Kalu Rinpoche | Keep the Dharma Alive (Part 2)

This is really important, considering that nowadays so many of our younger generation are going to Australia, USA, Canada, Europe and all that. I think this is absolutely good, you know for looking after oneself. But for the bigger picture, as much as you love yourself and love your family, it’s also important to pass on your Buddhist heritage.

A Buddhist heritage for this generation and the next. This is very important. We have that responsibility and we need to acknowledge that we have that responsibility. You don’t need to go out in the street and say ‘I have this responsibility’ you can have open interaction with the school children or with your kids, with your nephews and nieces. It doesn’t have to be your own kid.

So an open discussion, a gentle discussion. That is very important because if you interact with that sense of openness to debate, openness to interact. It will not just help your own generation and the next generation, the upcoming generation, it will help other people at large if you know how to do that.

So I think, as a Himalayan Buddhist person you all have that responsibility. It doesn’t mean you have to go to the temple, it doesn’t mean you must become a monk or nun or change your clothes, shave your head and all of that. I shave my head because I haven’t any hair, I have to do a transplant, hair transplant I am thinking about that, so I don’t have to shave every day, my goodness such a headache!

So I think it’s quite important. So it should not just be a New Year resolution, it should be our duty, a necessary duty because if the one generation is falling behind then the whole Dharma is lost, the whole interest in Dharma is lost.

It’s good to have that normal pace of this continuation of the Buddha-dharma teaching and duty of the family and the responsibility that we have. So that’s just my opinion and I hope it didn’t offend anyone.

I find that we are at the borderline basically. We are at the borderline, whether we do it or whether we don’t. If we do it, do it now and if we don’t do it and then we’ll pay a lot of consequences in the long run. We have to stop in the Buddhist world trying to repeat the lifestyle of 500, 1000 years ago, trying to build the hierarchy. It’s just unnecessary.

Just be simple, little bit. You want to be successful in life, that’s good. You want to be spiritual practitioner, that’s good. But the most important, what you need, is to be concerned for this current and the next generation, you know. It’s very important. Because if we don’t, everything that we did and built up and the suffering, all for what? If it is not passing down to next, what are we doing? What are we doing with our Buddhist teachings and practice and so on?

His Eminence Kalu Rinpoche bestowing Niguma empowerment in Thimphu, Bhutan on this auspicious day, Chotrul Duchen 24 February 2024