The Gyalwang Drukpa

I spoke about the difficulties we are facing to protect, guard and keep a lineage like ours, the 800-year-old legacy. It is not only about the threats from outside, it's also about the threats of people not wanting to receive the support of spirituality. People mostly prefer to live in temporary and illusive happiness and they are not prepared to share with others, they are not prepared to reach out to others, instead they are more than prepared to take, to enlarge their territories, to increase their properties and material wealth, without considering others who are affected by their actions and activities. I am not saying that being ambitious is completely a bad idea, I am saying that being ambitious at the painful cost of others, is really not what a genuine spiritual practitioner should be doing. That's why it is so difficult to protect and keep a lineage, to keep one's own commitment to spiritual practice, to the beneficial activities. Masters like us sometime feel very disappointed with the conditions that we have to work so hard in, and yet we get either no result or very little progress.

People are more attracted to spiritual masters who are expert in 8 worldly dharmas than those who are expert in genuine spirituality that will take them to the ultimate path of happiness. What to do? Now even genuine masters have to be drawn into the worldly dharmas, how sad this is? If you are tremendously successful in the worldly dharmas, you get almost everything - wealth, fame, support, bunch of followers etc. You don't even need to recite a mantra correctly, you just need to be good looking, tall, handsome or beautiful, speaking very smartly, doing all the things like movie stars, then 100% you will be having lots of followers. The more unique you are, the more charisma you have, the more you will gain. I think, our mad yogi Drukpa Kunleg will never be to help anyone and benefit the lineage in this very peculiar time.

Anyway, in the ancient times, masters used to be giving such a hard time to their disciples. I am sure you all are familiar with the story of Marpa and Milarepa. I can tell you that Marpa's style of training will not work now. If he comes to our world and teach like the way he was teaching Milarepa, I think he may be sued by the disciples for abuse and all kinds of funny things. Maybe Marpa could be jailed. So now, gurus have to be so nice to the disciples, so polite, so sweet, so accommodative, so soft. Gurus even have to beg the disciples to practise. I can tell you that generally it is very difficult to keep and guard a genuine spiritual tradition.

So, I hope and pray that for those people who are doing such a good job carrying out "Live to Love" on every 3rd Sunday or on any one day, to help human beings or animals, they will be able to keep up these virtuous deeds. I pray that after 3 months or 1 year, I can still see updates on the Live to Love website. To tell you the truth, there aren't many things in this world that are making me happy. Besides those Rinpoches, Tulkus, nuns and monks who are doing a great job by following my instructions and by observing the vows strictly, one of the rare moments of happiness is when I go to the Live to Love website to read about all these activities that my friends and students are doing.

May you all continue your good job!