Dear Readers,I have tried to write a life story of the 1st Shangpa Rinpoche based on whatever little authentic information I managed to gather. However, I feel that whatever I wrote was just a very small percentage of his works and life. I feel regret in that I did not really try to gather information about his life story from the many disciples of his that I have met in the past, even though they wanted to tell me whatever they knew. There are still some disciples of his who are still doing practice in very remote places and living a very simple lifestyle. Hopefully I can find some time to see them and ask them lots of questions about the 1st Shangpa Rinpoche. Maybe I would be able to share with you a more complete story in the near future.
This is the first time I have written a life story of the 1st Shangpa Rinpoche, hence it is not written professionally. The content is just some information of his life and works which have been gathered by me. I am sure it will give inspiration to some people whose minds are ready to inspired by it. I do not expect that this life story will inspire whoever reads it. In the past, there were many great masters of Tibet and India who were like the sun and the moon to the world. Their great life stories and examples people might have read or heard about, yet not everyone who has done so are inspired by them. The 1st Shangpa Rinpoche is just a humble practitioner who led a very simple lifestyle. So there is no obvious reason why his life story will inspiring to all. It is not for gaining reputation and hoping to be praised that I wrote his life story. It is to benefit a handful of people who are eager to know him and want to use his life as an example to develop Bodhichitta for the benefit of sentient beings. To others, maybe it is just an uninteresting story of simple man.
I had planned to continue with my own life story after that of the 1st Shangpa Rinpoche. During the last few days, I have been thinking about my motivation and how people might benefit from my life story. I could not figure this out and therefore I could not decide on whether I should do this. I need a little more time to decide. I do not have an inspiring story like that of the 1st Shangpa Rinpoche, that is certain. It is simply a story of a very poor boy who went through a rough passage when he was very young. I had experienced much hardship but with my mother's constant assistance, I finally found my footing.You may sympathize with me if you knew the struggles and hardships that I had to go through as a little boy. Because of that, some of you may think how lucky you are that you did not have to experience such hardships during your own childhood and later on in life. I however believe that I was lucky at such a very tender age to get a good introduction of what is suffering and hardship. Due to this, I do not fear hardships very much now and I know in comparison what happiness is. It is said that suffering shows us what happiness is in comparison. Without suffering, one might not even know what happiness is and in confusion, regard happiness as suffering. I am saying this not just from the viewpoint of Dharma but in the general terms of happiness for humans. So in life, every experience is actually a very important lesson and there are lots of things we can learn from it, to understand what life is and how wonderful life is. From there, we will know how we can make the best use of our lives for everyone. Then, we can start to appreciate Dharma, which shows the entire path for the fulfillment of the purpose of oneself and others to be free from the suffering of Samsara.
6 comments:
Dear Rinpoche,
It´s nice to read your thoughts every day.
About telling us your lifestory... from my humbly point of view, I think your lifestory will be inpiring for some aspects; let me explain.
You were a very poor boy and passed on lots of hardships, so you will show us that our problems (almost our rich-country problems) are not the end of the world. We will be stronger then.
On the other hand, you are student of very powerful masters, and I am completely sure the days you spent with them were so interesting and through your devotion to them we will learn a lot about the relationship with our teachers.
So, like Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche said about his lifestory, "it will be almost a sure lesson on impermanence"!
Please, don´t take this humble comentary and request on your writings as an impertinence. I just want to learn more about Dharma, and lifestories inspire myself a lot.
Yours in the Dharma, and lots of good wishes,
Dani (Coruña / Spain)
Dear Rimpoche ...
Good to see your thought process while you contemplate on your motivation to write your own biography. This is in itself a good teaching to us to examine our motivation to ensure our expectation and result are all in alignment.
Dear Rinpoche-la
it would certainly be fortunate to read about your life story written by none other than yourself...i look forward to reading it...
Surely everyone life story has some point for others to learn, however, those who has gone through alots, particularly for your case, would definitely bring a different perspective to others. It would be a great learning point for us.
Your life story would definitely be a life example for us, I really would like to know how you manage to cope mentally with such great responsibilities for such young age, particularly with great hope from your past teachers.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing your life story. We are both fortunate and unfortunate to be brought up in a country where everything is so readily available. We fear hardhship. We want happiness but like Rinpoche said that we take happiness as sufferings. We fight over little thing, we get angry over little thing and we say we are unhappy.
Thank you for your teachings. Rinpoche is my example. I look forward to more teachings online. This is the fastest way to reach beings, me for one.
Namo Buddhaya
with metta
Dear Rinpoche,
It's been quite a while i did not have time to visit your blog and everytime i log in, i am really excited about it as i look forward to read more of what you have to write. It's good to have this blog as it makes us a lot closer in terms of dharma thoughts and exchanging thoughts amongst your readers. Please do continue to write on whatever you think is good for us to learn to lead a quality life. We are all born with good life but at times, we failed to appreciate it and with strong guidance and reminder from rinpoche, i believe it will be good for all of us.
Tashi Deleg
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