Is There No Buddha? Is 'Samsara' Just Your Repeating Negative Habits? 'Non-Attachment' is Not Demanding Nothing, But Knowing When to Stop! Karma is Not Fate, 'Yuanfen' is the Key to Changing Destiny!

Sat, 16 May 2026 23:30:00 +0800

When speaking of Buddhism, what is your first impression?

Golden statues of gods in temples?
Devout believers burning incense and bowing to Buddha for blessings?
Demanding people to make everything empty and sever all afflictions?

If your understanding of Buddhism stops here, you might miss a very practical “science of the mind.”

Is There No Buddha? Where is the Real Buddha?

Sangpo Rinpoche said something that shocked many people:

“Buddha does not exist. Materially, there is no Buddha.”

This is not denying Buddhism, but pointing out a concept that many people confuse:

We cannot rely on external deities or others’ “blessings” to achieve Buddhahood. Those statues in temples and those ritual prayers are actually not the core of the Dharma.

Sangpo Rinpoche said that real Dharma is a science that helps us know ourselves.

Buddha is not in temples, nor in some master. The real Buddha is within your own body and mind.

Common Perception	Sangpo Rinpoche’s View
Buddha is an external deity	Buddha is within your own body and mind
Rely on blessings to get power	Rely on logic and mind training to find inner strength
Dharma is a religious belief	Dharma is a science of the mind

Your afflictions are in your own mind, and the power to solve them is also within your own mind.

When you stop seeking externally and turn to observe your own thoughts and intentions, that power of awakening is always there.

The Mind Does Not Get Sick; What Gets Sick is Your “Thoughts”

Have you ever felt this way? Busy with work to the point of suffocation, lying in bed but unable to sleep, thoughts in your head spinning endlessly like a carousel.

You might think: “Is my mind sick?”

Sangpo Rinpoche's answer is: Your mind doesn’t get sick at all. What gets sick is your “thoughts”.

The mind is like the ocean, and thoughts are like the waves on the surface.

The depth of the ocean is always calm; no matter how high or fierce the waves above are, that peace at the bottom of the sea has never changed.

We feel “the mind is sick” because we are actually carried away by the surface waves, forgetting that our depths have always been very stable.

How do the waves come about? Sangpo Rinpoche said:

The “wind” that drives the rise and fall of thoughts is “Karma”.

When we are misled by Wrong Views, we will lose our way in the tide of thoughts.

Metaphor	Corresponding Element
Ocean	Our mind, calm by nature
Waves	Thoughts, which fluctuate
Wind	Karma, the force driving thoughts

Modern science has proven that through the practice of Meditation, the brain’s energy and personality can be changed.

In the past, Westerners thought people who meditated were weird, but now even entrepreneurs and scientists are practicing Meditation.

Why Can’t Afflictions Be Eliminated? Because They Are the “Wood” of Wisdom

When hearing the word “practice,” many people’s first reaction is: “Doesn’t that mean eliminating afflictions?” Sangpo Rinpoche said:

Afflictions cannot be eliminated at all, and the more you want to sever them, the more they grow.

This is the biggest difference between Tibetan Vajrayana and Sutrayana. Sutrayana advocates “eliminating afflictions,” while Vajrayana’s approach is “transforming afflictions into wisdom”.

Vajrayana believes that afflictions and wisdom are not opposing enemies; they are more like two sides of the same coin.

Only with night can there be day, and only with day can there be night.

The relationship between affliction and wisdom is also like this.

Affliction is wood, and wisdom is fire. Without wood, the fire cannot be lit at all.

If you insist on throwing away all the wood (affliction), then the fire (wisdom) will also be extinguished.

Vajrayana’s approach is not to eliminate afflictions, but to treat afflictions as fuel and use them to ignite the flame of wisdom.

Practice Method	Attitude Toward Afflictions	Metaphor
Sutrayana	Eliminating afflictions	Throwing away the wood
Vajrayana	Transforming afflictions into wisdom	Using wood to light the fire

Without afflictions, there is no motivation for growth.

Afflictions themselves are the energy that drives you forward; the key is whether you know how to use them.

Ordinary people increase karma due to afflictions, while practitioners increase wisdom due to afflictions.

“Looking for trouble (seeking affliction)” is actually a positive term in the view of Vajrayana.

The point is not whether there are afflictions, but whether you recognize what affliction is and whether you can transform it into the energy to move forward.

What is “Non-Attachment”? It is Simply Not Going Too Far (Over)

Speaking of practice, another intimidating term is “Non-Attachment”.

Many people get scared as soon as they hear it: “Does practicing Buddhism mean abandoning one’s family, not dating, or not pursuing a career?” Sangpo Rinpoche said:

Attachment is simply going too far with energy.

The Dharma never asks you to give up money, family, or relationships.

A husband and wife co-managing a warm family is good. But if desires go overboard and a third party appears, that is going too far.
Eating is a necessity to sustain life, but stretching yourself to eat when you are already full is an attachment to food, which will only harm your health in the end.

Situation	Moderation (Good)	Excess (Attachment)
Relationship	One-on-one sincere companion	Appearance of a third party
Appetite	Eat when hungry, stop when full	Continue eating when full
Career	Use wisdom to learn to choose and let go to create a happy life	Work day and night, losing health and family

“Non-Attachment” is not about demanding nothing, but learning when to stop.

Sangpo Rinpoche emphasized that the pursuit of life is originally happiness. Monks pursue happiness, and ordinary people also pursue happiness.

True happiness and joy are actually within you all along.

The external material environment cannot completely satisfy our endless desires.

Even the Earth itself has enough resources to sustain human life, but it does not have the capacity to satisfy everyone’s desires.

Happiness and joy are within your own body and your own mind.

It is the same when facing pain and hurt: changing your perspective changes everything.

Treating obstacles and pain as the power to change the status quo rather than an insurmountable wall, when the mind lights up, the world will light up with it.

Samsara is Not Something After Death; It is the Negative Habit You Are Currently Repeating

Like attachment, “Samsara” is also a deeply misunderstood concept. Most people think Samsara is about what happens after death, a story of reincarnation. But Sangpo Rinpoche said:

Samsara is actually a repetition of negative habits.

Have you noticed that you always seem to get hurt in the same way in relationships? Or after changing several jobs, you always meet a similar terrible boss?

This endlessly repeating negative loop is the “Samsara” you experience every single day.

Dimension	Manifestation of Samsara
Time	Day, night, day, night, cycling endlessly
Emotion	The same anxiety, anger, and helplessness appearing repeatedly
Thought	The brain automatically running the same pattern of thinking
Relationships	Changing partners but repeating the same arguments
Work	Changing companies but encountering the same problems

Sangpo Rinpoche pointed out that the root of this repetition comes from a “triangle” structure:

Triangle of Samsara	Description
Habitual Tendency	Your personality, your habitual behavioral patterns
Karmic Obstacles	Good and bad karma accumulated in the past
Afflictions	The energy that drives habitual tendencies and keeps karmic obstacles running

These three push each other, forming an endlessly cycling loop.

As long as the structure of this triangle remains unchanged, no matter how you change environments, partners, or jobs, the final result will always be the same.

To escape Samsara, you must change your negative habits to break this triangle of Samsara.

Are You a “Dog” Chasing Stones, or a “Lion” Finding the Source?

Someone throws a stone at you. A dog will chase that stone desperately, bite it, and break its own teeth. As a result, a second stone flies in, a third one comes, and it is forever endless.

But a lion is different. The lion ignores the stone; it will charge directly at the person who threw the stone.

Character	Way of Facing Stones	Result
Dog	Chasing stones (dealing with external problems)	Receiving more and more stones, exhausted
Lion	Finding the person who threw the stone (facing the inner root)	Solving the source of the problem once and for all

In life, those “stones” are the people, things, and events around us—a troublesome colleague, a demanding client, or a partner who makes your heart weary.

And the “person throwing the stones” is your own negative habit.

Most people spend their entire lives dealing with external stones

Blaming the boss for not being good, blaming the partner for not being caring, blaming the environment for being unfair.

But they never look back to see who exactly the “person throwing the stones” is within themselves.

In the end, they become a “stone millionaire,” carrying a back full of stones, feeling that the road becomes harder and harder to walk.

Collecting external stones every day: this person’s problem, that thing’s unfairness, this environment’s rottenness.

Carrying them all on their backs, getting heavier and heavier. Some even say: “I don’t want to be human in my next life.”

Sangpo Rinpoche's reaction when hearing this is: “Then if you don’t become human, what do you want to be? A dog? Even worse.”

A human birth is rare and precious; humans are the only animals with the ability to think.

Having the ability to think but being unwilling to think is wasting this precious gift.

The problem is not having bad luck, but that the foundation of one’s concepts is not well established.

Success and failure are both in one’s own thinking and concepts. If the concepts are wrong, the direction is wrong, and no matter how hard you work, it is in vain.

Karma is Not Fate; “Yuanfen” is the Key to Changing Destiny

Since the root of the problem lies within ourselves, do we have a way to change it?

Of course we do. The key lies in “Yuanfen” (affinity).

Many people think that karma is fate: whatever cause you plant, you will definitely get that result.

But in the Buddhist view of karma, there is a very important variable between cause and effect: “Yuanfen”.

Structure of Karma	Description
Cause (Yin)	Seeds planted in the past
Condition (Yuan)	Conditions and variables between cause and effect
Effect (Guo)	The final result presented

A good cause does not guarantee a good result, because it still has to undergo the test of the “Condition.”

In other words, even if there is a bad “cause,” as long as you create a good “condition,” you have the chance to change the final “result.”

This is what Buddhism means by saying that practice is forging good affinities (forging good Yuan).

Forging good affinities is not some profound skill; it is simply in daily life:

Be a bit better to your own body
Have a bit more patience with family members
Have a bit more understanding and tolerance in interpersonal relationships.

But forging good affinities is the hardest to practice. Because interpersonal relationships, family relationships, and romantic relationships are precisely what test us the most.

Numerology believes that fate cannot be changed, but the Dharma believes that everything is in the change of “impermanence.”

Precisely because everything is changing, this is a “world where anything is possible.” You can create good fortune, and you can also create bad luck.

The Dharma is simply about changing yourself to create your own destiny.

This is the way to pursue happiness and joy.

Letting Go of the “Self,” the Dharma is Simply a Way of Life

To break out of the negative loop of Samsara, the most core step is: letting go of the self.

This is not telling you to become a person without independent opinions.

But rather, no longer using the perspective of “having a self” to judge the right or wrong, good or bad of all things.

You will then be able to jump out of that mode of constantly chasing stones.

Perspective	Way of Looking at the World	Result
Having a Self	Duality: right/wrong, good/bad, you/me	Samsara (continuous repetition)
No-Self	Non-duality, accepting diverse states, no absolute right/wrong or good/bad	Nirvana (escaping the loop)

Looking at the world from the perspective of “No-Self” is the beginning of Nirvana.

The core of Buddhism is actually very simple:

Buddhism is a way of life, not a belief.

Belief	Dharma
Unconditional belief	Deciding whether to practice only after thinking
No questioning	Encouraging questioning and verification
External seeking	Exploring inward
Beliefs	Way of life

The Buddha said: Do not believe what I say just because you hear it; go and think about whether it is helpful to your life, and if it is, then practice it.

Practice is simply training one’s own “body,” “speech,” and “mind.”

Whether you become a monk or not, everyone can practice, and everyone needs to practice.

Learn to observe your own thoughts
Accept the value of the existence of afflictions
Know when to stop in front of desires
Be willing to be that lion, turning back to face the inner root
Forge good affinities in daily life

Save others with compassion, and save yourself with wisdom.

When you possess these two powers at the same time, you can create a virtuous cycle, turning life from a boring Samsara into a free and easy game.

Reference

EP115 其實輪迴有時候很無聊，佛祖不存在，煩惱根本斷不了｜松柏仁波切 - YouTube

佛學 on Story TLDRLSS