Phurpa Tashi Rinpoche
We are completely responsible for what happens to us in the future. No one else can help us. If you do not think about this today and start making the necessary preparations, a time will come soon when your cries for help will fall on deaf ears. You will know true desperation then. It is better to think of it now and do whatever is necessary, before it happens.
When we look at what practitioners are doing nowadays —some say they want to make pilgrimage to a holy mountain; some are attending pujas and empowerments all the time; some are learning a lot of theories and texts; some are giving offerings for building monasteries and Buddha statues etc. Yet when I ask myself what I am really looking for, it is not these.
Since I started practicing Dharma, my aim has been to attain liberation. Is liberation to be found at some place or location? No, it is not found anywhere else other than in one’s own mind. To purify one’s mind, there are many methods to create virtue, but if we were to look for a more direct method than meditation, I think we will not find it.
Therefore, Longchenpa once said in the “Clear Mirror of Essential Points” that “there are countless levels of teachings, many Dharma methods for entering the path and many teachings with vast meanings, yet if one fails to grasp the essence of the ultimate meaning, even if one knows a hundred thousand Dharmas, there will not be real benefit at death.”
If one is not able to encapsulate all the teachings into a single point and practice it, even if you read countless books, comprehend endless knowledge and create limitless virtues, I think it is not quite possible for you to attain liberation in this life.
When I think of this, I feel even more convinced that I must accomplish this single point. Because what will happen to every one of us in the future is not some fairy tale, we know that fairy tales are unreal and fabricated, but death is certain to happen to us. I am sure many of us have seen others pass away. How much suffering did these people go through when they died? Put yourself in their place, what would you do then?
