For the Benefit of All Sentient Beings

Living alone I don't normally have to concern myself with how most of my actions at home affect other people. If I sing too loud or off key, no one is disturbed by it. If I take up the whole doorway or hall, no one is blocked by it. If I put something down and leave it or pick something up and move it, no one is affected by that. If I leave a light on or turn one off, it doesn't matter to anyone except me.

Staying here at Drikung Meditation Center Boston, on the other hand, almost every one of our actions affects our housemates. Unfortunately bad habits grow better and faster than good ones, much like the weeds in a garden. In shared living circumstances we have to do some self examination regularly for the benefit of all. Is my conversation a little too loud, disturbing someone who is praying? Am I being too expansive in my use of space not sharing the shrine with others?

Khenchen Konchok Gyaltsen Rinpoche says that our Dharma practice is really outside the shrine room. It is carried with us in all our activities. This applies especially among those living at a center like this. We can be seen as representing Tibetan Buddhism to newcomers and visitors. I, for one, am still a baby Buddhist as well as a baby monk. I still have so much to learn and so much of the garbage of the past to sweep away.

I won't change overnight. Nobody does. Nevertheless we have some very effective tools at our disposal which work just as effectively as they always have. Human beings have not changed much in the 25 or 26 centuries since Lord Buddha taught them. We study the Dharma and even practice it when we meet once of twice a week, but the real test of our learning is how we apply it all the other days of the week and in all the other circumstances of our lives. Isn't this at least part of “for the benefit of all sentient beings”?