[Note: the transcript starts at 1:40 of the second video, above.] 

Until we are free from samsara, we are going to be in these relationships with all these sentient beings. The brother, husband, wife or children who died are all going to be in different relationships with us in different lives. Of course, the body will not be the same—there will be a different body, but the continuity of the mind is the same. The body will change, so if we are expecting only that body, if we are not thinking of the mind, only that body, then we will never see that person in that body. But the mind will take a different body, so we will meet again until we are free from samsara. I don’t know when. It is difficult to see the end, when we will become free from samsara. So we will meet like this, as dogs, cats, snakes or whatever pet we are keeping, depending on our past karma.

Reality is like this. Because there is no understanding of karma or reincarnation, there is unbelievable worry. We destroy the one precious human rebirth we have and we don’t do anything to benefit others. We have so much worry in our life, then it’s finished, so it’s not useful for ourselves or other people. Through reincarnation, we meet again and again and again, but not in the same body.

You know the story of Shariputra, who went out for alms and saw a family. He saw that the man’s father used to catch fish from the pond at the back of the house and eat them. After he died, he was born as a fish in the pond, then the son caught the fish and was actually eating his father. The mother was attached to the home, so she died with that attachment and was born as a dog in the house. The dog was waiting in front of the son to get the meat and the bones from the fish, and the son was beating the dog, which had been his mother, with a stick. His enemy was attached to his son’s wife, so after he died, he was born as her child. The son’s wife was carrying the enemy, her child, in her lap. So the relationships completely changed.

That is why we say all sentient beings—even our enemy, ants and even tiny insects which we can only see through a microscope—have all been our father, mother, brother. Although some children are close to the father, generally speaking they are closer to the mother. The mother spends the most time with the child, looking after the child, even cleaning its kaka and pipi. Even though sentient beings have been our father, brother, sister and enemy, the mother, the mother sentient being, is the closest, the kindest. She has spent the most time doing everything for her child—taking care of it, bearing hardships, giving her body from beginningless rebirth, especially the precious human body, and saving the child’s life from dangers. The mother bears unbelievable hardships.

If we have a good heart, compassion, then taking care of a sentient being becomes Dharma. We have this precious human rebirth about one time and we are able to take care of one sentient being, freeing it from problems. We are able to use our body and mind at least to take care of one sentient being. That is good if we have love without attachment, and we are not taking care of the child for our happiness, having the child for our happiness.

For some people it may be different, to benefit the world, to benefit others. But mostly, we have a child for our happiness; for the child to marry, for our happiness. The goal is our happiness. Even when we are doing something for the child, it is for our happiness, the self-cherishing thought. That is why there are so many problems. That itself is suffering. That leads to many problems. Living life, family life and relationships, with that attitude of “me, my happiness,” we create problems like roots—like many, many roots, many branches of a tree—problems here, problems there.

The self-cherishing mind comes from the root of samsara, ignorance. Our entire life is just suffering, a hallucination, and we die with nothing worthwhile. For those who practice Dharma, who understand Dharma, then it is something worthwhile. Otherwise, our life is suffering, with deluded view, and when the person, the body, is gone, finished, we go back to the lower realms, back to where we came from. We go back again.

People in the world just think there is only one life. Take somebody who savors the comfort of this life with so much clinging and grasping, until something disturbing happens. Using the example of family members who died, there is unbelievable discomfort and pain. We want to commit suicide; we want to die. We don’t know what to do, because we think there is no reincarnation or karma, and we can’t see the person again. We lost the object of attachment. It becomes a big problem, a huge unnecessary problem.

When we don’t have attachment, a grasping mind; when we don’t have the object of that grasping mind, we have no worry, no depression. Because we have no attachment, there is no depression. We don’t go and see many psychologists, another and another, and build up debt. Sorry, if there are any psychologists here! Of course we can do psychology with compassion, with a good heart towards sentient beings. When there is no attachment our mind is completely in great peace and relaxed. There is no obstacle to our mind, no depression, no sadness. The mind is in great peace.

We grasp so much at reputation, then when we don’t have [a good] reputation or we have a bad reputation, the stronger the grasping and attachment to reputation, we worry so much. When we don’t have attachment to reputation, we don’t worry about good or bad reputation. We don’t have attachment, a grasping mind, so our mind has great peace. It is very much related to dependent arising.

Similarly, when somebody praises you, saying, “You are so wonderful, so wise, so kind,” you give him a banana. You give him a durian, thinking, “Wow, he is unbelievably kind!” When somebody praises you, so much attachment arises. You get so depressed and upset when somebody is not praising you; there is so much worry and fear if the person doesn’t praise you. For example, you give a glass of water to someone, thinking that the person will do something nice for you or say something nice to you. Then the person doesn’t thank you; doesn’t even say, “Thank you, you are so kind”; he doesn’t even say “thank you”. Wahhh, you become mad!

Once in Dharamsala, as I was going down to Dalhousie School, I met a monk who was wearing yellow robes coming down the road. He saluted me, but I didn’t do anything. I should have done something similar, but I didn’t. I was bad! That monk came all the way back up the road to me to say, “I did like this [salute] but you didn’t respond.” He came all the way back, so I said sorry.

When somebody doesn’t praise us, we get so mad. There is so much attachment to somebody giving us presents, birthday or Christmas presents; maybe a birthday present is more important. Then so much worry, wow, wow, wow, when there is no giving, no present.

The reality is that both are suffering, because of attachment. The nature of that attachment is not awakening, it is not freeing the mind. That attachment is obscuring your mind. There is so much pain and sickness of attachment. It is the same when we are attached to somebody, a friend. We can see pain in attachment. When we see the person or when we don’t see the person, there is so much pain from attachment. We can see how that is deluding our mind. Attachment obscures the mind from seeing the nature of impermanence—how things are changing each second, due to causes and conditions. It obscures the mind and we grasp at the person as permanent. It also obscures from seeing how the person is empty of true existence. Through checking, we can see how the nature of attachment is delusion. When there is attachment to an object, we don’t see that it doesn’t exist from its own side; that it’s empty from its own side; that it is empty of true existence. It obscures seeing the ultimate nature. When somebody takes away the object through attachment, we become angry, so the delusion of the mind comes.

The whole life, busy with attachment and anger, is like an elephant caught in a quagmire. It cannot get out, it is completely caught in a quagmire of mud. Life is like that, we are completely caught in the quagmire of attachment and anger, like a hallucination.

Therefore, if we are really practicing Dharma, we can cut attachment and be totally free. As much Dharma as we practice, the less attachment is possible. Even though problems, worries and fears are not completely cut off, they become much less in our life. Therefore, there is much peace in our heart; there is great peace, because we are living our life in Dharma without attachment. Even when death comes, any time, we die in great peace. We have no worries, nothing.

Before developing bodhicitta, we have to have preliminary renunciation of samsara. Before renunciation of samsara in the next life, we need renunciation to this life. The mind has to be living in Dharma, otherwise we can’t have bodhicitta. Without renunciation, we can’t have bodhicitta. We can’t jump ahead, thinking, “Oh, I don’t have renunciation, but I will jump.”

Many people do meditation, but they don’t like renunciation. The more we meditate, the more we learn Dharma, the more we see our suffering, samsaric suffering, then it’s so easy to generate compassion for others, who have been suffering since beginningless rebirth just like us. The more we see our own suffering, the easier it is to develop compassion for others. It is so much easier to develop bodhicitta, so much easier to enter the Mahayana path, so much easier to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, so much easier to enlighten sentient beings.

Many people don’t like renunciation, only bodhicitta. They have no chance to develop deep compassion for others, to see others suffering—to see different beings in the desire realm, form realm, formless realm with so much suffering. Bodhicitta is just like tsampa, the flour made from grain and sprinkled on top of water, which just can’t generate great compassion, because it’s very shallow. We talk about bodhicitta or we try to practice bodhicitta but it’s very shallow. It doesn’t last and soon we will meet problems with people; we will have problems developing compassion and problems with the ego.

Many times, we may want to help others, but when we actually engage in the work, so many problems, so many ego and personality problems, so much self-cherishing comes up. Then working for sentient beings becomes difficult. At the beginning we want to help; we think, “Yes, that is good,” but when we do the actual work it is not deep. There is no compassion.

The solution is to be free from the cause of suffering, delusion and karma. We can do that because this mind of ours has all the potential to be free from the oceans of samsaric suffering, including the cause—delusion and karma. The mind has all the power to be fully awakened, and not only to be free from disturbing-thought obscurations, but even from subtle obscurations, totally free, to become sang-gye, the fully developed omniscient mind. The mind has all the power to become that, to achieve the true cessation of suffering, nirvana, the blissful state of peace for oneself. That is because there is a true path which we can achieve—the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, which directly ceases the delusions, the gross, the more subtle and the most subtle.

In Buddhism, by knowing karma we have total freedom. By learning karma, by understanding karma, we have total freedom in what we can do. The conclusion is that hell comes from the unsubdued mind and enlightenment comes from the subdued mind. Our samsara came from the unsubdued mind, the three poisonous minds. Nirvana comes from the subdued mind, which is the opposite of the three poisonous minds. Happiness comes from our positive virtuous mind, Dharma. Suffering comes from our negative unsubdued mind.

In Buddhism we have total freedom to not be reborn in hell, to achieve enlightenment; to not be in samsara, to achieve nirvana; to not experience suffering, to experience happiness; and in the future, to not be reborn in the lower realms, to be reborn in pure lands; to achieve a perfect human rebirth, a higher rebirth; to achieve enlightenment by using this human body as a boat, a ship to cross a river, to cross to the other side, to achieve enlightenment.

We have total freedom in Buddhism. By knowing reincarnation, karma, we have total freedom. It is up to us. What we do now depends on how we use our mind, what we do with our mind. Our mind is everything. A subdued mind brings all the positive things up to enlightenment, but an unsubdued mind brings all the sufferings to go to the lower realms. Knowing this, there is much freedom and happiness.