You and Your Imprints…How To Break Bad Habituations
Jul 4, 2012
(By Tsem Rinpoche)
Early in June, I decided to do a surprise visit and share some Dharma with the students who took their time away to engage in Lamrim recitation, part of the pujas to be completed before the renovation of our new Kechara House gompa begins. You can look at my previous post with some pictures here: Imprint – teaching at Kechara House
Much care,
Tsem Rinpoche
Imprint – teaching at Kechara House
I gave a talk on how one’s past imprints influence one’s current actions and what it is that one must do to break this cycle.
You can click the image below to listen to the talk, or you can go to http://www.youtube.com/tsemtulku and check out the title:
You and Your Imprints!
I am sure this talk can help many of you very much and answer questions. When I was talking, it was a great reminder for me also. May this talk clear much doubt on the virtues of breaking negative habituation and how it changes one’s life. And the lives of those around you. That is very important.
Tsem Rinpoche
Transcript for ‘You and Your Imprints!’
I talked about this twice, I talked about this last Saturday and I talked about this a few days ago, some of you may have heard it, some of you may not have heard it. For those of you who have not heard it, good for you. I am going to tell you about what’s happening. For those of you who have heard it, please re-listen to it and remember it so that you can share it with other people.
The importance of dharma is not to be selfish. The importance of dharma is when you learn something you share it with other people accurately. When you don’t listen to dharma carefully and also when you don’t memorise it, when you don’t focus on it, and you always rely on other people – this is another facet of selfishness. Why? Because you put the responsibility on other people. I give you an example. If you have been in dharma for more than three years, you should be able to already hold dharma classes to give teachings. Yes, you should be able to. If you are not able to give teachings and hold classes then it means there is something wrong with the way you have been learning, which is you are not really learning. Because if you go on You tube, even in big Christian churches like in Singapore and stuff you have very new people getting up and talking in front of three, four, five, six hundred people, giving talks. They are very, very eloquent, very good. It’s very interesting
So that’s why it is very important for us to be interested. Now you guys are all reading one of the most important texts available today and let me explain to you why you are reciting it. In short, where its lineage comes from, what it is about and what’s the benefit. And why are you reciting the way you are. Why do we need to recite it a little louder? So that we and people around us can hear. Because all of you are here on a Saturday night and you are doing a great job and you are reciting it. So I think it’s my duty to explain to you why.
Let me tell you why. Because earlier for a short while I went on the webcam and I checked the whole organization what’s going on, what’s happening. I do it sometimes and I saw you guys here and I looked back, because sometimes the webcam gets stuck. So it’s like pictures from days ago and I go ‘oh so many people’, they go ‘no, no, no, that was three days ago’. Then I run here but nobody’s here. It has happened before, yes. So today I made sure this is ‘going to go up my nose’. I make sure that it was today, it was and I looked at the webcam, there’s so many of you here and I was very inspired. On the way here I had an obstacle but it was cleared. And so why I thought I’d come here and explain things to all of you? Because you deserve it. And I thought if I explained this to you about why you are here and why you are reciting and you understand it, it’s more rewarding to do what you are doing because you guys are smart people and if you get knowledge, you know what you are doing, you feel so much better. So I thought it’s my duty to let you guys know why you are here on a Saturday night reciting this and I know you guys – 60% of what you are reciting, you don’t know what they are talking about. But you are still doing it. So let me explain why, okay?
It’s broken down into two categories, what I want to explain to you. One is imprint and one is lineage. And I want everybody to listen very carefully and I want everybody to really focus and I want everybody to really absorb because this is knowledge I am giving you. Then you might think ‘oh but you are taking sometime away from recitation. Yes, but then your recitation will be even more beautiful, more powerful, alright?
Making offerings to a Buddha statue is wonderful but if you know why you are doing it, it becomes even more powerful, becomes more firm, alright? So for some of you, you’ve heard it, please listen again and maybe I’ll ask you one of these days to speak about it. Remember if you’ve been in dharma for more than three years, you should be able to teach dharma to other people convincingly already. Because if you are still not able to, no excuses, no justifications. I am busy, I am a housewife, I am a house husband, I don’t have time. I can name so many more powerful examples of people who are much more busier than you but still can do more things. It’s just if you want to or not.
Imprint – Imprint in Tibetan is the word bak-cha. Imprint means something that is planted in our consciousness, that is stored in our consciousness. We all know scientifically, imprints is something that is in our minds. That’s in our minds. Scientifically it is proven whatever you put in your mind, stays there. And you know how they prove it these days – through regression therapy or hypnosis. Hypnosis is an established, accepted mode of finding the truth, especially with police in the US. I don’t know about Malaysia but in the US.
So therefore hypnosis and regression is a method to calm your mind down, relax your mind so that you can remember things that cannot be remembered. What does that prove? That proves to you that your mind does not forget whatever it has seen or heard or remembered or registered. Let me repeat. The fact that under hypnosis “…”. Let’s not talk about previous life hypnosis. I am just talking about this life. It is clear and it is the absolute accepted scientific mode of investigation that when people go under hypnosis, they can remember things that they ordinarily cannot remember because of stress, because of fear, because of you know, being, how to say, forgetful or not concentrated or sometimes, sometimes, time, meaning it has been so many years already.
So therefore, through hypnosis people can remember events that are very, very, very distant and they can recall it. In America when I was there in the 80s, I heard that this was outlawed – subliminal advertisements. What is a subliminal advertisement? That in an advert, they actually have the advertisement – you know the commercials about twenty to thirty seconds, they show you an advertisement, but on the side on the corner of the screen they also flash something very quick and it is so quick that the conscious mind doesn’t pick it up but the subconscious picks it up. For example they are trying to sell you ice-cream and they are trying to say that this brand is very good, very good, very good but you see, that is just advertisement but they flash something on the side that say this is the best brand, don’t buy anyone else, they flash it like that. And you know what happens? A lot of people went out and bought this. And then people start suing each other because they say this is unfair. Why? What they planted subliminally, subliminally in the people’s mind through advert had more effect than the actual commercial.
So after a while there was this huge debate and there was this huge law cases and they completely outlawed subliminal advertisement, which means things they flashed on the screen just like this (Rinpoche whistles), not allowed anymore. Why? Because people remember that more. And it is amazing how the mind works. We are not talking about religion. We are talking about the power of the mind.
So hence an imprint is something we put in our minds and once we put that imprint in our mind, it’s remembered. For example if we were very young and we had a traumatic childhood and the childhood was not very good, perhaps we were abused, perhaps we were hurt, perhaps we were told we are fat, perhaps we were told we are ugly, perhaps we were told that we will never amount to anything, perhaps we were told that you know we had no skills, no talent, perhaps we were beaten, perhaps we were starved – those leave very powerful scars in our minds. And so when we get older, outwardly we may look like everything is fine but inwardly we may have a lot of anger – an anger that is uncontrollable. An anger that pushes people away. An anger that comes out and we cannot control it. An anger that once it comes out, even later when we’re embarrassed, we don’t want to say ‘I am sorry’ or face it. And it drives people away, it drives opportunities away, it drives the Buddhas away, it drives our friends away. Why does it drive people away? Because nobody wants to be around people who are full of anger. Nobody. Nobody wants to be around them.
So that may have come from an unresolved issue when we were very small kids. That when we were hurt or abused or beaten or told off or pressed down, we couldn’t fight back. We couldn’t talk back. We could not justify or ask for help because we were told to keep quiet. So then when we were told to keep quiet once, twice, three times, four times, this rage builds inside of us. And when that rage builds up, when we get older, when we are adults, we are in control, we can do things and no one can tell us anything anymore. We act out of that pain. We may not even know it, you know. We may not even know we are in pain. Do you know why? If people who have a lot of anger, one hundred percent, there’s something wrong with them and they have something inside of them. 100%, not 99%. 100% there is something wrong with them. Crazy? No. Bad? No. Evil? No. It means they were damaged. So for these people, when they act out of anger and again and again and again, they are protecting the pain that they feel, that they could not protect as a child. Let me repeat. The anger that they express to people around them is not that they are evil or bad. It is because that they are protecting something deep inside of them that they could not protect when they were a child.
A sign of uncontrolled anger is, the anger just doesn’t come down. It escalates. Another sign of uncontrolled anger is when people apologize or when things are right, they still want to make it wrong. They don’t want to lose face. They want to be right. What is that? It is a clear sign that they want control because they didn’t have control. So for people who have uncontrolled anger, there’re a few ways to approach it. One is, they have to control their anger. They have to listen to what people say. They have to listen to how they hurt people with their anger so that they don’t hurt people like they were hurt. Very important for people with anger is not to give up what they are doing or to throw away what they are doing or to run away from what they are doing or to not continue what they were doing. Very important. Why is that? Because when they stop doing what they are doing, they reaffirm the anger. They reaffirm the wrong way to protect themselves. And that comes from what? An imprint from a small child. The examples I gave you are just some examples, not the whole example. That’s one example.
Another example’s when we were very young, our adults, anybody could’ve “…” you know school mates, friends, families, neighbors, TV, movies, our heroes, could have been implanted in our brain, “hey money is everything, money is the key to life, money is the secret to life, and if you make a lot of money and if you gather a lot of money and if you have a lot of money and if you are living in a lot of money, you will be secured, you will be happy, you will be respected, you will have an easy life and you will be at peace. Someone plant that in your brain. Having money is necessary. Everybody wants money. I want money, you want money, everybody. Without money, how to even bring dharma to others. But you see, to believe in money and to sacrifice everything, friends, love, dharma, yourself, for money, you will regret it deeply. Do you know why?
No one in the world that has made an impact in the world tells you that money is security, is happiness, is the end in itself. No one. Not Buddha, not Jesus, not Mother Theresa… anyone you respected. Not even Bill Gates. You know what Bill Gates does? I mean Bill Gates gives one single house to every single child that he has and the rest of the money goes all to charity. And when they asked him why? He says because money doesn’t make my kids happy. He knows that. I am like ‘wow’ glad I am not your kid. I will be very upset if he gave away sixty billion dollars and what I get is a rotten house. Better not to be his kid right? But yes, even Bill Gates, the richest guy, I mean one of the richest people in the world, I think the second “…” I don’t know, I don’t care, tells you ‘no, I am not giving anything to my kids because I know that it didn’t make anyone happy. I am like ‘wow’, then why did you make all that money? Even he tells us that. So we run around saying ‘hey, I am going to go here to this, to that for money to make money to be independent, to have a good life, to make something for myself. You know what?
Someone put wrong information in your brain. You got the wrong imprint in your brain. And if you keep living like that, you will never ever going to be happy or have peace and you are going to find out when it’s too late. You know why? Because you are not living from the truth. You are not living. So what am I trying to say? That money is bad? No. What I am trying to say is wrong imprints. That’s my point. The focus here is not money or anger, wrong imprints. Then there are people who were totally little princes and princesses when they were kids. Nothing this little monster can say can be wrong. Nothing the little boy and girl can do is wrong. Nothing they can eat or sleep or any way they act can be wrong and they were nurtured and they were taken care of. And they were put on little golden thrones. They had golden beds, they had golden milk bottles. Everything was perfect and as they grew up they were perfect little princess and when they say ‘mummy, I want a Barbie doll’, they got a hundred. When they say ‘I want to go McDonalds, mummy gave them five thousand dollars ‘go buy whatever hamburgers you want’. And they didn’t have to work and if they failed in their jobs, mummy will give them more money, daddy will give them money. And you know what? It sounds funny but it is pathetically sad. You know what? These are the people who grow up to be nobodies, to be nothings. And to grow up to be mummy and daddy’s nightmare.
Do you know why they grow up to be mummy and daddy’s nightmare? Because they’re still thinking they are ten years old so everything free, give it to me but they are not, they can be twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty. You know how many mama’s boys and girls I have met in Malaysia? You know how many? I think 60% of the kids that I have met are mama’s boys and girls. And mama is not at fault. Mama and daddy gave them everything is because perhaps when mama and daddy were growing up, they have some problems and they don’t want their kids to ever suffer. I am sure it is for love. So I am not blaming the parents. I am not being diplomatic. So when the kids grow up, the kids who are smart, they say ‘you know what, I have a really easy life and I am going to just work because no matter how much I work to make myself successful, if I fall flat on my face, mummy, daddy still there. That’s how I would do it. Really I would do that. If I had my parents supporting me, anyways, which I don’t, I would do everything. I will try this, try that, try this, try that, try everything. You know why? There’s no way I can fail. There’s no failure except failure itself. What’s failure itself when I don’t try? I would work really hard. I would never ever be worried.
So for people who have grown up in this kind of atmosphere where everything is given to them easily and nicely and well, you may think it is cute when your kid throws a tantrum, they want this way, that way and you go ‘well I am a mummy, I could take care of them, what to do’. It may be cute when they are five, maybe ten, but not when they are fifteen. Not when your little princess or prince grows up and they are twenty and they are monsters. Not when they failed one job after another, they have bad manners, they embarrass people and they scream and they cry and they do all kinds of things for attention and these people grow up to be spinsters, Male and female spinsters because nobody can get along with them. And then they grow up further to be bitter older people who make other people bitter and older, that’s what you do to these people, that’s their future. Why is that their future? Whatever you do, it’ll be the result. So no matter how much you explain yourself or justify, that will be the result. Why?
You cannot get a Chinese male and a Chinese female and have a baby and the baby comes out African – cannot. You cannot get two Africans and have a baby come out Caucasian. You cannot get two Caucasians and baby come out American Indian. Okay, you cannot. If you have two Chinese and they have a baby, the baby has to be Chinese.
So if you have been lazy, sneaky, make justifications, don’t want to do work, of course your results cannot be successful. How can lazy and sneaky get merit and have success? I don’t understand. So if you are lazy, ‘hello lazy’ marry sneaky, they come out loser. You got to be a loser. And if you are a loser and your mama and daddy is going to support you, that’s beautiful, that’s wonderful. Maybe they will support you for the rest of your life. Maybe. But you know what? Unless the Buddha is wrong, it will be ‘pay back’ time. You will have to ‘pay back’. And then you are going to get it.
Karma has an ugly way of coming back and the horrible thing about karma is not the ‘Jade Emperor’ controls the world but it is your karma that controls you. So therefore if you have this imprint that when you were a little kid “…” hey listen, whatever I do, whatever I say, people will listen to me because I am cute. Honey, not anymore. Alright, not anymore, take a good look. I don’t think anybody will think you are cute anymore. And if they tell you you’re cute, it is because you are ‘off’. So they tell you are not, you are going to be hurt.
Okay, so that is an imprint when you are a kid. That’s an imprint. So every single imprint, every single imprint that’s put in our minds remains in our minds. (Tibetan word 0:20:03) Every single imprint you put in your minds will remain in your minds – every single imprint. Now, whether the imprints are secular, whether the imprints are secular meaning about money, about face, about success or if the imprints are dharmic, imprint is imprint; meaning once it’s put in your mind, it’s there. Once that imprint is put in your mind, it is there. How do you say imprint in Chinese, it is a good word. (yin-xiang). Imprints are never forgotten, they are stored in your minds. Please remember that. Please remember that. No matter how young you are and how old (you are). When the imprints are stored and you come across a situation where the imprints can be triggered, it will open up. For example when you have an imprint, it is in your mind, you know what happens. You need a trigger and the trigger must be something similar to the imprint. Let me repeat. If you want the imprint or if the imprint is to open up, it has to be triggered by something similar to itself. Example, I give you a very simple example.
Adrian has imprints that beautiful ladies who look nice will bring him great bliss. And that’s imprinted in his mind. Alright that is in his mind. So you have a beautiful lady walked by like Pam, he’ll go ‘oh, happy’. Happy. But if Tsem Rinpoche walked by… (Rinpoche making a sound) – nothing triggers. Nothing opens up. Nothing happens. Nothing at all. Ngeow walk by take off all clothes, he tries not to vomit. It is a joke, but think about it carefully. Alright, so let’s say that when we are “…”. That’s one way of imprint. Every time he sees a pretty lady, every time he sees pretty Pam, every morning, he says ‘oh, I feel so happy, she’s so pretty’. Because when he was younger he sees a pretty lady will make him happy and that goes over and over again.
People who are controlling, people who are controlling, when they start losing control, “when people don’t do things their way”, it triggers that imprint of having control and then by anger, by shouting, by tricks, by manipulation, by tears, by ‘poor me’ tactics, they will, they will try to control the situation. And if they can’t, they walk out, they leave. Do you know why? Because they triggers the imprint and it goes over and over and over. Let’s give you another example, someone who grows up with a ‘hero’ that says ‘hey, money is everything, money makes you successful and happy, money is your savior’, okay. Money is the best thing in the world and if I have that, I will be happy, I will be secured, everything, right? So the minute someone says ‘hey, do you want to make money or maybe you want to do dharma work?’ ‘I don’t want to do dharma work lah, I want money’. ‘Because money make me happy, dharma work doesn’t make me happy’. That view is wrong but that’s what is in their mind since they were young. Maybe someone put them down when they were young, ‘you are poor, you are nothing. So they say, ‘when I grow up I will prove myself’. It can be many reasons. You see those people who reject doesn’t mean that they are bad. It just means that they are living out of their imprints.
This session and what I am teaching is not about good and bad. It is not about wrong and right. It is not about who’s bad and who good, who is to be saved. It is not about that. It is about how our mind operates and I want to use those examples that I gave you. Okay, for some people alright, some people, maybe when they were younger, their parents put them down and for many years they put them down and so when they grow up, you know what happens? They can’t take criticism. They cannot have anyone tell them that they are wrong or the way they are doing it can be better. And everybody got to be careful around them. Everybody’s got to tiptoe around them, everybody’s got ‘oh oh, blah, blah’ is here, we better be careful. Like a volcano. Why? Because anything will trigger them off. Why was anything trigger them off? Because when they were younger, when people told them that, they became angry, they couldn’t talk. Now they can.
Some people, opposite. Some people no volcano, like a calm lake. Some people when they are younger, they have no control, right? And they talk and talk and talk, they fight back, they talk. Someone say something, they fight back. Someone talk to them, they fight back. Someone criticize them, they fight back. Someone say something they don’t like, they fight back. They notice that fighting doesn’t get them anywhere because no one listens to them because they are young, no knowledge, nobody respects them, nobody. So they do it another way, they be quiet. They be quiet, they go inside, they don’t make noise, they don’t make any sounds, they look like everything is normal and they don’t even make comments and they completely become silent. And no matter how much you say or do or help or love, they never open up and they never talk. They never ever come out. Do you know why? Because when they were younger, it was imprinted in their minds, if they talked back, no one is going to listen, better they keep quiet, it’s better than to show they are not happy. It is a better way to show people that they keep silent hostility and that’s the way they fight back. And being quiet doesn’t make them happy, also for the other person who shout back don’t make them happy either. Because they are not shouting or talking from peace, it’s from damage.
Maybe I did some business with this nice lady ten years ago. Maybe I did business with her. Then I had a bad experience with her, very bad. So in the future I don’t want to. I don’t want to do business, I don’t want to do this work. Maybe I don’t want to do dharma work with her or secular work or whatever. And every time people ask me to do something or try something that can benefit many people, I don’t want to do it. Do you know why I don’t want to do it? Because I keep reflecting back on what happened with this lady. And so the whole world and everybody is exactly like this lady, it’s her fault even though it wasn’t. And so every time somebody asks me to do dharma work or secular work or something, anything, it triggers that fear, ‘aiyoh, last time I work with this lady, it become like that’. I am not ready, I can’t, I run, I can’t, I can’t do it, don’t make me. If you force me, I run. You know why they talk like that, act like that? Because they choose to hold on to the pain. You see they were hurt and they were scarred, it’s definitely true. People hurt people. Let’s not put this dharma thing off. There’s no emptiness, there’s no hurt, everything emptiness, you know. Everything you feel is nothing, empty.
Heart Sutra – no ear, no eyes, no nose, no feeling, no tongue, no smell, no nothing. No, no gay, no straight, no nothing. Yes, that’s ultimately. That’s here, that’s Buddha Shakyamuni and Kuan Yin and Manjushri. But for clowns like me and you, got ears, got tongue, got feelings, got hurt, got greed. For clowns like us, got. So is that dualism? No, it’s not dualism. It is at our level, got.
So if you are practicing Buddhism and reading Lam Rim and you have a teacher and you are doing mantras and prayers, let me share something with all of you. Of course you got pain. But do you know how to get rid of it? Let me share it with you – by not avoiding it and running away from it. And if you need to be hurt by another hundred or two hundred times in order to overcome it, go for it. Do you know why? Now, so you know how to get over that pain? When someone say something to you and you feel like shutting down and closing up, don’t. Don’t shut down and don’t close down. Don’t. Speak up, express, share and when they slap you down again, speak up, express and share. You know why? It’s not about them putting you down, it is about you allowing to be put down. It’s not about them. It’s about you. You can’t change the whole world. You can’t make everybody act and think the way you want and then you will do what you are supposed to do. You can’t. So the next time you want to shout and you want to throw a ‘BF’. I mean really a ‘BF’ just to get back because you are so hurt – don’t. And it’s very hard, but it’s harder if you keep shouting. It’s harder if you withdraw. It’s harder for the rest of your life if you withdraw and run away. That’s more hard than dealing with the pain. And if you believe in karma and reincarnation and next life, that’s all the more reason we should deal with it because you are going to take it with you in your next life which I am going to show you in the videos. You are going to take it with you. Whatever the trauma you are feeling you will take it with you.
There are some people who can remember their lifetime two hundred years ago but nothing in between. You know why? Because what happened to them two hundred years ago was more traumatic than what happened a hundred years ago. Example, if this nice guy came up to you when you were a little kid and gave you a big fat slap, right? And took your lollipop (Rinpoche making funny sound). And then this guy gave you a lollipop, this guy gave you a lollipop, this guy gave you a lollipop, this guy molested you, you are going to remember this guy and this guy. You know what? It was more traumatic. No, he didn’t molest me, no lah. I will tell you who he molested. (laughter) No-lah, he didn’t molest nobody, he’s not the type, I am just kidding.
My point is this – things that are more traumatic, you will remember more. And that’s why even if it happened five hundred years ago, you will remember. That’s why there are some Rinpoches who are great teachers and great scholars and great writers or great illuminators of the dharma. Even five, six hundred years later when they come back, even when they are very young, they will do the same thing again. Do you know why? Because that imprint is stronger than the food they ate, the language they spoke, or the language that they write in. There’re some Rinpoches that come back, they are very bad in Tibetan, very bad. But for their previous life, they were Tibetan what? It didn’t make an imprint. It was the action.
So like that, I can have all of you give me a lollipop but I will remember the guy who took my lollipop away. Do you know why? I am going to get you. Do you know why? Because that was very traumatic. I was four, I was innocent, I was very cute. And I was just running along ‘hop-skipping’ having a nice lollipop, sucking on it and singing a nice little song by Madonna – something innocent like ‘I am a virgin’ and this monster came along saying ‘hi little boy can I see your lollipop?’ I am like ‘yes I am “…”. (Rinpoche making a sound). I am like ‘oh no’ and I cry for an hour, two hours. So later when I grew up to be such a beautiful slim handsome monk. What are you laughing at? I said handsome and slim and everybody is like ‘eh eh eh eh’. I have my own illusions and delusions. We all see the way we want to see. If I stand in front of a circus mirror, I’ll be very slim, the one that goes like that, like that, very slim.
Anyways, so when I grow up to be the handsome slim person that I am, if someone says ‘can I see your lollipop?’ (Rinpoche gasps) Why? That memory sticks with you. How come the others doesn’t? Don’t you have memories in your mind that stands out stronger than others? Because they were more traumatic. So if something is more traumatic, it’s not that you don’t remember other things, it’s that that stands out. That’s why even after two, three hundred years, why do they remember that previous life over that life? It was more traumatic. Or it could have been even more better than other lifetimes, they felt better. They will remember it. Okay, that’s called an imprint.
So therefore, if imprints are possible for five years ago, six years ago, ten years ago, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, it can be possible for a hundred, two hundred years ago, three hundred years ago. So you can remember your previous lives. You can have imprints in it, one hundred percent.
Now, imprints are that important. So whatever imprints we have received, we live from those imprints. Fear, happiness, joy, sharing, selfishness, giving, generosity, miserliness, anger, peace, harmony – those are all results of the imprints we have experienced. Whatever you’re experiencing now is the imprints you planted in your mind a few years back. So whatever imprints you are planting in your mind now is what you are going to experience in a few years later. And the cycle goes on. Does everybody understand? So if I am sad, I am depressed, poor me, I am not successful, I need your help, I can’t do it, I won’t make it – you know what? You are right. You are not going to make it and you are going to keep losing out. Oh, I will do dharma work later. You will never do it later, I promise you. Never. You will never ever do dharma work later. You know why? Because you don’t create the causes.
So if your teacher gives you an assignment, or you made a promise, ‘hey I am going to do dharma work’ and then later you run away, you don’t do it, anger or whatever lah, trauma. It’s not you’re bad, but let me make it clear to you, you will never do it later, never. I didn’t say you won’t be in dharma, you will never do dharma work. You know why? Because you don’t create the causes. If you never had a baby, don’t tell me how you are going to raise your baby when you have it. Don’t talk about that. I want to have a beautiful little girl, I always want a little girl, I want a pink room, I want a pink blanket, I want to be pink and I am going to call her ‘pink’. Everything is pink. But if you never have a beautiful little girl, you are going to be in that pink bedroom wrapping yourself in a pink blanket that’s it. So it’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen.
Oh, I want to get a date, I want to get a lover, I want to get a friend, I want to get this, I want that, don’t make fun of me, don’t make fun of my insecurities, don’t make fun of my body, don’t make fun of me, don’t make fun of my character, don’t make fun of me because if you do I am not going to talk to you, I am going to ignore you, I am going to throw a ‘BF’. That’s great, for you. But how many ‘BFs’ are people going to take from you because you’re a nobody. You are nothing. You know why you are a nobody and you are nothing? Not because you really are, because you chose it. So if you keep putting that imprint in your mind, later you will have the same imprint. ‘I don’t have time, I am tired, I am scared to do it’. You are scared. Maybe you don’t have time in your subjective opinion. Maybe you really do feel like this. You know, I am not denying your feelings and how you are at the moment. I am not denying that. What I am saying is “…” but you will continue to be fearful or deny or run or not do. Do you know why? Because that’s what you are doing now and your mind now and your mind later is one mind.
How can two Chinese have a Caucasian baby? How can two Caucasian have an African baby? How can a beautiful African couple have a Chinese baby? Cannot. So how is it now you cannot do it now, you cannot do, you cannot do, you don’t want to do, you don’t have time, you don’t have the ability, you are ‘poor me’, I don’t want to, it has to be like that, like this, like that, and you make all these conditions and you can’t do it, later you won’t.
I know some of my students who have been with me fifteen, sixteen years, they are still telling me they can’t. They are still telling me they cannot. And I go ‘oh my God’, ‘you are one hundred years old, when are you going to do it?’ Some of them I tell them directly, some of them I don’t. You know why? Depends on their level. It’s not me. It depends on their level. Some people I tell directly, some people I don’t, some people I go around the block, some people I am very nice, some people I am very fierce. You know why? Depends on their level. If their level is very low and they are very traumatised and they don’t want to deal and they run away easily, I don’t say much, I don’t do much. I just smile ‘oh you are wonderful, you are beautiful, you are a Buddha’. Why? That’s their level. I don’t say much. It’s not I’m afraid. It’s not that I am afraid. So, imprint is very important. Therefore every single thing that you do leaves an imprint. Everything that you do leaves an imprint in your mind. You know what it is called? It is called (Tibetan word). That’s a philosophical word in Buddhism, in Tibetan Buddhism. (Tibetan word). And (Tibetan word) is very important.
Hence, if you see an image of the Buddha and what His body represents. The ‘Eighty Four Thousand Teachings of the Buddha’ is encompassed in His body. And His hand and His mudra and His sitting and His face and His structure and His way of sitting. Everything has a meaning. The meaning is not imputed. The qualities that a Buddha has are not imputed. It exists on its own. Why is the qualities of a Buddha not imputed? If the qualities of a Buddha is imputed then the Buddha cannot be out of samsara. Only a fully enlightened being has qualities that are imputed but exists on its own.
Imputation! He is a bad person, he is a good person, he is rich, he is poor, he is helpful, he is nice, he is loyal, he is a ‘back-stabber’, he is not nice, he is handsome, he is ugly – those are imputations because they don’t exist. You know why they don’t exist? Because the one person say ‘oh he is my good friend, I like him, he is very nice. The other person say ‘no, I don’t like him’. So who’s right and who’s wrong? Since there’s no right or wrong, the subjective view must be imputations. The imputations based on a past imprint, previous imprints. Then people say ‘well, same thing for Buddha, some people blow up the Buddha statue’. They say it’s bad, it’s demonic, it’s satanic. Correct. That is imputations. Why? Because if we check out Buddha’s teachings, it’s nothing there that’s negative and horrible. That’s imputed by the perceiver. I am going into philosophy with you. Hence, existing on its own or existing on imputations is what we are dealing with now and those arise from imprints. Listen carefully, don’t blank out because it gets a little deep. Do not blank out because it gets a little deep. You know why? Because you are reinforcing the mind that I can’t think deeper. I don’t want to think deeper. I don’t want to dwell deeper. Wrong.
Since the existence of a Buddha and its positive qualities of wisdom, compassion and skilful means does not arise from our imputation but it arises from His or Her attainments such as Tara or Tsongkhapa. Then when we perceive the positive qualities of a Buddha, it is not imputed perception. It is perception of the actual actuality. Hence when it is imputed from actuality, it plants imprints. That means when you see the legs of a Buddha folded together in meditational equipoise, that means through three eons of severe dharma practice, He has become the Awakened One. Hence when you see the Buddha’s leg, grab like this. It implants in you asceticism, practice and effort. Aren’t you lucky?
So the next time people talk to you about that – having seen the Buddha’s leg, you will not give up asceticism. Because why? When people talk to you about that, it will trigger the imprint of the Buddha’s body. But you said ‘I don’t know the meaning’. Correct. You don’t need to know the meaning. Because it’s existed. It is not dependent on your perception or imputation. A Buddha’s quality is unchanging. Your qualities are changing. Your qualities are changing because you are living from self cherishing mind – imputations. Hence your qualities change. That’s why people change. A Buddha’s quality does not change. Hence that is one of the reasons a Buddha is a perfect object of refuge. That’s why a Buddha is a perfect object that we can take refuge, prostrate, see and plant imprints with and wear on our bodies. That’s why we should have beautiful altars, beautiful images, beautiful thangkas and we should make beautiful shrines because everyday you see it and it plants imprints.
You say but I don’t understand. They don’t have to understand. They don’t have to understand. You see, if I give you a ‘one hundred dollar’ bill (US), US dollar bill, does it itself have power of one hundred dollars. Yes or no? Yes, unless the US mint goes bankrupt right? It has power. Wherever you go, it’s US dollars. You go to Indonesia, you change it, its five million rupiahs, whatever it is. You guys understand? So if I give this one hundred US dollars to Nicholas, he says ‘oh thank you, can we be friends?’ He’s very happy. If I give it to some Tibetan in Tibet who’s never been educated, doesn’t see the dollar, doesn’t use money, they barter, ask Monlam. They barter. You know I give you one piece of cheese, you give me one piece of yak meat okay, no money. So if I go to Tibet and I give Monlam’s mother one hundred US dollars, she will say ‘oh nice paper’. It’s not she is stupid, she doesn’t know. Even if Monlam’s mother doesn’t know the value of a hundred US dollars, does that mean that the US hundred dollars does not have value? No. So the value of the US dollars is not imputed is it? Is it imputed? Is the value of the one hundred US dollars imputed in the mind everybody? Louder please, or else I go home. (No). Thank you. But it has value on its own correct? Okay, if I give you a piece of paper and I write it’s worth a hundred US dollars and I give it to Nicholas, I say ‘I owe you’. Will that have value for him? It might, if we are very good friends, I never cheated him right. But if I never met him and I say ‘give you a hundred dollars, I owe you’. He say ‘see you later, here’s a big kite, fly it’.
So that value on a piece of paper, is imputed or not? Yes or no? It’s not a trick question, come on. (Yes). Anybody went to school here? Got right? Is the value written on a hundred dollars imputed? (Yes). So therefore it doesn’t have value on its own, right? The one hundred dollars written on a piece of paper is our fears and insecurities and our perception of our situation. The one hundred US dollars from the US mint is Buddha. Does everybody understand that? I am afraid of dharma work. Do you know what I am afraid of? Let me tell you what I am afraid of. I am afraid of rotten microphones that don’t stay on my ear. I am paranoid. Paranoid about that. And I lost weight, this is falling down. I have. These days I don’t have to put the belt here or here, just here lah. It’s true I lost weight. You think where? I lost weight. There’s no more holes to go. It keeps falling down. Thanks. We got into our last hole. That belt’s hole is way back here, I can’t fit that belt hole for years but I could now. You know why? Because I have been on a diet. You know what kind of diet? They made me go on cream cheese. Aiyo this one so nerdy I tell you. How to torture your teachers that he never gives a dharma talk.
Okay. Hence, if we operate on imputed value or imputation, we always get something wrong. If we operate on the truth or actual existence, actual existence, we will win. You know why we will win? Truth cannot be altered. Truth cannot be altered. So let’s say ‘A’ was a monster. For the rest of my life I think she is a monster, maybe not. Maybe she wasn’t a monster, maybe I was the monster, so she acted like that with me to protect herself, I don’t know that. And maybe thirty years later when I meet her, she is so soft and nice and gentle and I go ‘oh you are so nice’. You see that could happen with ‘A’ but it couldn’t happen with Buddha. I couldn’t go back to Buddha a year later, He is a monster. It is impossible. Because His attainments are not imputed. Hence we can take refuge in the Buddha. Hence we can prostrate to the Buddha. Hence we should bring statues of the Buddha to our home. Hence we should prostrate and make offerings and make refuge to the Buddha. Hence we should recite our prayers and meditation in front of the Buddha without ever stopping. That’s more important than anything else. Why? Because the goodness that we see on Buddha is not imputed. It is existing on its own.
Those who feel sorry for themselves, those who don’t want to improve or change or push themselves, those who are still greedy and still scared and still don’t want to do more – they are living on past imprints. Those imprints were made in their minds and they are living on it. How do they break it? Through practice, through study, through contemplation and most of all, effort. So when they come across a difficult situation, they got to do it. If they come across a difficult situation and they don’t do it and they run, then they are going run again and again and again and again. And they say ‘oh I will do it five years later, I will do it one year later, I will do it ten years later’. No, you won’t. You will not. From my experience, you will not. Do you know why you will not? You know why? Because you never have done it before to create causes to do it. Always. And if you finally do it because you are desperate or you are at wits end or you are at the end of your life and you do it, you are not really doing it either. Do you know why you are not really doing it? Because you are not doing it because you want to, you have nothing else to do. So therefore we should not wait for that.
Now, if by seeing a Buddha statue we can find imprints, anything and everything in our lives create imprints. If we meet a monk and we show respect and we are humble and we walk by with a humble and respectful attitude, you know what happens? You will create the causes for yourself to be able to hold your vows, your commitments and your samaya clean. Do you know why? Because a monk is a monk, by virtue of their vows. So if you are disrespectful to a monk, if you are rude to a monk, if you don’t follow their instructions or show any type of deference and you always cover and you always even dare talk about them, you create the causes that you will be sleepy during dharma talks, you will be sleepy during dharma, your dharma work will not be clear, you are going to fight the dharma and you won’t be able to hold your vows and you will break your vows over and over and over again until you can’t hold your vows. The worst thing is during dharma talk, you will be very sleepy, very very sleepy. Do you know why? The highest giving, the highest form of giving and the highest form of receiving is giving the dharma and receiving the dharma. The highest form. Why is that the highest form? Because it penetrates to the truth and you receive the truth.
Hence, you observe people and their actions and how they act. People who are close to their teachers, close to the Buddha, they are close to the truth, are not defensive, do not shut off, can take criticism, do not show a black face, but they exude or exude or emanate compassion, understanding, wisdom, maturity. Why? Being close to the guru is not the physical guru. Being close to the guru means having listened to the teachings and practice. You will change. Even for some of you, having listen to your guru, listen to the dharma, how has your mind receive some wisdom and calm down? How has your mind found a little solace? Yes, your mind still jumps, you still get angry, you still get disappointed, you still feel upset, you still feel like giving up sometimes, but how much less has it become. That will prove to you that being close to the Lama, the teachings of the dharma has a beneficial effect on your mind, has a beneficial effect. Why does it have a beneficial effect? Because the Lama or the teachings of the dharma gives you something that when you check with your mind, it makes sense. It is not based on fear. It is not based on threats. It is not based on ‘you will go to hell’. It is not based on any of that.
That’s why in Buddhism we don’t tell everybody else, if you are not Buddhists you go to hell or you are satanic or you are wrong or you are going the wrong way or we want to burn their images, burn their Saints, burn their religious iconography. We never say that. Buddhists never say that in the twenty six hundred years it’s been existing on this earth. It never ever threatens other religions, puts them down, burns their iconography, tells them they are satanic, they are wrong, they are going to hell, never. Buddhists always say respect them, make them happy, don’t disturb people, understand their religion. They are people, we are people, we all want to be happy. Let’s be happy together. Let’s not find differences but similarities. No Buddhist teacher of any Buddhist tradition will put other religions down and threaten you with other religions or threaten other people of other religions with Buddhism. Never, but you will hear that from certain, not religions, certain fanatical people. That, if you don’t accept what they are saying, it’s demonic, it’s satanic, they will burn “…”. You know I heard of people who come to people’s home and take their Taoist images and burn them. They burn their images, and they reap things and they say ‘oh we did such a good thing, hallelujah! It’s horrible. I would never go to a Chinese home, take their Taoist deities “…”. I don’t believe in the Taoist deities in the sense of taking refuge but I respect them. Because that’s five thousand years of culture. How you say before us, everything was wrong. If everything before us was wrong, everybody in China is wrong. China is not successful. China is stupid. China is not a great culture, is not a great country. Everything they did was wrong. That’s not true. That’s not true.
Before we brought religion, our religion to China, everybody went to hell. What? So if you accept my religion, everybody from now on goes to heaven. But before that you go to hell. So my grandmother went to hell, her grandmother, her grandmother, all. My grandmother was such a beautiful lady to me, I don’t think she is in hell rotting away. I think she is sitting next to Tsongkhapa having tea. I don’t think she went to hell because she didn’t accept their religion. And their religion is later. So we can get into this ridiculous debate. You see we can find all these differences but we don’t have to. You know why? Nobody wins. Nobody ever wins. Nobody will ever win. Past, present and future, there will be deaths, disharmony, destruction, murder, killing, for religion – cannot. So it is better as religious people, as Buddhists religious people, we respect other religions and we don’t threaten them. If you are not Buddhist you don’t go to Kechara Paradise. ‘Honey, you guys are not going to go to Kechara Paradise either if you don’t practice just because you are Buddhist. ‘Oh, I took refuge, my refuge name is ‘Tenzin Imprint’ and I am going to go to Kechara Paradise because I took refuge. I wished it were that easy. I wish all of us can take refuge and we can do whatever we want, hop-skip, jump. You know go kill chickens, own KFC. We can do whatever we want, and we still go to Kechara Paradise. I don’t think so. You know why? You don’t go to heaven just because you get upset of suffering. You don’t become a doctor just because you say I want to go to medical school. You don’t become healed just because you say ‘oh the doctor is excellent’. You become healed when you go for treatment, you finished your medical school or you do your dharma practice.
So what we want to do as Buddhist here and everywhere is not to criticize and to put other people down or to threaten them with our religion, that’s not what we want. You know why? It does not give them peace, it does not give us peace. And if they run around and say ‘oh my God, you’ve got statues in your house, we are going to burn it, you are going to go to hell, burn, hell, burn’. You just go ‘Uhmm, I don’t think so. I don’t think by being kind and compassionate and loving, forgiving and being filial and respecting the law and being good people and generous will make me go to hell. Because if that makes me go to hell, the God that who create you is a very fierce, jealous, ugly God and I don’t think He is like that. And if I am not Buddhist and Mr Loo is a scary, scary fundamentalist Catholic. Not a real Catholic because those are real nice people. Look at Mother Theresa – I will prostrate and put my head on her feet. She is a beautiful person.
But he is a fundamentalist Catholic. And he’s going to rent a place from my “…”. I have a shop-lot. Lets pretend I own 20. I am a Mongolian Mongol. And then he is going to rent a place from me, and he’s going to promote his thingy. And I said you know what? This came from a real life situation but never mind. And if I rented to him, then my God will not bless me because I am helping him promote his God. In the last two months I’ve come across people like that. They don’t want to rent because you are promoting your God and their God won’t give them blessings anymore. That’s what they say. I was like “…”. I felt like saying ‘do you know I am?’ But never mind. Do you know that I could debate with you until the cows come home and they go out again and you will still not convince me. I want to say ‘do you know who I am?’ Not that I am a Rinpoche, not that I’m like, come on I am a little smarter right? I will not let this peasant from Tibet that came out eating yaks – hello. That’s what they actually say – that if they rent this place to us, because we are not their religion, then their God will not bless their business and they will not be successful. I was like ‘God quite meticulous huh?’ He remembers everyone who didn’t follow his law, very meticulous. He must be Yoke Fui, the accountant. Can you imagine in the sky there’s Yoke Fui there, ‘you rented your shop lot to him for three years – no heaven. You know Yoke Fui. Where is she? You know Yoke Fui. She will say ‘oh excuse me, we are going to do Wesak Day, it’s going to cost us a hundred dollars’. No answers, she gives you that “side look”. I think if we can see God as Yoke Fui “…” Just kidding. Yoke Fui is wonderful. Personally, I think God is Mr Ngeow But then again that is imputed. And you like that one – it is imputed. Yes it is imputed.
Now so every imprint that we do, puts something in our minds. Does everybody understand that? For this life and future lives. And when that imputation is put in your mind, put inside your – this is your consciousness alright? It is put inside your consciousness – it stays there until it’s triggered or purified or resolved. You know how you purify it? You can talk about it. You can do practices. You can resolve it and it’s purified, it’s gone, then there’s nothing there. Nothing. But if you leave it there, it can become more. Why? If there’s something in a cup, it can gather dust and bacteria faster and easier. So like that you have to purify and have to get out. So therefore if you are afraid of doing “…”. Let’s just use dharma work because we are here. If you are afraid of doing dharma work, you shouldn’t be. You know why? It’s not dharma that scares you, it’s not dharma that creates problems for people. And people can change, situations are different. It’s another place, it’s another time, it’s another guru. Things are different. So why do you have to keep living the same thing over and over like a bad movie? Do you ever watch a bad movie – you play over and over or turn on some other movie? Another movie right? Why you play over and over again? Change the movie, change the CD. Okay for some of you guys, change the VSH tape. Now, imprints are that important. So if you are feeling depressed, you are feeling unhappy, you are feeling down, you are feeling sad, you are feeling sorry for yourself – you know why? Because that’s what you’ve been doing. So will continue and continue and continue. Unless you say it’s enough, it will never stop.
Proofread by: Wan Hong
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A very good sharing by the late 25th Tsem Rinpoche. The actions of our past lives determines the destiny base of our current life which is a great influencer for determining our future life.
The classic quote of “we reap what we sow” is definitely relevant even until today. By looking our current life condition right now we should be able to tell whether or not we are performing good karma or meritious activities in our past lives. Destiny base is from Heaven but through our will power and unwavering effort, we can change the course of our destiny. First, by realising and accepting the fact that our current life require changes then followed by the appropriate action plan for execution.
Always remember, if what we did in the past failed to get where we are supposed to be heading then don’t do it again. Habituation is the focal point which we need to address.
By doing the same things over and over again but expecting different result is insanity. Break the mediocre habituation, get out from the comfort zone and take charge of your life. Strong will power is vital since it is not a walk in the park.
Wow, every single thing that we see or hear leave an imprints in our mind, it doesn’t matter if we notice it or not. If we want to live a positive life, we have to always get positive imprints. When our mind is not strong, we have to be with people who are positive and supportive to help us to go forward.
We are often dragged down by our bad experiences which we don’t realise at all. How we are now is because of our previous experience. We have to learn to face it and deal with it then we can move on. If we realise how we are before does not bring us any way then stop doing it, change the methods.
We may face obstacles and failures along the way, but this is pat of the process. Success is waiting for us if we are persevere and don’t give up.
Read through this article reminding me how fortune and important to planting dharma seed in our mindstream, in order to open up positive inprint from the pass life. We able to meet guru and receive dharma teaching again. Without dharma knowledge to to control our illusion mind, our negative habit and emotion full fill attactment, early cause us creating more negative karma and carry down for our future life.
By holding vow, making offering to 3 jewel,keep close samaya with our guru and doing dharma practice to transform our mind, collect enough merit to purify negative karma. Continue good virture thing, which help us open up more positive inprint at the future until acheive enlightenment.
As I understand correctly the article is telling us that our mind is so habituated, and our life has been lived under the control of “this mind” from beginningless of rebirth. As such, we can imagine how scary that we have lots of negative imprint and how this negative imprint control our life. Here come to the important matters is why the practice of purification is important and the training of mind is required. It is important to read and listen to Rinpoche’s teaching and practice to have a good seeds plant in our mind. The amazing is we can train our mind to benefit others and we have all the potential to do it.
This topic received full participation from KFR and KSK team including guests. Those who were unable to make it to KSK office tonight (24.07.18) joined in via Whatsapp. Everyone pitched in and talked, some asked questions, and some replied questions. A very good article for everyone to read up and learn. Imprints and impressions, positive and negative, are like seeds constantly planted in our mind knowingly and unknowingly that become habits that we carry out in repeated actions. This reminds me of the song made popular in the 60s by Simon and Garfunkel titled:
The Sound of Silence
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
The only way to break through bad habits is to
1) address it
2) understand the consequences of keeping the habits
3) go all the way if we planned to change
By leaving our bad habits, fear, anger, laziness & many other negative qualities alone without demolish them. They will grow like a snowball coming down from the snow mountain, it get bigger, in terms of size & the damage that it can create every second while rolling down, lives after lives.. scary but it’s the fact..
Everything happened for a reason, nothing is unexplainable, same goes to our habit and attitude, it was all stored in our past lives imprints and whichever habit or character we carried today, it depends on which of our past lives imprints are stronger.
This article seems to be very simple and easy to understand, but in fact it is very powerful and profound, because it explained how our imprints formed and to break our imprints for bad habit to go to a higher level. this article also let us aware that every actions of us today will create the different imprints for our next lives, hence, if we dont want to continue to suffer more, we have to stop our negative habits for triggering negative imprints. This also reminded me a quote I have read before: If you want to know your past lives, look at your present situation, if you want to know your future lives, look at your current actions. In short, this means that our past lives actions created the suffering we have today and if we continue with these negative actions, we will create further suffering for us to experience for our future lives. So it is to tell us that if we want to stop suffer more, then we have to stop our current negative actions and do the opposite to create more positive imprints and karma.
Mind blowing teaching. We are who we are due to all the imprints that we have from every moment in our lives. Hence by looking at who we are now basically can understand what we have gone through in the pass. what’s interesting is, everything we think, act and talk now is the summary of all the imprints that we have. In other words, our imprints is the master of our mind. How people mentally and emotionally suffer, cannot get out even though it doesn’t sounded right to them.
How do we get rid of this master? Where is the real and original me without the imputed imprints?
I am extremely fortunate and grateful for having Rinpoche in our life to guide us on how can we in putting more Dharma imprints in this life so that we gain the good thoughts, good actions and good speech. We got to be conscious and constantly watch our mind so that we do not let our imputed imprint carry away. The more and the longer we are in Dharma we should be able to in put more and more good imprints into our mind at the same time those imputed mind will stay domain and never be trigger ever.
This is a classic. We are all born with imprints carried on from previous lives which will potential affects our future lives. It is due to imprints that cause us to have our own projections on things which was brilliantly explained by Rinpoche. I am now able to be more aware on the type of imprints I want my mind to be exposed to; of course positives than negatives.
This is a very interesting topic. It’s so amazing that sometimes something we thought that’s not so important, but somehow it’s planted in our imprint. I believe most of the people had bad experience that got chased by dogs when they were small. I had this experience too. That caused me quite afraid of dogs when see one on the street, especially stray dog, even until a few years back, I still had that bad imprints. Until I join Kechara, I recalled what Rinpoche told us that we need to be kind to all sentient beings, even to animals. So, when I see dogs or cats, I recite Manjushri mantra or Menlha mantra and blow on them whenever I had chance, and my wife and I have dog food in her car, we will feed the stray dog that always appear around our housing area. Amazingly, that slowly makes me not to afraid of dogs anymore, even stray dogs. We even rescued badly wounded a stray dog before. It’s like whenever any stray dog see me, they can sense, they can sense what I did to their other friends before. I am not sure whether this is called purifying my bad imprint or not, but at least, even I had bad imprint about stray dogs before, and now I am not afraid of them anymore. ?
This teaching has many important points which we need to understand such as karma, whatever we do, will create good or bad karma. It creates a seed which will open up. Actions that are negative need to be purified because the negative karma that is not purified will increase. So, when we leave it, it will grow and once triggered by a similar action, it will open up and we will not be able to reverse the situation.
Anger, as mentioned, is such a destructive emotion and it will only increase if we don’t stop it. Dharma is very precious as it gives us the understanding how we create our own problems and how to solve it. When we have the precious opportunity to have met the Dharma, we need to create the causes to continue with Dharma. As Rinpoche mentions, if we think, I will do it later, it will never happen as we have not created the causes by doing it when we have the chance.
Very interesting article to look into, especially about psychology and the mind transformation thingy. Our mind is the mystic thing to understand and whatever things happen we see or heard, we remembered strongly and it somehow been imprinted deep into our mind. Either good or bad imprint, it will turn into our habituation. By practicing purification could help us remove and purify our negative thoughts and karma. Therefore, I think it is essential for everybody to cultivate this practice consistently.
Good or bad imprints are from what we did in our previous lives and which one will trigger in this life will be based on having the right conditions and timing for it to trigger. To me, I guess imprints and karma are best friends. These two are one way or another link with each other. If it is bad karma or bad imprint, we can always purify it through the purification practices being taught by our kind Guru. We cannot run away from bad karma or bad imprints until we have purify or exhausted it so that it will never occur again in our future lives.
I was truly grateful and blessed to be able to hear this teaching back then and again be reminded. When I first heard Rinpoche giving points and examples it just make so much sense. The part where Rinpoche talked about anger and selfishness just triggered me and made me think ‘wow! It’s so true’. Instead of making myself miserable and anger some, why not just deal with it, accept and move on. I was so caught up with the past and depressed. I learned to slowly move on and I found that I became lighter, less troubled. Imagine, even though it was just imprints from young age can lead to so much, what about past lives’ negative imprint. And the scary part is that it is just sitting there waiting to be triggered. Purification practices are extremely important so that we can purify the negative ones as much as we can now and plant more positive ones for future.
We are born with imprints and in this very life itself, we are creating imprints both good and bad every minute of the day. I believe that these imprints create the duality of our minds with our perceptions and habituations of both likes and dislikes and judgements on everything.
The constant appearance of our imprints also obstruct our ability to live in the moment of now and create new experiences. In this state there is no opportunity for us to reach a mind of equanimity. And sad to say creates karma.
From Rinpoche’s profound teaching in this article, it is imperative for us to be aware of our body, speech and mind and to rectify whatever that is incorrect and improper. In order to do that, we must execute thoughts, actions and emotions that contradict “things” that is selfish and inconsiderate of others. We need to put ourselves into the shoes of others and see the root of what is incorrect and rectify whereby we are acceptable to others in our efforts to be of benefit to them. Let us not judge others according to what we consider to be right.
What is powerful to learn is that every moment of this life we can create good imprints so that we can carry them into our future lives and consistently live with imprints that are purified and virtuous to benefit all sentient beings.
It’s a great explanation by Rinpoche on imprints. Anything and everything in our lives create imprint just like planted a seed on every action we did. It’s just the matter of how strong there are and once it’s triggered with the same action and familiarity this imprint will open. Since this is the case we should plant more positive imprint now for the benefit of our future. I strongly believe by opening our positive imprint now is not enough and we need to create more causes from now in order to continue for our next future. We are able to set our future and it has to be now as time is passing every second. Every second is an opportunity for us to create a better future. If we keep hiding and say no then we are just creating an imprint to keep saying no in our next future and we will just stay backward and be unhappy with our lives. I think we can just do a self check now and ask ourselves that whether we are happy now or whether we satisfy with how we live our life now. If we are not, mean we have created something before that resulted what happening now and we need to break it and make a change now for a better future by doing purification practice and set a positive imprint according to the dharma value.
Thank you Rinpoche for this wonderful teaching.
I used to get the wrong impression that imprint is something that is subliminally put into our mind to be recalled in future lives and not within this life. So, now I know that whatever we do that imprint our mind can be recalled and influence us within this life.
Just as whatever negative things we do and realize it, we can correct that with purification practice as taught by Atisha when he would stop his caravan and purify whatever transgressions that he may have committed whilst on his way to Tibet.
The important thing is to be mindful and realize whatever negative actions or thoughts we may have had and purify them and not let them fester and multiply till it gets out of proportion.
Facing up to our transgressions is a very painful process and hurts our ego big time, but if we can face that we can face anything and we will feel a lightness of spirit that we do not have to carry that burden anymore and put it down.
Thank you for sharing this teaching online for us who had not yet discover Buddhism at the time of the teaching.
Thank you, Rinpoche for such detailed explanation about the imprints within ourselves.
Personally, I think that it’s our samsara and karma that make us to suffer and “enjoy” the sufferings continuously throughout lifetimes. It’s all accumulated from time to time (from previous lifetimes until now). When we wish to transform our negative imprints, It’s depends on how deep have these imprints deep rooted into our mind!How many years or how many lifetime have these imprints followed and taken good care by us?
I feel very grateful that I’ve such imprint that allow me to stay with Dharma and learn. It’s important to note that once we realised something that is going to be beneficial to one and all, we should always find ways to achieve it. Even though, we might failed at the beginning and later, however, we have created the cause to make it happen! If we do not give up and not fear of trying and working it out. We will achieve whatever we wish!
Nothing is impossible, it’s just difficult.
Thank you Rinpoche for this very profound teaching on our indelible mind imprints since beginningless time, we are indeed very fortunate Rinpoche uses this penetrative wisdom to bring about the rapturing of our sleepy mind.
Our mind an elusive entity which we hold and cling to has always been a bane between the higher consciousness and the thinking mind, while we try to sublimate it by turning to spiritual cultivation and attention directed at the supreme qualities of the Buddha more often than not the gross mind appears the victor.
I have very often tried to understand why my frame of mind at several junctures of my anger, delusions, jealousy comes to fruition without my being able to subdue it has not really produced an effective remedy towards rectifying this compulsive action.
Perhaps my early childhood trauma that was beyond control at that time due to karmic ripening could have produced this extension of those misgivings. However now that I am exposed to Rinpoche’s discourses on mind imprints and have learned of its uncontrollable implications and perceived perceptions perhaps identifying it early would not give rise to its maturity and learning to control and subduing it is the key to understanding mind imprints.
Dear Sonny Tan,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I agree with you that the key is learning to control and subduing our negative imprints. Rinpoche has mentioned in the video about what we can do about it: You can talk about it. You can do practices. You can resolve it and it’s purified, it’s gone, then there’s nothing there. But if you leave it there, it can become more.
This video teaching is a very empowering teaching, do share with others who can benefit.
Regards,
Pastor Shin
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for this good explanation about our imprints comes from. YOur teaching is clearing my doubts every time I read. In this topic that I understand more deeply why do such person have action and behaviour naturally. For example, childrens they have the “want” toys “greed” to have more. I always wonder how is this children born to this world with a blank paper and with some behavior already has in them. Even for adult i wonder too, how does this comes from? parent? movie? people action? Yes, we imputed things that we thought is.
Thank you that we have dharma to learn with good imprint so that we will not have the bad imprint in future life’s.
感谢Rinpoche，此篇关于印记的教诲。
其实，我个人很喜欢所有关于印记的资料。因为，从小我就相信有前世今生。我相信，今天我活着以及所做的一切，将会成为以后的借镜与历史。
印记～可以被认为所有事物在我们的脑中留下的痕迹。现今有科学的证明，可以通过催眠来了解过去发生的事情。
曾经阅读过一本书《生命轮回》。作者是美国耶鲁大学医学博士,Dr Brian L. Weiss,有着合格、专业与多年累积的精神科经验。他本人不是个佛教徒。但是，他非常相信我们人类是有前世的。Dr Brian L. Weiss 并不是第一个发现人的潜意识里有前世的记载。他孜孜不倦的去探求一切，以便可以医治他的病人。在他多年来的临床病例里，他发现到原来有些病人如果可以了解过去所发生的一切，他们是不需要任何药物而慢慢的痊愈。
在现实的生活，我们曾经所做的一切，都会成为我们的印记。因此，我们必需要有好的动机来做每样事情。
简单的例子 ～ 初出生的小孩是什么都不会的。他们的童年印记都是由家里的父母或兄弟姐妹，学校的老师与朋友们所影响的。其实，这段时期是最关键的。如果父母与老师们所灌输是正确的知识，那么这些小孩是会在很好的环境下成长。举个例子，同情与爱护小动物是应该由父母亲与学校老师树立成一个好榜样，让孩子们也一起发起同情心，然后延续成为慈悲心来对待一切众生。
当我们具备了良好的印记，一切不好的情绪如自私，愤怒，贪心等等，都会离远我们了。如果我们有学习佛法，那就更好。因为学习佛法可以让我们了解真相，帮助我们累计功德来净化我们的业障。
Thank you Rinpoche for the sharing. We need to start practicing Dharma in order to register imprint in our minds so that we will have affinity to Dharma in future lives.
Thank you Rinpoche for your teachings about imprints and the methods we can improve ourselves through the imprints we receive from the causes we have created now. Since we are having a kind and caring Guru with us and we are living in a country where we can practice Buddhism freely, let’s do not waste this precious opportunity to plant more Dharma imprints into our minds so that we can bring along our imprints and continue to practice Dharma in our many future lifetimes. Let us bring more Dharma imprints to others and spread the causes to achieve Buddhahood with all sentient beings in this fortunate eon.
“You and Your Imprint” is truly an eye opening in realizing how our mind works. We must always know who is in charge of our mind and not blame others or the environment for all the negative emotions that we exude. And the mind does not forget, the mind stores everything that happened, and it will manifest once there is a trigger. This has been scientifically proven.
The point is; once we have this understanding, what are we going to do about it? From the learning session with Pastor Adeline, we recognize that the answer to this question is simply for us to strive to achieve a state where we no longer be influenced by negative imprints; should the negative imprints arise, we shall deal with it heads on so that it will be cleansed and purified.
Thank You Rinpoche for this powerful teaching.
We cannot plant an apple tree and hope to get an orange, it should be common sense but somehow we sometimes overlook that. If we do not create the causes for success, it usually would not happen.
Imprints or karmic seeds are dormant until the right conditions came about, then the karma manifest out.
Thanks Rinpoche for the powerful teaching, Imprints is the main key for us to be what type of person we are.
“Since all the happiness and suffering of this life arise from previous actions, do not blame others.” quoted from Advice From Atisha’s Heart
As we learn more about Dharma, we able to collect more Merits through our Guru advice and Dharma practices hence to prepare a more swift and smooth path in our next life time.
The first time I read this article was two years ago when I first came to Kechara and was introduced to Rinpoche’s blog. This topic interested me because it talks about how our mind works. One of the greatest mysteries of the universe has to be how the human brain/mind works. I’m more intrigued with how the mind works rather than the physical brain. The mind vs. brain debate has been going on since before Aristotle. Consciousness or mind is not matter. But even quantum mechanics is having a hard time explaining consciousness.
The following lines from this article are the ones that I keep repeating again and again and trying to contemplate the full extent of its meaning and significance.
“Scientifically it is proven whatever you put in your mind, stays there.”
“…….your mind does not forget whatever it has seen or heard or remembered or registered.”
“Every single imprint you put in your minds will remain in your minds – every single imprint.”
To be honest the truth in the statements above is almost scary. The amount of information and data that’s actually stored in my mind and I’m not even conscious of most of it and yet it governs my behavior, my decision, my life. It validates the phrase “you are your worst enemy”.
On the other hand this truth also give us complete power and control over our lives (this life and all future lives). The truth about imprints mean we are the one who is in complete control on creating the future us just as who we are today arises from our previous actions.
I know what I talked about is just the tip of the iceberg. It will take a while for this truth to sink in, years of habituation and who knows what junks I’ve been imprinting on my mind is not just going to dissipate by the flip of a magical wand (I wish). This truth about imprints is profound and life changing if we would allow ourselves to grasp it.
After reading this teaching, I realize better how are my behavior and bad habit formed.
It’s kinda shock to discover the imprints are stored in our mindstream and will stay dormant even for lifetimes until it found appropriate conditions to ripen.
Even a simple thought of “I can’t” or “I’m incapable of” and all of excuses when we were challenged (ex: to do Dharma practice) leave imprint that becomes a vicious cycle of bad habit everytime we met same occurence resulting on always rejecting to do it unless we have courage to stop and create a good causes opposing negative imprint. Ironically sometimes problems are not happen by itself, it happened because we allowed it to happen. Hence I like this quote “It’s not even a problem at the first time”.
Rinpoche, learn from your teaching inspired me to have courage to deal with my problems and strive for my positive potential. Thank you for sharing, Rinpoche (with folded hands).
I must have listened and read the transcript of this teaching at least 5 times, and I will continue to do so periodically. Rinpoche have so many powerful Dharma teachings, and this one is one of the easiest to understand but we feel difficult to practice! I like listening to it again and again as it is a reminder to me to break my bad habits now which I’ve developed in the past 20 over years before it becomes more difficult to get rid of it. People would always say, I can get rid of the bad habits later, that things like this can wait… but we dont realize that the longer we allow ourselves to indulge in this bad habit, the harder it is to remove it.
不良行为往往將烙印在負面印记里, 都因我们的坏习惯的習气造成。唯有勤奋勇猛造就一切善行,跟從佛陀的教诲方可
Dear Rinpoche,
Thanks for sharing. I can really relate the imprints teaching to my daily encounters and understand on what goes around comes around. Hence, am aiming to clear all of my negative thoughts and be positive at all times.
I liked this teaching. It is honing in on the vicious cycle of mental paralysis that people find themselves in. That I find myself in many times. When I use my personal examples as references to what Rinpoche is explaining it makes good sense and it is right. Then Rinpoche is also offering the way to stop damage and evacuate the bad habits that ends up making us feel voidness. It’s time to wake up! Thank you Rinpoche.
[…] Read more at:http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/you-and-your-imprints-how-to-break-bad-… […]
Thank you so much Rinpoche for this clear and powerful teaching….
It is very beneficial to revisit this article from Rinpoche to understand how our mind operates and how we live by those imprints. The example given by Rinpoche on the marriage between a Chinese couple cannot produce an offspring that is African is a scary thought but so true. This applies to everyone but for a Buddhist, it is good to know that we can control our fate if we do something now. Thank you Rinpoche for your care to show us the way.
Excellent teaching. I’m a strong believer of imprint because every time when I look around, sometimes a junior can do thing better and more mature than a senior although the junior has less experience with shorter period of involvement. This could be the imprint from previous incident or past life or may be the senior is incapable/lazy to handle the thing. Besides personal effort, imprint is another key factor to determine the level of absorption, understanding and practice of certain teachings.
Therefore, whenever I have opportunity I would do my best to plant a good seed (Dharma) to anyone regardless colour, culture, status and belief. If they are unable to practice Dharma in this life time due to whatever reason or restriction at least the Dharma seed already imprinted in their mind and hopefully it will grow and flourish in the near future.
Thank you Rinpoche for the teaching.
Take good care. With folded hands, Om Mani Pedme Hung.
What we are today is a choice we made yesterday. Who we are today is what made of us of the past. Whatever childhood memories we had formed us who we are today. What our parents injected into our souls are exactly what we are told to become. Blaming the parents? No. Simply because they do not know better.
After re-watched this video, parenthood is very important. I realized many children even can complain about their parents but in actual fact they are just the same as them. Very scary. Whatever good imprints we have can only open up positive karma in order for us to have good experiences. Therefore, many of us do not realize the importance of dharma. Without training ourselves to be virtuous, we will only repeat whatever bad experiences we encountered again and again. Good attracts good, bad attracts bad. Very logical.
谢谢你与我们大家分享这个印记，仁波切的教诲“印记”表明我们了印记是在我们的生活的强大因素。我们的快乐和忧愁。因此，我要创积极的原因，并印在我的实践中获得了良的效果。如果幸福是我想要的，像其他人一样，我其实可以掌握。从今天起的心套的转变，努力创造未来
I particularly like this part :7.15min – 15.14min of the video. The part where how our unpleasant childhood would actually leave powerful scars in our mind. When we grow up, outwardly we may look ok but inwardly we are actually very angry. When similar situation arises, the childhood experience (imprint) is triggered, this is when all our frustration, anger and imbalance come out and it may be uncontrollable. This teaching has clearly explained how our childhood memories can affect us now and if we don’t deal with the negative effect of it, it may further destroy us as an adult. Avoid to change our bad habituations and choose not to listen to people’s advice is kinda like reaffirming our wrong ways of protecting ourselves, for example our comfort zone.
Thank you so much for this powerful teaching Rinpoche. It makes me realize that running away from problems doesn’t help to ease our pain, but we make this pain hidden even more deeper in us. In fact, this suffering not only affect yourself, but also the people around you.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you again for another wonderful and powerful teachings.
If negative imprints can cause negative habits, so can positive imprints bring positive habits. While I may not have the ability to transform myself instantly, Rinpoche taught me that what I can start doing is creating the causes that will lead to positive habituation. I can start with baby steps/tiny causes. But if I don’t even do this, then it is guaranteed there will be no change and I will continue to be stuck in my bad habituation.
I also love how Rinpoche emphasize that the importance of dharma is that when you learn it, you share with other people. My negative habituation is to “claim” I’m a shy and reserved person or I’m just not the sharing, speaking in front of people type. But that is just me being selfish. If I think I need to know it all before I can share, I will never share.
I’m very encouraged to learn one thing and start to practice and share that one thing. In Rinpoche book “Peace”, he taught that Dharma is to serve your parents, take them out to dinner. This is not hard at all, there’s no excuse why I cannot do this. So I took my parents to Kechara Oasis last Saturday for dinner. I can do this because Rinpoche gives very simple teachings and practical steps that I can follow in real life.
Imprints will open up when it is triggered by an experience that is similar. If we keep allowing our negative imprints to open up and keep reinforcing them, then we will be sucked into a vicious cycle of pain and suffering.
Hence when a negative imprint, like fear or laziness from the past, opens up and makes us want to give up doing Dharma work and run away, we should not give in to this negative habituation. Instead, we should hold firm and not run away or give up.In this way,we open our minds to receive the positive imprints of reliability and integrity.
Opportunities to sow positive imprints, especially Dharmic ones, are rare and they come and go like a flash of lightning. Thus the Lamrim recitation retreat gives us this rare opportunity to sow such blessed imprints. We should seize this opportunity to sow the seeds that will open up to future peace and happiness .
Dear Rinpoche
Thank you for this wonderful teachings. It helps me to understand how my mind works. It is very difficult to come out of my comfort zone. But I just have to face these imprints and change them.
Much love and care
Valentina
Imprint – Something that it is stored in our mind and can be positive or negative. Imprint will opens up when it is triggered by similar situations.So, when negative imprint is triggered, instead of going back into cycle again, I learned that I have a chance to create positive imprints by facing it and not living in the past imprints that are negative. It is through practice, study, do contemplation and put effort into to it that I can break through the cycle.
Thank you Rinpoche for such a profound teaching and showing me the way to create positive imprints starting from NOW.
Imprints are really difficult to ward off. Some people just love to complain about everything despite the fact they themselves just sit pretty doing nothing to help. Some just has a natural flair to backstab other people. Some would just put the blame on everyone else but not themselves. Some wouldn’t mind taking blame at all; they say its part of their practice. Some just love helping people. Some loves hurting people. Which one are we?
If we do not do anything to curb these bad habits how can we rehabituate? Read up the Lamrin, do death meditation, listen more to Dharma teachings, do something worthwhile with our lives so that we can churn out wholesome actions and speech rather than wasting time in gossiping, complaining about other people, blaming others and a whole load of other nonsense.
Talking about guru devotion alone is not enough if you don’t walk the talk. All talk talk talk is useless. Remember before karma strikes you back!
Imprints are really though to deal with.
For ex-smokers know how strong is the imprint of smoking when specific conditions trigger like a wish for a cigarette even years after having stopped.
To stop harmful actions is a step in a process, to get rid of imprints is the next.
But then, here is the good side: imprints can be good too, and we canm get “addicted” to compassion, now that is a much better imprint.
So what kind of imprints do we nurture?
Bad imprints are very easy to create due to our daily involvements in acting out of our ignorance and graspings with attainments. Because we always allow our minds to hallucinate most of the time,we are not actually seeing the reality of either the subject or the object of the thing! Its the foggy mind, the mind that’s attached to the object and paint a distorted projection onto it. Accumulating such kind of negative imprints can be harmful. as we are actually not perceiving reality but illusionarily. Therefore we have to excercise skill judgement in dealing with such negative energy, learn when and how to recognise them and to be rid off them from our mind, or to disgest them with wisdom, befor it can reach an unsolvable state.
Thank you rinpoche for giving such a beneficial. A lot of question of “why like this?” “why me?” which always occurs in my mind, now i have better understanding and i feel it all clicks together now.. is cause of this “imprint”… Positive imprint is forever…negative imprints we will have to purify and resolve it. Thanks Rinpoche for sharing…
I like this teaching, it make me think and forces me to face my own problems which I always tend to avoid.
To face the inner self, to dig out the pain to deal with it is painstaking process, but I believe, after taking my few steps, in the end of the day, it worth the pain.
Because to hide and not facing myself proved that it will only cause more pain and let anger arises. It did not lead me to anyway. It not only cause pain to myself, and to people around me as well.
I thank Rinpoche for this teaching and another teaching Avoidance (http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/inspiration-worthy-words/avoidance.html), to let me have the courage to face my own problem and dealing with it.
We are having all kinds of wrong imprint when we grown up as well as those that we brought along with us from many lives ago. Those wrong imprint we cannot forget and cannot change. It will open up when we in touched or engaged with something similar. Our old imprint can open up anytime because we have no idea what’s our old imprint inside our mind. Hence will onlu we safe if we hold our refuge vows.
Thank you Rinpoche for this simplified and yet explicit teaching of the law of karma. What I sow now is what I get eventually. The stronger I create these positive causes now is what my imprints will register for them to trigger quickly in due course. Hence, your kind and compassionate instructions Rinpoche, I shall follow to the end to create happiness and to become a winner forever.
Imprints and karma both are related and of cause is really effected, this is what i know only. But now i have understand more on it = )
Thank You Rinpoche for the deeper teaching ( with folded hand )
We really are an open book based on this teaching Rinpoche gave. If we really wanna know about karma and why we are the way we are… this is how – IMPRINTS! This teaching not only showed me how to check within my own self, but to also observed about others and have a better understanding of them. It is amazing because every single neurosis in us, is based on our past IMPRINT. Hence what do we DO??? Get rid of the old one and adopt the NEW! Can we, can I as they say it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Yes of course it is possible, otherwise why do we wanna follow Buddha’s teachings, when it is all about possibilities. Just got to let go & put our minds to it. Thank you Rinpoche for presenting to us to cause and the antidote to our sickness.
Thank you Rinpoche for the talk on imprints. It is a very deep insight into a person’s mind and psyche.
We all have imprints in us, be these imprints from previous lives or from this present life, whether these imprints are positive or negative, these imprints will affect our personalities, behaviour and our lives.
However i believe that we all have the free will to choose, and if we realise that what has been happening in our lives so far is not working,that we are not finding the peace that we all want, the happiness that we all search for, then we must look within and figure out what is wrong with ourselves.We cannot put the blame on anyone or anything outside of ourselves, nor make excuses one after another.
Being able to be where Dharma is , is in itself an accumulation of good karma, that the seed had been planted in us.We are most fortunate that we have even the opportunity to lay eyes on Buddha and the blessings to have Rinpoche teach us, guide us and care for us , that is a beautiful imprint that we have and thus we must choose to allow that imprinted seed of Dharma to grow and flourish to benefit all sentient beings.To awaken that ‘imprint ‘ in others and hence spread the Dharma forward.
We all have the free will to choose in everything we do.
I choose to practice Dharma.
Thank you Rinpoche for a profound and most insightful talk.
The Lamrim recitation retreat is given to Kecharians by Rinpoche out of his great kindness to create the opportunity for us to leave positive imprints on our minds.
The Lamrim is the lamp on the stages of the path to enlightenment. Therefore reciting the text and hearing the recitation plant powerful virtuous seeds on our mind streams.We don’t know where we might end up in our future lives. Planting these positive imprints now is like buying insurance that when the right conditions appear these imprints will be triggered off for us to walk the path and meet our Lama.
Yesterday during the Kechara Fun Chat on the topic of “What is blessing and why we need blessings”, we discussed the topic of imprints also. This post reminds me in an absolute way what is imprint. Whether we do something good or bad it leaves seeds. These are what we call imprints. Karma can manifest directly as ripened effect and also as habits. These good or bad habits are the more powerful effect of karma versus the ripened effect because habits means that we will then repeat these habits again and again causing both more good or bad seeds to be planted. Between the good and bad habits, it is the bad ones that are usually more powerful and is very destructive in that it will cause us to spiral down rapidly. So we need to be aware of it and act to break these negative habits.
Methods like the 8 verses of transformation and Guru Devotion are powerful ways to help us if only we adhere to it. We must be diligent always as these negative imprints are very sneaky and we can be easily convinced to lose our samaya and stop our transformation.
Thank You Rinpoche for this very potent teaching.
Imprints is a powerful determinant in our lives. It influnces our happiness and sorrow. Hence, I have to create positive cause and imprints to reap good results in my practice.
这是詹仁波切非常經典的一個開示，每次看了或听了，都讓我再想重來一次。我們的印記是永恆的。它可以在往前走的任何一秒任何一刻被打開，都說不定。記憶，可能是短暫的，但印記卻不！
Imprints come from our habitually action, habitual action come from our habit, habit come from the action we always like to do and feel happy or comfortable when doing this. So if we always do positive action the positive Imprint will be created, if we always do the negative action the negative Imprint will created. But sometimes we don’t know whether the action we do is consider positive and negative, so we thanks for Rinpoche for the sharing and always want us to transform to correct our way to have a positive action to create the positive Imprints.
The 3 poisons always disturb us to do the positive action, however we always want to follow the teaching and transform but how much we done? The most simple way to see from outer is our “ANGER” so if we still cannot started control our own “ANGER” then how can be firm when sharing Dharma to benefit more? Anyway is a hard work to control it but if we may start to do so from at least 10% after sometime it will be increase smoothly and we will be a better person.
After that, positive Imprints will be always be created and follow us wherever, whenever we go.
Time is short you told us already in this powerful talk
Don’t Embarrass the Buddha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkICMrNG78M
Here a shorter version yes it is time to listen to you again again until we learn the lesson!
Thank you so much for your Precious Teaching!
Time is short it is time to work and push ourselves always more!
http://www.youtube.com/user/WisdomQuoteofTheDay#p/u/48/OkwJ1fK3wJ4
thank you so much for this talk!
A wonderful teaching, i wish i was there in person to listen to the teaching.
Listening to this teaching in youtube reminded me of a book i read recently entitled ‘Many Lives Many Masters’ by Brian L. Weiss, a psychiatrist writer.
In this book, they explain on hypnosis and how experiences in this life and past lives leave imprints to our subconsciousness, described through his client named Christine.
However, it is not the past lives that amaze me… though it is rather interesting, especially knowing about Samsara, reading about Christine’s past lives is like reading a horror story and you’d feel the urgent need to get out of it… asap
What amazed me was the conversations the psychiatrist had with ‘the masters’ aka ‘spirit guides’, who will appear in between Christine’s ‘lives’. There are so many aspects that can be identified as Dharma in those conversations…
It is fascinating to see our believe proven scientifically, not something we’d see everyday
The sound quality wasn’t so good, so I didn’t understand every single word, but you are such a wise and powerful teacher, I hardly teach much Dharma in words, maybe I have an imprint on that too?
Love, Knut
Most of us have more bad habituations then good ones. We seem to enjoy the bad habituations but later when karma catches up with us we suffer the consequences. Then we regret when its too late. We should be able to realise and recognise our bad habituations so that we can eradicate it early and bad karma will not arise. How do we do that? By contemplating on it and try to change our character and form good habituations to takes its place. Another way is to have a Guru who can guide and teach you by showing a mirror of your bad qualities and habituations.
This is another great teachings which causes me to understand how my past imprints have affected me all these years. Correct views imprints left in the mind leads to positive thoughts and virtuous actions and negative ones will leads to unflavorable results. Buddhadharma teaches virtuous actions which leaves positive and virtuous imprints leading to happiness in this very life and future ones too because our mind is continuous, like a tread. As for the negative imprints (imputations) left from past bad experiences, Rinpoche taught me how to purify them by talking about it, practise and resolve it. Thanks for the methods Rinpoche. Tashi Delek 🙂
As the famous phrase in the movie says, I’ll be back – what comes around goes around. A negative thought or action implants in our mindstream even for a child. A child who has been abused when he was very young grows up to do the same onto his children even though he used to abhor those actions inflicted by his parent/s. The only way to break this habituation is to develop strong motivation for change and recognizing that it is a negative action that can only bring harm and suffering to others. The bookstores are full of inspiration and self help books such as You Can Heal Your Life which teaches positive affirmations in order to help us achieve our goals. But as we all know until and unless we commit to take those affirmations seriously and make it a part of daily practice, we will not be able to break bad habits and negative actions.
This talk given by Rinpoche is very powerful and empowering without much jargons. Rinpoche uses logic to clarify how we can change our lives and state of mind for the better.
I used to tell my parents and friends that this is my personality and I can’t change it! Actually most of us give each other this same excuse. Some of us actually believe that we’re born this way, inferring that our personalities are genetically determined and can’t be altered.When more things go wrong, we blame it on astrology, feng shui and fate. At the end of the day, we either complain that we’re still unhappy or have a defeatus attitude that we’re destined to suffer and stay stagnant.
Thanks to Rinpoche, we can now understand that all can change with more dharma knowledge and practice.
Thank you for the empowering talk rinpoche. As always all of your talks are so appropriate and explains so clearly of how we got stuck in sufferings from our past imprints.
Oh dear so many blames, anger, resentment and all the negative energies sent out by me to others. I’m feeling so guilty as I now know it’s of no fault of others. I failed to realize until now that all my wrong doings was a reaction to protect myself due to past imprints.
Your talk is very liberating to me as now I know what I can do about it. I will seriously contemplate my every actions ,practice tolerance to others, so not to rehabituate my negative imprints.
Thank you so much Rinpoche for a great teaching. I agree with Beng kooi that it is especially pertinent for those that tend to blame others and the environment for everything that goes wrong in their life, rather than look at themselves. At first it may seem easier to blame others than to apply practice and effort in trying to get rid of these imprints, but at the end of the day, we cannot run away from ourselves and responsibility. Logically that is why we should involve ourselves in our dharma work and Kechara (if we have the opportunity), so we can plant good imprints for our future benefit.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing about subliminal messages, I just did a google about subliminal messages and certain segments of broadcasters, the media still use it to influence people to buy their products or subscribe to it. Its done clandestinely though. Very scary stuff everytime you watch a movie or an advertisement you can’t tell what they are trying to influence you to do.
Another thing that stood out was that what Rinpoche mentioned about imprints, it takes a trigger of the same nature to trigger your imprints. This means that if you have angry imprints, and those imprints were deposited due to one’s needs were unfulfilled, when we come across a situation or environment that is similar to our imprint we will act out in anger again.
I used to resent the very idea of Karma, bad Karma that is. I had a problem grasping the concept because I wondered how do I reconcile the idea that everything bad happening to me in this present life is the result of my past negative accumulation of bad Karma in my previous life? A life I had no recollection of. People make mistakes, do bad things, lie, cheat …etc. But now in my present life, I am paying for those bad choices made in my previous life and are being punished for them. It just doesn’t seemed fair. I became a victim of those past mistakes and harped on all the bad things that are going to happen to me. I was living in this vicious cycle of self sabotage. The problem was I believed in Karma but had little understanding of it until I was first introduced to Rinpoche in one of his videos on Afflicted Emotions. That changed the way I looked at Karma and now with his teaching on Imprints and Bad Habituations, it reinforces my learning that I must become aware of all my actions including past imprints and their consequences, take responsibility and work towards breaking out of my victim mode.
Due to our life time after life time of negative habituations, we have accumulated a lot of negative and positive karma, with the chances of former being more is higher.
All these imprints, be it good or bad, are dormant until such situation or time that triggers it to open and we will experience ‘the power of the imprints’. We should strive hard to break our negative habituations such as self cherishing mind, miserliness, jealousy etc so that we do not have to experience this life time after life time in a vicious cycle.
We should aim to improve ourselves and to create more positive imprints in order for us to cease continuous sufferings and unhappiness!
Holding our vows and with pure Guru Samaya is a good way for us to purify our negative karma and trigger the ripening of our positive imprints for us to continue our practices.
Until a year ago, Buddhism was a ritual. A “practice” (if I can call it that) I participated in 2 or 3 times a year because my grandma and mother said so. Most of the time it was a chore. I am embarrassed to admit this.
With the teachings of Rinpoche and publications of KMP, I now can say that I understand Buddhism better. My ignorance which I thought was bliss, is gradually being enlightened. Today, I understand Buddhism to be a practice of being a better person so that I can benefit others. Buddhism is knowledge of our existence and why life is the way it is.
Ever wondered, “Why is this happening to me?”, “What did I do to deserve this crap in my life?!”… Well, as the light turns on in my brains, it is Karma! Then we go, “Oh S***!” Some of us will rather run then understand Karma. Actually once you understand Karma it is liberating!!! Buddhism is liberating.
Our previous lives’ imprints path the way for our circumstances and conditions today. All of us come into this life with probably more negative imprints than positive. If it were all positive, baby we will not be back in this life! We would be Buddha. Guess what? We actually can do something about it. With the teachings on Imprints, we can derive the understanding why things are the way they are and why we are unhappy. Our imprints are implanted into our memory and thus dictates our habituations – negative and positive. Yes, we can say it is natural and leave it but we can also say it is natural to want to improve.
When we understand why, we can actually do something about correcting ourselves. Being spiritual and practicing Dharma are ways to correct ourselves and creating new imprints. Isn’t this so liberating to know there is a way out of the s*** farm? Buddhism is beautiful! Embrace, practise and be Happy!
The only reason why we are still unhappy now is that we are still locked in our very own negative karma. If we are still unhappy, suffering from depression, lonely etc. then we must have been doing things that supports unhapiness all along due to our negative imprints. We are the imprints of our past now.
Hence we should be implementing possitive activities from now on that supports happiness (before its too late) such as doing Dharma work to benefit others. By reading Lamrim or doing our daily saddhana, we are actually planting possitve new imprints into our mindstream daily for it to open up again in future to create a better us. By reading it, we are actually developing the qualities of what we have read and planted into our mindstream without knowing it.
It is ironic how closely related science and religion is. Psychology has taught that one’s character is influenced not only by the structure of their brain but also by what they have learnt throughout the years. This is similar to Rinpoche’s teachings on imprints, that our learnt behaviour becomes a habituation, and that every single imprint placed in our mind remains until it is triggered. The way we act is reflective of what has been learnt, and what we experience can be based down to karma. If our negative actions become a habituation, the cycle of our actions being repeated will be never-ending. Therefore, Dharma teaches us to realise that our actions are negative and provokes us to put an effort to break the cycle of habituation.
This was the first Dharma teaching of Rinpoches’ that I attended and it was taught with so much clarity and sense. He had my full attention throughout the entire teaching; I found it so apt and relevant. It was a commencement in provoking me to take notice of my own actions and to consciously put in an effort to change my negative habituations. Thank you for sharing the teaching, Rinpoche!
I was fortunate to be present when Rinpoche gave this talk.
The concept is actually very logical, by breaking bad habits and creating new good habits or nurturing existing good habits, one becomes happier already. And by habituating oursleves to engage in virtuous actions we:
1-make it more difficult (contrieved) for us to perform a non-virtuous action,
2-make it easier (spontaneous) for us to engage in virtuous actions.
This reminds me of this french saying that goes: “one who steels an egg, steels a beef” – that is the kind of saying that I heard as a child and was not sure what it really meant. It is simply habituation, we think the object of stealing is irrelevant because it is only an egg, but by stealing it we create a habit, we create a negative imprint, and if we keep nurturing the habit, we will, definitely, come to steel a beef, that is, stealing bigger and bigger things. This can apply to lying etc…
So, we know how it works, thus we can use habituations and imprints for the sake of us engaging in virtuous actions instead. And we can re-invent that saying like this: “one who gives an egg, gives a beef!” That’s much better!
Rinpoche also explains how habituations and karma are linked, we have created the causes for us to experience different types of habituations, so if we have done that, WE, OURSELVES can turn it around. Best even when we have the guidance of someone like Rinpoche to engage in this practice!
It is very beneficial that Rinpoche supported Rinpoche’s teaching on imprint with scientific acknowledgement, proof and logical explanation. This is because, although many of us are familiar with and can accept karma and rebirth, many others are not. Therefore, presenting this subject in this manner makes it applicable and accepted to individuals from various backgrounds.
Unlike common spiritual and religious teachings where our fate is in the hands of “God”, the teaching by Rinpoche here is encouraging because it puts the control to change our fate in our own hands. This is the approach that draws me towards Tsem Rinpoche’s Buddhadharma teachings and Kechara House. We do not have to await punishment for past actions but can make the choice and get committed to changing our ways to purify our past wrong doings. This relates to the subject of impermanence whereby the world is ever changing and every moment presents an opportunity to create a difference consequence.
I also appreciate i) Rinpoche’s honesty about the difficulty of changing old habits that we could have and probably did developed for many lifetimes, ii) Rinpoche’s practical approach of making changes a step at a time so that our minds do not get overwhelmed and iii) the effort of re-habituation takes time and practice like all things in life. Looking at imprints and karma this way makes it not too different from other aspects of our life, making it more familiar and achievable.
Lastly, I would like to share my mind boggling learning from Tsem Rinpoche in his talk titled Snakes, rooster and pig (which is now available in print; published by KMP as indicated by Paris): The scary danger of reinforcing our negative karma unconsciously. In other words, stopping a bad habit is not good enough. I did not contemplate deeper to realize that stopping an act does not erase the “black points” we already accumulated. We need to develop new habits to make progress away from the old one. This is called purification efforts. To clean out the negative karma storeroom, we need to engage in purification activities. For example, if we used to kill animals for meat, we purify this by saving lives like buying animals that are going to be slaughtered and set them free.
The good news in our kind Gurus seem to have the antidote for all our self-created problems. We just need to follow the prescription sincerely.
This is one of the perfect teaching from Rinpoche, the logics behind definitely clear many people doubts, especially to those always complaint, lazy and find excuses..etc
I realized, Self grasping, self cherishing minds will lead us no way , in order to break the bad habituations, to practice giving and generosity, show kindness, love & care to all beings, definitely will cut off the bad habits, to cultivate good qualities by focus outwards works well for me after I join dharma full time.
Dharma changes our karma, get rid of the bad habituations, changes our karma. By holding our vows strongly changes our karma, even you are not a buddhist, but you must believe in KARMA.
Thank you so much for this priceless talk!
This is such a perfect teaching for people who blame others or environment for their shortcomings, their failures, their problems and their unsatisfactory situations.
It is a wake up call for everyone who chooses the wallow in their comfort zone hoping for Wonder Woman to appear and rescue them.
Tsem Rinpoche proves through perfect logic that ultimately you are responsible for you, and your successes and failures are completely in your hands. Just like the old adage “God helps those who help themselves”, the only difference in this case is that it is not “god” that helps you but your karma and habits that determine your fate in this and future lives.
Sometimes I think people really have no clue as to how karma really works, and how lasting it becomes. To be exact, karma does not end even after our time on earth has come to an end. It still continues. If anyone thinks everything ends at death and that gives you the right to just do anything you like without any regard to life and humanity, you better think again. Karma records everything and will give us this huge bill when we die. If you think karma ONLY becomes extremely painful and ugly when we have been so accustomed to doing very bad things all our lives, you are wrong. Karma also accumulates every single day. So, over time, even the tiniest negative deed has grown into a giant vicious monster. Hence, if we do not break that cycle of doing the same bad things over and over again, just imagine how much bad karma we are accumulating. Just breathing alone, we’d be accumulating bad karma! To break the cycle is not that easy because our minds are so used to doing things a certain way and thinking that it is right. Our imprints from previous lives have also compounded our habituations into who we are today. Therefore, it is not going to change overnight. But if we do not recognize them and start doing something about it – it just gets worse and worse, uglier and uglier. Before you know it, we have been reborn in the three lower realms. It’s empowering to know that we can free ourselves from our past imprints and even stop ourselves from creating any ‘fresh’ delusional ones which will not help us at all. This is why we learn the Dharma. This is why it is called liberation and Enlightenment. Through Dharma, we can replace all the bad imprints with good ones so that when we return to samsara again, we’d be much better equipped with strong spiritual inclinations and be more attained. We will not waste as much time as we did in our last life.
Dear Ruby,
Thank you for sharing briefly about your thoughts. This is exactly what you have dedicated your time to do, heading the Kechara Soup Kitchen department..making friendships, gaining trust with strangers and homeless out in the streets by giving them food. Then integrating them back into society by finding jobs for them! This is Dharma!
What I wish to point out regarding Rinpoche’s blog on imprint… If you ever wonder why crap happens to you, then seriously consider this statement, “Past imprints influence our current action” Until we realise we have created these imprints, we will continue to be in the shit hole (excuse my language). The good thing, which i find MUCH HOPE is that just as how imprints are created which I am so good at,..then I can also create new and positive imprints. Find out what you can do to create POSITIVE IMPRINTS. Stick around and be involved in Kechara. The fact that you are reading this blog is a positive step you are taking to creating good imprints 🙂
Cheers
susan
HE Tsem Rinpoche has always emphasized to his students that we have had both negative and positive imprints in us since the day we exists in the cosmic. With these negative imprints come bad habits which we have accumulated over the number of lives we have existed perhaps in all realms but we have forgotten.
In the Reincarnation videos, there has been scientific evidence that we do have past lives and that leaves an imprint, be it positive or negative.
As such, Rinpoche has always given teachings to us on how to break our own negative habits, clear our negative karma from previous lives and turn them around to virtuous positive thoughts and action.
I loved this video!
Dear Tsem Rinpoche,
Thank you for sharing this with everyone. It helped me to grasp a lot of things that I had heard before but really didn’t understand very well. Not only do your words open up my mind so I can understand ideas that I cant normally grasp, but your words are amazingly motivating, too! I feel like I have been doing the same thing over and over and never really have been able to cut it out but now I understand that there REALLY is no time like the present.
Not only do your teachings cover everything under a particular heading, but it seems that you always go deeper and have special meanings behind everything you say that you bring out through logic. It is really wonderful to be able to hear and read so much Dharma as explained by someone as skillful as yourself.
Thank you so much,
Tyler
Dear Rinpoche,
All of your teachings are filled with great insight, but for me personally, this rates as one of your greatest teachings, purely because it puts into such simple terms that we are responsible for our circumstance, and explains exactly why this is the case, and exactly how we can make things better for our future.
As a child, I can remember the phrase “there’s always tomorrow”, quite clearly, and this probably helped me to win the gold medal in Procrastination in later years! I dislike being a habitual procrastinator (it’s a difficult trait to spell, for a start!), but I’m great at coming up with excuses, and since I mostly get things done in the end, no-one ever really bothered about this trait of mine.
However, I can see where and how it’s held me back, and I live with the results of putting things off, but after listening to this teaching of yours, I’ve since caught myself thinking, “I’ll do it later”, quickly followed by, “Well, what’s wrong with now?!” and immediately doing what I would have otherwise put off.
The teaching is just so effective, and there are no real excuses to say that we can’t work towards breaking the cycle of negative habituation.
Thank you for this – words that packed a powerful punch!
Kindest regards,
Sandy
Imprints can be positive or negative events that was planted from our previous lives and when the situation ripens, it will trigger the activation and we will be able to recollect the imprints.
Rinpoche gave a talk on imprints which i find it very relevant to us reading the Lamrin. Initially i do not understand why we were requested to read the Lamrin repeatedly without having to understand it. Through Rinpoche’s teaching, i now realize that by merely reading the Lamrin, it will create the imprints in our mind to be able to eventually remember & understand and practice it.
The Lamrin Text is very holy & profound and it will definitely help plant positive imprints in our mind when we read it.
Now that we are aware that imprints do exist, we should have the mindfulness to create virtuous imprints and cut down on our negative habituation so that the negative imprints do not surface up again and again in the vicious cycle to drive us to repeatedly make the same mistakes lifetime after lifetime.
Rinpoche’s teachings on imprints have a profound effect on my mind. We must have collected so much negative karma from countless lifetimes of habituations . It is our dharma practice that will save us. Overcoming habituations is not easy. It’s like learning a new language. One has to replace one set of habits with another. To put it simply, it’s a matter of replacing non-virtues with virtues. We need to be mindful all the time to prevent the mind from latching on to the defilements, our old habits. Since they are by nature empty, by letting go of them as they surface, we will gradually reduce our suffering. Imprints can be very subtle and we can be caught unawares. So it is important to practice with mindfulness and discernment.
Rinpoche’s teachings on “Imprints” reveals the method of how we can actually break the bad habituations that drag us back into our viscious cycle of sufferings and unhappiness. A lot of the times, we don’t even realise that we are the actual cause of unhappiness to others and ourselves. How many times we have heard our friends complaining about their husbands, wives, children,bosses, etc.
Hardly do we take a moment to contemplate on what did we do,behave, think or say wrongly that make us experience this unhappiness. I find this teaching very powerful as I could relate the fact that if happiness is what I want, like anyone else, I can actually master my own destiny, simply by rehabituating my bad habits/imprints. A shift of mind sets from today onwards can help plant power postive imprints towards creating the future that we desire…. I now understand why whenever I see a holy sangha, they always give me an overwhelming aura of peace and harmony. Just by the look at them, I desire to achieve their stability. I hope to contemplate and rehabituate my bad imprints and henceforth could achieve that state of stability without always having to repond to my affictive emotions anymore.
You know we really are an open book, if you base your observations of people on this teaching on imprints you can be pretty accurate interpreting a persons mind just from how they operate. Everything we do is based on a motivation with the end result of an action. So if we work back from a persons action we can figure out whether a person is spoilt as a child, and hence they are averse to hard work, dirty work now. Or whether a child grew up with lots of scolding or domination by the parental figure that causes a person to go into themselves, not open up or get close emotionally.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this teaching with us all, and showing us that it is possible to just let the imprints go and fill them with new imprints. We are in control, if we take control.
It is empowering to know that your happiness is really in your hands.
Karma – cause and effect gives a clear picture for me to understand and accept why certain things happened to certain people and myself of course. It is logical and explains the causes you have created to reap/experience the results you experience now. No one is to blame and you learn to take that responsibility on to yourself and stop complaining and bitching to the world.
If we can except that there is Karma and imprints, we can slowly find a way to create opposite and positive causes towards our future happiness. Whatever we experience in the past does not necessary have to carry forward to our future is what I learn.
This teaching is so beneficial because Rinpoche really tells us the TRUTH and if anyone would like to make a change in their life and experience real happiness about themselves they can apply this teaching to gain real RESULTS!
Karma is such a great excuse for a lot of people for things they didn’t do or shouldn’t do. These teachings are just wonderful reminder for me for all the times that I didn’t hold my vows, the times I chose laziness and made others remind me.
Initially, the teaching stings a little but the teaching of karma is actually very empowering because it allow us to change the course of our destiny. Perhaps, if I didn’t learn about karma, I would have continued in my self-destructive ways. Hence, Buddha was the great revolutionary man who taught us to take charge of our lives. I love that! It is a teaching to liberates us from all fears.
Karma has an ugly way of coming back. How apt. For more examples, take a look at the book “Wheel Of The Sharp Weapon”. Then you’d see more examples on how ugly it can be. We now understand that with every imprint (through thought and/or action) that we put into our mindstream, it remains there until a similar environmental cause triggers it and it opens up.
A small group of us was with Rinpoche in Bodgaya afew years back. Each time we stepped out of our hotel, we would be swarmed by beggars, paraplegic, handicaps, etc. The sight was just too overwhelming and beyond one’s comprehension. Rinpoche told us that if we rewind what ugly things (in thought and/or actions) they have done in their previous lives, this is the result of it. So instead of feeling sorrowful, share the dharma with others so that they have a method to break out of this vicious cycle by doing good actions and thought so that their mindstream is filled with positive imprints.
I have read and come across many writings/theories/ideas about karma, cause and effect, positive affirmations etc etc much like the ideas that were made famous in the book “The Secret” “The Power of Now” etc etc
I thought I had it all figured out already… well theoretically. This teaching solidified these concepts completely for me – it was very empowering to know HOW exactly, through logic, we create situations for ourselves – positive or negative. Rinpoche’s teachings show us how the kinda new-age, self-help theories of “positive affirmations” “power of manifestation” etc actually works. Indeed, we have full control and responsibility of how things will turn out and how happy (or not!) we are.
Responsibility sounds like a big word but actually, it is very liberating and empowering to know that the ball is in our court to make things happen (good or bad!)
I’d also like to share with everyone the teachings that Rinpoche has given in “Snakes Roosters and Pigs” which is now a book and DVD (http://www.kechara.com/publications/publications/tsem-tulku-series/snakes-roosters-and-pigs/)
Also, all of Rinpoche’s teachings on karma, which can be viewed on YouTube, are very much related to these teachings; viewing or reading these additional teachings will help in gaining a much deeper and rounded understanding of this whole subject.
Now then, onwards and upwards to bigger and better things – the ball is in your court!!!!
Rinpoche has opened up our minds in so many ways… Through his books, blogs, youtube videos and live Dharma lessons! and it makes us think deeply on our minds work and how can it become better, eventually with your actions, speech and mind. It has benefited many of Rinpoche’s students and many many people as well as people from overseas… The information and teachings are available anywhere, and they were made easily accessible through different channels. All aim at to become a better person and better life.
Do watch this video as it very mind penetrating and it will benefit you… do share with friends and family… 🙂
Imprints are the seeds that are deposited in our mindstream after we have committed an action of body,speech and mind.They can stay dormant for lifetimes long after an action is completed waiting for appropriate conditions to gather to ripen.
Bad actions result in bad imprints which accounts for much of our bad habits whenever we encounter a contributing or environmental cause.
We have to break this vicious cycle which if not stopped will continue to bring suffering and unpleasantness due to habituation and rehabituation, every moment reinforcing those negative qualities like jealousy, anger, insincerity, defensiveness, selfishness, miserliness etc.
Rinpoche exhorts that we have to commit to practice NOW if we are serious about putting an end to it as every second’s delay will make it that much harder to rehabituate.
Terima Kasih Rinpoche!