Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche
I really encourage people to put consistent effort into their practice every
day. Rejoice when you are able to do that and reprimand yourself when you are
not. You need to reprimand yourself sometimes. People may think to themselves,
“Everything is okay for me whether I do the practice every day or not. It's all
the same.”
I’m encouraging you to understand how very rare this tendrel (auspicious interdependent circumstance) is, and how profoundly favorable your situation is already. There is no need for guilt. But if you are not doing well, you're allowing the preciousness and opportunity of this life to simply go to waste. Some people adopt the attitude that they are fine whatever they do: “It doesn’t matter. I'm content. I'm beyond all this.”
This kind of attitude is like a laziness or a deep sickness in the pit of your stomach preventing you from digesting the teachings and gaining understanding and realization. If you are not going to engage, then why bother becoming a Buddhist? And if you are a Buddhist, then at least make the effort to do the best you can. Don’t just adopt a passive or convenient attitude and assume that whatever happens is fine.
When you look at the people who talk this way about the Dharma, you see they will practically jump out of their skin to accomplish mundane responsibilities and obligations in their life. But with the Dharma, there can be this sort of mahasiddhalike attitude or convenience attitude. “Whatever happens is okay. I'm fine. It doesn't matter. I'm beyond it”.
This attitude is really a sort of self-deception. No one else will be deceived. This is your own tendrel you will be ruining. It is a way of deceiving yourself and no one else.
It appears as if it’s only with the Dharma that this kind of indulgent or smug attitude is ruining your tendrel. Here you have such a wonderful opportunity to drink the nectar that will sustain you forever in eternal life. But instead, you pour this cold black liquid into your cup, then say, “It doesn't matter whether I drink this one or that one; whether I live eternally or not.” This attitude ruins one's own tendrel. It’s just so very unwise.
You must remain sharp about this. We can all find ourselves with this attitude from time to time. When you do, really talk to yourself. “Wake up, man! Wake up, woman! What's going on here? What are you doing with your life? Look at your stress! Look at your belly! Look at your gray hair! Look at your waning stamina. You’re becoming like a piece of dried-out wood. Before you become completely hopeless, change something!”
Then, make sure you rise to meet this situation. Find a way to do something differently. You have chosen this path, so you have to discover how to make it work for you. Otherwise, what have you been doing all these years if your effort won’t bear any fruit, or if you're not allowing it to bear fruit because you’ve sunk so deeply into this laziness?
Talk to yourself sternly with clear intelligence, but not with any guilt, or by being harsh or demeaning. It’s like one side of your brain communicating with the other side of the brain. We know the two sides have different functions. Bring those two together, as well as the head and the heart. Bring them together with the rest of the organs. In this way, as you synchronize all of your parts through your intention, your belly will get smaller, your gray hair may hopefully rejuvenate to black, and your dried-up skin will take on a new glow. Nothing is impossible.
We can change the entire course of our life. I recommend changing the course of your life each and every day. This occurs by appreciating the precious tendrel that’s already present here—relying on Guru Rinpoche and making sure not to waste the practices that are introduced to you.
Some people have the attitude, “Oh, these practices just happened to show up in my life.” But for others there is a recognition that, after countless lifetimes and stores of accumulated merit, this fruit has finally appeared in their life along with the opportunity to attain enlightenment within a few lifetimes.
There is nothing more precious in this whole wide world, nothing of comparable measure or value to anything else in the entire world. Even if the whole world were to turn into gold and jewels and it was all offered to you, it wouldn’t be anywhere close to being as precious as having an introduction to the teachings in these practices. What would you do with a whole world of gold and jewels anyway? You can't eat it, you can't even make much use of it. What will you do with it? Most likely, you’ll die with tremendous attachment to the gold and to the jewels that you can't even take with you from this life into the next.
Nothing can be more precious than being introduced to a path such as the Vajrayana and having it remain present in your life. Let’s think for a moment about the feeling of poverty—of feeling impoverished in your life. Feeling impoverished is a true sign of lacking a fundamental clarity in your mind. That’s all it is. Thinking that something else will work more in my favor than this Vajrayana path and the positive tendrel that takes place from it unfolding in my life, simply reveals a fundamental lack of clarity in the mind. Remembering this will be helpful at those times when we temporarily lose our way.
