Good investment
When we put so much time, energy, effort, resources and hope into outer beauty we have to resort to dieting, surgery, makeup, exercise, creams, soaps, doctors, spas, resorts, baths and medications, but in the end it fails us. No one will be attracted to us when it fades and all too quickly. All the time we invested is gone, wasted and lost. Empty handed. Even the memories fade. It is an investment into a sinking ship. But when we spend the same amount of time to develop kindness, compassion, generosity, responsibility, spirituality, less selfishness, focus, honesty and genuine concern for others, we develop a beauty that gets better with time, we are never lonely, people will flock to us, we will have genuine friends, and feel great satisfaction. Even the animals that meet us will feel our inner beauty and like us. This is truly time well spent and a investment that does not invite fear of eventual loss. In the end outer beauty will fail us no matter how much effort and time we put into it as outer beauty is our biggest traitor. So it is worth our time to develop inner beauty which never fades and constantly attracts no matter what we look like.~Tsem Rinpoche
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This was a wonderful and much needed article. A true believer in the beauty of life and the world we live in. The truth of the matter is that inner beauty should be the one we focusing on all of our lives. Outer beauty fades as we age, but our inner persona never goes anywhere.
Although it may be harder for some to do so and it can take a lot of time, it’s not impossible for anyone because beauty lies within us. Thank you for sharing, the most generic definition of it is a type of beauty that does not rely on the visible features.
https://bit.ly/3wwNKLw
It is the inner beauty, kindness and generosity of your heart that makes you a beautiful person. No matter how beautiful you may look from outside, we will not have any peace if we are not beautiful and peaceful from inside. Peace and serenity come from deep within Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart. The Buddha taught us that our true nature is emptiness and when this true nature is realized, the divine states of loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity emerge. The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It’s the caring that she lovingly gives .
Thank you Rinpoche for this sharing ,May Rinpoche stays healthy and continue turning the Dharms wheel.
What Rinpoche has said is very true. Outer beauty do not last forever. A lot of people are already beautiful naturally but they would still think that they are still not pretty so they would get plastic surgery and sometimes the surgeries might fail and they would turn out to be uglier. I will let this video explain my point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6ZjMWLqJvM
Most people don’t realize that they are the ones who is causing the situation to become worse. Yet they still try to save it even though they know that it is impossible to save it (I guess you can call that Stubbornness). Most of the time, they would still argue with people that it is not their fault and sometimes they would even try to blame others. Isn’t that funny when you finally think of it?
Outer beauty doesn’t matter that much in the end of the day we will still lose them but inner beauty is totally different they will never fade unless the person choose to and I believe sometimes we might even be able to bring our personalities to our future lives. Isn’t that wonderful and better to bring something that we might be able to bring it to our future lives than some beauty that we only own it for a lifetime?
Thanks Rinpoche for sharing this. I totally agree with this, and the best part is that those people are complimented by their outer beauty, they got the temporarily happy from that, and they though they done the right things,once their beauty gone, they feel lost, they will try to get it back by the way they can, so the circle repeat and finally they realise what they used to chased for is fade and they already had wasted so much time.
The very thing we rely on getting attention from others fails us eventually.
Which tells us that what is inside is much more powerful than what is outside of us.
Our beauty lets us feel so good and gives us confident. However, it is impermanent and no one will be attracted to us when it fades.
We should invest a beauty that gets better with time. i.e kindness, compassion, generosity, responsibility, spirituality, less selfishness, focus, honesty and genuine concern for others.
Thank you Rinpoche for reminding us as sometimes we will derail, forget or influenced by others. Rinpoche teachings and reminders will bring us back onto the right trek.
After so many years of indulged into materials worldly concerns, truly dharma definitely my best investment .
Because of knowing dharma, I get to practice and develop” kindness, compassion, generosity, responsibility, spirituality, less selfishness, focus, honesty and genuine concern for others” as what Rinpoche always teaches us.
Thank you Rinpoche for constantly teaches us DHARMA IS PRECIOUS, never give up dharma in any circumstances.
How often do we look in the mirror? We will yearned to have a big eyes, sharp pointed nose, high cheek bones etc. Why wasting our time on all the impermanent elements which will eventually fade and will not last. Have we ever wished to possess ‘big heart’, compassion, kindness, generosity and all the good qualities instead of those outer beauty? As we aged, most of us thought that we have walked through the road of life and has experienced the ups and downs but to me, upon encountering with the dharma, OOPS… I only realized that I have in actual fact, all the while, adopted the incorrect concept and mentality. Thank you Rinpoche for all your care and kindness.
Dear Rinpoche,
This is my favorite article so far! I have now learnt that instead of buying yourself stuff and wasting your precious time, we should be doing stuff for other people that could help them with their future. Instead of you making your ego higher, why not make yourself look like an amazing, compassionate person who helps people in need.
Today after Setrap Puja, we were having discussion on this topic, Good Investment. There were two types of investments in general, one material investment (such as to have good living condition, good reputation, relationship, makeup, fashion etc) and another one is spspiritual investment. In most of the time, we put more our effort and attention to the material investment and spiritual investment is always low priority. That is why Patsy always remind us to set our priority right. All the external attachment is impermanent and they will be faded away with time. Only spiritual practice is permanent. It reminds us a sentence in “Foundation of All Good Quality”: “After death my good and bad karma follows me like my shadow”. After death, we need to leave everything worldly behind including your love one, family, money, house etc, they all are impermanent, only our spiritual practice or karma will follow us. We will benefit from spiritual practice even beyond this life time.
It reminds us the “Blind Turtle in the ocean” story. The blind turtle will take 100 thousands years to surface out in the ocean and 1 out to 10 times of surfacing to the ocean,it will be able to touch the wooden block. Touching wooden block represent reborn in human realm. It means it will take us at least 1 million years to be reborn in human realm again. Since rebirth in human realm is so precious and it is only conducive realm for Dharma practice , we should seize the opportunity to do the right investment, practising Dharma and transform our mindset.
The team has conclude and agreed that we should seize this golden opportunity to practice Dharma seriously and follow our Guru teaching faithfully in order to collect the merit for future lives.
Attendants: Siaw Ching, Swee Ching, Chin Seong, and Soon Huat
Guests: Charon, Chris Lor (Charon’s husband) and Goh Gaik Choo (Charon’s mother)
We hold on too tightly to our attachments and try to keep them just as they are, to make them permanent. But nothing in life is permanent and everything will fade away like a dream.
Everything we perceived beautiful will degenerate as time goes by yet we spent our time and effort to hold on to that. Our sufferings arise when we do not see the results and we feel unhappy. It is better to spend our time and effort to develop good qualities; transform ourselves to be better and cultivate those inner qualities.
Thank you Rinpoche.
Thank you, Rinpoche, for this teaching which shows us how we should wisely invest our energy and effort. We should definitely not focus all our energy on something which is temporary.Physical looks will fade.
Unfortunately,outer looks and beauty are what our mind, in all its delusion, grasps at. Moreover, it’s because we grasp at outer beauty, that we commit all manner of transgressions which lead us to greater suffering in this and future lives.
On the other hand, if we focus on inner beauty, and invest our time on developing it, if we build up kindness,compassion, generosity, responsibility, spirituality, greater selflessness, honesty and sincere concern for others,we will develop strong positive imprints in our minds that will lead us to lasting peace.
Dear Tsem Tulku Rinpoche, I can never be more grateful for you showing me and the others on what true beauty is. Most of us teenagers nowadays are blindly entrenched in the thought of beautifying ourselves externally whilst being entirely ignorant in practicing virtuous deeds and perfecting our inner self. We think that this outer beauty is our greatest shield, where society can favor us a bit more even though our personalities are actually ugly. However, as karma ripens, we have come to realize that this “shield” shatters apart and is unable to protect us from our inner ugliness anymore. We then become demotivated from chasing after our life goals, which induces more causes in destructing one’s precious life. Thank you Rinpoche for being generous in sharing this philosophical thought on life, and may Rinpoche continue to implant this seeds of wisdom in the souls of the younger generations. Thank you so much!
Nothing is permanent in Samsara world includes fame and outer gorgeous looks. Worldly investment is like short term gain, long term lose. Only by polishing our inner beauty such as developing bodhicitta quality definitely is great & worth investment. Rinpoche reminds me back surrounding spiritual practice people’s (including my late grandmother) smile, truly reflects inner beauty which is much more instinct beauty than hot chicks smile.
感谢詹仁波切与我们分享此具有意义的文章。现实生活当中，许多人都非常过度的重视“外在美”。每当人们看到长相好看的人，绝大多数的人们都会心身欢喜。相反的，无论一个人的内在品性多么但由于他们的长相不是很好-瘦骨如材等，大多数的人都会以负面的心态来对待他们。这全都是因为我们的无明而产生的错误的认。因此，我们须经常的去阅读经/论等如菩提道次地广论及聆听上师的开示以便逐渐的破除我们应无明而导致的错误见解。
Thank you Rinpoche for reminder, Inner Beauty is more important and can get satisfy rewards when we are continue practice be more compassion, generosity, care each other and etc. I will remember this example and sharing to others, “outer beauty like a Sinking Ship and never invest for it”.
Thank You Rinpoche for reminding us the outer beauty is impermanent and inner beauty is eternal. The inner beauty ( kindness, compassion, generosity, responsibility, spirituality, less selfishness, focus, honesty and genuine concern for others) we developed will benefit us for a few lives time or even eternal (if we can get enlighten or can go to pure land in this life).
I will take effort to develop the inner beauty inches by inches even though it is not easy. Thanks Rinpoche.
This a beautiful teaching Rinpoche. People these days try to hard to make their outer selves better. When it’s really their inner selves that is important and gets them true happiness. We all need to learn that how you look on the outside really has no affect on how we are on the inside. Thank you for sharing Rinpoche.
Indeed…outer beauty will fade with time..no matter how much senseless efforts we put in. Inner beauty on the other hand, will be like a polishing a gem…more and more glittering and attractive.
Thank you, Rinpoche
Buddhism teaches us how to overcome our problems and difficulties by understanding and preventing their causes. Generally, we usually look at outward circumstances for the cause of our problems, whereas as what Rinpoche has said is for us to look inwards. Buddha showed how our feelings of dissatisfaction arise from negative state of mind – primary anger, attachment and ignorance – and offered methods to eliminate these by developing generosity, compassion, wisdom and other positives state of mind. The real source of happiness is inner peace. If our mind is peaceful, we shall be happy all the time, irregardless of external conditions, but if it is disturbed or troubled in any way, we shall never be happy no matter how good our external conditions may be, because, “Mind preceeds all things; Mind is their chief; Mind is their maker”. Therefore, as Rinpoche has suggested, if we want a true lasting happiness, we need to develop and maintain a special experience of inner peace of our mind. Thank you Rinpoche for the interesting teachings!
现代的人，大部份都是为了钱而生为了钱而死。有钱就买名牌货，买高楼大厦，买靓车。 这些都是很多人想要的，想追求的。劳碌了一辈子，死时一生所累集的财产，没有一样可带走。仁波切经常提醒我们一切都是无常的。只有佛法能陪伴我们，跟随我们直到我们脱离轮回。学习佛法能让我们有心灵上的转化，培养更好的内在美。正如仁波切说的，最好的投资。希望更多人可以改变投资，为自己和他人着想。
Thank you for reminding us on what is truly important in our lives, that is our inner beauty. Everything exterior is as with all things, impermanent. However, instead of investing in things that will dissipate quickly, we should instead invest in something better, the betterment of ourselves as people
I reckon we are chasing a dream, a dream that we hope and want to last forever, and in this instance, external physical beauty. I guess most of us think that since we do not have the brains, so to speak, we divert others’ attention away from what we don’t have to what we have, that is, physical beauty. But when our body failed us in our later years, we get depressed and sad. Some of us may spend loads of time, effort and money trying to restore what was lost or trying to keep what we will eventually lose. This is suffering we created for ourselves.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this inspiring thought with us. Nothing is permanent only our mind is permanent we should develope our mind with all these good qualities that mention by Rinpoche , by developing all these good qualities our life only has meaning and that is the reason why we are here.
Thank you Rinpoche for reminding us on our physical impermanence and to put more effort to develop our inner beauty. The energy, effort, time and focus spent on compassion, kindness, generosity, honesty and all the good qualities will not be gone or wasted as these inner beauties can transform our mind from inner out and bring us to another level of spiritual achievement.
Thank you Rinpoche for constantly reminding us in what’s more important in our lives. Many of us put so much effort and time in all these and in the end it didn’t turn out how we thought it would be and we suffer. And the worst thing is it will fade off and then we are back to square one, as though nothing had happened and all the time, money, effort are gone to waste.
“So it is worth our time to develop inner beauty which never fades and constantly attracts no matter what we look like” No doubt, it’s a great investment. Thank you Rinpoche for sharing _/\_