Facing Financial Difficulties

In this excerpt from a public teaching in Vietnam, Phakchok Rinpoche answers a student who asks for guidance in improving his financial situation.

Rinpoche advises that all difficulties or suffering, regardless of the type, comes from an experience of “suction”. We don’t have what we want or think we need, so we feel hollow and desperate. If we have no money, the symptom of suction focuses on money. But Rinpoche advises that the best way to approach the situation is to stop thinking so intensively about it. When we aren’t in the suction mode, we can open our minds to wider possibilities.

And we can supplicate to all the buddhas to get what we want—but it is important that we don’t have any hope or expectation to get that. It is difficult to do that—but it’s crucial.