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New beginning . Thanks for everything
paska
Explorer
Hello thank you all for helping me out after I left Aci Buddhism and tried finding a new online in person group.
New leaf wasn’t for me and all others I could do is paid which is ok but teaching a circle isn’t what I wanna do not as a general teacher. Always wanted to be a chaplain and I am going to do this at a tibetan university in USA. Aci wasn’t a total bust lol it prepared me for this program I wanna do lol. I may lurk and or talk but practice wise it won’t start for 3-4 yrs. university. Please pray for me.
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Comments
Wishing you good luck in future endeavours @paska, but teaching or guiding people requires a certain maturity and insight and personal development. It’s often not something you can tell about yourself.
Just remember that words, concepts and ideas are not what Buddhism is about. It is the practices, and it takes years to even start to grasp what the Buddha was talking about. Personal first-hand experience and insight that produces inner change, does not come from words or ideas. We learn Buddhism from ourselves, with the help of our teacher. We cannot learn it from books. The purpose of the writings is to motivate us to DO the practices, and to confirm the insights that our practices have started to generate. And you cannot lead others until you have first led yourself.
The Tibetan Buddhists who get their "degree" in Buddhism (the Geshe degree) do so at the Dalai Lama's monastery and it is a 20-year program. They live in the monastery during that time.
Moreover if one undertakes teaching before their own teacher has assessed them as ready to teach, it blocks inner progress (too much ego involved in teaching ... it is too much negative involvement with the "Eight Worldly Concerns" if we are not advanced enough ourselves to handle the ego-involvement of being a teacher). And we are little help to others until we have first achieved some degree of insight ourselves. We are told our primary goal is to attain enlightenment for the sake of all other beings (the Bodhisattva Vow).
I am sure you understand that you do not need to become a monk in order to work towards wisdom and compassion. Start where you are, and where you are is perfectly suitable for inner growth. And since it is said that it takes countless lifetimes to attain even the first level of enlightenment (but subsequent levels are reached much sooner), we should be focused on the PROCESS of being a Buddhist, rather than the goal. Take care of the process, and the goal will take care of itself. More than that, even 10 to 20 years of doing the practices starts to change you inwardly, so it's not as if you have to wait countless lifetimes to become more at ease.
You have set your foot on the path .. you will benefit from this. Avoid those things that hinder your practice.
@FoibleFull
If I could have assigned your posting multiple hugs, I would have.
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few."
~Shunryu Suzuki~
Keep new beginnings in mind....
May you be well @paska ...
Challenge accepted!
… meanwhile
Challenge accepted!
ngödrub künjung tuwang dorjey-chang/ migmey tseway terchen chenray-zi/ drime kyenpay wangpo jampel-yang/ düpung malü jomdzay sangway-dag/ gangchen kaypay tsuggyen lozang-drag/ kyabnay kündü lama lhagpay-lha/ gosum güpay gonay sölwa-deb/ rangzhen minching drölwar jingyi-lab/ chogdang tünmong ngödrub tseldu-söl.
https://studybuddhism.com/en/advanced-studies/prayers-rituals/tantric-practices/the-guru-puja
phew! I am all buddified …