When I arrived late night on the 15th of March, my disciples and friends were at the airport to receive me as usual. Next day on the 16th of March, I started to meet people in Karma Kagyud Buddhist Centre continuously. People come to see me for many different reasons, such as wanting to know more about Dharma, needing clarification over certain doubts and hoping to resolve some problems. There are also some who come to see me as a friendly gesture and not for any specific reason. I try my best to attend to them and for those who require solutions, to try to find a solution mainly based on Dharma knowledge. Every person is equally important based on the teachings of Lord Buddha and others are even more important than oneself. When I say “others”, I mean every living being except oneself. A person like me is very much behind in this regard but I understand the teachings and am inspired by such qualities, so I just try my best.So if we want to do good things for each and everyone in this world then in practice, we have to start from those who are near to us right now. We then progress to do good gradually more and more to other beings who come along. If we often talk about having loving kindness and compassion to all sentient beings but in reality always ignore or neglect the ones who are near us, trying to find sentient beings elsewhere for us to develop loving kindness and compassion towards is impossible. So we should start right now taking the immediate person near us as the subject for development of loving kindness and compassion. We don’t have to search up and down for a subject as the subject is already here with us. That should be the way to train our minds and see the importance of others who are the majority and work towards their happiness and well being. This would be the direct cause of peace and harmony in the world.
Nowadays, world peace is mentioned by everyone, be it politicians, world leaders or religious leaders. This phrase has become so cheap as everybody talk about world peace yet try only to fulfill their own needs and take care of their own welfare. So how can we ever have peace for the whole world? To me, world peace will come when everybody does not think of themselves but try to the best of their effort to care for the welfare of others. It is such a high standard of thinking and conduct that one can find only through Lord Buddha’s teachings and it is the actual cause of peace and harmony in this world.So no matter how hard it is for us to change our old habit of clinging to the welfare of self, it is still worthwhile to take a little hardship to change our way of thinking towards the direction of selflessness. This is because ultimately through this we will be able to free ourselves and others from the oceans of suffering. Try this out within this life time when we have the opportunity to do so; opportunities are rare to come by.
I have read the comments in my blog and it seems that many people give very positive comments about what I write, I am sure many of these people must be my disciples who always give me encouragement and support my work. Such a relationship we build mainly through the Dharma. We start to get to know each other and share knowledge and thoughts and so spiritually we become closer. As long as I have made the effort to assist them in Dharma through my body, speech and mind, this relationship will last and we benefit each other very much. I do learn a lot of things from my disciples but we still act as if I am the teacher and they are the disciples. In reality, I can also be a student sometimes. If a teacher learns from someone then that moment, he is the student. Am I right? Of course I am right, otherwise if a disciple learns from a teacher, then that disciple may not be a student also. Same logic applied here makes me a student of my disciples sometimes. Yeah that makes me feel comfortable now. Haha.
That’s all for now.
10 comments:
Dear Rinpoche,
I just had the same thought about world peace a few days back on the bus to work. I was reflecting on all the various troubles in the world, the sour relationships between countries like Israel and Palestine, Tibet and China, India and Pakistan etc. I just thought if the leaders ever concerned themselves with the welfare of others; to not always think that they are the only ones who are right and the other party is evil; if they ever thought about how the citizens of the other country also have mothers and fathers and children and other loved ones, the world would be a much better place. They may not so jealously guard what they think is theirs and start more to look at the bigger picture of having welfare for all.
In fact, the more one cares for the welfare of others, the more one's welfare would be taken care of. Isn't it? If we care for someone else, it is more likely that someone would care for us too. If we only protect our own interests, it is very likely others would do the same and the situation could only get uglier.
What you said about being a student sometimes is very humbling and a good point we can all learn from. Even if we are in a more superior position, it does not mean always that we are superior in all ways. As a leader, as a teacher, very often we can too have the opportunity to learn from our subordinates or students. I must keep this point in mind. Thank you.
Saying is easy but carry out is difficult. Human being is always selfish.... they want themselves to receive blessings first and will rush to grab an incense in their hand first to offer to Buddha image and tell the old and handicap fellows to wait till their turn.... or they will grab the blessful substances for themselves first without considering the fair distribution to others.
Thanks to Buddha teaching which train our body, speech and mind and we ourselves need to check daily if these three coordinate with each other. To really see our own dark-side and make rectification. Not by saying but by action. A pure mind with pure motivation and pure action, just like the lotus grow from a muddy pond. Only through our own checking, we ourselves protect our three chakaras. Am I right Rinpoche? I humbly learn from you!
I agree that a lot of things is easier said than done. In principle I trust everyone knows what we should do but the attachments we have to our family and those close to us make it difficult to think only for others. I feel that only if those close to you is happy and healthy will we then we able to give to others. If we do not have peace of mind ourselves, how can we give to others and think of others wholeheartedly. Our own frame of mind is important in order to give to others genuinely. If others do not agree with me then I guess I am still the selfish one and have a long long way to go to learn from Rinpoche. Am I being very selfish Rinpoche?
It is actually a way to train our mind and it doesn't means give up onself now which we can't even if we wish. We may not reach upto that standard at this time but if our approach should be always develop towards that direction, we gradually reach to that standard. That also need a support like obtaining knowledge of Dharma and spiritual friends encouragment and support as well as your own inspiration must be together.
Dear Rinpoche,
I have tried the best to do the right things, live according to the buddhist principles (in a basic way at least), but somehow in a tough dog-eat-dog (sorry for the rude language) world, it is really difficult to feel compassion towards others. To give in to our "ememies" might mean our present livelihood at stake. To continue the fight mean we generate negative karma that will never go away. What should we do? How can we develop a calm & patient mind and feel happy in the face of all the adversity?
It doesn't means you give up self and self related acts and thought right now. Practically that is tough I know, only great Bodhisattva can able to do it. for our standard if we can't able to do it then at lease our motivation and way of thinking can still tune towards Bodhichitta. When we can't able to handle, then we can always make aspiration to develop such ability in the future. So actually compassion means application to benefit sentient beings now or in the future both. If something we can't handle right now then we make a aspiration for future which is also good practice and over a time we build up such abilities to help others and let go oneself. That is the beauty of aspiration in Buddhist practice.
Dear Rinpoche,
Do we have to confuse at the moment one unable to help others and make aspiration to help them in future? Or just make aspiration to help others when one is fit and strong in mind huhh?
Do we have to say aspiration prayer or just make aspiration in our own language in our own mind?
Any short aspiration prayer which we can chant in 4-6 sentences? Can share on your blog?
Thank you and have a good day!
The aspiration is actually good wishes from our own mind with genuine love and compassion towards others, that is the real practice of aspiration. We ty our best to help others with compassion but when it is beyond our ablity, then we make genuine aspiration to fulfil the welfare of sentient beings as soon as we can. To support that, we can do the prayers of aspiration, there are many type of aspiration prayers and among them "King of Aspiration noble Conduct of Samanta Badra" is very great such as " As long as space ramains and as long as sentient beings remains to that space, May I remain and eliminate all sufferings of sentient beings" That is really a wonderful aspiration from the King of aspiration. Maybe due to my poor translation, it spoil the beauty of sentance.
Dear Rinpoche
Thank you for your advice. I will try the best to heed them. I am aware that sometimes we have to cross certain obstacles in our lives in order for negative karma accumulated in our past lives to dissolve completely. Sometimes we seek Rinpoche's blessings so that such obstacles will be slightly easier to overcome and that we have the will to overcome them as many a times we fail at the critical moment. Thanks Rinpoche for your years of blessings and patience.
Can Rinpoche advice how can we ensure that we will always have the good fortune to be reborn as a human being and to be able to continue to stay in touch and practise the dharma until we attain enlightenment in our future lives?
Very likely we can anticipate next life where we will be reborne by checking our way of thinking and actions. Early masters said "Past life what was our rebirth can be descover through situation of right now and future rebirth can be anticipated from our thought and actions of this life time". So we have choice of what we should be in future.
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