Dharamshala: Drikung Kyabgon Rinpoche, head of Drikung Kagyu of Tibetan Buddhism spoke on the whats and hows of committing ourselves in the fulfillment of the four principal commitments of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Promotion of human values, for example, is not easy, Rinpoche said for we must learn to invoke these positive feelings for every sentient being and not a few select people of your own.
He made a reference to the teachings in the Mahayana tradition according to which compassion (karuna) is one of the primary qualities that a practitioner should cultivate toward all sentient beings, without exception.
“In the Mahayana tradition, this compassion is cultivated in which practitioners begin by expanding their love and compassion towards their loved ones, then strangers, then enemies, and finally toward all beings,’ Rinpoche explained, emphasizing practice and discipline as drivers of compassion.
And along with discipline and practice, Rinpoche explained that constantly recognizing the suffering of others and having a wholehearted, urgent desire to alleviate that suffering is how we can learn to act compassionately at all times, and thus be able to fully grasp the true essence of His Holiness’ commitments towards humanity.
Rinpoche also stressed the urgency of preserving Tibetan culture and environment, particularly the ecological health of Tibetan plateau and the Himalayan regions along with their waters.
Drikung Rinpoche has been a very active campaigner for climate change, river conservation, and many such green initiatives in Himalayan regions.
Rinpoche also explained the importance of environmental stewardship from a Buddhist perspective how the practice of nonviolence applies not just to humans but to all sentient beings.
Whether its saving water at home, putting a litter back in the garbage, or planting a tree or rescuing lives in the sea, they all equally, in Rinpoche’s point of view, contribute to ensuring a healthy environment where humans as well all living beings can flourish.
Finally, Rinpoche laid down the basic steps that each can take towards this noble vision, the six paramitas (Tib: ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་དྲུག་) which is bodhichitta in action. Firstly, cultivating the attitude of generosity, the discipline to refrain from harm, patience, diligence to appreciate what is virtuous, Meditative concentration and sixth, wisdom.
Watch the full address here:
༧གོང་ས་མཆོག་གི་ཐུགས་བསྐྱེད་དམ་བཅའ་བཞིའི་ཐོག་གཏམ་བཤད་ལས་རིམ་ཉིན་ ༣ པ།
༄༅། །ཉིན་གསུམ་པའི་ལས་རིམ་ཐོག་དཔལ་ས་སྐྱའི་༧སྐྱབས་མགོན་༧གོང་མ་ཁྲི་འཛིན་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་མཆོག་དང་། ༧སྐྱབས་རྗེ་དགའ་ལྡན་ཁྲི་ཆེན་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་མཆོག དཔལ་༧རྒྱལ་དབང་ཀརྨ་པ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་མཆོག ༧སྐྱབས་རྗེ་སྨན་རིའི་ཁྲི་འཛིན་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་མཆོག ༧སྐྱབས་རྗེ་ཞི་ཆེན་རབ་འབྱམས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་མཆོག འབྲི་གུང་༧སྐྱབས་མགོན་ཆེ་ཚང་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་མཆོག ༧སྐྱབས་རྗེ་ཇོ་ནང་རྒྱལ་ཚབ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་མཆོག་བཅས་ནས་སྤྱི་ནོར་༧གོང་ས་༧སྐྱབས་མགོན་ཆེན་པོ་མཆོག་གི་ཐུགས་བསྐྱེད་དམ་བཅའ་བཞིའི་སྐོར་གསུང་བཤད་གནང་གི་རེད།
Posted by TIBET TV on Saturday, 5 December 2020