The answer is Right in Front of Your Eyes

We have to trace the source of our problems by looking at the problems themselves. Often we feel that we have to look beyond our present mundane state to gain wisdom and the bodhichitta, but in truth, they are to be found right here in samsara, in cyclic existence. We should look for the solution within the problem.

If we can’t see the nature of cyclic existence while we are right within it – how and why it is suffering – we will never be able to find the answer somewhere else. The problem is right in front of us, and so is the answer.

If you can’t see that cyclic existence is just naturally a state of suffering, you will carry on clinging to it. You won’t have the determination to be free from it, which is what renunciation is. Without renunciation, any subsequent Dharma practice won’t do as it ought to, but will be just another worldly activity.

But we dismiss the importance of renunciation, not seeing how essential it is. And even though most of us have yet to integrate the most basic Buddhist views and practices, we run after the high and profound views of bodhichitta, emptiness, mahamudra and dzogchen, which are way above most of us.

Therefore, remember that wherever there is pain, trouble, confusion and strife, right there is cyclic existence. And it is this that we should look into and examine, because it is here that we will find bodhichitta and wisdom, not anywhere else.