Satisfied Buddhist - Domo Geshe Rinpoche

“Formal prayer can become energetically confusing, wondering if we are doing it right. Often people cannot pray effectively because they genuinely start out praying for another, and are suddenly stimulated to remember some personal feeling or need. Soon they are not praying for someone else, but for themselves. They struggling with balance between personal needs and praying to higher being on behalf of another. If uncertainty is too great, they might say, "Okay, now I am finished," and rush off gratefully to make a cup of tea. Without feeling energetic closure, an answer, or that anything has actually happened, they could still say, "Yes I did prayers." There are many who insist that they pray every day, but are their formal prayers effective? We live in a society where people feel that time is money, and you are about to embark on an activity that requires time, isn’t that so? If you are going to be most efficient, you want to think that the time you spend on this ...

“Children have wonderful prayers, delighting us in their simplicity and innocent logic. For example, in wishing for a puppy but getting something else that they really did not want, maybe God, who sends wanted puppies and unwanted baby brothers, did not quite hear carefully. This early form of prayer is still inside us somewhere and so, requests becomes more demanding, but within the dynamics of that spontaneous prayer. If we become annoyed with God or higher power, there will be fewer “spiritual” qualities attached, until we just get tired of trying. 'I am not going to pray anymore because nobody is listening, and if they are, they just do not love me. So now, I do not care for them either, and I am going to just make a lot of money so that I do not need anybody else to answer my prayers.’ When that did not work out as well as we thought it might, one might think, 'Okay, let me try spirituality and prayer again, for a while.' Like that, around and around we go, trying to f...

“The first type of prayer is for our self. No one knows the specific hopelessness of a situation better than you do because you are an expert on yourself! So, as the supreme expert on your own life, you already have an idea of what is possible and what seems absolute impossible. What is possible, you do not pray for, because you just do it without needing a miracle to make it a reality. If you think, 'I am hungry,' and there is food in the kitchen, you do not need to pray, you just go to the kitchen and make food. Like that, most things in life you are already capable of doing yourself without divine assistance. However, when something just does not make sense, or you are incapable of accomplishing a task, worry and anxiety increase. If a student has not prepared for an examination and time is running out, perhaps they decide that praying for a miracle is the only answer. Missing classes and without studying, they still hope to get a good grade. Under stress, you, the one who i...

“If we affirm that something is an illusion by using the Buddhist viewpoint with poor motivation and energizing it with anger, disappointment or jealousy of the good qualities of another, we harm ourselves. A lack of the skills needed that will lead to the intellectual correct view practices a defective process by relying upon defective strategies eventually producing defective results. Each and every faulty method of understanding illusion, as we progress toward the enlightened state, will only become apparent when we reach deeper contemplation levels when they become solidified as obstacles. More sophisticated or subtler levels of contemplations will require discernment of energetic distinctions and will reveal errors (that are not that easy to correct), which are not apparent on casual levels. Rather than prematurely relying on a view of the illusory nature of all phenomena, Buddhism trains us to courageously integrate new strategies that heal us in our ordinary place instead of ...

"The five outer senses, used correctly, are stable bases for processing the experience of this world. The five inner bases are the bases for the outer senses and are the true sense bases. However, there are many more inner senses that belong to higher development and are not suitable for human life. Most of these inner senses have no preparation stage for development in the human realm and are introduced after enlightenment. In fact, too soon an introduction to them can cause inappropriate linking of human life and perceptions of higher development. The fascination with psychic by using them for superficial human problem solving can cause one to become stuck in cyclic existence and power techniques associated with the egoic worldly enlightenment. instead, we need to have the courage to make clear and meaningful changes needed to become the one ready for transformation. Development toward full awakening of Buddhahood is a human preparation activity and not Buddhahood itself. He...

“No human being has ever attained enlightenment! That is because it can only happen inside, in the real person, it cannot happen on the outside. However, there is a kind of dangerous, pseudo enlightenment available to human beings, a kind of hyper-inflated satisfaction of ego that makes them obsessed with power seeking, even under the guise of spirituality. This is also encouraged and facilitated by so much training in how to acquire power. In nearly any bookstore, we can see shelves filled with self-help books about personal power. It is not about personal power. It is about facilitating and helping prepare the real or actual being inside to transform to another way of being to enter perfection, their actual home all along. There does exist, however, a natural and organic evolutionary process of transcendence of ordinary human existence that has gradually become subverted to worship of power practices over a very long time. This human realm has changed from a place where people cou...

"A heartfelt, expansive energy is expressed in the traditional Tibetan New Years greeting, “Losar Tashi Delek! Happy New Year!”. It is very different from an everyday greeting when passing someone in the street, “tashi delek” (sounds more like tadelay),“Oh, good morning, good to see you” . Instead, there is a cultivated and excited strength of purpose behind Losar hellos that transmit good wishes, seal them for the entire coming year and almost pour a cup of mental pucha ( Tibetan butter tea) for everyone you meet. On the other hand, a being of great spiritual purpose and power could authentically say, “Tashi delek” and the actual accomplishment of a great wish blessing is effortless because of deep development. The immeasurable happiness, freedom from suffering, bliss, and equanimity that we wish for others, we must generate first in our own mind to make that good impression for others. Buddhists in the Tibetan tradition practice this energetic and incrementally increased spiritu...