The Gyalwang Drukpa

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.