King Yeshe O was captured by the neighboring king and sacrificed his life to invite Master Atisha to promulgate Buddha’s teachings in Tibet. Master Atisha had to sacrifice 20 years of his life, in order for him to go to Tibet.
[Global Lamrim 2 - Lecture 0009]
There are many accounts of hardships faced and sacrifices made by past lineage masters and Buddhist practitioners to preserve the teachings for future generations. How are these “stories” related to me?
linking to [Global Lamrim Lecture 0009]
Many of these accounts are recorded like historical texts or stories, some are even produced into movies. Through these accounts we can understand how Buddhism was started, the situation then and how the revelations, downfall of the countries etc lead to how Buddhism is now. Then as Buddhists we can understand Buddhism better.
When I hear stories about the hardships and sacrifices Shifu has made to preserve Lamrim, it made me respect him and appreciate the teachings.
We should not just take it as a legend or story because now that we are able to learnMaster Tsongkhapa’s teaching, the perfect teaching, the complete teaching, it is really because of all these masters and practitioners. They persevere despite the challenges even at the sacrifice of their lives, they preserve the teaching for us. We really should think of them as our benefactor because we really received the kindness directly from them.
Why is it that we can meet the complete and perfect teachings now in this era where the teaching has declined almost to the bottom? It is because we have created the causes for meeting the complete and perfect teaching life after life. And that also means that we must have also made sacrifices in our past lives in order to preserve the teaching for future generations.
