“We are to endure what others cannot 

and practice what others cannot achieve.” 

These words from Pure Land Patriarch Yinguang were spoken to guide and encourage us. While others engage in perceived pleasures, and are so often enthralled by them, we are to challenge ourselves to seek other rewards.

Like meeting basic needs instead of indulging ourselves.

Knowing that being uncomfortable is OK, with no need to remedy it.

Living simply so that others will have a better chance at survival, now and in the future.

Seeking true joy rather than fleeting, often hedonistic, worldly happiness.

In lives uncountable, we existed in ignorance because good teachers were absent. And so we squandered our good fortune and burned our merits with our anger. But in some other lives, we practiced. Doing so, we set the stage for this lifetime, this rarest of opportunities to practice what so many others do not have the conditions or inclination to.

And so as the Master wisely advised, we are to practice. Do not follow the others who do not.

When we speak of how people have upset us . . . (Click image for video)

The more desires we have, the more we will suffer. 

The more wishes we have, 

the more disappointed we will be. 

In our continuous attempts to try to make the world conform to our wishes, we’re just setting ourselves up for unending suffering and disappointment. We know this first hand, but we keep doing it. It’s foolhardy. We already know that our wanting things to be a certain way doesn’t make them happen. Every time we get tripped up by our habits of desiring and wishing, we get reminded of such futility.

So what’s the problem?

There could be many reasons.

Perhaps, although we acknowledge the pointlessness in our heads, we are not strong enough to move beyond doing the same old thing. Our habits are eons-old. Or maybe we are brave enough to start being less demanding of the world but aren’t diligent enough to follow through. Going with the flow is so much easier than paddling in another direction. It just takes too much energy and care.

But when has easy ever achieved anything worthwhile?