We need to come to a clear understanding of what do we need? Is it money or happiness? Desiring both is difficult to achieve. Even endowed with some merit, one can make some profit through exertion, yet one might not be able to live an easeful life. Other than attaining a high level of spiritual achievement, how can one maintain a calm mind while being preoccupied with various engagements? Thus as an ordinary being, we have to choose one between these two.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

We forsake lots of worldly pleasures and undertake various penance such as staying up to chant mantras, meditate, make offering, and practice generosity, etc. However, Mipham Rinpoche warns us in the shastras: without addressing the fundamental problem, regardless of how many practices we engage in, we won’t attain genuine happiness. Thus we need to give up practicing superficial virtues which lack inner mindfulness, rather, in order to eradicate self-clinging, we need to commit ourself to hearing, contemplating and meditating.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

For lay practitioners, the minimum is to take one hour each morning and evening to practice. Everyone should be able to manage at least this much in a day. The practice should begin with the cultivation of renunciation. Once that has reached some stability, go on to practice bodhicitta. After both renunciation and bodhicitta have been generated, move on to contemplate emptiness using the method of the Middle Way as a preliminary. The last is the actual practice of emptiness of which one may choose to go with the Vajrayana tradition if so wished, as Vajrayana practice may bring faster results. However, to practice Vajrayana entails empowerment and observance of the percepts. If unsure of keeping the Vajrayana vows, one can choose the exoteric practices instead, which may also lead to liberation but will take longer time to achieve. 

~Depicted from FROM BELIEVERS TO BODHISATTVAS

There are two ways to realise Dzogchen: one is to listen to dharma extensively, then to accumulate immense merits by engaging in the practice of cultivating renunciation and bodhicitta, the practice of mandala offering and embarking on the path of bodhisattvas. When accumulation of merit rises to a certain level, one can realise emptiness; another way is to rely on the qualified master’s blessing. The premise to receive such blessing is to have devotion. The stronger the devotion, the more blessing one can receive.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

About longevity, the following story makes a point. A disciples of the Venerable Atisha violated the precept and died after getting involved in a village dispute. Upon hearing the news, the Venerable Atisha noted with sorrows, "If he died three years earlier, he would have died a bhikku adept in the Tripitaka." This means that if he died three years earlier, he would have died a bhikku with pure vow and great knowledge in the Tripitaka. But he died a different person with a tainted reputation three years later. Therefore, having longevity is not necessarily a good fortune. Some beings may end up committing more negative karma with extended life span. 

~Depicted from FROM BELIEVERS TO BODHISATTVAS

Fatalists think that everything is predestined and under no circumstances can it be changed. Buddhists do not acknowledge this viewpoint. Buddhism holds that even immutable karma can be changed with the attainment of realization of emptiness or true repentance. It is also owing to the view that compounded phenomena are not predestined, but can be improved, transformed and controlled, that we need to learn the Twelve Nidanas. It can be said that not knowing the Twelve Nidanas is in fact not knowing ourselves. 

~Depicted from FROM BELIEVERS TO BODHISATTVAS

Each time we die, the nature of mind will be revealed, but we never can perceive it. Every night when entering a deep sleep, for a split second we are in touch with the nature of mind, but we never can perceive it. Thus we need our lama’s pith instruction, with which we can attain enlightenment instantly. This is the swift method of the Vajrayana to attain enlightenment.

~Depicted from LUMINOUS WISDOM BOOK SERIES

Being human now, we have the ability to discriminate right from wrong and to make choices. We are well aware of the faults related to eating meat and can also afford not to eat meat. Yet we do not or are unwilling to make the right choice. If and when we do take rebirth as animals, we will : 1) want to eat meat and meat alone, regardless of how delicious fruit and vegetables may taste; 2) not know the faults of eating meat; 3) not have the ability to choose. There will be no way we can avoid being carnivores by then. If we choose to be meat eaters when we  can be otherwise, being carnivores in the animal realm would just be a natural outcome. 

~Depicted from FROM BELIEVERS TO BODHISATTVAS

Also stated in the Abhidharma-kosha-shastra is that some children may suffer the effect of seriously negative karma that their parents accumulated. If children can suffer the consequences of their parents's negative karma, is it not contradictory to the Buddhist teaching that one reaps what one sows and that no one can assume other's karma? The Abhidharma-kosha-shastra explains that these children themselves already have certain negative karma. Due to the close relationship between the parents and their children, the ripening of the children's negative karma may be expedited when the parents commited extremely evil karma. There are many such documented cases both in the East and the West. Generally speaking, it is very difficult to directly prove the existence of causality because our eyes cannot look beyond this life for causes from the past lives and effects in the future lives. Nonetheless, through indirect means, as shown by the example above, it is possible to prove the link between cause and effect. Not only is samsara conditioned by causality, but also nirvana and liberation. Therefor, if it is liberation that we seek, we must plant the seed of liberation, which will then yield the fruit. Such is the view of Buddhism. 

~Depicted from FROM BELIEVERS TO BODHISATTVAS