Chamtrul Rinpoche is a Tibetan Buddhist priest, teacher, and healer who has dedicated his life to serving others. These “words of wisdom” were kindly extracted by Rinpoche’s students from a longer teaching (and lightly edited by Kate for our audience & this blog post.) You can read more about Rinpoche here: https://chamtrul-rinpoche.com (Also, please scroll down to the bottom of the post to Further Information & Resources for additional ways to connect with Rinpoche, these beautiful wisdom-teachings & the Dharma.)

“You Must Believe in Your Potential”

You must believe in your potential; and sooner or later you absolutely must cultivate immeasurable love and compassion for all sentient beings without exception.

The problem for so many people is that they don’t believe in their potential — so their love and compassion remains extremely limited, and it usually extends no further than to their closest family members. And even then, their love and compassion for certain family members is rarely stable.

“Many people say things like, ‘That person was so horrible to me, how can I possibly ever love them?!’ Although there is no denying that that person may have acted harmfully towards you and had caused you to suffer, if you only focus on those worldly superficial circumstances that drives you apart, and not on the deepest spiritual reality that forever lovingly bonds you, you will struggle to forgive them, let alone have love and compassion for them.” – Chamtrul Rinpoche

Many people say things like, “That person was so horrible to me, how can I possibly ever love them?!”

Although there is no denying that that person may have harmed you and caused you to suffer, if you only focus on the worldly superficial circumstances that drove you apart — and not on the deep, spiritual reality that forever lovingly bonds you — you will struggle to forgive them, let alone have love and compassion for them.

In order to get over this obstacle, you must first believe in your potential, and then cultivate immeasurable equanimity towards all sentient beings without exception.

And from that foundation of immeasurable equanimity, your love and compassion will become unshakable, stable and truly immeasurable. It will encompass each and every sentient being without exception — just like the sun shines on this beautiful planet of ours, without discrimination — it simply illuminates and warms all.

Ultimately all sentient beings are no different than you — as each one us wants to be happy; none of us want to suffer.

By focusing on these unshakable deepest spiritual similarities, instead of focusing on worldly transitory superficial differences that drive you apart, equanimity, kindness, and compassion will easily arise.

It will feel like that on the very deepest level every sentient being without exception is ultimately an equal part of one infinitely big loving and caring family. Quite simply, the more you contemplate this, the bigger your heart becomes.

The bigger your heart becomes, the greater your love and compassion towards all sentient beings without exception, no matter who they are, no matter where they are, no matter what form that they have taken — and no matter whether you had previously considered them to be a stranger, a friend, or even an enemy — when your love and compassion becomes immeasurable, then all beings become your heart-family.

I have unshakable faith in your potential, and so should you.

For the sake of all beings, for the sake of this planet, for the sake of all merely labeled friends, enemies & strangers — for the benefit of ALL sentient beings — pease believe in and develop your potential.

Further Reading/Resources

Rinpoche’s website: Bodhichitta has a wonderful collection of Rinpoche’s teachings (and is beautifully designed!). You can also find Rinpoche’s international teaching schedule.

Rinpoche’s Facebook page, where his students regularly (and kindly) share short, digestible extracts from Rinpoche’s teachings

Images

1. Main, header image: Our Precious Gigi and her Joleen — Coral Tree Forever Family.
2. Chamtrul Rinpoche in his power aspect.
3. Elephants by Hu Chen.
4. Jetty Sunrise by Cassidy.
5. Rinpoche during a visit to Cape Town.