Member of the FPMT

My very dear Tom,
On a personal level, you can use the criticism for your practice. As for the outer level, that depends on what is most beneficial for others. If it is beneficial for others, then you can sue.

It is very powerful to use your reaction to the criticism in your practice. As a Kadampa Geshe once said, "If someone criticizes you, it destroys your mistakes, it blows away mistakes immediately. If one is praised, it inflates pride and ego." In the same text it also says, "If one has wealth, there is suffering – to collect and protect it." And, "Suffering is the broom clearing away negative karmas…. Suffering is the manifestation of emptiness [this means to look at the nature of suffering as empty]. By meditating on its emptiness, then the suffering doesn't bother you. Seeing it as inherently existing, real suffering disturbs the mind. The mind becomes easily overwhelmed by the problem, whereas the other way – seeing its emptiness, the mind is able to overwhelm the problem like a flood." With awareness of emptiness, there is no strong belief in inherently existing suffering.

Also, it is mentioned "that suffering is the blessing or kindness of the guru". Here, the blessing is the purifying of negative karma, suffering being the result of negative karma (which is now finishing).

It also mentions that "Spirit possessions are an action of the Victorious One". This means that an attack or harm by spirits, which causes problems or sickness, is an act of the Buddha to benefit oneself, to purify one’s negative karma.

Kharag Gom Chung said, "Bad or adverse conditions are the virtuous friend. These obstacles are the inspiration persuading you to practice virtue…. Suffering is the result of negative karma, therefore don't dislike it or look at it as an obstacle."

These are some quotations for transforming bad conditions into happiness by looking at them as positive, as a favorable condition. This is the way to make problems and bad conditions beneficial, by using them as the path to enlightenment. How? By meditating on loving kindness and bodhicitta. These destroy the ego. We use them as a weapon to destroy the self-cherishing thought, which brings all obstacles. So, please meditate on bodhicitta and wisdom.

If you look at His Holiness the Dalai Lama's situation, his way of achieving freedom is through non-violent, peaceful means, but, at the same time, he will always clarify what is true and what is false, for example, with the mainland communist Chinese. This is what you need to do when you are a leader. But in one’s own individual case, you offer the victory to others and take the loss on yourself. In His Holiness the Dalai Lama's case, he represents 6,000,000 Tibetans, so final decisions are based on whatever is most beneficial for most sentient beings.

In your case, use all the criticism and bad reputation, whether it is due to your own mistake or not, to destroy your ego and self-cherishing thought, which blocks one achieving enlightenment. As long as self-cherishing abides in one’s heart, it stops one achieving enlightenment and benefiting all sentient beings. You can think of the kindness of the other person, that he is helping you to destroy your ego. Usually, we are always supporting our ego, even developing it. Now, this person is helping to destroy the self-cherishing thought, so what we regard as an enemy is really our most kind friend.

So, use undesirable situations, losses, etc. as experiences to be of most benefit to all sentient beings. This is not just to make one’s own life happy, for some temporary peace.

There are so many ways you can make your life experience most beneficial for yourself and others. The essence is that if you are happy, make your happiness beneficial for sentient beings, and if you are suffering, use it as the cause to bring happiness to others. This way, whatever kind of life experience you have, you use it on the path. There is no interruption to your Dharma practice and one’s life is most beneficial.

Go Tsampa said, "Others’ mistakes are one’s own mistakes, clarify the appearance of the mistake into the deity." This is saying that however one is treated is the result of one’s own negative karma. Even if others create a bad reputation for you, even if there is no apparent cause from your side to experience this result, still you have created the cause. So, you can see what this he is saying. The second part of this technique is looking at that person who criticizes you as a guru, even visualizing that person in the form of a deity. This stops anger, negative emotional thoughts, and suffering results arising.

Karog Geshe said, "Experiencing this small suffering now finishes past negative karma and leads to happiness in future lives. As it is eliminating past negative karma, be happy for the suffering."
With much love and prayer...

My very dear Caroline,

These are the things you have to practice: Mantra Promised by Tara, Guru Rinpoche’s prayer dispelling obstacles, and the mantra below for dispelling harm and criticism:

OM GHASA OM SHA KUN HRI TSID DHA KHA LA MA BA* TSIGHA SU SKA SU BAB SWAHA

(* The Ba is pronounced lightly.)

With much love and prayers...

Rinpoche gave the following advice for situations where one’s ego gets bruised.

When one’s ego is harmed, one should rejoice. How great it is! How wonderful it is! In the same way as ordinary people react when their enemy is harmed or when some trouble happens to them, one should rejoice and feel so happy when one’s ego is hurt. Exactly like that, one should think: How fantastic it is for this ego to be harmed!

If a person is practising lam rim, thought transformation, and bodhicitta, then when something hurts their ego, they should think, “How fortunate! This is exactly what I need. Let the ego have this, and even greater harm!”

The stronger the harm to the ego, the more quickly one destroys the ego. Without ego, there is bodhicitta, and when there is bodhicitta, one creates so much merit and that leads one to generate wisdom quickly. Then one can accumulate the two causes, and achieve enlightenment. That is the purpose of being alive. It is what makes life meaningful.

Without bodhicitta, it is not possible to get enlightened. The highest level you can reach is that of arhat. The reason why the arhat cannot achieve enlightenment is lack of bodhicitta. So think, “How wonderful it is that my ego is being harmed.”

Treat the ego the way many Americans treat Osama bin Laden: How pleased they are when his cause is harmed. Think, my ego is trillions of times more harmful than bin Laden.

Handling Criticism
A woman in Delhi, whose name was often in the press, had received criticism that she felt was unfair. She was extremely upset about this adverse press coverage, and came to ask for advice.

When something like this happens, think in this way: “I am not going to be here in this world forever, in Delhi with these society people.” This is also useful when experiencing very hurtful relationship problems, if the situation is really heavy and you feel you can’t bear it.

Think like this: “Actually, death can happen any time. Even today, at any moment, death can happen to me. So what is the point in being worried about bad reputation and all those words? There is no point at all.

“Even if I am criticized by every human being in this world, even by animals, insects, hell beings, hungry ghosts, devas, and asuras, it is nothing. It is not the first time I have experienced being criticized. Numberless times in the past I have experienced this. Not only have I been criticized, I have also had good reputations numberless times in the past, not only in this life, in past lives. Numberless times, I have had a great reputation. I have been the most famous person in the world.”

So, good and bad reputations are nothing new in samsara, and life is so short. It is like a dream, a one-time dream. It happens, and then it is gone. Like the duration of lightning, there’s a vivid appearance and the next minute, it’s gone. Thinking about impermanence and death is extremely important.

Regarding good reputation, it is said in the teachings by Milarepa, the great Tibetan yogi who became enlightened in one brief lifetime, that even though the sound of a thundering dragon is loud, it is empty sound. Even though the rainbow has such beautiful colors, it still disappears. The thundering sound refers to good and bad reputation, and the rainbow’s beautiful colors refer to a beautiful body.

The conclusion to what Milarepa is saying is not to cling. Of course, it doesn’t mean one shouldn’t have a good reputation. One can have a good reputation with a good heart. If having a good reputation is useful and it benefits others, then it is good, only in order to benefit and cause happiness to other living beings.

I often say in my lectures, having power and influence brings great danger for oneself and the world if one does not have a good heart in life. Therefore, these things, power and influence, are meaningless. But when one has a good heart and a mind to benefit others, having influence and power can be used to cause happiness for others. In these ways, these things become very meaningful.

In just this way, His Holiness the Dalai Lama or Shakyamuni Buddha have the best reputation, because there is no delusion, no defilements. The mind is completely pure and the actions are completely pure and performed only for others, not only with compassion and perfect power but with all wisdom and all the skills, so there is nothing to blame or to complain about. There is no cause for a bad reputation.

I did an observation and it came out that it is very good for you to talk to the press. It indicated this would be very beneficial for the problem.

According to Western terminology, here is the best psychology. Or, in Buddhism, according to meditation, this is how one can transform problems into happiness: by enjoying the problems.

Not only can one enjoy having a good reputation, one can enjoy having a bad reputation. How? The secret key is to think of the benefits of having a bad reputation and to think of the advantage you gain from it. The most important benefit, the most extensive, precious, and greatest advantage, and the basic technique to gain it, is to use the problem. Use the reputation to destroy your ego, which is your biggest main enemy. The ego makes you encounter all the problems and causes others to abuse you, criticize you, and give you your bad reputation. If you destroy the ego, there is only ultimate good heart—in Sanskrit, bodhicitta: the thought of benefiting others, cherishing others; that very pure holy mind.

Having that makes you holy, called a bodhisattva, and ultimately makes you become a buddha. How? By making your mind cease all mistakes, defilements, and complete all the good qualities of the realizations. The advantage for you in becoming a perfect buddha is that the purpose of your life is not only to achieve happiness for yourself, but to cause happiness for all living beings, and free them from all the sufferings. By greatly benefiting others and bringing them to full enlightenment, peerless happiness, you also become a buddha and you have omniscience, perfect, complete, peerless power to cause all happiness for every living being, including enlightenment.

Experiencing problems for other living beings means developing compassion and loving kindness. By experiencing problems for others this way, you collect merit, good karma as vast as the sky, and the cause of happiness, and you purify inconceivable negative defilements. Whenever you encounter problems, you experience them for numberless others who are experiencing similar problems now and in the future.

This is how one can enjoy problems, gaining benefits as great as the sky. Each time you experience problems for others, you come closer to enlightenment, peerless happiness. With a good heart, when you are working for others, you are purifying so much of your own negative karma. It definitely gets purified, especially when you bear hardships working for others.

It is also mentioned in the teachings by the Kadampa Geshes, the great saints, that it is good that one gets criticized. Why? Because it is said by them that if one is praised by others, it develops pride. It lifts up the mind and makes one stuck up. But if one is criticized, it destroys one’s mistakes immediately. These mistaken actions bring problems now and in the future for oneself and for others. But if one is criticized, one comes to realize the mistakes that one was not aware of and this inspires one to change one’s attitude and life.

If one has comfort and happiness from having a good reputation or other things called good (one has to adapt this to one’s own circumstances), it sets ablaze the five poisonous delusions. If one is unhappy and suffering, that is, if one has problems, it finishes the negative karmas collected in the past. This is due to the guru’s kindness. Not everyone believes in the term ‘God’ so one can change the term from ‘God’ into ‘guru’. When the term guru doesn’t fit, then one can use the term God.

Problems are manifestations of emptiness, the ultimate nature. When one encounters unfortunate and undesirable situations, the teachings show how to look at them as positive.

It is also useful to think about His Holiness the Dalai Lama, whose qualities are beyond our conception, and who benefits numberless living beings in the world, and yet even many Tibetan people criticize His Holiness, although they themselves are Buddhists.

When Shakyamuni Buddha was in India, there were often sentient beings who criticized the Buddha, even though the Buddha has no delusions, no self-cherishing, no ignorance, no attachment, and no defilements. And, of course ,we are ordinary beings filled with delusions and continually making mistakes, so therefore it is natural that we get a bad reputation and criticism from others.

By thinking this way, relax and be happy when problems come. Just enjoy them, by using the problems for meditation. Think of the benefit, the unbelievable opportunity to quickly develop the mind on the path.

This way of thinking is not only for now. It can be used in all of your daily life. It is the best meditation.

More talks by Lama Zopa on this topic:
The Faults of Critizing and Blaming Others (a letter from Lama Zopa Rinpoche)