Verse 33: Give up attachment to patrons and gain
Verse 33 of Gyalse Tokme Zangpo’s 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, from the section “Final precepts, daily conduct.” Below: the verse in three translations and what seven teachers say about it.
Open in the study browser →Concern for wealth and respect leads to conflict and to the loss of learning, reflecting, and meditating. So abandon attachment to your circle of friends, relations, and benefactors. This is the way of a bodhisattva.
The practice of all the bodhisattvas is to let go of attachment To the households of benefactors and of family and friends, Since one's study, reflection and meditation will all diminish When one quarrels and competes for honours and rewards.
When you squabble with others about status and rewards, You undermine learning, reflection, and meditation. Let go of any investment in your family circle Or the circle of those who support you — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.
(Brief.) Praise and blame traded between practitioners creates an obstacle for speaker and listener alike, and entertaining such thoughts causes our own meditation to deteriorate. When we hear that "this place is good and that place is not good," "we should generate the thought that both are just as good," resting in equanimity without holding one above the other.
Even very great gurus earned bad reputations through worldly entanglements — his example is Jamyang Shepa and the royal scandal. "Too many worldly friends, patrons, possessions can produce bad consequences"; cites Shantideva's counsel to live at an ordinary level without strong ties.
The target is craving for gain and respect. Story: Geshe Ben Gungyal tidying his altar because a patron was coming — then throwing dirt on the offerings when he saw the worldly motive; praised by a distant master, who saw it with extrasensory perception, as "the purest offering in all of Tibet." "We're not doing Dharma practice in order to get other people's approval."
Desire for gain and honor breeds quarrels and dependency; releasing emotional ties to patrons frees practice from obligations and favoritism.
Pursuing gain and honor destroys virtue "like a sword cuts off one's head" (Vinaya); Thogme Zangpo's own words — contentment is the ultimate wealth. Pointed present-day application: distraction by "external rituals, materials, imitation monks or fake tulkus"; monastics free of wealth and fame are "like lotuses in a fire" (Atisha). Dharma starts hard and ends happy; worldly activity the reverse.
Winter Retreat vv29–37 talk.
Talk 11: emotional investment in groups and family clouds judgment. Tricycle v33 (video/subscriber).
Ben Gungyal's dirt-on-the-altar (AB) is the definitive story — the eight worldly concerns infiltrate even the shrine. For a brand-new group meeting in a friend's living room, this verse is quietly on point: watch what hosting, status, and belonging do to the practice. ---
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche — The Heart of Compassion (Shambhala). A purchased book — no text is reproduced here.