The Supreme Way

The supreme way of benefiting is to help others enter the Dharma. So, you know, as I say, it's not a matter of going around knocking on doors and handing people pamphlets or assuring people the Buddha loves you. At the same time, I've always said that the real criteria of whether we're making any progress in our Dharma path is when our family say, you know, you're much nicer nowadays. What are you doing? So that's the point.

People learn from our example far more than from what we say. And we're not here on a big missionary bent, whatever our particular interests are. But should people show an interest? Of course, we can share what we understand. We can, as we said before, we can lend them books or give them books.

In China, they have, not just China, in Asia, in general, Buddhist Asia, they have a nice custom of people donating towards the publication of books, which are then offered for free. So if you go to a temple, you always say to a table with many books and a little sign saying for a free distribution, you cannot sell these books. And so this is a very nice way of sharing, you know, that people, if they're interested, they can take a book and take it home and read it. And so in this way, to share what we know, if people want to hear, but if they don't, then leave them alone, you know, because nothing is more boring than somebody else trying to push their spiritual trip, onion and throat. If they're interested, wait, if they're not, then OK, let them do what they're doing.

So he said the supreme way of benefiting is to encourage them if they are interested. I mean, this was set in Tibet, so then it's a different, I mean, all the Tibetans were vaguely interested. But I mean, in ordinary everyday life, if you meet people who are interested in whatever it is, is your spiritual path, then you can talk about it, you can encourage them to come along and or give them something to read or tell them what YouTube to download. And this is a great benefit if you hear that somebody later, maybe you meet somebody and they say, oh, I entered, I began practicing because of something you said or something, you know, you gave them to read or something like this, and this really started me on my spiritual journey, then that's wonderful, you know. But as I say, I think people learn more from example than from actual words.

I mean, like I'm talking, talking, talking. If you get this much of what I've said at the end, it's already an accomplishment. Because mostly what you say goes in one ear and out the other and then off people go. But if people meet with somebody in their daily life who inspires them by their mode of being or by the way they respond in a very challenging situation, and they think, wow, well done, then you know, that is can influence people very deeply, even it's unintentional. So yes, this is a great benefit.

Because people's life, many people nowadays, they feel their life is really very meaningless and empty in the wrong sense of the word, not good, empty, bad, empty, hollow. And so if anything that we do or say or we can indicate, which can help them to put even a foot on on a genuine path, then that is the best thing we could ever have done for anybody to open the door to their own inner spirituality. Nothing we could ever do would is better than that. Because it's not just for this lifetime, but it would be for all future lifetimes also, that entry into connection with a spiritual path. So yes, that is indeed the supreme benefit for all beings is to open up the door to the spirit for them.