Question： What is the most crucial factor that determines the success or failure of one’s practice?
Khenpo Chime Rigzin:
I would like to answer your question by basing it upon what I have read and understood of the biographies of past masters and pith instructions.
Throughout history, there have been many people who are very educated and knowledgeable but did not succeed in their practice.
There are also many practitioners who observed the precepts purely but did not reach complete realization.
Likewise, there are many practitioners who created so-called “vast merits” through extensive offerings and acts of generosity, yet did not succeed in their practice.
However, I have never seen any practitioner who possesses genuine and uncontrived faith in the Guru Triple Gems failing to attain accomplishment in their practice, whether in real life or in any biography of accomplished masters.
Therefore, in my personal view, cultivating genuine, uncontrived faith in the Guru Triple Gems is, for any practitioner, the decisive factor throughout the entire path of practice. It is the single most important factor that determines the success or failure of one’s Dharma practice.
(Khenpo Chime Rigzin is a student of HH Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche and a senior Khenpo in Serthar Monastic University, supervising the education of thousands of Tibetan monastics together with Khenpo Tsultrim Lodro. Together, both of them are considered the two "eyes" of the Monastic University.)
