Taking Your Future
Into Your Own Hands
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
tricycle
All sentient beings without a single exception have
buddha nature, from the dharmakaya buddha down to the tiniest
insect. There is no real difference in the quality or size of this
enlightened essence between individuals. However, buddhas and fully
enlightened bodhisattvas have cut the movement of dualistic mind at
the very beginning. That is how they are different from sentient
beings. Buddhas and bodhisattvas’ expression of mind takes the form
of compassionate activity. This activity, through emanations and
re-emanations, appears in all samsaric realms in order to teach
other beings.
Sentient beings, on the other hand, have fallen
under the power of dualistic thinking. An ordinary person’s
attention strays according to any movement of mind. Suddenly there
is the confusion of believing in self and other, subject and
object, and this situation goes on and on repeating itself
endlessly. This is samsaric existence. The buddhas and bodhisattvas
were successful in getting up on the dry land of enlightenment. But
we sentient beings became bewildered, and are now in the
unsuccessful, unsatisfactory state we all find ourselves in. We are
still in the ocean of samsara; we have not yet gotten our heads
fully out of the water. We have roamed about in one confused state
of experience after the other, endlessly. At the same time, we
haven’t lost our buddha nature. Our buddha nature is never separate
from our minds for even a single instant. Though we are not apart
from it we do not know it, and thus we wander in samsaric
existence.
Now is the time to
free ourselves from samsara. Unless we do it in this lifetime, it
is not going to happen all by itself. We have to take care of
ourselves. Right now we have the ability to receive teachings and
practice the Dharma. Isn’t this the right time? Wouldn’t that be
better than continuing to act like an animal, concentrating only on
eating and sleeping and letting the time run out? Why not take your
future into your own hands?