WORDS OF WISDOM AUTHOR: KHENPO TSULTRIM LODRO

Why do we have to start with the smallest bit of hatred? Everything is accomplished sequentially—first the easy levels then the difficult ones. When we confront small amounts of hatred successfully, we gain confidence and are really satisfied. As the power we gather from our practices grows stronger, when we have to face more substantial degrees of hatred it will be easier to handle. On the other hand, if we tried to conquer a whole mass of hatred from the beginning, it would be easy to fail, and if we utterly failed the first time, we would then lose confidence and our interest in practicing would dwindle.

~ Luminous Wisdom Book Series 10: How to confront anger

In our lives and work, greed, hatred, and ignorance are apparent all the time and everywhere. As a beginning Mahayana Buddhism student, we are often unable to control our emotions, just like non-Buddhist people. The result is that not only are we prevented from influencing others toward enlightenment, but we also give Buddhism a bad reputation. Hatred in particular brings about the worst consequences: it destroys your roots of virtue and also gives others a bad impression about Buddhists, and even Buddhism itself.

~ Luminous Wisdom Book Series 10

In the past, according to the majority of people’s logic and their innate way of thinking, they may have thought,  “As long as I have money, I must be very happy and there is no reason to be unhappy.” Strongly advocated during the Age of Enlightenment, the West began to accept the idea that happiness does not depend on spirit, but rather on substantial things. Looking for happiness from one’s inner spirit was equated to searching for happiness in a place where it did not reside, in other words asking for the impossible.  Influenced by this culture, people shifted their developmental focus to amassing an abundance of external material wealth and its associated accoutrements.

~ Luminous Wisdom Book Series 8

It is not enough to just listen. While we are learning theories, it is more important to learn how to put these theories into practice in order to guide the next step, which is practice itself. Unlike other religions, Buddhism does not mandate that you we have to be superstitious and follow blindly; Buddhism requires its followers to  trust in wisdom.

Much of the contents in the Buddhist sutras is the irrefutable truth that withstands analysis through conclusive evidence, all of which you can ponder investigate, and realize by ourselves. Through contemplation and analysis, confidence can be strengthened. After confidence has been firmly developed, not only can we help other people, but it also brings more benefit to our own practice. Therefore, the Buddha required that we learn how to think at our best, the deeper the better. Of course, if we have sufficient confidence that the Buddha’s words are true, we may follow them faithfully without judgment or discrimination. In this case, it is fine if we do not think. But, in general, for most people it is better to establish the right view through contemplation and debate.

~ Luminous Wisdom Book Series 9: The Principles of Liberation

How can we validate the existence of causality? The Buddha once said that it is not so easy for an ordinary person to prove the existence of cause and effect, but it’s not impossible. Buddhism contains the doctrine of the dependent arising of all compounded phenomena. What is dependent arising? It means that cause begets effect. All phenomena are the manifestations of dependent arising, the results of conditioned origination. Suppose a person killed an animal. This caused great harm to that animal. How can there be no consequence for the person who committed such grave karma? Like casually throwing a seed into moist and warm soil, it will germinate on its own with no tending required. By the same token, in the phenomenal world, every cause must bear its own fruit with no exception.

~ Luminous Wisdom Book Series 1: On Cause and Effect

The existence of ignorance leads to various attachments, such as attachment to the outer world, our own bodies, fame, wealth, and so forth. When our desires are not fulfilled, we experience afflictions and suffering. To satisfy their desires, people even kill, steal, commit sexual misconduct, lie, or commit other misdeeds. All non-virtue arises from attachment, while attachment itself originates from ignorance.

~ Luminous Wisdom Book Series 10

We never believe, however, that this world is arising and ceasing momentarily but assume time runs through the past and future. We consider that getting off work and going home are two different things. We never think that the only time we have is one ten thousandth of a second, and neither do we believe that this world is only one ten thousandth of a second. The reason we are not able to observe this with our naked eyes is because the arising and ceasing of objects is extremely fast. 

We also cannot gather the past, present and future into the same time and the same place. If that happened, our concept of time would be mistaken. So we live in a dream-like world.

Buddhism believes the whole world is a dream-like bubble. This is a very sound, reasonable, and scientific view toward the world and really has nothing to do with religion or faith.

~ Luminous Wisdom Book Series 8

Practice falls into two categories: one is a meditation retreat, not necessarily for a month or a week, but just keeping a simple retreat for two or three hours a day is very good. Strictly speaking, there is no way to practice any Dharma without doing retreat, or in a distracted, indolent and unfocused state. So, one or two hours retreat is a minimum when you practice. Practice cannot be accomplished with money. Liberating lives and doing good deeds can accumulate merit, but cultivating your mind has nothing to do with money. Practicing austerities, doing prostrations, and so on are parts of practice, but not the most important practice. The genuine practice is to practice with your heart.

~ Luminous Wisdom Book Series 9

Every Tibetan Buddhist tradition contains practices of the chöd sadhana，a very special practice that can be separated into many types. The Words of My Perfect Teacher mentions a preliminary practice called the Kusali Chöd. In this practice, you imagine offering your body as a sacrifice to Kuntuzangpo and giving it to all types of spirits, and so forth. The real practice of chöd is to use the wisdom of realizing emptiness in a special technique to remove stubbornness and troubling thoughts. The premise of this practice is that you must realize emptiness and let this enlightenment experience strengthen. After a certain time, you can meditate in areas where ghosts are rumored to appear. During such times there are usually activities that gather spirits, and you might hear strange sounds or witness odd occurrences. This would make ordinary people very nervous and their self-attachment would be very obvious. At such times, if you can focus on emptiness, you will be able to remove your self-attachment successfully, and at the same time remove fear and other negative emotions.

~ Luminous Wisdom Book Series 10