Thoughts
(By Tsem Rinpoche)
Whenever we let anger control our actions, it’s a clear indication selfish mind is predominant. ~Tsem Rinpoche
Being selfish is the core of many of our emotional upheavals and unhappiness. ~Tsem Rinpoche
Please stop being held back by anger & fear, step into the light. Stop thinking, just relax and just do. Move forward. ~Tsem Rinpoche
You don’t have to be happy by making others unhappy. You can do better by living in the light. ~Tsem Rinpoche
Anger is when selfishness goes unchecked. ~Tsem Rinpoche
Anger is a cover for hating oneself. ~Tsem Rinpoche
Hurt is when selfishness is the focus of our lives. ~Tsem Rinpoche
Remain silent because it’s necessary not because you are lazy. ~Tsem Rinpoche
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Thoughtful quotes for us . Every quotes in this post teaches us a lesson in life. Silence is golden. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt. Silence offers opportunities for self-reflection and daydreaming. It’s often better to stay silent rather than blurting out something which might make things worse and later create misunderstandings. Anger resolves nothing and is like fire. Its better to control ourselves rather forgives those who we are angry at. We are the one will be hurt.
Thank you Rinpoche for all these quotes .
Meaningful quotes to ponder and as a reminder for me. Holding on to anger will be more harmful and we are the one who will gets burned. Anger will not solve our problems, it builds nothing but it can destroy anything and everything in our life. Do let go and move on , live our life to the fullest meaningfully doing more that benefits others . Choosing to learn, practice Dharma is the best choice.
Thank you Rinpoche for all these beautiful quotes.
Beautiful and meaningful sharing. Anger bring so much of hatred and suffering to people around us and ourselves. Holding onto anger is like bringing harm to our self,we should learn to let go and move on. We should live our life to the fullness by doing more meaningful Dharma work and learning Dharma. We can do better by living in the light and be happy.Be kind,loving,caring and compassion ,with these to benefits others. Thank you Rinpoche for sharing .
Thank you Rinpoche for the sharing and reminder. It is so true. Sometimes we get irritated and angry so easily. This is because we always think that others cannot meet our expectation. We must realise that anger is only serving our selfish mind. We should learn to control our anger and mind to be calm always.
Dear Rinpoche. I got angry at my mother last night and really regretted and felt very hurt for the action and words that came out. I would like to dedicate more merits to my parents for their long life and improved enlightenment. Your words and quotes are so, so meaningful. Thank you Rinpoche!!!
This is definitely a check-list for us to check our selfishness level, when I was reading through the above quotes, it just reminded me of my level of selfishness. Over and over again I have to use this food of thought as a benchmark for me.
Thank you Rinpoche for these thoughts and advises.
With folded hands,
Carmen Lin
谢谢仁波切的分享，当我们要愤怒或钻牛角尖的时候，我们要思考而后行。首先我们依止仁波切的教诲和开示，把心识转化成正能量，放下所有的执着，很多事情都可以迎刃而解。这就是佛法给我们无形的力量和加持。
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on anger.
I read somewhere that “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” I forget who said that, but I liked that alot. It’s us who suffers when we hold on to anger.
I used to have a fiery temper and whenever someone asked me to do something for them, my anger would flare up because I did want to go out of my way to help anyone. My mantra back then was “I don’t ask for your help and in return you don’t ask for mine.”
Over time, I began to understand true generosity. I learnt that true generosity is not just giving monetary or materialistic gifts, but also giving our time and effort as well, or our emotions (we learn to tolerate nastiness, be forgiving and not be consumed by anger)
Anger can also turn into a grudges. We may deprive ourselves of many opportunities due to grudges (which can last for a lifetime!). Usually when we’re angry, we tend to have a one track mind, we lose all sense of reasoning and believe that the other person is completely wrong, which maybe true at times, but even if the other party is wrong, there’s always something to learn from the experience.
Shelly tai on 4 July 2013 at 5pm
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing all these thought with. I think is very true when too much focus on ourself we will tend to get angry easily. On the others hand if we r very much care about others we tend not to react in a very hurtful manner, no doubt because of habittuasion we tend to react on our natural state of mind but habit can be improve by pratising mindfullness.
These are very wise words and should be followed with faith and conviction. Selfishness (self-cherishing) is the cause of all our unhappy feelings like anger, fear, insecurity, etc. When we become less selfish and more caring towards others, we begin to feel happier, less fearful and more confident. Therefore, when others criticize you or scold you, “remain silent because it’s necessary”.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this quotes. I will always keep remind myself that anger=selfish, don’t let anger control our mind and action, i’m practice now.
The main thrust of the teachings of Buddhist practices concerning behaviour, is to tame one’s mental continum to become non-violent. In order for behaviour to be pure and complete, it is necessary to have a proper view. Behaviour must be well-founded in reason, with the main attitude of nuturing and helping others, being the reason why we take refuge in the Buddha. Be like the Sangha, or virtuous community – if someone harms them, they do not respond with harm; if anger is displayed, they do not react with anger, if someone insults them, they do not answer with insults. As written, the root of all these meets back with compassion, as is the way for a Buddhist to adopt and take refuge in – with all having their root deep in compassion. As constantly advocated by the Dalai Lama, the basic behaviour of non-violence, motivated by compassion, is needed not only in our daily lives but also nation to nation, throughout the World!
Profound and yet simple advice from Rinpoche. This is something we should all keep in mind whenever we feel like our patience/anger is about to blow! lol!
Thank you Rinpoche for the quotes above. It is a must for me to reflect on my anger issues. I will never get bored saying this… Rinpoche have taught me so much and thru time, I know for sure that I have learned to let go a lot and moved on. Without Rinpoche’s teachings and guidance, I will never be who I am now. And of course, much much more to improve. Its actually easy once I understood that being angry and holding on to anger does more harm and cause much pain. Therefore, no point in holding on.
The theme of these little quotes seemed to be about anger. I think they are wonderful and my favorite one amongst all of them is in fact the shortest one:- Anger is a cover for hating oneself. I love this one because I think that is very true.
They are all true but this one resonates with me because I have encountered with some very angry people in my life and I find their self-hatred is very obvious when you get to know them better. It’s very difficult to be around them and if they don’t come to terms and deal with whatever it is that makes them hate themselves, it will only get worse. The worst is when they reach a stage where they cannot control themselves and they attack others instead of the root cause. Amazing advice! Thank you rinpoche.
Anger due to our selfish desire has become more and more common in today’s world. How angry we are when we do not get what we want represents how selfish we are, our selfish mind keep telling us what we want, it only focus on me, me, me… and when things doesn’t go our way, we will become angry, we used our anger to release our unhappiness, and often our anger hurts the people around us.
Anger can also blind folded us, when we are angry, our mind will become numb, we can’t think properly, we can’t see properly, and we can’t hear properly. it is very dangerous, because we might harm the people around and created wound that may not recover in many many years to come.
We should recite these quotes as daily sadhana until it fully goes into our mind. Thank you Rinpoche for the sharing.
I fully agree with all of Rinpoche’s quotes, being angry at someone is selfishness because of our preception we have for that person and what we expect from them. And that holds us back because we would only forever be thinking about ourselves and our needs, when we could have transformed a better mind to accept and let go and not hold any grudges. Being angry often, complaining about other people, always showing black faces only potrays us as being spoilt brats and it doesnt get us anywhere. Anger doesn’t help us, it only reinforces our selfish minds, it only helps us practice to be selfish. When i get angry I usually do not like to speak but I know I would only say things which I would regret later, I still do get angry a lot but i feel by not complaining a lot I have gotten less angry. Being angry only creates obstacles for us to be happy. Thank you for sharing your quotes Rinpoche. I hope I learnt something right from reading these.
*When I get angry I usually do not like to speak, because I know if I do I would only say things that I would highly regret later.
I love that caption. The ultimate truth is even when nobody knows that I conceive negativities and not act them out my KARMA knows.
Scary part is that when we die, we have no other inheritance except our Karma. Live to have good karma as it is a great and wonderful fortune to take with us on our death.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing these wonderful thoughts and quotes.
These quotes truly reflects who I really am, who people are really are.
Definitely something to think about, contemplate as well as meditate on.
To me Karma is an amazing kind of wonder that has both it’s good and bad part and what I think is that Karma is something that kind of describes our actions and it effects, something like the saying “You get what you do”. Interesting subject to know more!
Once again thank you Rinpoche for sharing your thoughts once again.
Love
Jutika
Very good quotes for us to contemplate! Thank you Rinpoche for the very wise quotes 🙂
Thank You Rinpoche for always reminding us, i am practicing it daily to control Anger. And thru Guru Yoga ( Lama Tsongkhapa ) practice, that’s make me more and more calm in mind.
Much Appreciated the practice.
Thank You Very Much Rinpoche. _/\_
Best Regards : Eric kksiow
Ponsdering upon each quote… it has a deep truth when we go deep and do a self-check! Anger is definitely a self-destructive emotion which most of the time we end up shooting ourselves in the foot with it.
It is only because we have a BIG EGO that is why we can be easily disturbed and be angry. I know this cos it happens to me all the time. How to calm ourselves? Well Rinpoche has given us two remedies,
1. To apply the Eight verses http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/eight-verses-of-thought-transformation.html
2. Go for a walk, go for a smoke, breath… do not react.
So far no.2 seems to be quicker for now LOL! and while I am breathing… I think back all the advice Rinpoche has given and also the meaning behind the eight verses, how it applies in that very situation. But I also come to notice, if you do not react and give it fuel to live, that situation, anger, feeling, unhappiness dies sooner… that karma stops there which is what I want.
I fully agree with all of the sayings above, I’m a quite hot tempered person, I get frustrated very easily. It’s not a good thing, my mum has also been telling me about my problems since young. Whenever I get scolded by my parents, I would always give them black faces and there’s where I get scolded even more…those words above have really reflected what kind of person I’m, I will definitely work on it and become a better person.
Thank You for sharing Rinpoche.
When I read the above, I realised I can get quite emotional, but never thinking that it could have come from being selfish. This has really given me food for thought. Thank you Rinpoche for pointing this out.