Walk the Talk

An excerpt from a teaching called How Buddhism Differs from Other Religions by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The most glorious thing about the Buddha Dharma is that you don’t wait for a blessing outside of you for permission or the grace to ascend to the heavens for no apparent reason.  That’s the great thing about Dharma.  It’s real.   In the Dharma you are given the tools that you need to change the circumstances of your life, and to change the condition of your consciousness as well.  And the way that that happens of course is through our practice.

The difference between our own religion, which is basically a non-theistic religion and other religions, is that other religions see a blessing from outside.  They wait for a redeemer who will make it okay no matter what their activity is.  For instance, in my family my stepfather was Catholic, and he was an alcoholic and would beat us mercilessly.  We were brutalized as children.  It was a terrible situation, but then we’d all tromp off to confession.  Free and clear by Sunday afternoon.   So, I don’t have a good feeling about that, because they were never required to change.  Even the parish priest knew that my mother was getting the stew beat out of her all the time, and he would recommend confession.

We Buddhists are not like that.  We believe and understand in the relationship between cause and effect.  You can’t murder a handful of people and then confess and accept Jesus as your savior and be okay.  We don’t believe that.  You can’t accept Buddha as your savior and be okay.  You can’t accept me as your savior and be okay.  You have to walk the talk.  You have to walk the path, and you have to practice.

Your conduct matters a great deal.  What’s in your mind matters even more.  And if as you practice your path your joy increases and it smoothes out for you, you know you’re getting somewhere.

In the Buddha Dharma we do not wait.  We understand that there are the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas, and we are taught that there was Shakyamuni Buddha, Vajrasattva, Amitabha, and Tara.  We’ve got all these different statues, and they are symbols of the Buddhas.   Do they actually exist?  Yes.   Can you pray to them?  Sure.  Are they separate from you?  No.   That’s the difference.

© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo