WORDS OF WISDOM AUTHOR: KHENPO TSULTRIM LODRO

There is a very big difference between Buddhism and other religions: the law of cause and effect is a natural law; even the Buddha cannot change cause and effect. The Buddha is not all-powerful; neither are the other buddhas.

How is Cause and Effect Generated?Whatever action we take, whether it is killing, stealing, or freeing animals and giving, we no longer perceive its existence after the action takes place. However, a special energy is stored within the deepest level of our consciousness -- the alaya consciousness. Alaya is a Sanskrit word which means storage. It is like a computer disk which can store a great deal of information.

~Depicted from ARE YOU READY FOR HAPPINESSS - Spiritual Equipment for Modern Times

Presently, on all the continents except Antarctica, there are children who can remember their past lives. When these children first began to talk, they would say who they were, where they came from; they would give their parents’ names and details of their past lives. Their parents in this life would then check and validate the actual existence and subsequent death of the persons mentioned. Often enough these children inherited very strong habitual tendencies from their past lives—one who loved to smoke in past life would steal his father’s cigarettes to smoke in this life; one who died of a car accident in past life would be too frightened to go near cars in this life, and so forth. Some of them don’t feel close to their parents of this life but take the parents and relatives in the past life as their real parents and family instead. Many parents are unwilling to make this public lest others should think their children are mentally unstable, out of embarrassment, or because it violates their own religious beliefs. Nevertheless, the secret gets out eventually.

~Depicted from THE HANDBOOK FOR LIFE'S JOURNEY - On Death And Rebirth-What Life Truly Is

Sakyamuni Buddha also indicated: If a monastic does not have greed and can easily, without much effort, come into ownership of a lavish piece of clothing worth 100,000 Kārshāpanas (the ancient Indian coin, about 8.8 grams of silver in weight, roughly 30 RMB in current value), the Buddha would also allow the monastic to wear the apparel. Can you imagine what kind of clothing it is?

In other words, a Buddhist practitioner need not necessarily eat poorly and dress poorly, or think he or she must refrain from using the good things in life. This would also be a form of attachment. The main point is not to develop greed for these things.

~Depicted from THE FOUR SEALS OF DHARMA - The Practice of Suffering

Continuous Impermanence denotes impermanence that can be examined from a macroscopic standpoint. For example, in Abhidharmakosa, reference is made to the four stages of formation, abiding, disintegration, and void in the one billion world systems; phenomena which people can observe — the changes in the four seasons each year, the transformation of the moon from a full moon to crescent during the first and second half of each month, and the shift from day to night, from sunrise to sunset, over the course of twenty-four hours each day – all belong in the category of continuous impermanence. These principles are easy to apprehend; no one would think of denying this type of impermanence. Nonetheless, because of the absence of practice and contemplation, many people hold on to the view that things are permanent and long lasting. This attachment to permanence is of two types: one is innate and the other imputed.

~Depicted from THE FOUR SEALS OF DHARMA - All Composite Phenomena are Impermanent

Human beings do not have methods for facing suffering, thus they hope for happiness and are afraid of suffering. Animals are the same way – they hope bad things go away and that good things come quickly. A whole life is hence wasted in this expectation.

Practitioners also encounter suffering and happiness. How we transform happiness and, in particular, suffering into favorable conditions in our practice is very important. Without the right method, suffering and happiness become obstacles to the path. This not only impedes our practice, it also affects the normal course of our life.

~Depicted from ARE YOU READY FOR HAPPINESS -How to Face Suffering and Happiness-How to Face Suffering

The eight kinds of suffering set forth in The Words of My Perfect Teacher have all been part of our personal experiences. You may refer to the book for details. Some people assign a relatively low priority to the questions of life and death whereas fulfilling the basic needs of life is of the utmost importance. And they believe it is rightfully so. This just indicates a lack of in-depth understanding of suffering and impermanence. Why does the present matter but not the future? Can we really ignore the question about future life? Why don’t we need to resolve what will face us in the next life and the one after that? Is it justified to only care about the present? Some may argue that there is no next life based on some scientific reasoning. But I think this question is a philosophical one rather than scientific. No science can prove the nonexistence of past and future life. Some so-called proofs are just the premature judgment of a small group of people which in no way can refute the existence of past and future life. This is a very real question that we should not make any excuse to evade. But more importantly, we need to contemplate the true nature of samsara on a much deeper level. To take life and death only at face value is what keeps us in samsara from beginningless time until now. The fact is that we have been fooled all along and need to wake up to this fact as quickly as we can.

~Depicted from THE RIGHT VIEW - The Four Noble Truths—the Path Out of Samsara

Conversely, belief in karma and rebirth serves to remind us that the ending of this life is only a stop on life’s very long journey as well as the beginning of the next leg. In different time and space, life exists in different forms. All the success and failure of this life will end as life ends, but spiritual attainment and the seeds of both good and bad habitual tendency will not perish but like data be copied to future life. No matter how old one gets, there will always be hope, as there is always another life to look forward to. This is an idea that evokes positive energy; once accepted, it can only be good for us. Although it is a bit guilty of being practical minded—to give in this life in order to have better return in next life, it is not a serious flaw. Naturally, to be able to give unconditionally would be much better.

~Depicted from THE HANDBOOK OF LIFE'S JOURNEY- On Death And Rebirth-What Life Truly Is

We have all watched on Animal World (film series) how many lives some carnivores need to eat within a 24-hour period. For example, the blue whale, the largest known animal species in the world, can eat up to four tons of krill each day during the feeding season. And these are just one day’s provisions. A life eaten is a life taken and a negative karma fully committed. Over its entire life, the blue whale never once would chant the Buddha’s name or practice virtue. If it lives to be a hundred, it will have committed such negative karma for one hundred years. Can you imagine what will happen to it in its next life?

~Depicted from THE RIGHT VIEW - Why Vegetarian ? 

As laypersons, you all have varied duties and at times tedious things to deal with everyday. But there are twenty four hours in a day. To spend one hour each morning and evening to contemplate the questions about samsara and leave the remaining twenty two hours for other activities should be a feasible arrangement, I would think. Even more importantly, besides having the right view, practitioners need to be able to practice. Already one needs extremely good fortune to hear the Dharma and develop faith in the Buddha, particularly so in this modern age. But absent the actual practice, no amount of Buddhist knowledge can help solve any problem of life. And even if it does help finally, it will be after a long, long time. Therefore, either for others’ or our own sake, we should start our practice sooner rather than some time later.

~Depicted from THE RIGHT VIEW - The Four Noble Truths—the Path Out of Samsara