The Painful Truth?
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Remember, the money we have will be gone, taken, used, stale in savings or abandoned eventually.
Our partners, our lovers, our ‘soulmates’ will leave us eventually or we leave them. How strongly we feel about them or them for us now, is temporary. Then all the time, efforts, sacrifices we put towards this will be gone. They will be gone. For sure either by circumstance or our death or their death. Meanwhile we have to sacrifice our lives, friends, dharma, time, energy and worry to keep them. Not lose them when they will be gone. What goes up will have to come down. And in between it is pure suffering to not lose them masked in the alleviation of loneliness temporarily.
What we have now is very temporary and we abandon everything for it. The praise, branded items, status, respect we seek is fleeting and is only in our mind. No one respects us for our branded items. Only other shallow persons will ‘respect’ us for it. And we have to work hard to keep having branded items for the shallow respect we think we got. Respect cannot come from wealth, branded items, status, because if it did, all those who have it will not struggle so hard to keep it or feel pressured to have it. How deep the shallowness and insecurity of a person is sometimes seen by how much branded things they must wear, use or have. Especially when they have not earned it with great secular business success in their lives. They are not bad people per se but keep needing to prove they are something or someone. But unfortunately, they know who they are inside and the branded items will fool no one not even themselves. Hence after a while they feel empty inside. Many people of ‘wealth’ feel suicidal, addicted to some intoxicant to numb the emptiness, or keep distracting themselves.
Our health is fleeting. When healthy we want to travel the world, eat the best, convene at fabulous eateries, take pictures of the places we visited and put on social media to show the world how ‘happy’ and how seasoned and how ‘successful’ we are when in actually we are empty, insecure and scared inside and have no way to show something to the world except through these pictures which are so flat and unreal. When our health fails, we run to doctors, priests, high lamas for solutions to get well so we can ‘do’ dharma and charities or something worthwhile. But in actuality, we gave up our chances to do something worthwhile in our lives when we were healthy and now crave more but it’s covered in self deception.
We make promises to beautiful girls, handsome boys, wealthy people, fun people and keep our promises so strongly. But the promises to people who we feel cannot benefit us, we cast aside. We even cast aside the promises to our gurus who have loved us so easily. We will do anything for a lover, friend or someone who can materially benefit us, but for our gurus, we find so many things ‘in the way’. We find many excuses of no time, busy, and all of that. When the truth is, we don’t want to face our attachments and how we should already do something about them as they bring us nowhere. We don’t want to face ourselves.
Tsem Rinpoche
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“Attachments are simply objects we mistakenly believe brings unending happiness” ~ Tsem Rinpoche
The message strikes home.
The outer possessions (attachments) are hard to give up. But the hardest are the inner attachments. Our attachment to anger, to laziness, to praise and acknowledgement, to comfort, to wrong will… are like dark concrete stuck in the cracks of our membranes. May we have the strength and wisdom to defend and grow the light of dharma in our mind to liberate ourselves of our attachments. Thank you, Rinpoche, for this piercing message.
Life is really simple. We are born with nothing so whatever we have will be gone and lost in the moment of death. All is left behind where memories will left behind. The strongest force in the universe is a human being living consistently with his identity. Always be ourselves, express ourselves, have faith in ourselves, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it. The most important thing is to enjoy our life , making it more meaningful spending it wisely, do something worthwhile in our lives when we were healthy. It’s all that matters. Accept what we have and appreciate it. Life is short after all we will not know what happened next. I am glad to have come across Rinpoche ‘s blog learning and practicing Dharma a little by little a day to improve my knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism, most important to transform my mind, to do more Dharma work and so forth.
Thank you Rinpoche for this sharing .
I felt ashame that Rinpoche has to keep reminding us of our commitment or promises. Laziness and attachement have taken root in us for so long, hence it does take an effort to uproot it or maybe it’s also a form of “self-created” ego or laziness.
Whatever it is, thanks for the advices given by Rinpoche from time to time. Also I find that the advice on daily contemplation or meditation of death is indeed very helpful. Hopefully all of us can contribute to Dharma while we still can. When we are struck by ailments, I doubted we can do more at that time.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you very much for these wonderful and very impactful one minute Dharma teachings.
This is one more reminder for us as we drift aimlessly in samsara.
However, since I came to Kechara, I have been steadily transforming my mind and constantly keep this teaching. For me, I have a long way to move, but very certain is to adhere to this teaching.
I feel that I am moving in the right direction and generate sufficient merits to grow in my Dharma path.
Another deceased person by name of Chuck Feeney (in US) is an exemplary example of living the way that Your Eminence has taught.
Here’s a link to a short article on his contributions and living a selfless life: life. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/chuck-feeney-the-billionaire-who-gave-it-all-away-1.3413084
Humbly yours
Lum Kok Luen