Yes, of course you don’t want to have superiority complexes and pride. Nor should you have an inferiority complex and thinking, “I am not capable, I am not good enough, I am not well educated, I can’t think.” That is an inferiority complex. You can think, you can manage, you can do all that. So don’t look down on yourself.
Then you get into Dharma and you say, “I have to go and listen to the teachings directly from buddhas. There are the 35 Buddhas or the 1000 Buddhas. How can I go and listen to 1000 different buddhas? I am not capable. One buddha is enough for me.” It is true. One buddha is enough for you. But more buddhas for you will be much more helpful too. So even if you feel you are not capable, just do it and then you will get through.
When I was urged to teach by one of my great late masters, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, he told me to go and teach in Tushita, the FPMT center. He told me to teach the Three Principles of the Path followed by a Yamantaka initiation. I kept on saying, “Please, I can’t do it. I am not capable. I forgot everything and I have no experience, nothing.” His answer to me was an old Tibetan saying:
Chü che ka gye dang
ka che ka go yung
Walking into the river up to half your body/ you will understand half way through
and when you go in all the way/ you will understand all the way.
So, even when you think you are not capable, think of that. You can go half way through, and by that time you understand half way. If you go in fully, you will understand fully. So that is enthusiasm. Why do they call that enthusiasm, “the nature of the practice?” Because whatever practice you do, whether you meditate or circumambulate or accumulating merit or purification or anything you do, engage totally with this enthusiasm, and then there will be no such obstacle called tiredness or thoughts like, “I am incapable,” or “I am not good enough.” All of them will be blocked. What you have to pay attention to, is not to have attraction to uncalled for activities.
~ Gelek Rimpoche, Jewel Heart Ann Arbor, October 19, 2014
