Satisfied Buddhist - Domo Geshe Rinpoche

Do you believe that your personality was formed before you received experiences? Buddhism has a large body of insights regarding pre-existing conditions of individualized mind that is present before birth. Western psychology continues to debate nature versus nurture type thinking about the same subject, but without the benefit of supporting insights regarding causes of rebirth found in Buddhism. Viewing this question from a Buddhist viewpoint, we can reason that, because we are individuals, we are born with specific predispositions and karma, the elements of personality that already act as strong influences in our behavior. In addition, we arrive with some intact unique perceptions and elements of personality, which are stimulated to different degrees by conditions that are encountered. In other words, predispositions (karma), inner and outer experiences, and choices that we make will further influence how we might interact with events in life. Out of that develops the individual pers...

Attaining the mandala of the deity requires the meditator to literally acquire the perceptions of deity as well as remember the energetic location of the realm of that particular enlightened being. In our Tibetan Buddhist old tradition, it is said that one of the signs of an authentic guru is one who is able to draw the diagrams of many deity mandalas. That is not really followed these days, however, to have the knowledge of the energetic addresses and/or to actually know how to go to the realm of a deity would be extremely valuable for one who guides living beings to the alignment stage of the enlightened state. If you do not know where the enlightened realm is located, then you would have no possibility of ever guiding anyone to that, once they were prepared. Therefore, this particular point of the traditional description of authentic guru makes perfect sense. However, to be able to draw out the diagram in a two-dimensional form is nothing by comparison to having actual contact and a...

Part 2 In truth, being happy does not depend upon having successes or having our needs met in the way we want them to be met. Sometimes people do get the thing they want, but not done in the manner they wanted it to be done, so then it becomes unhappiness. Getting a raise happiness, getting a new car happiness, or getting the final tin soldier in your antique collection set happiness, are not the criteria of happiness. It is so interesting that this is still such an integral part of everyday philosophy because these ideas do not exist in the scriptures or even in the teachings of Christianity as happiness. However, it is like a teeter-totter. Over here, you have reasonable values regarding happiness and suffering by the great minds and philosophers from the Buddha to Socrates to Wittgenstein. Over here, you have a five hundred pound gorilla demanding that you obey society norms by seeking happiness through accepted common values. Our perceptions of what is and what is not happi...

So, there are different levels of Buddhas. There are also different classes of Buddhas, and different vows and promises and specializations as you might guess. If we think about the myriad beneficial activities of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, there must be some kind of overarching motivating principle that has a penchant for organizing and creation dharmic specialization fueled by the needs of sentient beings. There are formal vows taken by high level beings bestowed by even higher level Buddhas or self taken promises to achieve certain results for themselves or others in need. The experiences and tendencies that come from these vows also produce further activity. For example, Vajrasattva, the Buddha of purification took vows and made promises to help living beings purify. Green Tara and White Tara, have different specializations, different kinds of vows and promises for activities from each other as well as different than Vajrasattva. So it is not just their interest that produc...