism is always the wheel.
That's.
Turning.
And so what's happening is thatat times you have teachings up
here, but then at other times isthe world is changing.
These teachings go down here.
And this is part of these 88,000paths that are always happening
and continuously changing andevolving for what we need, just
like what Reiki is doing.
(20:57):
And so my teachers have alwayssaid to me, And I think about
this with Reiki too, is likebeing very careful about how you
represent it and so forthbecause you never wanna turn
anybody off from receiving it.
And so the fact that theBuddhism was brought to the
west, so Westerners could learnit very much, like how Reiki was
(21:19):
brought to the west when Tokatabrought it and made change.
The Buddhist make changes intheir texts.
You have sacred texts thatpeople are doing and these
teachings and rituals that goon, but as times changing, so do
the practices and so forthbecause the wheel is always
turning.
So when these practices, forinstance of the ones that I'm
(21:40):
learning, they're Tibetanpractices that were rewritten by
a Tibetan Nepali man.
Brought to the west.
So Westerners could learn themin a way similar to how de kata
did now.
The stories and everything areall kept authentic, because that
is one thing that Buddhist haveis like strong integrity with
their practices and they haveRelic holders.
(22:02):
And the process of becoming aLama is.
Process of being a Toku, whichmeans that there is like a
birthright, like you can't justbecome a Lama.
There is a lot of work and theylike looking at astrology.
There's different relics.
That the teacher before you, solike when you die, you would
maybe have the successor whowould then say, okay, Pam's
(22:26):
coming back as a woman in,Canada and we need to, but we
don't know.
We just know she could besomewhere in this region.
They have the ability to see allof this stuff around this
certain time.
And so a lot of times they maybe born in the regions of Nepal
and in the Himalayas and.
and then they send people outlooking and they have all of
(22:47):
their relics, like their Mala,their bell, all these things.
And then the Toku One years oldis able to determine what's
theirs.
They're able to come into thelife already knowing teachings
and practices that they neverlearned before.
And then they look at theastrology and they compare it
and there's all, there's a veryvigorous process.
(23:08):
And then usually it's would beblessed by like the Dai Lama and
so forth.
And so it's this birthright thatthey go out searching for.
These teachers, you have oneDali Lama, you have one Carma
you have about, a hundred CHES.
And then it goes on from there.
And those people that are intothat.
People can make their way intoteaching, but it's really
(23:31):
through a birthright processthat you come back with this
information.
And there are these rallyhunters that can find where
these sacred scripts and stuffare put away and know when to
bring them back out for theright time.
Yeah.
So is this huge thing of thesethings are going on and it's
happening and evolving.
So these teachings then werebrought to the.
(23:52):
For Westerners to be able toreceive Buddhism and then it was
brought to Brazil.
So it would be brought.
So the, so my, I guess my pointis that in no way, was it.
People aren't supposed to learnthis and we're supposed to keep
this for ourselves.
And right.
So there was an openness withit.
There's always been an opennesswith Buddhism and it's so
(24:15):
people, because the whole thingis to free yourself from
suffering, and it to remove fromattachment.
So you have no attachment tosomething and you are, and
you're healing your ego andyou're doing all of these things
of not.
This is my religion and only youcan do it and, and if there's
respectful ways of practicingand of course traditions and,
(24:35):
things that, that would go intoany sort of thing, but it's.
In my opinion, that if he wasborn at least a Buddhist person
and growing up in that way andstudy different religions that,
that common, like part of himthat wanted to spread Reiki
throughout the world comes fromthat Bodhi sofa, intention of
(24:56):
wanting to help other people,which in my mind is a Budd.
Philosophy, but you don't haveto be Buddhist to have that sort
of heart and wanna help people.
And so I think that even if hewas, or if he wasn't, we don't
have to have a label becauseonce he obtained that, state it
(25:18):
on the mountain where heachieved peace, he had moved
beyond all of those barrier.
Pam (25:25):
The thee or the perfect
Jill (25:28):
Sei that's right.
And so I think he, at thatpoint, he moved beyond that mind
frame of that separation.
But he used Buddhism as afoundation in a spiritual
practice as ways of helping toachieve that sort of that state,
that bud in nature, that he waswanting to achieve.
(25:49):
But he doesn't need to be, likeI'm Buddhist and there's people
who could be, Buddhist, but notpracticing Buddhism.
Pam (25:56):
That's right.
And a label a well, but now tellus a little bit about, say your
daily practices with Buddhism,because as you've described
them, I've realized that they'rea bit more formal than I thought
they were.
I know you, we've been togetherin Buddhist temples and you've
explained some of.
Teachings and some of theprayers and, the wheels and
whatnot, but what would be a Ty,what would be some typical
(26:19):
practices for you as a prac?
And how long have you beenpracticing Buddhism?
Yeah,
Jill (26:24):
For a long time for a really long time I wanna say,
geez, I hate, it's hard puttingdates on things anymore, but.
almost 20 years.
Wow.
So it's you've had a while, soit's a while, looking at exact
dates or whatever, it's youstart to go wait, I don't want,
(26:44):
you know what I mean?
It's oh, I gotta do math now.
No.
This time it's been a long timethough.
And so I've been practicing itfor a while and in Tibetan
Buddhism or in the lineage thatI.
You usually, you start with apreliminary practice.
So a preliminary practice issomething like red Tara.
(27:04):
That's a practice that I do.
This is a picture of the text.
If you can see this, for thosewho
Pam (27:12):
are watching on YouTube, you can probably see it, but
then for those who arelistening.
Yeah.
Jill (27:17):
And so then in that you have an opening prayer that you
do.
And then you go into dissolvingthe space around you.
And then through this, wepractice what's called guru
yoga.
So then you can embody throughthe empowerment.
It allows you to take form mergewith the, so Tara.
(27:38):
So red Tara is one of mypractices.
So then you're merging with, andgoing into Tara.
PRI wisdom.
And and then you are askingbasically for your obstacles to
be removed so you can obtainyour aspirations and help other
people.
Then we do an offering.
And and in offering a lot oftimes you're doing you're doing
(27:59):
gestures with that.
And there's different ones fordifferent practices as you're
offering.
And then you're basicallydedicating the practice.
And offering prayers ofaspiration and dedicating it to
other people.
So there's a way that you dothat and to get through it, I
mean like a self Reiki practice,how would I compare that you
(28:21):
could do as little or as much asyou want to.
And to really get through itprobably, if you're really doing
it and you're really in it, it'san hour, it's probably, it's an
hour.
When you have the ma and thebead of the ma.
And so the ma is to count yourprayers.
And so when you're doing yourprayers, you're doing your ma
(28:42):
and so you have to do for redtar, it's a hundred thousand jet
soons.
And so if you do so many.
Per day times this, it comes outto a couple of years, it takes
you to do that, to do thatprayer, do the re resuscitation
of that.
And so as you are re recitingthis.
(29:05):
What's happening is it'srewiring your brain because what
you're doing is instead ofgoing, oh, I'm so unhappy, blah,
blah, blah.
You're like now you're bringingyour brain into rewiring.
And so that's changing things.
And so this changings your mind,because you're literally
changing what you're saying toyour.
(29:26):
wow.
And so it becomes very powerful.
After you complete thepreliminary practice, then you
can move into Nuro and Nen.
Takes, if you're doing itactive, that's another set of
practices.
And that takes about three,three years, three months, three
days to really, to completethat.
(29:47):
And within the noro, you've gotfour different area.
That you're dissolving.
And so you're doing offerings.
You're also doing guru yoga.
You're doing frustrations, whichis a really vigorous process
that you may have seen before,where you see Buddhist, bring
their hands up and then they goonto the ground and then they
come back up.
(30:08):
Those are frustrations.
And you'll see, like in Tibetwhere they'll walk for, Hundreds
or thousands of miles doingthat.
And that's a way of purifyingyour body karma because it tones
all of the meridians and thechannels.
And what's happening when you'redoing that is while you're in
pain going, I don't want to bedoing this is the exact reason
why you're doing it.
(30:28):
It's just it's this agonizing.
Sounds horrible.
But at the same time, it's thisoffering of I would compare it
to Jesus where they're givingthe gifts and things like this
and so forth.
It becomes this it's like thisoffering.
It's like the highest offeringalmost in a way that you can be
giving are, and you have to do ahundred thousand.
(30:49):
And
Pam (30:49):
This is a lot more involved than
Jill (30:51):
I really that's.
Yeah.
It's pretty involved.
And then, you're contemplatingin permanence which, because one
of humans' main human sufferingis.
Sphere of death and in, and itdoesn't like make it easier.
But what it does is it helps usto work with one of the main
reasons why humans suffer,people suffer.
(31:13):
And so as you're going throughthis process, what happens is
that over this time, Thesefeelings, they start to dissolve
and it changes you, you can, andthen from there then you're
ready to move into zoo genteachings and zoo Z gen
teachings is, really what theDai Lama is teaching.
And interestingly enough, Theyaren't these hard things.
(31:34):
It's everything that we know,but all of a sudden it's I got
it.
and
Pam (31:39):
you know it on a different level,
Jill (31:40):
do you, or it on a different level, because what
I'll say is that, and likeReiki, We repeat ourselves a
lot.
we say the same things over andover again, in Buddhism.
It's very much the same way I goto these teachings.
I hear different things eachtime, but when I hear the Dolly
Lama or I hear teachers, they'realways talking and it's like
(32:02):
about the same stuff, becausethat's what it's about, and it's
oh great.
I wanna get to the deep stuff.
And it's that is the deep stuff,this is it.
But somehow over time it just,it's different.
And maybe it's comparing, takinga Reiki, one class to getting to
animal Reiki and you're going,wow.
My life is different.
Yeah.
It's a change like that.
(32:22):
It's a ch it's a measurablechange.
Where you're going, whoa.
Something different is going onhere.
And and so because of that andbecause of the motivation of
helping other people developingmore compassion, I don't see it
as being a religion.
I see it as being like a toolthat has helped me to be a
(32:43):
better person to be a betterteacher.
And somewhat to understandEastern teachings, there's times
where some of the practices andpeople are like why do they say
that in Reiki?
And it's, through the Buddhistpractice that things make, oh in
Buddhism.
And a lot of times I do refer tovarious and I'll say, Hey, I
don't mean to talk about it,this.
But I know this and this is whatI would say that this would mean
(33:07):
because it correlates it, withlanguage or various things that
might sound off, like maybe likehow the Reiki precepts are like
just for today do not be angry.
And some people are like whywould I say just for today, why
wouldn't I do it every day?
And it's cuz the Eastern conceptis being in the moment and being
present.
And and not being in the past.
(33:28):
And and so if we move away fromour.
Western philosophy on kind ofthe idealism way of everything
could always be better.
You can understand the Easternconcepts and that sometimes
helps people in classes tounderstand why some of the
things maybe are written the waythat they
Pam (33:47):
I know a lot of people, Jill, like this is fascinating.
I think I could just talk withyou about this all day.
Because I think a lot of people,I talk to a lot of people who
say, I'm very drawn to Buddhismand just drawn to the
generosity, the peacefulness.
The meditative aspects and thissort of thing.
And certainly I'm a huge DaiLama fan.
(34:08):
just, I devour every book thathe writes and every, it's just
fascinating philosophies.
And how do you find I, I didn'trealize you were so deeply into
the practice.
I knew you were Buddhist.
I knew.
but I guess I didn't realizewhat the practice entailed.
Do you have a temple or a churchor is this all pretty much,
(34:29):
mostly self-directed.
Jill (34:31):
In Minneapolis we have a group that meets up with COVID
things have changed and we dosome stuff online.
The, our, my main teacher, sheactually runs the center in
Brazil.
Okay.
There's another center R andLing, which is near San
Francisco.
And.
Cha good.
Cha good gunk is the foundationthat has a lot of different
(34:54):
places around the country.
Yes.
And so specifically inMinneapolis, we have a group, a
Dharma group, and my husband,one of his best friend and then
his wife, the one who's on thespiritual retreat because she's
moving into higher levels of hertraining cuz she's, gone onto
the silent retreat.
And so yes, she may be stayingout in San Francisco and working
(35:17):
at rigs and laying.
And then the husband is here anddoing his thing.
So that's an interesting, Hey,I'm going off and gonna be gone
for three years and So there's,I'm Buddhist, what do I do?
And things like that happen.
We have a group and they havebecause of their connection and
how long they've been doing it.
They can run our group, butthey're not in any way teachers
(35:39):
or people that can transmit theteachings.
They can though we can allpractice together.
And then they bring teachers infor us to receive the
empowerments and variousteachings that we need.
That's lovely.
Pam (35:52):
So they're more like facilitators, it seems yeah.
Yep.
Yeah.
Very cool.
And how does this all gotogether with Reiki for you?
How does that blend work?
Jill (36:02):
It feels like it blends really naturally to me.
I do still see myself as beingvery open spiritually, so other
guides come in, other people'sguides come in.
I work with other guides otherthan Buddhist guides.
But I do have I do have that.
And again, it's like my coresort of spiritual practice.
(36:23):
But.
A few years ago when holy firecame through, I wanna say when
the holy fire three came in, Iwas shown a technique that I
could do in my red Tarapractice.
And then actually charge myReiki grids as I merge and
become Tara.
And so I've been shown sometechniques.
(36:43):
I know other Dharma friends ofmine that have taken classes
that have also.
Said that I find that thelanguage is really beautiful.
There's a lot of similaritiesthere and things that it's very
easy and natural for me to talkabout it.
Because that sort of that truthis there.
William's done a great job at alot of the research that he's
(37:05):
done over the years.
And so there's a lot of thingsthat just resonate and I love
it.
When people from other religionslike are coming in and other
Buddhists are going, Hey, thisis like da dah, or this is da,
or, and it's yes.
And so it's really beautiful.
I love how Reiki surprisespeople too.
Like one of my friends grew upin a Lutheran and his father was
(37:27):
a pastor.
and he had said his whole life,he never really had spiritual
experiences, he's a TibetanBuddhist, and he never really
has had and Buddhism is likecutting through that.
Like those sort of mysticalexperiences are chatter.
It's Hey, can you do thatwithout that?
So it's not, they really wantyou to dissolve all the.
(37:48):
Side and the inside.
And so the duality is a hugepart of it.
And he would be talking aboutI'm in the, bamboo forest and,
it's the perfect thing.
And you're like, I got nothing,and then he's and then I come to
Reiki class and arch angel,Michael shows up and then he's
what any, and we laugh.
And it's of course.
And so I love to see.
(38:10):
Expansion of even moving beyondand just like being, I don't
feel limited.
And I've had good talks with oneof my teachers Lama searing, and
I've been blessed that some ofmy teachers are women through
the lineage that's been, andthat's something.
I've heard before where peoplehave said women can't hold
positions of power and Buddhismand, in, in some sex possibly,
(38:33):
but in the Tibetan lineage thatI'm in, there's actually a lot
of women.
We've also heard the Dai Lamatalk about that women maybe he
may be coming back as a woman Sothat, women are celebrated and
maybe in some sex, they aren't,but I just wanna know that women
are empowered in the TibetanBuddhism lineage that I'm in.
And there's several women andseveral women teachers.
(38:56):
And so one of my dear teachers,LAE, Everest she.
She had told me how I can workwith Reiki.
And I had an astrology readingwith her years ago before I even
knew the potential.
And she pulled some friendsaside and was like, who is that
girl?
If I'm gonna have a healer, Iwant it to be her.
And I'm like, what?
(39:16):
And I was like, She's nottalking about me, this was, I
was really like early on andinsecure, some of the stuff that
comes along with the Reiki andyou're like, wow, the changes
that, we tell people can happen.
And I was blown away that it waswithin my astrology chart.
And and just so she guided meand had told me early on.
(39:37):
And so I felt blessings from thevery beginning that it was okay.
And that I was empowered and.
By the people that were workingwith me spiritually.
And I felt like I had somereally solid teachers, that,
that couldn't be their, theycouldn't be disproven.
Whatever they, very.
High integrity solid foundationwith great practices and and
(40:03):
it's always been that way.
So I, I feel very lucky that itjust seems like it's all meant
to be.
And it's coming back, like yousaid, in the beginning, from.
Something that was like in apast life for me.
Pam (40:15):
Yeah.
And because I think in BuddhismI certainly in most religions
actually, and even in earlyChristianity before it was
changed, about 400 ad, Iunderstand that most religions
have a belief in reincarnation.
I didn't realize astrology waspart of, some of the Buddhist
traditions.
Are you, it sounded like yousaid it is it is, or it can.
Jill (40:39):
Yes.
Yes, absolutely.
Yep.
And one, and my teacher Lamas isa, is an astrologer.
So she does charts and she's areally good astrologer.
And they use it as a way.
And my teacher before Rimpochehe was a Tibetan medicine
healer.
He was astrologer, he was aphysician like he had the power.
(41:02):
To heal.
He had the power to call instorms if he, if they needed
rain.
He was a powerful person and notlike I'm powerful, but just, had
the ability to work with energy.
And so through that also comesthere's healing modalities
connected to this practice thatI.
Wow.
Pam (41:22):
It's energy all the way through, so Buddhism.
Yeah.
Really is it recognizes and, Ihave a lot of friends who are
astrologers and I do follow someof that.
And then even like the humandesign, like a lot of it goes by
astrology and it always astoundsme how accurate it is, whether
you believe in it or not.
When you do look at your birthchart and you look.
(41:43):
The different aspects of how youprobably show up in the world.
It always is amazing howaccurate it is.
Jill, what would you tell any ofour listeners who might wanna
learn more about Buddhism?
Where would be a good place forthem to begin?
If this was something thatthey've been curious about or
would like to learn.
Jill (42:02):
sure.
Turga is a great, you could lookthat up online, they have online
campuses and also local.
They're really open network, lotof different Tibetan practices
may come together there.
And so people may, if they'relooking for something it might
be a great way.
What I find is that some peoplecould get a little bit like,
(42:23):
whoa, that's a little over myhead, you walk into a thing and
people are doing Tibet andyou're like, whoa.
And and so I was lucky enough,like in Minneapolis that I knew
the folks that were running itand they're like my best
friends.
And so we can just be talkingand I'm like, Hey, what do I do
on that again?
Because you, it's not likeanybody's gonna go, you did that
wrong.
(42:43):
But if you're like, what are youeven doing?
You gotta get caught up.
Yeah.
And and so Perga is a reallygreat community with amazing
teachers.
That has preliminary practiceand other information that
people sort of basics and thingsthat I don't think that I got
when I joined.
No, it sounded like you jumpedright in with both teams just
jumped in.
(43:04):
It was hard.
And it was like, and I wasnervous oh, what do I do where.
Put the teachings, and it'sfine.
And some folks might go that'sfor me.
And rigs and Ling is in SanFrancisco and they hold
retreats.
And and so you could look intothat.
There's a lot of different.
Types of Buddhism.
And so sometimes what happens ifpeople don't resonate with a
(43:25):
certain teacher, it could turnthem off completely, so it might
be like, oh, I really wanna getinto Zen because they hear about
Zen and then they go and takeZen and they're like, Ooh, maybe
I don't wanna do Zen.
Cause it's like, There's a lotof chanting and there's a lot of
sitting and, and that's boringand, and just being honest, I've
got some wonderful teachersthat's we're done, we're
(43:45):
supposed to be done at six 30and you're going until 11:30 PM.
On and on, you're like, oh my, Ihave a teacher like that.
I gotta go.
But it's, I think it's importantto find it's really important to
find a good.
Yeah.
And so don't be turned off ifyou have an experience and maybe
it's not the right one maybethat's just not the right
lineage for you.
(44:06):
And so don't say, oh, I don'twanna do this.
Because of that, it just mightbe anything else, you're gonna
have.
Good and bad teachers throughyour life.
And and so that's a barrier thatI see if people are to talk to
me about Buddhism.
One of the things is, oh, I wasinterested in Zen Buddhism.
I was interested in this and Ididn't really get it.
Or and so then they're like, soI didn't go back.
(44:29):
And so look, keep looking.
Find a different teacher,there's many different lineages.
It's not all exactly the same.
Just like going to the Christianchurches.
They're not all exactly thesame.
Everything is different.
And so you just have to find theright teacher and now.
Teachers teach online.
You would have access to rigsand Ling and because they do
(44:50):
things online and teachers areteaching online.
You don't have to always travelwhich is a really neat thing
because it means that you can.
Be wherever you are and haveaccess to that.
So the rigs and Ling, would bewhere some of my teachers Lama
Padma is.
And as I mentioned, Lamas, she'sin, in Brazil Lama, cadre, I
(45:12):
think she's in New York.
And people, they move around andstay in different places.
Stuff.
And then they might be travelingthrough your area.
So you could also see and youcould look on the website
because there's differentpractice groups.
So like for instance, inMinneapolis, we don't have like
a teacher living here.
Except for, we do have Turga.
So we have Ming CHES here andhe's.
(45:34):
He's not, he moves becausethere's different parts of
Turga.
But but specifically the groupthat I'm part of is, the
practice group and people cancome.
The thing with Tibetan Buddhismis though is that you need to
receive the empowerments.
And so the empowerments it's todo the practice.
And so that's where you need.
If you really wanna do this,then you need.
(45:54):
Go get the empowerment right.
So you're empowered to do it andthen find your practice group or
start with something.
Like I said, look into Turga andsee a little bit different way
that it's set up might be a goodoption for you as well.
Pam (46:10):
I love that.
Thank you, Jill.
My gosh.
You've given us a lot to thinkabout, and I asked Jill if she
would lead us in a prayer or ameditation at the end of our
session, just so that we can allhave an experience with this.
Jill, I'm just, was thereanything before we move into
that, that you'd like to leavepeople
Jill (46:28):
with?
No.
So what I'm gonna do is justcall the seven line prayer.
I.
Say it first in the translationand then I'll do it Tibetan.
I'll do it.
Tibetan three.
Just so you can hear the flow.
So this is an opening prayer,and so it would start with on
the Northwest border of thecountry of origin in the pollen
(46:49):
heart of the Lotus, you attainmarvelous most excellent city
renowned is the Lotus born.
You are surrounded by a circleof many sky dancers as I
practice following in yourfootsteps.
I pray that you approach toconfer your blessings GU city.
(47:34):
Guru city origin drops on paid.
(48:03):
Guru.
City drop can guru.
(48:32):
Sudi who, all right.
Wow.
How did it feel?
Pam (48:42):
Like it changes something inside you, like it changes you
it's I felt that way.
In one of my earlier podcasts,Glen DWA went through.
The Thanksgiving address with usfirst in English and then in, in
MIMA in, and and I could feelsomething inside me changing and
(49:02):
it felt like that nice.
It felt very similar.
And even when you were readingit in English, I was just, I
could feel the shifting.
Jill (49:09):
Yeah.
It's powerful.
I, it really is it's like Reiki.
It's just you bring your handstogether and just.
It's a tool, you
Pam (49:17):
know, and it shifts in energy.
Doesn't it?
It.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jill, I can't thank you enoughfor giving us this insight and
this peak into what Buddhism isabout.
And it's funny I've done a fairbit of reading around it, but
you've brought a lot more outthan I realized was part of the
(49:39):
practice.
I really appreciate you spendingthe time with us.
Jill (49:43):
Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah.
It's been wonderful and I'm sohappy to share this information
and I hope that some people areinspired by it and look into it
if it, if they feel called toit.
I thank
Pam (49:57):
you so much.
And I thank you.
The listeners.
Thank you for Being with us.
We appreciate you.
I'll have Jill's contactinformation in the write up.
And so if any of you feel a needor would like to reach out to
her please go ahead, have abeautiful week.
Everyone Namaste.
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