Satisfied Buddhist - Domo Geshe Rinpoche

In the old days, enemies were not anonymous. Without telephones, they had to come in front of your face to hurt you. Now, people with aggressive tendencies are free to do harm as if it were a sport, with no consequences and no feelings of being caught. With that freedom to anonymously do damage… it’s surprising how many will rise to that opportunity.  It is valuable to become more skillful in p atient endurance while dealing with people who create harm and problems. It would also be irresponsible to simply endure when there is something that you can do to help people stop doing that. We should be careful however to understand that a chaotic situation does not require praying to the Buddha to inflict harm to the enemy. In any case, it is our responsibility to deal with our own set of problems in life as they arise without damaging our own mind; this is the Buddhist practice. ~ Domo Geshe Rinpoche ~~~ “In alten Zeiten blieben Feinde nicht anonym. Ohne Telefon mussten sie direkt ...

There are three stages of training. Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana, as well as within each of those, the outer practices and the inner practices. New Buddhists should understand the different approaches most clearly in the similarities and differences between the first two stages. There were 18 original Theravadin schools in the earlier times, but none exists in the pure form anymore. They have evolved into Buddhism practiced in Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, as well as other places. Hinayana is a term used by the Mahayana. Hinayana means small vehicle. Mahayana means greater vehicle. You can see who named it. However, Hinayana practitioners call their tradition Theravadan or the path of the elders. The outer practices of the pure Theravadan emphasize a reduction in interest in samsaric or worldly involvement. We are calling this the first of three stages of training, which means that in Tibetan Buddhism, the Hinayana does exist, not as a process in and for itself. It is an...