The Beginning….
(By Tsem Rinpoche)
Everything in life has false dualistic views. If we choose to enter the door of dualism, then we get hurt, disappointed, and bitter in the end. If we choose a better doorway which is emptiness, then the door leads seemingly nowhere yet everywhere. Emptiness of dualism.
Whatever we choose, everything ends in death in the end. Everything is forgotten, lost, abandoned and taken away. Why bother to spend your whole life gathering things you can keep for a very short time? So better choose a doorway that at death, it leads to something much better. Something you can take…more tangible yet not tangible…your consciousness..mind.
Your mind is the only thing you actually ‘own’. It travels ‘with’ you life after life taking on different forms, experiencing, collecting, learning and then back to the same thing again. In the end, there’s no place new in samsara you have not been to. It seems like a journey, but it’s just a vicious cycle. Nothing new to learn, only to re-experience again and again.
At the end of each life cycle, we have to start the dying process again….then death, then rebirth, then death, over and over again with no end….pleasurable to the ignorant. A vicious cycle to those who are Awakened.
Fired by our attachments, desire and greed we have to take rebirths again and again deceptively thinking it is a new journey or it will be better or it is a place we haven’t been to before. Those are the babblings of the deceived.
At the end of each deceptive ‘journey’ we take in Samsara, it always ends in death. No matter what forms we take and what ‘new’ lessons we learn, we never really learn because there’s is no new knowledge within samsara’s internal boundaries.
But if we look outside of samsara’s boundaries, there’s another journey. A true journey. A journey traversed by the Buddhas of the past, and awaiting the Buddhas of the future. This journey has a destination. This destination will not be disappointing or lead to bitterness. It has a wonderful end. But that end will be just the beginning.
Tsem Rinpoche
Please support us so that we can continue to bring you more Dharma:
If you are in the United States, please note that your offerings and contributions are tax deductible. ~ the tsemrinpoche.com blog team
True enough life is short, we will all die somedays. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will benefits others and lives meaningfully. That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet. Live our life, learning Dharma , practice Dharma, is the best choice. Change our thoughts , transform our mind and we change our world. Those who realize their folly are not true fools. Life is too important to be taken seriously. Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. It always seems impossible until it’s done. Death is more universal than life, everyone dies . The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
Thank you Rinpoche for this wisdom sharing.
When there is a beginning , there is always a ending in all things . And where there is life there is death. Life and death are one thread same line is how we see viewed from different sides .Whatever is we have to live to the fullest meaningful in our lives without regrets. We owned nothing at the end of day as Rinpoche said these …Nothing is impermanent. What is left behind is just memory in the living . You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth becomes a matter of life and death to you. There is an unending cycle of birth ,death and rebirth. We need to create as much merits as possible before we die and the best way to do that is to learn and practice Dharma, and transform mind to liberating paths.
Thank you Rinpoche for these precious teachings.
Die, rebirth, die and born again, we have forgotten that we are going through this seem like never ending process again and again. Control by self-created actions we seem like do not have any choices to get away from this vicious circle. When the moment of death arrive, lying on the sick bed, we are so in fear and feel hopeless, no clue of what is going to be happened.
Thus, it is fortunate for me to even read this article and learn that we have choice or chances to liberate our self from samsara, end the dualistic views, hold and practice dharma.
With this dharma knowledge I have, I hopes I could bring this knowledge to others and benefit them. I hope more sentient being able to liberate themselves from this circle of uncontrolled rebirth and their pain and suffering could end.
Thank you Rinpoche for this precious teaching.
With Folded Hand, Love
Freon
Thank you, Rinpoche, for this very profound teaching. Because of us holding on to the dualistic view, we are bound to the “I” heavily, with the “I”, attachment arise. However, nothing that the “I” attached to or possess in this world of this lifetime can be brought along when we die one day, inevitably. We foolishly think that all the temptations in samsara are exotic and fun, but, really, what samsara a.k.a our world is but a gateless theme park that serves unlimited pleasure and pain roller coaster rides with free tickets to hell. Think about it and what we want for our next life before time runs out.
I am currently in a retreat and in between sessions, I have been thinking a lot about the things people do that they think will bring them happiness, but in fact keep them trapped in samsara. At one point, I got really frustrated especially when thinking about people who really should know better. WHY do they keep doing the same thing over and over again, thinking it will bring them happiness? They KNOW the Dharma, they KNOW they are going to die one day, and so knowing their time is so short, why are they wasting it on meaningless pursuits? Is their life so bad that they have to distract themselves in this way?
At one point through all this thinking, I realised how judgmental I was being. What they do that keeps them in samsara may be obvious, but what I am doing is just as bad even if it is more subtle. My own attachment to judgement and the ‘pleasure’ I derive from making such judgements, and my own attachment to thinking that my method is better than theirs, is just as bad as whatever they are engaged in. Why? Because in the end, we all still end up being reborn in samsara anyway. The only difference is how we got there and where we ended up.
So why create so much karma from such negative, judgemental thoughts about others? In the past, such an attitude has not brought me happiness. Yet, just like the people I was judging, I deceptively imagined that this time, things would be different, I will be proven correct and as a result, I will be happy from having been proven correct. Boy, that was a wake-up call when I came to that conclusion about my own delusions.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this powerful, poetic teaching of the Four Noble Truths. Reading it was very freeing for my mind.
None of us can deny that we will all die one day. With birth, the only certainty is death. Whatever happens in between we may have some predictability, some control but there are too many factors beyond us. While we may not know when or how we will die, we know with absolute certainty that we will. There are many proof that reincarnation exists. For those of you who believe in reincarnation, one must why we keep doing this same cycle again and again. What is the point? Buddhist believes in enlightenment, that there is a journey beyond. But it doesn’t look like people are rushing to get enlightened either. For those who supposedly believe in enlightenment, many still seems to keep going through the cycle of birth and death. Hopefully they will get there some day.
When I think of enlightenment, that there is something beyond samsara, I always think of the movie The Matrix. Not all who took the red pills and realized the truth of the Matrix were happy with the “real” situation. Sometimes I wonder if enlightenment could be like that. We wake up from the illusion of the fabricated world created by the Matrix only into another hell hole, another gloomy world. True, it may not be fabricated but it’s still just trading one world for another. It’s a scary thought. On one hand is this world which is samsara that we already know it’s just endless suffering one way or another. On the other is the promise of end of suffering. But throughout history, that is what mankind has always been searching for. Is this just another illusion that the grass is always greener on the other side, hence we are never happy where we are and wanted something else somewhere else.
At the end, we only owned our mind, nothing else is owned by us. We can’t take anything with us when we are dead. Money, fame, ego etc will be left behind. We only can take with us the karma and merits we have created and all the right choices we made while we are still alive.
Our minds can bring us to a meaningful existence a lifetime of benefitting others, or it can lead us to plain misery over and over again.
Dear Rinpoche,
These are words like my alarm to wake me up from my deluded state. whenever i feel lost and not well with my mind, i read these words and really help me remind me of my true purpose in this world. Thank you so much
How profound.
Only by cutting desires/attachments can impulse energies be stopped.
Impulse energies causes karmas to arise.
Karmas creates the cycle of rebirths.
By stilling the mind on Emptiness,
One creates non dualistic mind. No impulse energies are created.
No impulse energies; no karmas to arise.
Thus cessation of rebirths is achieved.
Enlightenment is the Emptiness of the non-dualistic mind.
No bad no good. No sadness no happiness. No pleasure no pain.
Correction. It’s Impulse Thought Energy.
Everything arises from Thoughts, that which creates karma.
Birth is the beginning of life or is death the beginning? Somehow, either way makes sense.
My point of view is if we have lived our lives within the teachings of the Awakened one, and with the inevitable ageing of the machine called our physical body, isn’t death a beginning whereby we can discard our worn out vessel and have the controlled and tamed mind to take on a new vessel to continue our work.
This post makes me reflect on how I and many people have viewed life from an angle that is opposite of the truth. So much time is spent to staying alive and preserving the body when such effort is futile because nothing can defeat the inevitable destination of death. Similarly, so much effort is put into avoiding death when that is the one aspect of our life that is certain.
This is the true meaning of irony.
I am sharing this with my friends who participated in the Inner Peace Retreat at Kechara Forest Retreat. It will make a powerful and potentially liberating subject for contemplative meditation.
“But if we look outside of samsara’s boundaries, there’s another journey. A true journey. A journey traversed by the Buddhas of the past, and awaiting the Buddhas of the future. This journey has a destination. This destination will not be disappointing or lead to bitterness. It has a wonderful end. But that end will be just the beginning.”
The last sentence of the paragraph caught my attention, “But that end will be just the beginning.”. This has always been my question. Once we become a Buddha, then what happens? Once all lives are liberated, then what’s next? I believe this question is too profound for us to understand.
What’s more important for my level is to be liberated first. By that time, I may find my answers to what’s next. I believe that’s where we truly live, free of delusions.
Thank you Rinpoche for constantly remind us about death and impermanent , it is indeed a very profound teaching that will release us from a lot of suffering it actually lead us to let go a lot of our self graping so that we will be more willing to help others and think less about our need , and it also help us to stay in our spiritual path and not give up easily.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for sharing and reminding us of the “End Day” and the teaching on Emptiness.
It’s really a reminder call to drop our egos, desires, hatred, greed, etc., etc.
Humbly yours,
_/\_
Lum Kok Luen
If we can really internalise this, then all problems, sufferings, anger, hatred, disharmony, stress, fears, issues we have in our life will just melt away because what’s the point in getting so “hung up” about? Instead we would treasure and really appreciate our precious “human” body that is fit and able to do Dharma and my gawd… and we have a Guru to guide us on top of that!
We don’t realise this, that is why our bad habituations are still so hard and tough and deeply ingrained in us. But I must say, it is because of Rinpoche’s teachings and constant care in finding interesting ways to “remind” us of this impermanence existence, we may perhaps have a 10% realisation or a glimpse of how we can change our lives and other’s lives around us and hopefully we get it eventually and live a fuller, more purposeful, happier life.
An apt reminder during this Chinese New Year as everyone goes around showing gratitude and paying respects to their folks… but shouldn’t this be done even without CNY? I guess samsara makes us “busy”.
I certainly need this very much to remind myself of what life would be at the end and refresh myself with a better attitude towards life and train myself to be committed with my Dharma work.
Thank you Rinpoche very much of sharing this.
Although the pictures in this article are very gruesome, but it reminds us hat we will be in the future when we die or when we are poor and do not have food. We should not be taking what we have for granted, not wasting our lives in the enjoyment of the samsara activities. We should always keep in mind about what we have, being grateful for what is given to us. Give others as well when we can.
[…] H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche wrote a truly mind-blowing blog entitled, “The Beginning” about life on earth, and how we truly own nothing. And the only thing we can take with us is our minds. Do have a read at http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2010/06/the-beginning.html. […]
When there is a begining there will be an end. Its just like going round and round in circles without and end. So is life. You were born as a baby then you grow up. And grow old then die. And you take rebirth again in a different environment and a different body. Except that what has not change is your consciousness. Your Karma will have to change by how you cause it and the effect of the result. So at the beginning when we create a good cause for the good result to happen at the end so it can connect to the beginning again. In doing this we must accumulate merits during our lifetimes for us to be able to get good karma for this to happen.
ever since I was born I have been continuously been walking in the door of dualism.everything ends in death and begins again.The only thing that we actually would have is our mind. I would feel very bored if I would be able to feel like that right now to grow old then die then get young again. Then do it again and again. If my mind could remember what happens in my cycle I think that I would get a headache.
greed, attachments and desire is keeping the cycle goig on. So, I will stop all of that to prevent me from going continuosly into that cycle over and over again.
Dear Rinpoche
This thought provoking post keeps me thinking… I have no attained views to offer but I wish to share the following views that I thought could be very useful on this topic…
“…Buddhism teaches us ways to let go and simply to approach life as it is, whatever we might find, with the most simple, sane, clear mind possible. We are given methods to know referenceless rather than conduct a life-long war against it so that the complications in our mind can dissipate, so that we can make more peace with whatever we face…
In Buddhism, emptiness, the gap that composes the open dimension, is not a problem. In dualism, we have avoided the gap, lost touch with what it really is and believe it is a problem. We are superstitious even phobic about that gap, the godlessness, the non-concrete.
Buddhist practitioners are people who are willing to look beyond that superstition, to be curious enough to explore the experience of the texture reality as it is, rather than relate to it as if we already understand it, rather than relate to it through ideas… ”
By Troma Rinpoche from “Entering The Open Dimension – A Buddhist View of God, Godlessness and The Sacred
Thank you Rinpoche
Thank you, Rinpoche, for this beautiful and profound teaching. It took me a long while to fathom even a little of its depth.
I am trying to find my way though it in this response.
‘Everything in life has false dualistic views. if we choose to enter the doorway of dualism then we get hurt, disappointed and bitter in the end. If we choose a better doorway which is emptiness(emptiness of dualism), then the doorway seemingly leads us nowhere and everywhere’.
If we choose the doorway which is emptiness(free of dualism), we will be undertaking a journey out of samsara and its vicious cycle of uncontrolled existences of suffering. This is, in fact, the journey which past Buddhas have undertaken to Enlightenment and liberation from suffering, and which future Buddhas will undertake.
This journey, whose doorway is emptiness, requires that we relinquish ‘self’ to realize a mind of ‘selflessness’.This ‘selfless’ mind is the ‘mind of clarity’ and is also a ‘non-dual space mind’. It is free of bias, free of desirous attachment and hatred and sees all beings as ‘inseparably related’. Thus, it is a mind that is free of the causes of suffering and of suffering, as it unwaveringly sees the ultimate nature of self and all phenomena.
To realize this ‘selfless’, non-dualistic mind, we have to dismantle our closed conceptual mind and free it of its habituated and distorted perceptions and projections which make it see self and all things as substantial, permanent, independently existing and separate, and labels and classifies all things.It is this closed conceptual mind, that labels and discriminates out of wrong projections and perceptions, that feeds the roosters and the snakes in us and create our suffering, our hurts,our disappointments and out bitterness.
Dear Rinpoche,
This is really a great teaching passed on by Rinpoche. Every time we are caught within ourselves because we could not see the other view of matter. We are so attached with so much matters and we tend to lose ourselves during the process.
We are covered with greed and blinded with desire to get certain things or even a person.
Recently I get to know an old lady, who is telling everyone how much she had cared and loved here godson, but once the godson met a girlfriend, she went into defensive mode and started bombarding her godson with mean words and words to degrade the girl and humiliate the girl.
It is really a hard situation to see for the poor guy, but in the end he just told the old lady, hope she will respect him and her girlfriend and told her that she will always be his godmother no matter what happened. But the lady refused everything and objected, saying if he insist to be with the girl, then they will no longer be related as godmom and godson relationship.
Sad situation though to see it ended that way. But it really shows how human can be blinded with greed and desire where they tend to think that they can own everytime, creating negative karma as it goes on.
Rinpoche, thank you for the powerful words and powerful pictures. One point that most affected me was the point about being caught in a vicious cycle. I had to ask myself , why do I let myself to still be caught in this vicious cycle ? I think probably due to countless lifetimes of negative habituations. It’s like being caught in a whirlpool. At least now I’m starting to learn how to swim out from it. The first few strokes will be difficult but with Rinpoche’s blessings and the help of my fellow kecharians , I will save myself and in turn learn to save others. I think my fellow kecharians are superb fighters. Fighters of their own habituations. Thank you Rinpoche for your unending patience with us and your guidance.
What a powerful blog post, made even more powerful by the images that Rinpoche added. In speaking about duality, it reminds me of a short teaching that Rinpoche gave on the visualisation we should hold during a Medicine Buddha puja.
Rinpoche spoke about Menlha’s residing in non-dual space, which is the clarity of the mind. In that state, it means he is without attachment – without duality, there is no good or bad, no right or wrong, no black or white. Thus, residing in non-duality, Menlha exists only to benefit us, no matter what actions he manifests and however it appears. And because Menlha is without attachment, he manifests in his physical blue form.
In the same way our Guru is also without attachment – everything about his body, speech and mind is for others. One example is that he takes on the robes, to show he is in service of others. We cannot take on the robes ourselves but our Guru can, because he is without attachment.
That teaching really stuck with me because of the visualisation that Rinpoche later gave on prostrations. It was the first time I felt I could really apply a teaching on non-duality to my practice, that non-duality was an actual achievable state of being. Rinpoche said,
1) As we recite NAMO GURU BEH and NAMO BUDDHA YAH, think, “May I attain your non-dual space body”
2) As we recite NAMO DHARMA YAH, think, “May I attain your non-dual space speech”
3) As we recite NAMO SANGHA YAH, think, “May I attain your non-dual space mind”
4) As you go down to the ground, think, “I surrender everything to you”
5) As you come back up, think, “I rise to practise the Dharma for others”
That’s the visualisation I have every time I do prostrations now, whether it’s to Menlha or not, just because it is so beautiful.
“Where u and what you doing?” is what Rinpoche will send to his students for updates. In relation to Rinpoche’s advice to Melvin, “In spirituality, always ask yourself questions regarding what you are doing and why you are doing it daily” gives a different perspective to “where u and what you doing?” It’s a way for the student to also check what they are up to in their mind which is reflected in their daily activities.
This blogpost is not just some clever sayings illustrated by photos to impress…It is brilliant, it is pure wisdom..on top of that, what I wish to point out is Rinpoche use many methods to push his students to realize what is said in the blogpost…to shape our minds and thus affecting the way we live our lives to achieve happiness with no regrets when we look back…
I love this post very much as it hits home what really matters.
What a graphically beautiful way to present such a profound teaching on dualism, emptiness and impermanence -yet its key points are easy for us to grasp, to reflect , to relate and to practice.
It really hits me that we can be so foolish to hang on to things, to spend so much energy( some more leading to stress and anxiety )in acquiring them ( mostly not essential things that we need but out of greed ), which, as Rinpoche said , we can only have them for a very short time.
The only thing we can bring along to our future lives when our body die and decays is our mind.
We should spend time to learn how to train our mind to become a beautiful wise mind which will be free from negative thoughts if we care about our future.
We must because there are so many future lives ahead of us while there is only one present one now. The best use of this present life is to do something truly meaningful with it,as Rinpoche says here
instead of going after temporary pleasures with nothing prepared for the future.
Thank you Rinpoche for giving us this very precious teaching!
Thanks Rinpoche for the teachings.
Ya, we should always “zoom out” and see what is the whole picture of life and not focus on the short terms satisfaction.
thank you it realy warms my heart`
My Dear Rinpoche
This was truely a powerful teaching for me. Lately I have felt that I have been doing the same thing over and over again and it is now clear that the feelings I have are very true to past lives. So my question is in today’s world how do I find my way clear of being “bored” How do I center myself with contentment?
Everyday I go for a walk and marvel at all that were given in this world with the trees, the sky, the creatures but it is difficult to be thankful for all human creatures. This is a hard path and I need to work on this but do not know how. Does this work hand in hand with centering oneself? Yours Truely Sonia (Suncy)
The best anyone can do if not enlightenment is to gain mastery over taking rebirth. Where you want to go can be determined if you practice the sacred Vajra Yogini Tantra thoroughly.
Start now before you are awarded the empowerment by:
Holding vows and commitments.
Be honourable and have integrity.
Whatever work or practices you’ve been assigned, do it diligently and happily.
Develop contemplations on the good qualities of one’s lama again and again.
Never give up.
Practice the 8 Verses of Thought Transformation.
Then:
Engage in the preliminary practices slowly but surely and finish.
Guru Yoga
Vajrasattva
Mandala
Prostrations
Water offerings
35 Confessional Buddhas
Don’t practice when you get Vajra Yogini, because you can start now. You have Vajra Yogini now. If your teacher says start, start in this way that I’ve written. Start now.
Have a sacred image of Vajra Yogini on your shrine and do all the practices ‘directed’ or focussed on Her. Hence you create powerful affinity with Her starting now.
Don’t waste time and procrastinate due to excuses that arise from empty reasonings.
Tsem Tulku
Dear Datuk,
Ridding your mind of dualism is not a hobby or a mission, it is the very purpose you should live for. We should all live for. If we do, all our actions become spontaneously spiritual.
Since you wish to bring others to spiritual practice, the more you rid yourself of dualism, the more effective you will be. The very reason to bring people to dharma is to help them to the highest goal, getting rid of dualism. For when dualism is eliminated, the SENSE OF FREEDOM, HAPPINESS AND LIGHTNESS you feel will be irreplacable and infectious to others.
Keep samaya clean, do all dharma/secular work with a supreme motivation as in the King of Prayers, contemplate on the reality of death daily with great concentration, look back at what life was about and determine to not waste the rest of our lives. These points are very important for our pursuit of non-dualism.
I wish you my best and send you my care,
Tsem Tulku
Thank you Rinpoche for this profound teaching. I will learn to rid my life of my dualistic mind with the purpose to live in the Dharma to benefit others.
Very Clear and tranquile!
Dear Mervin,
Sidetracking does happen when we don’t contemplate on the impermanence and transiency of our situation. Also remembering what is this all for and asking that question honestly will help very much.
In spirituality, always ask yourself questions regarding what you are doing and why you are doing it daily. What is the purpose of work, money, food, aging, death, sickness, etc. Ask daily to yourelf.
Tsem Tulku
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for reminding me… I have side tracked and i am happy I read this post.
Dear Rinpoche many thanks for the very insightful teaching and to summarize, what rinpoche had written is actually the three Dharma Seals in Buddhism.
1. Anicca: impermanence
2. Anatta: non-Self
3. Nirvana: Liberation
The Three Dharma Dharma is common amongst all schools of Buddhism and in fact the three dharma seals is what used by Buddhist to differentiate what is Dharma and what is not. In my own opinion, it is vital to align our motivation and practice with the three dharma seals to ensure that our practice is in the correct direction.
Well learned is very good but if one known a lot but do not apply what they have learned, then it will be like what the Jewish people always said, it is like a donkey carrying lot of books on it. Instead of using the knowledge for their own good, one will be burden by all this knowledge.
Dear Sarah,
Your very welcome. It reminds me too.
I wish you well and much happiness.
Tsem Tulku
Beautiful!
This teaching certainly help remind people like me… not to stray from practicing Dharma.
Thank you Rinpoche 🙂
Dear Roland,
I like what you have quoted from Dharmakirit. Superb. Now you must fully practice it and get along with every single person that irritates you. As you grow more and more patient with people, then you know your holding of self and others is lessening. Then the faults ‘cannot’ arise.
You should become the hotline for patience.
Please start today and practice with everyone past, present and future.
I wish you luck, tremendous success and happiness,
Tsem Tulku
Very Nice. Thank you Rinpoche for this wonderful teaching.
Can I just add a short saying by Dharmakirti to your blog.
By holding ‘self’ we hold ‘others’.
Through ‘self and others’ attachment and aversion arise.
And in connection with this
All faults arise.
Thank you Rinpoche for such a stunning teaching.
You are teaching us that in life we have got a choice, same old same old in the samsara or willing to make a difference to a better place. Your teaching is absolutely true.
The reason why people are so excited with their experiences due to attachment. Choosing a different path indeed is coming out from the dark.
This is too important for me to learn today.
Dino
Thank you Rinpoche for those many apt and stunning reminders and teachings. Those pictures sure are gruesome… but at the end of the day, yes, that’s what we all are – just a bag of bones and flesh.
absolute wisdom, insight…truth. I’ve read and reread this post and can’t get enough of it. I see something new each time i read it. Thank you so Rinpoche for compiling the beautiful photos to go with the teaching!