With ‘Homework’ You’ll Understand
(By Tsem Rinpoche)
Dear Ng,
When we were very young, we thought when I grow up I want to be an astronaut, a monk, a doctor, an environmentalist, a singer, a cartoonist, a musician, a scientist. We didn’t know what they really were. In fact we didn’t really understand what it entails. It’s just we heard about them and thought that would be nice. So as we go along with our daily lives, schooling, playing we just aim towards that goal. We work our way towards it. If we were instantly given the education of a scientist or astronaut we would become overwhelmed and disheartened. But one educational grade level at a time and we can achieve our career goals. It could take use 20 years to reach our career goals. 20 years!
Similarly in Dharma. You may not know what enlightenment is completely. But that would not make enlightenment not a worthy goal. But you know what samsara is. Samsara is all around you. Within your own lives,it begins, it peaks, it ends. In between tons of ups and downs. When you practice Dharma, you take it one step at a time. By learning the fundamentals and going one step at a time, you can recognize eventually what enlightenment is. By rushing into wanting to understand something without doing your ‘homework’ is illogical.
Master renunciation, compassion, Bodhicitta, effort, patience, wisdom, 18 opportunities of a perfect human life, etc….When you have mastered, understood and applied each of these subjects systematically you will see more rhyme and sense I promise. You will get clear glimpses into enlightenment.
If reaching our career goals can be 20 years, enlightenment’s benefit is so much more, it should take more than 20 years.
Take it one step at a time and the most important thing is you have to do your homework.
Tsem Rinpoche
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Although becoming enlightened may not be an easy task, we can move a little closer to enlightenment every day. We can become enlightened by being in the present moment, expanding our understanding of life and the world around us, and meditating to expand our awareness. Do our homework consistently steps by steps learning, practicing the dharma and transform ourselves, that’s most important. Life is short , living with no regret.
Thank you Rinpoche for these explanation and teachings.
We will not gain anything without putting effort. Homework is for us to learn to be better. Learning and be good at it need years. What more if it is practicing dharma to achieve something much greater, enlightenment. Therefore, “homework” is necessary to achieve our objective. It is through the homework that we will gain realisation,
Thank you Rinpoche for the teaching.
感谢仁波切的解釋。證悟不應該是我們設置某種目標，应不求何时得證。老实的，一步一脚印，漸次持续的学习及領悟佛陀的教诲为上策。
It is as Rinpoche says. If we truly want to make full use of this life, we will optimize the use of it to reach the worthy goal of enlightenment, even though right now, we don’t understand what Enlightenment means.
If we do our homework, we will be studying the Lamrim and practicing the Dharma in accordance with the Lamrim. The Lamrim presents the graduated stages of the path to Enlightenment. The holy text of the Lamrim contains all of Lord Buddha’s 84000 teachings, presented in this graduated path.
As we move up the path from the small scope, we learn about our precious human life(with its 18 opportune conditions),about impermanence and how death is inevitable and time of death in uncertain, about the inexorable law of cause and effect(Karma)in the small scope, about suffering and its origin, about renouncing samsara in the middle scope and about practicing bodhicitta and the six perfections in the great scope, we begin to see more clearly how step-by-step, we are heading for the goal of enlightenment. Enlightenment,as a goal, becomes clearer. As we practice the dharma that we learn and contemplate on, then the goal of enlightenment becomes logically a possibility and something we wish to attain. Enlightenment as total liberation from suffering and enlightenment as the attainment of omniscience become a logical result of earnest sincere step-by-step practice, with much hard work and sincere effort.
Doing our homework well, will also convince us that we cannot tread this path successfully, without a Spiritual guide and without our full devotion to him and trust in him.
Hence, we must do our homework.
One of the common themes the buddhist that reoccurs is that they always say that, enlightenment should not be some kind of goal we set and we try to achieve the goal as soon as we can. If we truly understood the causes for enlightenment perhaps then we could make this ‘goal’ something that we want to reach as soon as possible.
I love how you managed to explain it so simply and clearly. Taking one step at a time now. With your blessings and teachings, may my homework help me achieve the ultimate. Thank you with folded hands!
Dear Rinpoche,
Enlightenment is such an easy word to comprehend, yet to accomplish it is so hard for us, who are stuck in samsara.
I will work hard to achieve the goals and practice more as written by Rinpoche, to achieve or to be a step closer to enlightenment; if not this lifetime, future lifetimes.
Thank you.
Dear Rinpoche. Thank you for the explanation. We need to work hard to achieving our career goals in 20 years. To master the dharma and transform ourselves which is much more beneficial and profound, we will need more time and do it step by step. Therefore, we need to consistently work hard and doing our homework.
This is one of the question I was having, thanks Rinpoche for your answer and thanks Ng for asking as well..it made everything clearer..
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing your response to Ng. Indeed we have to make our own effort and time to learn and pick up the wisdom and knowledge from all the Buddha’s teaching before we can practise Dharma with all the good spiritual qualities. By practising gradually day by day, eventually our mind will begin to adapt and drawn to Dharma practice towards the realization of enlightenment and emptiness. Every worldly achievement we have gained now will come to zero by the time of death.
Dear Rinpoche , thank you for reminding us to do our homework . It’s important to move slowly forward & not hurry , only then we’ll understand why certain results need certain actions
Thanks Rinpoche for the beautiful example share above, with this example more peoples can be understand how is Dharma relate to our wish.
Karma never lie, we should be a better person with practice Dharma hence collect more Merits towards “free of suffering”…
I really love the way how Rinpoche explained, its very clear and straightforward. We often do things that we do not even know what we are doing, but sometimes its not bad at all. When we are determined to do something that will benefit us in life, obstacles will come. Just like when people are famous, criticises, hatred, jealousy will come. So we know that enlightenment is something we are seeking to attain, but of course, without working hard to understand what is it, we’ll never know anything.
Most of us initially went to Dharma center seeking for quick fix to our problems, a place to dump our excess baggage.
Through learning/homework, It is said that the ingredients that made up our problems was fundamentally three, ignorance, attachment and hatred.
The only way to end all these problems was ourselves become a Buddha the one without the three! To truly understand what enlightenment entail is to observe a qualified guru who is embodiment of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and work closely with him.
Homework? This is something that i have forgotten long time ago. We need to do some homework when we need to do presentation, speech, proposal and etc… There’s no other way but doing homework nicely when we are studying Dharma so that we understand the teaching, contemplate and transform our mind.
No pay no gain, we need to put in effort to master something, thanks for Rinpoche sharing, it lead me understand that we need to start the practice from basic and keeping learning and understanding in systematic way.
we may not know what enlightenment is but by engaging in dharma work, attending dharma classes etc. All the dharma activities leading us to a path that is very different from samsara life.
Yes Buddha and all the realised masters have done their homework and paid their dues so they have reaped the beenfits of being enlightened. Doing nothing simply waiting for something to happen just doesn’t make sense at all. Not creating the right causes but expecting the right results is also not logical. I still like the analogy of the farmer who wants to grow crops of wisdom and compassion.
I think Enlightenment for me that is easy to understand and grasp is that of conducting our daily experiences in accord with Dharma. By mimicking the Englightenment thought although not knowing what it is one builds up the many steps to the great Enlightenment.
Although not knowing what is enlightenment but if we follow the instructions of our Rinpoche we will surely and swiftly travel the path effortlessly. Do not despair for our Rinpoche is here for this purpose if we truly care. Know our Rinpoche if you truly care. If you truly care you will know He is an accomplished and attained Master amongst us. If you truly care, you will surely discover He is a Wishfulfilling Gem. If you truly care and smart it is the right time to fully immense into his instructions, for time and tide wait for no man.
If I hadn’t done my homework in dharma in the beginning (attend weekly Guru Yoga puja, Setrap puja, Lamrin classes and Sunday Talks) I wouldn’t have became a volunteer and work full-time in dharma. I just know there is something in Tibetan Buddhism that is good for us.
After 2 years of engaging in the practice, learning and discovering Tibetan Buddhism – I am pleased to say now that the practice helped me see clearer what Anger, Jealousy, Attachment and Delusion is. I can see them in the mind of the people that I deal with and talk to. That’s when I contemplate and learn the most before it comes to a realization that what I’ve read, learned and studied in the Lamrin is the Truth.
I can also see now how a person’s mind can go into depression easily due to their own delusion, negative karmic actions, wrong attachment and high expectations.
My aunt is going through mild depression in the last 6 months, lost 10kg in weight and is so stubborn that she is driving her own mind into deeper levels of depression. She is dwelling in her own self-pity and her husband and children are suffering mentally along with her own sickness.
We may not know what Enlightenment is now but if we can find something that can give us peace of mind and we strengthen this mind further, we will eventually find this “enlightenment” even before we die on this earth.
We have been conditioned since we were born that ‘samsara’ is good for us. We haven’t been told otherwise. So to undo this ‘samsaric’ condition, we have to learn slowly of the other positive “spiritual path” that can bring us happiness and unlearn the other ‘negative habitual’ conditions that we have been used to. This will take time, like schooling and doing homework and will take years but eventually we will get there surely. This I truly trust.
I thank all the Buddhas sincerely for sending HE Tsem Rinpoche back to us to show us this truthful healing spiritual path. We all need dharma more but dharma doesn’t need us. How true.
Start from where you are at.
Work with what you have.
Follow your teachers instruction.
Do not seek achievement.
Give up expectation
Test the Dharma and see what happens.
Practice in private and in public.
Faith, trust and confidence will develop.
You are travelling in the right direction.
Have a happy journey – there is a mountain to climb!!
Most of us like to quantitfy our achievements in life, like what position we are at our career path, how much we are making more compared to last year, or are we having a bigger car or a bigger house??
In some of the discussion classes I have been, I once remembered a gentleman asking how would he know he had reached englightenment? Obviously, no one could answer as none of us(at least I can’t) had reached that level.
So really how do we quantify our achievements as a buddhist practitioner?
Say a person is very angersome and always throws a tantrum at the smallest thing that does not please him, on a very “basic” level, if he finds he could avert his anger the moment he wants to let his air out on others, I think it is safe to say he is lessening his anger and he has better awareness of his own afflictive emotions. Yet it is still hard to quantify that.
I remember what Rinpoche has once taught us, Rinpoche said when we are coming to the center to do pujas, to attend to dharma classes, to volunteer to help, or we do our sadhana daily at home; all of these are like homework, one supports another to help us collect merits and prepare our minds to be able to understand the dharma better and hence realization may arise. All these hours taken from time which we could have spent otherwise on increasing our samsaric attachments and indulgence in seeking pleasure, like shopping, watching a movie; or engaging in non virtous activities that may create the causes for more sufferings in the future, such as gossiping with our friends and making divisive speech.
So yes, Dharma homework is a very essential part and sometimes we may encounter some obstacles along our path and feel like giving up. Like What Rinpoche has said, if becoming a Doctor, an Astronaut, a scientist, a musician require more than 20 years, what are we to say how long we need for enlightenment?
I believe striking a balance, especially for beginners is important. Taking one step at a time and adopting an attitude not to give up is very important in our spiritual journey.
I have always hated homework in elementary and nursing school… it was just so blase… but I am addicted to doing my homework when it comes to Dharma. Everyday I’m on many websites finding out about topics in Buddhism.
I have always found meditation to be hard because I never knew what to do or how to do it. After months of extensive studying and reading, I can now say that I am at level four of the stages of calm-abiding meditation (according to HH The Dalai Lama’s “How to see yourself as you really are”).
I think with a couple of more months, I will soon be at level nine of calm-abiding and move into analytical meditation (Hey if Milarepa can do it, why can’t I?). I also find meditation a very addictive drug that I even want to do it in my sleep!
I think doing homework for the Dharma is one of the best and rewarding jobs you will ever do, and I find that if you pray to Manjushri or Tsongkhapa (since Tsongkhapa is connected to Manjushri) it will help you understand the dharma better.
Keep up with your homework and remember: Om ah guru vajradhara sumati kirti siddhi hung!!!!
Good Luck!!!!!