Training shouldn’t be optional
Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/betrained.mp4
People willingly sign up to endure tremendous training, challenges, physical ‘torture’, mental ‘torture’, ‘abuse’ and even put themselves in situations that endanger their lives as you see in this incredible video. This is for the betterment of this life alone. Need we say more for future lives? A must watch short video in any case. They are taunted, made fun of and even encouraged to quit by superiors and peers. People can say this is psychological and mental abuse and the people who ‘perpetrate’ this are cruel and vicious. But remember, you signed up and you opted for it. You had a choice, so there is no victim card here to play. To get through it will toughen you up for life’s vicissitudes, hardships, realities, disappointments and really just make us accept life’s realities. Which makes it easier for ourselves and everyone around us because we accept, understand and well prepared. To expect something according to our projections and not getting it most of the time leads to bitterness and depression. Pretty much the sum of our lives in samsara. Some make it and many don’t from this tough training. Out of 150 that signed up, 42 made it in this incredible training which really represents life. The rest quit.
Some of the ones that quit complained, said it was too hard, inhuman, not achievable and even can cite psychological damage because of it. But all in all, it is training. And this is for the body and mind. This is for secular success. This reminds me of the monasteries. This reminds me of even organized Dharma centres and some of my tough gurus. You are put to training in many methods by the teacher and whether your teacher is a monk or drill sergeant if you want the results you go for it. Be just as committed as your trainer. You are being trained by people who know their stuff and committed themselves. Committed themselves to the training and to training you. You have to comply, do the training and then only you can enjoy the results. The results can last for your whole life and in spiritual terms for lifetimes. It is never handed to you. If you fail, you can blame the teacher, but then if you blame the teacher, everyone must have failed. Not everyone fails but you failed so it can’t be the trainer. Even the majority can fail and it is still your fault because that is usually what happens with tough and real training. Don’t revel in your failure just because you have many peers that also failed. Failure is failure. Some even encourage others to fail so they are not alone in failing. I’ve met people like that. They encourage others to leave the dharma centre, the retreats, guru, practices, their faith, samaya, commitments, meditations and works so when they leave, they are not alone and feel as bad or look as bad. Once they leave, what do you have to offer them? Back to the exact same thing they did before they joined the dharma or training. Why join, if everything was perfect? That does not make it better long term, because you still failed. The tougher the training, the more real the Dharma and the more honest it is, in all likelihood, more will quit citing abuse, too tough, not worth it or even saying they felt trapped. But then the trap is not the training in the Dharma. Because training in the Dharma is teaching you how to leave your samsaric trap and not stay in it. When you fail, you don’t escape but in actuality you stay exactly where you are. If where you are was fine, why did you enter the training in the first place? Dharma training is tough. Any training is tough.
Training is tough. It was tough with my gurus. It will be tough because our mind is tough. We fill our minds with all types of comforts and habituated views of how things should be and when it is not like that, we give up. We love to blame the trainer, the path, the Dharma, the method and all of that. But what people need to understand is, yes the training was hard, but did the trainees make it harder because they were spoilt, had wrong views, hung on to their comfort zones and refuse to really change? Are all trainees trainable immediately? Are they all cooperative and compliant and really willing to make a difference? Or when their most secret comfort zones were infringed upon, they left? Leaving is one thing, being bitter is an excuse to cover failure because you chose to join in the first place. No one forced you. You take responsibility for the choice. How to break away from samsara when you are still stuck in trying to be comfortable? Being comfortable actually has no place in spiritual or physical training. Achieving something has no room to be comfortable. Success and comfort are never in the same continuum. Success does not come from being in a state of comfort but challenging ideas and habituations that continuously keep us tied down to the deceptions that comfort zones, money, acquisitions, romance, travel and entertainment is the purpose of our lives. Anything you have now was either given to you for free or you worked past your comfort zones to achieve them. After you ran away screaming from the training, what did you achieve in your life that was substantial? Did you just go back to sleeping late, some feel good meditations, meeting friends, surfing on the net, travelling, eating, social occasions, endless dinners and non-stop holidays? Holidaying from what? You don’t really work much to even need a holiday? Maybe you even took up a course or two at a school, ‘busy’ on a blog, occasional unsuccessful dabbling in exercise, some self-help readings, dabble in the occult to divine for a comfortable future? Maybe just nothing? You went back to what you were doing prior to the training. Now you have to justify to yourself and others why you quit the training. We can be honest or we can deceive for face saving purposes on why we really quit. You don’t go back to doing the same thing and more of it citing training was insane. What is insane is your blindness to see your comfort zones will lead you not where you wish but where you don’t ultimately desire. Maybe you will make a dent in this world for the better by quitting but most likely not. Because hard work, long hours, commitment, passion, consistency and sacrifice of comfort are the universal ingredients necessary for the outer journey and even more so for the inner journey. Whatever journey we choose and hopefully it will be both for our sake, by remaining in comfort zones, this will take time as well as overcoming comfort zones to inner success. Both take the same amount of time and time is used. One does not bear results and the other one does. Don’t waste time. It’s our choice, don’t blame if we quit. Better is to swallow the ego for our long term benefit and get back into the training. The journey does not end at death unfortunately and fortunately. This continues into the bardo and future lives. The Buddha was not wrong. The harder the training seems to be is a clear indication to ourselves of how far behind we are. How much we need it. All the more reason to train. For some it takes tremendous efforts to reach a goal and for others seemingly very fast. Whatever it is for us, start and keep at it.
As we age, get sick, wrinkle, slow down and all types of diseases invade our body let us know that time is shorter, all the experiences we had in the travels, food, romance, fun, kids and all that materialistic world had to offer will not help us one iota at the time of death. All the conversations we have with friends, kids, partners and so on will not help us in anyway. The experiences will just disappear as fast as the experience themselves. To experience something for the sake of experience is like gathering water in a cup with holes to drink. When the four elements shut down within our bodies, and the inner winds gather and when we are about to black out from consciousness forever, even the best friends and partners holding our hands will be of no help. We won’t even be conscious of them being there and holding us at the last stages. Then karma who is ever present takes over as it has been all along but more so now because we don’t have the physical to grasp onto anymore. Your wealth, experiences, position, power, name, poverty, beauty, friends, houses, properties, views, political stance, loans, savings, pets are all not going to help you. When you enter the bardo, only the karma you have accumulated in the positive will assist you now. The genuine meditations, the mantras, saving of animals, benefitting other beings, retreats, donations, offerings on your shrines, prayers to the enlightened ones, guru samaya, generation of the altruistic aspiration, altruism, destruction of dual view, works that benefitted others, releasing of phenomenal grasping, release of projections and attainments will help you and can help you. Everything else you spent time on when you were alive besides the spiritual attainments will be of no help. Your lifetime of experiences accumulated from books, people, travel, cultural learning, foods, money, savings, poverty, partners and positions will not be of any help and will be forgotten. You sink into black oblivion. Your possession that you held onto will be falling into the hands of others very soon. The oblivion is totally black for the time being prior to leaving our bodies. A journey into fear, the unknown and perhaps pain if we are not spiritually aware. Not studying a map prior to reaching a fork in the road, can lead you to the wrong direction. Not preparing spiritually and fool-heartedly engaged in only samsaric pursuits will bear its frightening consequences now. If you don’t like what you are reading, don’t blame me, but these are the condensed form of the teachings of the omniscient Buddha. I am not negative, or trying to psyche you or frighten you for the sake of it. If you feel frightened, it is because you are not prepared, not because I frightened you. I cannot frighten you about something that is not true because you can investigate yourself. Fear arises from knowing the truth of our existence if we do nothing about it. The truth is living a life of just enjoyments will use up the karma that supported it as Kensur Jampa Yeshe told me. But fortunately if you are reading this now, it means you can do something now. Start now. No more excuses and procrastinations. Even if you quit in the past, start again and don’t quit. Remember, consistency is the key. The key that opens the door to your vast inner attainments, true freedom, omniscience and finding your luminous Buddha nature. That is what Buddha Shakyamuni did. That is why we ‘worship’ and follow him. Why else do we follow him? Stop praising, chanting and meditating on what Buddha did to become a Buddha and nothing more, but engage in the same path Buddha completed. Please do it now. Actually just do it. No more excuses, justifications and taking refuge in a all saviour like comfort zone that is deceptive. Deception is impermanent too. No matter how many go along with your self deceptions and how good of a friend they are, deception will ripen into deep regrets. Friends that encourage quitting or deception may come and go but our sufferings remain. Remember, the Buddha’s wisdom in his teachings surpasses any views our ‘friends’ may have. Buddha’s wisdom is based on total lack of ignorance while our friend’s knowledge is based on pure limitations and obstructed by karma. Buddha’s omniscience also surpasses any form of education, knowledge, ‘wisdom’ and experience that can be offered in this world. No knowledge by ordinary humans can ever surpass the omniscient Buddha’s wisdom. Follow Buddha.
So why are we so into everything that does not help us physically at the time of death and mentally and karmically? Because we have not studied, allocated the time for it, applied and lived Buddha’s teachings completely. We are not bad, but ignorant. But even ignorance is a chosen path and not inherently forever. We only surrendered to materialism because we are familiar with it and we did not surrender to our true selves, our true Buddha nature within. We did not submit to the truth of the Dharma yet. Everything we do now will be of no use if it has not been directed towards the inner attainments that Buddha so clearly spoke about.
This training video is powerful. Be best friends with determination, hard work, grit, sacrifice, consistency and results. Abandon enemies such as laziness, excuses, justifications, blame, distractions because they are bad friends to be with. Remember 42 passed the training out of 150. That means 108 persons found excuses, reasons, justifications to quit. That is the majority. The quitters will probably regret, curse, hate or talk about the nasty training to friends and family for the rest of their lives. Even perhaps will say they were mentally damaged because of it. Even if you quit, walk away nicely, don’t blame. Because blaming is playing the victim card to cover up. Many suffer much more than you and they succeed even more because they don’t quit. It’s just like in many Dharma centres including my own that I experienced for the last 40 years that more quit or sit on the side-lines than achieve. If you ask them to go slightly beyond, they will cite very quickly all the reasons they can’t, but the truth is they are unwilling because the ravages of karma has not caught up yet. Or perhaps karma has caught up. But the truth is training does not damage our minds, but comfort zones do. How can we leave samsara, the very place that deceptively shows us temporary comforts, by staying comfortable and not doing more, not achieving more of the inner journey? Training is hard. But do it. You are worth it. Do it long term and never give up. The more we put it off the more old age, sickness, inabilities, graspings, ‘responsibilities’, karma, habits and peers will creep in to ‘confirm’ we cannot do it. Don’t be okay with mediocre. Don’t be fine with failure. Don’t be fine with half past six results. Don’t be fine with non-completion. Because future regrets are changeable if we do something now. Complete the training. Stop being so eloquent and creative with excuses. You fool no one but yourself. You set bad examples. Complete the spiritual training. Be trained. After training you will realize and ask yourself why you endured so much unnecessarily for so long. Buddha is an example of a fully trained being.
Tsem Rinpoche
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Life is all about growing and developing. We learn through training given by our teachers. Nor matter how hard the training takes is for our own good. Training instils loyalty and commitment , challenges where we learn new skill , knowledge, information for the betterment of this life alone. Those incredible training given by our teacher will shape us , transform us in away to improve self- esteem, motivation, and confidence. Training in the Dharma is teaching us how to leave our samsaric trap and transforming us to be a better person.. At the end of the day it will last us for our whole life and in spiritual terms for lifetimes. Any failures we don’t blame our teacher, its ourselves to blame. Through hardship, patience , we learn. Have a strong will powerful, accept and through determination ,self-belief and hard work, we will get through to where our goal is.
Thank you Rinpoche for this precious teachings.
Thank you for sharing this article.Training is a way to break us from our comfort zone. If we do not open up our mind to be trained, how would we see and understand deeper. Of course, training does not usually come easy.
With hard work and consistency, we will surely see results. If we fail, we must examine what went wrong and why.If we are not committed in our training, it is very hard for us to get the result
Thank you Rinpoche for the teaching
We are so used to our comfort zone without realize that time is passing. We want to have easy life and can not endure any sufferings.
I am so fortunate to read this. If ever quit will start again. I will keep this teachings as a reminder to myself.
With folded hands
Suet Moi
True. So, so true and inspiring. And then some more.
This is what comes to mind:
So less time. So much to do.
Will we able to make it?
At times it seems way too much to do.
Confusion. Doubts. Obstacles too many to count.
Everything seems to be against it.
But there is something which makes us feel,
makes us dream.
Of a peace in which no one is hurt or wants to hurt.
Of a world in which everyone dwells in compassionate synchronicity.
A hope which we occasionally glimpse in this reality.
That this is the right way, the best way,
To benefit all in this dark ocean of eternity.
I hope to never forget. I work to find a way.
To grow and to practice this precious, pure way.
Powerful and profound teachings. It’s a wake call which we need to ponder. Training hard, practice consistency, learning from failure is the key to success. It takes sweat, determination, self-belief and hard work, training to be successful in our life . I do believe there are no secrets and short cut to success. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too. When we make a choice, we change the future, choosing the spiritual journey is the best choice which can transform our mind.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this inspiring article and video.
This reminded me of a marathon …If you have ever participated in one, you would know what I meant. But this kind of intense training is much more than that as it does not allow you too much time to ponder but make a choice for our next course of action. Every step of the training allow us to strengthen our mind to take on a bigger challenge if we do not give up. I believe for spiritual practice this is where others come in to the picture. One need to have a bigger heart in order to be able to take it on and push oneself to overcome the inner voices that tell us not to pursue.
“Achieving something has no room to be comfortable.”
I personally think that this powerful message is applicable in both secular and spiritual.
Before we engaged in any training, we need to find out and study about the trainer or guru in order to choose the most qualified guru. Once we have decided to follow one guru, have faith in him and follow all the way. No one can force us and we are the only one to make the right choice for ourselves. We may not achieved any result, if we keep on changing the guru.
Be respect and humble when we are fortunate to meet a qualified guru and receive his blessings. Always refer to the great masters, HH Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche, HH Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, HH Kyabje Zong Rinpoche and our precious guru, H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche as good examples to inspire us in practicing dharma and bring benefit to others. Always think of others and never give up easily no matter how much difficulties need to go through.
Be determined, persistent, consistent, committed, hard work and accept the challenges to improve. Just like HH Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche visited Dagpo Lama Rinpoche in his cave consistently to receive Lamrin teachings from Dagpo Lama Rinpoche. When Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche received a Lam-rim topic and then he would go away and meditate on it. Later Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche would return to explain what he had understood and when he had gained some realization, Dagpo Lama Rinpoche would teach him some more and this went on for ten years.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing with us this inspiring video and article.
Spiritual and secular success requires the same ingredients – tenacity, determination, hard work, consistency, being out of your comfort zone etc. Perhaps spiritual success requires one thing more – merits, to chip off the ignorance in our mind.
In the SEAL training, majority quit, and 42 stayed on and passed the training. Only a minority is willing to face the training to its completion. And like that, success is for all, but only a few will make it theirs. It is a great honour to complete SEAL training, but it is only for this life. Perhaps the values, ethics, and enrichment of attitude drilled into one through the training can be taken, but nothing more. So spiritual training is much more enriching and of a benefit beyond ordinary perception.
I think it is important to know why you embarked and chose the training in the first place, and what it is for. That will help you ease your mind while being trained. And if the trainee decides to quit, instead of spending the time complaining, use it to identify your weakness and your choice to quit, otherwise no matter where you go to be trained (it can be another job, another school, another centre), it will not reap results.
I like the statement that ‘even if you quit in the past, start again and don’t quit. Remember, consistency is the key.’ You can’t keep making excuses for quitting because there is always an option to start again. You can’t always make excuses for failing.
Whatever it is, you are trained to build yourself, learn and develop yourself for the better. You are taught to train your mind so it is lasting. Spiritual training is training the mind so that it transform for this and future lives.
There are so many types of trainings in the world to motivate and push us to the path of success, be it secular or spiritual, when one wants to be successful so bad, one surely will swallow one’s ego, laziness, excuses to fail and just go all the way with the training one deem useful. It’s so true yet lame that those who left the teachers or trainers criticise and sabotage their trainers just because they couldn’t cope with it and let their comfort zone win. Comfort zone always win because that’s where we are most contented and happy with, so when the trainer summon us to step out from comfort zone and fear, it’s like turbulence, we feel insecured and even afraid.
Personally I think the mind training is the most tough training in the world because it challenges our comfort zone every minute. However once we surpass the fear to change for the better, we win. The process is always the hardest but the most important.
We as Rinpoche’s students are fortunate to have gone through different kind of trainings via different means to discover ourselves, unlearn and relearn. This kind of Dharma training is the most precious and most direct yet the toughest, because we all are so well-pampered by our ego and yet dharma training is about defeating our ego as the first stage.
When the goal is clear, then the training becomes easier because we know what we want to achieve at the end of the day. The training becomes hard when our perception changes due to difficulties and we are being challenged to change. Our mind is our biggest asset which can help us achieve our goals (spiritually or professionally) or our biggest setback, giving the best excuse for us not to achieve.
Reminds me of the song “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.” Only the toughest will survive. The toughest mind will survive and excel.
Playing the blame game to make one fell better of themselves is surely one of the lowest one can get because you sign up for the training in the first place. In anything that we do, there is a certain training we have to go through to achieve our goals and we will always need to remind ourselves of that goal. If we want to surf the waves in the ocean, we need to brave the tide and reach to the peak of the waves so that we can ride on it. The bigger the waves, the harder the swim but the greater the achievements when you are at the top!
This applies to our Spirituality as well. Who says spirituality is a ride in the park? Buddhism is a practice to achieve enlightenment and Buddha did not say it is an easy nor a difficult path. It is up to our minds to decipher. What I believe is that wen we brave through the storm, the sun will shine at the end of the day!
I have been with Rinpoche for the past 10 years, it is true the dharma training is not easy but it does get easier if we apply what was taught by Rinpoche. Whatever we do, may it be in the secular lifestyle or dharma lifestyle, if we do not put effort in it, you will not get anywhere. Everything and every endeavour we take requires effort and sacrifices but the long term reward is more satisfying in dharma compare to the secular world. How do I know? Cause I have been in both.
Through the 10 years, I have seen people leave the dharma, I have also seen many who has accelerated in the dharma practices and I have been with students who has made dharma the long life career. I have also seen some people who have left the dharma, blame the dharma and everyone around them, the funny thing is that they are still bitter till today. Training towards any goal is never easy but majority of the time, is not the trainer/environment to be blamed if we failed but ourselves. Why? If the trainer and environment is wrong, why are there still so many more success trainees? This is only logical.
A couple of nights ago, I was fortunate to have an audience with Rinpoche. Rinpoche mentioned that if only he has a special ability to show us a glimpse of what happened during our individual bardo when we die, Rinpoche mentioned that 1 minute glimpse will propel us towards our dharma practices and we will go all the way with it. I am glad I have a guru like my Rinpoche to guide me and many of us to a clearer path and for that I will be always grateful
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing with us the video and teachings. Our spiritual training is so similar to the training people do in secular world. Whatever we are doing, whether secular or spiritual, we need to be persevere, consistent and never give up if we want to succeed. If a trainer (or a teacher) is not good, then all his students should be bad, but why some can become successful and not all are failures? We as a student must use our own eyes and judgement to examine facts, do not be easily influenced by what we hear. Our teacher is not here to exploit us but to help us to get out of our comfort zone so that we can be successful!
As long as we have the same goal, even if our skin colour is different, our background or culture is different we can still achieve our goal successfully. Team work is very important. We have to learn to work with our differences, always put our goal a higher priority than our ego.
While watching the video, it reminds me of the DS ban. Rinpoche was the only voice back then, but Rinpoche did not back off no matter how difficult it is because Rinpoche wants to make a change. It is the determination to succeed that brings Rinpoche this far. Just like when the trainees were all asked to stay in the mud for hours, they were cold and weak. But one person started to sing, then everyone followed, as the voice got louder, the cold night actually became warmer and that was how they got through the difficulties.
Thank you Rinpoche for the teaching.
感谢仁波啊的分享与教诲，
现在的时代许多人到了佛法中心，都只是要抱住祈愿佛菩萨保护加持，帮助大家渡过难关等等而已，而都忘了其实佛法的修持道路，其实并不是单单是来这里“祈求”而已，或是偶尔參与诵经法会而已，佛法的修持道路其实要学习的东西是很多并且是不容易的，比如我们必须学习“放下”或是面都与认清自己真实的”心识“，这灵修的道路是不容易走的，而且是必须一步一脚印，与跟随着自己传承上师面，延续到今，并透过我们的上师来教导我们，但是遗憾的是，很多人到了正真要到达学习佛法的那一部分时，就会觉得，那是很痛苦与无奈的，然后就这样毅然放弃了，我觉得这帖子很有道理，”学习“”锻炼“与”挑战“等等，在开始时是我们自己选择的，而并不是被强迫的，所以我们如果没有坚持到最后，那是我们自己的毅力还需要在被增长，既然同样的训练等，有人能够可以成功，那么就代表这个训练是合乎逻辑与可行的，那么选择”放弃“的人，并不是”训练“的课程或编排有问题，而是，自己本身选择了“放弃”
谢谢
Jerry Sito
“People will spend decades to invest/learn/perfect something they will use for this short time then death. They invest no learning, training or practice to prepare for death, bardo and future lives. This is very ‘dangerous’ because future lives are more than this one short life”
This is so true. We put a child to school for over a period of 20 years or more to prepare him/her for a working life. Then they go on the grind for another 40 over years to retirement. Thats a total of 60 years and more spent on secular aspects of life. What do we spend to train this child for death and a good rebirth ?
Some may debate on the subject of rebirth but nevertheless, there are loads of evidence to support this. Since death is the next sure thing after birth, why not prepare for it as we would when we are expecting a new child. We invest so much learning on ante-natal and post-natal aspects just to receive a new child into our lives. In a similar way we should invest in learning to deal with death, whether for ourselves or our loved ones.
This journey of preparation for death and rebirth is the “Training” that we need to embrace. Training to be a better person or to have a purer mind starts with us realising that we have weaknesses/bad habits to deal with. To realise this and to embrace the change will be the utmost challenge for our EGO and practice !!
The journey is an internal battle but most of the time we feel that we are battling other people or that other people are the cause of our challenges and obstacles. We need deep and sincere humility to embrace that all karma is our own doing. This truth can be very difficult to accept.
Even if others create havoc in our environment the training is to be compassionate towards them rather then get angry with them. Only through consistent practice will we be able to achieve such good habits. It’s tough ! But as Rinpoche wisely said “Training shouldn’t be optional” ! If we contemplate hard enough on the potential sufferings of Death and Rebirth we will not be selective in our training ! Death Meditation in this instance will be a great tool to help us realise the truth !
Thank you Rinpoche for this great article . Thank you for sharing with us your Wisdom and Compassion !
Thank you Rinpoche for the article. I watched the video not only once through your posting but several times through sharing by friends. I believe my friends like Rinpoche find the video inspiring and hence the sharing. Videos with inspirational messages never fail to attract attention.
There are people who think they are already good enough, so no training is required. There are some who feel they can be better be it physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually, hence, find training an opportunity to enhance themselves. Training is a way to break us from our comfort zone. If we do not open up our mind to be trained, how would we see and understand deeper. Of course, training does not usually come easy. There are sacrifices to be made. Nothing comes easy anyway and it prevails the moment we were born. Without training, will we know how to walk, eat, read, write, etc?
With determination, hard work and consistency, we will surely see results. If we fail, we must examine what went wrong and why. Failure does not mean we are a failure. It means we have not succeeded yet.
This article serves as a good reminder to us that training spiritually is not to be neglected. Time is not in our hands to control. Our mind must be ready when the time comes for us to leave this world.
Thank you Rinpoche once again for your continuous teachings.
With folded hands _/\_
Caryn
Dear Rinpoche,
This is an important reminder to me. To remember it is my choice in many events to choose where I want to be and what I want to be, no one force me to, thus there is no victim card to play. No complaint, no blaming. I have to finish the training no matter what situation I have to face if I want to be success. The fundamental of training is to move ourselves from comfort zone, to destroy the perception we have and to accept and move on.
In this video, I have learned that we need to work as team if we want something big to be success, encourage our team members and not giving up on anyone. Team members might seem weak, but, with the heart to achieve same goal together, the team could be strong. And; if I want to be a trainer myself, I must first be committed and know the stuff that I wanted people to be trained for.
If we are not committed in our training, it is very hard for us to get the result. Instead of being capable in complaining the trainer, we should remember that we are the one asking for the training and at the very first place, we believe that we can be train under the trainer. He or she will not become trainer if he or she does not understand their stuffs. If we are that capable, we should be the trainer already. Whether we are ready for training is all up to how much we willing to give up our comfort zone, willing to be cooperative, is our responsible and our choice, while we need to think time is not in our favor.
Death is an experience that every being have to go through. Rinpoche is kind to show us the path and prepare us for the journey, all we need is just followed, just take the training, at least when the time come we are well trained.
One of the key words of spiritual training – Consistency.
Thank you Rinpoche for this article.
With folded hand,
Freon
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing.
Consistency ,determination, never give up and keep changing for better as we are all not prefect. We need all these inorder for us to transform whether in daily life or in dharma.
Thank you Rinpoche for this most powerful and impactful teaching.
The Navy Seal Training Program is indeed a tough one and sterling qualities are required to face the challenges of a training that seem to expose participants to much physical and mental ‘abuse’.Yet the course is optional and when completed benefits you for just this lifetime, though it develops qualities that will enable you to be tough enough to weather the many vicissitudes of life.
What is not optional, but a necessity, is our spiritual training in the Dharma under an experienced, highly qualified and deeply committed trainer, our Guru.This training is not optional unless we let our ego and attachment to our comfort zone rule over us and opt to remain in samsara and in suffering, lifetime after lifetime. Success in this training program will only be achieved, if we can let go of our ego and delusions and negative projections, and accept and endure all the hardship that is inevitable in this training program. Hence, this is a tough training program because of our tough minds.
If we look at it in the right perpective, we will see our ego, self-cherishing , wrong view and projections as having been habituated in us over lifetimes. We can unlearn and rehabituate our minds with all the qualities for enlightenment and liberation. We have only this rare and precious opportunity of having our Guru with us this ONCE.How many more lifetimes must we wait for this to happen again, like a blind turtle coming to the ocean’s surface and fitting its neck into an ever-moving yoke?
Hence, like MIlarepa, who had such a deep yearning for the Guru to teach him the precious Dharma to tame his mind, that he was willing to endure so much backbreaking hardship and suffering for this – having to build and rebuild his Guru’s house thirteen times – we too must have a deep longing and steel like determination to be fully trained in the Dharma.
“The harder the training seems to be is a clear indication to ourselves of how far behind we are” thanks Tsem Rinpoche for the wake up call!Now is the time! Wish Rinpoche long life & keep turning the wheel.of dharma
Yes training shouldn’t be optional, especially in this case which one is being trained to be a “Bodhisattva”. If one wants results one must go all out for it at all costs! One mus be just as committed as one’s own trainer. Yes, one is committed to the training in becoming a Bodhisattva, a Buddha! The results of success in the spiritual sense is for lifetimes in perpetuality. Such happiness that many tried to seek and desire to have comes from the “mind”! Therefore, one must truly identify the nature of the mind, and the process by which one can seriously train the mind to transform it. As a mater of fact, “transformation of the mind” can be brought about only by the mind. Pain, pleasure and sufferings are dependent on their own causes and conditions. Therefore, it is important to identify the negativity aspect of the mind which, when given rise to sufferings whether it is able to overcome them. Similarly if one can confidently improve the positive aspects of the mind to be able to overcome them then can one possibly bring about happiness in transferring the awakening mind! Lord Buddha, piloting the ship of love and the “awakening mind” leads sentient beings towards Enlightenment. He too, was once an ordinary human being like ourselves, but due to the force of compassion, He trained in the path and was able to transform his mind and achieved final Enlightenment. It was compassion that motivated him to achieve such a state, and it was also compassion that induced him to teach others according to their different interest and dispositions. Yes Rinpoche knows and has compassionately advised us all by saying, “Training is hard. But do it. You are worth it. Do it long term and never give up. The more we put it off, the more old age, sickness, inabilities, grasping, Karma, habits,and peers will creep in to ‘confirm’ we cannot do it”. Lord Buddha is our classic example of a fully trained being, who was like us before! Thank you so much Rinpoche for the caring and sharing.
In countries where there is national service, training of the nation’s youth is not optional. Every young man and sometimes young woman has to go for training unless there is a good reason to be exempted. Corporate and government agencies send their staff for motivational courses that are like boot camps to train them in leadership skills and teamwork. I’ve been to one of these motivational courses and although it was not as tough as military training, I learned at least to be a good team player. I think spiritual training is even harder and people drop out, just like in the secular world, when they cannot stand the hardships they are being put through. It also takes longer to train up someone on the spiritual path. One Zen master told his disciple that he needed to study for 30 years! So it’s really not easy. But I do agree with Rinpoche that one must not quit. Even if it takes many lifetimes, one must finish the training. Why? Because training to leave samsara is the best thing one could do for oneself.
Training should not be optional, since training is something that make us better, in fact, since child, everything we learn and do, its all about training, if we give up our training so easily, then we wont be where we are today.
Even being lazy, being selfish, being jealous, or any other negative or positive qualities, we all have trained about it, it took us lifetime after lifetime to train ourselves to reach this state of qualities, but now, we need to retrain ourselves to be a better person, it take a lot of effort, it is not easy, but well, initially when we train ourselves to be today, it also took a lot of time and effort to reach what we are today, so training should not be optional or selective.
People who always talk bad about other person, they always encourage others to fail together with them, they always encourage them to give up easily when meet difficulties, because they want accompany so that they don’t feel bad about failing or giving up. They like to gang up with the same liked people, they are very buddy and very ‘close’ to each other because they share the same view and same motivation – fail. But within this buddy group, if someone has problem and needed help, the others won’t help, because helping that person need a lot of effort and time, hence, they will stay away and not help.
We felt suffer when we going thru difficult training to be a better person. But we will also suffer a lot if we give up, because we will lose the strength to fight all future difficulties, and when we get together with the ‘wrong’ friends, we will suffered a lot too because they won’t help or probably don’t even care. That’s why we need to choose the right friend and make the right decision or what do we want in life.
Training is most important to achieve ones goal. For mind transformations in spiritual practice Rinpoche has recommended death meditation to stay focussed on the high goal which one has set to oneself. We are easily swept away by our habituations but to meditate on death and remember that nothing is permanent will help us to not dwell in distractions and negative emotions.
All training involves physical and mental endurance to achieve the goal. But the majority of people is unable to make the cut for many reasons as mentioned by Rinpoche. Spiritual training is more arduous because the goal is enlightenment but most of us gave up before the training starts or after the training started. Maybe it is because we do not believe there is a continuation of life after this one and thus we do not want to invest the time into the training but just wanting to live life with whatever time we have left. Yet we always forget or refuse to accept that our life could end any minute.
I have witnessed people come and go in Kechara but there are many who are still here, wanting to improve and change our present lives for the better. There are still many things to learn and put into practice, and while the journey is long, we have to plod on, for the reward is priceless
I see Navy Seal training sucesser are able facing all the challenge physical and mental training, as result they can face all type of difficulty in life. In reality of life, not everyone can be at navy seal training, I felt spiritual training are more attracting simple because spirutual is about mind training. When we have strong mind and open mind. We able to face all the challenge and toughness in our life. This is very important. Without mind transformation, we can’t even change ourselve instate and saving others. I am glad to meet the precious guru and dharma and gain more knowledge to strangten my mind facing all type obstacle.
The only and true ENEMY in our lives is OURSELVES.
Laziness, Jealousy, Hatred, EGO, selfishness, greediness and a never ending list of negative qualities.
Since the day when we are borned, everyone of us has been put in to a small box which fill with concepts on how a living should be, study hard, get a job, find an intimate partner, build a family, see our children living fine, and die with a good funeral ceremony. This is LIFE?
Life is more than what were mentioned, being alive should be caring about others, helping all sentient beings who are in need and be a better person. This is LIFE!
There is 2 important question to ask ourselves..
What we want in life and will it really make us happy?
I think apart from being consistent, tenacity and perseverance also contributes a lot into determining ones success or failure. Being able to be trained on these qualities are for sure lucky in others eyes but you would not truly understand it until you actually joined one yourself but then again it is ultimately it is important to have these qualities embedded into us in order to be successful in whatever we do. The worst to do for me will be giving up halfway or doing things halfheartedly. I would rather not have started in this case rather than its half way done.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this video and this article. The video is so inspiring! Those who are qualified to join the NAVY SEAL training are usually the best of where they came from. For example, they’ll choose the best from army, special force, maybe police force etc, to join the tough training, and from the training, they pick the best of the best. Yes, whatever we do, we shouldn’t give up half way. Same apply to our life. No matter how tough the situation is, we should face it with clear and stable mind and emotion, if we’re spiritual, we seek for protector and Buddha blessing, stay firm and tough until the situation over. Navy Seal is physical and mental training. But the toughness we face in our life is mind training. I came across that situation, that’s how I became Buddhist and join Kechara. Of course, I did seek a lot of blessing and protection from our protector. Just like Rinpoche said, physical training is tough, but when we’re gone, all the tough body will leave behind. But mind training, when we’re gone, we’ll bring along with us. It follows us life after life, rebirth after rebirth. We should keep training our mind, don’t give up, until it transform. _/\_
When I’m reading this article, my first thought was, it should be the program that I had joined few years back like training in partnership or teambuilding. Well, my guess was partly right and I think my previous training is only the basic. This training is real intensive, challenging and is about our mind mentality training especially when we are in very uncomfortable situation and how we train our mind to adept to it.
As we know, nothing comes easy into this world. We need to work hard in order to earn a living. But in samsara, everything will never go right. We are too attached with our desire which is the root of our afflicted emotion caused lots miseries. Then our habituation formed.
To break our old bad habits, lots of courage to input and most importantly our determination. To change is tough but not to change is even more tougher. Like words “when going gets tough, the tough gets going.” I always remind myself, suffering make you learn, suffering make you grow.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this powerful information to me and teach me to be a better person.
“I f I have learning anything in my time of travelling the world, it is the power of hope. One person can change the world by giving people hope” The speech was so inspire and move me.
This article is a wakeup call for the rest of my life. It taught me that our life is already a training course, sometime we think we can quick from one place to another place, but the actual fact is we are still in the same circle because this is life ,and we will still back to the same of us and facing the same problem until we changed ourselves. Quit does not solve our problem, but stay on and go through and changed ourselves will make us less suffer. The video and article can be watch & read it always. Thank you for Rinpoche’s teaching.
From young till now, my dad would always remind me not so do things halfheartedly or half past six. Always be passionate and go all the way with what I want to do. He instilled this wonderful kind thoughts in me and now he does this to my children as well. And another important lesson he taught me, is never procrastinate as it is very damaging for myself and others if there are any. Don’t always justify and give more excuses not to do it.
And now I am blessed to have Rinpoche teach the same values so that we can better ourselves and continue to do so. To have an able body and wasting it all on samsaric pleasures is just a waste. At the time of death, it will not help me and worse, makes me suffer more. Like what the man said in the video is so true, one task at a time, do it and complete it. Better than not doing anything at all.
We have heard a lot of time people say that they want to make a change for good. Every single move we take to make the change need courage and consistency. I heard this from my coach during school time and now I heard this from my Guru. Be it samsara or spiritual it the key for success is the same but in spiritual the benefits is not just for this life but life after life.
I like what mentioned in the article that “When you fail, you don’t escape but in actuality you stay exactly where you are. If where you are was fine, why did you enter the training in the first place? Dharma training is tough. Any training is tough.”
When we fail the key is to make it up because we stay exactly where we are and we still able to make it if we continue to take the challenge. If we want to make a different we have to take the step to make the different and no one can take the step for us.
Time never on our side and it’s crucial to prepare ourselves before the time comes through the spiritual practice which is the ultimate training that will bring ultimate result for our lives.
This article reminds me of how, in general, people understand the need to have a strong and fit psychic body but rarely willing to take action to go through the training. Let alone Dharma training of the mind which is much more tougher. Because our habituation has conditioned us to perceive and think a certain way, and the need to unlearn and relearn is not part of our program.
To me, understanding the need to be trained and having the courage to go through the training is a process in itself. The mind has to be conditioned to understand the need of the training which is to eliminate the “i” and the importance of the training which is to speed up the journey of crossing the ocean of samsara.
Most importantly, we must recognize it is very rare for us to be in a perfect human condition, meet the dharma and the perfect Guru, therefore, we must not imagine that we have time by thinking there will always be tomorrow. Actually this is the conversation in my mind sometimes… lol.
Thank you, Rinpoche, for this article.
Reading this again, I realize this message stood out to me most “Making the bed in the morning also reinforces that the little things matter. If you cannot do the little things right, you can never do the big things right.” Having used to doing the big(ger) things, I now realized actually small things matter, even more so. Thank you for thi profound sharing.
There is an old saying in Chinese. If we are born into a family of wealth and live life comfortably when young, one may suffer dire consequences later in older years without wealth for it may have been squandered away. If we are born into a family of poverty, we may look forward to better living in older years and bear the fruit of earlier sufferings. And this is the “truth” of Buddha’s words too. However, its still not too late to change that if one realize it at some point in life that “spiritual” training brings lasting hope and happiness for now and future.
Thank you Rinpoche for your precious teachings and for sharing such an inspiring video. People around us play a very important part in our lives. If we are around people who are negative and discouraging we tend to be influenced by them. I am so fortunate to have found people who are positive, encouraging and who hold Dharma close to their hearts. With these people around me and the inspiring teachings I receive from Rinpoche I am slowly but surely embarking on the right path to Dharma.
As humans we do have our weaknesses and tendency to procrastinate. But each time I read Rinpoche’s blog and receive his teachings it never fails to motivate me and get me on the right path again. I will always hold Rinpoche’s teachings close to my heart as it is a guiding light for me.
With folded palms,
Esther
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you again for this teaching and wake up call.
These teachings and messages are continuously urging us to start our Dharma training NOW and do not quit for our future lives. No other trainings can prepare us except for Dharma.
Time and again, we have wasted our time and procrastinated on starting our Dharma journey with intensity, commitment, consistency, and pushing ourselves to break our minds.
Your teaching here makes us really examine our own minds on what reasons and/ or excuses not to start or to give up our Dharma practice.
It’s really a time to critically re-examine ourselves and our mind – what do we want to do?
Thank you.
Humbly yours
Lum Kok Luen
I would imagine myself trying to paddle across a raging river to get to the opposite bank. Would I want equally motivated people in my vicinity, in my boat, paddling? Would I try to take some photos at the same time? Would I have done some preparation beforehand? Would I have improved my chances by ensuring better conditions? Would I stop paddling halfway through? Would I get the help or instructions from someone who had already made the crossing? Would I train given that I know I have to make it across? I think we know the answers to these questions. By putting them to action, we will ensure a safe and swift crossing. Thank you Rinpoche for the advice and reason.
There are many who realized being trained to learn something can only benefit them, and not giving up is a good thing as by completing the training we can go to the next level. This applies to daily life also, if doctors quit medical school or their housemanship then they will not become a full fledged doctor.
There is even less people who are thinking training to be good human beings, and even less training to prepare for the last act of this life, dying a good death. For the people who can understand training for a good death, they are very fortunate and have the condition to realize that before actual death. Like anything else in life training in something will make you better at it.
Thank You Rinpoche for sharing such precious teaching and inspiring video clip to us. I would like to take opportunity to Thanks Pastor Shin for sending me a reminder of this article through Facebook message.
This article is very inspiring to me and I do agree with it entirely, not even a single doubt. Like what described in The Wheel of Sharp Weapon; all karma or tragedy in our lives was created by ourselves. Dharma teaches us to understand it, accept it and prepare for it. To me, Ignorance is worst poison of three poisons (Thanks Datuk May, she pointed out to me in one of blog chat sessions which I joined a few years back). It blind to see the real truth and continue indulging in the temporary “comfort zone”. Our short-slightness always lead us to wrong perception and ignore the Dharma teaching and practice; I should say we are keen to find easy way out. Then we are always keen to convince ourselves by influencing others to follow the same wrong path. Sadly, a lot of us do not realize that we convicts even heavier negative karma by doing this way.
We should hold our breath to take up the tough training to transform. Transformation process is tough and exhausting but it is worth of effort. It is tough as we are changing our many past lives habituation in this life. It is definitely painful but it is swift path. I like Kensure Jampa Yeshe Rinpoche said “The truth is living a life of just enjoyments will use up the karma that supported it”. We are over withdrawing our good karma from karma bank especially when we are in comfort zone. It is extremely dangerous as we do not want this will lead us to next life. Some of us tried to away to know the truth such as like ostrich putting its head in the hole on the ground; we are afraid to face the truth.
It is time to face the truth and engage in Dharma drill. I think the prerequisite is Guru Devotion for this type of extremely tough training. Hence, Tibetan Buddhism is emphasizing for Guru Devotion； it is seed of the teaching.
Let us seize our golden opportunity to follow Guru’s instruction for transformation. The experience might not be pleasant but it is definitely worth it.
When we resisted the training knowing the trainer is well-trained and what we have signed up for in spirituality, it is a clear sign that we do not accept how difficult our mind is. We sign up for the training assuming our mind is in better condition compared to others. This assumption gets challenged very quickly.
As we go along the training, we are being confronted with the blatant and honest truth about ourselves, what we think we are is actually completely different in most cases than what we really are. It may be shocking for some, and even if we are prepared for it, it may still come across ugly and unacceptable. The truth is what we cannot accept is the same ugliness we see in others most of the time. We actually hate what we see in others as a reflection of who we are.
So it all comes back to us facing the reality of who we are, actually more like where we are, because these bad threads are not permanent and can be eliminated with training that is meant to develop and strengthen who we really are. Who we really are is a person with good qualities that were temporary suppressed due to bad experiences.
I believe we know that and thus we choose to be in the training. When the choice is made, whether it was made consciously or unconsciously, we should not fear to fail, because failing is not the issue; not getting up and trying again, and persist at it until we are successful is. The training becomes easier as we try and when we get the hang of it but it also gets tough when it reaches a core for a bigger breakthrough to take place. Just like how it can be difficult to shed 10 of kilos at the beginning of our diet where what we lost was just water but it becomes more difficult when we have that few pieces of muscles left to be built.
In the end, the choice is still with us, to continue and be fit eventually, or to get back to our old habits and feeling bitter at others success.
This reminds me of another video I saw that talks about what makes people succeed. What motivates them to go the extra mile in order to succeed and be lights years away from the competition. The answer that came back was grit and that quality that was just simply called grit. It is the one quality that makes you bounce back after you have been utterly defeated and that makes you pick up the pieces and learn to not repeat the same mistake.
I don’t professed to have a lot of grit but I guess, through self-learnt ideas, I just carry on and try to do better. Whatever we do or wherever we go, there will always be issue that will crop up from time to time. We should be surprised if things work and when things don’t work is when we apply effort to change the situation we are in. No matter how bad the situation is and how hard it gets, we should never blame others and what rinpoche said is true, we always have a part to play because we chose it. We stayed and pull it through, success is all ours
To succeed in any training or to say the least, whether we complete the training is a matter of our goals and what we wish to achieve in life.
Once the goals of our lives are set, we go on the journey of reaching the end. Will we come out first in our trainings is not really that important. The importance is to complete the training.
As always trainings are tough either spiritual or non-spiritual, either of the body or the mind. It is the workings dependently on all the elements of the mind and physical beings that make the training complete.
Rinpoche has always taught us never to quit, just do it, is the most impactful learning I have and with that I also learnt that to fail is acceptable as long as I went all the way.
Thank you, Rinpoche.
Thank you Rinpoche for this article and I would say the bigger the goal, the harder we need to train with unwavering commitment. Training for spiritual attainments should actually be easier and welcomed as it brings us towards the ultimate goal which is Enlightenment. Its just the transformation of our minds in selfless compassion and wisdom, without even having to involve physical pain. Yet in reality it is the hardest to achieve due to the years of selfish habituation and the lifetimes of negative karma that reinforces the “Self”. It is in understanding the Dharma as taught by Buddha through our Guru that this “Self” is the very reason for our sufferings and we need to apply the exact opposite as remedy. Suddenly we realise we are not the centre of the Universe and start to flounder in the many layers of compassion and kindness until the day we gained the merits to have true wisdom. However, to not train towards Enlightenment means forever suffering in samsara and worse, the “Self” gets stronger and harder to overcome.
I would like to humbly add that in training, we should never forget the importance of a good Trainer who would invest so much of himself to help his students achieve the ultimate goal. In Dharma, this Trainer would be our precious Guru who committed his whole life to the Dharma and to spreading the practices that are salvation to our sufferance. In our Guru, we can see the enlightened result of the training and to be our inspirational strive to achieve the same. When we have met with such a selfless Trainer and seen the results, it would be foolish to give up when knowing the “pain” is temporal.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this article. Sometimes when a person quits something it is because they are afraid of failure or scared they lose face. All these are due to self ego. When in Dharma, we must not be afraid to make mistakes and learn. After a few times of mistakes we will realize that there are no more mistakes because we have mastered it. If we are afraid of failures and difficulties, then how are we going to achive enlightenment. Buddha never told us that the path to enlightenment is easy. Buddha himself also walked the path for us to see that although it is difficult but it is achievable.
With folded palms,
Vivian
After reading the article, I learned that even though we quit our training due to some other reason yet we can still continue our spiritual training again so long as we don’t give up. Consistency is the key to attainment. Training is not easy. ” You fool no one but yourself.”-this statement teaches me that we need to be true to ourselves. A wonderful article thank you.
Thank you Rinpoche for this article. It is a great reminder of what it takes to succeed in life both secularly and spiritually. The formula to succeed is spoken and written many times from people from all walks of life. Although most people I’ve met claim that they want to succeed, I noticed that the deeper underligning issue is that they are afraid of succeeding. This is because succeeding requires the person to stay outside of their comfort zone.
It all makes perfect sense to invest our time in preparing for our death and future lives. It’s just like buying an insurance policy to prepare for future mishaps. When we are aware of this and study more, we make better choices in life.
Regards,
JP
I agree with what Rinpoche says in this article. As i grew up with a beloved grandmother who was a very strong and tough lady who always motivated us to face challenges and fears in life and get out of our comfort zone to succeed. I have experienced with a few close dharma friends who are even afraid to commit to doing dharma social media,and when they do…they said it’s not easy and have to use their brains! Lol!!!. I started not actually knowing what or how to go about this eventhough I have been doing dharma postings on FB for a very long time. But as time passes by, I found it has become a routine job, and very fun and enjoyable.
I believe that if we always motivate ourselves and tell ourselves we can do it, we can actually succeed. And in my humble opinion, it is however very self damaging if we keep telling oursevles we cannot when we have not even tried. We are feeding ourselves with negative self talk. Thank you very much Rinpoche and writers for this motivational video and write up. And last but not least, I noticed Rinpoche’s updated quotes are able to motivate more people to practice and do dharma,as people lacks motivation to do so. Please try to keep up with them. Thank you very much. _/\_
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for sharing with us the very inspirational video, which is so easily relatable followed by your spiritual advice for our well-being. As usual, Rinpoche finds skilful ways to present the truth (dharma) in hopes to help us before time is really up.
If we can put ourselves through such drills to train to be a soldier to give up our lives and also to take away the lives of others in the name of politics, then why can we not do it for the sake of our own future lives and for what we believe in or the people we so called “love”?Shouldn’t our spiritual training be even more important? What Rinpoche mentioned below really struck a cord on an untrained mind entering the bardo, which is like most of us…
“Not studying a map prior to reaching a fork in the road, can lead you to the wrong direction. Not preparing spiritually and fool-heartedly engaged in only samsaric pursuits will bear its frightening consequences now.”
This is true and we certainly do not meditate on this enough. It made me realise that is the whole point of us/me being in Dharma. Let’s be honest and let’s face it, at the end of the day what do we want to achieve for being in dharma? Being an enlightened being, a Buddha is what we always pray for and make aspirational prayers, but if we cannot even know which direction to pick when we reach that fork, how to become a Buddha? So let’s be practical and get one thing at a time done and to do it consistently as Rinpoche had mentioned. The video also made it clear that “the little things we do daily matters” and we should never take anything for granted especially the “little things”. “If you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right” was one of the good points that stuck out to me. Hence, this is why Rinpoche always train us to pay attention to every single minute detail as much as we can. I guess in the Bardo there are no second chances, no “I’m sorry I took the wrong turn”, no “I change my mind” or “I wanna quit”.
Quitting and giving is just basically giving up on ourselves, no one else is to blame, no one else will suffer the consequences anyway. And in the army, the drilling is far worst I believe, the video has given me another perspective of looking at things on the other side. We have to have HOPE, for without hope all is lost. And at the end of the day, do we want to be a winner or a quitter? It is as simple as that. So before we want and wish to “change the world” we need to change ourselves first and every action that we do from here on in will determine our results tomorrow. In a nutshell, this quote from Rinpoche which I coincidentally spotted before reading the article or watching the video, sums it all up very well.
Thank you Rinpoche for this heartfelt advice ?
Dear Rinpoche,
The other day when Moderator Joy was asking about which criteria that we personally think is most important when we start Vajrayogini practice (Saturday chat : Blogpost on Starting on Vajrayogini), I actually have given the answer ? never give up. I’ve even went on to say that we can have the best Guru or best teachings, but what’s the point when we give up? I have seen those who deemed being loyal to Guru but in a split second, they just turned away. As if nothing has happened. Perhaps it’s the accumulated habituations and karma, I tried not to judge but the lesson I’ve learnt from this is – not giving up. Always think back why I’ve entered Dharma in the first place, why I wanted to make connection with Guru and etc. I’ve read account of masters who have treated the students in most peculiar ways and yet they achieved more. This is the reason why I always listen back to the teachings given by Rinpoche and other masters. To find back that reason and passion, and don’t let it slip away.
The above video reminds me of those Chinese acrobats, they took years of hardship to be who they are now. From young, how many tears were flowing down their cheeks and hardship that they have to endured. Then, how about Dharma?
Thank you Rinpoche keeping us updated on Rinpoche’s view. It helps me to perceive things or problems in a correct manner rather than indulging in small thoughts that could eventually harms oneself or others.
Dear Jacinta Goh,
People will spend decades to invest/learn/perfect something they will use for this short time then death. They invest no learning, training or practice to prepare for death, bardo and future lives. This is very ‘dangerous’ because future lives are more than this one short life. If you are going to live in Malaysia permanently and stay in England for a few years, it is better to build the better house and land here long term rather than the better place in England for example.. If you are going to stay in Malaysia long term, better invest here, build here, prepare here and prepare more extensively to settle here instead of spending time/energy/money for building in England.. Life is so short yet many can spend decades or so many years on something beneficial for this life only. I find that a waste. Therefore it is best to invest half our ‘busy’ time in dharma, dharma works and dharma attainments to compromise with our personal samsara. That is best. And be very diligent and consistent on it. 🙂 Thank you so much. Tsem Rinpoche