Essential Education: The Heart of Wisdom

First, I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart any Sangha here—the resident teachers, the geshes and the students and all my brothers and sisters gathered here—saying how much I appreciate how you have helped actualize Essential Education, the heart of wisdom, to make it most beneficial for this world and for all living beings.  

Why I say this is for all living beings is because the main aim of this essential wisdom is to open the heart, to generate a good heart, the thought of loving kindness and compassion, the precious thought of benefiting others. 
 
With Essential Education, we can of course understand that it is not just for the benefit of this life, not just to bring peace and happiness in this life, but once it is developed, it will benefit every individual being from life to life. 
 
Even though the body disintegrates, its continuity ceasing with death, the continuity of the mind does not stop; there is always the continuity of consciousness. The body and mind are two totally different phenomena. The body is something physical; it is a substantial phenomenon with form and color, whereas the mind is totally the opposite. It is formless, non-substantial, but its nature is clear, with the ability to perceive objects. 
 
How we use our own mind in this life—whether in a negative or positive way, with impatience and selfishness or with patience and good-heartedness—the effects continue into our future lives. After this life, the mind continues and the effects of our good heart and positive nature continue from life to life. It becomes the foundation for the peace and happiness of all our inconceivable future lives. And it’s something that we can develop from life to life. The good qualities that we develop in this life can also be developed in future lives. 
 
With the positive imprints we leave on our mind by our positive attitude and the positive actions we do because of them, we stop harming others, in both this life and future lives. When we no longer harm others, they receive peace and happiness. Not only that, on the basis of no longer harming others, we benefit others with this positive thought, we bring happiness to others and not only in this life. We bring happiness to others, first of all to ourselves, then to our own family, to our neighbors, to the people around us in the office or at home, to the people in our country and to the whole world. And we bring happiness not only to human beings but even to animals, those other living beings that we see in the road or the countryside, wherever we live. 
 
For example, recently in Arizona, His Holiness the Dalai Lama mentioned during the few days of the teachings he did there that if one human being generates a good heart, one human being, that brings so much peace and happiness to people and even to animals. Of course, if that person stops fishing, they no longer harm those other sentient beings, the fish. If that one person didn’t generate a good heart, they could spend their whole life fishing. Then, how many fish and other sentient beings would they kill? Even if they didn’t kill human beings, by hunting and so forth, they would still kill so many other sentient beings for food and pleasure. On the other hand, if that person generated a good heart, they would stop harming others, even animals—the many insects like mosquitoes, the many fish and the many big and small animals. Because those animal sentient beings are no longer harmed by that person, they receive so much peace and happiness. 
 
That’s a really incredible thought, how one human being generating a good heart can bring so much peace and happiness to the world, not only other to human beings but to the numberless sentient beings. That’s unbelievable.  
If we think extensively like that, we can see that when one person, whether they’re a child or an elderly person, comes to learn universal essential wisdom or heart wisdom, it’s amazing what happens when they generate a good heart. They can bring so much peace and happiness to human beings and other living beings, so much peace and happiness in this world. 
 
As I was saying before, this good heart continues from life to life, for all the future lives. Because the mind is trained in this, there is continuity; it goes on. So, from life to life, in all our future lives, we are able to bring so much peace and happiness to numberless sentient beings. 
 
To eliminate all our negativities entirely, of course, we must complete the whole path that directly eliminates not just our gross negative emotions but also our negative karmic imprints, and that allows us to develop the wisdom that realizes the ultimate nature of the self and all phenomena. When we realize the ultimate nature of mind, with that wisdom we have power to remove the cause of suffering, which is completely within us.
 
We can definitely achieve liberation, the everlasting happiness that is the total cessation of all suffering, free forever from those negative emotional thoughts, free forever from negative actions and all the problems that are their results, free from death and, because of that, free from rebirth, old age, sicknesses and all the other sufferings. 
 
One of the most fundamental and heaviest sufferings is dissatisfaction. That first of all means the suffering of being unable to find the object of desire. Then, even if we find it, another suffering immediately begins. Even when we have the object of desire, we still can’t achieve satisfaction; we’re still not happy. Desire opens the door to many, many problems, like the branches that spread from the trunk of a tree. This is what happens when there is desire in our life: worries, fears, separating from desirable objects and meeting undesirable objects. 
 
We can free ourselves from all sufferings forever by developing the ultimate wisdom that realizes emptiness, the ultimate nature of the self and the aggregates such as the mind and so forth. When that happens, we naturally develop compassion for all living beings. Possessed by this wisdom, we develop not only compassion but great compassion, the compassion that extends to every living being without exception. 
 
When we cease even the subtle defilements, the subtle negative imprints left on the mind, we can achieve peerless happiness, great liberation. This mental continuum we now have can achieve that. That is the proof that any attachment we now have is temporary; it’s not forever. 
 
Even without meditation, our attachment for an object will cease. And in the same way, there might be an object or a person we really hate, but even without meditation, after some time that anger will cease and that object will no longer be an object of our anger. That person we hated will seem OK. They don’t last forever as an object of hatred. In this life and in all the coming lives, the objects of desire, the objects of anger, the objects of envy and so forth don’t remain like that forever.   

Using psychology or meditation, by developing compassion for that person we were angry with, they become our most cherished object. They become the dearest object of our compassion and loving kindness, the one that is most precious in our heart, even though before they were the object we hated so much. Through psychology or meditation, we can do that. 
 
And it’s the same with an object of attachment. Our desire is so painful that we cannot stand to be separated from them for even an hour or a minute. Then, through psychology or meditation, we can be free from that pain. Whether that object of attachment, that person, is far away or near, there is no longer that emotional pain. There is peace in our heart, satisfaction.  

Using profound psychology or meditation, if we do the practice, if we put effort into changing our mind, we can definitely overcome the negative emotional thoughts, the cause of suffering. We can even remove the subtle negative imprints left on our mental continuum. They can definitely be removed. This is something we can prove from our daily experiences.