Meet a Teacher: Achok Rinpoche

The Buddha decreed that children should not be ordained until they were old enough to scare crows away—generally considered to be around 7 or 8 years of age. Achok Rinpoche hewed to this schedule precisely, entering the monastery at age 7 after having been identified as a tulku in nursery school.

Born in the town of Bomdila, Arunachal Pradesh, to the east of Bhutan, Achok Rinpoche was recognized as the fourth incarnation of Achok Rinpoche, a lama in the Gelug school from Lithang, Tibet. Studying the texts came easily to him as a boy, perhaps because he was certain about his purpose in life from an early date. “I don’t remember studying being that difficult,” he said. “I was quite clear at that time that I was going to become a monk and enter the monastery. It was not something where I remember feeling, ‘I don’t want to go to the monastery.’ ” He continued to be studious into young adulthood, attaining his geshe degree at age 22. Even today, when he has a spare moment, the activity he enjoys most is reading Buddhist texts and contemplating their meaning.

Happiness and suffering, anxieties and problems are all parts of our minds.

But his spare moments come rarely. Achok Rinpoche splits his time between teaching in India and abroad as well as in his New York City headquarters, Gadenpa Buddhist Center, in Long Island City. His days are busy. “In the morning, I do my daily practice for a couple of hours based on vows that I have taken, based on the commitment that I have made, and based on the initiation that I have received. Then I spend time contacting people, replying to people, whoever sends questions and concerns through email or other ways. I also have meetings with people that have been scheduled, in person or over the phone, and then I have people’s requests, whoever has asked me to perform rituals and pujas, and friends who have had family members who are sick or have passed away. I go there and perform the final prayers. Also, we have weekly classes here. And, of course, I also have my evening prayers to recite or meditation to do. So life is like that.”

Achok Rinpoche spoke of the visitors to his center: “There are three types of first-time visitors to the center. One is interested in learning more about mind-training after hearing about it from friends, books, or other sources. The second type has anxiety based on personal, social, national, or global issues. And the third comes out of a sense of curiosity. They ask questions about how they can control their mind and have a better life, and also about how to deal with the situations and problems of this world.” So what does he tell them? Achok Rinpoche answers, “Depending upon who I am talking to, I like to quote the great master Shantideva:

If a problem can be solved
What reason is there to be unhappy?
If there is no possible solution,
What is the purpose of being unhappy?

“We all have the same mind,” he continues. “Our minds have the same nature that always wants to be happy and free from suffering. Happiness and suffering, anxieties and problems are all parts of our minds. External situations and global issues are not a part of our minds. Based on that distinction, these issues can be solved or cannot be solved. There are some issues that have no solution. Still, there is no reason to be unhappy about it. Understanding this, I encourage people to train their minds into a positive state no matter what, based on facts and reality. I use that as the outline and then bring in the situations that they are facing in their lives.”

Abroad, his teaching is different. In India, for example, Achok Rinpoche teaches in the Tibetan language to monastic students who have been studying for as long as ten years. He has also traveled to Tibet several times to teach. Once the proper permits are obtained, he said, travel inside the country is not difficult and the authorities do not bother him. “What’s interesting is, each time I travel back to Tibet, the Chinese authorities who are assigned to work with me and travel with me are Tibetan!” he said. “No Chinese spend time with me traveling in Tibet at all. All the authorities who received me at the airport and took me to the different places that I wanted to go, like Sera Monastery and other monasteries, they were all Tibetans.”

Achok Rinpoche refers to his teachings as yoga for the mind, and says the teachings bring the same benefits yoga brings to our bodies. “We do physical yoga to make our body healthy, staying flexible, and it’s the same thing for our minds. Do your mind yoga and keep your mind healthy. Keep your mind flexible. When you do that, you can always hold your mind in a positive state, no matter what situation arises in your life.”

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Everyone Meditates

How is it possible to say that everyone meditates? There are people who do not believe in meditation, or say they don’t like to meditate. Some say they would like to meditate but don’t know how. However, all these people meditate in their daily lives whether they are aware of it or not. They meditate because whenever their minds think or focus on this and that, their minds are fulfilling the function of meditation.

When I say everyone meditates in daily life, it means that everyone has a mind that concentrates on various objects. This is the main cause of their mental experience. Through this, their minds become familiar with various objects—virtuous or nonvirtuous objects. How can this be? I would like to use an example here that is common in our lives: “meditating on anger.” Normally, we don’t say that we are meditating on anger, but I often do so.

How do we meditate on anger? At work, if we face an intense situation where a friend, coworker, or a boss says or does something unpleasant to us, we contemplate. We contemplate the situation and think, “He/she said this to me! How could he/she say this to me?” We go into great detail with our contemplation. Our minds fully concentrate on this situation. This contemplation causes us to generate a mental experience. It causes us to experience a negative mind state such as anger. When anger arises in our minds, it is the result of this contemplation. This is called “analytical meditation on anger” because it is done exactly the same way we analytically meditate on compassion. When anger arises in our minds, we hold it very strongly. We do it well and are able to hold this anger without distraction. This is called “placement meditation on anger” because it is exactly how we practice placement meditation on compassion.

This is what I call meditating on anger in our lives. We do this again and again, and everyone knows how to do it. Honestly speaking, everyone does it in their lives. That is why I say that everyone knows how to meditate on anger.

Now, based on Buddha’s teaching, we should contemplate every situation in a positive way only. This will cause us to have a positive mental experience such as love, compassion, peace, or wisdom. To have compassion depends upon having a positive way of thinking, no matter what the circumstances are. Also, contemplating the situation in a positive way is not done by force but is based on facts, explanations with reasoning, questioning and answering. With every situation, we must always strive to contemplate only in a positive way.