Summary: Ep.12 ~ Krishna Das chats with Lama Surya Das<br> Krishna Das chats with Lama Surya Das, one of the foremost Western Buddhist meditation teachers and scholars, and a long-time friend. In this interview, the conversation between KD and Lama Surya Das touches on the subjects of spiritual practice, retreat, death, mindfulness, compassion and more.<br> At 55:20, KD and Lama Surya Das chant the Buddhist mantra “Om Mani Pedmé Hung” together.<br> “You know, one time, Maharajji said, ‘I hold the keys to the mind,’ … and then He teased us and said, ‘I can turn your minds against me.’ ‘No Baba, don’t do that.’ And He’d laugh, you know? So I said to Siddhi Ma, I said, “Ma, Maharajji says He holds the keys to the mind, which means to me that I am exactly where He wants me to be at all times, otherwise I’d be somewhere else, mentally, I mean like, spiritually, internally. My experience would be different. So, I’m where He wants me to be. So where does personal effort come in? Is it all grace? Or is it personal effort’” She says, ‘It’s all grace, but you have to act like it isn’t.’”– Krishna Das<br> Transcription:<br> <br> SURYA DAS: Talking, shouting at Krishna Das… Badmash… Aap Jao<br> KRISHNA DAS: SurDas. I’m going to call you Surdas from now on.<br> SURYA DAS: Ok.<br> KRISHNA DAS: That was Maharajji’s name for you, wasn’t it? Surdas. That’s amazing. Because you’re a poet, you’re a poet and He knew it.<br> Nina: Maharajji called him Surdas?<br> KRISHNA DAS: Yeah, but nobody knew who Surdas was. So Surdas came out. We didn’t know Surdas at the time.<br> Nina: We should call him Surdas.<br> SURYA DAS: Surdas, the blind poet devotee of Baby Krishna.<br> KRISHNA DAS: Baby Krishna, yeah. And you know, they say, the devotion to Baby Krishna is the most complete because there’s no, it’s completely pure with a baby, you know?<br> SURYA DAS: There’s no interpersonal…<br> KRISHNA DAS: There’s no interpersonal, there’s no anything. There’s no story line. It’s just that love. And Surdas, who was blind, used to see the Leela’s and just describe them.<br> SURYA DAS: I have a poster of Him, you know, it’s a famous poster.<br> KRISHNA DAS: Yeah.<br> SURYA DAS: And Baby Krishna’s like, in front of Him, looking up at Him.<br> KRISHNA DAS: Yeah, just like that, amazing. So, just to start it off, my question is this, you know, you did many many years of intense practice and one of the practices in the Ngondro and the preliminary practices is the 100,000 repetitions of the Mani Mantra, and you did that, right?<br> SURYA DAS: Well, there’s more than that. Hundreds of thousands of different mantras.<br> KRISHNA DAS: Yeah.<br> SURYA DAS: The purification mantra and the guru yoga mantras and other things.<br> KRISHNA DAS: All of it in that practice while you were doing it?<br> SURYA DAS: In Ngondro. The Foundation practices of Vajrayana Buddhism.<br> KRISHNA DAS: I’m interested, personally, I’ve never done that kind of personal intense mantra practice. I mean, so I mean, I’ve done a lot, but not that kind of formal…<br> SURYA DAS: Then half your life is wasted, as they say…<br> KRISHNA DAS: Yes that’s true. Very nice. I’ve already wasted more than half my life. I’m hoping to waste this next half.<br> SURYA DAS: No, but you often talk about taking the name, and the name of a God, and repeating the names, and what kind of practice that is. And you know, whether you use words like japa or yoga or mantra yoga or what we call mantrayana and other things, but you do the Name, so if you were counting, you’d probably, you know, you’d do 100 thousands of Ram Nam or Hare Krishna. Especially Ram Nam, you do a lot. Hundreds of thousands of… there’s really no need to count, that’s just a way of… you can do Ngondro, these foundation practices, by number, which is easy, like saying 21 Hail Marys and then you’re done, or you can do by time, like a one-month retreat or a three-month retreat and then you move on to the...
