There is only one way to go
Either love or fear will manifest in our minds. What is in our minds will manifest on our planet. What is on our external planet is only the reflections of our minds. We are in control. Fear can lead to destruction and love leads to renaissance. It is our choice. Only when we control and harness our negative emotions can we have real freedom which leads to happiness. Greed, attachments, materialism, social selfishness arises from fear and leads to being trapped in fear. Whatever religion we believe or don’t believe does not matter, what matters is using the religion or logic to develop our minds into vortexes of love, forgiveness and acceptance. Religion should never create ignorance, fear or bias. Religion should open our minds, hearts and souls to love, acceptance and compassion. Compassion is the only way to go. The only goal of religion. If we don’t believe in religion, that is fine too, but we need to believe in compassion and it’s development for individual and global happiness.
Tsem Rinpoche
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Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this wonderful inspirational quote. Everything is from within ourselves. We gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which we come across. Courage is knowing what not to fear. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Compassion is the desire that moves the individual self to widen the scope of its self-concern to embrace the whole of the universal self.
We practice compassion, kindness , caring and respect each other in whatever situation, turning negatives to positive.
As what is in our minds will manifest in our external world, it is important to quell the negative emotions in our mind that stem from fear and ignorance. Everything is from within. We created problems yet we often blame it on others. We want positive things to happen but when things don’t turn out our way, we get depressed and tend to give up. We hardly realize the negative qualities in us can actually destroy us and distance us from what we want. Thank you Rinpoche for this inspiring and enlightening short post ??
Choose LOVE or FEAR. LOVE leads to renaissance, freedom, peace and happiness, while FEAR leads to destruction. Love opens us up for compassion, forgiveness and acceptance .Fear gives rise to greed, attachments, materialism, social selfishness, intolerance and bias that chain us. When we can control our negative emotions only then can we free ourselves from suffering and liberate ourselves for happiness. I choose LOVE.
Religion should open us up for love, acceptance and compassion. Religion equals compassion and should liberate us for individual and global happiness. It should not create ignorance, fear or bias.
Thank you Rinpoche for such a short, profound and sweet words of wisdom. I like it how Rinpoche put it universally that “Religion should open our minds, hearts and souls to love, acceptance and compassion.” Times I see that people has created so much suffering to others in the name of some superior being above, which I think that it doesn’t makes sense at all. People has degenerate religion so badly that it gives religion a bad name and reputation, that make people forget the universal goodness of religion, which is compassion.
With folded hands, I wish you all good wishes and be compassionate to people around us.
Compassion is the key of love. Harmony is the key to peace. Be harmony with ourselves can create inner peace, be harmony with others can create peace to the surrounding. By taming our own mind, not to fight but to watch it flow naturally without holding onto our fear or negative emotions, inner peace will arise then. The world is miserable enough, let us not drag ourselves to be even more miserable. Time is short, start practice now.
Thank you Rinpoche for this post.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing. After read this post, what I’m understand is we need change our mind , do not be greedy and materialism , all this attachments only bring a short term happiness to us .We will feel fear and disappointment once lost it,then never end for chasing more and attachments. Need practice COMPASSION, giving help for others and experience the true HAPPINESS.
We allow fear in when we focus on the impact something has on us. Fear has no bearing unless there is an impact to our personal self. For example, it is not as frightening to see harm coming upon a stranger as it is coming to us or someone/something we have a personal interest in. Therefore of the 2 elements that create fear, the critical one is acute awareness of the self. The more we fear, the harder we are holding on to that self and it doesn’t end. There is only one logical way to remedy that which is not to focus on the self.
Therefore instead of having an awareness of the self, we can train the mind to develop a strong consciousness of others instead. How they are, what they feel, what we can do and how what we do affects them. It is something to keep our mind focussing out until it becomes habitual. If we do that, we are in fact developing compassion that in the end benefits us as well. I guess we will see results i.e. less fear manifesting in ourselves, less or no awareness of how something affects ourselves, when we can feel love for people we have no vested interest in.
Fear comes from ego, and from feeling threatened with pain and suffering, which we perceive to be from external factors. As we are all attached to our egos at various levels, we also all grapple with various levels of fear. While we are learning to let go of the fear, it is natural that the instinctive reaction of fear is to get away from what is causing the fear, whether it is logical or not. Walter Bradford Cannon came up with the fight or flight response – this theory states that animals react to threats with a general discharge of the sympathetic nervous system, priming the animal for fighting or fleeing, which explains why people can react violently when they feel threatened on a basic animalistic level. i have always thought that fear is like an airbag that comes right up in front of you when confronted with a stressful situation, and you are unable to see anything clearly.
It is only when we can let go of fear that we can think logically, clearly and objectively.
I find this concept of fear / love very intriguing because I’ve realised quite recently that for every moment that I THINK I “love” something/ something or am “happy”, that is usually met with equal parts of fear that i will lose it. I think sometimes it would be more accurate to say that the opposite emotion to love is fear, not hatred as we commonly think it is. So where does that fear even come from and why are we afraid? I think it’s quite helpful to think about what it is exactly that we’re afraid of and usually, if we whittle it down, there isn’t anything to be afraid of but ourselves, what will happen to US, what We will lose, what someone will do to US. Like the bottom most picture says, the noise is from within – we create all the demons within ourselves and then we become scared of our own creations.
So I like this teaching because it shows us that really, the two emotions of love / fear are just two sides of the same coin. we can choose to direct our energies, effort, time towards fostering the fear (the negative) or towards fostering love. The choice is obvious really, isn’t it, but how often it is that we make the wrong choice to go inwards into the noise that we’re creating inside our heads.
They say heaven or hell is a place on earth… I guess that’s true since everything is a manifestation from our thoughts and our minds.We are then master of our own universe and destiny… it is only our delusions that trick us in to believing that acquisition is what makes us happy and will last. People fight about it, some wage war over it. How silly when in the end everything is impermanent… wasting precious time, resources and even lives for the human greed. Hence the only hope left is our faith or religion… and If the religion we’re in teaches us to discriminate, to separate and judge… then what’s the difference between the so called divine light and the mundane world? Hence religion and faith should only always be absolutely compassion… otherwise why bother having a religion?
We should not make barrier in between one being with other by saying you belong to this religion I am that, or you belong this race and I am that race.
Peace comes from within, as noise comes from within. No one could ever disturb us, keep us from our success, our goal except the noise we create from within. Without at peace with ourself, there will be hard to be at peace with people around us and the world.
Compassion is the one element that busts open all the doors and windows of the dark mind that we may be living in. It is a very potent antidote to a lot of ailments of the mind/soul. Often we back ourselves into a corner when our mind starts to tackle too many thoughts in one go and all those thoughts subconsciously revolve around ourselves usually.
Compassion is actually quite an easy concept to grasp when you think about it but the application of compassion requires us to shift the focus away from ourselves. Compassion is very light on the heart and it is no accident that people who are compassionate are very much at peace with themselves. There is nothing for the self to struggle with and there is only the question of others’ wellbeing and happiness.
I think for many of us who are burdened by heavy problems and those who are emotionally down can help ourselves by thinking how others must be in the same position or worst . We relate to their situation and wish that whatever it is that we do not want for ourselves, neither do we want for others to experience. I find that when we do that, our own problems become instantly lighter. They may not disappear but they do become easier to bear. The more we focus out, the less a stranglehold our worries have on us.
Once we control our negative thoughts, always think positively, positive results arises. To overcome fear and harness love & compassion regardless what religion we are are, the major key is to develop positive thoughts in our minds.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this wonderful inspirational quote.
How we live our lives are entirely up to us. Why live in fear when we can live happily?
All religions teaches us to do good. In Buddhism, our ultimate goal is to achieve eternal bliss.
Thank you Rinpoche for a profound quote to contemplate on.
How we want it to be it is all in our own hands. No one else. Not even the Buddha. Results resemble causes and causes resemble results. That is karma. Our choice of life and how we want it to be is within our control. Choice and control.
Such short yet profound paragraph from Rinpoche. It is true, what we see externally is the reflection of our mind. And i also agree that religion shouldn’t create ignorance. Whether we believe in religion or not, the goal here is to achieve ultimate happiness and unwavering compassion. I remember one of Rinpche’s quote that goes something like this: We can only experince Compassion when we give it.
Truly inspiring! Thank you Rinpoche.
Dear Rinpoche, thank you for this teaching. When i read the line, fear leads to destruction, im reminded of this being manifested in my office. The fear of not being in control, the fear of not being always right is always manifested as anger, intolerance and wrong actions taking resulting in mistakes.
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Where we go is a choice we make, and the longer we make a choice to go a certain the greater the momentum it will be for us to reach that goal. At some point that momentum becomes unstoppable.
Everything is from within. We created problems yet we often blame it on others. We want positive things to happen but when things don’t turn out our way, we get depressed and tend to give up. We hardly realize the negative qualities in us can actually destroy us and distance us from what we want. Quoted from Rinpoche ” Either love or fear will manifest in our minds. What is in our minds will manifest on our planet…” has integrated so well with the Law of Attraction mentioned in The Secret : how positive thinking can actually change our lives.
http://www.facebook.com/Fashion2S
As what is in our minds will manifest in our external world, it is important to quell the negative emotions in our mind that stem from fear and ignorance. Instead, we need to cultivate peace, love and compassion.Whatever religion we practice, the key is to practice equanimity and compassion towards all.Knowing that all beings have been our mothers before, we should repay their kindness through the practice of love,peace and compassion.To have world peace, we must have inner peace and show universal love and compassion.
Thank you, Rinpoche. There is really but one choice and none other. Everything else is a fragmentation of love. Should we decide to take the path of compassion, we cannot be fearful because we can only be on one path at a time. Once there is fear, it is a sign that compassion has yet to fully develop. It is time to hit the drawing board again. _/\_
Being loyal is a quality that is rare these days but it is one that I believe in strongly. I can count with only one hand all of my friends that have been loyal to me throughout the years. I am always loyal to my friends, people who love me for who i am and there is mutual respect and common ground and they do this sincerely.
after many years of loyal study i agree about the mind if you fill your mind with the vision of butterflys and fish then all we will see is butterflys and fish
Perhaps for grapes that a person cannot get, it is sour. No need to include buddhism teaching in his yelling though. How much he know about it? I will just choose to ignore. What sort of friend is this?
Once upon a time, there is a college guy confronted me in Perth, he yelled at me out of sudden, yelled at me saying:” you listen to me. you need to forgive and forget! I have a guru and I listen to him. What is wrong with Winnie? ” He said this kind of thing to me. However I did not respond to him much. He seems to still think he is very correct with his forgive and forget thing. I just want to say people have their right to choose friends. People need time to grow up and understand. Now I learn about forgiving and growing up. He no need to be so proud of what he had learned from his “guru”. The guru he referring is also a college mate. What is this college mate lineage I do not know. How much they know, I also do not know. They just confront people out of sudden. Very proud indeed. *Smile*
Although your close friend may talk behind your back, but rate her. What are her good side? Is her good side more than her bad side? So happen she did talk about my weakness, it is ok. I forgave her.
Like Tsem Rinpoche has said, “compassion is the only way to go, irrespective of whether one believes in religion or not”. Compassion is having a virtuous mind that wishes others to be free from sufferings. We all have compassion,but this compassion is generally mixed with attachment and so it is not pure. It should not be mixed and and should be free from all partiality. It should not discriminate and embraces all living beings without exception, inclusive animals. Those with great compassion has an noble mind which has overcome non-virtuous states of mind, cultivated with great effort. Anyone with such a virtuous mind of great compassion will be completely free from sufferings or problems – Thus that’s the way that we should go, but could we be able to go that way?
I share what i understand from this:
Im afraid of snake very much, but to some people, snake can be their pet. Lets say snakes are everywhere in this world, including my house or my room, then to me this world is very scary and i will hide myself forever and blame everybody else. But to those who loves snake, this world will be very lovely.
This is what i can relate with. If i keep my fear in a selfish way, blaming others for not helping me, then i will be trapped in fear forever. ALl the love and fear are from our mind.
And i think the reason why we see others mistake, is because we have the same mistakes too. If you don’t know what is bad, then how you define something as a bad thing? If you don’t know, that something should be neutral, not a bad one. This is what i can relate with the phrase ‘What is on our external planet is only the reflections of our minds’.
Thank you Rinpoche! This teaching is short yet very profound.
Negative thoughts results in negative actions while positive thought results in positive actions. Thus we should be in control and watch our mind, our thoughts and the moment negative thoughts arise we must try to overcome it.
“We control and harness our negative emotions, can we have real freedom which leads to happiness” and it does not matter which religion we believe in – we should practice LOVE, FORGIVENESS and ACCEPTANCE and COMPASSION. This is the universal truth and we should not forget nor ignore it, as it is the basis of being human.
When we have inner peace we have outer and world peace.
There isn’t a choice. Because there is only one. Everything else that manifests as choices is just an illusion that we perceive to be real. Because the pain we experience is interpreted to be real but in actual fact, is it? The splitting of the mind from one to two is yet another wrong view. Compassion allows us to see through these illusions. _/\_
We are always facing and control by the 3 poison so normally we just remember the bad things people done however there is only 1 bad thing than 100 good things he or she done.
Thanks Guru to always remind us through such awesome way. As we already know the 3 poison make us think like that then if we can try to do as the quote above then it will help us reduce more and more from the harms of 3 poison.
I realized in this samsara. We are always living in fear. Attachment that causes us to fear.Fear to lose, fear the unknown, fear. .. With Dharma, I have slowly learned not to fear. But to see things from other angle. To understand and forgive some people. To share my courage with others.
Take a deeper thought, what is Dharma? That worth a wealthy, healthy , intelligent prince to become a monk without fear of losing everything? Buddha have no fear. Thus, Dharma is a knowledge to Free us. Thus with right view on Dharma, we learned how to live life to the fullest and without fear.
Thank you Rinpoche for your kind wisdom to remind me of what I should be practicing daily. To conquer fear we need to start with compassion.
If we are always focus on fear we would develop fear. If we always think of fear we will obtain fear. What then is fear? Fear of unknown, fear of something you do not want, fear of results or fear of repercussions? We want something solid and feel comfortable but then at back of our head there is the nagging fear that things can go wrong. Things actually do go wrong for many reasons.
In of all these what is the basis of fear? Is it the lack of confidence? Then where do confidence come from? Is it lack of making mistakes or perhaps making a lot of mistake and standing back up? Or because we are embarrass of making mistake and afraid (fear again) of people looking down on us? Therefore we won’t want to try because our want and wishes are less important than our face because of losing face or even looking stupid to others? Because they will leave us and not being our friends? So our friends are not really friends to begin with?
Are we to say those who make mistakes lose face the most and therefore we should laugh at them and look down upon them? If you disagree then the fear is without basis. Look deep within enough and the fear would be nothing, and the fear stand upon nothing, thus fear itself will crumble.
True that the noise is from within. All that we think, do and act is from our own mind. So the mind is very powerful and it controls our action. WHo controls our mind? It is ourself. Therefore, we must always have positive thoughts and values so that our actions are coherent with what we think.
Religion is a support system for the mind to continue on having positive thoughts.
we always controlling by our negative thought and feeling which cause us unhappy, we know that we should be kindness to other, generating compassion yet we keep repeated the same mistake and negative cycle.we need to plant the thought in our mind and reminding ourself only compassion can lead us to happiness .
Fear is such a nasty 4-letter word. Its ability to destruct is so powerful, and yet we choose to wallow in self-pity, making us miserable. Taking steps out requires so much effort and feels foreign. Yet when one practices compassion, knowing it is the correct path to take, yet one is still not free from pain. Like what Sheryl KH (JB) mentioned that it is much easier for people with status to move things compared to a normal human being, whilst there is truth in this statement, ultimately it is the state of our minds as well as our tenacity. I am still learning to be tenacious, after practicing compassion. It is tough.
We experience negative emotions in our daily lives. One of the ways to control our negative emotion is to watch and learn from people around us. To do that, we must firstly accept our shortcomings and admit it before we develop the qualities to a better person.
The power of the mind; it can make or break. Build or destroy. love or hate. And it is all within our control. The name of the game here is: control it wisely., liberation is in the palm of our hands.
Controlling the negativity in my mind is the toughest ! Using Compassion works every time . But unfortunately , the power of compassion does not always come to me naturally . My selfish mind and attachments desperately need to be subdued ! . Thank you Rinpoche for constantly reminding me to do so .
“Only when we control and harness our negative emotions can we have real freedom which leads to happiness. Greed, attachments, materialism, social selfishness arises from fear and leads to being trapped in fear”
Everything within our minds, to control negative emotions is so important that whenever negative emotions strike us , we must quickly shift our mind and think positively. Once realise THE NOISE IS FROM WITHIN, not holding on the negative emotions and sure able to have true happiness.
Thank you Rinpoche !
Religion should be the tool “to open our minds, hearts and souls to love, acceptance and compassion”, not the tool being used to differentiate “you” and “me”, or even to create a border in between; or even worse to create a war in the name of religion.
With compassion we can overcome the differences and find ours and others’ happiness.
I believe that there are people who want to practice compassion, I feel that, however, many times it is so easy to say but hard to get it done.
We as individuals are so powerless, be it on global, region, or country-scale…or even within our own family or whatever social groups that we belong to.
Many times I find that,..just like what Rinpoche has said ‘We take a few steps out and then we step back’, to really practice kindness and love, I feel that it is really not easy.
I feel that the outer environment is more powerful than what we as individuals can do. Put it simply, we want to change something but it is against the social norm, it is hard to get change done with individual efforts. Many times we need to hit the walls. Some may give up at the beginning, some end the ‘loving’ journey half way, not many people can survive through.
I feel that to really practice compassion, I need to go somewhere secluded, or a place with people having the same ideas, such as monasteries. Or even in monasteries, there could also be fear because of the lack of funds to even survive.
There is this feeling of powerlessness. And I believe it is much more easier for people with certain status to move things than a normal and common being such as me.
Sorry Rinpoche for I am not making statements against your thoughts, but the feeling of powerlessness can be so powerful that it so effectively stop many people to make positive changes, even though they may really want to…
Compassion is for the sake of others, acting out towards others. If I go to somewhere secluded, there would be no people there or very little people around, the chance of practicing compassion dismisses. However we don’t need to go monasteries anymore. Rinpoche is here on the blog a virtual Dharma center to provide opportunities to the people who are living around in the world with an Internet connection, in the cities to practice compassion. He brings many teachings on compassion in modern English language which we can use in our every day’s life. They are available in youtube. 🙂
Whether something is easy is because we are used to do doing it and for long periods of time. For example if I have been learning piano since I was little and been practicing consistently it would definitely become easier later. If we find something which is not easy it could mean we have not doing it much in our life therefore it is not easy to begin with. Everything must start from somewhere when we are little as a baby we learn to turn before we learn to crawl, sit and walk. As compassion is a virtue it goes to say I have been doing more non-virtue than virtue to begin with 🙂
Don’t give up and push forward ahead!
Will continue on to think positively
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for this very true and precise explanation about how our mind can influence our actions and our actions determines what kind of “planet” we live in.
It really doesn’t matter what kind of religion we are in or not. What is important is our thoughts and actions. If everyone practices compassion, then our world will become a much better place.
Joe
This is the way humanity find common ground. From the truth that all beings would like happiness for ourselves, the only way is to give others happiness. This is the superior way; by finding common ground. Thank You Rinpoche!
Thank you Rinpoche for highlighting these simple but very important facts that everything stems from our mind. It is from fear of not having enough of everything that made people have greed and attachments. It is so good to know that we are in control of our surrounding and we only need to restrain ourselves to bring the happiness that we have been searching for all this while.