Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change

Nobody’s perfect in keeping the commitment to not harm. But still, students often ask me, “How can I make this vow with any integrity? If I’m going to break it at all, then what’s the point?” Patrul Rinpoche, a Buddhist master who lived in the eighteenth century, basically said there is no way to escape harming. He devotes an entire section of his

When the mind is wild with mockery And filled with pride and haughty arrogance, And when you want to show the hidden faults of others, To bring up old dissensions or to act deceitfully, And when you want to fish for praise Or criticize and spoil another’s name Or use harsh language, sparring for a fight, It’s then that like a log you should remain.

When feelings of desire or craving arise, or the urge to speak or act out of aggression arises, “Do not act!” he warns. “Be silent, do not speak!” That’s the basic instruction of the first commitment: Don’t act, don’t speak.

You rejoice when you’re able to acknowledge that you’re caught in an old pattern and when you catch yourself before you speak or act out.

The process of seeing your habits clearly is sometimes compared to having a big, blank canvas, then taking a paintbrush and making a dot on it. The empty canvas represents basic goodness, your basic unfettered nature; the dot represents a habit. It can be a very small dot, but against the empty canvas it really stands out. From this perspective, yo

When you come from the view that you’re fundamentally good rather than fundamentally flawed, as you see yourself speak or act out, as you see yourself repress, you will have a growing understanding that you’re not a bad person who needs to shape up but a good person with temporary, malleable habits that are causing you a lot of suffering. And then,

We look at what we say and do based on a genuine trust in our basic goodness. We trust that we’re fundamentally openhearted and open-minded and that when we’re not confounded by our emotions, we know what will help and what will hurt.

Similarly, if you repress your feelings, everyone is affected by that too, because you’re walking around like a keg of dynamite that’s about to go off.

Every time you speak or act out of aggression or craving or jealousy or envy or pride, it’s like dropping a pebble into a pool of water and watching the ripples fan out; everyone around you is affected.