Number two is that when you practice Dharma, don’t try to prove yourself, don’t try to prove it to others. If you’re in the job, in a work space, you have to prove it to your boss, you have to prove it to your colleague, you have to prove it to other people. When you practice Dharma, don’t do anything to prove it to other people. Yeah.
When you do practice, it’s very important to do retreat, once in a while, you know? We have all these kind of a “modern Buddhist approach” in this world, you know? Through internet, through YouTube, through all, so many different kinds of a social media platforms, so many ideas about “modernising” Buddhist, “modernising” this, and “modernising” that. And lot of beautiful wording in between. You know? Regardless of the different wording, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have the capacity in your head, you know? All this are beautiful presentation, but the real change makes when you do the retreat.
When I say retreat, it doesn’t mean you have to do like, you know, three years and three months, you know? The retreat, it means, like an example, when Rinpoches and Lamas, when they are leading like a Nyung-ne retreat. Right? In our Himalayan culture, the Nyung-ne retreat, མ་ཎི་དུང་སྒྲུབས “ma ni dung drup” “drup dung drup” [10 billion mani mantra sadhana], that is a very common practice, you know? That sort of a retreat. You know? It doesn’t has to be like, years and years. It can be like, few days.
You know, in your own apartment, in your own space. Like an example, you come here, then you practice, and that sort of a retreat is very important. Because when you do retreat, naturally the fixation of the mind decompresses by itself over the time, you know? Otherwise, whatever you may read, in terms of teachings, your mind is too rigid, you know? So therefore, retreat is very important. It doesn’t has to be long seven months, six months, it can be few days also, once in a while. You know? So that can decompress your state of mind, and how you reflect to the reality, how you react to the challenges, changes a lot.
Like an example, myself, I went to Three Years Retreat when I was 14 years old. If I haven’t done the retreat, I don’t think I’m here today, speaking to you. You know? Because the retreat helped me a lot, you know? I read a lot of history, lot of masters’ history, their mistakes, their wrong, you know, their wrongdoing, and their accomplishments over the time, and their teachings.
So it’s very important to do retreat, to learn the teachings of the Buddhadharma, as well as reading the history. You know? Reading the history of the great different masters, not just from one tradition, but different tradition. So then you can understand and have a different perspective. Not just like “this is my lineage” or “this is my tradition”, but rather you see if from the different perspective from the different masters and their teachings, and that is very important.
Kalu Rinpoche at the Buddhist Community Centre UK (BCC UK) Monastery – 30 Nov 2022 (40′)
To be continued …
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