An excerpt from a teaching called How Buddhists Think by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo
Have you ever seen someone made completely miserable by neediness? Some people are like a big gaping hole, and all the love you could pour in there would not be enough. Haven’t you ever gone through a phase like that yourself? We’ve all had extremely needy, hungry-ghost-like phases.
Have you ever been prideful, arrogant? Deludedly thinking that you’re better than other people? Have you ever felt yourself so attractive that you thought you were hot stuff? Do you ever think you smell better than other people? I do. I wear Estee Lauder. Many people have that kind of pridefulness. Haven’t you seen people being arrogant––while you wondered why they considered themselves so special? It’s a kind of dream-like delusion from which they’re not able to wake up.
We have seed-like causes planted within our mindstream that we may be unaware of, among them our jealousy and competitiveness. Have you ever been so angry that you were hell-bent to get someone’s goat? That was all you could think about until you realized that you had put yourself in a kind of hell. Have you ever seen other people living that way, continually frothing at the mouth and hell-bent on being right? We can detect these things in our own mind––the impressions of them, like footprints in the sand.
The Buddha taught that these six realms exist and that we all have the karma to be reborn in any one of them. He also taught that we have the right, the power, and the responsibility to produce the causes to ripen auspicious karma––to be reborn in an auspicious way. In other words, there is no predestination. No one is doomed. No one is jinxed. We all have both beneficial and unfortunate karmic potential in our mindstreams. To the degree that we decide, we can engage in the ten virtuous activities which produce an auspicious rebirth. No one is special, no one is flawed, no one is damaged, no one is brain-dead. While you’re human, you have many options.
Having understood that rebirth in any of these realms is possible for each of us, we must make the best use of our time now. There is an urgency in Buddhist thinking: you are asked, please, to make use of this fortunate human rebirth. Don’t waste your time. If you feel pushed to do as much as you can, the purpose isn’t to entrap you or to tell you that “there is only one right way.” It is only to urge you to use your time effectively and courageously––because there is so little of it.
Buddhist teachings describe this human life as a waterfall. Now, where is the drop of water that even a moment ago was at the top? That’s how our lives are. They appear stable, but they go by in a flash. We need to use our opportunity.
© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo
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