An excerpt from
Peaceful Mind - Compassionate Heart
by Khen Rinpoche Lobzang Tsetan
Edited by Dana Sawyer
Chapter One: The Lightning Flash
Teachings on death, impermanence and the urgency of doing practice
Spiritual practice is crucial because an entire human lifetime is as short as a lightning flash. Everything is impermanent and only death is certain. Therefore it is important to use our time meaningfully in order to transcend delusions that keep us from awakening to the fact that we can become a living Buddha.
Tsongkhapa talks about impermanence in the Three Realms of Existence: the form realm, the formless realm and the desire realm. All three, being dimensions of samsara [the realm of rebirth], are impermanent and changeable, like clouds in the sky or reflections in water. Nothing in samsara lasts forever.
Look at it this way. Human beings are born and later they die. In the future, more and more people will come. You cannot stop the process. Some are born, some die, then again more are born. It is like watching the seasons come and go. We must not just listen to this as a kind of story, but apply the meaning of it to our own practice. But what do people usually do? They think they’re going to live forever. They don’t focus on how uncertain their life is. Everything is uncertain except death. Only death is certain. They are going to die, but they never think about it.
When you die, what are you going to take with you? Are you going to take your possessions with you? Are you going to take your car with you? [laughter] Are you going to take your friends with you? Are you going to take your body with you? The answer to all these questions is no.
According to Buddhism, the only thing that goes along with you, that will follow you like a dog into the future is your karma, the effects of your past actions, both good and bad. The effects of bad actions you don’t want, but they will follow you into the next life anyway. The positive effects of good actions, good deeds, you want and you need. The point is that you may object to dying but it’s OK if you’re prepared for it. Don’t wait. Begin your spiritual practice now. Everything passes by too quickly. The summer and winter show you how all things change and how you are changing, too. If you don’t pay attention, summer seems to last a long time. But then it’s fall. You think this fall is a particularly good one, meaning that the leaves are especially beautiful. But fall is also showing you that the greenness of summer has passed by. It is showing you that you are going to pass away, too.
Our life span goes by quickly, like lightning in the sky, followed by death. The lightning appears, then quickly fades. Buddhists have a way of discerning how short one life span is; they believe that there is no beginning to time and no original creation. In other religions, there is a beginning, a creator and then the creation of life. In Buddhism, we don’t believe in an ultimate beginning. So we say that samsara has existed since “beginningless time.” When we compare one human lifespan—even if we live to be one hundred years old—to the span of the universe’s “beginningless” life we see why Buddhists say it is shorter than a brief flash of lightning. Therefore, we should think to ourselves: “I don’t have time to wait. I can’t put my spiritual practice off any longer.” If we think this way it will help us to feel the importance of every day, every precious moment. Everything in Buddhism is connected to this crucial insight.
When you understand thoroughly that life is impermanent, then you are really a practitioner. Living like a monk and dressing like a monk doesn’t make you a practitioner. Those who shut their door or live in a cave, those who don’t meet with other people, are not necessarily practicing. Physically they may be sitting there, but if mentally they are involved somewhere else, meaning they are thinking about other things or just daydreaming, they are not real practitioners. That kind of practitioner, just living in a cave, is more like a groundhog! And like a groundhog in the winter, this kind of practitioner cannot survive “outside”—in the karmic realm of action where challenges come to test our level of development. If we are not involved with the real problems of everyday life, then we are hiding from the world and from our true challenge. Living like a groundhog is not the goal. We need to remain in the world of change and action. And we must inform our physical and mental lives in this world with the insight that we are impermanent.
If you know how to practice, even if you are a householder, you can be a lama, a spiritual teacher. Lama means “teacher,” not “monk,” and so even householders can be teachers. You may be a grandfather, a grandmother, whatever. If you know how to live and practice, then you can reach enlightenment without moving to a cave or a monastery—and you can be a teacher. Tsongkhapa uses the example of the Tibetan scholar, Marpa [1012-1097], to show that anyone—even those who become involved in politics, if they do the practice, can reach enlightenment and be a teacher. In Tibet, Marpa is a good example. He went to India four or five times to bring key Buddhist teachings back to Tibet but he also had children and a wife. He was a householder but he never let the teachings slip from his mind. His focus was pure.
We may complain that the world is so uncertain—people often do—but the nature of the world is the nature of the world and it will not change just for us. But there is still hope. We can change ourselves and find peace and happiness beyond the attachments of samsara. Real studying can change our habits and teach our minds to be kind. We can try to generate compassion, try to reduce our attachments, and also our anger, jealousy, and pride.
 |
 |
|||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|