For the sake of the Dharma
Taking the decision to come and live and study in Nepal was the greatest risk I had ever taken in my life. For months my mind was tormented of whether I should dare to do something like that and escape secretly to Nepal for Buddhist studies. I have a wonderful loving family, but they have no understanding of Buddhism. Knowing that I wanted to study Buddhism in Nepal, they forbade me to come. Having no other options, I had to use skillful means in order to come here to study the Dharma. Running away from home and my family secretly to Nepal with the excuse of going on holidays with my boyfriend to Latin America, I just took a plane alone and landed on the other side of the world. It opened a new chapter in my life and has turned out to be the most beneficial …
Different kinds of worries like, am I going to be able to live in a country like Nepal, with so different lifestyle from my homeland? Are these kind of studies going to be what I was looking for? How I am going to deal emotionally with being away from my beloved ones? What will happen to my relationship? And the most importantly how is my family going to react to this escape of mine? Those where questions that daily besieged my mind for months.
When people learned about my escape to Nepal everybody was wondering why….
I had the perfect family, living in the perfect house, in the perfect suburb, a perfect car, perfect clothes, a perfect social life, I had even the perfect boyfriend! Why would she abandon all those privileges everyone wondered…
And the answer is Dharma… having understood what it means to have the privilege of a young human body and understanding what samsara, impermanence and suffering mean, despite having an incredible attachment to all the things I mentioned above, driven from faith and trust in Dharma, that this path in the long-term is going to be the most beneficial for me and eventually for other beings as well, and that Dharma is the remedy to suffering… I dared.
And it turned out to be the wisest decision I had ever made.
I followed this advice:
When you have to choose a path, uphill or down hill, always choose the hardest, uphill, because that will lead to the top. The evaluation after living one year and a half in Nepal finds me more developed and evolved than ever, have a deeper understanding of Dharma teachings of what I used to have before. I can now have chats and express myself in Tibetan, I can read pechas (Tibetan texts) and prayers in Tibetan, I can , bargain with taxi drivers and local shops in Nepal. I enjoy eating momos and drinking butter tea, wearing traditional Tibetan chuba dresses, watch Bollywood films and the tunes to stick in my head. I have the opportunity to travel to amazing, beautiful and sacred places around Nepal and India, even sometimes alone with a backpack. I even have a bit of social life and have found a place for Salsa dancing which I used to do in my country and I missed here.
But being in Nepal, the most important is that being close to the well of Dharma, one gets the opportunity to meet many different and precious Lamas and receive teachings and immense benefit from creating a connection to them. Even my family surprisingly was convinced by my well adaptation here in Nepal and seeing me happy with what I study, they are fully supportive now despite not particularly liking what I am doing…
My conclusion? Have faith and trust in Dharma and Dharma will work its good beneficial ‘magic’ over you….
Love and bliss to all beings,
~ Zeta Karma Yeshe Wangmo
Greece
Different kinds of worries like, am I going to be able to live in a country like Nepal, with so different lifestyle from my homeland? Are these kind of studies going to be what I was looking for? How I am going to deal emotionally with being away from my beloved ones? What will happen to my relationship? And the most importantly how is my family going to react to this escape of mine? Those where questions that daily besieged my mind for months.
When people learned about my escape to Nepal everybody was wondering why….
I had the perfect family, living in the perfect house, in the perfect suburb, a perfect car, perfect clothes, a perfect social life, I had even the perfect boyfriend! Why would she abandon all those privileges everyone wondered…
And the answer is Dharma… having understood what it means to have the privilege of a young human body and understanding what samsara, impermanence and suffering mean, despite having an incredible attachment to all the things I mentioned above, driven from faith and trust in Dharma, that this path in the long-term is going to be the most beneficial for me and eventually for other beings as well, and that Dharma is the remedy to suffering… I dared.
And it turned out to be the wisest decision I had ever made.
I followed this advice:
When you have to choose a path, uphill or down hill, always choose the hardest, uphill, because that will lead to the top. The evaluation after living one year and a half in Nepal finds me more developed and evolved than ever, have a deeper understanding of Dharma teachings of what I used to have before. I can now have chats and express myself in Tibetan, I can read pechas (Tibetan texts) and prayers in Tibetan, I can , bargain with taxi drivers and local shops in Nepal. I enjoy eating momos and drinking butter tea, wearing traditional Tibetan chuba dresses, watch Bollywood films and the tunes to stick in my head. I have the opportunity to travel to amazing, beautiful and sacred places around Nepal and India, even sometimes alone with a backpack. I even have a bit of social life and have found a place for Salsa dancing which I used to do in my country and I missed here.
But being in Nepal, the most important is that being close to the well of Dharma, one gets the opportunity to meet many different and precious Lamas and receive teachings and immense benefit from creating a connection to them. Even my family surprisingly was convinced by my well adaptation here in Nepal and seeing me happy with what I study, they are fully supportive now despite not particularly liking what I am doing…
My conclusion? Have faith and trust in Dharma and Dharma will work its good beneficial ‘magic’ over you….
Love and bliss to all beings,
~ Zeta Karma Yeshe Wangmo
Greece
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