4. Seeking Happiness, Getting Suffering

Samsaric methods don’t work

No matter how wise we ordinary people think we are, no matter how much we know, whether we’re psychologists or teachers, since we’re not aware of how our mind works, we’ll always make mistakes in our actions. A meditator living in the pure Dharma sees us as completely foolish. We lead our lives unconsciously. It’s as though we’re running through a pitch-dark forest where there are rocks and tree roots we can trip over at any moment.

Following the thought of the eight worldly dharmas is like purposely keeping ourselves ignorant; doing so traps us in the cycle of death and rebirth and brings rebirth in the lower suffering realms again and again. It’s completely crazy, but this fact isn’t recognized by worldly people simply because the ignorant mind never sees ignorance as crazy but rather thinks that its own actions are always positive and good. This kind of thinking is far worse than what a psychiatrist would diagnose as insanity.

The principal cause of samsaric suffering is ignorance—not realizing the absolute true nature of reality—and all actions done without this realization. Seeing all things as self-existent, we grasp onto them as if the happiness we derive thereby were self-existent. The wish to acquire an object of desire follows the desire for that object like a servant follows his master and, in that way, binds us to suffering. The happiness that arises from Dharma practice, on the other hand, is free and loose; its nature is release.

Even if we’re physically handicapped, injured or paralyzed—even if we have leprosy—our mind can still be extremely happy; it can even be in a pure realm. But if we’re mentally handicapped by the mind of desire, even if we’re physically extremely fit, strong and healthy, we can never be happy.

Temporary methods never help in the long term. This is an essential Dharma point. Methods that come from worldly concern only create the cause for the continuous arising of future suffering. When we try to solve our problems in this way, we’re working for the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, not our own happiness, like a servant cooking for his master.

We usually think that solving our immediate temporary problems is more important than stopping the greater suffering we’re going to face in the future, not to mention stopping the very cause of that suffering—greed, hatred and ignorance. Even if we try to meditate and practice Dharma, we still harbor the assumption that our immediate problems are the most important thing. This is due to the ignorance of not deeply recognizing the difference between negative and positive actions. Instead of following a method that will completely eliminate both immediate and long-term problems, we do things that just become the cause of future suffering. Thus our problems continue to multiply.

The problems we’re experiencing now were created in previous lives by the actions we did trying to stop similar problems back then, so even if we manage to get born human a billion times, using the same methods to eliminate our problems is pointless and only causes us to continue to experience the same problems in future.

Attached to pleasure and comfort, we want all problems and discomfort to cease, but the methods we use to try to stop them are based on our deluded mind. We can’t stop attachment by generating attachment; we can’t get rid of anger by getting angry; we can’t eradicate ignorance by perpetuating ignorance. Wrong methods only create more suffering.

We think that this cause will create that effect, whereas in fact it does the opposite. So our very first mistake is being ignorant of karma, the actual cause of happiness and suffering. Not seeing the link between an effect and what has caused it, we act unskillfully. Even if we have listened to eons of explanations of karma, because we haven’t meditated on it continuously, our understanding remains superficial and intellectual. Therefore we don’t act on it and continue to make mistakes.

Not only in the West but throughout the whole world, there are so many organizations—social welfare groups, counseling and psychology organizations and so forth—all established with the intent of dealing with people’s problems. They’re very good at recognizing the problems we all have—aggression, depression, schizophrenia, all the confusion of our modern life—and try their best to do something about them by forming more and more organizations, but they fail to see that the whole reason for all these problems is just one thing: the attachment that clings tightly to the happiness of this life.

If a person who is himself confused doesn’t recognize the source of his problems and use that understanding to change, no organization will be able to help him. He will continue to keep the thought of the eight worldly dharma in his heart like a treasure without disturbing it. He will continue to serve it as much as possible and obediently follow whatever orders it gives, as if it were his king. And none of the millions or billions of organizations can help, because the problem is inside. Wherever we are—on earth, in space, in the mountains, in the jungle, in a cage with the birds!—the problem is there with us.

We seem to think naturally that external conditions determine happiness or suffering, but if that were true then all the millionaires and billionaires in the rich countries would be extremely happy. The richer they were, the happier they’d be and the greater the peace they’d feel in their heart. As their wealth grew they’d have greater enjoyment, satisfaction and fulfillment. But in fact, the opposite is true. They feel greater loneliness and depression because they don’t understand the cause of happiness and how to alleviate suffering.

We think that the only reason that we’re unhappy is because we can’t get what we want. We want to sleep, dance, shout and have sex but somehow these are all denied us. We believe that immediately doing whatever we want to do, whatever attachment bids us to do, is the door to happiness and peace in life. And when for some reason we can’t get what we want, there’s a kind of block in our mind and depression or anger arise.

A monk who did a course in Germany told me that there’s a center there that helps people relieve their depression, aggression and other negative minds. Their method is to line everybody up and make them scream for hours and hours. After some time they get tired—you can’t shout nonstop from morning to night. So after a while they’re totally exhausted and think that their depression has gone away. That exhaustion, which they see as cleaning away their negative minds, is in fact nothing more than the relief we feel when we rest after intense physical labor or put down a heavy load that we’ve been carrying for a long time.

This same group also has a technique where they take off all their clothes and put kaka all over their body. These are their methods for cutting the root of problems in their mind, of preventing the thought of the eight worldly dharmas from arising—covering themselves with kaka and screaming for hours. Besides not being the way to recognize the root of problems, such external changes do not become a remedy and can have little benefit as long as the eight worldly dharmas are not renounced.

Methods like this are supposed to free us from aggression but in fact all that happens is that we forget our problems for a short time while torturing ourselves in another way. As long as we have strong attachment to the happiness of this life we have no peace. There’s something missing in our mind, something missing in our life.

Samsaric methods can never satisfy

The Buddha explained in a sutra that we can never achieve satisfaction as long as we follow desire. Furthermore, Lama Tsongkhapa said in the Lamrim Chenmo that following desire opens the door to many problems. Just as many branches grow from the root of a plant, most of the disturbing emotions and problems we face in life grow out of desire.

The great yogi Sharawa said that with clinging comes dissatisfaction. Even though we might have more than enough material possessions, clothes, money and so forth to last our whole life, we still feel we don’t have enough, we still crave more. Following desire doesn’t fill the empty heart. No matter how many objects of desire we manage to obtain, we still don’t experience satisfaction and that is our major suffering. There’s never an end. Whether we experience a little pleasure or a lot, we never find real satisfaction so we just want it again and again and again and again and again. We’re always craving for better and more but it just doesn’t happen. Desire is by nature hungry; it can never be satiated.

Desire is like a chronic disease. There are chronic diseases of the body; this is a chronic disease of the mind. Following the dissatisfied mind is like drinking salt water ... or eating Indian popcorn. The popcorn in India is very salty. Because of that you have to drink tea with it. After a glass of tea you crave more popcorn, which makes you thirsty, which makes you drink more tea, which makes you want more popcorn, and so forth, on and on. Until you actively determine to stop, you just keep on eating and drinking endlessly. 

What the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger sang is very true: “I can’t get no satisfaction.” In his heart, no matter how many friends he has, no matter how many people say they love him, no matter how famous he has become, no matter how much wealth he has, he’s still not satisfied. The song expresses what’s in his heart—he has all these external things but his heart, his inner life, is empty. In singing this he shows us the shortcomings of desire and proves what the Buddha said: samsaric pleasure never gives satisfaction. No matter how much we get, no matter how much we experience, we’re never satisfied.

The hunger of dissatisfaction leads to countless problems. Life becomes very expensive. We need this, we need that, we need this, we need that—so many things, billions of things. And because of that we run up many debts. Then we can’t pay them back and the court cases start. We try to start a business, but the business fails.

And talking of business, even if it works and we make a thousand dollars, we want one hundred thousand; after one hundred thousand, we want a million; then a million’s not enough, we want a billion. After we make a billion, we want a trillion, then a zillion. It never ends. Satisfaction always eludes us. It’s always just around the corner; it tells us it’s in the next purchase or the next salary increase. Life continues with the same worry, the same fear of losing our wealth, the same fear of being unable to do better than others.

We can travel around the world for months or even years trying to find a desirable object, trying to find a friend. Our mind is so upset, so lonely, so worried we won’t get what we want. One country doesn’t give us what we need and so we go to another. Maybe we spend some time hanging around in Greece, but not finding the object to satisfy our desires there, we go to California.

We spend all our money like this. We cling to the dream of finding the perfect partner but, unable to meet him or her in one place, our attachment takes us to another part of the world. We experience a difficult life, full of problems, all caused by the evil thought of eight worldly dharmas.

There are many people like this, totally out of control, blindly following attachment. Some end up going crazy or killing themselves because they can’t control their lives. They’re always searching for happiness but finding only suffering.

There’s no end to the wanting; there’s no end to the work. Like hundreds of branches spreading from one single trunk, countless problems start from the fundamental dissatisfaction that the thought of the eight worldly dharmas brings us. Problems come like ripples on a lake; they never finish—one comes, then another, then another, without end. Forever. From beginning-less rebirths we’ve been following desire and still it hasn’t ended.

Life becomes so heavy and difficult, bringing depression, worry, fear. Chasing satisfaction in things, we have no chance to enjoy what life can offer. Even if we’re living in a jeweled palace full of luxuries, even if we have billions of cars—Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Rolls—even if we have billions of swimming pools, we still can’t really enjoy life. We might have an army of servants working for us but we’re still completely miserable. Look at the very rich beyond their glossy exteriors and ask yourself whether they’re truly happy. Many of them look thoroughly worn down and miserable.

When we don’t get what our attachment wants, we feel hopeless. This is one of the fundamental sufferings in our life. This is what makes people crazy. Whatever we’re attached to that we lose—our business, our friend, whatever—makes us think that our life has no meaning. Then, due to anger, jealousy and so forth, we create negative actions such as killing or stealing. We cause so much harm to ourselves and others. It brings much unhappiness not only to ourselves but also to many others and is the cause of rebirth in the lower realms.

We need to let go by practicing mindfulness, by watching the mind. Then, when attachment to the eight worldly dharmas arises, like the missiles that America used on Iraq that pinpointed their target even after traveling hundreds of miles, we need to see attachment for what it is and launch our nuclear missile of mindfulness right at it to destroy it.

The highly realized Tibetan yogi Drogön Tsangpa Gyare said,

In the door of the house of the practitioner, a happy person is peacefully lying down, but the person who seeks delicious food can’t feel this.

In the door of the house of one who practices the remedy, the eight worldly dharmas are lying down, but those who have attachment can’t feel this.

In the door of the house of one who has cut off the root, there is a happy mind lying there, but those who have doubts can’t feel this.

In the door of the house of the person who has satisfaction, there is a really rich person lying there, but the desirous, the dissatisfied ones can’t feel this.

“Door,” of course, refers to the mind. This is where we can find real peace and happiness but the person who still clings to external sense pleasures can never know this. If we still crave delicious food, beautiful clothes and comfortable places, we can never know the peace and happiness that a renounced person does. Drogön Tsangpa Gyare says that only by subduing the thought of the eight worldly dharmas can there be peace. Those who follow this evil thought will never know it.

He goes on to say that if a practitioner completely cuts off the root of delusion, the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas and the ignorance that grasps a truly-existent I, real happiness can be found. Finally, he says that whether a person has possessions or not—he might be materially poor without enough food for even one meal—if that person is satisfied, he has great wealth, whereas somebody who is full of desire and feels he never has enough is poorer than the poorest beggar, even though he might have untold riches.

As we have seen, satisfaction is not the product of material objects but is a state of mind, an experience of the mind. Not understanding where real satisfaction comes from, people trapped by desire are frightened by the thought of giving up the external things that they wrongly see as the source of their happiness. They can’t see that there can be satisfaction without material possessions. They can’t see that the greatest wealth, the real gift that brings happiness and freedom from an uptight mind, is freedom from desire.

Living in the confusion of desire, no amount of possessions can cure the problem. But the simplest person, without material possessions but also without the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, has the most valuable possession, the most valuable method of making life happy. Even trillions of dollars cannot bring this gift.

I remember when I first went to the West I found it a bit strange how people always asked dinner guests what they wanted to eat. In the East the food is just served and everybody accepts what is there, but it seems that Westerners have to have a choice. Lama Tsongkhapa advises us to train by not letting attraction to samsaric perfections—samsaric happiness, reputation, power, wealth, all these things—arise for even one second, so accepting what is given is part of our practice. If we can hold this thought in our mental continuum continuously, then we have generated the realization of renunciation, the determination to be free from samsara.

Samsaric happiness never lasts

As long as we’re attached to samsaric happiness we’ll remain in samsara. Samsaric happiness never lasts; it invariably ends. We can discover this from our own daily life. No happiness based on the eight worldly dharmas lasts: relationships, places, food, possessions and so forth. Because worldly happiness doesn’t last we have to try to renew it endlessly. Like waves in the ocean coming one after the other, such work never ceases. That’s the meaning of being a consumer.

Food and clothes are a simple example. Simply buying some food once or one set of clothes doesn’t work—the food won’t last until we die and the clothes won’t satisfy us for the rest of our life. The temporary needs of one day can’t cover our entire life. It’s impossible. We have to keep working continuously because worldly happiness keeps finishing. We’re always running on a treadmill, where nothing is new, going round and round and round.

Like eating and defecating, something we must do in an endless round, over and over and over again, the search for samsaric happiness never finishes. Until we cut off the karma created by ignorance, as long as we still have the cause to take rebirth again, we’ll keep dying and being reborn, keep cycling around, forever.

Not only does samsaric pleasure neither increase nor last, when it degenerates it becomes the suffering of suffering because, as we have seen, we’re labeling “pleasure” on a feeling that is actually suffering in nature. As we continue the action, putting effort into it again and again, as we must, it leads to dissatisfaction. Even though, in the view of our hallucinated mind of attachment, what we’re experiencing is real happiness, pure happiness, through meditation we can discover for ourselves that it’s actually suffering, and our clinging to it is the cause of samsara, is what’s making us die and be reborn continuously.

Worldly happiness must always turn into suffering. We get pleasure from swimming on a hot day but if we stay in the water too long we get cold and crave warmth. We’re happy eating food, but if we eat more and more, we lose the taste, our stomach fills up and we vomit. Sherpa people who enjoy drinking chang drink one cup, then another because they liked the first, then more and more until they completely lose all control and discipline. They often end up fighting and shouting nonsensical words and breaking things that were usually obtained with much difficulty. Their minds are not happy because of the wrong belief that does not see the true nature of suffering. The same can be said about people who use drugs.

Conversely, true Dharma happiness—the happiness that comes from renouncing the thought of the eight worldly dharmas—never ends but there’s an end to the work we need to do to obtain it. The more we experience Dharma happiness, the more enjoyment we get and it can never be used up, which is the complete opposite of worldly pleasure.

Enjoying worldly pleasure depends on maintaining something that is not a continuum, so it always finishes, but the pleasure of enjoying the holy Dharma is a continuum, so it’s unceasing. And whereas none of the worldly possessions we worked very hard to obtain and are so attached to can be taken with us to our future life, all of our Dharma possessions—the merit we create by practicing Dharma—can be.

As we gradually progress in our Dharma practice, slowly working toward the path of the higher capable being,²⁶ our happiness increases more and more. When we finally achieve enlightenment, our work has finished but the enjoyment we receive from Dharma practice lasts forever; it never finishes. Achieving the ultimate goal, enlightenment, does not mean, as some people think, that everything becomes nothingness, like space. It’s not at all like that; if it were, there’d be no way for us to help other beings after getting enlightened.

To stop ourselves from being attached to things and creating the cause of more suffering when we’re experiencing worldly pleasure, we can think, “It’s only my wrong conception that believes this to be true pleasure. In fact, it’s not true pleasure but only suffering. It never gives satisfaction; it never lasts. It never gives unending satisfaction. Therefore, being attached to this samsaric pleasure will only keep me continuously in the bondage of samsaric suffering and cause me to be reborn in the three lower realms and suffer there forever. This pleasure is trivial and I should not be attached to it.”

When we finally achieve enlightenment, our work has finished; we’ve achieved the highest pleasure and it’s unchangeable and can never revert to anything less. Because there’s not one atom of delusion in the enlightened mind, there’s no way it can slip back. There’s no creator to change it and bring it down; there’s no higher state we still need to work toward. Therefore, just as the enlightened state never changes, so the happiness received from Dharma practice never finishes.

Therefore, after we start to practice Dharma and face and eventually destroy the enemy, the thought of the worldly dharmas, there’s a big difference in the happiness we receive. The very rough and dangerous water of samsaric pleasures becomes a vast ocean—blue, calm and very clear.

To use another analogy, if we pull a thorn out of our foot there’s no more pain—with the thorn removed, it’s natural that the problem ceases. It’s logical. In the same way, we need to see samsaric pleasure as suffering or we won’t try to remove it. The actual thing is to see this through our own experience, then we’ll understand that what the Dharma explains is really true.

The real happiness of life, real peace of mind, is renunciation. Whenever we start to practice renouncing the desire for this life, real peace of mind starts. So holy Dharma and worldly dharma are complete opposites: holy Dharma is renouncing the thought of the eight worldly dharmas; the thought of the eight worldly dharmas is renouncing the holy Dharma.

Relying on the unreliable

Wanting peace on the rollercoaster

With the thought of the eight worldly dharmas there’s no way we can have peace of mind. We wake up in the morning happy, smiling, feeling kind of high, almost flying. Then, within an hour, our mind has totally crashed. It goes on like this day after day, some days happy all day, other days miserable, sometimes happy in the morning but by evening completely berserk, ridiculous.

Our life becomes a wild goose chase, running after what we think will make us happy and running away from what we don’t like, constantly fluctuating between wishes fulfilled and wishes frustrated, constantly up and down. Even though all we want is peace and happiness, we’re on a constant rollercoaster of emotions. Praise brings happiness, criticism brings misery; a good reputation makes us feel really good, a bad one makes us feel terrible. We’re happy when things go our way and we have the four desirable objects and we plunge into depression and misery when things don’t go our way and we have to face the four undesirable objects. Happy, unhappy, excited, depressed—up, down, up, down, even in the space of one day. In this way our life is never balanced, peaceful or happy. As long as we crave things, it will always be like this. We’re living in a house built out of the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas and all our confusion stems from that. We want peace but our worldly concern robs us of it, making our mind extremely unstable.

Actually, if we really understand this subject, we can see our life as a movie—funny, interesting, awful, disgusting. If we analyze it we can easily see that the thought of the eight worldly dharmas is what makes life so difficult, so suffocating. This evil thought is the reason we have no freedom, no peace of mind.

We’re completely reliant on external conditions, objects of desire, for our happiness but they’re not dependable; the conditions are always changing. Dependent on ever-changing conditions, our mind is uncontrollable, a weak animal that can’t carry its load and is always staggering, falling first this way, then that, as the conditions change. As a result, one minute we’re up, the next minute we’re down. This is the nature of samsara.

Our main entertainment—television, movies, books and so forth—is based on the drama that this crazy fluctuation creates. Almost every book in airport bookshops is about the ups and downs of people’s lives and how all their problems are based on attachment clinging to this life. Stories on television are based on people’s lives going out of control—one day happy, the next day unhappy; in the morning happy, in the afternoon unhappy. Listening to other people’s problems, we can see how they all come from discrimination or anger that in turn arise out of clinging to this life, the attachment and aversion associated with one of these eight objects.

One of the things I’ve noticed traveling around the world is that the lives of people in materially developed countries are quite complicated and unstable whereas the lives of those in primitive countries where there are few modern appliances—sometimes not even matches—seem much more stable. Of course, they have problems—after all, they’re also living in samsara, where just having a body is a problem. But they don’t have problems like people in the West, where it seems that their mood changes minute by minute: up one minute, down the next.

Many of the great yogis of the past chose to lead a simple life at the beginning of their practice. It wasn’t because they were fools or didn’t know how to live a worldly life or how to be political, cunning or smart. The purpose of choosing that life was to fight the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas. If at the beginning of our practice we live among temporal needs and have everything we like, we find it extremely difficult to practice Dharma purely; invariably, the thought of eight worldly dharmas interferes with our attempts to do so.

If you read the autobiography of the great yogi Milarepa, who achieved enlightenment in one lifetime, he explains how the great peace in his life came from practicing Dharma. His songs are full of this. There are many other great yogis who also explain their own experiences and they all say how only by practicing pure Dharma unstained by the thought of the eight worldly dharmas can one find real happiness in this and future lives.

Expecting happiness from the unreliable

Unlike Dharma happiness, which can never be stolen, worldly pleasures can be taken away by an enemy. Whatever we have—friends, wealth, possessions and so forth—will inevitably get lost for one reason or another. If our house is full of wonderful things, other people get jealous and steal them; if we’re rich, there are always robbers around waiting to take our wealth. Everywhere we look there are people wanting what we have, looking for ways to rob us of our pleasure.

Sometimes desirable objects themselves become undesirable. Many actions done with worldly concern eventually lead to the four undesirable results. For example, in business, we may have success after success and because of that act more and more with the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. Then after some time our karma to be successful finishes and our karma for failure ripens. In a day we become a pauper—one day we’re a millionaire, the next we don’t even know how we’ll pay our rent or take care of our family. Our whole life collapses. Thogme Zangpo said,

Even if everybody could obtain the perfections of this life, there’s no guarantee that they could freely enjoy them. The only thing that’s certain is death.

We might be able to get whatever it is we think will bring us pleasure in our life but there’s no certainty that we’ll be able to freely enjoy it. Even if others don’t try to steal our treasured possession, the object itself—a fast car, perhaps—can become a danger to our life.

We make many arrangements and work very hard for years and years to obtain the perfections of this life but what is more certain, the realization of our plan or death? Death is definitely more certain than our plan. And at the time of death, none of this life’s perfections can benefit us and, because we’re clinging to this life, there’s much suffering. Thogme Zangpo encourages us to understand this and to strongly renounce this life.²⁷

The great pandit Asanga said that there’s no way to compare worldly pleasure with the pleasure of enjoying the holy Dharma. For example, no worldly pleasure covers the whole body. The pleasure we experience from an object of attachment is extremely limited—to a very short duration and a very small area. The most delicious food in the world is delicious only between the tongue and the throat, lasts only for the time it takes to swallow and there’s no way the rest of the body can enjoy it: our feet can’t, our arms can’t, and our stomach might even end up in pain if the food is too rich.

Ordinary samsaric happiness derives from external objects and doesn’t arise if the object isn’t nearby. This is what “not covering the whole body” means. Dharma happiness, on the other hand, can be permanently increased without depending on external objects and does cover the whole body. As such, it is pure happiness and causes us to receive the transcendent realizations of the noble beings in this very life. Enjoying worldly pleasures doesn’t help develop realizations either in this life or in future lives.

It is also useful to remember what Guru Shakyamuni Buddha said:

If you wish all happiness, renounce all attachment. If you renounce all attachment, you will achieve the supreme happiness.

The pleasure of enjoying the holy Dharma gives satisfaction because it pacifies the disturbed, unsubdued mind of attachment, thus eliminating the problems of this and all future lives.

In his Precious Garland, Nagarjuna advises the king to do his work according to Dharma and that by freeing himself from the dissatisfied mind of desire he will receive respect, a good reputation and everything he needs and, furthermore, will benefit all other sentient beings greatly. If done with desire, even the work of a king has no meaning.

Meditation

Meditating on the eight worldly dharmas and impermanence and death

Without question, the quickest, most powerful technique to destroy the thought of the eight worldly dharmas is meditation on impermanence and death.²⁸ People are naturally afraid of death. In that, they are the same as animals. When a dog is attacked by another dog, it’s afraid of death; when it’s beaten by a person, it’s afraid of death; when it gets too close to a cliff, it’s afraid of death. Ordinary people who don’t practice Dharma have the same fear of death, but that fear is useless, simply because it brings no solution, no method to stop the cause. The fear generated when we meditate on the impermanence of life and the certainty of death is different. It’s a vital tool to completely stop the greater fear and to free ourselves from the endless circle of death and rebirth.²⁹

Death will definitely happen; we’re definitely going to die. Death is something we all have to experience, something we can experience at any time. There’s no use ignoring it and unless we prepare for death in this life we cannot possibly die with a happy mind.

Without meditating on the impermanence of life and death, even though we might want to practice Dharma, we become lazy and always put it off. We think Dharma is not so important, that there’s no rush, and constantly keep ourselves busy with all the many worldly things that seem more urgent. And even when we do try to practice Dharma, our actions become worldly because our motivation never goes beyond the happiness of this life. His Holiness the Dalai Lama says:

If we don’t renounce the temporal life through the practice of meditation on impermanence, the Dharma actions we perform become a service to the eight worldly dharmas.

We might know logically that we’re going to die, but unless we’ve really studied this subject, our death seems so remote and far away—twenty, thirty, forty years—that it’s not real to us. Intuitively, we feel as if we’re going to live forever. We follow this wrong concept of permanence and thus make many mistakes, trusting in the untrustworthy.

If we strongly remember that we’re definitely going to die and that the time of death is indefinite and may in fact happen at any moment, then everything meaningless falls away and we naturally abandon all the pointless concerns of this life—the need for a good reputation, admiration, possessions and so forth. We immediately see that everything we do must prepare us for death and our next life, and even though the things we do might have the aspect of worldly actions, they automatically become holy Dharma. Living like this leads us to have a happy mind at the time of death and to happiness in our future lives and also lays the foundation for enlightenment.

Meditations to abandon attachment

Contemplate how rarely you even think about death. Normally you act as if you’re going to live forever but this is completely deluded. Everybody dies and you’re no exception. Furthermore, you have no idea when you will die. It might be in a few years but it might also be tomorrow or even today. Contemplate that you really have no idea when you will die.

Think of a present or some praise that you’ve recently received and how it made you happy. That happiness feels permanent, but which is more definite, that you’ll be separated from the object of your attachment or that you’ll never be separated from it? In the same way, ask yourself which is more definite, to be born in the lower realms or the upper? Because you’ve created far more negative karma than positive, it’s much more likely that you’ll be born in the lower realms.

Then visualize as clearly and strongly as possible the suffering of the hells.³⁰ Don’t just think the words but really try to get a clear picture and feel the experience. Think, “This terrible place of unbelievable suffering is where I’m about to be reborn.” This is a very quick way of controlling attachment. If you can generate a strong picture of the suffering of the hells and see it as somewhere you will end up very soon because of your attachment, your attachment will automatically disappear.

Then draw the conclusion that you gain absolutely no benefit from being attached, especially since your attachment will lead you to such a place of suffering. Therefore, the object of attachment, such as the gift or praise you have received, is worse than useless.

This meditation can also be used whenever you’re angry—for example, when somebody criticizes you. Watch your mind as anger arises. Observe how your mind can change. If that person had praised you, you would have been happy, but as soon as she criticized you, you got really angry. See how changeable your mind is depending on the object and see how this, not the object, is the cause of suffering. From that, go on to do the death meditation as above.

When you have a clear visualization of the hell realms that your anger is leading you to, your anger will automatically go away. Conclude by thinking that there’s no reason at all to ever get angry.

Meditate, too, on the impermanent nature of phenomena. It is in the nature of samsara that we lose things we want and encounter things we don’t. Padmasambhava said,

The vision of this life is like last night’s dream.
All meaningless actions are like ripples on a lake.³¹

Whenever there’s a problem, instead of worrying about it, building it up and giving yourself a nervous breakdown, just see that problem as a dream; you are simply dreaming you are having a problem. You should think about it in the way that Padmasambhava said. You may have a dream that lasts only a few moments, but within the dream itself it seems to last a very long time, maybe a hundred thousand years. You live somewhere and grow from a child to an adult, become middle-aged, then your hair turns white. You see your whole life over many years and during that time there are many pleasures and many problems. Yet the actual duration of the dream is perhaps five minutes. When you wake up you realize it has just been a short time and it’s empty; whatever problem or excitement you had in the dream is empty.

Similarly, this life appears to last a long time, but at the time of death you suddenly experience that your life has gone and you feel as if you’re waking from a dream. You see that, in fact, your life was very short. You’re definitely going to experience this when you die, therefore you should remember it now in order to control your delusions and prepare yourself for death. If you do, you can die happy and you’ll be happy in your future lives, all the way to liberation and enlightenment.

Reflecting on impermanence and death is the most powerful thing. Not just that you might die sometime in the vague future but that death can happen now, at this very moment, while you’re eating, while you’re on the toilet, while you’re drinking tea, while you’re walking, while you’re going home—death can happen at any time. From here to there, just a few steps, you might die. You might even die before your meditation session has finished.

You need to relate this to karma, otherwise it’s just the consciousness separating from the body and what then? When you think about the vast amount of negative karma you’ve created in this life alone, the moment after the moment of death will almost certainly be in the lower realms amid all those unimaginable sufferings. It’s extremely terrifying. Nobody even wants to have a terrifying dream; we all want our dreams to be pleasant and nice. We can’t even stand the sufferings of the human realm. So how will we bear the unimaginable sufferings of the lower realms?

For instance, maybe a woman is thinking of killing herself because she’s so attached to her husband that she can’t stand the thought of his dying one day and being left on her own. Being with her husband is the only thing that’s important to her, so her fear of losing him completely overwhelms her to the point where she really contemplates suicide. By remembering impermanence and death in the Dharma way, she will see that, in fact, he is going to leave her. Everybody dies, and he must separate from her, so what is the point of being attached? If she can remember impermanence and death, right at that moment, all that big hassle will dissipate like a cloud in the sky.

Thinking that death might happen this hour, this minute, this moment cuts the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, which means peace arises in your heart immediately; your mind immediately lets go of the attachment clinging to the pleasures of this life. All your fear and worry, all those hundreds of thousands of expectations and superstitions caused by the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, are cut. Then, when you think back how worried you were, you just have to laugh because it was so childish. Your mind is free from confusion; whatever you do becomes pure Dharma, like pure gold.

If your Dharma practice isn’t developing, then no matter what you study or meditate on, whether it’s bodhicitta or emptiness or whatever, the reason will be because you’ve not started with this most basic meditation on impermanence and death. If you omit the first part then there’s no chance that the more advanced practices will succeed. You need to cut the thought of the eight worldly dharmas and to do that you need a technique like meditating on the impermanence of life and the certainty of death. If you avoid these meditations because you think that they’re boring or you’re afraid to do them, that’s a big mistake. 

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Notes

²⁶ According to the lamrim teachings there are three levels of practice: the path of the lower capable being seeking the happiness of future lives; the path of the medium capable being seeking individual liberation, or nirvana; and the path of the higher capable being seeking full enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. [Return to text]

²⁷ See the meditation at the end of this chapter. [Return to text]

²⁸ See the various FPMT materials on this topic and related teachings in Tsongkhapa’s Great Treatise, Pabongka’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand and other lamrim books. [Return to text]

²⁹ This is the subject of the book Wholesome Fear. [Return to text]

³⁰ There are many descriptions of the lower realms by Rinpoche and many other great masters. See the forthcoming LYWA book by Rinpoche on the three lower realms and lamrim books such as Tsongkhapa’s Great Treatise and Pabongka’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. [Return to text]

³¹ Quoted in Rinpoche’s Wish-Fulfillng Golden Sun in the section on the nine-point death meditation. [Return to text]