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February 22, 2019 at 12:49pm

We should be terrified of the future rebirths that desire will bring, such as rebirth in the unbearable suffering of the lower realms or the endless dissatisfaction of the upper realms. But instead of that, most of us only worry about the small transient sufferings of our present life and put all our effort into stopping them alone. However, working to obtain the happiness and avoid the suffering of just this life is negative, because the methods we use are negative. Whatever we do for just this life is done with the self-cherishing thought, the wish for samsaric pleasure, for the comfort of this life. Because we’re attached to pleasure, when we get sick we treat our sickness motivated only by the wish for the relief of our discomfort, nothing higher, so taking medicine becomes a negative action. When we feel hungry, we eat with self-cherishing, so that too becomes a negative action. If we get hot or cold, we turn on a fan or a heater with the same negative mind. From morning to night we do everything with the self-cherishing mind. Inside the house, outside the house, getting dressed, walking around, talking to people, working, eating, seeing things, shopping, going to bed—we do everything with self-cherishing. Even though everything we do is motivated by the wish to obtain temporal happiness and avoid temporal problems, in fact, everything we do creates the cause of greater, continual suffering in the future. For countless previous lifetimes we’ve been carrying on like this, perpetuating the cycle of suffering, living fulltime with the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. Unless we can break this cycle we will continue like this, doing the same thing on and on endlessly, because we’re using entirely the wrong methods to deal with our immediate worldly problems. We’re forever creating the causes for much greater suffering for ourselves. Really, we are crazy; completely crazy. When lamrim practitioners—those who have renounced the thought of the eight worldly dharmas and live in pure practice—look at us clinging to samsaric happiness, they see us as children playing, as completely hallucinated. Look at children playing in the sand. They make piles of sand and give them labels, calling one pile “my house” and another “my car.” They believe in their labels and grasp on to them, and when challenged, they argue and fight, as attachment, hatred and anger arise. Clinging to the eight worldly dharmas, we’re just like children. In fact, we’re completely childish. We cling to actions as if they have meaning, whereas they don’t at all. We chase the meaningless in search of happiness; we believe the essenceless to have essence. Perhaps we might think that even though it’s not real happiness, as long as we’re enjoying ourselves it doesn’t matter; we’re causing no harm. That’s like seeing poison and labeling it medicine. We take it and get sick, mentally and physically. The result of clinging to temporary pleasures is agitation and lack of peace, lack of freedom. That’s the nature of negative mind. --Lama Zopa Rinpoche from How to Practice Dharma

The Dissatisfied Mind of Desire

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From How to Practice Dharma, a book of teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the eight worldly dharmas.

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