Lama Ole Nydahl

Ole Nydahl (born March 19, 1941), also known as Lama Ole, is a Danish Lama in the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. Since the early 1970s, Nydahl has toured the world giving lectures and meditation courses. With his wife, Hannah Nydahl (1946-2007), he founded Diamond Way Buddhism, a worldwide Karma Kagyu Buddhist organization of lay practitioners.

Quotes

• If we experience our power of awareness, feel something to be conscious right here and now, know that there is something between and behind the thoughts that perceives and understands, then everything is free play and a gift.
  • Knowing Our Experiencing Mind, Buddhism Today Issue 21, Spring/Summer 2008.

Buddha & Love: Timeless Wisdom for Modern Relationships (2012)

• The understanding that truth is not neutral, but is instead blissful, is something only meditators and lovers trust.

• Buddha’s advice helps beings by showing how one may consciously become a source of happiness and love.

• With love, one is also constantly planting the seeds for the success or failure of a partnership, and knowing this, we are especially responsible for the happiness or suffering of those who have opened up to us. The increased intimacy in love relationships leads to an exceptionally fast ripening of both beings’ good and bad impressions in mind.

• The 'taking love' leads to feelings of attachment, jealousy, anger, and childish self-absorption, while the 'giving love,' intrinsic in the tenets of Buddhism, encompasses the whole enjoyable realm of love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.

• Lasting, fulfilling joy arises through the fusion of 'I' and 'You' into a 'We.' When both are in love and become one, everything blossoms, and the couple stands fast for each other and step in for one another. With such surplus, couples or families naturally spread their combined power into the world and gladly include others who want, and can, partake in the growth. With this, every aspect of life becomes a step along the way. And because relationships go so deep and generate such strong feelings, there is no feedback system that better enables a couple to get to know each other, and allows one to develop oneself.

• A generous relationship rarely knows dramas. One is happy when the partner is happy. And one is happy when growing on three levels: on the physical level, which gives love, material things, and protection; on the inner level— through compassion and wisdom—which provides the motivation for development; and on a deep-lying, secret level where both partners enrich themselves with the qualities of the other and increasingly find their center.

• A successful partnership thrives because of the willingness of both to place the well-being of the other above their own. When the man makes the woman a queen and she treats him like a king, their noble style dissolves any limits for growth. With this enriching approach, a living, completing love will emerge.

• Generous love, the glue that holds everything together in a healthy relationship, aims for shared happiness through the fulfillment of one’s partner.

• From the great moments of their lives, many remember that the experiences of sharing love are much more honest and convincing than anything one could do for oneself. The joyful rush of living the highest principle of oneness and being there for everyone brings pervasive meaning and a sense of liberation, as if one has just broken out of prison.

• The exchange between two mature, happy people enlivens their surroundings on countless levels and many can gain from it. Around them it seems that the world is enriching itself and the good feelings that appear are more than what the lovers are contributing themselves.

Fearless Death: Buddhist Wisdom on the Art of Dying (2012)

• Enlightenment is not only timeless but also more beautiful, truer, and more indestructible than anything separable or conditioned. There is no greater happiness than the full development of mind!

• If one understands that the only thing that remains timeless is the richness of one’s own buddha nature, one can relax even with regard to death.

• Just as what is in the jar, when broken, becomes one with the surroundings, death offers the opportunity to recognize the basic truth of all existence through non-discriminating one-pointedness. Like space, the essence of mind is unaffected by transition and death.

• Because long-held internalized views and attitudes appear especially powerful in death, the daily practice should include body, speech, and mind, so that the teachings slide from the head to the heart as fast as possible. It is certain and a real gift that the Buddhist methods will help in both this life and afterward.

• The essential art of dying consists of being easy-going and relaxed while at the same time staying mentally undistracted and one-pointed. Therefore, the one who is dying should imagine the most beautiful thing above his head and wish to go there as often as possible.

• If one is able to convey to the dying person that his mind is bound to this decaying body only for the present life span, it is calming. If one adds that mind is beyond death and birth, like space, emerging appearances of confusion and aging become more acceptable. This view confers the often missing dignity on the last part of life. It helps the dying to increasingly relax, and oneself to face one’s own death more fearlessly.

• Knowledge of inner processes in body and mind is as helpful for one’s own preparation for death as it is for people who care for others who are dying. If one knows what to expect while dying, the conditions can be used and fears specifically removed.

• If one is wild and doesn’t like anything angry, when meeting with Buddha’s teaching one experiences joy and natural totality, as if two rivers flow into each other. And if one is basically trusting, the Pure Land is near, and in death, perhaps one will enter something deeply known.

• It is impossible to learn to meditate while dying. Therefore, it is a great help to become aware of the dreamlike state of all things during this life, to have understood this at least conceptually, and to have practiced the ability to work with one’s mind for years.

Apr 30  | Lama Ole Nydahl started his South American tour by giving a 5-day course on Phowa – one of the highest methods of Diamond Way Buddhism – in Lima, capital of Peru. He was asked for an interview by El Comercio, the oldest newspaper in Peru. Buddhism in Peru is mainly Mahayana, and the teachings of a Vajrayana master attracted interest and curiosity.

There are currently four Diamond Way Buddhist centres and groups in Peru.
El Comercio asked Lama Ole about his tour, about practising Buddhism in Peru, about Buddhism in general, and the Karma Kagyu in particular:
El Comercio: What is the goal or message of your tour?
Lama Ole Nydahl: Giving teachings to those who are interested in Buddha’s 2600 year old wisdom and methods. After we’d spent four years in the Himalayas, the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, the first incarnate lama of Tibet since 1110, asked my lovely wife Hannah and myself to travel and teach in the West. We were very lucky and today have over 620 meditating groups and centers in spiritually-free countries world-wide.
Since 1989, we’ve had the great joy of working in your lively and inspiring Latin culture, which today offers 36 Diamond Way Karma Kagyu Buddhist centres, meditation groups, university study groups and retreat centers to whoever is interested.
El Comercio: What does the Karma Kagyu Lineage advocate or sustain?
Lama Ole Nydahl: Basically, being aware and doing one’s best for others and oneself. This is the practical way to liberation and enlightenment.
El Comercio: What is your personal view of Buddhism?
Lama Ole Nydahl: Buddhism to me is an unending source of inspiration and ways to enrich beings. It gives practical advice for peoples’ lives and unique methods like Pho-wa, which I will give near Lima, April 17-21 this year. As many know from their own joyful experience, it is a method for transferring our consciousness to timeless and blissful states at death.
In my own case, I was amazed when in 2005 researchers at the Chicago sleep-study institute discovered that my brain was continually producing masses of Theta waves, which is a sign of intense happiness. Children, especially boys, usually produce them between the age of 4 and 8 when they think of gifts waiting for them under the Christmas tree.
El Comercio: What is the most important thing you have learned from Buddhism and how has it changed your life?
Lama Ole Nydahl: Coming from well-organized and social Scandinavia, making Buddhism useful under the wide variety of conditions in which people live world-wide produced a vast expansion of my own feeling of responsibility. It made me work harder year after year.
El Comercio: Which of the Karma Kagyu teachings do you consider the most important for our Western World?
Lama Ole Nydahl: Definitely the ones pointing to the ultimate and perfect qualities of mind.
El Comercio: Are there proper conditions to practice Buddhism in a country such as ours, which has a particular mysticism and culture?
Lama Ole Nydahl: Mind being in essence timeless space, seeing our face in the mirror we will all find similar qualities. The changing images will be impermanent and cultural but – to quote Shakespeare – “If we are tickled, will we not laugh and if cut, will we not bleed”?
El Comercio: How did Diamond Way Buddhism begin and why is it called Diamond Way?
Lama Ole Nydahl: Buddha taught causality to those wanting an undisturbed life, called the “Path of the Elders”. Compassion and wisdom for those thinking of others: Mahayana or the Great Way. For those wanting to behave like a Buddha, he gave the Diamond Way. It is meaningful if people understand that one can only see perfection outside because we have it inside. The term Vajrayana or Dorje Thegpa (in Sanskrit and Tibetan) was given because it makes mind become like a diamond, indestructible and naturally radiant.
El Comercio: What are your teachings?
Lama Ole Nydahl: The ones I prefer are the immediate and most direct ones. Trusting mind to be indestructible space brings fearlessness, that it is conscious and clear will bring joy, and seeing that all beings want happiness matures our compassion.
El Comercio: How can one apply them in everyday life?
Lama Ole Nydahl: Avoiding negativity. Understanding and thinking of others and finding periods for consciously developing good motivation can be made habitual and ever more blissful. If trained during meditation and protected through the use of mantras like KARMAPA CHENNO or OM MANI PEME HUNG they will bring growing stability and beyond-personal insight to whoever uses them.
El Comercio: How and in what aspects does meditation help?
Lama Ole Nydahl: In short, it gives space, freedom, and the surplus of energy and motivation to benefit others.
El Comercio: How many sessions does it take to reach a good level of meditation? How will I know if I have reached it?
Lama Ole Nydahl: This depends on impressions gathered during former lives. However, results appear in relaxed minds not expecting anything.
El Comercio: Does one need a guide or teacher?
Lama Ole Nydahl: Definitely; one will not see one’s face without a mirror and not know one’s mind without a teacher. All teachers have teachers; it’s an age-old transmission from Buddha.
El Comercio: How does one know if you are in the right hands (the right teacher)?
Lama Ole Nydahl: Check if he does and says the same. See what his teachings say and if the message is authentic or overly personal and aimed at glorifying himself. Above all, look at the people around him and see how you feel. Are they free, relaxed, and open? Or are they tight and whisper in the corners? Is the teacher proud? If he or she is politically correct, this is a highly dangerous display of insecurity, ignorance or opportunism and they will not be honest.
El Comercio: Is meditation beneficial for children? And in which cases is it beneficial?
Lama Ole Nydahl: Meditations with clear and understandable examples of compassion and other positive qualities, if not brought too moralistically or sentimentally, will be incorporated in their dream-worlds while negative roles will attract less interest, at least up to puberty.
Lama Ole Nydahl’s South American tour has taken place in Peru, Colombia, and Mexico so far. He will continue on to Venezuela, Costa Rica, and El Salvador.

ew Book from Lama Ole Nydahl

May 25  | How can we make the most of death, and life? How can we overcome the fear of death and dying? To a Tibetan Buddhist meditator, death isn’t something to fear. The stages of dying are seen as a great opportunity for spiritual enlightenment.


Lama Ole Nydahl’s new book, Fearless Death: Buddhist Wisdom and the Art of Dying, makes these inspiring teachings accessible to Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. In it, the author sheds a mature, compassionate light on our most basic fear and offers lucid answers to the tough questions such as:

• What exactly happens when we die?
• How can we overcome our fear of death and transform it into confidence?
• What happens after death? Is there a part of us that doesn’t die?
• How can we help ourselves, our loved ones and family members through the dying process?
• What meditations can we practice now to gain insight into our mortality and increase our joy in living?

A Step-by-Step Guide to the Stages of Dying

Keeping in mind the fact that we are less afraid of what we can understand, Nydahl explains each stage we experience as life ends – and what continues to happen in the hours, and even days, after clinical death has been pronounced. To do so, he draws on Buddhist teachings and explains how they integrate with modern medical advances in pain management. He also reviews Near Death Experience (NDE) research and compares contemporary scientific views with Tibetan Buddhism.
In addition, he offers detailed instructions about how we can assist others through the dying process – from arranging their room to helpful things we can say, as well as mantras and meditations we can do.

Buddhist Author and Teacher Uniquely Qualified to Help Us Overcome Our Fear of Death

Lama Ole Nydahl is one of the world’s leading experts on the profound Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice used at the time of death (“conscious dying” or “Phowa”). He received training in these rare practices from the high Buddhist lamas of Tibet. And since 1987 he has taught this practice to over 90,000 people worldwide. Many students have remarked that learning this meditation alone greatly decreased their fear of death while greatly increasing their fearlessness in life.
Fearless Death offers an introduction to the Phowa practice – and also includes 5 additional meditations that readers can incorporate in their lives immediately.
Lama Ole Nydahl is the inspiration behind over 600 Diamond Way Buddhist Centers worldwide, and author of several popular Buddhist books.
Fearless Death: Buddhist Wisdom on the Art of Dying is his 9th book in English, and is the first title to be released by Diamond Way Press.
You can order a copy of the book Fearless Death now at www.fearlessdeathbook.com or on Amazon.
To receive updates on the book, and quotes from Lama Ole Nydahl, like the (facebook.com/FearlessDeathBook) Facebook page or follow (@FearlessDeathBK) on Twitter.