The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Bodhisattva Ideal”
As children, we are only interested in taking care of ourselves. We are only interested in getting what we want. Well, we don’t actually understand taking care of ourselves, because really, if we understood taking care of ourselves, we would mature. But as children, we just delight in everything and we want everything. It’s gimme this, gimme this, gimme this. I need this new piece of equipment. I need this new piece of clothing. I need this new gizmo. I have to have this car. And I’m just gathering all of this, you see? As spiritually mature people, we realize through experience (and it’s experience that teaches us), that after we’ve gathered a few of these things, we still aren’t happy. We are still neurotic. In fact, the more we gather to please ourselves without consideration for cause and effect relationships, or without considering whether or not this is of any true value within our lives, we find that we are disappointed and disappointed and disappointed. And it continues, and the level of disappointment never ends. Every time we try to get something for ourselves that makes us feel better without any thoughts of cause and effect relationships… It’s just the oddest thing. It’s like we have this little, I don’t know, kind of heartbreak, with this disappointment. Every time we try to make ourselves happy and it doesn’t work, there’s this part of us, somewhere inside that sighs, “Wow, I really thought that was going to work! How come that didn’t work?” And we’re confused and lost.
But as spiritually mature people we begin to learn,, in the same way adults learn, that children’s toys aren’t much fun anymore. And the spiritually mature people will begin to understand that what we have to do now is to live a life that has more meaning than that. We have to live a life where we can plot out and plan and understand the results.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved
