This article was posted April 6, 2020 and needs to be posted again. Her insights into what gifts the Buddha left us and her sharing of how she came to follow the Buddha Master are worthy of our deep reflection. I am including it again for those who are new to this BLOG and for all of us to consider what it means to be a Western follower of His Holiness. Her insights into Buddhist Practice are very timely.
Gesang Suolang Rinpoche, the founder and leader of the Xuanfa Utah Dharma Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, reflected on her many years of Buddhist practice in America and her observations on the state of most practice in the USA. She also explains why she has chosen to follow H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III and what she has experienced doing so.
“Every time I read the discourse, ‘What Is Cultivation?’ by H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III, I get a fresh new insight that makes me wonder why I’d never fully taken in that concept before. In my latest reading, I was deeply struck by the Buddha Master’s words on the mind that fears impermanence. I’d read them many times before and had understood them at a surface level, ‘oh yes, that’s about motivation to practice and cultivate ourselves, that makes sense.’ My understanding of this mind remained at this level of ‘making good sense’ until recently. In my latest reading, my understanding and my gut level assimilation reached full flowering. If this mind is not real for us, is not actually scared, we simply won’t put in the necessary devotion and effort for ending the cycle of birth and death, for freeing ourselves. Our practice won’t be deep enough. I’d seen this inevitable consequence many times within the communities of Western Buddhists I’d known. The secular ideas and agnosticism about reincarnation, so prevalent among Western Buddhists, do not bring forth the fear of impermanence. I didn’t see people change that much or devote to their practice or develop that kind of faith that means you’ll succeed. So many people I knew gave up practicing all together. Something has to change in Western sanghas so more people can accomplish liberation and model for others the kind of devotion needed to do so.” Gesang Suolang Rinpoche
CLICK for longer and quite compelling article on her personal story with additional insights.
Thank you to my teacher Gesang Soulang for her insights to the beginnings of my work as a Buddhist. Impermanence is the basis for my suffering . I cannot take this lightly . Each action , thought and words are to be examined .
Thank you for sharing this. As I inform people about H. H. Dorje Change Buddha III, and sharing the Blue Book, personal accounts greatly help to explain why we believe the truth of the Buddha Master in our lifetime. Well said.