Advice for a Happy Life

Advice for a Happy Life

Date of Advice:
June 2018
Date Posted:
September 2019

Rinpoche gave this advice on how to create the cause of happiness and success in this life and future lives, until enlightenment is achieved.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Taos, New Mexico, 1999. Photo: Lenny Foster.

We need to do whatever we can to help others in our daily life—not only helping people but also non-human beings, including those that we can see, such as animals, and even those beings we can't see now. This brings so much happiness and success in our life, and whatever we have in mind can be actualized or even more than our mind can think of. Any benefit that we offer others and each action that we do for others results in happiness and success for five hundred lifetimes.

It's very silly only to think about the happiness of this life. That is not correct, because thinking only about this life makes everything we do become negative karma, the cause of suffering in the lower realms and the cause of problems in this life. It is the cause of so much suffering—wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! It causes so much suffering for a hundred thousand, ten thousand million billion [eons.] The suffering goes on and on.

What is happening in this life—how much suffering or happiness we experience in this life—is basically due to creating the causes in our past lives. In this life we are responsible for the happiness of all our future lives, especially ultimate happiness, the blissful state forever, the peerless happiness of buddhahood.

The Buddha said:

Any sentient being who, during the period of my teachings,
Makes charity well (even if the material is the size of a hair),
For 80,000 eons there will be great results of great enjoyment:
No pain, no disease and enjoyment of happiness.
Like that, one will be enriched with the desirable things.
At the end, you can actually achieve the result: the peerless cessation and completion (enlightenment).

Please talk to your friends, educated people and many others in the world about this, however, if they like suffering and do not want any happiness at all, that is totally different—you don't need to tell them about this. 

If possible, we should think about the happiness and suffering of others. If possible, we should do that from the heart. Of course, this is the main way or the best way to fulfill our life. Not only do we have satisfaction in our heart, but our life becomes most beneficial to others. If our actions are done with bodhicitta, then they become most beneficial for every sentient being in each realm. Especially, whatever we do with bodhicitta can cause everyone to achieve enlightenment.

This is how to make our life most happy and we will have no regrets when we die. Our mind will be very happy even when we are experiencing death. We can experience death for other sentient beings—that is the best way of dying. We can take the deaths of all sentient beings on ourselves or in our heart, and boom—the self-cherishing thought and the ignorance that holds the I and the aggregates as truly existent [are destroyed.] Then think that the sentient beings can achieve the dharmakaya.

If we know Dharma, that's a most unbelievable chance to create good karma, the unmistaken cause of happiness. This includes happiness in this life and all future lives, the happiness of the blissful state and especially the peerless happiness for all sentient beings.

People living in the world do not know about Dharma, Buddhadharma, and how it is most important to learn, reflect and meditate on this to actualize the path in their hearts. It's very important even for those people who do not believe in reincarnation and karma to practice the good heart, since they want happiness and do not want suffering.

If we practice the good heart and benefit others, everybody will love to help us. Then everywhere we go, we will make others very happy. In reality we are bringing happiness for this life and all our future lives, and we are also making other people in the world happy.

Please make this into a paper to give to people. This is your best present. Thank you.

With much love and prayers ...