Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Social Media to Enlightenment?
Joy has been a student of His Eminence the 25th Tsem Rinpoche for over 15 years. Through the years, Joy has witnessed Rinpoche’s compassion and the unconventional methods he uses to benefit others. Some of the short stories she shares will tell interesting miraculous events that Rinpoche will not mention due to his humility. She hopes these stories will serve as an inspiration in your own spiritual journey.
Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Social Media to Enlightenment?
The best way to develop yourself is when you are challenged with difficulties; not when everything is easy at your fingertips.
– Tsem Rinpoche
If you worked with Tsem Rinpoche, you will know that Rinpoche always pushed us to do things that we did not know how to do. Whether we were afraid of failing or simply too lazy to learn, we had things that we resented doing. But these things were almost always the very assignments that Rinpoche gave us!
Those of us in Tsem Ladrang (Rinpoche’s private office and household) know this all too well, especially when we were asked to teach other students to learn how to do something that we did not like doing. A good example of this is when Rinpoche asked all of us to learn how to use social media. Rinpoche had learned it himself and thought it would be good for us to use it as a platform to promote the Dharma.
I am not really a tech-savvy girl myself, so I really disliked social media. I thought it was a waste of time and shallow. Thus when Rinpoche asked us to learn how to social media, I already disliked anything to do with computers. On top of that, Rinpoche asked us to use social media regularly, which added to my frustration. However, I knew the more that I did not like something, the more Rinpoche would make me do it so it was better not to resist. Otherwise, we could have ended up doing more of things that we did not like!
In fact, Rinpoche often got us to do things we did not like doing. It was a great teaching; what we like or dislike, and how we are selective, is an indicator of how much we limit ourselves from growing. So by giving us assignments that irked us, Rinpoche skilfully taught us how to overcome our self-cherishing mind. It was training meant to re-habituate ourselves, and to ditch our limiting mindset of what we can and cannot do based on our false projections.
Of course, Rinpoche made sure our motivation for the task was straight. You would think that social media only reinforces the ego and self-cherishing mind so why then was Rinpoche so focused on it and how was it Dharmic at all? How can something so frivolous help us to collect merit? Well, Rinpoche showed us that it can; it is all about our motivation and how we use social media. In fact, we can transform any samsaric (worldly) activity, such as social media, into something that generates merits just by switching our motivation to a Dharmic one.
Rinpoche did most of his own social media postings. Here, Rinpoche is about to post something on Twitter. Rinpoche used to show us how to format our posts on Twitter to make them look more interesting. Whatever Rinpoche did, he always gave his best because it was for the Dharma and done to benefit others. That was the whole point of learning how to use social media.
Instead of using social media to look good, post selfies or our latest food obsession, we changed our motivation to the below:
“May the social media we do spread the Dharma so that we can benefit as many people as possible. May our social media work help others find solace, comfort, knowledge and wisdom so that all sentient beings can achieve true happiness and become enlightened on day.”
Rinpoche said many times that we will never know who will see our social media. There may be some who need help. And so social media would be beneficial because Rinpoche wanted to reach out to as many people as possible. That is how much Rinpoche cared and wanted people to be blessed with the Dharma.
Rinpoche’s drive for this was what changed my perspective about social media and how it can actually be used to do some kind of good. Even if we do not get as many likes as our frivolous and silly posts, there are still people watching. Maybe there are people benefiting from our Dharma-based posts or a clip of one of Rinpoche’s teachings. Over the years we have often heard that people discovered Rinpoche’s teachings on YouTube and that it helped them overcome their problems. It saved their sanity and changed their minds. It was through social media platforms like YouTube that they became connected with and more interested in Kechara, and wanted to learn more of the Dharma.
But this assignment did not just apply to us. Later on, Rinpoche also asked us to teach other older students how to create their own Facebook profiles and start using it. Yes, even if you were “old”, as long as you could still use your fingers to type, Rinpoche made sure that someone taught you how to use social media to spread the Dharma.
Rinpoche used to tell us that spreading the Dharma via social media or writing for the blog can reach many people, now and into the future. He asked us to think about how many people could be benefited by our work and to image the merits we collect by doing it. Simply through the use of our keyboard, we can bring Dharma to millions. This is how social media can actually be a tool for Dharma work and for the generation of merit.
It is all about the motivation, the intent, and the right action. After doing any social media, we must always seal the action with a dedication. Sealing a virtuous action with a completion dedication is important. When we have a correct motivation before a beneficial action and seal it with a dedication after we do the action, it generates merit. This is important because our actions are not wasted. If it is wasted, it becomes just another samsaric activity and it just collects karma. In most cases, especially in relation to social media, this would be tainted with the Eight Worldly Concerns. So we will only collect karma, and not merits.
To be free of the Eight Worldly Concerns, we should avoid the following:
- to be happy when praised,
- to be upset when insulted,
- to be happy when we receive things,
- to be upset when we don’t receive things,
- being happy with a good reputation,
- being upset when we don’t have a good reputation,
- to be happy when comfortable, and
- to be unhappy when not comfortable.
Rinpoche was really creative and innovative in this manner, and never ceased to amaze me. Everything Rinpoche did for us, he did so we could have the Dharma in our lives and transform ourselves. This transformation goes beyond just this lifetime. Rinpoche was concerned about all our futures, how we use this life which determines our future lives. That is why Rinpoche used whatever samsara presented, such as social media, as tools to promote Dharma, preserve the teachings and benefit others way into the future.
For more interesting information:
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Eating Out with Rinpoche
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Tsem Rinpoche, My Protector
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Looking for That Switch!
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Taboo Words
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Cooking For Rinpoche
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Vajra Yogini or Anger?
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – The Assignment
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Change Karma
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Creating The Causes
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Buddha Images and Imprints
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Food and Dharma
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Spreading Dharma in Jonker Street
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – What’s the New News?
- Rinpoche Through My Eyes – Mission Impossible
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Most remarkable forward thinking Rinpoche of this century. He brought the teachings to normal people in a renaissance like way via internet. For this we are eternally grateful. May you Rinpoche your students and your gurus always be well and happy and fortunate. 🙏
Today, social media has become a major part of numerous lives through countless websites and apps. Social media can help introduce people to new things and ideas, and deepen appreciation of existing interests. It can also help broaden users horizons of seeing things as well. People have been able to connect with others and share their thoughts, emotions, experiences, etc. Many people access social media platforms to express empathy and receive support from friends and family, including in times of emotional distress . It was through social medial that I came to know Kechara. That’s was history now using social media regularly have me learn many information on Buddhism. Especially the teachings by Tsem Rinpoche on blog’s post had changed me to where I am now.
Thank you Rinpoche with folded hands and Ani Chokyi for this beautiful sharing where I can understand better.