Help with family

Help required with personal difficulties.
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Lobsang Chojor
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Help with family

Post by Lobsang Chojor »

Hi everyone,

I've been practicing for a few years now and I feel that I would like to ordain. I was thinking of ordaining in the gelug tradition, and I was hoping of joining Sera Jey in the IMI house.

So, does anyone have advice on how to tell my parents. As I a dependent on their support as I'm nearly 17 and I won't ordain for a year or so.

Any help would be amazing :anjali:
"Morality does not become pure unless darkness is dispelled by the light of wisdom"
  • Aryasura, Paramitasamasa 6.5
ༀ་ཨ་ར་པ་ཙ་ན་དྷཱི༔ Oṃ A Ra Pa Ca Na Dhīḥ
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Ayu
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Re: Help with family

Post by Ayu »

Difficult to tell something blindly. You know your parents best.


I remember when I was 22, I was thinking to ordain maybe, or maybe not. I wasn't sure, and I had the impression, all the folks around me wouldn't understand my decision. I got my mom to meet my teacher, a hinduist nun.
Some months after this meeting, my mother seemed to sense that I was thinking about ordaining - I left our town to live in a Dharmacenter, and she wrote me a letter. She said, she won't be sad, if I would become a nun. The nuns she met were happy young ladies and if I would decide to become one of them, it must be the right decision for me, my mother wrote.
Like this she handed out the full responsibility for that decision to me completly. It changed my view on the whole thing and I started to think about it in other terms.
At the end I decided not to ordain, and considering that I left that tradition some years later, I think, it was the right decision at that time for me.
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Lobsang Chojor
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Re: Help with family

Post by Lobsang Chojor »

Thank you Ayu, I'm grateful that you revealed such a personal story :hug:

That seems a good idea about introducing my parents to my Geshe (recently they realised how happy monks are).

I was reading a book by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa which said your parents don't won't you to ordain because they care for you, and the western view is you must get a well paid job. This made me realise I'd just have to show my parents how I'd benefit all sentient beings and the joy I get from that.
"Morality does not become pure unless darkness is dispelled by the light of wisdom"
  • Aryasura, Paramitasamasa 6.5
ༀ་ཨ་ར་པ་ཙ་ན་དྷཱི༔ Oṃ A Ra Pa Ca Na Dhīḥ
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tomschwarz
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Re: Help with family

Post by tomschwarz »

Lobsang Chojor wrote: So, does anyone have advice on how to tell my parents. :
hello dear lobsang chojor. longchen rabjampa wrote that you should forget about a community and seek a solitary life. so that is an important statement. buddhist master often mention that when you die, you dies alone, none of your friends or family can support you at the time of your death. you leave everything. so... ...my suggestion is to meditate on the reality (discernment) of what is happening. there is you (seen from above), doing what you do. there are you parents, who will also die alone. then open your warm and loving heart and consider the inevitable conclusions and the great generous and giving points of view.

that is it. so you should tell your parents not what you "need to say" but what they need to, want to, hear on their terms based on your wisdom understanding of their happiness and your skillful means. that is a bit tough for a 17 year old )))) but i think you got this one my dear friend.
i dedicate this post to your happiness, the causes of your happiness, the absence of your suffering the causes of the absence of your suffering that we may not have too much attachment nor aversion. SAMAYAMANUPALAYA
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Lobsang Chojor
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Re: Help with family

Post by Lobsang Chojor »

tomschwarz wrote:buddhist master often mention that when you die, you dies alone, none of your friends or family can support you at the time of your death. you leave everything. so... ...my suggestion is to meditate on the reality (discernment) of what is happening. there is you (seen from above), doing what you do. there are you parents, who will also die alone. then open your warm and loving heart and consider the inevitable conclusions and the great generous and giving points of view.
Hi Tom, thanks for this, in fact that has been the latest topic of my Lam Rim meditations.
so you should tell your parents not what you "need to say" but what they need to, want to, hear on their terms based on your wisdom understanding of their happiness and your skillful means. that is a bit tough for a 17 year old )))) but i think you got this one my dear friend.
Thank you Tom, I have a while to plan how to tell them, but when I last mentioned it they weren't sure (similarly to how Lama Yeshe said)
"Morality does not become pure unless darkness is dispelled by the light of wisdom"
  • Aryasura, Paramitasamasa 6.5
ༀ་ཨ་ར་པ་ཙ་ན་དྷཱི༔ Oṃ A Ra Pa Ca Na Dhīḥ
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