Tenpo

Good Day,

There is a quality referred to has tenpo in Tibet and literally means "stable and reliable." It probably comes as no surprise that one of our greastes problems is a lack of these qualities. One of the issues we face is that no matter how much we want to be stable the world including us are in a constant state of change. Without a strong mind we are often swept away by circumstances and in the end we too become unreliable.

Now it seems many of us are quite stable when it comes to being negative, having wrong viewpoints and generally living on auto-pilot, but it is our instability that keeps us living this way. What we need is a solid base in which we can ground ourselves and gain some stability moving forward.

Let us consider a strand of beads which has a thread running through all the beads, holding them together. We need such a thread as well - a thread of sanity and stability. When we have such a thread, even though each bead is separate, they hang together. When we see the truth about ourselves, life and the true nature of our mind we have a thread to keep our life together and prevent us from falling apart.

Another benefit of such a thread is that it is flexible. Although it binds our life together we still have the freedom to be unique, individual and humorous - the exact kind of character the world could use more of! Such a thread takes discipline, time, understanding and patience to develop, but once woven together can serve a lifetime holding it all together.

Peace and Love, Jim