The Dalai Lama’s 18 Rules For Living

At the start of the new millennium the Dalai Lama apparently issued eighteen rules for living. Since word travels slowly in the digital age these have only just reached me. Here they are.

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
   1. Respect for self
   2. Respect for others
   3. Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

5 Steps to Self-Actualization

"Every human action, whether it has become positive or negative, must depend on motivation."
-- Dalai Lama

Monitoring what motivates me has helped me see how I am growing. I do things for different reasons now than I did 10 years ago. As we pay ongoing attention to our motives, we can see how both our conscious and unconscious attitudes are changing.

Here are some ways that our motives can shift with rising consciousness:
- I desire
- I want to collect things
- I want to know
- I want to serve
- I want to be

What are your motives as you participate in life?

"There are three kinds of people and three kinds of richness:
- people who want to have, to collect
- people who want action, work and labor
- people who want to be
The real richness is in be-ness. People can take all that you have, all that you collected. People can stop your labor, or an accident can stop you. When you are, you never lose what you are."
-- Torkom Saraydarian

"You are what you think. You are what you go for. You are what you do!"
-- Bob Richards

"A good intention clothes itself with power."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We don't change overnight. Personal growth requires persistence.