Lama Zopa Rinpoche's How to Practice Dharma: Teachings on the Eight Worldly Dharmas was compiled and edited by Gordon McDougall. This book deals with the eight worldly dharmas, essentially how desire and attachment cause us to create problems and suffering and how to abandon these negative minds in order to find perfect peace and happiness.
8. Turning Away From Worldly Concern
Happiness comes when we renounce the eight worldly dharmas
In the West, the main emphasis is on external appearances and whether something makes us happy right now. The main goal seems to be happiness now. It has to be now. Now! At this moment! That’s what the main thing in life is. That’s old style psychology, cherishing ourselves. However, the best way to love ourselves, the best way to take care of ourselves, is to practice Dharma. That doesn’t mean denying ourselves but practicing renunciation so that we can become liberated from samsara. That’s what we all need, otherwise we’ll experience suffering again and again, continuously, without end.
Attachment to the eight worldly dharmas makes us anxious that we’ll be unable to fulfill our desire. Renunciation means the cessation of such worry. If we want to worry, there are more important things to worry about, such as creating bad karma or the suffering of the three lower realms. As long as the thought of the eight worldly dharmas is not renounced, life is full of problems. The moment we start to renounce this evil thought is the moment real happiness begins.
The peace of renunciation is inexpensive and doesn’t depend on factories, rockets, weapons, armies or presidents. Such peace continues until enlightenment, growing stronger and stronger. Renouncing the eight worldly dharmas is like opening a door—a simple step that requires an understanding mind. We need to know the evolution of such an action, understanding its causes and expected results. Unlike most actions done ignorant of their results, such as taking drugs, which make us progressively crazier, renunciation makes us progressively saner. It’s like a saw, cutting through problems and confusion.
Many people who have no experience of Dharma are shocked by those who follow a spiritual path and give up temporal things. This is especially true of the parents of Western Dharma students. They see renunciation as a great suffering and something only a limited mind would engage in. They think that those who renounce worldly concerns are foolish, that they’re leading a nonsensical life that will lead to more problems. However, all this is judged with ignorance, without understanding the true benefits of renunciation. Since they have not been through the experience they cannot know. Rather than being just the causes of misery, as they seem to think, in reality such actions bring both future benefits and immediate help by releasing us from our confusion.
Any problems we might have with our Dharma practice come from our attitude to the practice, not from the practice itself. If we feel we were happier before we started practicing Dharma, we need to look at where this thought comes from and sort it out. Such thoughts are dangerous because they can destroy the merit of positive actions.
If we live in pure Dharma practice we simply won’t have the common problems of people who lead a mundane life. A recent lamrim lineage lama said,
One who has renounced this life does not return anger when somebody is angry with him. When somebody insults him, he doesn’t return the insult. When somebody beats him, he doesn’t retaliate with a beating in return. The person who is able to practice like this is renounced.
As we practice Dharma and see the truth that all problems come from attachment to this life, we discover great calmness and peace, as opposed to the clinging, dissatisfied mind that never has enough. Freed from our desires, there’s no painful mind, no stuck mind; it’s like being released from prison. We feel incredibly happy when we’re finally released from the painful emotional mind of desire.
In the absence of desire, we no longer have all the other problems that we normally experience: the suffering that lack of comfort brings, the pain of being criticized and so forth. There’s only peace. This is the renunciation that is defined in the graduated path of the middle capable being, as clearly explained by Lama Tsongkhapa in The Three Principal Aspects of the Path.
With the great stability that renouncing this life brings, there is very little difference between meeting the four desirable objects and the four undesirable objects. If there’s praise, we’re happy; if there’s criticism, we’re happy. If we receive material things, we’re happy; if we don’t, we’re happy. Neither good reputation nor bad reputation can disturb our mind; we have equalized them. However the conditions of life change, our mind remains undisturbed, so we experience great peace, great relaxation and freedom from anxiety.
Actually, this is the best way to stay healthy. With the relaxation and lack of worry that come with freedom from attachment, we’re unlikely to have a sudden heart attack in the street and lie there, surrounded by people, our family upset and crying, waiting to get rushed off to the hospital in an ambulance with sirens blaring, this noise we hear all the time. Dharma saves us from all this. It not only protects us, it protects others and saves them from problems too.
With renunciation, any action, mundane or spiritual, becomes a pure Dharma action. While devoting all our energy to achieving enlightenment, we still need food, clothing and shelter to survive, but obtaining them is no longer the prime motivation for our actions. Moreover, living in the pure, essential practice of Dharma, the necessities of life come to us by the way, without too much effort on our part. They are like the many things we see on the way as we are traveling to a distant country that are enjoyable but not the purpose of our journey.
Understanding how only Dharma has the power to diminish and finally eliminate all delusions, we can see that there’s no method other than Dharma if we want to be truly happy. We can practice Dharma anywhere, not just in Tibetan monasteries but in the West, in the East, in space, under the earth, wherever. It doesn’t require sitting cross-legged with our eyes closed, saying prayers; it doesn’t necessarily mean giving our possessions away. There’s no specific form of action. Whatever we do, the power of our mind, a correct motivation, can make the actions of our daily life the remedy to our delusions.
There’s great benefit if we can renounce our attachment to this life for even a second, so if we can do it for longer—a minute, an hour, twenty-four hours—then our life can really have great meaning. The benefit we can be to other sentient beings is unbelievable. There’s so much we can do, especially by meditating on the lamrim. Even if we don’t achieve the actual realizations in this life, at least we’ll be that much closer and well prepared to achieve realizations in our next life, which will happen without much hardship.
The higher the realizations we can actualize, the greater the benefit we can be to other sentient beings, who equal the limitless sky; those most precious sentient beings, from whom we have received all our past, present and future happiness and every single comfort.
Developing determination
This life is not long. In fact, it is very short. We might have only a few days left, a few months, at the most a few years. So what’s the big deal with all these objects of attachment? Why should we care so much? Why should we be so concerned? With so much attachment and aversion we make ourselves crazy, so crazy, all the time thinking bad, bad, bad; these things are bad, bad, bad. Every day labeling bad, bad, bad, believing they are bad, bad, bad. We label them bad, bad, bad and they appear to our consciousness as bad, bad, bad. Like this, we make ourselves completely neurotic and paranoid.
And life is constantly changing around us. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second there are new good things and bad things to experience. We open our eyes and we see so many things around us: beautiful objects, ugly objects, indifferent objects. We are not deaf and so our ears are always hearing sounds: good sounds, bad sounds, indifferent sounds. As long as our nose consciousness is functioning, then again we smell good smells, bad smells, indifferent smells; and as long as our tactile consciousness is functioning, we are surrounded by objects that feel good to touch, or bad, or indifferent.
Whatever happens, whatever we experience, whichever of the four desirable objects or the four undesirable objects we encounter, we should be very aware of how short life is. The appearance of life is like a dream, like a finger-snap. So there’s absolutely no point in caring about any of these things. There’s no point in clinging to these ephemeral experiences. Otherwise it’s like we’re staying in a house for only a couple of days but spending all our time and effort making extensive improvements—renovating, decorating, furnishing—and not making any preparations for the onward journey. Knowing that we’re leaving today, there’s no point in trying to fix it up as if we were going to live there for many years. We don’t paint the hotel or dormitory rooms we stay in.
The whole thing is a question of determination. Without determination there’s no development. My first alphabet teacher, whose holy name was Aku Ngawang Lekshe,50 used to tell me that the whole problem is being unable to make the determination to practice Dharma. He explained this to me the very first time he taught me the alphabet and he was still saying it the last time I saw him, not long before he passed away.
The inability to make this determination is the source of all our problems and obstacles. Our own mind creates the difficulty. Our own mind makes it difficult to practice and generate the realizations of the path. If we make the determination to practice, we won’t have any difficulties; if we don’t, we will. There are no difficulties from the side of the Dharma. There are no external difficulties. The difficulties in practicing Dharma come from our own mind, from our own inability to make the necessary determination. And what makes us unable to make that determination is the thought of the eight worldly dharmas.
The very moment we make the determination to not follow desire and to practice Dharma, we find peace. On this very seat, at this very second, there’s peace. Really, there’s no other choice; there’s no other solution.
Renouncing the eight worldly dharmas is not only a Buddhist practice
Everybody wants satisfaction, so everybody needs to renounce the eight worldly dharmas, whether they’re a religious practitioner or not. It’s the one route out of suffering to happiness, so there’s no other choice. This is psychology, not religion.
When somebody has a headache, a painkiller will stop it. It doesn’t depend on that person’s race or religion. There isn’t an analgesic just for Buddhists. Similarly, the practice of renouncing the eight worldly dharmas is the psychological remedy to the suffering of attachment. Therefore this teaching is universal education. Everybody, Buddhist or not, needs this practice.
When we first come across Buddhism we might think that Dharma is easy; it’s just a matter of sitting cross-legged with eyes closed and imitating that person over there. But the real Dharma is to create actions that are undefiled by the eight worldly dharmas and free of greed, hatred and ignorance. Those actions don’t need the label “Buddhist,” “Hindu,” “Christian” or “Muslim.” People might even call us “evil,” but if our actions arise from a pure motivation and have the power to destroy the negative mind and create positive karma, such actions are called Dharma because they allow us to escape from ignorance and reach enlightenment.
Dharma is not a prescribed set of actions only for Buddhists but something that everybody can do if their mind is open enough. It has nothing to do with class, caste, occupation, title, religion or skin color. But we sentient beings block the ability to help ourselves. Our ignorance alone stops us from creating positive karma. If we feel that the Dharma teachings we read are too deep and profound to be relevant to us, it’s only our mind that has labeled them such. The Buddha didn’t deliberately make them hard to follow. The level of Dharma that we can practice depends on our level of wisdom.
You might be worried about becoming a Buddhist because of what you think you have to do. If you are scared of the word, you don’t have to be called “Buddhist.” It’s just a name. Scientists experiment on external phenomena, trying to improve the world, but experimenting with your mind is much more worthwhile. Instead of going around with a confused mind spending a lot of money rearranging material things, it’s much more beneficial to experiment on your mind—hundreds, thousands, billions of times more beneficial—and much more interesting, too.
Check to see whether the scientists who work with external phenomena have discovered any methods that will completely cut off greed, hatred and ignorance. Have they ever discovered a method that will definitely destroy the cause of all mental and physical problems, such as old age and death? Of course, these people themselves, as wise as they are in science or whatever their field is, are afraid of aging and death. That’s because there’s something missing in the way they do their experiments; they can’t recognize the root cause of these problems. If they had already discovered the cause of old age, which nobody wants, they would have developed a cure for it and there wouldn’t be any old people any more; everybody would be young and eternally youthful looking. But there’s no choice—everybody, no matter what religion or belief, has to go through old age, death and all these other sufferings.
Give up the clinging, not the object
Many people think that the Buddhist teachings on renunciation mean that we have to deny ourselves what we like, that Buddhism says we’re not allowed to enjoy ourselves any more and therefore think that Dharma practitioners must be miserable people, always denying themselves pleasure.
From the practitioner’s side, however, the limited-minded person who says such things is only an object of derision, because the experience of renunciation is not at all like that. Such a concept is completely wrong, completely opposite to the logical experience gained from this practice. Rather than bringing misery, renouncing attachment to worldly comfort brings great happiness in this and future lives.
Renunciation doesn’t mean giving up all physical things and running away from life. We shouldn’t eat, we shouldn’t drink, we shouldn’t wear clothes, we shouldn’t live in our house, we need to give up our body ... of course it doesn’t mean that. If it did, how could we exist? How could we practice Dharma? Impossible! How is it possible to practice without relying on immediate needs? Perhaps it’s possible if we’re practicing Dharma in a dream; perhaps it would be easier to renounce the eight worldly dharmas while asleep.
Having money is not the problem, but clinging to money is. Having friends is not the problem, but attachment to them is. Whenever we cling to something, that mind of desire becomes very dangerous. The object isn’t dangerous, but, like a contagious disease, the mind of desire is.
Without worldly concern, having the four desirable objects is not a problem. Not receiving gifts becomes a problem when there’s the desire to receive them. Discomfort becomes a problem when there’s desire for comfort. The problem isn’t having a friend but having the need for friendship.
Perhaps we’ve had a friend for years and always thought that she loves us but suddenly find out that she’s never really loved us at all. While we thought that our friend loved us we were happy, but now, suddenly, it has all changed and we’re miserable. The object hasn’t changed—our friend’s love was never there in the first place—but the mind perceiving it has. Our friend’s love (or lack of it) is not the problem. When our mind interprets a situation as “bad,” then the problem starts, then there’s unhappiness in our life. It’s not just finding out that the person doesn’t love us; it’s our interpretation of that fact and our labeling it “bad” and “negative.” Then we feel as if an arrow has been shot into our heart.
This shows clearly that the suffering has been brought on not by the external object, the friend, but our own mind. Not practicing Dharma but following the self-cherishing thought instead, we interpret the situation as negative and our own mind makes this external object the condition upon which we base our suffering. It could equally be a condition for happiness, but our mind makes it the opposite.
I once saw on TV a story about a man who lived quite close to Manjushri Institute,51 in England. He was very rich, with a huge property and bodyguards and dogs that bit people who tried to sneak onto his land. His house had hundreds of rooms but nobody else lived there. He slept in each of the many bedrooms one at a time, a different bedroom each night. He ate very little food but drank quite a lot of alcohol, four or five bottles a day. Not eating but getting very drunk, he then cried and felt very aggressive, very depressed. As the tears poured down his cheeks he moaned about how meaningless his life was. He had all these possessions, he was so rich, yet he was so depressed and felt that life was meaningless. He’d become rich through the car business but he was very bored with it and blamed the business for all his problems.
One Sunday he took his huge collection of toy cars outside. As his bodyguard held each car individually, he poured kerosene on it and set it alight, thinking that as he burned each car he was destroying the root of his problem. He was angry with the car business for making him miserable and thought that destroying his toy cars would make him happy.
Beggars wear ragged clothes and street dogs eat poor food, but this doesn’t mean they have renounced this life. Only by watching our mind can we be sure we’re living a renounced life. Otherwise, with our ragged clothes and poor food we may look renounced, but we could be putting it all on just to gain a reputation as an ascetic meditator. As we have seen, we can’t judge renunciation from external appearances. It has nothing to do with being naked in a cave or throwing all our material possessions out the window—sleeping bag, jacket, cameras, shoes, bags, everything—until we’re sitting in a completely empty room. If it did, we’d have to throw our body out the window as well.
Renunciation means renouncing the cause of suffering—throwing the dissatisfied mind out the window. Whatever our external appearance, richly clothed or utterly without clothes or possessions, if we have renounced attachment we have the great happiness that comes from practicing Dharma.
Renouncing attachment to a person means that we no longer have desire for that person. It doesn’t mean that we give up on that person as an object of compassion. These are two completely different things. It’s a common experience in our lives that we can have compassion and loving kindness for somebody without desiring him.
One of my teachers was Gen Jampa Wangdu, who also had many Western students and taught them “taking the essence,” the chu len pill retreat. In particular, this practice helps with the realization of calm abiding and the quick development of mind by using substances such as flower pills instead of food.52 He had the lineage of the chu len retreat and had himself accomplished the practice in Penpo, Tibet.
Even though he kept very quiet about his practice, Gen Jampa Wangdu had great success in achieving realizations. He generated bodhicitta, attained perfect calm abiding and realized emptiness—not just the common realization but tantric mahamudra, the completion stage realization that is generated on the basis of the generation stage. He also had experience of the Six Yogas of Naropa.
For many years he lived underneath a rocky outcrop just below His Holiness Ling Rinpoche’s house. There was no cave below the rock; the earth was just dug out so that it became a cave. For some years he also lived in a hut way back on the mountain.
He was Lama Yeshe’s and my best friend in Dharamsala. Whenever Gen Jampa Wangdu came to see us we had the best time. He was a very old meditator—not “old” in terms of age but in terms of meditation experience.
Even when he was at Buxa he was totally different from the other monks. I saw him from time to time walking around outside or going to the toilet. Just behind where I lived there was a long line of toilets. It was very difficult to keep them clean and they gave out such an intense smell that at lunchtime we’d have to hold our noses to eat. Even at that time Gen Jampa Wangdu’s conduct and appearance were very different from those of the other monks. The way he wore his robes was very proper, in accordance with the Vinaya, and he walked the way an arhat walks, as described in the lamrim teachings. You could see that his mind was totally concentrated. He did not have a monkey mind or a bird mind. A bird looks here for one second, there for one second, here for one second; it’s impossible for it to concentrate. You could see just from Gen Jampa Wangdu’s proper manner when went to the toilet that he practiced Dharma continuously, with full awareness of his body, speech and mind.
One day, even though he lived such a simple life, he gave up his tattered, faded robes and started wearing more expensive ones. He told me, “The reason I wear good robes now is that people complain when I wear them.
They say that I’m supposed to be an ascetic but because I’m wearing such rich clothes I can’t be. They think I have plenty of money so they don’t come making offerings as much as they used to. This is very good for me.”
Going completely against the self-cherishing thought and worldly concern, which wants a good reputation, is a real sign of renunciation. By wearing fancy robes Gen Jampa Wangdu faced criticism instead of the praise he received before by looking like an ascetic monk. In that way he completely opposed worldly concern and self-cherishing. Renunciation depends on the mind, not on the external appearance.
In the 1970s and ’80s many young people came to Asia from the West after being inspired by Milarepa’s autobiography, but they didn’t understand what renouncing this life meant. They saw that renunciation had certain benefits and that not having possessions could help their life but didn’t understand the process, the way of doing it. They thought that Milarepa’s amazing powers came from simply giving away all his possessions, so they threw theirs away too. Then, because of their lack of wisdom, not understanding what it means to “give up this life,” they got into problems. They had no possessions but still had the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. They took good care of that. So they missed the things they’d thrown away and their minds got into a lot of trouble thinking and worrying about how they could get them back. Giving up this life doesn’t work like that.
Their problems got bigger and bigger because their minds were not renounced. They tried to give things up physically but mentally couldn’t stand being without possessions. Not understanding Dharma, they almost always gave up and returned home, thinking that renunciation doesn’t work, that it isn’t a solution to life’s problems.
There was one Italian student who, before reading the biography of Milarepa, was a communist who took many drugs. He was so inspired by the book that he wanted to experience the great peace that Milarepa did, but because he had nobody to show him how to practice he thought that renunciation meant getting rid of all his material possessions. So he gave everything away and went to India with the book. He didn’t have much money to start with and by the time he got to Bombay or Madras had only forty rupees left. He put it under his pillow and went to sleep but somebody stole it. His mind was extremely confused. Never having had any lamrim teachings he had no method to stop the confusion, so his life was miserable. He only discovered that what he’d done was completely wrong after receiving lamrim teachings from Lama Yeshe.
We should not understand renunciation in that way. This is a big mistake and only causes confusion in our mind. In ancient times in Tibet there were many bodhisattva kings who lived in avoidance of the thought of the eight worldly dharmas while surrounded by incredible possessions. Amidst all this opulence they worked for and guided the people of the country with kindness while still maintaining a pure Dharma practice.
A fabulously wealthy king can still live in renunciation; a beggar with nothing can live full of attachment for this life. What we look like on the outside has nothing to do with whether we have renounced this life or not. We can look like a monk or nun, we can be freaky or straight looking, it doesn’t matter. If our mind is living in avoidance of the eight worldly dharmas, we’re a pure Dharma practitioner, we have a pure Dharma mind.
It’s definitely possible to live a busy life in the city with a renounced mind. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the perfect example of this. While he is so busy looking after the problems of his people, guiding countless others, teaching almost continuously, his mind is still fully renounced, where not one single action he ever does is meaningless.
Renouncing attachment to the temporal pleasures of this life doesn’t mean not experiencing the happiness of this life. As long as our mind has no thought of clinging to this life, there’s nothing wrong with pleasure.
In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Shantideva said,
Having found by some coincidence
This beneficial state that is so hard to find,
If now while able to discriminate
I once again am led into the hells,Then as though I were hypnotized by a spell
I shall reduce this mind to nothing.
Even I do not know what is causing me confusion,
What is dwelling there inside me.53
So it is our choice whether we want to renounce the cause of suffering or not. Just knowing the words is not enough; it’s necessary to recognize the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas within us.
It’s not a problem to find the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. Our mind is living in it the whole time; we’re always working with it. So first we have to make a scientific experiment and learn how to recognize the evil thought when it arises. If we can’t recognize it, how can we change it into Dharma?
To gradually move toward renunciation we need to be very careful when we encounter the eight objects and try to use whatever Dharma understanding we have to solve the confusion, to not let confusion with the object arise. This is very important. While we’re together with the object, we should try to be conscious of what’s happening. Better still, we should try to see what is about to happen just before the confusion arises. We should be like soldiers setting an ambush. Before encountering an enemy army, they know it’s coming, so they hide and prepare themselves to destroy it before it has a chance to harm them.
This is where introspection is so important. If we can constantly watch our mind and see when the thought of the eight worldly dharmas arises, we can break the habit of clinging to this life. We can take an objective view of what’s happening around us.
For instance, if a football player falls and injures himself, the spectators don’t feel his pain. The player, who was so excited by the match that he thought he was happy, suddenly becomes very unhappy when he’s injured and causes his side to lose. But the spectators don’t share his excitement or unhappiness. They’re just observers outside the actual experience of the match.
It’s the same here. You “the observer” watch you “the doer” doing the actions, getting inflated or deflated by your experiences with external objects. You “the observer” are not involved in all that; you just watch the process. Thinking like this helps you control your mind and not get upset when conditions change. Your mind just watches impassively, not thinking “I want” when an object of attachment is experienced or “I am” when a feeling of happiness arises.
It’s difficult to control the thought of the eight worldly dharmas without maintaining this impassive observer-mind. Without introspection, attachment and aversion can easily arise, flipping the mind out of control again. The teachings are like a mirror for the mind. Just as we use a mirror to check if our face is dirty or clean, the teaching shows us the truth of our life: what our mind is, how it works and whether it’s perfect or imperfect.
No matter how much time we spend studying at university, researching the mind, studying psychology and things like that, it’s extremely difficult to really understand how the mind works until we understand the teachings. Somebody who studies psychology academically doesn’t actually study her own mind; she doesn’t check from her own experience, which is the correct way of doing it. It’s not very helpful just believing a book written about the mind by an author who doesn’t even recognize his or her own problems.
Students who have studied psychology at university for three or four years and then done just a one-month meditation course have told me that they now realize that what they studied at university taught them nothing significant about the mind. Their university years were empty. Psychiatrists, people who are considered guides of the mind, are paid a lot of money for even a few words of advice, yet when they’re asked about the root of the problems such as anxiety, schizophrenia and so forth, they get extremely vague. They can never point out the actual cause of unhappiness. They point to other things. Of course, this is not true of all psychiatrists, but many have little real understanding of the mind, of the cause of happiness and suffering, so it’s extremely difficult for them to really help people and offer lasting solutions to their problems.
If we delay our Dharma practice until we’ve completely cleared all confusion from our mind, we may never reach that point. The only way to treat problems is to work on our mind right now. We need to start countering the thought of the eight worldly dharmas immediately. In that way we can become our own psychologist. We can be the best psychologist. I’m not denigrating Western methods or saying that there’s never any need for external treatment, but most of us can control our own suffering by the power of the mind.
If your problems are too severe and cannot be controlled by the power of the mind alone, then take external treatment, but even then that treatment should be done with the pure thought of avoiding the eight worldly dharmas. Your motivation should be to receive enlightenment, and in order to accomplish that it’s necessary to have a long life. If you undergo treatment with the motivation that has enlightenment as its final goal, then it becomes a very beneficial action.
This is how the great yogis and high Tibetan lamas studied Dharma: listening, checking and trying to understand the subject and actualize it in their mind. First they listened to the subject from somebody experienced, somebody living in the practice who had received teachings from a perfect teacher. Then they tried to understand the meaning, checking up whether it’s like that or not, checking against their own life’s experience. Then, after they had understood the teaching clearly, they meditated on it to actualize it in their mind, to try to make their mind become the path. This is what we should do.
Happiness starts when we renounce this life
The terms “renouncing this life” or “renouncing suffering” both mean renouncing the mind that is the cause of the problems, the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. Therefore “Dharma” includes even pragmatic, transient techniques to stop attachment from arising. This is the actual Dharma, the method that immediately solves our confusion and mental illness. Bringing clarity and lack of confusion to our mind is the best way of bringing happiness to our life. Renouncing suffering doesn’t mean we’ll never have stomach or knee pain, a headache or a cold. It doesn’t mean wishing to be free of all pain but wishing to be free from the very cause of all suffering.
It has been the experience of these great yogis that we don’t have to wait until our future lives to experience this happiness. As soon as we stop the dissatisfied mind, immediately—immediately—there’s the result, happiness.
At first we might be nervous about letting go of desire because we normally equate desire with happiness. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. As soon as we let go of desire we achieve inner peace, satisfaction and happiness; we become independent. Before, we were dictated to and controlled by desire but now we have achieved real freedom.
We can see in the biographies of the great yogis Tilopa, Marpa, Milarepa, Lama Tsongkhapa and many of those other highly realized beings whose holy minds passed into enlightenment how, even without material possessions, they generated great tranquility and peace and through that were able to realize the great achievements of the path. They didn’t have even the scent of the eight worldly dharmas about them but by completely renouncing desire for this life, they received everything—the best reputation, perfect surroundings and sufficient material comfort.
In Milarepa’s Hundred Thousand Songs he often says how renouncing this life’s worldly activities automatically stops all the thousands of problems associated with the worldly life and brings great bliss.
Without any possessions at all, he led an ascetic life in solitary places. Although he lived like an animal, he spent his life in great happiness, his mind always peaceful, without confusion or problems. He didn’t have even one sack of tsampa but lived on nettles alone. Living without food, clothing or reputation didn’t cause him any problems because of his Dharma practice. He achieved all the high realizations and then enlightenment in that one lifetime, all due to the power of his pure Dharma practice of renouncing suffering, renouncing this life. His mind was incomparably happier than that of the king who has great power and many bodyguards, soldiers and weapons.
Therefore, it’s completely wrong to think that Dharma only brings happiness in future lifetimes but not in this one. We experience peace and happiness the very moment we begin to practice and live in the Dharma. We feel its effects immediately.
If we want to enjoy a beautiful apartment, we first have to work to collect lots of money and then put a great deal of time and effort into renovating and decorating it. Worldly actions require a huge amount of energy, yet we can’t be sure whether or not they will bring us any pleasure. Whenever we do Dharma actions, however, we immediately feel the real peace and happiness they bring to our life.
It’s so silly to allow ourselves to feel upset when we don’t get what we want, angry when somebody criticizes us or happy when somebody praises us. It’s so silly to worry about what others think, to discriminate, deciding one thing’s good and another’s bad. If we really examine this we can understand how it’s just our mind projecting and believing its own projections.
Perhaps we feel dissatisfied with our partner and think we can’t be happy until we get another one. When such dissatisfied, unrealistic expectations arise we should see the uncomfortable, uptight mind for what it is and think, “What’s the point in accumulating more negative karma in addition to that which I’ve already collected from the beginningless past? Why make another deposit into my negative karma savings account and create more suffering for myself ?”
With the inner peace that Dharma brings, the subtle wind, which is the vehicle of the mind, no longer gets disturbed and so the four elements of the body—earth, water, fire and air—are in balance. When our elements are in balance we don’t suffer from illness and enjoy good health. First we develop a healthy mind, then our body becomes healthy as a side effect.
There once was a lay yogi, Kharak Gomchung, who contracted leprosy. He was sick for a long time and his family got scared and kicked him out, so his mind was terribly upset. With no family and nobody else to look after him, he thought that he should make his being thrown out beneficial, so he made the strong determination to live by the roadside, recite Chenrezig mantras and beg for food, no matter what happened. He came upon a cave in a rock near a village called Gemo Trong, where he slept that first night. There, he had a dream of a man dressed completely in white putting him on the rock while heavy rain fell, making everything wet. When he awoke he found that all the pus had come out of his sores and made the whole area around him wet. Without the need of medicine, he was completely cured of leprosy by the power of his mind alone—living in the Dharma, renouncing suffering, had overcome that serious disease and brought him happiness in this life. Afterwards he become a great yogi.
We always have what we need
When we renounce attachment we’re never without what we need. Renouncing attachment to friends, we have friends; renouncing attachment to a comfortable environment, we have a comfortable environment. Without making any effort from our own side, when we need something or somebody, it just naturally happens, due to the power of our practice of Dharma.
Kadampa Geshe Shawopa said,54
We seek happiness in this and throughout all lives, and so, as a sign of this, neither crave for anything in your heart nor hoard anything.
When you do not crave for gifts, this is the best gift.
When your do not crave for praise, this is the best praise.
When you do not crave for fame, this is the best fame.
When your do not crave for retinues, this is the best retinue.
Not being attached to gain is the greatest gain. When we’re attached to material pleasure, it’s very hard to get. However, when we have renounced attachment to it, it seems to come naturally without need of much effort. The “greatest gain,” however, isn’t a lot of material possessions but enlightenment, ultimate happiness.
Not desiring reputation is the best reputation. For instance, although all the great pandits, like Milarepa, Lama Tsongkhapa and Shakyamuni Buddha, had completely renounced the desire for a good reputation, they still to this day have such amazing reputations that all sentient beings who just hear their names prostrate and make offerings. We worldly people, on the other hand, spend much money and energy trying to get a good reputation. If we want a high position, like president or something, we have to spend millions and millions of dollars. It’s very difficult to become successful.
The great Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen, who achieved the state of Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom, said that in order to obtain the happiness of this life we must work for the happiness of future lives by practicing Dharma and along the way the happiness of this life will come naturally. When we check up, this is quite obvious. If the worldly dharmas are the source of all our problems, then, of course, the moment we renounce them we’ll achieve happiness. He said,
If you wish to obtain the happiness of this life, practice the holy Dharma. Look at the difference in the perfections of holy beings and thieves.
We have already heard about the Kadampa lama, Geshe Ben Gungyal.55 Before he started practicing Dharma he had a field big enough that he could harvest forty sacks of barley a year, giving him a comfortable living. But despite this rich harvest, he was never satisfied and felt he never had enough and was still too poor. So he used to rob by day, holding up people on the road, and thieve by night, sneaking into people’s houses to steal their things. He had many weapons—knives, arrows and many other kinds—which he carried in his belt, bristling like thorns. Because of his evil lifestyle and annual harvest of forty sacks, people used to call him “forty sins.”
Eventually he gave all that up, completely renouncing the eight worldly dharmas and living in the practice of Dharma. He lived in a hermitage with no material possessions and no fields. Before, when he had everything, it was never enough, but when he lived in the hermitage, renouncing the eight worldly dharmas, he received plenty of food and never wanted for means because of all the offerings people made. He would therefore say, “Before I practiced Dharma my mouth had trouble finding food but now food has trouble finding my mouth.” What he meant was that before, his mouth was never satisfied with what it received, but once he had renounced the eight worldly dharmas he had more food than he could ever eat. This is what Sakya Pandita means by the difference between holy beings and thieves. The holy being is always satisfied but the thief never has enough.
When Geshe Ben Gungyal was living in Penpo there was some trouble. Bandits and looters were everywhere taking things by force and everybody was busy trying to hide their possessions under the ground or in the mountains. People were running from the robbers, full of fear. Ben Gungyal, on the other hand, had no fear. The robes he wore and a clay water pot were his only possessions, so even when he encountered robbers they didn’t bother him because he had nothing to steal. He walked in the streets in a very calm, relaxed way and was surprised that everybody around him was so afraid. He said, “This is the way worldly people hide their possessions; this is the way I hide my possessions.” What he meant by “hiding his possessions” was renouncing the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, so there was no danger of people bothering him.
Thieves are never satisfied. Even if they get things by honest work, it’s never enough, so they think they have to steal. But no matter how much they steal, it’s still never enough. And stealing is negative karma and brings all sorts of other problems as well.
Holy beings are completely the opposite. Every action of their body, speech and mind is done purely to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of mother sentient beings, never for temporal needs. They have no use for temporal pleasures, so, without needing to steal anything, just by the power of pure Dharma practice, they easily receive whatever daily necessities they need.
Geshe Kharak Gomchung, said,
It has never been heard of in the past, nor will it be heard of in the future, that true meditators die of hunger or cold. But meditators on the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas will always have such problems. For them, this will always happen.
True meditators, those avoiding the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas, will only experience peace; false meditators, we worldly beings who live only for the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, will only experience suffering. This is the experience of those great ascetic yogis.
We can see this in the story of Geshe Lama Konchog, who passed away in 2001.56 His incredible life was the result of his Dharma practice and we can only strive to achieve the same thing.
When he and some friends were escaping from Lhasa, Chinese soldiers were on the roads, planes were flying overhead and the army was watching the borders, so it was very dangerous and difficult to escape. Geshe Lama Konchog did a protector puja on the road, causing clouds to gather and snow to fall, and even though the Chinese army vehicles were there in the road, covered by snow, the monks escaped by passing right next to the vehicles. Nobody bothered them.
After he left Tibet, Geshe Lama Konchog lived for many years in Tsum, high in the mountains in the northern Gorkha district of Nepal. Dupo Rinpoche had established a monastery and nunnery there. Tsum is an unbelievably beautiful, inspiring place near Tibet, exactly like it was a hundred years ago. Nothing has degenerated; everything is still pure. The people, their customs, their houses—everything is exactly as it was in olden times.
Geshe Lama Konchog’s cave is near some caves used by the great yogi, Milarepa, and is close to the border. In that place there’s nothing else to think about except Dharma. There’s no business, nothing. This is not a place for the wandering mind, only for Dharma. It’s unbelievable.
The way to the cave is so steep that when I went I had to clamber up using not only my legs but also my hands. The local people, however, are used to it and just walk normally. Geshe Lama Konchog’s cave is totally amazing. His story is totally amazing. Exactly like the Buddha, Geshe Lama Konchog lived an ascetic life in this cave for six years. At such an altitude, perched on that steep cliff without tracks, there was nothing to disturb his meditation. He cut his connection with the people in that area in order to cut the eight worldly dharmas.
I heard that Geshe Lama Konchog was like the poorest beggar in the Tsum area. He wore very torn clothes, not enough even to cover his body. People didn’t know he was living in the cave and when they saw this bedraggled person with very long hair, they were afraid and threw stones at him. The father of one family threw dirt all over Geshe Lama Konchog as he was walking along the road. Things like that happened because people saw only his external appearance and did not recognize that he was a great practitioner. I think the caretaker of the gompa at Kopan Monastery is the uncle or brother of that man and I heard that every time Geshe Lama Konchog saw him he said, “You’re the one who threw dirt on me!” So for that person it’s a little inauspicious.
One day nine strong men came to take away him away, so he went up to another cave for some time and then for two years meditated on a huge rocky mountain under a great tree without any shelter at all. His disciple, Geshe Tenzin Zopa, the former resident teacher at our center in Malaysia, said it was a Hayagriva mountain and tried to show me the tree when we were flying over it, but I missed it.
I think he lived without depending on food, using the chu len technique. For a period of time you take nothing but the “essence,” such as water or flower pills. How long you do the practice is up to the individual, but it’s usually about seven days. If you have achieved “taking the essence,” you can live on the pills after blessing them through the deity method. This allows you to be totally undistracted by things like looking for food and preparing and eating it, things that make you busy. It not only saves you a lot of time but it also brings far fewer physical hardships. You are less tired and have less chance of getting sick. You’re free of the heavy, foggy mind and it’s very easy to meditate; everything is very calm and clear, like calm, clear water. Your body becomes extremely light and when you walk, it feels like you’re flying. There are many benefits. You never get wrinkles and gray hair turns black. Taking the essence has incredible benefits but you need very strong renunciation for your practice to succeed.
Practicing there for six years, he totally renounced the eight worldly dharmas. There’s no doubt that when you sacrifice yourself that much to practice Dharma with that much renunciation, you’ll definitely achieve realizations of lamrim and tantra. The surprising thing is that even though Geshe Lama Konchog lived at Kopan for many years and told Lama Lhundrup and me many stories, we never heard any about how hard he practiced. But there in Tsum we found out what had happened and were really amazed. So, of course, Geshe Lama Konchog had to have had realizations.
After that, Geshe Lama Konchog did many years of practice in a few different caves and during that time did two thousand nyung näs.
Every time his food ran out Geshela had to go to a nearby village to get more. Since this took a lot of time, one day he decided that he would never go to the village again, that when his tsampa had finished, that was it. The day he made that decision he had a dream of his root guru, His Holiness Trijang Rinpoche, who is also my root guru. His Holiness made pak, ate some very blissfully and gave the rest to Geshela. The next day, a man brought Geshela a huge load of tsampa and from that time on he never had to go out to get food. Geshela said that whenever his food was about to finish, somebody would always bring him more. That is the power of renouncing the eight worldly dharmas, of deciding not to go out for food.
Geshe Lama Konchog was somebody who practiced sutra and tantra and really sacrificed his life for others. When he was in his hermitage, as a puja for the long life of His Holiness Trijang Rinpoche, he read the whole Kangyur, more than a hundred volumes, by himself.
He came to Kopan a few times while Lama Yeshe was there. Once when he and I were alone in Lama’s room he told me that he had completed Vajrayogini and Guru Puja. I heard him say that at least twice but I was a little confused about what he meant. One meaning is that you have finished reciting a certain number of mantras; the other is that you have completely realized the particular tantric practice you’re talking about and are therefore enlightened. At the time I thought he was talking about the number of mantras but now I realize it was the other meaning.
From the stories about the benefit he could bring people, about the powerful effect he had on them, it’s obvious that he had realized emptiness and bodhicitta. For example, living high in the mountains in Tsum, many people went crazy. When they got blessing strings, which have a special knot, from other, more famous lamas there, they rarely got better, but when they finally went to Geshe Lama Konchog, who gave them just a simple thread, nothing elaborate, nothing elegant, they recovered. This happened many times due to the power of his practice.
The many stories such as that show that he was great yogi with high tantric realizations, but just by looking at him you wouldn’t have thought it. He really was a hidden yogi. There do exist beings like that who are enlightened but are still in an ordinary body.
Geshe Lama Konchog was also of incredible benefit to Kopan Monastery. He gave the nuns teachings on the preliminary practices and Vajrayogini commentaries. He bore many hardships for Kopan, helping with the fundraising for the buildings and teaching as well. He also taught and guided non-Tibetan students, not only at Kopan but also in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, giving initiations and teachings and doing pujas. He gave his life to me, to the FPMT centers and students and to sentient beings. Even though he had physical problems, he was very heroic in his work for others, whether doing pujas or giving teachings.
One time at Kopan it had been raining and the steps to the old gompa were slippery. There was one square step in front of the Tara statue that was under the bodhi tree. Geshe Lama Konchog slipped and fell very heavily down the steps banging his head on the cement. He felt very happy that it had happened. Why did he feel so happy? Because he immediately thought that he had experienced my life obstacles on himself. That’s what he told me and that’s what made him so happy. Even when things like that happened, that’s the kind of attitude Geshe Lama Konchog normally had.
I’m not exactly sure when Geshela took the aspect of cancer, but it might have been a long time before he died. Even though hot weather didn’t suit him much, since I had asked Geshela to go to Taiwan, Hong Kong and various other hot places to teach for a long time, he still went.
It seems that when he was dying Geshe Lama Konchog was able to recognize the twenty-five absorptions,57 which we’re supposed to meditate on when we do sadhanas in Highest Yoga Tantra practice. A few days before he passed away, Geshela told one of the Kopan geshes that the vision of the mirage and the smoke-like vision were happening. That means he was able to recognize the clear light and all those other things and on the basis of that able to apply the meditations of the Highest Yoga Tantra path.
Geshela remained in meditation for about a week.58 Since he had already done the work by himself during his life, he didn’t need to do powa, transference of consciousness, or anything like that. Powa is only for ordinary people.
I sent guidance about what to do with the body because we had done all that with Lama Yeshe. We didn’t offer fire in an ordinary place where other people’s bodies are burned but behind the hill at Kopan Monastery. Lama Lhundrup told me that when the holy body was offered to the fire, relics jumped out. It is said in the texts that relics come from the holy body of those who have the completion stage realization of clear light.
Geshe Lama Konchog’s incarnation was found in Tsum and is now growing up in Kopan.59 From his face, he seems to have a lot of merit and to be somebody who is going to be very powerful, who will decide everything for himself. Even now, even though he is small, he wants to decide things for himself. I think he will be very dynamic. He is very special. When people ask him questions, he gives advice. In Singapore he gave advice to somebody who was sick, even telling them what time to do the practice. Because of the unbelievable merit collected in his past life, I think there is a great hope that this incarnation will really benefit the world, like the sun shining.
Geshe Lama Konchog did not reincarnate for his own benefit, for his own happiness, but to be of benefit to the world and his students, so that he could again guide his students.
Morality and vows
Thogme Zangpo said,
Even though a person keeps moral conduct with effort, if he is bound by the rope of attachment to material possessions, he won’t achieve the path of liberation. The rope that binds him to this samsaric prison is definitely in the hand of the evil thought.
We might try to lead a moral life and even take vows to refrain from negative actions, but if we’re doing it “with effort” and our mind still naturally moves toward nonvirtue, if we’re “tied by the rope of the eight worldly dharmas,” such as attachment to comfort or reputation, it’s extremely difficult not to slip back into nonvirtue.
For this reason, in order to follow the path to liberation, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha renounced the worldly life. His family was extremely rich—they had many incredible possessions, ruled a vast population and were renowned throughout India. As the future king he had the chance to live a life with every possible object of pleasure, to be with as many princesses as he desired, just like his father. However, he gave everything up—reputation, comfort, incredible luxury—throwing it away like rubbish, not because he was suffering from not having enough, but to be free from hindrances to the path of liberation in order to achieve nirvana. His renunciation was extremely strong, triggered by the danger that he would be tied by the rope of the eight worldly dharmas.
Following his example, at the beginning of their practice, while they’re still in training, great yogis and meditators lead very simple lives. Before they have fully renounced the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, they find being surrounded by desirable objects to be a hindrance because of their uncontrolled mind. So living ascetic lives in solitary places means meditators face less distractions and can make quicker progress on the path.
After they have reached the level where their minds remain undisturbed no matter what objects they encounter, where nothing can become a hindrance to achieving enlightenment, then it doesn’t matter how many worldly objects surround them. Even though they live in a king’s palace with all his possessions, for them it’s like they’re in a cave. It wouldn’t be like that for us. Unable to avoid the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, our mind would be boiling with pride and greed. We’d have no peace at all.
Thus the Buddha taught that the beginner’s mind should be well content with very few possessions. As most work in the lay community is on behalf of the eight worldly dharmas, after ordination, monks and nuns are usually advised to live away from it, in a separate place such as a monastery. Traditionally set away from a city, such an environment is important before their minds get strong enough to cope. It’s a place where they can more easily observe morality and avoid falling under the control of attachment to the comfort of this life. This is the meaning of “monastery” as the Buddha explained it in the sutra teachings.60
The purpose of taking vows such as the pratimoksha (individual liberation), bodhisattva and tantric vows61 is to control greed and attachment. If we want to keep our vows purely, we need to work on our attachment to things, avoid the thought of the eight worldly dharmas and develop a good understanding of samsaric suffering. The vows of the person who doesn’t try to avoid the thought of the eight worldly dharmas are like old torn clothes full of holes.
In the early stages of our development we still have attachment, so we try to keep moral conduct “with effort,” as Thogme Zangpo said. Yet despite our good intentions, we can still find it hard to break our old habits and enter the path to liberation. It all depends on avoiding attachment. That is the root. Generally, when we have no strong mind renouncing this life and little understanding of the nature of suffering, attachment arises easily, making it difficult for us to keep our vows.
Some students become monks or nuns when they go to the East but lose their ordination soon after returning home. This is very understandable. The powerful desire to meditate they had in the East gets lost at home because of the influence of the environment, which makes the thought of the eight worldly dharmas stronger in their minds.
Each set of vows moves our mind further along the path. The individual liberation vows are designed to guard us from wrong conduct. The bodhisattva vows help us avoid self-cherishing and transcend the mind that views things as “mine”—since we’ve dedicated everything we own to others, we cannot possess anything with self-cherishing.
The most subtle practice of all is tantra, in which we observe the tantric vows. Although a much more profound technique and a shortcut to enlightenment, it’s also the most difficult to do. “Shortcut” doesn’t mean easy. We can’t hold the pure view that tantra requires unless we’ve transcended the sense of “me” and “mine,” so tantric practice is founded on the bodhisattva vows, where the self-cherishing thought is overcome. This in turn grows from the basis of renouncing this life, the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. As long as our mind harbors the desire for the comfort of this life, it’s extremely difficult for us to keep the more profound and subtle vows purely.
The power of renouncing the eight worldly dharmas
The wisdom of renouncing the eight worldly dharmas is inestimable; its power is such that we can never finish explaining its value. The more we recognize the Dharma, the more we recognize the infinite, transcendent knowledge of the buddhas. At the same time we discover for ourselves how powerful and precious this practice is. It is more precious than any jewel and there is no danger of its ever being lost or stolen. The more jewels we have, the greater the worry in our mind, the more we think about them—how to use them, protect them and so forth. But the more purely we practice renouncing the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, the more quickly wisdom arises and the sooner we escape from ignorance and the problems associated with worldly concern.
At the time of death, a person living in renunciation of temporal needs definitely avoids rebirth in the three lower realms, unlike somebody who still has attachment, even if that person has great psychic powers. In ancient times there was a Tibetan tantric practitioner who could kill a hundred people with merely a look. However, he had not developed renunciation and was reborn in the hell realms when he died. Anything that does not cut off attachment only keeps us in suffering and cannot guide us to liberation.
There are three powers in dependence upon which we can do miraculous things—the powers of medicine, mantra and the elements—but the practice of renunciation is the safest and strongest power there is for protecting the mind. Many, many past meditators protected themselves by this practice. And as we have seen with the example of Kharak Gomchung, it can even cure leprosy. Although his goal wasn’t to be cured of leprosy, he was cured as a result of his strong determination to always avoid the thought of the eight worldly dharmas.
Renunciation of the eight worldly dharmas is more powerful than an atomic bomb. It might be possible to build a bomb powerful enough to destroy the whole planet and kill everybody on it, but it could not destroy their minds. People die anyway, this entire world system will end one day, but the mind continues, and with it the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. Even without this body and this world, our mind would find another body in another realm and we would meet other enemies. As long as we travel through the six realms behaving like a friend to the inner enemy, there’ll be no end to the outer enemies we’ll have to face.
The atomic bomb of renunciation, however, destroys the fundamental delusion that keeps us circling in samsara, without depending on technology, chemicals or madness. Renouncing the eight worldly dharmas is the energy that allows us to enter the path and eventually carries us to enlightenment. It is the fuel for the rocket we need to give us a quick escape from ignorance and the deluded mind, a direct method of cutting the continuity of bad karma and bringing perfect happiness.
The power of an atomic bomb is tiny and its effect is only negative, whereas the benefits of renunciation are infinite. Shapeless and invisible, this mind has more power than the whole universe and can propel numberless sentient beings to enlightenment.
Equalizing the eight worldly dharmas
As we cut attachment to the four desirable objects, our mind becomes clearer and we stop worrying about meeting the four undesirable objects.
Whatever happens due to changing circumstances, whether we meet the four desirable objects or the four undesirable ones, our mind remains calm, undisturbed, without any great ups and downs.
As a Dharma practitioner we should strive as much as we can to equalize the eight worldly dharmas, totally reversing our attitude toward these eight objects of attachment and aversion. Instead of liking the four desirable objects, we should train to dislike them, and instead of disliking the four undesirable objects, we should train to like them. Then we can start to achieve some sort of equilibrium, where nothing makes any difference to our mind. Comfort and discomfort will be experienced in the same way, as will a good and bad reputation, praise and criticism and so forth.
When we experience an object of desire, we don’t allow our mind to become attached, stopping that sudden high of pleasure that it can bring. When we experience suffering or hardship, we don’t allow our mind to become upset or depressed. Thus, we train to feel equal about whatever object we experience, pleasure or suffering, and in that way neither can disturb our mind.
When there is a pleasant sound such as music, we train to not be attached to it; when there is an unpleasant sound, we train not to have aversion to it. Either way there is no confusion, no disturbance to our mind, no going up and down depending on the object.
In the same way, we train our mind not to be attached when we receive a material object, such as a gift, and to let go and not feel unhappy when we don’t. Neither circumstance bothers us at all; we live in equilibrium. Nor are we attached to praise or averse to criticism, knowing both are nothing more than sound hitting our ears. In that way, no matter which of the eight objects we experience, there is no confusion, no trouble. The renounced mind sees all the objects of its experience as equal, and nothing we encounter can cause negative emotional thoughts to arise.
With such a degree of equanimity, we have a very stable mind and a stable life. Our heart is filled with peace, satisfaction and happiness. Even if the only drink we ever have is water, we’re totally satisfied. Even if all we ever eat is rice and dal,62 we’re totally satisfied.
Rice and dal is the staple Indian food of the poor, but Milarepa, as you probably know, ate only nettles. There was no salt, no chili, no oil—only nettles. One day a thief came to Milarepa’s cave and Milarepa cooked him nettle soup. When the thief asked for some salt and chili to spice the soup, Milarepa put a few more nettles in the pot and said, “This is the salt,” and then a few more and said, “This is the chili.” So there was nothing else, just nettles, yet Milarepa was totally satisfied. His heart was filled with great peace and happiness because his mind had let go of attachments and the emotional, dissatisfied mind.
The great saint Lingrepa said,
In the samsaric superstition city
Runs the zombie of the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas.
That is the most fearful cemetery;
That is where the lama should equalize the points.63
This instruction has great meaning and shows us clearly how to practice Dharma. When he talks of charnel grounds and zombies, he doesn’t mean external cemeteries or external zombies. (I learned the word “zombie” in the 1960s!) We worldly people fear that kind of cemetery but we’re never frightened by the cemetery that is truly terrifying, the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas. This inner cemetery is what we learn to fear when we practice Dharma and this fear gives us the determination to practice more strongly and gain realizations more quickly. If there were no internal cemetery, there’d be no external cemeteries.
Equalizing the points means equalizing the eight worldly dharmas. When the four pairs of opposites are equalized, nothing can disturb us and the sun of the happiness of Dharma can rise in our life. Equalizing the eight worldly dharmas is the fundamental Dharma practice; from that, all the others grow.
Therefore, equalizing the eight worldly dharmas was the fundamental practice of the great yogis such as Milarepa, Gampopa, Lama Tsongkhapa, Naropa, Tilopa and many others. They could use whatever they experienced—pleasure or suffering, gain or loss, good or bad reputation, praise or blame—to make their minds completely equal with the object.
Nothing shook their minds one tiny bit. In the most isolated mountains or the busiest city, they were always at peace. The definition of a yogi is, in fact, exactly this: a person who has equalized his or her mind, feeling neither attachment nor aversion to whatever is experienced. If the objects of the eight worldly dharmas had not been equal in their mind there’s no way they could have been called yogis.
Dromtönpa, who also had abandoned all worldly activities, was once invited to a place called Rong to give money offerings to the monks during puja. Rong is a bit like Solu Khumbu, high in the mountains and a bit hot. They grow bananas and corn there. He called one of his disciples, Pelgye Wangchuk, and said to him, “You go this time. I can’t. I’m here trying to give up this life.”
Dromtönpa was not a monk but took the aspect of a lay person living in the five precepts for the benefit of sentient beings. In visualizations of the lamrim lineage lamas he is visualized as a Tibetan nomad wearing a very warm blue chuba lined with an animal skin. He always wore very old, torn clothes. Sometimes he would throw the sleeves of his chuba over his shoulders and go off into the juniper forest and make a small shelter to meditate in by putting two or three poles together and covering them with animal hide, as Tibetan nomads do. Other Kadampa geshes have explained that Dromtönpa didn’t need to lead an ascetic life for his own sake but did it solely for the sake of his disciples.
While walking through the forest he sometimes recited the verse from Nagarjuna’s Letter to a Friend:
Gain, loss, happiness, unhappiness, fame, notoriety, praise and blame: these eight worldly dharmas are not objects of my mind; they’re all the same to me.64
He would also recite from A Guide to a Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:
I who am striving for freedom
Do not need to be bound by material gain and honor.
So why should I be angry
With those who free me from this bondage?65
While he was reciting it he would shake his head from side to side, indicating that he didn’t need to be bound by receiving material things and respect. Similarly, Geshe Chengawa equalized the eight worldly dharmas by reciting this verse:
Being happy when life is comfortable and unhappy when it is uncomfortable:
All activities for the happiness of this life should be abandoned as poison.
Virtue and nonvirtue are functions only of the mind.
Cut off nonvirtuous motivations and those motivations that are neither virtuous nor nonvirtuous.
The latter refers to actions with indeterminate or variable motivation; these are termed “unpredictable” actions.
Just saying the words or having the wish for a stable life has no effect on destroying our attachment to worldly pleasures. We need to use whatever techniques work for us to actualize this. If we understand and use these techniques, the eight worldly dharmas can actually help us rather than become the cause of suffering; they can bring energy to our Dharma practice rather than rob us of it.
It might seem to you that I have placed too much emphasis on the suffering that the thought of the eight worldly dharmas brings us and not enough on its antidote, but the whole of the Dharma is its antidote. Every Dharma activity we do acts as an antidote to the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. All meditations on the graduated path to enlightenment help us diminish and destroy our attachment and thus help us destroy all our delusions.
Seeing problems as positive
There are many different ways of using the objects of the eight worldly dharmas, depending on the practitioner. Tantric practitioners use them in tantric practice, those following the bodhisattva path use them to generate bodhicitta and those trying to achieve the cessation of samsara use them to destroy their delusions.
For worldly people the confusion caused by suffering only brings more suffering and confusion, but as Dharma practitioners we have the opportunity of making suffering extremely beneficial by using it to cut confusion rather than to create it. In order to achieve enlightenment we have to experience both physical and mental difficulties, but bearing such difficulties is incredibly worthwhile because by doing so we reach a state where all suffering ceases forever. As we progress along the path to enlightenment, problems become fewer and fewer and therefore whatever we experience at this time only helps to bring about the end of the suffering that has no beginning.
We can learn to see a person who criticizes or harms us as incredibly precious and valuable.66 Because that person truly helps us destroy our worldly concerns and self-cherishing thought, he is worth more than mountains of gold and diamonds. Worlds filled with gold and diamonds can’t bring us real peace; only destroying the self-cherishing attitude can, which is exactly what somebody who harms us allows us to do. In that way, he is like a guru and we should treat him as more precious than our own life.
One of my teachers, the first teacher to teach me the debating subjects in India, was Geshe Rabten Rinpoche, who later lived in Switzerland and started a monastery there. If any person or lama ever criticized him he would invite that person over to his house and give him a special lunch of momos and take special care of him to thank him for his help.
One day when Gen Jampa Wangdu returned to his place he discovered that a robber had stolen a clock that somebody had offered him. He was immediately very happy that the robber now had a new clock. That sentient being had wanted something, had been able to get it and had therefore experienced a certain degree of happiness. This is what made Genla happy. Due to his realization of bodhicitta, he felt completely equal with others; to him, others’ happiness was the same as his own.
Another example of training the mind to cut the thought of the eight worldly dharmas is the great Italian saint, St. Francis of Assisi. Preferring criticism to praise, he asked his disciples to criticize him, something his disciples would never think of doing. He especially asked them to keep telling him he had done so many evil things that he would go to hell and so forth. His disciples, however, could see only the good in him and nothing at all to criticize. In that way, great meditators train themselves to like misfortune and, by transforming their minds, come to know great happiness.
When we are trying to control our mind we can start to recognize that bad conditions are times when we can really transform our mind. There are many ways of thinking about a problem. We can see criticism, for instance, as the result of some previous negative karma that we have created. Then we can feel that there is nothing to be upset about because actually the result of that negative karma is finishing and we won’t have to experience it in the future. Thinking like this changes our mind. We worry less and are happy to be finishing that particular negative karma.
We can also train ourselves to feel that the problem is the result of negative karma that we have created in the past by harming another being and therefore determine that in future we are going to be careful not to let that happen again, to not submit to this evil thought, our one enemy, and to try to subdue it as much as possible.
The actual problem is not the situation itself; it’s our clinging to the four desirable objects. We have to realize the shortcomings of these four desirable objects and abandon clinging to them. This is the basic psychology. If we use this method, undesirable situations will no longer disturb us.
When somebody praises us or when we hear that we have a good reputation, we can reflect on its shortcomings. A wise meditator knows that there’s nothing beneficial in having a good reputation because we become attached to it and pride follows. We start to believe that we’re really important and famous and many other delusions arise because of that.
On the other hand, there’s nothing bad about criticism. It’s very good to be criticized because it stops delusions such as attachment or pride from arising. Criticism points out faults that we’re currently unaware of, allowing us to confront and correct them. Meditators usually say that they’re not happy when they’re being praised and much prefer to be criticized.
In the same way, rather than upsetting us, not receiving a birthday present from a friend can cause us to confront and avert our attachment. We can think how fantastic it is that that person didn’t give us anything. If she had, attachment would arise, we’d become more conditioned to receiving presents, more under the control of the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, more unable to not create negative karma and more likely to eventually be reborn in the suffering lower realms. By not bringing us a present our friend saved us from all that. She really, truly is our dearest and best Dharma helper.
Reflecting like this—seeing that meeting unfavorable conditions is not, in fact, a problem—is the complete opposite of how attachment sees the situation. Before, under the control of attachment, we were incredibly angry with the person who “harmed” us but now, thinking the complete opposite, that uncomfortable mind—that schizophrenic, nervous, unhappy mind—instantly disappears and we have a good feeling for that person.
The best way to train our mind in equalizing the eight worldly dharmas is to expect to be criticized, expect to be disrespected, rather than the opposite. That’s the psychology. Then, no matter what actually happens, we’re ready and there’s no shock. It cannot harm our mind.
The happiness we seem to get from the four desirable objects is false. It disturbs our mind and interferes with our search for true happiness. Understanding this becomes a great protection, and seeing how meeting unfavorable conditions is a time when we can truly grow, we can develop a mind that actually likes problems. By overcoming our dislike for the four undesirable objects we can complete all the realizations, cease all the obscurations and eventually attain enlightenment.
In this way, no matter what happens, we’re able to maintain a continual Dharma practice. Nothing can interfere with it. Even if we’re just starting our practice and don’t yet accept reincarnation, by controlling attachment our mind can always remain undisturbed. Perhaps we don’t even consider ourselves to be a Buddhist, but if we use this practice when conditions change—when we lose friends, find friends, whatever—our mind will remain peaceful, in balance, undisturbed. Just as a rider’s peaceful nature calms her horse, so the elements of our body will also be undisturbed and we will enjoy much better health, with little risk of high blood pressure or a heart attack.
As the great bodhisattva Shantideva said, we can use any problems we have in life to generate compassion for others. People who have AIDS or cancer feel very strongly for others who have the same disease. Because they’re experiencing the same problem themselves, they’re able to recognize how unbearable it is for others and therefore strong compassion naturally arises. In that way, the suffering we feel is very useful.
Just as a broom sweeps away dirt, illness and other problems are the broom that sweeps away past negative karmas and obscurations. If we have a guru from whom we’ve received teachings, we should think that the problems we experience are his blessing to purify our negative karma.
Attachment is created by the mind and does not truly exist
We can also think that any problems we experience are a manifestation of emptiness. Our body and mind are causative, impermanent phenomena, yet we instinctively see them as independent and permanent. Because of that we mistake transient samsaric pleasures as real happiness and the impure body as pure, causing attachment to arise. Our wrong conception that the eight worldly dharmas bring happiness is rooted in our sense that we and they truly exist, that everything is real and exists from its own side.
Our own mind creates life’s problems. Our mind creates them, labels them and then believes they are real. We can see this very clearly when we thoroughly investigate it. Both attachment to the four desirable objects and worry and fear about meeting the four undesirable objects are superstitions created by our mind.
If practicing Dharma seems difficult to us, if we seem to have no time to practice, it is precisely because the obstacles we face seem to be real and permanent. But neither the obstacles nor the eight worldly dharmas truly exist. If they did there would be no way we could transform them. In fact, nobody would ever have been able to transform the mind of attachment into the mind of Dharma and nobody would ever have renounced this life. Nobody would have time to practice Dharma. But lack of time is not an intrinsic product of time itself; it is a concept of our own mind.
If we could realize the nature of the I—that it does not truly exist—then there would be no way for attachment to the four desirable objects to arise, nor would there be any way for aversion to the four undesirable objects to arise. Seeing how things actually exist, comfort and discomfort and the other worldly pairs can be seen for what they are and our mind can remain untroubled, no matter what it experiences.
Understanding emptiness is the best way of taking care of ourselves because it cuts the root of suffering. And there is no question that it leads to bodhicitta and enlightenment. What better practice is there than this? What else do we need?
Meditations
Meditation on letting go of clinging to the body
The thought of the eight worldly dharmas arises particularly strongly when we’re in a relationship with another person. At that time our mind is extremely confused, totally under the control of the eight worldly dharmas. There is too much clinging to the body and, because of that, many problems arise.
A good way of controlling such attachment is to meditate on the body of the person to whom you’re attached. This is called “mindfulness of the body” and comes from the sutra teachings. If the person is in front of you, the meditation is very easy to do; you don’t have to visualize. However, even if the person is in another country, you can examine his or her body.
At the beginning, visualize that person’s body and consider whether it’s as beautiful or handsome as your mind makes it seem or whether your mind has in some way exaggerated its qualities. If you’re honest, you will see that your attachment has exaggerated the beauty of that body. Secondly, you believe in absolute beauty. After your mind has imputed this exaggerated beauty onto the body, it believes that that beauty is real and absolute. This is how it appears to your mind. Then your mind creates more and more reasons, more and more commentaries on why this body is absolutely beautiful—because of the hair, because of the nose and so forth—and you completely believe it. You really think that that beauty is intrinsically there.
There is a body there but does it really exist as it appears to you? It exists like this but to you it appears like that. Then you believe in that unreal appearance and attachment develops. Your mind becomes very confused, very unpeaceful. Check up. Actually, in reality, is there a real, absolute—and beautiful or handsome—body as you see it?
Break the body down. Check inside beneath the skin: the skeleton and so forth. From the head down to the feet, check inside. Now you are seeing the reality, the essence that is inside, the skeleton. The head is a skull of bone with big holes for the eyes and a long one for the mouth. The neck is bones piled up, one on top of the other. There are very tiny bones and big ones, there are the backbone and the ribs, the long bones wrapped around the front. Then the thighs and the legs and the feet. Lots of holes, lots of different sized bones. Visualize and meditate on the whole skeleton as clearly as you can. You cannot find the absolute existence of the beautiful body. Not inside one single bone can you find it.
Then, after the skeleton, visualize the organs. Start with the brain. It’s a little bit like a football, with lots of squiggles on it like a map. Is the brain the real, intrinsic, beautiful body? Then work through the other organs, the heart, the lungs, the kidney, the liver and so forth, right down to the feet. Is there a real, intrinsic beautiful body there? You cannot find it. There’s nothing to cling to.
You might argue that there is something there from the body’s side, some real beauty. There is definitely something there. But check up. There is no real beauty, not in the skeleton, not in the flesh or the organs, not in the blood.
Maybe it’s the skin. The only thing left is the skin. That’s what you see when you look at the body, so maybe the real beauty is from the side of the skin. Therefore, take off the skin, peel it off the rest of the body and put it some other place. Separated from the rest of the body, what does it look like? Is that the real beauty that you so strongly believe in? Check. All that skin is kind of like a skirt left there in a pile on the ground. On the skin there is no object to cling to. So now, that absolute beauty is completely lost. The real, absolute beautiful object, where it is? It’s nowhere.
Before, when it was all collected together—bones, flesh, organs and everything all wrapped in skin—there seemed to be some beauty there but when you take it apart you can’t find that beauty anywhere.
So then even the beautiful-looking skin is just a formation of atoms. Spread those atoms all over the place, like sand grains. Visualize that they’re scattered everywhere. Then where is that real, absolute, existent beauty? Check. You cannot find it. It’s just skin—a collection of atoms that have come together. Put them together in another way and they will make other shapes—vases, pots, bricks and so forth—but here they make skin. That’s all.
Concentrate on that. When your mind is confused and you’re about to go crazy because your attachment isn’t getting what it wants, this meditation really is the best medicine. Right away, as you meditate on this, your incredibly painful attachment goes away. Your mind becomes peaceful and relaxed. This is such an effective meditation.
Meditating on the lack of true existence of the object
A more advanced technique to attack the thought of the eight worldly dharmas is to check the nature of the object of desire to see that it is not self-existent, not intrinsically attractive. If you can see the emptiness of the self-existence of the object, there is no way for attachment to arise, because while you have that understanding of emptiness your view has changed. You see the object as it actually exists, not as your attachment believes it to exist. You see that the beauty was only a projection of attachment and does not exist anywhere. To check like this, you need the skill to analyze in this way, to be able to distinguish between what doesn’t exist—the wrong conception of a self-existent object and a self-existent beauty—and what does exist—the object that is completely devoid of self-existence. In short, you need a degree of wisdom that understands emptiness to use this method.
Say you are attached to music. You can meditate on the beauty of the music you like in the same way. As you’re listening to the beautiful music, ask yourself if it really exists as you think it exists. If not, how does it exist? Checking like this is also useful to diminish and eliminate attachment and to realize the true nature of the sound. For instance, if a person is playing a guitar, does the sound exist on the guitar—on its body or neck, on one of the strings, on all of the strings—or on the person playing? Does it exist on the person’s hands or fingers? Such analysis is very useful.
Another method you can use when there is the danger of attachment arising is to think like this. The beautiful music or pleasing words are like an echo bouncing back from a cliff. If somebody makes a noise in front of a cliff, because of the sound waves and the shape of the cliff, that sound comes back as an echo. It happens due to all these conditions coming together. Actually, there is no echo that exists by itself, that exists independently, without depending on the rock, the person making the noise and the elements, the wind, the air. An echo that exists separately without relating to any of these conditions is meaningless. Because it is meaningless, there is nothing to be attached to. And so it is the same thing with pleasing sounds such as music or praise; the sounds are like the echo.
And if you hear words that make you feel that you are wonderful, like praise, check where that wonderfulness comes from. For instance, the other person tells you, “You’re very wise and intelligent.” You believe the words he says actually exist and you believe your feelings about them actually exist. But investigate. Check where they exist. They don’t exist on you, on him, anywhere. This wrong belief brings confusion to your mind. Think how the words to which you’re so attached are simply a creation of the tongue, the palate, the movement of air—nothing more. “You’re very wise” is merely sound, so what is the point of being attached to it? Isn’t that funny? There’s nothing other than the movement of air hitting your eardrums but you get so attached to it.
Notes
50 Aku is a honorific, meaning “uncle.” See The Lawudo Lama, pp. 140–42. [Return to text]
51 One of the first FPMT centers. It was in Cumbria, north England, and operated between 1976 and 1983. [Return to text]
52 See more on the chu len practice in the section on Geshe Lama Konchog, p. 148 ff. See also LamaYeshe.com for Lama Yeshe’s Taking the Essence teaching. [Return to text]
53 Ch. 4, vv. 26, 27. [Return to text]
54 From The Book of Kadam, pp. 597–98. [Return to text]
55 See also p. 119. This story is quoted in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 297, as well. [Return to text]
56 For a more extensive version of this story, see Teachings from the Medicine Buddha Retreat, pp. 59–72. [Return to text]
57 The signs that come to a dying person. A great meditator can stay in meditation through each absorption and be aware of what is happening. See Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism. [Return to text]
58 Great meditators will remain in meditation on the clear light, sitting upright for days or even weeks after their breathing has stopped, until they feel it is time for their mind to leave the body. [Return to text]
59 For the story of finding Geshe Lama Konchog’s reincarnation, see the documentary The Unmistaken Child (on DVD from Oscilloscope Productions, 2009). [Return to text]
60 The Tibetan word for monastery is dgon pa and has the connotation of a remote solitary place at least two miles (one gyang trag, “range of hearing”) away from any town or village; wilderness, hermitage, retreat. [Return to text]
61 These are generally seen as the three levels of vows both lay and ordained people can take. The pratimoksha, or individual liberation, vows are restraints on physical and verbal actions; the bodhisattva vows are restraints on incorrect thought, especially self-cherishing; and the tantric vows are restraints on impure view. Although some commentators say the latter two can be taken without the pratimoksha vows, most, including Lama Tsongkhapa, state quite strongly they are a prerequisite. [Return to text]
62 Dal is a preparation of pulses (dried lentils, peas or beans) stripped of their outer husks and split and cooked into a stew or soup. [Return to text]
63 This is Rinpoche’s translation. It is translated in Liberation in Our Hands, Part Two, p. 106, as: "The zombie of the eight worldly dharmas wanders in samsara’s city of thoughts. There’s your terrifying cemetery. Guru, practice equanimity there." See also Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 297. [Return to text]
64 Letter to a Friend, v. 29. Also quoted in The Door to Satisfaction, p. 36. There is a similar quote in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 296. [Return to text]
65 Ch. 6, v. 100. [Return to text]
66 This subject, seeing those who criticize us as precious, is covered in The Door to Satisfaction, pp. 112–15. It is also extensively covered in Rinpoche’s lojong (mind training) discourses, including the book Transforming Problems Into Happiness. [Return to text]