Question

Rosemary gave a picture of a person who is ambitious and wants to climb a mountain constantly looking up to the peak with longing. If I compare myself with this picture, I get doubt. I almost never look up to the peak when I'm thinking of Enlightment. I am happy with my life, I am using methods to increase wisdom and to better prepare myself whenever Dukkha comes. Is this a wrong view if I am not being ambitious enough in my approach?

Answer

No, this is fine. This correlates to what I said twice before. You don't need all the different theories of Buddhism and Enlightment, Rebirth and all that. It's probable, it makes lot of sense, but we don't actually need that. You want to become more pure today, you want to let go of your anger today, your greed today - great! That's the practice.

This person actually does look at the mountain, even though they think they are not. Because they have a goal of where they are going to, and any goal is that peak. Okay? It doesn't have to be the top-top peak, but any goal becomes a peak. Something that we are working towards. Unless you have something you are working towards, how do you know where to go? So everything that we are giving you is actually a little kind of goal. We are telling you, "Hey let's try to let go of anger." Wow! That's a big peak in itself, isn't it?" Sympathetic Joy - how many average people have Sympathetic Joy with others? Not nany - jealousy runs the world, not Sympathetic Joy. Really, you know, we're actually giving you some high goals. So you don't have to worry about the ones that are higher than that.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.