What if you could know how it turns out?

I'm reading a book about a time traveler.

It makes me wonder about this question I had on the table: "How to decide what to practice." Don't our doubts about Dharma practice stem from not knowing whether it's going to give any results? Not knowing how it's going to turn out?

We are told by our lamas that the process of transforming from an ordinary being into an enlightened being takes many lifetimes. His Holiness the Dalai Lama wants us to be willing and prepared to practice for eons, and not to ask how long it will take, like a child on a car trip, "Are we almost there yet?"

So what am I expecting? To be able to jump into the future to check whether it's working? How am I supposed to know whether something that takes more than this lifetime is working or not?

I am imagining myself jumping ahead 10 or 20 years, or maybe 2 or 3 lifetimes, and looking back to the causes that I am creating now. What will I deduce? And yet, here I am "jumped ahead" 10 and 20 years from the earlier part of my Dharma life. Can I come to any conclusion about the Dharma practices that I did then? Did they work? I don't know.

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 24, 2008 at 10:52 PM

    The classes you have taught have had impacts on many people...long past the time you have taught them, and then of course even indirectly through other people who meet the ones you taught. I don't know what else you normally do, but even if someone didn't believe in everything Buddhism teaches ..so much is obviously positive and wise. (morality, ethics, compassion, interdependence, methods for improving the mind etc. etc.)So, I think even by a non-Buddhist point of view your work has been successful in that way. If that isn't worthwhile and good karma what is?! :-)
    -mtviewrose

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