Stories from a Chela – Unconditional Love
Unconditional love is a method to help others become better people and help them overcome their limiting behaviours
‘Chela’ is Sanskrit for ‘student’, particularly the student of a spiritual teacher. Stories from a Chela is a series of short posts of my personal experiences with His Eminence the 25th Tsem Rinpoche. I hope that these stories will give you a glimpse into how Tsem Rinpoche, and the unique brand of Dharma that Rinpoche embodied, have benefited me and countless others.
Unconditional Love
As adults, we exhibit behaviours borne of our life experiences, both good and bad. These behaviours help us face our insecurities in our quest for personal happiness. There are many manifestations of negative behaviour, including being prone to anger and excessive materialism. In those who find it painful to deal with people, it can take the form of emotional isolation.
The causes for these modalities of behaviour were aptly described by Buddha Shakyamuni as well as the masters who came after him. The methods to rid ourselves of these self-limiting thought patterns have also been explained in Buddhist scripture. However, for most of us, these methods to overcome negativity remain words on a page or teachings from a discourse we had the fortune of attending but cannot remember anymore. But teachings are more than that; they are supposed to be lived. His Eminence Tsem Rinpoche, from whichever angle you analyse his actions, was the most perfect example of someone living the teachings. They infused his very being.
Many of us saw Rinpoche help people but too many of us did not recognise the true significance of his actions. We did not really grasp the depth to which Rinpoche’s help affected that person and allowed them to transform and improve themselves.
Tsem Rinpoche showed unconditional love to everyone and spent all his time working for others
The Kechara family is very diverse and its members come from all walks of life and backgrounds. There are doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, artists and homemakers. Others have lived difficult lives and have almost no formal education at all. Some come from wealthy families and have always had their neuroses indulged. As it is with every sentient being in the world, each of us suffers from the effects of Samsara.
This story is about a woman who was a close student of Rinpoche. Let’s call her Amy. By all appearances, she was an upstanding person. Amy had done well at school, was highly educated, had a successful career and she seemed to get along with people. But this was all on the surface.
As we spent more time with her, it became clear that she wasn’t as nice a person as she had initially seemed. This created tension and rifts between Amy and other students. Rinpoche heard of these incidents and called her to Ladrang (Rinpoche’s personal household) for a private audience. As with any other audience, a handful of Ladrang staff were also there to assist Rinpoche.
Rinpoche started by asking Amy how she was and what she had been doing of late. This was followed by a short teaching on learning more Dharma. Until this point, it was a typical audience, just like Rinpoche had held with countless others. Then, Rinpoche’s demeanour became more serious and he told Amy that he knew how she had been behaving with other people. Amy’s back went up. Immediately, she became defensive and started talking back, as if she had to defend herself against what Rinpoche was saying.
Rinpoche simply smiled and asked her why she did what she did. Over the next couple of hours, Amy explained at length her reasoning behind her behaviour. Throughout it all, Rinpoche listened, interjecting when he wanted more details of what she was saying about other people. At this point, we started to get worried. Rinpoche hadn’t been feeling well that day and had even asked for pain medication after 2-3 hours for a migraine. But still, he sat and listened. We served lunch and the audience continued.
Five, six, seven, the hours kept rolling by and Amy kept justifying her actions. She was so animated in the way she needed to justify her negative behaviour that by the end of her explanations, she was physically tired. Finally, Rinpoche asked her, “Why are you like this?”
The question took her aback, as it did the others in the room. She didn’t know how to answer. It was then that Rinpoche asked her about her family. It emerged that her parents, though physically and materially generous to their daughter, had not known how to nurture her emotionally. Over the years, that lack of emotional parenting inflicted deep psychological wounds on their daughter. This warped Amy’s thinking to the point that she had become a person who seemed nice enough on the outside but severely flawed on the inside.
Rinpoche then gave her a talk on how she should begin to forgive her parents because they were emotionally unprepared to raise her. He advised her on how to let go of the pain and suffering that was the root of her negative behaviour. This was a landmark experience for Amy, a real turning point in her life.
While remnants of the negativity that had festered inside her for so long occasionally rears its ugly head, Amy is a different person today. She took Rinpoche’s talk to heart, working tirelessly to unravel the pain constricting her true self, and has become a better person for it.
Rinpoche taught that helping others is a form of selfless service
There comes a point in our Dharma practice when we have to face our inner demons. Without this, you really cannot continue with real spiritual progress. Many people don’t want to do this. Some are afraid of what they might find or simply don’t want to spend the effort and they give up. But transformation is not possible without some form of inner struggle. Luckily, the Dharma gives us more than the methods of transformation. It also gives us the mechanism with which to control this process and deal with these inner demons in a measured manner.
The teaching that Rinpoche gave that day was more than just about the power teachings have in unravelling pain and negativity. It was also a teaching about love for all of us in attendance. One of the major practices of Mahayana Buddhism is the Six Perfections (Sanskrit: Satparamita), and one of those is Morality (Sanskrit: Sila). Within that practice, there is a path wholly dedicated to serving others. This service is what Rinpoche showed us all that day. It was service because despite the physical pain Rinpoche was in and the time the audience took away from an already packed schedule, Rinpoche sat there and gave Amy what she needed: unconditional love. It was an act born from the morality of helping others.
“Helping others,” Rinpoche said to me some time after the incident, “is more than just giving people help physically. It’s also about giving them love, unconditional love, to first understand them and then to help them overcome their neuroses. That is what you should do, that is how you work for others.” The path of practice is more than just about yourself. When you focus on others and help them to become better people, you become a better person yourself, too.
I miss Rinpoche terribly but I know that he will always be with us. His teachings are in us and I strive every day to embody them. After all, you can never unlearn what you already know. You can only live by that and embody what your Guru taught.
For more interesting information:
- Stories from a Chela – Sacred Handprints
- Stories from a Chela – The Journey to Manjushri
- Stories from a Chela – Taking Refuge
- Stories from a Chela – Daimajin and Wrathful Deities
- Stories from a Chela – Real Worship
- Stories from a Chela – The Roadside Seller
- Stories from a Chela – Blessing the Animal Realm
- Stories from a Chela – Real Transformation
- Stories from a Chela – Za Rahula and Strange Habits
- Stories from a Chela – Spiritual Nourishment for All
- Stories from a Chela – The Lama that Builds
- Stories from a Chela – The Teaching in the Tea
- Stories from a Chela – Incense Offering That Saves Lives
- Stories from a Chela – Supernatural Protection
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Tsem Rinpoche’s love to all of us is unconditional beyond Rinpoche’s limits as Rinpoche care for us more than Rinpoche cares for himself. In spite of our imperfections, flaws and mistakes Rinpoche will always count on us no matter what happens. Rinpoche’s loves us unconditionally all I can say regardless of our faults and would rather want us to transform and improve ourselves.
Thank you Pastor Niral for sharing this story of how Rinpoche having an audience with Amy and had her letting go of the pain and suffering that was the root of her negative behaviour. Now she is more happy working tirelessly to unravel the pain she had before.
The root cause of suffering is that we unrelentingly struggle to get rid of the fundamental dissatisfaction. Wisdom comes through suffering.
Yes ….all of us miss Rinpoche, Rinpoche is always with us , and never leave us though with all the Dharma teachings which i dearly hold on . Rinpoche will be back soon.
Taking on the suffering of others. That must have come from unconditional love, which is like a well-spring that flows with an unending supply. Yes, Rinpoche was the embodiment of this love.
I remember so clearly as though it were yesterday, when Rinpoche led us on an Inaugural Pilgrimage Tour of KL on 27 December 2007. We started from the Ladrang. Then it was one stop after another, including one KP outlet and another. It was only at the second last stop – Saraswati Arts Department (after around five hours or more of touring KL) that Rinpoche revealed that he was not feeling well, that in fact, he had a very bad attack of migraine. Then the next minute, in his prayers, he was “taking on the suffering of all beings and giving them every happiness and benefit”.
Yes, we never knew when Rinpoche was not well or even very ill, because many a time, he would just immerse himself totally in the caring and serving of others, and not give you an inkling that he was suffering inside.
Thank you for being that great fountain of unconditional love that you were, Rinpoche.