Autobiography in 5 chapters

Autobiography in five chapters:

1. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I fall in. I am lost ... I am hopeless. It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

2. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I'm in the same place. But it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

3. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in ... it's a habit My eyes are open I know where I am It is my fault. I get out immediately.

4. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I walk around it.

5. I walk down another street.

Reflection can slowly bring us wisdom. We can come to see we are falling again and again into fixed repetitive patterns, and begin to long to get out of them. We may, of course, fall back into them, again and again, but slowly we can emerge from them and change.

Power of Compassion ...

Compassion is the wish-fulfilling gem whose light of healing spreads in all directions. There is a very beautiful story that illustrates this. Buddha once recounted one of his previous lives, before he became enlightened. A great emperor had three sons, and the Buddha had been the youngest, who was called Mahasattva. Mahasattva was by nature a loving and compassionate little boy, and thought of all living things as his children.
One day the emperor and his court went to picnic in a forest, and the princes went off to play in the woods. After a while they came across a tigress who had given birth, and was so exhausted with hunger that she was on the point of eating her little cubs. Mahasattva asked his brothers:
"What would the tigress need to eat now to revive her?"
"Only fresh meat or blood", they replied.
"Who could give his own flesh and blood to see that she is fed and save the lives of her and her cubs?" he asked.
"Who indeed?" they replied.
Mahasattva was deeply moved by the plight of the tigress and her cubs, and started to think: " For so long I have been wandering uselessly through samsara, life after life, and because of my
desire, anger and ignorance , have done little to help other beings. Here at last is a great opportunity."
The princes were walking back to join their family, when Mahasattva said: "You two go on ahead. I will catch you up later." Quietly he crept back to the tigress, went right up to her, and lay down on the ground in front of her, to offer himself to her as food. The tigress looked at him,
but was so weak that she could not even open her mouth. So the prince found a sharp stick and cut a deep gash in his body; the blood flowed out, the tigress licked it, and she grew strong enough to open her jaws and eat him.
Mahasattva had given his body to the tigress in order to save her cubs, and through the great
merit of his compassion, he was reborn in a higher realm and progressed toward his enlightenment and his rebirth as the Buddha.
What a vision this story gives us of how vast and mysterious the power of compassion truly is !

An explanation of suffering

In a way, all-pervasive suffering so thoroughly impregnates our world that we have become numb to it. Part of the reason that we do not realize it is that we have no awareness of any other spectrum of life and so have nothing with which to compare our own.

So let us consider our situation from the perspective of the gods. Imagine that we have a rainbow-like "light-body" like those possessed by beings in the realm of the gods. It is a non-physical body of light that enables us to fly through space where ever we move or travel. There is no darkness around us and no need for the light of sun or moon, as our own body-light illuminates the area around us. There is no physical pain and pressure as our body is immaterial , intangible, and indestructible. We enjoy it for years. Then one day this light-body suddenly changes into a body of flesh, bone and blood wrapped in a bag of skin and filled with all kinds of filth. We cannot move except by measuring the ground with the two bone-poles of the legs, step by step. We cannot see anything if there is no light from other sources. We could easily be crushed , smashed flat, pierced through, broken into parts, or cut into pieces, never to heel or walk again, if we do not carefully watch, avoid, and negotiate everything all the time. This would be an intolerable form of suffering.

Of course, the gods happiness cannot compare to the joy of the ultimate state.

- TULKU THONDUP

We are more than this body...

We are trained since our childhood to take good care of our health(physical) and our belongings . We like doing many things.... like indulging in different variety of foods, buying stylish clothes, watching good cinema, going for party and many other things we do just to satisfy our outer or physical needs.
But I wonder why do we not accept people when they die. here by accepting I mean why can't we show same love, same care, same behavior for a dead body of our loved one.... When we say a person is no more... what is there that is no more.... his/her body is in front of you lying still on the ground..... then why do we say a person has died........ ???? This means that there is something more than body in us.... that we call mind (soul ).
Once we recognize the real part of us, then we need to check what we are doing for that portion of ourselves in this life.....
Nature of our mind is love and kindness, when we were child our body wanted to grow and our mind wanted to expand, to reach more people.... we all were very friendly and loving in our childhood , even to strangers we would have passed smile and made friends....
But we were nourished in such a way that only our body grew but true nature of mind shrinked as the time passed..... Now we are so closed that we raise doubts even if somebody loves us or wants to help us , we try hard to find others ulterior motives, we always think for ourself first, we have ill-will for others.
This is happening with all of us and will continue to happen until we stop and think for a while that there is need for nourishment for our mind also......
There is need to calm down the mind, control the negative aspect of mind(which is selfishness within us).There are many spiritual paths .... which can work on our mind and make it more happy , contented, loving and kind for all. We need to search it.....

True Happiness.....

True happiness is not something that can be brought by money.... sometimes the poor people are more happy and enjoying their life more than the rich ones......
Today I talked with my maid and came to know that she and her husband after 14-15 years of marriage still eat together both the meals..... I was wondering that how happy she is...... she even laughs more than me...... she looks like contented.....
On the other side....... we are so much determined to make so much of money that in the process we miss many small pleasures of life...
I was reading a book "The monk who sold his ferrari" By Robin Sharma and got something very interesting......it says.... " The moment I stopped spending so much time chasing the big pleasures of life, I began to enjoy the little ones, like watching the stars dancing in moonlit sky or soaking in the sunbeams of a glorious summer morning "
And it's really true........

True value of money.....

One day my husband asked a question.... If every one (human) on this earth is given a huge amount of money and asked not to come for work just stay at home and enjoy then how will it be ????
When, everyone has a lot of money and no worry to go for work.... then neither farmers will go to their farms.... vegetables, grains and other things will not be cultivated , business person , shopkeepers etc. will not open their shops ....we may not get food (neither from store not from restaurant) clothes, books, electronic items, cinemas, malls,schools, colleges, jewelery shops,recreation centers.. everything will be closed..... Now we have money but don't have the things to spend it on.... then we may realize the true value of money.
Money in itself is nothing...... if one day whole world stops working then there is no value of money...
Money is valuable only because we work...... otherwise it's just a piece of paper.... which we cannot eat , can't drink, can't wear , it can't provide shelter, we can't play with, ,they can't provide us knowledge ...... nothing can be done with it.

Shifted House....

Sometimes I think what is more important -- money/valuables or happiness/life of a living being , well if the choice is between our money and our loved ones life,,, then surely life/happiness will be more important to us rather than money..... but if the choice is between our money/valuables and life of others(who are not closely related to us) then we may give more importance to our money.
Recently I shifted my house. I was quite happy with the guys(movers & packers) work .... they were putting all their effort .... packing and moving such heavy things(furniture and interiors etc.) from second floor all by stairs is not easy , and even I felt pity on them that I am paying much but they may get less as the company owner will take more profit from that......
They wrapped all the crockery items into paper then put them into the cartons ....suddenly a thought arise in my mind..... what if he dropped that carton and all my crockery gets broken.... he didn't do that but It's quite natural that if he would have done that....most of us in that case would have got angry and asked the person to work properly.... and all the pity feeling would have gone..
This happens when we are paying for somebody's work..... we think that they are working only for money(which is true) and good behavior from our side towards them is a bonus... if they do their work without any error then they may deserve the bonus otherwise no bonus for them ... which is wrong.... because if we compare money to any living being.... living being is always more precious..... because money in itself is nothing....
(I am not sure that it happens in developed countries also.... but in developing countries and other poor countries.... I guess it happens...)