It looks like this particular person has a issue with their parents not totally approving of what they are doing. And many of you may have similar issues with your parents or other relatives feeling that what you're doing is kind of nutty. And of course, we often feel back that they are nutty because they are not doing it. But at any rate this balance, too idealistic and not wanting to make too many mistakes, with what their parents expect, I am not sure how this person refers to this. Say, when they go home they are trying to be very, very good, holding very, very firmly to their ideals, and yet at the same time being so scared about making too many mistakes, that they probably make mistakes anyhow. And then, of course, the other people, when they see that, they don't even want to understand what the person is doing or approve of what they are doing.
So, in order to not make too many mistakes based on idealism we have to remember that who we are today is not who we were yesterday. We've got to remember that if we're making a mistake in this moment and we have blown it again, then OK, we have a new moment five minutes later, tomorrow, whenever. We have a new moment to try to correct any difficulty that we caused before.
We do want to have an ideal though. There is no doubt this practice is extremely idealistic, but it wants to be based on the reality of what we really can do with our ideal. When each one of you goes into that hall down below, you are not just looking at me or Rosemary up on the stage, but in each corner you have a dozen Buddha statues to remind you of who started all this, and who was probably the most idealistic person that ever walked the Earth. He had the ideal of total perfection on all levels, especially the Paramis. And he got there, but as I have said, it was five hundred lifetimes or more, and it may take us five hundred lifetimes or more.
We want to hold on to an ideal of improving ourselves on all levels as much as we can, yet recognizing that we are going to make mistakes from time to time, as long as we are not yet enlightened. And we want to avoid getting too caught up in wanting everybody to approve of ourselves. That is important with the issue with this person's parents. If we get too caught up with wanting people to approve of us, then more than likely we are going to make more and more mistakes. Because what we are doing is that we have a huge desire which we are carrying around with us, as we open the door, as we wash our dishes, as we do everything. We have this huge desire that is going with us and, of course, then we make more mistakes.