The Purpose of Having a Baby

The Purpose of Having a Baby

Motivation for Having a Child
Date of Advice:
August 2021
Date Posted:
January 2023

A student asked Rinpoche whether they should have a baby or not. Rinpoche advised that a positive attitude is the most important thing.

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

My most dear one,
In my mo, my observation, it came out good for you to have a baby. It is not the most beneficial, but it is more beneficial than not having a baby.

Here the most important thing is your attitude. The mind is the creator of enlightenment, buddhahood, as well as the creator of hell. Good thoughts or pure thoughts produce enlightenment, and bad thoughts produce hell, the worst state. Then, good thoughts produce nirvana, liberation from samsara, everlasting happiness, and bad thoughts create samsara. A bad thought means a bad mind. Bad thoughts create suffering and problems in daily life for yourself and others. Positive thoughts, healthy thoughts, virtuous thoughts create happiness for oneself and others. That is the foundation of the Buddha’s teachings.

So, everything came from our mind. Whatever we experience, everything came from our mind. In the Buddha’s teaching called Dhammapada in Sanskrit, Tsom in Tibetan, and Heaps in English, it is said by the Buddha:

All phenomena are created by the mind.
The mind is the principal and goes before actions.
For example, if with a good heart you speak to somebody,
Happiness arises from that,
Just like the shadow follows the body.

In the daytime, wherever the body goes, the shadow follows. Like that, when actions are done with a good heart, a healthy, virtuous thought, a positive thought, the result, happiness, always follows after them.

Generally, there is the happiness of this life and the happiness of all the coming future lives, until our samsara ends. Then there is everlasting happiness, liberation from samsara, and then there is peerless happiness, the total cessation of the gross and subtle obscurations and the completion of all realizations, sang gyä. Not only that, after that, we become a perfect guide with no mistakes and only qualities, so we can liberate the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and bring them to full enlightenment, peerless happiness, by ourselves. All this comes from the mind.

Therefore, a positive attitude is so important. That is Dharma, but there are different levels of Dharma, as you probably know. Basically, there are three different levels of Dharma. A mind that is unstained by attachment to this life’s pleasures is the first level of Dharma. If we don’t have that mind, it is said that we are not a religious person, a practitioner of holy Dharma. That is what Padmasambhava said.

Padmasambhava was an enlightened being who purified the land in Tibet in order to spread the holy Dharma. Since then, the Dharma has spread in Tibet for a long time, for many years. But now Buddhism has spread even to the West where there wasn’t Dharma. It has now spread all over the world. All this is due to Padmasambhava’s kindness.

The second level of Dharma is a mind unstained by attachment to samsaric pleasures, even future samsaric pleasures. All samsaric pleasures are temporary and only in the nature of suffering. These include eating delicious food, sleeping, taking drugs, drinking alcohol and having sex. There are many kinds of pleasure. What is pleasure depends on the individual person. However, when analyzed, it can be seen that all samsaric pleasures are in the nature of suffering and are not happiness at all.

For example, if we check really well, we will see that after we have been very hungry, the first spoonful of food we eat feels good. It feels so good. At that time, as we take the first spoonful, the suffering of hunger stops from great and becomes small. But at the same time, the discomfort in the stomach starts from tiny, from very small. Then, the more we eat, the more the discomfort increases. So, that is the basis of the feeling of pleasure. On that, our mind labels “pleasure.” It not only labels “pleasure,” but it merely labels “pleasure.”

Now, here, we can understand just from this little example that there is no real happiness there, as it appears to our hallucinated mind and as we hold onto it. There are many samsaric pleasures similar to that. For example, when our body feels hot and we jump into water, into an ocean or a lake, it feels good. But what happens is that the feeling of hot stops from being great and becomes small, while at the same time the feeling of cold starts from being very tiny, small. Then, the longer we stay in the water, the more the feeling of cold increases. So, that is the feeling of pleasure, but we don’t know that. We don’t realize that. We don’t recognize that, so then on that we label “pleasure.” But then we totally have no idea that we labeled it. Not only do we not know that we merely labeled it, which is so subtle, but we even have no idea at all that we labeled it.

So, it totally appeared just from there, from the object’s side, from the pleasure’s side, which is not there. The pleasure is a total hallucination appearing to our hallucinated mind. Then our mind holds on to that as true, which is a wrong concept.

I’m just giving you a small example of how all the rest of the samsaric pleasures are also in the nature of suffering. This is so important to understand. It is very scientific. It is not just blind faith, it is very scientific. As His Holiness often says, according to quantum physics ninety percent of things don’t exist as real, from there. They cannot be found. So, that is very much in accord with Madhyamaka philosophy. From among the Buddhist schools, the Vaibhashika, Sautrantika, Cittamatra and Madhyamaka, quantum physics is not completely the same as the Madhyamaka-Prasangika school, the ultimate one, but I think it is getting close to it. So, hopefully one day scientists will come to the same point.

In my view, the attitude that people normally have, maybe not all parents but most, is that they wish to have a child “because I want happiness,” “because having a child will make me happy.” People also think that if they don’t have a child now, when they get old they won’t be able to have a child. Mostly people are thinking of their own happiness. They are not thinking of the happiness of the child or the happiness of the world. That is the attitude that most ordinary people, like me, have. In this way, they think “Having a child will satisfy me” or “I’ll be happy” or something like that.

But this is a wrong reason, a totally wrong reason, for having a child. The correct reason for having a child is to cause happiness to that child, to that sentient being. It is not the thought, “This is my child,” no. It is not the attitude, “Those who are not born to me are not my child. They are to be abandoned. I will only look after those who are born to me. I will only work for them.” It is not like that. The reason to have a child is to cause happiness to that sentient being. The reason to make a child is to cause happiness to this kind sentient being.

“Kind sentient being” is what is mentioned by Buddha in his teachings, which are condensed in the lamrim. Here it talks about the extensive kindness of sentient beings, how when they were our mother they were kind in four ways, how they have given us kindness in all our lives from beginningless rebirths, and also how they have given us the happiness of protection by providing us with, for example, a house. That house came about from so many sentient beings who suffered and were killed in order for it to be built.

It is the same thing with clothing, even if it is not made of animal skin. And it is also the same thing for food. Wow, wow, wow. If you think of just one plate of rice, each grain of rice is the continuation of another rice grain and that rice grain came from another rice grain. So, if you count back to when rice started for the first time in the world, you will see that numberless sentient beings suffered and died for this rice. Also numberless sentient beings worked very hard and created the negative karma of killing for this rice. Now, the one who is eating it is you. Therefore, how dare you eat it only for your own happiness while abandoning all those numberless sentient beings from where the food came, who are limitless like the sky? That is unbelievably selfish. You can’t show your face to other sentient beings. You have to cover your face like a Muslim lady!

Another reason to have a child is to cause happiness to that child even in their future rebirth. It is to cause them to not be reborn in the lower realms, the hell, hungry ghost and animal realms, and instead to be reborn in the deva and human realm, where they experience higher happiness. And not only that, it is to cause that child to become free from the oceans of samsaric sufferings and achieve ultimate happiness, everlasting happiness, liberation from samsara. And then it is even to save that child from falling into the lower nirvana, the blissful state of peace for oneself, and to cause them to achieve peerless happiness, enlightenment, buddhahood, the total cessation of not only the gross obscurations but even the subtle obscurations, and the completion of all realizations.

If your motivation for having a child can be like that, it would be unbelievable. It would be unbelievable—wow, wow, wow—to cause your child all that.

In the future, I will send you a long letter to explain:

  1. How to be a good mother
  2. How to bring up a child
  3. How to find a good partner
  4. How to make your work meaningful

Please read this long letter when it comes, so you will learn a lot. It is about life. Learning Buddhism is learning about life, your life and others’ life. It is scientific. It is inner science about the mind.

If you cannot bring your child up to be a good human being, at least make sure that they are beneficial for themselves in this life, and do not cause any harm. That is a big subject. It is not a small thing; it is a big subject. Then, if possible, you should bring your child up to be beneficial for the world, to bring happiness to the world. Then, even more than that, if possible it would be good for them to bring happiness to the six realms. This is how you should think. So, please learn from this letter that I will send you.

Otherwise, your having a child will create so much suffering for him or herself and the family, and even for the world, thinking in a large way. Thank you very, very much.

With much love and prayers

Whether to Have Children
Date Posted:
November 2005

A student wrote asking what she could do in order to meet a husband and have children.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Zurich, Switzerland, 1979. Photo: Ueli Minder.

My very dear one,
Regarding your question about marriage, I checked, and it would be bad for you to get married. It would be best for you not to get married. Also, I checked regarding children, and it was the same: bad for you to have children and best for you not to have children.

If you have children then your life is doubly, triply busy. You have to think about the financial side of things and what the child would need. Then, regarding having a husband, there is the possibility that in the future you may leave him, or your husband may leave you. Maybe you will have a disagreement with your husband, and then after a child is born all the attention is put on the child, and then the wife feels that the husband is no longer interested in her, or the wife is actually not interested in the husband any more. The child may turn out differently to the kind of child you want and then you may have emotional problems, sadness, disappointment, and depression. You have already had depression, so you know what I mean.

A child can be beneficial for world peace and for him or herself. Even if a child can’t benefit others, it can have a meaningful, good, happy life, not harming itself and not harming others. However, often a child does harmful things, and does not listen to its parents. Even if a parent is giving the child advice, the child thinks its parents are the enemy, and only makes the parents angry, disturbs their minds, rather than giving them peace. If a child meditates, practices and learns the Dharma, that’s different, but if a child doesn’t want to do that, or has a different view and way of thinking, then it can cause great suffering.

Many people think how wonderful life would be, how it would be like a pure land if they had children, but then when they have children they have no time at all to meditate or to practice. They can’t sleep at night because the child wakes up and during the day it’s the same. In the end they have no time to practice.

Many times we think things will happen the way we want them to, but that doesn’t mean that will actually happen. Often, it’s not like that, it’s totally opposite to our dream, it is suffering. I am just letting you know so you can be careful. This is what I saw in my observations: it would be best for you not to get married. Of course, there may be some karma that you can’t control. Anyway I just wanted to let you know. This way you have so much freedom to meditate to benefit sentient beings, to deepen your practice to benefit others.

If you have a child it is just one sentient being, so you benefit just that one sentient being, but it’s not of so much benefit for others. What I am telling you is not always the case for everyone, but this is what I saw in my observations for you. It doesn’t mean it is the same for everyone.

With much love and prayers...

How to Raise a Child
Date Posted:
October 2005

Rinpoche gave the following advice to a married couple. The wife had become pregnant by somebody else.

The baby is a sentient being who needs a human body, the body of a happy migratory being. This being created good karma and practiced morality in the past, and now is able to be born as a human being. You are helping with the condition for the child to obtain a human body. Whether the child comes from you, Bin Laden, Mao Tsetung, or Saddam Hussein, it is the same. Every day when you pray and recite OM MANI PADME HUM, you dedicate each recitation to all sentient beings. That includes this sentient being, the baby. All the malas of mantras you recite in Vajrasattva retreat, and each time you generate bodhicitta, is for all sentient beings, including this sentient being. Every sadhana you recite with the correct motivation includes this sentient being. At the end, when you dedicate the merits, you dedicate them to all sentient beings, and you also dedicate them to this sentient being. Dedicating all these merits, meditations, sadhanas, deities, mantras, generosity, charity, mandala offerings, preliminary practices, and prostrations to the 35 Buddhas, with a bodhicitta motivation, as a lamrim practitioner, means that all these things are performed for all sentient beings, including this sentient being.

This being has a karmic connection to both of you; it has past karma with your whole family. That is why this child is being born to you. On the child’s side there is karma with you, and you have karma with the child. It is like that. So, now you have a new responsibility. You also have a responsibility to every sentient being. You have a responsibility toward every hell being to liberate them from the lower realms, from samsara, and not only from samsara but even from lower nirvana and to bring them to enlightenment. You have the responsibility to cause happiness for every single hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human being, asura, sura, and intermediate state being. So, you see, you have a responsibility for every human being that you see on the road, in airplanes, in cars, etc. You have a responsibility for their happiness, to free them from suffering and cause them happiness. We have a responsibility for every single person that we see in restaurants, at home, in the office, in the city, in the shops, at the airport, and in the train station. Whatever nationality they are, however they are dressed, whether they are Black or white, from the East or West, we have a responsibility to free everyone from suffering and its causes and to bring them to enlightenment. It is not just this child. Here, due to past karma, there is a connection, so the child is born to you. But we have a responsibility for every sentient being.

This particular sentient being is born to you, which means you have the responsibility to take care of it. Taking care doesn’t mean only taking care of the child’s body. Most people think only of the body, they don’t think of the mind. Since this child is fortunate to be born to a Buddhist family, it has the opportunity to be Buddhist and to meet the Dharma. This is not just Dharma to achieve happiness in future lives, but to be free from samsara by actualizing the three higher trainings and the whole path and achieving enlightenment by meeting the Mahayana teachings and practicing tantra. You two have discovered Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism, the complete Buddhism, so this child is very fortunate to be born to a Buddhist family with the opportunity to meet the Dharma. Therefore, this child becomes more precious than if it were born to a non-Buddhist family, because there are no obstacles from the parents’ side for the child to practice Dharma, to learn Buddhism, practice Buddhism, actualize the path, and attain liberation and enlightenment. Because it is born to you, you can give him or her special help. This time, this sentient being received a human body, so you should rejoice and be so happy to be able to give a human body to a sentient being. Why? Because it allows a sentient being to practice Dharma. It is your job to take care of the child’s mind. Besides taking care of the body, the most important thing is to take care of the mind by educating the child in Dharma, step by step. As the child grows up, give him or her the opportunity to listen to Dharma, and to practice as much as possible to attain realizations. It should be a great joy that you have the opportunity to give one sentient being the conditions to practice Dharma, to learn not only about liberation but to achieve enlightenment.

Also, the most important motivation for you is to let the child grow up with a universal education, and with a good heart. The child should grow up with compassion and loving kindness, practicing kindness in everyday life toward animals, human beings, to anybody. The child can practice rejoicing whenever he or she sees good things happen to others and aim to fulfill others’ wishes to achieve happiness. Also, the child should learn tolerance and forgiveness. This brings peace to oneself and others. That is how you bring about world peace. If you cannot bring peace to one person, you cannot bring peace to the world. So, you have to start with the people nearest to you and animals. Then, one by one, that is how you can bring about world peace. When you bring peace to ten people, you bring that much greater peace to the world. Then, you can bring peace to 100 people, everyone in the world, and then all sentient beings. We develop our minds and bring peace to all sentient beings. Finally, we can bring all sentient beings to enlightenment.

It is very important for world peace to practice forgiveness and also to apologize. If one has harmed others, hurt others, then apologize. If others give you harm, practice forgiveness. Bring peace to yourself, in your life, in your heart, in others’ lives, and others’ hearts. You should aim to bring up the child this way. First, you train in teaching a universal education to your child, then you can be a teacher for others. When you have a child you should think positively, then everything becomes positive and the child will have a good life. I am not talking about a good worldly life, with a nice house, good money, job, lots of friends and children, not just that.

When the child grows up and becomes a parent, then it sets the same example for its children, your grandchildren. Then, the grandchildren also become parents and educate their children, your great grandchildren. You should plan in this way from generation to generation. The time and effort you put into education helps future generations to actualize a good heart.

Whatever you give the child in order to take care of it, such as education, is Dharma practice, charity. The child gives you the opportunity to practice charity and morality, to not harm others and only benefit others. Also, the child gives you the opportunity to practice the paramita of many years of patience. You become the teacher of patience. The child came especially to teach you patience. Buddha Shakyamuni practiced patience by sacrificing his life for sentient beings, for example, offering his limbs, eyes, and body to a tiger. Not only that, he offered his body to thousands of ants. He cut off his limbs and what was left was thrown in the garbage dump. Then, what was left over was cherished by the ants.

Buddha practiced the six paramitas not just for one year, two years, or one or two lifetimes, but for three countless great eons. Now, this child is giving you the opportunity to practice charity, offering it food, shelter, clothes, and money, also to practice the paramitas of morality, patience, perseverance, and concentration (always keeping your mind virtuous when dealing with the child). Then, there is also wisdom and emptiness. The child is giving you the opportunity to practice the six paramitas so you can achieve enlightenment quickly.

Plan Well Before Having a Child
Date Posted:
October 2005

A student asked Rinpoche about whether to have a child or not.

A mother has to bear great hardships for her child. She has to sacrifice many things. She has a lot of pain during childbirth, and she has to make many sacrifices day and night to look after the child. She can’t rest, cleaning poo-poo and pee-pee; bearing so many hardships. As the child grows up, there are many disturbances for the parents. They put many years of their lives into the child’s education and job. The parents give food, clothing, and education. So, if children take these inspiring beings as their role models, then all the parents’ work will have been worthwhile.

I advise people to plan well before having a child. By making a plan for the child’s life, then the child can bring the most benefit to the world.

 

Parents Have a Great Responsibility
Date Posted:
October 2005

A student in Hong Kong was wondering whether to have a child or not.

You should have a clear goal as to your purpose in having a child. The purpose to have a child is to raise him or her with a good heart. You have to cause love and compassion, kindness to others, generosity, and universal responsibility, feeling responsible for all living beings’ happiness. Then there will be so much peace and happiness in your own life and fulfillment in your heart. You will be able to bring great peace and happiness to all other living beings, to the whole world, to this country, and to your family.

When a person is generous and kind to others and good hearted, then all the good things in life come from that: prosperity, health, and along life. Such a person will receive all of those things. If those good qualities are within a person’s mind, even if they live in poverty they will experience peace and happiness, and there will be satisfaction and fulfillment in the heart of that person.

I mentioned to him the violence in Colombia, where there has been so much killing and fighting for many years. I visited Colombia and the members of our center there mentioned to me that their family members can be killed any time. There is so much violence that people can be killed any time.

One of the most important things in life, which is missing from the schools and universities, is education in the practice of transformation of mind and actions. This would bring more peace and happiness to the country. Since the future peace and happiness of the world and of the country depends on the children, even if only 90 percent, 50 percent, or even a quarter of the children practice, that will help very much to bring peace in the world and in their own country.

Historically, there are individuals who have been responsible for the torture and killing of many millions of people. From this, you can see that if even one child or one person develops a good heart, that precious quality of the human mind, then when that one person gains influence or power, they can bring so much peace and happiness to many millions of people just by having trained their mind in the good heart. So, it is very important to educate children in having a good heart, feeling kind and generous toward others, and feeling responsible for all living beings’ happiness. This education is important in school and also at home, from the parents, because children spend more time at home than at school. That is why parents also should be educated in this way and should practice a good heart, loving kindness, and compassion. They should be kind and generous to others, have a sense of universal responsibility, and feel that they are responsible for all living beings’ happiness.

I have done a divination and, for you, it is better to have children than not, but it has only a small benefit. Parents suffer so much for their children. They sacrifice their life from the time of conception for so many years, giving them physical and material support, their means of living, education, and so on. If the child grows up with a selfish attitude, with anger and bad thoughts, and performs selfish actions, then instead of bringing peace to the world, they only bring harm to others. It can turn out that they only bring harm to this world and unhappiness to the family, by creating problems and fear, causing worry, anger, and loss to their parents. This can happen.

Of course, each child has its own karma. How this life will turn out depends on their previous karma and on the conditions they meet in this life. Parents are a condition, an example, and an influence on children. Many children follow their parents’ ideas, their behavior, and their life style, so parents have a great responsibility. Those who would like to have children should be aware of this. They should have think about these things before they rush to have children.

 

Not Able to Have Children
Date Posted:
October 2005

A Taiwanese student had been married more than 12 years, but had not been able to have any children. She told Rinpoche that she and her husband loved each other very much, and had been examined and tested, and, according to Western medicine, there seemed to be no biological problem. According to Chinese medicine, there was something cold in her physiology, and she had been taking Chinese medicine to address this. She felt that by correcting the physical side of the problem, conception should have happened naturally. She asked Rinpoche to help her understand why children were not coming to them.

Besides the physical conditions, there is karma. You can be physically OK, but there is still some other cause. Without karma—which is a thought, an intention, a mental phenomenon—without having created this, you cannot conceive. Everything depends on karma. The existence of the whole world depends on having created the cause before. Even the physical factors are just a condition.

It is not enough to fix the body. One has to have the karma to have a child. Sometimes, too, from the child’s side, the living being who is going to be born to you has to have the karma, and you have to have the karma, too. From both sides, you need to have the karma. Normally, the gathering of a family is based on having created karma in the past. Anyway, I’ll check. Maybe it’s due to not working hard. (I’m joking.)

It may be good to keep a Dzambala statue in your house. I will ask Roger to offer one to you. The deity called Dzambala is an embodiment of the Compassion Buddha. You need to make a wealth vase. Then you put the statue in the vase, together with many jewels, money, precious things, and medicines. The vase and deity need to be blessed. Then you request the deity to give you a child. Do this every day for some time. That’s one technique. You can start first with that. If conception doesn’t take place within six months, then there are many other techniques you can try.

The other thing that is common among Tibetans in this situation is to sponsor a monastery to perform Green Tara practice.

 

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