Integrity – a Talk at the Floating Market in Thailand
Last night we went to this wonderful night Amphawa Floating market. It’s opens only on Fri 3pm-10pm and Sat-Sun 12pm-10pm. We rented a boat for 600 baht (cheap) and can fit twenty on the boat easily. The boat takes you on a 17 kilometer ride through the market, firefly areas and to generally enjoy the calmness of the river. Afterwards, I decided to speak on integrity… If you don’t want to rent a whole boat, then per person is 60 baht…
Amphawa Floating market is 1 hour from Bangkok with no traffic. With traffic it will take you 2 hours. It is a must visit place for anyone visiting Bangkok. Also they have chalets or houses at the edge of the river you can rent and in the morning go to make offerings to monks also. It’s a very nice place. On either side of the river is many shops, stores, restaurants, eateries, pubs, stalls and other interesting things to see and buy. I really liked the place very much.
Thailand is amazing for sure… so many things to see and do…
Tsem Rinpoche
Integrity – a Dharma Talk at the Floating Market!
Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/Thai06Integrity.mp4
TRAVEL FACTS:
Amphawa Floating Market
Amphawa Floating Market is located on a canal that flows into the Mae khong River in Samut Songkhram Province, about 80 km and 1 hour drive from Bangkok Central.
The floating market only opens on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 3 pm – 10 pm Friday, 12 pm – 10 pm on weekends.
There are numerous stalls, shops, restaurants, temples and resorts on both sides of the river bank from street fashion, household items, handcrafted toys, authentic Thai food and art.
The Boat ride costs 60 baht per person, and to rent a whole boat is 600 baht. It takes you on a ride to explore the market and stop at places with fireflies. The whole journey is about 17 km, you can stop the boat anytime if you want to stop to shop or to eat.
Address: Samut Songkhram province, Amphawa
Distance: 80 km from Bangkok Central
By Car: 1 Hour
By Van: Take the skytrain and get off at Victory Monument. Find the bus terminal nearby and hop on to a van going to Amphawa. Fare is around 70 baht per pax.
Make sure to tell the driver or operator that you’re getting off at Amphawa Floating Market. It will take approximately 2 hours.
Admission: Free
Hours: 3 pm – 10 pm (Friday)
12 pm – 10 pm (Saturday and Sunday)
Directions: Come from Samut Songkhram City and drive straight through the city, you will find the junction leading to Amphawa Market with a clear sign on the junction, then turn left and go straight across a cement bridge, continue driving for about a couple kilometer, you would find Amphawa Floating Market junction on the left. The Amphawa Community located next to King Rama II Memorial Park and Wat Amphawan Chetiyaram.
Transcript of Integrity : Dharma talk at the floating market
Hi, I’m at the Amphawa Floating Market. This is the second floating market that we’ve been to. It has been a much…. There was another one that we went to that was original and that one is much smaller, and it’s quaint, and it’s nice but this one is huge, so you have to come about 2 hours from Bangkok to get over here and it’s in Amphawa. It’s a huge tourist destination and everybody will know about it. It’s a pretty commonplace to go and if you’re a tourist in Bangkok, you gotta come here, all right?
During the…On Friday, it is open 3pm to 10pm and on Saturday and Sunday it is open from 12pm to 10pm but if there is not a lot of business they close up at night around 9pm, all right? When you get to the parking lot, you walk in, there’s a whole bunch of stalls and a whole bunch of things that you can buy, lot of interesting things to see, and then when you get to the actual river, the pier area, this is where we are, the pier, there are a lot of boats to rent, you can re…you can rent a boat for about 600 baht or if you’re gonna go per person, you can go 200 per person if you’re a foreigner and 100 if you’re Thai, all right, that’s bahts. The river runs along shops and a lot of interesting little cafes and places where you can stop and eat, a lot of interesting things to see and then the boat goes one big round, takes about an hour, an hour and a half and they show you fireflies along the way. It’s a peaceful, quiet, calm kind of setting.
What is integrity? Why do you need integrity?
Anyways, today, the floating market here, I would like to talk about integrity. Integrity basically means that you honor what you promised. You honor your word. You honor your commitments. So whatever you say from your mouth you do it. Whatever you promised, you do it. Whatever you have committed to, you do it. And you know, unless it’s a life and death circumstance, then you can’t do it, or if it’s a very powerful extenuating circumstance that you can’t do it, all right. And you go and explain, and you tell, and you share and you say why you can’t do it but otherwise, you gotta get it done.
So basically, what you promised people and what you tell people you’re gonna do and what you say what you’re gonna do, and the timeline that you give that you say you’re gonna do, you gotta get it done, you gotta do it. Everybody was raised differently and everybody kind of thinks differently, but I think anywhere in the world, if you keep your promises and you keep your commitments and you keep your words of honor, I think you’ll be a person that is respected anywhere you go. And I think that anywhere you go, people will believe you and trust you and you develop a powerful, nurturing kind of relationship with people. I mean what you send out is what you’re gonna attract. So if you’re gonna send out kinda of an energy that whatever you say doesn’t really matter, whatever you promise you don’t really keep, you know, and if you say something and whether you do it or not it’s up to your convenience. If that’s the kind of energy you send out, that’s the kind of energy you’re gonna get back. That’s the kind of people you’re gonna attract, that’s the kind of…that’s the kind of character you’re gonna get out of people, that people won’t take you seriously and also people won’t believe you or trust you and it’s…and it’s not worth it to go through life for people not to trust you, because when people don’t trust you, you can’t get things done. You can’t accomplish things. You can’t fulfill what you want to do because whatever you want to do, you need someone else’s help. You need people to, you need their assistance, you need their help, you need them to back you up in one way or another and if people don’t trust you they’re not gonna back you up.
Have you come across situations where people actually say they’re gonna do something and you believe it and you rely on it, and they don’t and how did it feel? Well that’s the kind of feeling we give other people if we don’t have integrity. I don’t wanna judge anyone or I don’t wanna put anyone down but I’ve come across quite a few bunch of people who didn’t live their life keeping their words and promises to others and it kinda changed at different junctures and it kinda changed in different situations and it kinda changed according to sometimes their convenience, I am sorry to say, and it’s very disappointing.
So, as an ordinary person, to deal with family, the example you give to your kids, to deal with friends, to deal with co-workers, integrity is very important. I mean kids trust us. You know our kids or kids trust us and if we tell them we’re gonna do something, we don’t, and we disappoint them. We kinda send a message to them that it’s okay to just say anything for the moment, and you don’t have to mean it, and they grow up kinda talking and acting like that and that’s not a good message to send to kids. If that’s the kind of message we send to co-workers, or to our partner or to our wives and husbands, the relationship is not gonna be based on truth. The relationship is not gonna be based on truth. The relationship is not gonna be based on honesty, and when the relationship is not based on honesty, is it a real relationship? You know, so that ‘s what we have to check out for ourselves, it’s not for me to check out but for ourselves to check out and so it’s kinda hard sometimes for people, for some people, to do what they promised, to do what they say, and it’s.. it makes people suffer. People who are around us and if we don’t have integrity, we make them suffer. We make them filled with anxiety. We make them not like us and not respect us and we make it very difficult for them to work with us and after a while they kind of shun us. After a while they kind of avoid us and we may have the best justification in the world for not fulfilling our commitments but you know if it’s once too many times, it’s once too often, they will experience the results, the karmic results, you know, the emotional results which is people shun us and people avoid us and people don’t wanna do things with us.
When we don’t have honor and we don’t have integrity, and we don’t have the commitment to fulfill our promises, eventually we’ll feel a sense of loneliness. Eventually we’ll feel a sense of sadness. Eventually we’ll feel a sense of isolation because people don’t want to be around us and people don’t want to be with us, and when they don’t want to be with us, how do we feel? We can’t blame other people. We can’t say its other people’s fault. It’s our fault. So in ordinary secular life, whether it’s with family, with friends, with co-workers, with kids, with you know, business partners, whatever it is, it is extremely important at all costs to keep our promises, keep our commitments and 100% keep to our timeline. If we do that, we will find that it’s easier to work with people. People will find that it’s easier to work with us. We’ll find that our relationships become better. We find that people start to you know…respect us and people like us, and when people respect us and like us, it’s a good feeling. Who doesn’t want to be respected and liked? Who doesn’t? And in everyday life, that type of practice of integrity is extremely important for a happy, harmonious existence.
How do you integrate integrity in Dharma? Why do we take vows?
Now, when we get into Dharma practice, when we get into tantric practice, when we get into meditational practices, integrity is the basis of all attainments. Why is that? Because in order to enter the door of Buddhism, you need to take on the Refuge vows. The Refuge vows recommend for you what to do and what not to do and in order for you to break negative habituations, in order for you to start on positive habituations. The purpose we take on the vows is to break negative habituations. The vows are not something to torture us. The vows are not something to hurt us or to bind us or to imprison us. The vows are actually something to help us transform our negative habituations to the positive and if we study the vows very well, and we study it carefully, and we check it very carefully, and we understand them, we will notice that the vows do not imprison us and when we take these vows, we are in front of the 3 jewels – the Guru-Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha and we, from our heart, willingly take on the Refuge vows and every single day that we hold on to the Refuge vows, we collect the merit of whatever vows that we have taken and we create the merit to counter the negative habit related to that vow.
The Basis for taking Vows and the merits for taking vows
For example, if everyday you don’t steal, everyday you don’t steal, it’s neutral, you’re not stealing. But if you take a vow that you don’t steal, that you will never steal, that you will not steal, every single day that you exist, holding that vow and you don’t steal, you collect the merit of not stealing. The merit of not stealing is to have a very powerful personality in the future where when people listen to you, when people listen to what you say and they listen to what you have to share, it will be a very powerful impact on their minds and also when you don’t steal, in the future when you do business or you do agriculture or you do work, the work will be fulfilled more easily as a result of this merit.
So what happens is that when you don’t steal, and you promise or you take a vow not stealing according to Refuge vows, then every single day you live, you will collect the merit of not stealing as opposed to if you don’t have a vow and if you don’t steal it is just neutral, just totally neutral, nothing happens. For example, a baby doesn’t steal. A baby doesn’t take, a baby doesn’t rob, a baby is not able to but the baby doesn’t collect the merit of not stealing. Similarly if you take the vow of not lying, and everyday you don’t lie, you collect the merit of not lying as opposed if you don’t have the vow and you don’t lie. So, on that basis, you can relate that to all the vows and the vows are taken by the power of the object, the subject and the motivation, object being the 3 jewels, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, the subject being oneself, being of sound mind, understanding the power of the vows and the motivation is to attain the highest enlightenment for all sentient beings, to bring the most benefit for all sentient beings, to bring the most relief to all sentient beings. In order to accomplish that, we need to become a fully enlightened Buddha. In order to become a fully enlightened Buddha and all the stages that we need to achieve to become a fully enlightened Buddha, then one must be able to start somewhere and that somewhere is holding the vows.
The Importance of Holding Vows
The Refuge vows came from Lord Buddha. It isn’t something made up. Then on top of the Refuge vows, you have, on the basis of the Refuge vows, you have the monk vows, the nun vows. On top…on the basis of the Refuge vows, you have the Bodhisattva vows. On the basis of the Refuge vows, you have the Tantric vows. So in order to take monk vows or nun vows, you must have the Refuge vows. Without the Refuge vows, you cannot have any other vows because the Refuge vows are the basis, all right? So, the Refuge vows teach you to control your body, speech and mind at a certain level, then when you take the Bodhisattva vows, it teaches you to generate altruism to another level. Then, when you take on the Tantric vows, you have the vows of transforming your perception of the world around you to another level, to that of enlightenment, okay.
So therefore, when you take the Refuge vows, it is to help you change your ordinary habituations from negative to positive. When you take your Bodhisattva vows, it helps you to refrain from actions and take on actions that generate altruistic motivation and thought and activity and when you take the Tantric vows, the vows help you to change your ordinary perception. So when you take the Tantric vows, it helps you to change your ordinary perception to a tantric or higher perception of the world around you. So in other words, it grants you full enlightenment.
So the three sets of vows are Refuge, Bodhisattva and Tantric. Ordinary vows, again I repeat, because there was a lot of noise just now, ordinary vows is to transform our ordinary habituations of body, speech and mind, to train up for the next step. The Bodhisattva vows are to help us to attain altruistic action, altruistic motivation, altruistic thinking, bodhicitta. Then the next set of vows is higher vows as tantric vows, which teaches us to view the world around us in a extraordinary way, in a clear, concise and very purified manner to help us attain emptiness, to help us attain full enlightenment.
So the Tantric vows, which are vital to become a Buddha, the Bodhisattva vows which are vital to become a Buddha and the Refuge vows which are vital to become a Buddha, if those are not taken, you cannot become a Buddha. If you do not take those vows, whatever yidam or meditational practices you do will not bear fruit quickly to become an enlightened being. So without those vows, can you make offerings? Sure you can. Without those vows, can you meditate and recite mantras and do sutras and study? Sure you can, but with those vows, by the power of those vows, the result is multiplied, the merits are multiplied, its swiftness and the quickness is multiplied. For example, if you want to catch a thief, if you catch a thief with the uniform of a policeman on or with no uniform on, it would be quicker with the uniform. Just as a hypothetical kind of example.
So like that, when you have your vows, whatever action you do it is multiplied, it is quickened, and the results are quickened on the basis of those vows. Remember, these vows originated from Buddha himself, so therefore there could be nothing but benefit from these vows. Once we take these vows, we have to honor them. We can go online and search the Refuge vows, the Bodhisattva vows and the Tantric vows. We can learn from them, we can memorize them, we should recite them daily or weekly until we are familiar and we should familiarize ourselves with those vows until it becomes second nature and it will become second nature because it is just re-habituation.
Those vows are not saying you’re a bad person. Those vows are not saying you’re an evil person. Those vows are saying you need to think and go in this direction to achieve full enlightenment. So, if you have practiced integrity in your daily life, you kept your promises, then holding on to vows will be very simple. If normally you don’t hold on to integrity, then holding the vows will be difficult and if we break these vows, or if we have an infraction on these vows, it does create negative merit. If we hold the vows and it creates positive merit at a quicker speed, then by breaking the vows, you collect demerit at a quicker speed and more powerful. I mean, it’s obvious, you know if you’re gonna go on a speedboat, if you’re gonna go really quick, if you have an accident, it’s gonna be a more severe accident as opposed to a rowboat that’s not going very fast. So, when you take the vows, you shouldn’t be afraid of vows and think “ Well, these vows can make me go to the 3 lower realms or it’s gonna collect a lot of negative karma”, what’s making you collect a lot of negative karma is not the vows. What’s collecting negative karma is you not having integrity. You not training yourself to hold the vows and to familiarize and to transform your habituations. Whether you have the vows or not will not determine if you go to the 3 lower realms. Your action’s motivated and your motivations is what creates the causes for the 3 lower realms.
So, whatever actions you are doing is the causes for you to go to the 3 lower realms, higher or lower. That’s up to you. The vows do not make you go to the 3 lower realms. You make yourselves go to the 3 lower realms. So if you wish to engage in Yamantaka, Vajrayogini, Cittamani Tara, Vajrakilaya, Avalokitesvara, Manjushri, if you wish to engage in Tara, Kalachakra, Guhyasamaja, Heruka, Hevajra, how to say…. any of the tantric practices that is expedient in becoming attained, then all those practices and all those initiations you must take vows. Don’t simply go for an initiation and think that “Oh, I don’t have to hold on to my vows. I can just take the initiation and recite the mantras.” According to His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, all attainments arise from your vows and your words of honor. That’s why Vajrasattva’s practice is very important, that we need to do Vajrasattva’s practice every single day if we have tantric commitments. Why? It stops and purifies the broken vows and occasionally and due to past habituations, we will break our vows sometimes, that I mean, we’re normal human beings, but it should lessen over time, all right.
Once you take the vows, you don’t become perfect but once you take the vows, you strive towards perfection. When you take the vows, you don’t become perfect, but you strive towards perfection. So therefore, it’s very important that we, if we wish to accomplish higher meditations, higher practices, higher accomplishments, higher results in Buddhism, it is on the basis of our vows. It is on the 100% basis on the vows. If we don’t hold our vows, and we break our vows, we cannot gain the results that we wish to attain through a particular practice. If we wish to become a monk and because we take on the vows of a monk, if we throw our vows to the wind and we have no deference or no respect towards our vows, and we break our vows, then the results of becoming a monk will not be fulfilled, will not be fulfilled.
How can we wear tantric clothes, or wear spiritual clothes but not hold the vows of the clothes that we are wearing, that the clothes represent. So therefore, if we wish to have any higher attainments and higher results, we need to hold the vows. Without the vows, taking initiations will not bring results. Taking initiations and not holding the vows will not bring results. In fact, taking initiations and not holding the vows, it will generate even more demerit. So, we shouldn’t think that it’s a smorgasbord of initiations, this lama is giving that initiation, this lama is giving this ritual, this lama is giving that kind of practice and I should run to get all of it and just take any vows inordinately and arbitrarily, and as and when I like, you know, it doesn’t matter. No, it does matter. It does matter. If you take your practice seriously, you get serious results. So therefore, holding the vows are the roots of spiritual attainments and in tantra according to the Buddha Vajradhara, holding the vows and words of honor are the roots of us gaining higher attainments, higher realizations, higher abilities to benefit others and the very reason we hold our vows is out of compassion for others. When we have compassion for others, we hold our vows. When we hold our vows, we gain experience, we gain results from our meditation, we gain special abilities to be of more service to others. So holding our vows is out of compassion for others, so holding vows arises from the simple, secular practice of integrity. If we have integrity, then other people respect us. If other people respect us, we can do more for them. We can accomplish more with them. We can do much more for others if we have integrity.
So therefore, I think without having to take higher initiations and higher practices we should start today with what? We should start today immediately with having integrity. If we are a person with integrity, then it’s okay. If we are a person in the past we have slipped all the time on our promises and commitments, we gotta start today. We gotta change today. Having integrity gives us peace of mind. Having integrity gives people around us peace of mind. Having integrity makes people like us and respect us and it’s easier for us to get along with our friends. Having integrity attracts people of the same quality and the same characters who can either accomplish more works with you or just be good friends. Having integrity and friends with integrity is real friendship. Having a partner or a wife or husband that you have integrity with, you share integrity, it’s a real relationship, it’s a real joining of good people and having integrity is a great example to our children and they grow up to be people with integrity.
So today, in the beautiful floating market here, in Amphawa, I wanted to give you a little talk on integrity with all the wonderful people walking by and the boats and the river and some of the stores open. Nice people, nice boats, nice rivers happening outside, nice scene for you, but I do sincerely hope everybody will practice integrity and keeping your promise because it is really 100% the correct route to go, whether you’re spiritual or not and if you want to go to higher spiritual practices and results, integrity is the key. Thank you and good night.
(Transcribed by Joey Wong)
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We can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but we cannot fool all of the people all of the time. A beautiful saying.
Make living our life with absolute integrity and kindness our first priority. Where integrity is the seed for all achievement. People with integrity do what they say they are going to do .Integrity is the quality of having strong ethical or moral principles and following them at all times. A person with integrity will always acts with honesty, honor, and truthfulness. A precise teaching from the video .
Thank you Rinpoche for this sharing and a good teaching.
With our integrity intact, life is less stressful and far less complicated. This is not applying in secular but also in the spiritual practice. If someone who does not have integrity will surely not earn respects from his peers.
Integrity is very important in our life. It also a good habit for us to cultivate and take as reminder to ourselves that we need to keep hold to our promises in all aspect of chores we are doing.
We constantly telling little lies because it is more convenient than telling the truth. Eventually it becomes a habit and even a way of being with everyone everywhere.
Change now. Start today, keep our promises and commitments. Having integrity gives us and others peace of mind. Whether it is spiritual or secular, practise integrity is the key to success.
It’s about being mindful of our words which forms our bonds. Being mindful also, to what we act on. It’s about being conscious of everything that we think or say or do. It’s about being all that in line with the Buddha’s teachings – the backbone of integrity.
Dear Guru Rinpoche, you taught us very well, we can understand Clearly from you talking on video teaching,
Integrity is so important in our living life, when we said something out, we must do it, and show the results is well.
Thank You so much Dear Guru Rinpoche, for sharing such a wonderful teachings with us.
With folded hands
Raj Kumar.
People with integrity most of them are having sucessful and happy life. Simply because to honor the promise to others and make people respect and wanting working together. If you want good relationship with your partner. What you have promise to take care each other with deal it with love and integrity, loyal with each other.
In buddhism, integrity play important role because by taking vow to our guru, buddha , dharma and sangha. We are able cut off negative habit, stop creating move negative karma and collect merit to purify negative karma. Is important to remember and honor our promise to our guru if we want have attainment. With devotion with guru, honor all the promise to the guru. You will see able follow clear path toward enlightenment.
It’s extremely important that we strive to possess integrity in life, because it’s critical for us to do well and have results in life. It’s about self discipline and building up trust within oneself and others.
Once we break our promises, we should immediately confess and repair the promises by actions. Otherwise, it will be like a snow ball keep rolling from a top of a hill and become larger while it rolls down and have a huge negative impact at a later time.
Peoples live with integrity are more likely to succeed. With our integrity intact, life is less stressful and far less complicated. This is not applying in secular but also in the spiritual practice.
We all know that but not many of us really have integrity. If we can have this without fail, enlightenment is close to us. It is not only for you to be a better person but also it bring happiness to the people surrounding us by not disappointing others and keeps good value go around and people will have peace of mind. Let all of us check with each others and help each others to practice this good value
Rinpoche’s teachings are as always very clear and logical. It is up to us if we put them into practice to help us and improve. Integrity is very important for our growth as well in the spiritual sense as well as seen in an ordinary way.
The karma that arises we have to accept is the emotional results which is people shun us and people avoid us and people don’t wanna do things with us. Things you wished for will not be fulfilled. So better keep your promises always.
Integrity actually earns respect from others. If someone who does not have integrity will surely not earn respects from his peers. People no longer trusts whatever he promised if he do not have honour and integrity. The relationship that this person get into will no longer be based on trust and full of doubt. Meaning for me, this person will not likely to be successful too as they most likely will also disappoint himself with empty promises. He who will then too be unhappy as most likely people will not want to be with him. People will less likely want to work with people who do not always keep their promises hence this person grows even more lonely and bitter. Thank you Rinpoche for this very clear teaching about integrity, one of the source for people to be living happy.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing the article and the Dharma talk about integrity. In our life, integrity is really utmost important. Whether to business partner, parents, wife, children, colleague, friends, or anyone, if we don’t keep our promise, if we don’t do what we’ve promised, nobody will believe in us in the future. For example in doing business. Many friends and some of my dealers told me, integrity in business is very important. Those business which can stand for 20, 30, 40 over or longer years until now, is because of integrity. They must keep to what they have promised customers, what they have promised dealers. Once a person’s has lost his integrity, nobody will believe him, no matter what he says in the future. Nobody will ever befriend him.
Integrity is that important, especially in our spiritual practice. If we have lost our integrity, breaking promise to our Guru, we will break our Guru devotion and be reborn in hell. More serious case could bring down the whole lineage if we break our integrity by saying our Guru is wrong. We have to always remind ourselves the vow we took, and the promise we’ve made, to be a better person, with integrity. _/\_
What really sadden was people with lack of integrity, is much pitiful in sense of spirituality. They will keep all things to themselves and blame others of their mistakes. They are selfish, self-centered, depressed and lonely type of people.
Integrity is very important in our life. It also a good habit for us to cultivate and take as reminder to ourselves that we need to keep hold to our promises in all aspect of chores we are doing. I believe that, with integrity our mind can be focus better, we can be more aware and be mindful.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this talk on integrity. Integrity plays a very important part in our everyday life. Without integrity, we will lose the respect and trust of the people around us. Eventually this will lead to dejection and loneliness. As parents integrity is also very important because we are the mirrors for our children. If the parents keep breaking their promises to them, they may grow up not trusting people and may not have integrity themselves. We also need integrity to help us in our spiritual path. If we do not value integrity, it will not be easy to hold on to our refuge vows. We are so blessed that our kind Guru, Tsem Rinpoche constantly gives us guidance and valuable advice which are so important in our Dharma practice.
In spiritual view : Integrity is all about the Guru and students relationship ( SAMAYA ), when we already make a promises to our Guru and we never do it. At my point of view : That’s no integrity and we will shorten our Guru life, and create a lot of bad Karmas for our own-self.
In friendship, relationship ( BF & GF or Husband and Wife ) and as a leader, if we don’t have integrity, who’s gonna respect and listen to us?
Actions always speak louder than a words.
Having re-read this article and discussing it with some people, it enhances a clearer understanding why Integrity is so important. Integrity is one of the main ingredients that shapes the character and attitude that makes us respecting others and in turn being respected. It is so true what Rinpoche said that many a time we go about our daily lives making promises and ending up breaking them, and in the process we disappointed others. Also trust is gained from people around us when we develop integrity and keep to our words.
Thank you Rinpoche for this great teaching. Rinpoche always emphasise on integrity and it’s very important in our life for anything we do be it in secular or spiritual. It’s in fact is the fundamental and important core value that we should develop with our conscious and transformation. Everything we do it involve integrity.
When you are ‘whole’ and consistent, there is only one you. You bring that same you wherever you are, regardless of the circumstance. You don’t leave parts of yourself behind. You don’t have a ‘work you,’ a ‘family you,’ a ‘spiritual you,’ and a ‘social you.’ You are YOU all the time. Integrity is important in our life to be success in anything we do.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing Dharma Talk about integrity. All of us need to have integrity so that we have other people’s trust. For example, we need to have integrity when we want help a homeless person. Why? Because these homeless people is putting their trust on us to help them. If we break our promise to them, then they will feel that they have lost hope and they will not simply trust anyone anymore. If a Lama says that his Guru said was wrong, then he has already lost integrity because a Lama is someone who holds Refuge vows and Bodhisattva vows. Some even with tantric vows. By not having integrity, a Lama has broken the 3 vows which leads to bad karma.
Regards,
Vivian
What I really like about this topic is how integrity not only can be applied in our daily Dharma practice but also on a secular level, which is very important. People nowadays do not honor their words and they make promises without fulfilling it because they are too selfish to think for others. It is very logical and easy to understand what Rinpoche taught because while reading it, it made me think of the people I know that do not have integrity and they hurt many people along the way. Some people keep on doing it like it’s an everyday routine, which is really sad because in the long run, people just ignore or disassociate themselves from these people.
It’s true, the younger generation need to be taught well and from young, so that they do not grow up being like that. After all, negative habituation is not easy to break once you get used to it or do not want to change for the better.
The most important is how integrity is so important to help us all the way on our spiritual path. I feel so ‘lucky’ to be able to learn and practice Dharma and at the same time learn how to change those negative habits into positive ones from Rinpoche.
Rinpoche has explained very clearly about integrity, not only in Dharma, wherever we go, integrity is very important as it shows what type of people we are, and that create the impression others has to us, to our customers, to our friends, to our families, or to anyone, integrity is the priority.
In Dharma, integrity should be priority, because it is the bases of our spiritual attainment, when we took our refuge vows, Boddhisattva vows or even higher vows, it means we have promised to carry on certain practice, but when we break the practice due to lack of integrity, we will create more negative karma which will lead us to break more promisesw in the future and the negative karma will get heavier and heavier. Hence, integrity holds a very important role in our spiritual practice and we should honour our promise no matter how long it takes for completing it.
Thank you Rinpoche for reminding us that it is very important to keep up with what we have promised unless there is a very good reason to why we cannot do it. With that, we should then explain and share why we are not able to do it, otherwise we should have integrity and keep to our promises.
I agree with what Rinpoche said about how we would be attracting similar people with the energy that we would be sending out to people. I think this is very important as not always we like somethings to be done to us, however, we are always doing that to others. Personally, I feel that we never treasure and appreciate enough those people that keep their promises to us and do things meant for us. Till we lose them, then only we realise that we have lost a gem in our lives. However, not many of us are that gem, we do not keep up to what we have said.
When we do not show integrity to children, it tells them an indirect message that it is alright to just say things for the moment. I agree with this statement fully as children are who they are learning the adults behaviour. When we show them it is alright to lie, they would then in future lie all the time. If we show them it is alright to be committing crimes as long as we have “valid reasons” behind it, later when they grow up, they would also be doing the same thing. With that, we would be installing ideas to the children that not having integrity is alright, things can just change to their convenience, and it would be a very disappointing or even bad habit to have as it not only affects them, but the people around them as well.
“When we don’t have honour and we don’t have integrity, and we don’t have the commitment to fulfil our promises, eventually we’ll feel a sense of loneliness.” I feel that this is very correct as with the wrong values we would be pushing people away from us, and not attracting anyone new. Hence, we would have the empty feeling in us that we are not able to understand why so. Then, we would be feel negative and behave in negative ways that would only make us more miserable then we already are. however when we keep to our promises and word, we would be attracting more people as they do have a good relationship with us that would help us to be a more cheerful person as well.
I really like the fact that when we take a vow for something we do not do, vowing that we would not do it would help us to collect merits. Otherwise, it would just be a neutral stand. It is really interesting like how we can turn a neutral thing into something so only that would be able to help us collect merits.
Thank you Rinpoche for explaining to all of us here what each type of vow would help us in our spiritual path. Like how Refuge vows would teach us the control of our body, speech, and mind, Bodhisattva vows would teach us to generate altruism to another level, and Tantric vows would help us to transform our perception of the world around us to another level to that of enlightenment.
Thank you Rinpoche for reminding us that to reach enlightenments or even attainments is not just based on reciting of mantras and doing of prayers. Attainments arise from our vows and also the words that we honour. This shows us again the importance of having integrity.
I cannot agree more that we would only be able to help more and do more things for people when they have respect and faith in us. To achieve that to have integrity and keeping our promises are very important, only then we will be able to do more.
I cannot thank Rinpoche for this post enough. It has reinforced the importance of integrity for me as it not only let the people around have a peace of mind, but also for people to like and respect us, allowing us to get along with others easily as well. Thank you Rinpoche!
very good I want to know some knowledge from Buddhism
Thank you for the teaching, it give me a strong impact on the important of integrity and the purpose of taking vows. this is precious to know the reason and we have to keep it in mind so that we practice it correctly and continuously .
Integrity also mean applying our refuge vows which many of us often forget. For example: NO HARSH SPEECH… and boy yes… do I know this one well lol. Well, if our very own refuge vows is being compromise for our ego and pride… what do we expect? Why is our happiness being severed by our own self? How we are so self-destructive and don’t even realise it… I know this… I did it before and I am the one cutting myself and then I cry, how funny, how silly, how stupid hu?! Rinpoche has always given us real life logic… all we need to do is try it out… and trust me just follow your GURU’s instructions and everything else will just fall in to place
And Yes for “some” tragedies, falling down in to that dark pit, sometimes do help to “wake” us up. Then it becomes a blessing in disguise… x
Thank You Rinpoche for giving this teaching at the floating market in Thailand. Such a wonderful place! And invaluable teaching!
Integrity does play a very important role in our everyday life. Without integrity, the world will not be as beautiful as we see it now. How we treat people is exactly how people will treat us. In that case, if we always break our promises then we shouldn’t be angry at those who break their promises to you. But most of us do not think that way. Like what Rinpoche says, what you send out is what you attract. So don’t blame others but yourself. Breaking someone else’s promises seems like a tiny bit thing, but in fact it isn’t. It shows the way you carry yourself and how your character is. By having integrity, many things can be done easily like holding our vows and commitments.
Once again, thank you Rinpoche and May you have good and stable health.
wansan
Thank you Rinpoche for giving us a precious teaching about having integrity, holding our vows, keeping promises and complete every committed items within timelines. Having integrity is the foundation of everything in both spiritual and secular practices. We need to make ourselves trusted before we expect people to trust us.
This is a wonderful talk at a most exotic of locations. Rinpoche looked healthier at that time. I like the fact that the vows and words of honor can restrict us from harming ourselves and if we practice it with a lot of sincerity and awareness for others, it can be a part of us. The vows are meant to bring us to reach a certain state of mind where our priority is that of others and not ourselves. All of us definitely have very strong morality.
At the moment, our morality and integrity is channeled towards our comfort and selfish needs but that can be changed as we take on the vows and enact the vows through our practice and keeping of promises and commitments. At the moment, this teaching comes at a timely period when everyone is busy with projects and conflicting interests, we can sometimes lose track of what are our priorities. Whatever it is, all our actions should have to be geared towards fulfilling of our vows and commitments. That’s of topmost priority for now.
Integrity is so important in our living life, when we said something out, we must DO IT and show the results.
Thank You Rinpoche for the important teachings.
Best Regards : Eric kksiow
“My word is my bond” seems a sadly archaic phrase today. Now we need contracts to ensure that people keep to their agreements. Trust and reliability is something that we should develop – whether in Dharma or Samsara. When we keep our word – our promises – then people will trust us and respect us. When we keep breaking promises, people get disappointed and if we are in Dharma, people will even think negatively about Dharma practitioners – and wonder why do we break promises. People who love you will forgive you once or twice but when it happens over and over and over again, they will stop even asking you because your word means nothing.
Integrity is a vital quality to have and is amply described here why. In Dharma, it is in relations to the vows and commitments we should keep in order to receive higher practices which lead to higher attainments. However, caveat emptor: “if you’re gonna go on a speedboat, if you’re gonna go really quick, if you have an accident, it’s gonna be a more severe accident as opposed to a rowboat that’s not going very fast.”
The importance of having integrity applies overall and provides benefits not only on a secular and practical level but also on a spiritual level. Rinpoche has always stressed the importance of keeping our word so as to develop a good habit that will facilitate attainments though the successful practice of higher practices. Both Zong Rinpoche and Tsem Rinpoche have said that if we were to accomplish our higher meditations and practices, it can only be by the keeping of our vows.
So if we are not in the habit of keeping our word as are quite lackadaisical about it as a matter of habit, how can we expect to suddenly be able to keep our vows. Both the determination to keep our vows and keeping our word comes from having integrity. A good indication of how ready we are to take the Bodhisattva vows and tantric vows is how much integrity we have in keeping our word of honour presently.
This is a great video and should go a long way towards explaining why it is important for Rinpoche that all his students keep their word. At the most basic level Rinpoche is already training us and building foundations for higher our practices.
The very thing that we all want is to be respected and looked up to… However we fail to earn it. A simple way is to have integrity and to keep our promises. It seems “easy” but why most of us cannot seem to keep to that is quite bizarre.
Perhaps its conditioning and from a lifetime (or lifetimes) of habituation and “taking” that we forget the fundamental “rule”, that we need to earn it.
So start now… start keeping those promises and have integrity… in the long run we WILL benefit from it.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful talk on Integrity Rinpoche.
When we have no integrity, when we can’t honor our words, loneliness creeps in, leading to eventual sadness & isolation. People would not want to be around us.
Fact: When we have integrity & keep our promises(Eg to:Family,Friends,Spouse,Children,Co-workers etc.) and abide by our refuge vows and take them seriously, others will respect, like us & love to be around us.
I’m definitely looking forward to the day when i take my refuge vows through you Rinpoche. _/\_
Please do take great care of yourself Rinpoche & hope You’re feeling better now.
Tayata om bekandze bekandze maha bekandze Radza Samudgate soha
Thank you very much, Rinpoche – your precious teaching on integrity and vows puts many important issues in perspective. “Kamsiah che-che!”
I have been in the jewelry business for years. Knowing that integrity is very important in the jewelry deal because people in the same industry will trust each other or their customers for millions of stock with just their words. This is integrity. But in the younger generation, words has been taken lightly. Hence now the culture is like “no money no deal”. This is just an example. I think it has become our attitude which we do not see the value of our words. Most of the time we are trying to get away from problems and do not want to push ourselves to even keeping a simple promise.
Integrity is important in our daily life even if we are not spiritual. We tend not practice when it is not in our convenience.
But with spiritual practice we learn to be consistent in putting good virtues into practice. Thus, making us a better person as time goes by.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you so much for the teachings shared to us. It is wonderful teaching. After listen to the teaching like self-reflection to myself. Thank you!!!
We have been propelled into a cycle of suffering by our delusions and the actions they create, known as Karma. As a result, we spend our lives enduring all sorts of ups and downs, in trouble and confusion. When we are able to eliminate delusions and Karma by realising the natural purity of our mind, total peace can follow, and thus we can gain the complete freedom from the cycle of sufferings. Like our Guru has constantly taught, if we can do good deeds, such as saving the lives of animals under threat of death and undertake serious practice of Dharma, the condition necessary for gaining a good rebirth, or at least to plant the seedsfor a favourable future rebirth is sown. At this auspicious juncture as said by our honourable Dalai Lama, when we are free of obstacles to hearing and practicing the Dharma, we must not let this rare opportunity passed away! Thank you, Rinpoche for your kind concern and always caring attitude for your invaluable teachings.mablici
Thank you Rinpoche for giving such a short but invaluable dharma teaching with all the natural setting- the river, boat, shops, people running around.. It’s indeed dharma on the go! It teaches us whenever we are, dharma should not be forgotten. Even we’re on holiday.
Everybody knows what does integrity mean, but how many do really apply it to themselves? Bad habituations arise from our ignorance, desire, negative thoughts etc..Taking vows is one of the methods for us to transform our negative habituations to positive. How people treat you is kinda like a reflection of how you treat others, what you’re experiencing right now is much to do with the cause. If you believe in cause and effect.
Body, speech and mind have to go aligned. No point we read and understand Lamrim or any dharma teachings and don’t apply those teachings into actions. You lose respect from others if you keep giving empty promises and don’t fulfill it.
Thank you, Rinpoche, for this teaching. The natural setting for this is a change from the norm from Kechara House gompa.
I shall direct friends and people who ask about the why, how and when of holding Buddhist vows by going to Rinpoche’s blog and You tube.
Thanks Rinpoche for this wonderful teaching.
Honoring our words/promises is really important and I feel that it is the basis of any relationship (i.e family, friends, husband/wife, children, colleagues, etc…..)
Just like what Rinpoche said, people will just leave us if we break our promises continuously.
We can’t even help ourselves don’t have to mention others.
Keeping our promises, honor our word is so important and even a basis for us to do anything.
If people trust us we are able to accomplish so many things to help others and people will want join us together to benefits more people.
It’s also the basis in holding our vows for higher practices and realization.
For the children, it’s important to set a good example from young. For them to practice at the early age will make them habituate and as part of their daily attitude. How wonderful.
Almost everything starting from this quality.
Thanks to Rinpoche again for this precious teaching.
I love this teaching setting.
Thank you for this pure teaching on the the Vows and how integrity plays it’s important role.
Remembering the benefit from keeping the Vows from Lord Buddha is inspiring. I appreciate that reminder.
I appreciate the reminder that Practice Integrity is very important… Holding our vows comes from honoring the goal to help others.
Positive merit is dedicated to the enlightenment of all sentient Beings. But that cannot happen if we do not hold with honor, the vows.
YES- Honor and integrity help us accomplish the higher attainments.
Thank You for your integrity!
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for this powerful teaching(from Bangkok’s Amphawa Floating Market) on the importance of integrity, keeping our promises, honoring our words and, above all, holding our vows.THe benefits of integrity are tremendous. People will respect us and we will have beautiful and harmonious relationships with our friends,loved ones and the people around us.People who find themselves being shunned or isolated should know that these are the results of not keeping our promises and time-lines and of not showing integrity.
Keeping our promises and practicing integrity will lead us to hold our vows and commitments well. Holding our vows and commitments well will lead us to higher realizations and attainments.Actually, practicing integrity and holding our vows firmly stem from compassion for all mother sentient beings.
Thank you Rinpoche for presenting the importance of integrity and holding our vows in such an unmistakably clear and logical manner for the benefit of all of us.
Intention is EVERYTHING! Intention begins with the heart and influences mind and actions. Thank you for sharing your wonderful wisdom.