Question asked by Khokon Dewan
I am 38 years old, walking through a phase of life where I’m still searching for financial stability and a sense of inner balance. As my parents grow older, I feel the sacred duty to care for them while also learning how to care for myself. I’ve experienced a few relationships that didn’t last and continue to face challenges in my present one — each teaching me something about love, patience, and self-awareness.
At this stage, I wish to understand how to rise above these obstacles with grace and clarity. I’m open to any spiritual guidance or practical wisdom that can help me move forward with strength, peace, and purpose. Thank you with all my heart.
Dear Khokon Dewan,
Thank you for writing so openly and honestly. Tsem Rinpoche has taught very directly that our difficulties (financial struggles, relationship pain, the weight of responsibilities) are not signs that something has gone wrong with our life. They are the results of karma, and more importantly, they are the very material we use to grow. Rinpoche often sad that we should stop waiting for the “right conditions” before we begin transforming ourselves, because the perfect conditions will never come.
You don’t practice Dharma after your problems are solved. You practice Dharma with your problems as the fuel. Your wish to care for your aging parents is deeply virtuous. Rinpoche has spoken many times about how caring for our parents is one of the most powerful forms of merit-making available to us, and that neglecting them creates heavy negative karma. So please don’t see that duty as a burden pulling you away from your own growth. It is your growth. Every act of patience, sacrifice, and kindness you offer them is planting seeds for the very stability and peace you’re looking for.
Regarding relationships and inner balance, Rinpoche taught something that can sound tough but is ultimately very freeing: stop focusing so much on what others are not giving you, and start focusing on what you are becoming. When we chase after happiness from external sources (the right partner, the right salary, the right circumstances) we set ourselves up for repeated disappointment, because everything external is impermanent by nature.
Instead, we are encouraged to develop a daily practice. This can even be something simple and consistent like a daily meditation, recitation, or Dharma study, because it becomes your anchor, the one thing in your life that doesn’t depend on anyone else showing up for you. It builds the inner refuge that no breakup, no financial setback, and no external change can shake.
You are 38, and Rinpoche would have likely reminded you that this is not late — many great practitioners began their serious practice in the middle of life’s messiness, not in some peaceful retreat far from responsibility. The fact that you are asking these questions now, with humility and openness, means the seeds are already stirring. Start where you are, be consistent rather than dramatic, take care of your parents with a joyful mind, and let your spiritual practice be the quiet steady ground beneath everything else. That is how you move forward with the strength, peace, and purpose you’re looking for.
Here is a link to one of Rinpoche’s teachings that may help you understand things better: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/discovering-yourself-a-teaching-on-karma-mindstream.html