Dharma Quote of the Week - Gratitude

HEALING WITH FORM,
ENERGY AND LIGHT:
The Five Elements in Tibetan
Shamanism, Tantra and Dzogchen
by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
edited by Mark Dahlby
more...

Dharma Quote of the Week

As practitioners, we are taught to think about the gift of the precious human body. We have been born in places where the dharma is taught, at a time when teachers are accessible and where transmission is obtainable. We live where there is the political freedom to follow our spiritual paths. Our living conditions are good and we have the leisure to practice.

What we often lack is the recognition of the gifts we have already received. Sometimes we remember how good our lives are when we are brushed by tragedy, but then, caught up again in our normal lives, we forget. We are driven away from gratitude and appreciation by dark and negative forces, by habitual dissatisfaction and constant stimulation. When others have more than us, we feel envy, but in a world where so many people have less than us, we often don't recognize how fortunate we are.

The teachings often focus on view, meditation, and behavior. What this means is that the way we see determines how we feel and think. And how we feel and think determines how we act. When we look from a dualistic viewpoint, we see an imperfect world and we live as troubled, imperfect beings in that imperfect world. When we see the world in its perfection, just as it is, we are buddhas, living in a pure land, surrounded by other buddhas.

Until we have pure vision and realize the perfection of the world and the beings in it, it is helpful if we can accept the imperfections of the world as a natural part of life, as the material with which we can work. When we turn away from any aspect of the world, we turn away from parts of ourselves. By opening to the world and accepting it as it is, we open to deeper dimensions of our own being. Complete acceptance is the end of hope and fear, the end of fantasies of the past and future. It is living entirely in the present, in what actually is.

--from Healing with Form, Energy and Light: The Five Elements in Tibetan Shamanism, Tantra and Dzogchen by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, edited by Mark Dahlby, published by Snow Lion Publications

Tags: Buddhism, gratitude, Snow Lion Publications, Healing with Form Energy and Light, The Five Elements in Tibetan Shamanism, Tantra, Dzogchen, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche