The purpose of dharma is to help your mind to expand, to grow, to clarify. It should uphold us and create an inner sense of peace, joy, and clarity.
The dharma is the most precious thing in the world and we should put it at the center of our hearts and transform our whole lives into dharma practice. Otherwise, at the time of death, we will look back and say, now what was all that about? If we truly want to benefit others and ourselves, we have to do it. No excuses.
If you've made a lot of negative seeds, and not a lot of positive seeds, even though you meet with the dharma, you're going to have problems.
Joining the Sangha and renouncing worldly life is necessary in order to devote your whole life and all your energies toward the Dharma.
The dharma is here. And the dharma is in your heart. Where else would it be?
We live in a society which is heading in one direction, so it's good to have at least a few friends who share the same values and can encourage us and help us to remember that we're not alone or peculiar, but that what we're doing is a very valid way of life. This will encourage us to put the Dharma at the centre of our life and not the periphery, to use our daily life as our Dharma practice.
Just entering into the dharma and taking refuge and bodhisattva vows is a tremendous amount of merit, but we need more and more and more.
Everyone should not be ordained, but for those who really feel that the only thing that matters in this world is the Dharma, then it is a logical step to adopt a form of life that automatically precludes worldly distractions.
If you lose interest in the dharma, then you might be reborn in a place where you are unlikely to meet with the dharma. And then you're completely off the path.
The very best players, when they are practicing, put everything they've got into it. But then they leave it for a while. And it's the same in dharma practice.
We have to transform those ordinary actions of our day into dharma practice because otherwise nothing is going to move.
We don't want to go to heaven. We want to be reborn so that we can keep going and realize the dharma so we can benefit other beings, endlessly. It's a very different thing.
Why are we sitting? Why are we practicing? Why are we doing anything? It's not so I can be happy. It's so I can embody the dharma in order to benefit other beings.
If you're meeting with the dharma, you have probably been a human being before.
We have met with the dharma. Many of us have met with teachers. We do have some idea of what to do and how to practice. And we should not be lazy.
Obviously the dharma is every breath we take, every thought we think, every word we speak, if we do it with awareness and an open, caring heart.
One has to find a balance. I don't say that when you leave it you forget all about the dharma or practice, but there have to be times when you throw yourself into it, and then there are times when you just relax and realize that wherever you go, you cannot get out of the dharma.
It takes a tremendous amount of merit to meet with the dharma - especially if you have an interest in it.
In Dharma practice, the most important thing is to be very sincere.
If you don't find that people find you're easier to live with than you were before, if you don't find that your heart is feeling warmer toward others and if your negative emotions are not getting any better, then there's something wrong. That is always the touchstone of the Dharma practice.
Many people are benefiting beings, but from a dharma point of view, if you are a dharma practitioner, then the first priority is to get yourself together.
The future of Dharma is in women's hands now because they have this energy which was never really tapped.
The Dharma is a very, very special and precious thing. The more you practice it, the more you will realize this.
I was born in England and brought up in London. When I was 18 I read a book and came across the Dharma. I was halfway through the book when I turned to my mother and said, "I'm a Buddhist," to which she replied, "Oh are you dear? Well finish the book and then you can tell me about it." I realised I'd always been Buddhist but I just hadn't known it existed, because in those days not even the word 'Buddha' was ever spoken. This was in in the 1960s, so there wasn't that much available, even in London.
Tibetans - at least traditionally - are so totally permeated with the dharma that they don't see any difference between dharma and everyday life, really. And therefore they enjoy it because they don't make a separation.
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