My parents are both Tibetan and followed His Holiness the Dalai Lama to India in 1959 during the Chinese invasion. I was born in the northern part of India, in Nathula, part of the Himalayan State of Sikkim the closest border point to Tibet. My exact date of birth is unknown but I know it was the winter of 1964. So I self declared my birthday to be on the 16th December 1964 – haha. Until the age of seven I was in Sikkim. Then we moved to near my school in Karnataka as His Holiness the Dalai Lama had a resettlement project there and so it became a large Tibetan community. In 1989 I then moved to Dharamshala because of my job. I was transferred here to give up my services as the personal security to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I served His Holiness until July 1993. Since then I have remained here, because I love the place, and it has become His Holiness home too so I thought this would be the best place to live.
The most important reason for my survival and success in life is believing in myself and listening to the advice of my father, and then also being very respectful and friendly with all kinds of people: whether they are rich, whether they are poor, whether they are old, whether they are young, whether they are foreigners, whether they are Tibetans or non-Tibetans.
Life has taught me how to be respectful. Life has taught me how to be strong. Life has taught me how to be successful. Life has taught me how to be polite and how to be available to serve people. All these elements you learn firstly from your parents, right? The second step is by experiencing the different situations, tackling different circumstances. So you learn that and most importantly how to direct your mind towards positive things. You know, when you direct your mind toward positivity then you can always find positive things, and then you experience good which makes you want to always practice and implement good. By doing that we always experience deep pleasure. When you experience such pleasure then you want to engage in it more often and that’s where implementation comes in. With more practice that gives you the confidence, that gives you the strength to follow and then utilize your time in a fulfilling way. The by-products are your health, wealth, friendships, and as this all grows more and more, you become more appreciative of your surroundings... “You think good, you do good, and then you talk good.” So when you do that then you keep yourself happy and others happy. It has nothing to do with the spiritual practice, you see. This is what human beings should just simply do.
Predominantly my father inspires me. He has a very honest and straightforward character. So those traits were the first lessons I learnt from my father, to not hold anything back. When you have something on your mind then just say it rather than keeping it inside and feeling bad or having any doubts – just say it. Secondly I have been inspired by so many people, such as my teachers, older and younger generations, you know so many people. I can’t pinpoint anyone but the most effective impact was by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Being very close to him for nearly 24 hours every day for 4 years and looking into his daily activities, his spiritual teachings have encouraged me to do something much better than what I should be doing. It has actually boosted me to go further.
If I had the power to do anything in the world I would like to relieve suffering. I would love to do that. Eradicating the suffering of mankind. But I don’t think wishing something is realistic. Your wish, your desire and any kind of craving cannot be transformed into reality. That is the limitation of human beings I think. Every second of every day I wish I could do something, like this and that but we can only do things within our own kind of capacity. So, I would say that if I was paid to do anything in the world then I would focus on doing good things, starting right from the person next to you, whoever this person is, and then a larger group. Just do good. No more explanation is needed.
I love myself the most of course. I really don’t want to play a drama in my life. I would cherish my own life the most because I don’t want to die, you see. So because of that, people like to become enlightened and that is a sort of self cherishing act, but then Buddhism says that self-cherishing is the most difficult part of life to delegate and abandon, so to follow that practice we really need to invest good time in ourselves. Unfortunately I don’t always have that time for myself, so why should I not cherish my life as much as possible?! When you cherish yourself you don’t harm others. When you help others you receive it back in some form. People help you, people love you, people like you. You see, it is for your own sake. To keep yourself healthy you have to be respectful and helpful to others. A person who does not love oneself can never love others. That is the logic and reality, right?
When I’m off from work, I always like to think. Just to be alone and think. I think about so many different things. My life. Others’ lives. The Tibetan situation. The environment and also about the world, how amazing this world is in which we exist in. All this thinking keeps me going. This reflection process of life and others’ is an analysis of your time how you exist and survive. You can’t just jump into things, work and engage. You need time to think during your spare time, for your own sake. What you are doing and how amazing this world is and how the surroundings are, and how other people are spending their life. You can think about animals, you can think about the environment, you can think about spiritual stuff. Sometimes you may think you know things from the first instance but then that kind of believe that you hold onto can be very dangerous, therefore, things in your life and around you need to be analysed.
My life motto and my wish is to be kind to others. But then the extent to which you can carry that and how strong you are is questionable. It is not easy. Saying something is easy, but doing something is really hard, isn’t it?! Motto is another word for motivation, right? Your motivation is behind your motto. So if your motivation isn’t there your motto is wrong, right?
I would say the younger generation, first of all need to think that life will never give you anything for free. You need to create it, you need to open doors, you need to work hard, you need to believe in yourself. Be confident, ok?! And you cannot fully depend on others. You see we are dependent. Everyone is dependent, but before you can depend on others you need to bring yourself on such a level on which others can depend on you. Suppose you are doing nothing and you are asking something from the government or you are asking something of a friend or family, why should they support you?! You have done nothing, you are not trying to do anything. You are just there! That can’t work. You need to start, you need to struggle, you need to fail in life. With time you get support: you get moral support, you get financial support, you get a kind of hand to hand support and so many things happen along the way. But you need to start. You can’t just depend on others. You know there are many ups and downs, it happens. So you really need to prove yourself that you have potential to do something and just go for it and do it!
Dawa Rinchen (Age 51)
Photo created by Kunsang Tenzing
Interview created by Kunsang Tenzing & Yasmine Tanwidjaja-Pajares
Edited by Yasmine Tanwidjaja-Pajares
