Minoa Buddhist temple founder gives happiness talk

VILLAGE OF MINOA – In town from Singapore, the founder of Thekchen Choling Syracuse gave a talk titled “How to Create Happiness in Your Life” at the Minoa Village Hall Nov. 13.
The talk by spiritual adviser Singha Namdrol Rinpoche was set up by Minoa Library, taking place in the packed board room of the municipal building located just across the street from his temple at 109 East Ave.
Rinpoche started by praising the roomful of attendees for taking action to discover how to attain happiness. He then said, “We must first ask ourselves, ‘Why do we want to be happy?’”
He said suffering in life boils down to loneliness and a lack of connection, which is rooted in the absence of self-love. Though he said happiness can be hard to define and subjective from person to person, Rinpoche said we all know we want to bring happiness into our lives and dispel any experiences of suffering.
Whether in the modern or ancient world, the path to happiness has always started with facing ourselves and gaining awareness through introspection, forgiving ourselves and embracing that we all make mistakes, accepting that life will have its ups and downs, and being willing to listen to what’s bothering us inside, Rinpoche said.
He added that happiness can not be attached fully to material things or a worker’s efficiency in society, but rather, happiness equates to love, heart-to-heart connectedness and acceptance above all else.
Rinpoche compared humans to diamonds in raw form before they’re cut and polished. With that analogy, he said we are all on the way to becoming shining, finished products, but we have to go through the process and pain of being cut.
He said the next step to being happy is to love yourself and realize that every day is special and worthy of celebration for the simple fact that you’re alive.
Also, part of it is consciously deciding to be happy, knowing what we want out of life, being responsible for what we do, finding meaning, and doing our best with limited regret.
“Don’t ever stagnate, because if we don’t want to improve and continue to grow, it means we are starting to die,” Rinpoche said. “What we can learn from nature is that the day the tree stops growing is the day the tree starts dying.”
With a wish for everyone to enjoy their lives, Rinpoche concluded by saying he was not there to convert anyone to his religion, only to make the attendees of the talk better people than they already were, no matter their faith.
The Thekchen Choling temple, which Rinpoche prefers to refer to as a “community center,” houses a collection of millennia-old Buddhist relics and statues of deities for public viewing. It also holds classes, prayer and meditation sessions, and a fireside book discussion group.
Though initially reluctant to open a temple in Minoa because he lives on the other side of the planet, Rinpoche said that “everything clicked” when he witnessed two rainbows in the sky and snow in September and that he knew it was the right place when he saw the location, even though it was originally the site of a funeral home.
After brightening up the place, Rinpoche has sought to make it a safe haven where all walks of life, people with nowhere to turn, and those wishing to discharge sadness can reconnect with themselves and learn how to live harmoniously with others.