Teaching schedule
United States
MARCH 28, 2024
The Nature of Mind
6-7:30pm San Francisco time (PDT)
MARCH 30, 2024
Chanting the Names of Manjushri Continuously for Rinpoche's Swift Return
Ven. Robina will lead the 9-9:30am New York time session
Click here for the text
Click here to join on Zoom
APRIL 1, 2024
The Workshop Is in the Mind
7:30-9pm New York time
APRIL 7, 2024
Be Your Own Therapist
5-6pm Santa Fe time (PDT)
Sweden
APRIL 14, 2024
How to Face Death Without Fear
4-5:30pm Sweden time
Details to follow
United States
APRIL 17, 2024
The Workshop Is in the Mind
1:30-3pm New York time
APRIL 18, 2024
The Workshop is In the Mind
Co-Sponsored with Shantideva Center
6:30-8pm New York time
Australia
APRIL 21, 2024
Cultivating a healthy sense of self
Sat Apr 20, 8-9:30pm New York time /
Sun Apr 21, 10-11:30am Sydney time
Sweden
APRIL 21, 2024
How to Face Death Without Fear
4-5:30pm Sweden time
United States
APRIL 21, 2024
Be Your Own Therapist
5-6pm Santa Fe time (PDT)
Sweden
APRIL 28, 2024
How to Face Death Without Fear
4-5:30pm Sweden time
United States
APRIL 29, 2024
The Workshop Is in the Mind
7:30-9pm New York time
Sweden
MAY 5, 2024
How to Face Death Without Fear
4-5:30pm Sweden time
United States
MAY 7, 2024
Morning Express Meditation
7:30-8am Santa Fe time (PDT)
MAY 15, 2024
The Workshop Is in the Mind
1:30-3pm New York time
MAY 21, 2024
Morning Express Meditation
7:30-8am Santa Fe time (PDT)
MAY 23, 2024
Co-Sponsored with Shantideva Center
6:30-8pm New York time
Details to follow
Australia
MAY 26, 2024
Love vs attachment
Sat May 25, 8-9:30pm New York time /
Sun May 26, 10-11:30am Sydney time
United States
JUNE 3, 2024
The Workshop Is in the Mind
7:30-9pm New York time
JUNE 4, 2024
Be Your Own Therapist
5-6pm Santa Fe time (PDT)
JUNE 13, 2024
Co-Sponsored with Shantideva Center
6:30-8pm New York time
Details to follow
Australia
JUNE 16, 2024
Moulding our mind
Sat Jun 15, 8-9:30pm New York time /
Sun Jun 16, 10-11:30am Sydney time
United States
JUNE 18, 2024
Be Your Own Therapist
5-6pm Santa Fe time (PDT)
JUNE 19, 2024
The Workshop Is in the Mind
1:30-3pm New York time
JULY 1, 2024
The Workshop Is in the Mind
7:30-9pm New York time
JULY 11, 2024
Co-Sponsored with Shantideva Center
6:30-8pm New York time
Details to follow
JULY 17, 2024
The Workshop Is in the Mind
1:30-3pm New York time
Australia
JULY 21, 2024
Counteracting laziness
Sat Jul 20, 8-9:30pm New York time /
Sun Jul 21, 10-11:30am Sydney time
United States
JULY 29, 2024
The Workshop Is in the Mind
7:30-9pm New York time
Sweden
United Kingdom
AUGUST 8-10, 2024
Cultivating a Healthy State of Mind
6-7:30pm UK time
AUGUST 9-10, 2024
Cultivating a Healthy State of Mind
10am-4pm UK time
AUGUST 10, 2024
Cultivating a Healthy State of Mind
10am-4pm UK time
Australia
AUGUST 18, 2024
Transforming knowledge into action
Sat Aug 17, 8-9:30pm New York time /
Sun Aug 18, 10-11:30am Sydney time
SEPTEMBER 15, 2024
Developing equanimity
Sat Sep 14, 8-9:30pm New York time /
Sun Sep 15, 10-11:30am Sydney time
OCTOBER 20, 2024
Get ready for death
Sat Oct 19, 7-8:30pm New York time /
Sun Oct 20, 10-11:30am Sydney time
United States
OCTOBER 22, 2024
The Three Marks of Existence
7pm New York time
France
OCTOBER 28-NOVEMBER 3, 2024
Retreat
Details to follow
OCTOBER 29-NOVEMBER 3, 2024
Retreat
Details to follow
OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 3, 2024
Retreat
Details to follow
OCTOBER 31-NOVEMBER 3, 2024
Retreat
Details to follow
Australia
NOVEMBER 24, 2024
What is happiness
Sat Nov 23, 6-7:30pm New York time /
Sun Nov 24, 10-11:30am Sydney time
Q & A with Robina
25 March, 2024
How to help a child see that it’s her behavior that’s the problem, not her heart
QUESTION
Dear Venerable Robina,
I need some advice about our daughter. She is a smart, talented, incredible athlete, social kid. She’s got a good heart, is a kind friend, a leader, gets great grades and is highly motivated by sports. She understands some Dharma – and still learning.
All this being said, she’s a boundary pusher and has a problem with cussing and can be very cocky. Since she was little, she’s always gotten in trouble at school for not listening, being the class clown, sometimes being disrespectful.
With all this, she has gotten a poor reputation with some parents who don’t want their child spending time with her and some sports coaches choosing not to work with her despite her massive talent.
We as parents think she is pure gold. We support her always, and work to guide her and to teach her to be a good person, and how to navigate life.
But when hard things happen for her, it is incredibly painful for me. She cries to me asking why grown-ups don’t like her, and that she doesn't want to be the bad kid. I feel like I am constantly on the defense of her and have some extra sensitivity surrounding her.
I also recognize that I create negative stories around how I think my child is being perceived that aren’t always true. I realize I have immense attachment to her, and also she has her own karmic ripening.
Sometimes I get so sad, hurt, depressed and anxious about it I don’t know what to do about it. I often feel like I want to take her away from it all and bring her somewhere so she can be protected and safe and learn.
I’d appreciate any words of advice. I am hurting a lot.
Much, much love,
A
ANSWER
A, dear one. I understand exactly.
How fortunate she is to have you both. But, like all of us, she has to learn from her own experience.
I’d hear my father say those words to my mother so many times when it came to me. I recognize myself in your beloved daughter! My mother would repeatedly defend me, pick me up, when actually she shouldn’t have. I’d hear my father say those words and I’d think and think about what it meant.
So love your girl to death, but give her the respect that she deserves and don’t be afraid to help her see she needs to learn to control her behavior, how she is with other people.
Because that’s the problem. All my life I'd be direct, say what I felt, etc., etc., and then people would be scared of me, reject me. At school I was broken-hearted because the nuns didn’t see my good side; I was always getting punished. Later in life, often the same.
One time when I was with Lama Yeshe and I was full of self-pity because of some blame put on me and Lama said, “There’s nothing wrong with your heart dear, it’s just your behavior.”
I understood for the first time: I had to learn to control my speech. I had to grow up, stop blaming other people for being scared of me, rejecting me. I had to change my behavior.
These words seem so simple, but they are profound.
The lamas say: when we’re with others, control our body and speech; when we’re on our own, control our mind.
So, yes, love your daughter, protect her, encourage her, praise her – and help her see that she can learn to harness her energy, to take responsibility. If she’s intelligent, which she is, she can do it.
Be brave!
Much love,
Robina
Robina’s Blog
21 March, 2024
Our interpretation of an event has more power than the event
The way we interpret the world out there is exactly what Buddha is saying is the basis of our happiness and suffering. This is really shocking, so we have to prove that to ourselves, and it’s across the board, you know?
Actually, the Buddha says that when you're fully developed spiritually, using this Buddhist approach, what you've actually achieved is that you've removed from your mind – utterly removed, utterly eradicated – all the neurotic emotions, the disturbing emotions, what they call afflictions.
We all know them: attachment, anger, jealousy, anxiety, fears, hopelessness, despair. We know these are suffering, but the analysis we give in the world for why we have them is because of things out there.
The Buddha's got a much more direct picture. He says, yes, the world, of course, it plays a role, but those actual disturbing emotions are the main cause.
One characteristic of these emotions is that they're very disturbing: that's pretty clear. Check the last time you were anxious or jealous. You don’t say, “Wow, I was anxious yesterday and it was just great!” These emotions are, by definition, disturbing.
But why these emotions are disturbing really takes time to see because we’re totally addicted to them from countless lifetimes of being caught up in them. They're all the voices of ego, if you like, so they're very gripping, and we run to them, magnetized by them. But as we start to see our mind, and then go ever more deep, ever more deep, ever more deep, and catch what’s going on in our mind ever more quickly, before it becomes unbearable, we're going to see that these unhappy emotions are rooted, deep down inside, are impelled by, are underpinned by, very clear conceptual stories that are misconceptions. One of the many terms used for them is “delusion”: that really expresses this quality.
In other words, they are disturbing because they’re misconceptions, distorted conceptual stories, opinions; they’re deluded assessments of the world out there.
It seems very abstract to say it like that. But when we learn to unpack them we’ll see that these conceptual stories of attachment, anger, jealousy, anxiety are the lenses through which we perceive the world when we suffer. And then we can change the stories, these misconceptions: we can use wisdom and virtue to argue with them.
Attachment’s a really good example. When you're overly emotionally hungry for something, such as the cake or the boyfriend or the new job – which appear to us as so much more delicious than they really are – you are also underestimating your own worth. You think, “I am nothing,” and you feel you’re missing something, so therefore you crave the thing, the person, the job, always assuming that when I get that, then I’ll feel better, then I’ll be more worthy, then I will be happy.
What this delusion, attachment, does, basically, in its bones, is exaggerate – exaggerate the deliciousness of that thing and exaggerate the power of that thing or that person or that event to make me happy. Literally, we've got it wrong, Buddha says, but it's extremely hard to see this because it’s deep down and it's very instinctive.
And then there’s anger, which is what arises when attachment doesn’t get what it wants. Think about when you were a kid – well, let’s face it, even as an adult! – and you’re freaking out because your sister hurt you: you truly believe the whole world has collapsed: “Mummy, Mummy, Janet was mean to me!” Then my mother would tell me, “Bobsie, darling, you're making a mountain out of a molehill.” Literally, anger exaggerates. Then after a while you calm down and you realize it wasn't as bad as you thought.
Buddha’s point is that when we start to listen deep down in our bones, we're going to identify these misconceptions. But this is really quite sophisticated because it's not the way we think in our culture, you know? We usually just rush out to the external event and focus on that as the problem. It demands a lot of precision, a lot of courage, and a lot of patience with ourselves.
I was just talking to somebody I know – I’ve known her for years, since she was a kid – and she's got a life, and she's successful, with children, a good family, all the things she's wanted, but she’s been having crippling anxiety – panic attacks.
So we were discussing it, and like with most of us, to one degree or another, it's rooted for her in her feeling that she's not worthy, that she's less than she is, and so she looks up in an inappropriate way to people she thinks are amazing. I mean, people can be amazing, and it's good to look up to people, but if you're looking up at a person with a feeling of “poor me,” and, “they’re better than me,” and “I want their approval,” that is a painful experience. It feels real, but it's a total misconception.
She’s experiencing a constant craving to prove herself to this group of professional colleagues, and then enormous anxiety that she's going to fail. That's a story the mind tells, but we don't notice the story, and this is the tragedy. We don't notice the story because it's so automatic and we believe it so totally, and then it just drives us and becomes enormously emotional, and it's only when it becomes emotional and we're having anxiety attacks that we then notice it.
One of Buddha’s gifts to us, I would say, is the skill to learn to focus the mind every day – three minutes, five minutes, seven minutes. You’re training yourself to watch the breath – there’s nothing fancy about the breath – to pay attention to something, therefore you're training yourself to not buy into and follow blindly all the emotions. You're stepping out of the emotions and just watching the breath.
Initially you think you’re getting worse, but you’re not: you’re just noticing them, that’s all. You mightn’t achieve much focus, but the big skill you will achieve is that once you open your eyes and you start dealing with your boyfriend, your husband, the children, the traffic, the boss, and all the world again, you're gradually developing this ability to have awareness, not only of the boyfriend, the children, the traffic, but also all the thoughts in your mind. That’s the skill we have to learn, and eventually, as we become more and more sophisticated at hearing those thoughts beneath the emotions, that's when you start to use your wisdom, your virtue to argue with them, deconstruct them – and that’s when changes start to occur.
Bodhichitta Trust projects
Lawudo improvements projects
Helping to Improve the Living Conditions & Infrastructure at Lawudo Retreat Centre, Solu Khumbu, Nepal
Lawudo Trek
A Himalayan adventure & retreat with Ven. Robina that raises funds for Lawudo Gompa, Lama Zopa Rinpoche's retreat center in the Solu Khumba region of Nepal.
Devotion CD
A modern rendition of traditional Tibetan Buddhist prayers, arranged and performed by Ven. Robina and sound artist Yantra de Vilder.
Chasing Buddha Film
The award-winning documentary about Ven. Robina by her nephew, Amiel Courtin-Wilson, the internationally acclaimed Australian filmmaker.
Tsa-Tsa Project
In 2004 Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised Ven. Robina to make 700,000 tsa-tsas: 350,000 of Buddha Mitrugpa, and 350,000 of Lama Tsong Khapa.
Alison harr memorial fund
Alison Harr was a student of Ven. Robina’s who died tragically on June 1, 2013 in San Francisco, due to complications from a car accident.
Cocktail party-auctions
Since 2009, using commerce, kindness, and generosity to raise funds to support FPMT & Bodhichitta Trust projects.