Nun of Your Business

This is a term I've just coined: emergency Buddhist . An emergency Buddhist is someone who doesn't have a regular Buddhist practice, but then when some catastrophe strikes, they contact the Dharma center or teacher wanting some religious intervention. They dabble in Buddhism by coming to classes at times, when it fits into their schedule of family events, sporting events, and other entertainment. They complain that they can't really relate to pujas, mantras, sadhanas, or other types of recitations. These practices seem like hocus-pocus to them. That is, until they really need some drastic change in whatever karma is ripening. Then it sometimes seems too late. Their own illness is too far along, or their family member is already on their deathbed. And suddenly they want Buddhism to fix it, to make the problem go away. That's a heavy expectation to put on Buddhism. It carries an unspoken demand: "If you can't fix this emergency I'm having, then the Dharma doe...

I'm reading a book about a time traveler. It makes me wonder abou t 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 "jum...