If one sees the shortcomings of Samsara
Utter disenchantment will be born.
This terrifying prison of the Three Realms,
you must strive with concerted effort to abandon it.
~The Meeting of Father and Son Sutra~
ཡབ་སྲས་མཇལ་བའི་མདོ་ལས་།
འཁོར་བའི་ཉེས་དམིགས་མཐོང་བ་ན།
སྐྱོ་བའི་སེམས་ནི་རབ་ཏུ་སྐྱེ།
ཁམས་གསུམ་བཙོན་རའི་འཇིགས་པས་ན།
བརྩོན་པའི་སེམས་ཀྱིས་སྤོང་བར་བྱེད་།
Wherever wandering beings are born,
Since happiness does not exist,
Be resolute in your conviction
That your every action becomes the practice of Dharma.
~Jetsun Milarepa~
།རྗེ་མི་ལས། །འགྲོ་བ་གང་དུ་སྐྱེས་ཀྱང་སྐྱིད་མེད་པས་། ། བསམ་བློ་ཐག་གིས་ཆོད་ན་ཅི་བྱས་ཐམས་ཅད་ཆོས་སུ་འགྲོ་བ་ཡིན།
Geshe Jinpa Sonam opened last weeks teachings with these two verses. In commentary on them, he taught that fueled by self-clinging we are often hooked into a pattern of seeking our happiness in material and worldly pursuits – in things that are fleeting and certain to change.
However, when we stop to look at the situation, and see the shortcomings of our current experiences, we see the futility of this and we are spurred into seeking freedom from this cycle and its ensuing sufferings and difficulties. We can come to find contentment and inner happiness... that begins when we change our focus so that we are not based in such a strong sense of self and self serving, but rather make our every deed an action about others (other serving) and couple that with both compassion and Wisdom.
In that way, every action becomes the practice of the Path. Geshe la also spoke about the benefits of being resolute and determined to practice, as was Jetson Milarepa – but cautioned that one should be practical – without falling into the extreme of not having proper provisions, etc. One should find that balance of having just enough, but not too much.