Perfect Freedom:
The Great Value of Being Human
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
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Chapter Seven: Mahayana Thought Transformation
The Mahayana thought transformation condensed in eight
verses, written by the great hidden meditator, Langri Tangpa
Dorje Sengye, is a method to transform all undesirable
conditions into useful ones. The things that cause unhappiness,
depression and aggression in those who have not met Buddhadharma,
and which make unhappy even those who have met and are
trying to practice Buddhadharma, are transformed into useful
conditions. All these undesirable conditions become beneficial.
For Dharma practitioners and also those who do not meditate
or practice Buddhadharma, all the failures and undesirable
experiences such as disease, criticism and bad reputation
can be transformed into necessary and desirable conditions.
Any harm can be transformed into benefit.
For the practitioner of Mahayana thought transformation
who has put the meaning of The Eight Verses into action
in his everyday life, nothing distracts him from his Dharma
practice. This meditator always prays that others receive
whatever good things - possessions, happiness, merit -
he has; he always dedicates and gives up every good thing
to others. And he always prays to receive all the sufferings
and undesirable conditions of other sentient beings. "May
I experience all these sufferings upon myself" is
the prayer he often says to the merit field in his everyday
life. This is the wish he always generates.
Whenever something bad happens to him - some criticism,
failure, disaster - as he constantly prays to exchange
himself for others, to renounce himself and cherish others,
the practitioner recognizes the situation and is not shocked
by it. As he wishes to give up everything good to others
and experience upon himself all their undesirable sufferings,
when an obstacle such as other people badly treating him
or some distraction to his Dharma practice occurs, he is
not shocked. Because the practitioner has trained his mind
in transforming sufferings into happiness, he prays instead
like this: "May I receive all the sufferings of other
sentient beings and experience them by myself. May all
my merit and happiness be received and experienced by others." It
is not that he makes this prayer and is then shocked when
he actually experiences a problem, it would be contradictory
to act the opposite to his daily prayers.
It is not that we scream prayers such
as those in Lama Chöpa in front of the merit field, making
sure that
everybody hears: "I want to take all the sufferings
of others and dedicate all my happiness to others",
then are shocked when an obstacle suddenly happens. If
you pray like this, but are shocked when a problem suddenly
occurs - you have a stroke, an epileptic fit, a headache,
or somebody criticizes you - what your mouth is saying
is not the same as what you feel in your heart. If you
are shocked when some undesirable obstacle actually happens
in your life, the wish in your heart and the prayer you
say contradict each other.
You may not feel comfortable even to recite the words: "I
will give up everything, all my happiness and merit, to
others. May I receive and experience all their sufferings
and unhappiness by myself." Even saying the words,
you may feel a little fear arise in your heart. This fear
comes because you are taking the side of self-cherishing
thought more than the thought of cherishing others. The
more you take the side of cherishing others, the less fear
arises. The more you are able to dedicate and give up your
own merit, happiness, possessions and body for others,
the more happiness and peace of mind arise, rather than
fear. As you dedicate yourself more to others, there is
more joy.
The more you are able to take upon yourself the problems
and sufferings of others, the more peace of mind and happiness
there is in your life, and the fewer obstacles. This is
true even for someone who does not regard himself as a
religious person, who hasn't met Buddhadharma and doesn't
have faith in reincarnation, in past and future lives.
If such a person has a very sincere mind and a very generous
heart, with little self-cherishing thought, the more he
is able to dedicate himself to others, bearing hardships
for the sake of others in his everyday life, the greater
his peace of mind and the fewer obstacles to the fulfillment
of his wishes.
Instead of becoming depressed or aggressive
when he meets obstacles in his daily life, the practitioner
of Mahayana
thought transformation, who has trained his mind in putting
The Eight Verses into practice, becomes happy.
He thinks: "Now
I have succeeded. When I do Lama Chöpa and other
prayers, I have been praying many times a day to receive
all the sufferings of others and experience them by myself
- now I have accomplished my prayer. I have received and
am able to experience the problems and sufferings of others." In
this way he becomes happier.
Such practitioners even give torma cakes as gifts to the
spirits and worldly protectors, asking them to help eliminate
their self-cherishing thought and to be able to receive
and experience the sufferings of others. In other words,
instead of asking for the distractions to be stopped, they
give gifts to the spirits and ask to be disturbed. However,
even when he makes prayers such as this, the main aim of
the practitioner of thought transformation is to benefit
other sentient beings. He prays constantly to the guru,
Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and even to the spirits and
worldly protectors, who can help or disturb him: "If
it is more beneficial to other sentient beings for me to
be sick, let me be sick. If being healthy is more beneficial,
let me be healthy. If it is more beneficial that I die,
let my death happen. If it is more beneficial that I live,
then let me live. Let happen whatever is best for other
sentient beings."
This practitioner keeps in his heart the kind mother sentient
beings, from whom he receives all the temporal and ultimate
happiness and perfections of the three times. All the good
things we have, including a good reputation, praise, education,
and even small pleasures, are received through the kindness
of other sentient beings. All these come entirely from
others.
Keeping all sentient beings in the depth of his heart,
the practitioner of Mahayana thought transformation lives
his life doing whatever is most beneficial for other sentient
beings. This is his practice. All the time he prays to
the guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha: "Let whatever
is best for other sentient beings happen. If it is more
beneficial for me to die, let that happen immediately.
If my living is more beneficial for others, then let that
happen." He gives up himself and completely dedicates
his life to the kind sentient beings. He prays to the guru,
Buddha, Dharma and Sangha like this because he himself
doesn't know what is best, whether to live or die is more
beneficial for others. Because he himself doesn't have
this knowledge, he relies upon those with the three qualities
of omniscient mind, perfect power to guide and compassion
for all sentient beings, and prays that what happens is
the most beneficial for other sentient beings.
In Tibet sick people usually give their names and small
money offerings to monasteries, lamas or meditators and
ask them to pray for their recovery. Or if someone dies,
the family makes a small money offering and dedicates the
merits of offering the money for the person who has died
to have a good rebirth, to receive a perfect human body
and be born in a place where there is the opportunity to
practice holy Dharma. However, one lama in Kham used to
give money offerings to other lamas and write petitions
requesting them to pray for him to die soon and be reborn
in the hells. People normally request: "Please pray
that I be able to live a long and healthy life and that
when I die, I not be reborn in the hells." This lama's
request was the complete opposite. He requested other lamas
to pray that he die soon and be born in the hells.
A person with bodhicitta is unbelievably happy to be born
in the heaviest suffering realm of the hells, where there
is unbearable suffering and the length of life is one aeon.
This makes him very happy, like a swan entering a pond
or a sunburnt person at the beach entering the ocean. Practitioners
of Mahayana thought transformation who are well trained
in great compassion and have generated bodhicitta are very
happy even to be born in the unbearable suffering state
of the hells for the sake of other sentient beings, like
a swan entering a pool.
A practitioner of Mahayana thought transformation is happier
when he receives obstacles. When disaster happens, his
mind is extremely happy. His Holiness the Dalai Lama often
says he finds it very beneficial for his own mind that
the work for the Tibetans is becoming harder, with more
problems. For himself, His Holiness wishes the work for
the Tibetan people could be harder because in this way
he would be able to bear more hardships for others. With
so many problems related to Tibet, His Holiness says: "I
would have gone crazy, except that I have the holy Dharma." This
shows that His Holiness's holy mind is well-trained in
Mahayana thought transformation. No matter how many people
bring problems to His Holiness, it cannot disturb his holy
mind. His holy mind overwhelms the problems; they cannot
disturb him or make him depressed.
Relate what His Holiness says to your own everyday life.
Even though you don't have the incredible responsibility
of looking after many millions of people, even though no
one has actually offered you such a powerful position,
bring what His Holiness says into your own life. His Holiness
is looking after not only six million Tibetans, but all
sentient beings. You have only to take care of yourself,
and even that you can't do well. You cannot skillfully
guide even this one sentient being, yourself.
The Dharma you are practicing, especially if you have taken
bodhisattva vows, involves dedicating your life every day
to others. You have taken vows to live day and night for
others, not for yourself. You have especially taken vows
to eat, dress, sleep, wear clothing and so forth for other
sentient beings. And at the beginning of each retreat session,
you generate refuge and bodhicitta: "I am going to
do this practice for the sake of all sentient beings, in
order to lead them to the sublime happiness of enlightenment."
Relate what His Holiness says to your everyday life, particularly
to the bodhisattva's brave action of doing very difficult
works for other sentient beings, and with an incredibly
happy mind. No matter how hard it is to work for other
sentient beings or how many aeons it takes, the bodhisattva
is extremely happy to have the opportunity to bear these
hardships. Relate this to your everyday life - to your
retreat or other Dharma practice. When you get up in
the morning, generate the motivation to practice Dharma
for
the sake of other sentient beings, no matter how hard
it is. And at the beginning of your Dharma practice try
to
generate the motivation of bodhicitta, so that the practice
is done for the sake of others.
Sometimes, no matter how much you meditate, nothing happens
in your mind. For example, no matter how much you try
to understand emptiness by reading teachings and meditating,
nothing happens in your mind. After years of meditation,
nothing has happened in your mind. You should not be
discouraged
or depressed. When you are studying Dharma, you may
find it very hard to understand. Remember that you are
studying
Dharma for the sake of other sentient beings, so you
should not feel discouraged if you find it hard. Remembering
the
bodhisattva's brave attitude of voluntarily doing the
most difficult work with an incredibly happy mind,
you should
not feel discouraged. You should feel happy. No matter
how hard it is to study and understand Dharma, you
should continue to try.
It is the same with retreat. Before
you start retreat, there are no distractions; but when you
start, the
distractions begin. Everything becomes very difficult
and nothing
happens exactly as you wish. You have thousands of
obstacles during
the retreat: sickness, fleas biting and so on. On
top of that, people bother you. During the breaktimes
and
the
meditation sessions, people bother you. And if there
are no people bothering you, the dogs are barking.
At such
times, instead of generating the thought of killing
the dogs, you should generate patience!
I've just remembered a story from Solu Khumbu. I
was at Lawudo one summer, building the first school
for
young monks on the mountain. One American student
asked me
if
he could put the tent on top of the Lawudo Lama's
cave. I said it was okay, though I think my mother
and some
others didn't like his putting the tent there.
His tent was actually
much more comfortable than any of the upstairs
rooms of the main monastery and even the cave where I
slept.
His
tent had electricity (no one else on the mountain
had electricity) and a long table. He had solar
batteries that he charged
by putting them outside in the daytime. He said
the batteries were the same as those used in rockets.
This
American
was very good with machinery - I think he fixed
the
television belonging to His Holiness the Dalai
Lama's mother when
he was in Dharamsala. He was young, very tall and
very intelligent.
Anyway, his pillow was made of some kind of nylon,
similar to a sleeping bag, and this cloth made
a lot of noise
when it was rubbed. At night when he was sleeping
on top of
my cave, each time he moved his head on the pillow,
he made a noise. There was one big dog a little
below the
cave and each time he moved his head on the pillow,
the dog barked. The next day he told me that
he got so angry
that he had the thought to kill the dog.
The next day he moved the dog a little further
down the mountain. My sister wanted to move
the dog's
kennel back
up because it was a long way down a steep slope,
and this made is very difficult for her to
carry the dog's
food
down from the kitchen. Thinking that she might
move the kennel back up, the American rubbed
dog feces
on the
wooden planks of the kennel so that she wouldn't
touch it. I can
understand him - he was having an incredibly
good sleep and the dog's barking was very distracting.
One day this same American experimented with
datura, a lot of which grows on the mountains.
The goats
eat a lot
of it and seem to find it very delicious,
but I don't think the local people eat it. One
day he
cooked
this datura
in a pot, ate it and got sick. I didn't realize
that he had eaten datura and nobody knew
that he was sick.
Only
after he had recovered did he come to the
cave and tell me how terribly sick he had been for
one or
two days
- particularly one day. For one whole day
he saw everything as worms: the entire ground
was full
of moving worms.
And
he heard the sound of people speaking.
Anyway, to return to the point: it is natural,
due to our karma, to have many distractions
when we are
trying
to
do something good. It is natural to have
many obstacles the one time in this life,
this year,
this month,
these few days that you are trying to practice
holy Dharma
by doing retreat, by following the graduated
path to enlightenment.
As His Holiness explained from his own
experience, it is extremely important to have a brave
mind. Remember the
brave bodhisattvas and be brave in your
practice.
In this way, especially with Mahayana thought
transformation, problems
and distractions cannot arise. And even
if there are
distractions from the side of your mind
or body, or from
the side of
the place, people or animals around you,
they cannot disturb your mind. Your mind
overwhelms
and controls
any problems.
As long as you put it into practice, it
is impossible for Mahayana thought transformation
not to work.
It is only
a question of putting it into practice.
As
long as you put it into practice, it
is impossible for it
not to
benefit your mind by cutting off problems.
You
have to put Mahayana
thought transformation into action; simply
knowing, speaking or writing about these
teachings will
not stop problems.
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