The Gyalwang Drukpa

Several of my people have asked me whether Nyungnay practice, Ngondro practice and retreat of all sorts are considered as part of "Live to Love" activities. As I said several times in my gossips, compassion is a practice needs to be developed and cultivated, love is a practice that is needed to put compassion into action.

In order not to confuse everyone, I think I will explain the logo of Live to Love again, and I hope this will clarify everything.

To be clearer in this explanation, relating this with the formal practice of Nyungnay, Ngondro, retreat and etc. as well as the "Live to Love" activities that I am encouraging everyone to be doing, it is like this: The orange light in the centre of the logo is your own heart or mind that is supposed to be full of love so that it can share this selfless energy with others. To do that, you need to have foundations or fundamentals that help you to carry out "Live to Love" activities without having any problems and confusion. This is like the story of doctor and patients. If a doctor is not well-trained, how can he or she be saving lives of the sick ones? So theoretically and basically, you need to be trained. I have not been talking much about this topic, maybe I have the impression that people do understand why I am promoting "Live to Love" activities like nobody's business. This does not mean that I am encouraging you to forget about meditation, about doing retreat, about reciting mantra, about Nyungnay, about Ngondro. No! This is not true. I am really sorry to tell you that in fact, "Live to Love" activities are additional things that I am encouraging you all to do for the sake of actualising what you are practising in your visualisation of Bodhicitta, loving kindness, compassion and wisdom.

This is like using a knife to cut something. To do that, you need to sharpen the knife, the sharpening process is the formal practices you are encouraged to do. The actual cutting is the "Live to Love" activities, this means that you are checking how sharp or how blunt is your knife. If it is not sharp enough, reflect and meditate on the reason why it is not so, and go back to sharpen your knife again.

If you don't have the foundations or the understanding of compassion and wisdom, if you don't develop this inner qualities within yourself, you would be banging your head against the wall when you do "Live to Love" activities. Why is it so? There will be a time when you feel very tired, very disappointed, very outraged with "Live to Love", because the essential part that forms the pillars supporting "Live to Love" activities is not there. What is it? It is the inner strength that needs to be developed and cultivated through formal practices. I am sure that you have never heard of a doctor (whether traditional or western) being qualified without having to study in a medical school or without having to be trained in many different ways. If ever you know or hear about this kind of doctors, I don't think you would even have the confidence to consult them, wouldn't you?

So it is the same thing with "Live to Love" activities. You will bang your head against the wall if you don't have the inner strength to deal with the sufferings that you see and observe while doing the "Live to Love" activities. You may end up thinking that you are hopeless to remove sufferings in samsara, or the other extreme is that you may end up thinking yourself as a great hero, thinking that you are doing such a great job saving lives, giving things away to poor people, etc. It's not like this. "Live to Love" activities should be strengthening your understanding of the Four Noble Truth and other wisdom and compassion teachings of the Buddha as well as giving you a great support for your formal practice. At the same time, the formal practice which you should be consistently doing to develop your inner compassion and wisdom should be helping you to deal with many issues that come with "Live to Love" activities. The "Live to Love" activities and the formal practice of Nyungnay, Ngondro, etc. come together as the right and left hands. "Live to Love" activities are like the software and the formal practice is the hardware. So can you imagine a computer without hardware or software? Of course not, both are badly needed. You cannot do only the formal practice and ignore the "Live to Love" activities altogether and you cannot replace formal practice with "Live to Love" activities. In the short run, you may not feel any difference, it seems either way would be okay. But I can tell you that in the long run, if you want to improve your spiritual practice, you would be better off to do both at the same time.

By the way, a thought just came to me: a genuine spiritual lineage or the blessing is the electricity, without that, even if you have the best software and the most extravagant hardware, the computer will not work.

Some people do such a good job with formal practice, but when it comes to dealing with others, they cannot succeed. There is a missing link. Some people do such a good job with "Live to Love" activities, but when it comes to formal practice, they can't even sit down for 5 seconds to meditate, their mind is so restless. How can a restless doctor perform a successful operation on a sick person? How can an uneducated or untrained doctor help a sick person?

Although I wouldn't say that formal practices are a part of "Live to Love" activities, because in a way, I cannot fit them in any of the 5 categories. But formal practices are the pillars of "Live to Love" activities. What I am saying is that those who are doing formal practices, obviously should have more confidence to do "Live to Love" activities, once in a while they should come out to join "Live to Love" activities and test how sharp or blunt their knives are. For those who are already doing such a good job in "Live to Love" activities, they must also check themselves whether these activities have increase their wisdom, compassion and loving-kindness. Even a sharp knife needs to be sharpened all the time, so that it can maintain its sharpness.

I hope I am not confusing you more with my gossips. I happen to be in a mood to gossip. That's all for now.