Words of Wisdom

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I always say that the purpose of life is to go out of our "I," our ego, and in this way we try to find our true nature.

Do not forget that when we practice the spiritual path we should not be creating a bigger "I.”
Instead, we say that a spiritual person is someone who—as much as possible—tries to create less "I."
In our normal life, we have so much "I." This is the root of our problems.

This means that because of the "I" there is a difference between our normal life and our spiritual life. In our normal lives we have too much “I,” and that is the problem. Then we practice the spiritual path and try to have less "I." In this way we create a separation between our regular life and our spiritual life.

Many people who practice a spiritual path create more "I." They do not realize the root of the problem.

Who does not allow you to become a spiritual person? Nobody—only your "I." This means that always, in any moment, at any time you can practice. No matter what exactly you are practicing on the spiritual path, whenever you feel more "I" then you need to realize that this is not the right way to practice.

Whenever you are not happy, whenever you are suffering, in this moment you are always feeling "I."
Therefore, it is always important that we do not forget that we practice the spiritual path because we want to reduce the “I.”

When there is less “I,” there is more happiness. "I" makes your life very hard and very difficult. "I" is the source of the problem.

Question: Who can make less "I?”

You can, nobody but you can!

Question: What method can you use to make less "I?”

Compassion and unconditioned love.

Do not forget that we are all a little crazy!

At times, it is like we are intoxicated, drunk on our ego. We are completely absorbed by the ego and it colors all of life, preventing us from becoming pure. We only speak the language of the ego, so life cannot speak to us and we miss its beautiful message.

Life is like a paradise or heaven that only speaks in two languages—that of love and of nature. But we only speak the language of the ego. We don't speak the language of love because we are too shy and so we miss the opportunity to have an earthly paradise. We need to learn the language of nature and the language of life and love.

If we speak the language of love we need no other language. This language is our mother tongue. Everyone speaks this language, and everyone wants to hear this language. Doing so will lessen our problems because without this language it is not possible to understand and connect with one another.

Mostly we speak in the language of negative emotions and this brings feelings of loneliness. So instead we must speak with compassion in the language of love. The ego is not a true language, it cannot communicate. When we speak in the language of love and compassion our communication with each other is effective and beneficial. Without this language it is not possible to experience any positive feelings and life starts to feel like hell.

Whoever speaks with love and compassion is the wisest person in the world. We can manage any problem when we speak this language.

Love is the language of God. Love is the language of nature. Love is the language of all human beings.

Anger creates what you don't want. Anger brings what you don't want close to you. Naturally, what you don't want, what doesn't make you happy is far from you. But because of anger, it comes near. Anger burns all of your happiness. Therefore, anger is the strongest creator of suffering.

Don't forget that we are the army of anger. Whatever anger says, whatever anger orders, we do—even if it hurts those near and dear. We blindly follow our anger.

Sometimes we are angry because others suffer. Sometimes we are angry because others are happy. Because of our own suffering we make others angry or because of others' suffering or happiness we become angry.

What sense does it make to be angry with yourself or others?

Because of anger, you will quickly learn what you don't like, for anger is a magnet for what you don't like. We are so crazy!

Those that make us happiest also make us most angry! And those we don't like surely make us angry.

Therefore, practice patience. Practice discipline and patience. Then you won't burn your beautiful garden, your beautiful life.

Don't say, "Tulku Lobsang, what you say is very true, but very difficult." I know you will say this! But when you think something is difficult, that makes it difficult. If you don't think it is difficult, I promise it will not be difficult. Difficulty only exists in your head.

Therefore, to reduce anger, practice patience.

Every year, life gives you a chance for a new life, a new way to live your life. The sense of celebrating the New Year is to leave all your mental stress, your negative emotions, your past histories and everything that makes you unhappy behind, so that you can become a new person with a new life. New Year does not mean that something finishes, but that something new starts, like a small birth. The New Year celebration brings you new energy and a positive mind, which is the essence of the New Year. The New Year can make you into a new person who lives his/her life in a new way. The gift of the New Year is the opportunity for a complete new birth.

To receive the chance for change you have to promise yourself to discipline yourself. Whatever you promise yourself needs to be combined with discipline; otherwise, you just go back into your old structures. With discipline, your promises can become real. One discipline can help and save you in many difficult situations in your life.
If you really want a new life, you need discipline.

It is important to have the aspiration to maintain a healthy body and a positive mental state. Everyone has this to some degree, certainly, but just having the aspiration is not enough. We all desire not to have illness or excess, but also to have a desirable physical shape. In order to achieve these aims, or any other aspiration, another mental factor must be present—the resolve to act.

As long as we are unable to transform our mental state into a motivated decision, there will be suffering. A wish that one is unable to actualize leads to this suffering. An aspiration is like a dream. The decision to act turns the dream into a reality. Nothing is impossible if we just apply skilful methods.

It is important to first analyze the aspiration and determine if it is positive or negative in nature. Will it bring you closer to balance? If so, among the countless wishes you have, you have chosen well to act on this one.

Why is it that sometimes we are not able to make a firm decision? It is because we harbor doubt. When we doubt our aspirations we are afraid of making mistakes. We are unsure of what should be done and so do nothing at all. The greatest obstacles are fear and doubt, which keep us from making a decision. They prevent us from being able to actualize our feelings in daily reality and this is really the biggest mistake we can make. When we are determined and have the right effort, everything is possible.

Everyone wants to feel protected. We believe that this makes us calm and relaxed and then we feel more at home. Whenever we feel safe, with a particular person, or in a certain place, we say that we feel "at home" with this person or in this place. What does it mean to feel "at home"? Being at home means feeling safe. Everyone wants this. To feel totally at home means to feel totally safe.

How is it possible to attain a feeling of "absolute home"? In love we find absolute home. Because of love we protect ourselves less. The more love we have, the less guarded we are. If we have less love, we guard ourselves more. The more we protect ourselves, the more problems we experience. We perceive more problems and we encounter more problems. When we have more love, we protect ourselves less and this means we perceive less problems and at the same time we encounter less problems. When we don’t guard ourselves we become absolutely safe. Therefore, don’t protect yourself; this is the best guard. If you have more guards, it means that you have more enemies. If you have less guards, less protectors, then you have less enemies.

Why do I say, "Don’t protect yourself?" Because you are naturally very safe. We live, and this is our nature. Naturally, we are safe. Your nature is one of safety. But when we start to protect ourselves, we go outside of nature and we become a stranger. The more we protect ourselves, the stranger we become. When we make ourselves a stranger it means that we make ourselves different from others. We make ourselves special. And when we become special we have more enemies and more problems. "Don’t protect yourself” means "be normal." To be normal means not being different from others. This also means that you will have fewer problems with others.

The key method to becoming absolutely safe is not saving yourself. This is the best way to protect yourself. If you want to be absolutely safe, don’t protect yourself. The more guarded you are, the more mentally and psychologically unsafe you will be. Don’t protect. There is no story on all of earth of one who protects themselves so much that they have found a safe place and feel totally safe. There is no history of this.

Be like a yogi.

You know, my friends, saying, "Don't protect yourself," is crazy wisdom. But if you protect yourself, this is stupid mind. Make a choice! Do you want to be crazy or do you want to be stupid? Yogis say, "You think I am crazy and I think you are crazy, but I am crazy in love and you are crazy in suffering." When we want to be happy we also need to be crazy. Happiness comes with craziness. Crazy, fearless mind. This is a great method to liberate the mind. Come out of fear and be safe. Do you think I am crazy? Or do you think you are crazy? Ha! Ha!

We have many reasons to be happy and we have many opportunities to be happy, but we say that we don’t have time. Really, we don’t have the courage to take all these opportunities. But still, we don’t even realize that we don’t take these opportunities or these reasons to be happy. And so we try to search more. But no matter how much you search, no matter what you receive, you never have time and you never have the power to be happy about these opportunities or reasons for happiness.

This is because of our laziness. Buddha said that with laziness it is not possible to do anything. Therefore laziness is our root problem. This is the root problem.

You see, we are too lazy to be happy. Not because we cannot be happy, not because we no have reason to be happy. We have reason. We are happiness. But we are too weak, too lazy to be happy. Not because we are not happy, not because we have no reason, just because of laziness.

Therefore, if you really want to be a happy person, you need to practice discipline. Discipline means you need both self-control and self-commitment. Whoever doesn’t have commitment and whoever doesn’t have self-control, they don’t have discipline. And if you don’t have discipline, you don’t have mind-awareness. If you don’t have mind-awareness, then you don’t have mindfulness. This means that you never see what you have. You never feel what you have. Your whole life you are kind of blind. You don’t have the courage to see things, to receive things. Without mindfulness, mind-awareness, no matter what you have, it is kind of senseless. Therefore, laziness is the problem.

There is one medicine for becoming a less lazy person. You need to believe. You need self-belief. Self-belief is the way to come out of laziness. Belief is very powerful for the mind. Therefore, we need to practice belief. Until we come to enlightenment, we need courage. You need courage as long as you have a problem with laziness. That means that without belief there is no way to better yourself. You always remain the same, at the exact same point. Nothing flows. The purpose of life is to come to enlightenment. This means that you find unconditional happiness. You want the journey of this path, then you need belief. Otherwise, laziness never ever allows us to go this direction. Laziness always pushes you down. Don’t make friends with laziness. But since you find laziness everywhere—looks like coca-cola—it is easy to become friends with laziness. But this is not a good friend to have on this journey of your samara life!

In our life as a human, there is one important thing that we need to do—fall in love. No matter what kind of person you are or what kind of religion you believe in; we all have only one goal. For sure, we each want to become a happy person.

Falling in love is the only way to make yourself happy. Therefore, if you ask me what is the purpose of life, or you ask me why do we do so many things in our lives? My answer is that we do these things to be in love. When you achieve this, then that is it. There is nothing else that you need to do. This is the meaning of life. This is when life makes sense.

The good thing is that from the moment you are born you already have the right to fall in love. You don't need to buy this. You don't need to ask anyone’s permission to love, because you are love. Somehow, it is also very simple, because you don't need to study in order to fall in love with somebody. This is because you are love.

Love is life. As long as you have love, life makes sense to you in every moment. You will never find this sense in life outside of yourself, because you are what makes sense in life. And love is the only way to feel yourself. Love is the only way to see yourself. So, when you have love, you have all. When you lose love, you lose everything. Because of this, we all need to practice our innate love. That is why we are so special, because we are love.

In conclusion, my message to you is: There is one important thing that we need to do in our life and that is to love. That is it. No more.