HOW to be HAPPY
- Thread starter JUPITERASC
- Start date
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
.
The spear of mindfulness ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
https://justdharma.com/qgbqk
Alas for people in this age of residues!
The mind’s wholesome core of truth has withered, and people live deceitfully,
So their thoughts are warped, their speech is twisted,
They cunningly mislead others—who can trust them?
In the golden age, the age of perfection, there was no need for sunlight or moonlight, for beings radiated light from their own bodies. They could move miraculously through space, and they lived without needing any solid food.
All creatures naturally abided by the ten virtues. But, as time passed, they began to harm each other, to be ruled by their desires, to steal, and to lie. They lost their natural radiance and had to depend on sun and moon for light; they lost their ability to fly; they began to need solid nourishment, and when eventually the spontaneous harvest and the bountiful cow disappeared, they had to toil to produce their food.
Now in our present epoch, all that remains of the qualities of the golden age are residues, like the unappealing left-over scraps of a sumptuous feast. Anyone with eyes of wisdom seeing the miserable condition of people in this decadent age cannot help but feel great compassion.
In this age of conflict people are ill intentioned and full of deceit. They put themselves first and disregard the needs of others. Whoever flatters them they regard as a friend; whoever contradicts or opposes them they see as an enemy.
As these attitudes gradually distort all their actions, words, and thoughts, people become more and more warped and twisted, like crooked old trees, until finally their mentality degenerates so far that any notion of right and wrong is completely lost.
We are in an age when anger, craving, ambition, stupidity, pride, and jealousy are the rule of the day. It is an age when the sun of Dharma is already sinking behind the shoulders of the western mountains, when most of the great teachers have left for other realms, when practitioners go astray in their meditation, and when neither lay people nor the ordained act according to the Dharma.
People may obtain some transient advantage from the misguided values of these times, but ultimately they are cheating no one but themselves.
The poisonous emotions that saturate people’s minds in this dark era are the principal cause of their wandering in the endless cycle of saṃsāra. To deal with those emotions we need to keep a constant vigilance, following the example of the Kadampa masters, who used to say:
I will hold the spear of mindfulness at the gate of the mind,
And when the emotions threaten,
I, too, will threaten them;
When they relax their grip, only then will I relax mine.
– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
from the book "The Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones"
.
The spear of mindfulness ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
https://justdharma.com/qgbqk
Alas for people in this age of residues!
The mind’s wholesome core of truth has withered, and people live deceitfully,
So their thoughts are warped, their speech is twisted,
They cunningly mislead others—who can trust them?
In the golden age, the age of perfection, there was no need for sunlight or moonlight, for beings radiated light from their own bodies. They could move miraculously through space, and they lived without needing any solid food.
All creatures naturally abided by the ten virtues. But, as time passed, they began to harm each other, to be ruled by their desires, to steal, and to lie. They lost their natural radiance and had to depend on sun and moon for light; they lost their ability to fly; they began to need solid nourishment, and when eventually the spontaneous harvest and the bountiful cow disappeared, they had to toil to produce their food.
Now in our present epoch, all that remains of the qualities of the golden age are residues, like the unappealing left-over scraps of a sumptuous feast. Anyone with eyes of wisdom seeing the miserable condition of people in this decadent age cannot help but feel great compassion.
In this age of conflict people are ill intentioned and full of deceit. They put themselves first and disregard the needs of others. Whoever flatters them they regard as a friend; whoever contradicts or opposes them they see as an enemy.
As these attitudes gradually distort all their actions, words, and thoughts, people become more and more warped and twisted, like crooked old trees, until finally their mentality degenerates so far that any notion of right and wrong is completely lost.
We are in an age when anger, craving, ambition, stupidity, pride, and jealousy are the rule of the day. It is an age when the sun of Dharma is already sinking behind the shoulders of the western mountains, when most of the great teachers have left for other realms, when practitioners go astray in their meditation, and when neither lay people nor the ordained act according to the Dharma.
People may obtain some transient advantage from the misguided values of these times, but ultimately they are cheating no one but themselves.
The poisonous emotions that saturate people’s minds in this dark era are the principal cause of their wandering in the endless cycle of saṃsāra. To deal with those emotions we need to keep a constant vigilance, following the example of the Kadampa masters, who used to say:
I will hold the spear of mindfulness at the gate of the mind,
And when the emotions threaten,
I, too, will threaten them;
When they relax their grip, only then will I relax mine.
– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
from the book "The Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones"
.
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
.
If ego clinging, grasping onto samsara, and desire are what cause us suffering, then what of our desire for a spiritual awakening? What part of us is desiring to go towards that? And you were talking about being in a human incarnation, that we have an ego, we all have egos and we'll always have an ego. It was a little disappointing to hear that. [laughter] On the path to awakening, what can one expect?
H.E. Tai Situ Rinpoche: "You have brought up two things that are always a little painful. [laughter] I don't mean to be pessimistic or negative or anything, that is the last thing I would like to be. I didn't say human, but sentient beings, all sentient beings. The ego does not mean the ego pride only. Ego means "I." So long as we are in samsara, we have the ego. That is the definition of samsara. It doesn't mean we have to have an ego, but we do have an ego; though ultimately, we don't have an ego, relatively we have one. So maybe that will make you happy. Ultimately, you have never had an ego up to now. And you will never have one; even if you work very hard to get one, you will not manage to have an ego ultimately. So, it is just relative.
Now, your first question, if I understood it correctly, is how we have the desire to be enlightened despite our ego-clinging. Okay, I think that is a paradox. Why we wish to be enlightened is because, on a relative level, we are not enlightened. Relatively we are not limitless, we have all kinds of limitations. Relatively we are in samsara, we have all kinds of sufferings. Therefore, we wish to be free from suffering, we wish to overcome all the limitations, and we wish to be unburdened from our bondage to samsara. So that is our aspiration and our inspiration, to be enlightened. It is a form of attachment. It is a desire, but a holy and sacred one. So that is how we begin.
But, of course, as long as we have the desire to be enlightened, we will not be enlightened. Therefore, you see, the definition of final realization is overcoming the desire for enlightenment. So, until you are enlightened, you will have some desire for enlightenment, even if it is very slight, and you will have some ego, even if it is the most microscopic. You will have the last drop of it right up to the moment of enlightenment, so that your ego becomes thinner and thinner and is eventually transformed so that the last trace of it will vanish during the final realization. So, it depends on the individual."
H.E. Chamgon Kenting Tai Situ Rinpoche
http://tsurphu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=115:questions-answers&catid=37&Itemid=162&lang=en
If ego clinging, grasping onto samsara, and desire are what cause us suffering, then what of our desire for a spiritual awakening? What part of us is desiring to go towards that? And you were talking about being in a human incarnation, that we have an ego, we all have egos and we'll always have an ego. It was a little disappointing to hear that. [laughter] On the path to awakening, what can one expect?
H.E. Tai Situ Rinpoche: "You have brought up two things that are always a little painful. [laughter] I don't mean to be pessimistic or negative or anything, that is the last thing I would like to be. I didn't say human, but sentient beings, all sentient beings. The ego does not mean the ego pride only. Ego means "I." So long as we are in samsara, we have the ego. That is the definition of samsara. It doesn't mean we have to have an ego, but we do have an ego; though ultimately, we don't have an ego, relatively we have one. So maybe that will make you happy. Ultimately, you have never had an ego up to now. And you will never have one; even if you work very hard to get one, you will not manage to have an ego ultimately. So, it is just relative.
Now, your first question, if I understood it correctly, is how we have the desire to be enlightened despite our ego-clinging. Okay, I think that is a paradox. Why we wish to be enlightened is because, on a relative level, we are not enlightened. Relatively we are not limitless, we have all kinds of limitations. Relatively we are in samsara, we have all kinds of sufferings. Therefore, we wish to be free from suffering, we wish to overcome all the limitations, and we wish to be unburdened from our bondage to samsara. So that is our aspiration and our inspiration, to be enlightened. It is a form of attachment. It is a desire, but a holy and sacred one. So that is how we begin.
But, of course, as long as we have the desire to be enlightened, we will not be enlightened. Therefore, you see, the definition of final realization is overcoming the desire for enlightenment. So, until you are enlightened, you will have some desire for enlightenment, even if it is very slight, and you will have some ego, even if it is the most microscopic. You will have the last drop of it right up to the moment of enlightenment, so that your ego becomes thinner and thinner and is eventually transformed so that the last trace of it will vanish during the final realization. So, it depends on the individual."
H.E. Chamgon Kenting Tai Situ Rinpoche
http://tsurphu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=115:questions-answers&catid=37&Itemid=162&lang=en
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member
JUPITERASC
Well-known member