Satisfied Buddhist - Domo Geshe Rinpoche

We shouldn’t mistrust the world if we are in skillful harmony with society’s organization…. but with the additional requirement that we adapt that imposed structure into our own life by exercising personal values. Laws preventing us from carrying out each and every personal desire can limit the boundaries of personal freedom to do anything we want. That implies that there are certain levels of o ur idea of total freedom that we cannot explore. Of course, we can all agree that everyone should follow certain rules and there needs to be a balance between personal needs and the needs and freedoms of others. Therefore, we avoid impinging on the freedom of others by voluntarily limiting the full expression of our own freedom. Out of my modifying personal values mentioned earlier come my own choices, such as who I might vote for to represent me in political office or on a committee. Perhaps I will vote for someone who thinks like me and who also cares about the needs of others. On the othe...

What is Buddhism? An eponymous product! From a position 2600 years distant, we have a view of Buddha Shakyamuni as the fully enlightened world teacher, as well as the story of the life of the historical Buddha-to-be that had trust issues with his own father. We have read about his dramatic change of mind to become a forest hermit, and can see that those decisions were based upon a breaking of trust between the future Buddha and his father. However, instead of feeling damaged by understanding that his father had lied to him, trying to control him to his own wishes, he escaped to find out what is truly real. Even if you never had trust issues, think about your own dear family, how well you were cared for, and held close so that, to whatever degree, you felt safe. Now, imagine what it was like for the Buddha, who was also held securely. The Buddha felt that there was another way of being even more secure than the safety offered in family life; that is what he ran away to...

As a Buddhist, learning to trust the new you, after experiencing a lifetime of mistrust and anger, will produce sensations that some call a bad word: vulnerable. This is not dangerous to actually touch the new inner/outer environment with a tenderness that you need to emerge into and inhabit, by relaxing. On the other hand, most people damaged by poor relationships in the past, will experience vulnerability and just want to pull in and lock down. They do not want to emerge, opening and revealing themselves, in order to continue learning and evolving. If this describes you, for the benefit of your future, please discover a new way of looking at this, be happy in this fresh feeling, and stop applying negativity that will reverse your progress. Instead, see that feeling as a sign of development using a positive attitude with your newly acquired Buddhist perceptions of changing to a higher functioning way of being. New feelings of (seeming) vulnerability are the baby steps of a beautiful e...

Some pseudo- spiritual/materialistic philosophies suggest that we disbelieve whatever we cannot personally prove by our own experiences. However, surely we can have some learning based on faith and reliance on others without personal experience! We can learn in school how others have discovered various truths such as the microcosmic or macrocosmic world. We call also learn from the successes and failures of others without reproducing them ourself. From a Buddhist refuge point of view, we develop trust in the Buddha as a reliable source, which ripens our capacity to spend our valuable time learning what direction we should dig to discover what we need to experience! Then, higher being becomes like our satellite GPS, showing where to go for the greatest benefit. We could spend a lifetime trying to gather useless experiences because of mistrust. Logic suggests that we maximize our remaining time in correct effort. Domo Geshe Rinpoche „Es gibt pseudo-spirituelle/materialistische Philosophi...

We might consider that we are not as safe as we want to be in our life, especially if we are going to emerge from our cocoon to be of altruistic benefit to others. Once our natural fears have been somewhat allayed by taking sincere refuge in the Buddha to overcome old feelings of being unsafe, we will automatically feel more confident and capable of opening our hearts into higher, more clarified emotional states. We probably will even feel safe enough to poke our nose out into the world of new concepts, and begin to experience faith arising, the second form of refuge in the Buddha. Up until that point, there is no faith. Having generalized fear, which generates a lack of trust, and having faith would be mutually exclusive, isn’t that so?  As long we hold trust issues, as long as we are experiencing manifest fear, and a lack of safety, faith is an unreasonable sensation. We have to find somewhere we feel safe, and the intelligent are receptive to hear about the qualities of refug...

How sad for people who, although they identify themselves as practicing Buddhists, continue to live with damaged trust systems without availing themselves of the healing possible. Actively distrusting others or using a passive lack of trust by avoiding contact with other people are poor protective devices! These damaging perceptions toward others act as a harmful filter, having many far-reaching effects. The everyday lives of people with acknowledged “trust issues” live in a world that is gradually shrunken; the sphere of their influence in the world becomes smaller and smaller. By holding onto wounds that cause mistrust without making effort to heal, an ability to trust in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha is weakened or perhaps even nonexistent. These sad and suffering people, with much to offer others, cannot truly be Buddhist, as the Buddhist path requires both an open heart and trust. ~Domo Geshe Rinpoche ~~~ ¡Qué triste para las personas que, a pesar de que se identifican como pract...