Losing Face
Dear Everyone,
Plse Remember:
To be a leader, an example, or a good person we have to always give the credit to others SINCERELY who work with us. Because they make us who we are. Without them we are nothing..
Always take the blame when we are wrong n never put our mistakes onto others or ‘subordinates’ or staff. To cover our mistakes is to gain ‘face’ very short term but lose complete face long term. If we make mistakes and let others take the blame, it shows how we use people and don’t respect anyone. How can we expect respect? Who likes to feel used? How can we expect people to trust us? Trust is FUNDAMENTAL in all relationships.. We must be open to our mistakes and grow. Growth isn’t based on being perfect, but moving toward the best we can be by being honest.
If we lose face mometarily and own up to our mistakes, people will still respect us FOR BEING HONEST. Face when lost can be gained again by improving consistently.
We should work to always be honest and own up to our faults and challenge the faults not challenge people.
Bottom line: Lose face and not people.
Tsem Rinpoche
Please support us so that we can continue to bring you more Dharma:
If you are in the United States, please note that your offerings and contributions are tax deductible. ~ the tsemrinpoche.com blog team
There is great joy in losing face and making the other person win and have a happy face. The happiest person will be the person who bring joys, happiness to others. Losing face is better than losing a friend. To be true to ourselves ,always do the right thing no matter what others say. Be inquisitive with yourself.Its not to late to admit our mistaken and move on.
Thank you Rinpoche …..a beautiful sharing to learn from here.
Respect must be earned not taken for granted even if in a high position, must always lead by example to gain trust & confidence . No shame in admitting own’s mistake in fact it takes courage to be able to do that . Thanks Rinpoche for the reminder
This is very truth…To gain one thing we lose something, in this case if we want to gain respect and trust from others, we have to lose face to admit the mistakes we have done and just make up to it. People respect leaders that put the job/things to be done a priority rather than those who just want to protect their own goody goody impression even it is the cost for not finishing any given task, or do it lousily then blame it to subordinates. People despise these kind of people.
Thank you Rinpoche for pointing out this to everyone to adapt this motto.
This is very true. By being a leader it does not mean that we only take the credits for things, and blame everyone else for all the problems when we ourselves are at fault.
By doing so, it will only create unhappiness with the people taht we work with, at the same time, lose the respect that others have for you. I believe that when you lost respect for someone, it is very difficult to gain back that respect that people use to have for you ever again.
I love the bottom line: lose face and not people – this is genius. Such a simple truth but so profound. If we could live by just this line alone, so many things would change.
As someone who just cannot lie, I find it very hard to understand the impetus behind deception and lying. At the most basic level, doesn’t it just get awfully tiring trying to keep up with the lies? And while you try so hard to look good, there’s that most simple truth that when you’re found out for your lies, all the ‘good’ that you might have done is immediately cancelled out and you look worse than before.
How paradoxical and ironic that in trying so hard to look good, we end up looking bad and worse than if we had just been honest. The opposite holds true too – If we just bit the bullet, were honest and allowed ourselves to be exposed for who we really are (no matter how bad), in the end people will respect us more for this honesty and for just being ourselves. So in allowing ourselves to look bad, we look better than we ever did before.
What is “face” anyway? Or reputation or status? It’s intangible and actually, it doesn’t serve us or anyone in any real tangible way. So we might lose face for a while – so what? The world keeps going, nothing terrible happens to us or to anyone else. And if we “saved faced” and looked good for a moment, nothing happens either, it’s not like we saved world poverty or stopped all wars in the world! If we just remembered that face – either losing or saving it – actually makes NO REAL DIFFERENCE TO ANYONE, not even ourselves, it would save us (haha pun intended!) a whole lot of heartache.
Thank you Rinpoche for this direct teachings! Yes, there is nothing and no where to hide when we make mistakes. We just have to face it and take the responsibility. Running away from our mistakes will make us more fear and make us a more irresponsible person that doesn’t care. For sure when we face our mistakes, we won’t feel good, but whether we are a leader or not, we have to take it because it is because of us, the problem arises!
To face the problem means we are determine to grow and learn from the mistake. To take on the responsibility means we are determine to take it as a big lesson and we will never do the same thing again. This is a very important lesson in life that we should start to teach the kids since they are young. Then they will growing up to be a good person. 🙂
This is full of wisdom. At the end, face is to be earned…. through respect and what we have done.
It is OK to make mistake but we need to learn and not to repeat the same mistake again. When we take responsibility of our mistakes, we learn and improve ourselves, eventually we will gain back the trust and respect from others
If we are sneaky and trying to hide, others may not aware of our mistakes, but we cannot run away from karma! Thank you Rinpoche for this teaching!
Thank you very much..it is so true…everything Rinpoche communicates to us is always exactly what I need to hear, it is always so clear and so true..deep inside I am so happy to have the fortune to follow his teaching on the internet. What a joy!
I always own up to my faults and apologize for my mistakes because I take responsibilities and ownership. Even if any of my colleagues are wrong I will remind them and tell them their mistakes. Not to make them lose face but for them to be better and improve. Losing face doesn’t cost anything but losing friends and people coz scared of losing face is just plain silly to me.
To be a leader, does not mean that person are another person’s “controller” , does not mean that person are the Master and make other people as slave. To be a leader, means to lead, to guide, to even bear the pain and gain together in a group.
We tends to fall under a trap- “Want Face” . By wanting face, the person lost trust from people around them, the person tell lies, emotional unstable etc. All because one think, scare of losing face! This article, reminder me to let go. Let go of what my false imagination, let go of the fear of Losing Face.
Thanks Guru for this precious words. I will keep reminding myself.
thank u