In China and Tibet, in every school of Buddhism, of course there are “tulkus”. You know that “tulkus” means reincarnation, which means someone more important than others monk or nuns and that keeps the tulkus busy. The Tulku has naturally a lot of responsibilities that keep the Tulkus busy and maybe not to have time … Read more
If we see carefully, we’ll see the people or the Dharma people, even the inner people of Buddha Shakyamuni like monks or nuns, are also busy. They are not busy because of practicing Dharma but doing so many other things.
We are not really being Dharma practitioners, but at the same time, we try to be Dharma practitioners, though we don’t really follow [Dharma] correctly. And we are still lost, still under the control of non-Buddhist thoughts that’s not in accordance with Dharma.
“Bless me so that delusion on the path will cease!”. When practicing Dharma a lot of Dharma practitioners meet some obstacles and they give up their practice because they just cannot handle the obstacles. For example, nowadays the society is complicated and the whole society probably may be criticizing a dharma person. The whole society can make a pressure on the individual Dharma practitioners.
Over 2 million people have lost their lives in the world and still it is dangerously and quickly spreading. It has not only taken away people’s lives, but, also, it has been a big problem for the economy, all over the world.
Lamasang always wanted you beside him and close to him and not stretched too far away. This student-teacher commitment is called samaya. If one’s samaya is not pure, there will be no results, even though one runs around the world millions of times.
For example, one of the Tulkus from our monastery is always going somewhere, putting anything he finds in his pocket, so he possesses over 100 million of yuan in savings and properties, and he has the appearance of having very little desire because he has no cars, and does not use expensive things. He tells people that “I like the Chinese tradition that keeps as many goods as possible for generations.” He openly proclaims this to people. Likewise, everywhere, people are holding onto so much for themselves, never resting, always running around to acquire more.
We need to be very careful; otherwise, the Dharma will be destroyed like it was in India. There, the Sangha went astray, and became useless, due to the absence of proper rules, lack of genuine knowledge, and poor conduct, to the extent that Buddhism died in India.
There have been many sad stories about Sangha members’ broken samaya with one another, causing disharmony and fighting in the sangha over money or properties. A monk involved in business who was living near us slipped a sedative to his business partner that put him to asleep.
What makes a monastery a monastery? The physical representations of a monastery are only symbols.
