You must break out of the setup of samsara

The blueprint of a human life is set by the laws of the universe.Put down the sack — how free that is.

From the Buddhas' and bodhisattvas' point of view, seventy years passes like seven seconds.

So from the Buddhas' and bodhisattvas' angle, you give me this string of prayer beads and it's gone in a flash — the beads scatter all over the floor, the string breaks.You'd feel: I only gave it to you three seconds ago and it's already broken, what was the point?

Then how about giving an apple to eat?

Fast-forward time, and that apple instantly, within a second, shrivels up, rots, and gets worms.

I'd rather not have it then — the moment it's in my hand it goes bad.That's what fast-forward speed looks like.In slow motion, time stretches out very long — an apple can sit for ten days and still be there.That's slow motion.We are all lost right now inside the slower time-space.

Seventy years — we think it is a long time."In the mountains there is no calendar" — people living in the mountains live longer because they don't know what time it is.If you don't know what time it is, you have less control over the settings inside your brain.Inside our brain we think: this is what a 70-year-old should look like, this is what an 80-year-old should look like — we already have it worked out.

So your body gets set up: if you still look like this (young) at 70, then you are a freak.The endocrine system inside your body, the commands of your brain, say: at 70 you have to look like the 70-year-olds you see on TV, the 70-year-olds you see on the street — only that is normal.Your body plans itself out: at 70 I have to look like this, follow that, only then is it normal.So this setup is terrifying.If we could break out of the setup, many things are not what you imagined — things our heads can't even come up with.

So I often say, if you can break a frame, change a setting, you will do many unimaginable things you never thought of.It's just that we've been boxed in too tightly — only this way is allowed, that way is not.You've been framed.This is called discipline.You've been pinned down, so you can only do human things, you can't do non-human things; you can only do things inside the rules, you can't do anything outside the rules.What rules?Parents' rules, teachers' rules, the boss at work's rules, the husband at home's rules.You can only live this life.People put a box on you, you can only spin around inside it.Like Tang Sanzang: when Sun Wukong was about to leave, he drew a circle on the ground: "Master, you can only stay inside this circle, don't run out.Everything outside is demons and monsters." So you can only stay inside this circle, you don't dare walk out, you'll never dare walk out — then how are you going to go fetch the scriptures?Human life is like Tang Sanzang, boxed in by a frame, because Sun Wukong was afraid demons would harm his master and eat him.So out of one fear, we've been boxed to death: afraid of what might happen if the kids go out, "you can't go out, you'll get tricked!" The kid becomes a bookworm forever, because Mama told me: if you go out you'll definitely get tricked, there's danger, you'll run into bad people, and there are so many cars, we're afraid of accidents.Better not go out — he turns into a shut-in, his frame boxed to death, and his life stays this small circle.

Some people, in contrast, ship their kids off abroad, hoping the kids will develop freely, draw out their own potential — no frame, don't box in the children's education, interests, and so on.How good that is for the children's education, their minds, their language ability!

So it's not only parents who influence us.Siblings, relatives influence us too.And who else influences us even more?When we are in school, school education, teachers box us in.We get boxed in by one frame after another, so we keep living inside other people's frames.Once we're out in society, the law, social norms, public opinion — all these laws rule you.We're all living inside other people's expectations, thinking, and commands.So in this world —

Who is ruling me, and whom am I ruling?

Who is holding me back, and whom am I holding back?

Who is tying me down, and whom am I tying down?

Who is entangling me, and whom am I entangling?

Who is setting me up, and whom am I setting up?

Who makes me let go, and whom do I make let go?

Who makes me free, and whom do I set free?

Who liberates me, and whom do I liberate?

Excerpted from a teaching by Vajra Master Urgyen Topden Rinpoche on 2018-12-07.