Gesang Suolang Rinpoche, leader of the Xuanfa Utah Dharma Center in Salt Lake City, Utah who wrote the following article, has practiced Buddhism for many years and took refuge with H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III through Zhaxi Zhuoma Rinpoche in 2009 and became a direct disciple of His Holiness a few years later. The following are her comments and insights on the state of Buddhism in America. She has also published a longer and quite compelling article on her personal story with additional insights that you will find on this website in ARTICLES. She also facilitates a class on “What Is Cultivation?” along with other classes the Learning from Buddha College and Seminary.
“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
NOV
2018