Sometimes Brilliant

To really make a difference, it takes much more than goodwill; it takes the dedication to learn something to offer, a skill or profession. It also takes perseverance. Charity that is not sustainable is over in the blink of an eye. The old adage attributed to Maimonides is right: ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’ To really change the world requires deep understanding and humility, doing the hard work of systemic thinking, a keen awareness of how a particular system operates, and – perhaps most important – an unwavering sense of what you, alone, are uniquely fit to do that will do the world a world of good.

Sometimes people say that faith is the opposite of doubt, but I don’t think that is true. To me, the opposite of faith is rigid certainty. Doubt is the constant companion of true faith; like God, it is more verb than noun. Faith is the ride, not the station, as Indians describe it. No one can avoid doubt, skepticism, fear, and uncertainty on the journey to faith if they are honest with themselves. Obstacles are the training ground.

Over the next week, we attended ceremonies and mugged for photos with Karmapa, Jamgon Kongtrul, and another prominent young lama, Starmapa. We sat for meditation with dozens of monks. Karmapa often returned to the question of the eradication of suffering. A single disease could be cured, he argued, but suffering itself is part of the human condition as long as we remain trapped by ignorance, hatred, and obsession, even in their mildest forms. It was up to individuals to eradicate their own personal suffering through insight and the extinction of negative emotions. But he told us it was a blessing to be part of eliminating any kind of suffering.