Guarding the Flower Seeds

A story told by Tulku Sasngngag Rinpoche

"All suffering and happiness is merely a
way of perceiving, which depends on
our own attitude.”

There was a yogi in the area where I
was born called Nyima Tsultrim.

He spent ten years living in caves
practicing what is called chulen,
where one survives on the essences
of the elements.

When the Chinese Army finally found
him, they put him in prison and gave
him the task of guarding flower
seeds.

One time I went to see him and asked
him what he had been doing.

He said that his whole life he had
been praying to be reborn into the
Buddha field of Amitabha, a pure
land called Sukavati, and now all his
aspirations were accomplished.

His perception of that Chinese prison
was of the Buddha field of Amitabha,
the Pure Land."