Lecture 1
PRACTICING DHARMA
I’m very happy to meet all of you again this time, those I’ve met numberless times in this life and also other lives. And those who’ve come here for the first time and those who’ve been here before, or I’ve met in other places. To be able to meet again together here, in this hall in Kopan—especially in this five-star gompa. Before it was a one-star gompa, now this is a five-star gompa! A five-star meditation hall. Maybe the previous one was a one-star or a half-star meditation hall but now this is a five-star or maybe a six-star meditation hall.
What we are going to do during this time is to realize how precious this human body that we have received is, how precious this body we have at this time is. To realize this, and how fortunate we are. The whole point is to make this precious human rebirth that we have at this time most meaningful, most beneficial. Most beneficial, but for whom? Beneficial for ourselves or for other sentient beings? If our life becomes most beneficial for others, even to one sentient being, it becomes most beneficial for ourselves. To make this life most beneficial is to make it most beneficial for all the sentient beings.
What we’re going to try is something new. It’s not something that we’ve done numberless times, repeating over and over. Normally we do things with the hope, with the expectation, to get satisfaction, but the result is only dissatisfaction, the result is only problems. During this time what we’re going to do is recognize that these kinds of things that we’ve done numberless times haven’t helped. Leaving aside freeing us from all the entire problems and causes, they haven’t even given us any satisfaction, any inner peace. We have to recognize this and we have to analyze it, to think in such a way. Studying—listening—reflecting and meditating, through this analysis, with these three things together, then we get our own experience. It depends on if it’s proved through our own experience; if it’s proved by our own mind. We discover it and then we live in that experience, in that peace, in that satisfaction.
For those who are hearing this meditation subject for the first time, you should expect to hear many new things. For somebody who’s already heard it, who’s become free from all these whole entire problems and causes, somebody who’s already enlightened, then there’s no need to be here. Because you’ve accomplished the whole path, you have the wisdom to directly perceive all existence.
Analysis is very important. Study is very important, extremely important. Through study, we can develop our own wisdom, it helps to develop wisdom. Then as more wisdom gets developed within us, as we do meditation and practice, we accumulate more and more causes, more and more conditions, for realizations. Through our own effort, through our own experience, it is proved, and the path becomes our own experience. So we need to study and then on top of that, especially, to practice, and then there’s the experience.
It’s extremely important to know the reasons we’re doing this and that the method, the meditation, the practice is unmistaken, reliable; it can definitely lead us to the goal, the happiness we are trying to achieve, which is to liberate ourselves, to reach the cessation of the whole, entire suffering and causes. Then, even greater than that, the liberation that is the cessation of even the subtle imprints left by the disturbing thoughts, the cessation of ignorance, those wrong conceptions, the concept of true existence.
Whether we are just seeking the happiness of future lives or ultimate happiness—the cessation of the whole, entire suffering and causes, or full enlightenment, the cessation of even the subtle obscurations, the subtle imprints—the method, the path we practice should be unmistaken. It should be one we can trust, that is reliable, unbetraying. By practicing it we see it can lead us to that goal.
It’s the same thing, even if our goal is to free everyone from the whole, entire suffering and causes and lead them to full enlightenment, which is cessation of all the mistakes of the mind, and complete all the qualities of the realizations. It’s an extremely worthwhile thing.
ACTUALIZING THE PATH
With clothing, this year’s fashion clothes we won’t wear next year. What I’m saying is that in the world people always look for new things. Every year there’s a new fashion or a new dress, even songs. There’s always a new style. Even from that point of view, it is very worthwhile to see that all those other external experiences, in reality, are nothing new.
In the teachings taught by Omniscient One, the reality is that the continuation of the consciousness does not have a beginning. With reincarnation, one particular reincarnation has a beginning, but the general continuation of consciousness has no beginning. Therefore, all these external things, all these experiences with the external objects, all these are nothing new, in reality. We have had everything; we have had all these experiences numberless times in the past.
The inner experience, the experience of the path, this is the unmistaken, complete, graduated path to full enlightenment. We generate the determination to be free from samsara, from the circling aggregates which are defiled, which are the container of all problems. We determine to be free from this samsara and then we generate the altruistic mind to achieve full enlightenment, by taking the full responsibility to free everyone from all the mistakes of the mind, from all the sufferings, and lead them to peerless happiness, to full enlightenment. We determine to actualize bodhicitta. Then, the wisdom realizing the ultimate nature, the absolute truth, the right view.
So, we actualize this common path, then the particular path, the uncommon path of tantra, the secret mantra, such as the two stages of Highest Yoga Tantra, the generation stage and the completion stage. By completing this common path and the particular path of the secret path, we then achieve enlightenment. This inner experience, this is very new.
Actualizing the true path, the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness, we experience the cessation of the disturbing thoughts and karma, action, the cause of suffering, and all the sufferings, such as rebirth, death and so forth. The cessation of these sufferings, these experiences are new. For ordinary beings like ourselves these experiences are very new.
This is the one time that we have the opportunity to do this, the one time that we have all the necessary conditions to make it possible to have this experience within us. And, through this then to make our life most fruitful, most beneficial, for all sentient beings—for all those whose minds are obscured, who want happiness but are devoid of happiness, who do not want suffering but who continuously experience suffering.
For the success of the practice, to eliminate outer and inner obstacles, and to create the causes, the necessary conditions, for the success of the practice, for the success of experiencing the path, we’re going to do some meditation prayers. Those who are not familiar with the subject, just concentrate on the words, just be mindful of the words of the meditation that explain the path, just be mindful. Just concentrating itself leaves such a special imprint, a particular imprint, much more special than the imprints we leave on our consciousness in our everyday life.
[Rinpoche recites Praise to Shakyamuni Buddha in Tibetan.]
Do not commit any harmful actions to yourself, to other sentient beings.
Enjoy life by creating perfect beneficial actions to yourself, to other sentient beings.
Subdue your own mind:
This is the teaching of the Buddha.
[Recitation of the Heart Sutra.]
I prostrate to the Arya Triple Gem. Thus did I hear…
COMPASSION: REASONS TO DEVELOP
As a motivation for doing this meditation course, for listening, reflecting and doing the meditation practice, the basic motivation, the attitude, has to be compassion. Here, we’re not just talking about partial compassion toward somebody we like, somebody who loves us, but not when that person has a problem—not just partial compassion to a friend, but to strangers and enemies as well. We should have compassion toward all sentient beings. That should be the motivation for why we’re here, why we study. That should be the motivation for all the twenty-four hours or twenty-six hours, or whatever. As much as possible.
Compassion is so important in order to achieve peerless happiness, full enlightenment, for the sake of sentient beings. Even without talking about enlightenment, just concerning even the day-to-day life’s happiness, there’s the need for compassion. If we want happiness in our day-to-day life, that depends on compassion; if we want to have peace, that depends on compassion, on us having compassion toward others and others having compassion toward us. Generally speaking, happiness depends on each other.
Why does each of us need to generate compassion? First of all, what other sentient beings want is happiness, what they do not want is problems, sufferings. And that is dependent on conditions, on whether we have compassion or not for them, whether we stop giving them harm, stop actions that disturb them. And whether we do actions that benefit them. Without compassion, with the ego, the self-centered mind, or the self-cherishing thought, out of that mind we do actions that harm them. So others’ peace, others’ happiness is also dependent on our own attitude, our own actions. That’s why there’s a need to develop compassion within us.
The second reason why there’s the need to generate compassion is because we want happiness. We don’t want problems; we want happiness, we ourselves want happiness, peace, success. The second reason is that.
If we have compassion within ourselves, everyone becomes our own friend. Everyone becomes close to us. We see everyone as close to us; we don’t feel others are distant, far from us. If we have compassion in our heart toward others, then we feel everybody is in our own heart. There’s a great feeling of that. If we have compassion within us, we feel everybody is in our own heart, like the son or the daughter who respect the parents, who knows the kindness of the parents, how incredibly kind they are. Realizing they are so kind and precious, he or she feels the parents in the heart. Similarly, like the mother who has compassion toward her beloved only child, how the mother feels with that child, she feels them in the heart. That child is so precious and so important, and she has compassion toward him or her.
If we have compassion toward all sentient beings, nobody’s far from us, nobody’s distant from us; everyone’s close to us. We feel that in our own heart. Even if they’re enemies, since in our own mind there’s compassion generated for them, we don’t see them as an enemy; we see them only as a friend, only as most kind. They are the most kind, most unbelievably kind person, the spiritual friend, unbelievably kind to stop our own bad thoughts, to stop our own cruel mind, the self-cherishing thought. They are so kind to destroy the ego that constantly interrupts our success, the most important success, the development of the mind, the positive attitude, the good heart. The ego always interferes with us generating the realizations of the path. Even if from our own side we try to practice, the ego, the self-cherishing thought, always interrupts, making us unable to practice, unable to progress.
Not just that, the ego invokes all the problems. It creates, it produces, it brings all the problems. The ego controls us, it invades the mind. Like the Communist Chinese invaded Tibet, the ego invades our own mind. The ego completely takes over our mind and then makes us become its servant, its slave. All the time we become the servant of the ego, helping the ego, supporting the ego; the ego that brings relationship problems, the ego that brings financial, economic problems, all these problems. We become the disciple of the ego, we become the slave of the ego, making it stronger, developing this ego that is the creator of all of life’s problems.
We follow this ego but this person that we call “enemy” is destroying the ego. What this person is doing is helping to destroy this ego that brings all the problems. The ego not only interrupts our spiritual progress, blocking us from achieving the realizations of the path, the development of the practice, it also interferes in our day-to-day life, not allowing us any peace, happiness or satisfaction. We are following the ego but this person we call “enemy” is actually helping us to destroy the ego. That’s the kindest, most precious thing. By diminishing and then eliminating the ego, all success comes, especially the most important success, developing the mind to achieve the realizations of the path to enlightenment.
COMPASSION: UNIVERSAL RESPONSIBILITY
Therefore we should have compassion, like a son or daughter with a crazy mother. Even if the mother becomes crazy, completely uncontrolled, possessed by spirits, wild, from the side of the son or the daughter who sees how incredibly kind and precious she is, they see that she herself has no freedom, and so she becomes only the object of compassion.
This person is completely overwhelmed by ego, completely used by ego, controlled by ego, the self-cherishing thought, the disturbing thoughts, especially anger. Being under the control of these disturbing thoughts, of ego, the self-cherishing thought, he creates negative karma, negative actions that result only in problems, now and in the future. That person becomes only the object of compassion. There is no reason why anger should arise and why we should harm that person. There’s no single valid reason to become angry and harm him. That person’s situation—the nature of his mind, his character, the life of that person—only becomes the cause of compassion to arise for him.
If we generate compassion, we become a friend to everybody and everyone becomes our friend. With this positive attitude, compassion, toward everyone, others also become friendly toward us so we receive no harm from them, only benefit, only help. This way, there’s success in our life. Happiness and peace depends on others helping us. Our day-to-day life’s happiness is dependent on others, on others having love and compassion toward us, not giving us harm but benefiting us. Others love us, they have compassion toward us, so they help us. That is dependent on what kind of attitude we have toward others in our everyday life and how we behave toward others.
First of all, our happiness, our peace is dependent on others, what they think of us, how they act to us, and that is dependent on how we think toward them, how we behave toward them. This second reason is the fundamental one, why even for our own success—having happiness ourselves and not having problems—we need to practice compassion toward others.
I quite often say this. Historically it happens that there is one person in the world who has power. If that person who has power lacks compassion, then millions of people can be killed. Many millions of people are killed or tortured. This is without counting the animals that are much more, on the land and in the ocean, that are killed and suffer; there are so many more than human beings. This is without counting them.
If this one person who has power and influence were to practice compassion, instead of harming many millions of people, it would be the opposite, the complete opposite. He could bring incredible benefit, peace, so much happiness, to many millions of people. It’s the complete opposite. Because of compassion, that one person’s power could be used for unbelievable benefit and happiness, for thousands and millions of sentient beings.
When there is power, it makes a huge difference, it makes a huge difference if there’s compassion, what it can do to the world. But if there’s no compassion, what danger there is. This one person’s power can bring such danger to the world. It makes a huge difference, not just to one country but to the whole world.
Similarly, if we don’t practice compassion, if we don’t generate compassion, there’s a danger that we harm other humans and other sentient beings from birth until death. Because of the self-cherishing thought, many other disturbing thoughts arise: ignorance, anger, attachment and so forth. We do many harmful actions toward others. From birth until death we give so much harm to others—and like this from life to life. From life to life we give harm to all sentient beings, like the example of this one person.
Now if we ourselves have compassion, we benefit others, starting from the family, starting from this one person we live with in our everyday life, those we work, eat and live with at home, to the people in the office, then all the people in the country—however many millions of people there are in the country—then all the sentient beings on this earth, then even the sentient beings on the other planets, in other universes. However, starting from the nearest sentient being to all the rest of the sentient beings, if we have compassion, none of them receive any harm from us. If there’s compassion, whatever action we do, we stop giving harm. Even if we gave harm before when there was no compassion, now that harm is stopped. Therefore, starting from the nearest person, that sentient being, to all the rest of the sentient beings, they don’t receive harm from us. And that absence of harm, if they’re not receiving harm from us, that is the peace. That is the peace they receive from us. That peace they receive is dependent on us.
If we have compassion what comes with the action is benefit. When we do something, it not only stops giving harm but on top of that, we try to benefit others and we do something for others, either directly or indirectly. The very least thing is we stop giving harm but out of compassion we benefit others, therefore, from that all sentient beings receive happiness, success and peace. The peace and happiness that they receive by us benefiting them is dependent on us.
Each of us here is completely responsible for everybody’s happiness, for every sentient being’s happiness. Not only human beings, not only that, but for all the rest of the sentient beings. Each insect we see on the road, each fly, each bird, each dog, each worm we see on the ground, we are responsible. Each of us here is responsible for the happiness of every single sentient being that we see around us in everyday life, starting from that to all the rest of the sentient beings. So, if we don’t practice compassion, if we only follow the ego, the self-cherishing thought, there is danger to others, starting from the family, starting from the people nearest us to all the rest of the sentient beings. They receive harm from us, directly or indirectly, from life to life.
Therefore, it is completely in our own hands whether we want to cause this peace, to give this happiness to all sentient beings or whether all sentient beings receive harm from us. That’s completely in our own hands. It’s completely dependent on our own attitude, what kind of attitude we generate.
I think maybe I’ll stop here. Today’s meditation is basically to feel this universal responsibility.
During break time, feel this while you’re eating, walking, also when you do one-pointed concentration. Think of the reasons why you are responsible for all sentient beings’ happiness. How that is dependent on your own mind, on your compassion, on whether there’s compassion or not. Then try to do a fixed meditation on that. One pointedly, the mind that feels this, continuously try to keep the mind in that feeling. You can do a fixed meditation like this.
So I’ll stop here.
Lecture 2
COMPASSION: THE BEST WAY TO BE SELFISH IS TO CHERISH OTHERS
Even if other sentient beings don’t love us or even if they hate us, we ourselves are one person. Even if our whole family dislikes us, even if everybody in the city, everybody in the country, doesn’t love us but hates us, we ourselves are one person. Even if all sentient beings hate us, that person they hate, that I, is one. That self is one person. So it’s nothing much to be shocked or depressed about. This person we call “me” they hate. We think, “They hate me!” But that is just talking about one person, ourselves. That’s nothing much to be shocked or depressed about.
However, if this one person doesn’t practice compassion, doesn’t watch the mind, doesn’t protect the mind, there is danger that this one person, that this I, will give harm to many others—in the family, in the office, to many other sentient beings. There’s the danger of harming all sentient beings. Those we give harm to are numberless. Numberless.
And at the same time, we and everyone else are exactly the same. We are all equal in wanting happiness and not wanting suffering, problems. While we ourselves and everyone are exactly equal in wanting happiness and not wanting problems, if we feel we are important and precious, then everyone else is also important and precious. Everyone else is also important and precious. Every other sentient being, even the tiniest insect, the very tiniest ant, is important and precious. At this time they have such a tiny body, but the mind is the same. They have the same attitude as we have, wanting happiness and not wanting suffering.
Even those tiniest insects are always looking for protection, always looking for food, for a means of living. That is exactly the same as us, keeping their life so busy. That’s exactly the same as us. They’re always running around trying to obtain a means of living, looking for protection. That’s exactly the same as us. They want happiness; they don’t want suffering. That’s exactly the same as us. It’s just that at this time we have a bigger body. We have a human body, a better body, one that has incredible opportunities—such a precious human body—and they have a different rebirth. They have taken a different body, such a tiny body, due to their past unsubdued mind and the actions motivated by that unsubdued mind, the unpeaceful actions or the nonvirtuous actions.
Just as we feel we ourselves are so important and precious, then everyone else is so important and precious. There’s not the slightest valid reason why we are more important than this tiniest insect, that our need to pacify our problems and to obtain happiness for ourselves is more important than the needs of this tiniest insect. There’s not one single valid reason. Except, like a dictator, without any beneficial reasons, like a dictator who brings problems to the people, not the dictator who brings peace. Not the dictator who brings peace and happiness to the people, but the dictator who brings the opposite, so many problems, who leads the people in the path to suffering, with no freedom.
Only the self-cherishing thought that becomes the dictator can find a reason that shows we are more important. The egocentric mind, the self-cherishing thought acts exactly like a dictator and, abiding in our heart, gives us non-valid reasons, illogical reasons why we are more important. It just gives invalid reasons, simply doing a power trip, without valid reasons, saying “I’m precious. I’m more important than this insect, than this person. Among all the people, I’m the most important, most precious. Among all the holy beings, among all the ordinary sentient beings, I’m the most precious, the most important. It’s most important to obtain happiness for me, to pacify the problems of this me, for this I is the most important.” There are no valid reasons for this; it’s just the self-cherishing thought, the dictator, doing its power trip.
The real dictator who is living inside us, denying us peace in our everyday life, denying us success, even temporary happiness, is the self-cherishing thought, the ego.
But even if everybody hates us, even if nobody loves us, we ourselves are nothing; this I is nothing. This ego, this self-cherishing, is one. It doesn’t practice compassion, it doesn’t look after us, which means not taking care of the mind, which means not subduing the mind, which means not practicing compassion, not transforming the mind into altruism.
By not practicing the good heart, compassion, there’s no peace, no happiness, there’s no success in our life. Without a good heart, compassion and so forth, what there is, is egoism, the self-cherishing thought, and that constantly creates problems, obstacles—obstacles for temporary and especially ultimate happiness, especially peerless happiness, full enlightenment, the cessation of all the mistakes of the mind and completion of all the qualities of realizations. Therefore, following the self-cherishing thought, following the delusions, is not the way. That only harms us; that’s not the way of taking care of ourselves. That’s not the way of looking after ourselves. That’s not the way of attaining peace for ourselves.
Only by changing the attitude in our daily life, by changing the mind from self-cherishing into altruism, into cherishing other sentient beings, only this brings all the opposite results, all the success, all temporary and ultimate happiness. All the wishes seeking happiness are fulfilled, the wish to obtain happiness for ourselves and to obtain happiness for all sentient beings, by ourselves. All those wishes get fulfilled by subduing the mind, by developing the mind, by generating altruism, compassion and so forth. Therefore, the best way to take care of ourselves, looking after our own life, is to watch the mind and to take care of the mind.
This way there’s success. This way the aim of happiness can succeed. The other way looks like we are taking care of ourselves, loving ourselves, but actually we are harming ourselves. The other way is constantly creating the obstacle for success. This way there’s peace and happiness; we obtain peace and happiness for ourselves and we obtain peace and happiness for all other sentient beings.
As His Holiness the Dalai Lama often says, the best way to cherish ourselves is this. If we want to cherish ourselves then we should do it in an intelligent way, and the intelligent way to do it, the best way to do it, is to cherish other sentient beings. In other words, His Holiness is saying is that if we are really concerned for ourselves, for our own happiness, for our health, for our body, for our mind, then the best way is to cherish other sentient beings.
BODHICITTA: THE DISADVANTAGE OF ANGER
I think there are some problems with the advice given by some areas of the psychology in Western culture. I quite often mention this. But I think nowadays as people’s minds are more open, maybe you use your own wisdom more rather than accepting the psychology, the guidelines written in [psychology] books. Nowadays maybe you should use your own wisdom more, rather than what is written in the books, the methods taught in the past or that have been used.
As I often mention, I’ve heard so many times that the basic psychological method that is advised for those people who are in an emotional state, such as anger, is to say whatever they want to say. The idea is this. Whatever hurting, bad words we want to say, we feel in the heart; whatever the mind wants to feel, we should express it to the other person, telling them whatever we think. Whatever comes out of anger, we just tell everything to the other person. Probably, that method is more based on us, we who have the problem, for our own interest, for our own happiness.
Expressing whatever the angry mind wants to say, whatever the selfish mind wants to express, the words that come out are only undesirable or hurting words, only hurting others. When we are able to say these things that we have kept inside us, we feel some kind of release. We feel release and rejoice that we have been able to hurt the other person by saying those harmful words to them. We feel that it’s good that we are able to do that, able to hurt them. This method is basically concentrated on being able to show the anger, being able to express the anger. There’s kind of rejoicing or feeling good, especially that we are able to hurt the other person using some powerful words. We label this as happiness and we simply focus on this.
With this method, when we see a person doing something we dislike in the family or in the office or wherever, inside or outside, when the person acts or has a way of speaking or behaving with the body that we dislike, then anger comes. Then we express that anger. We are advised like this to completely, immediately express our anger to that person. Then again in the afternoon, we see either the same person or another person doing something that we dislike, and again anger comes, and again we express that anger, completely, totally. Whatever we have to express with the mind, body and speech, whatever has manifested we express everything. Then again in the evening, somebody—either that same person or whoever—does something that we dislike, and again that anger comes. So again we express it, we let that anger arise, we let that anger explode, to that person or whoever. We say things. Then, it’s the same thing the next day, and this goes on and on. This goes on and on, this week, next week, this month, next month, this year, next year—the same, with no change to the mind. We’ve expressed our anger many times, numberless times, but there’s no development, no change to the attitude. There’s no end to the anger; there’s no end to hurting others.
And as we express our anger to the other person, that becomes the condition for the other person to get angry with us. So, besides ourselves, creating all those various harmful actions or negative karma out of anger [the other person does too].
It goes on like this from year to year. There’s no development, no change at all, with anger becoming less. [If we were to change our attitude,] even if it were still not possible to destroy anger, for there to be the cessation of anger, even if the mind were not developed to that degree, it would be much cleaner, much lighter. Even if anger were to arise, it would be much lighter and shorter, lasting a shorter time. This other way, however, there can’t be this development.
With the same mind it constantly interferes, because we’re not trying to change our own mind. Since we’re not trying to develop our mind, to make it pure, positive, we constantly have the same impure mind looking at things. The same mind constantly interprets because we’re not trying to change our own mind, not trying to develop our mind, to make the mind purer, more positive. Constantly the same impure mind looks at things impurely. The ordinary mind looks at everything as ordinary; the mistaken mind looks at things as mistaken. We look at others’ mistakes or we interpret things the wrong way, the negative way. The mind constantly judges the way others act in the wrong way, as harming us. We interpret the way others act to us as harmful. This ordinary mind, this impure mind, this negative thought looks at things as negative, judging or labeling and believing others’ actions as harmful to us.
Since there’s no mention of developing the mind, purifying the mind, transforming the mind into the positive attitude, what mind there is in life is constantly only the negative, impure, ordinary mind that looks at everything as negative, interpreting others’ actions as bad, as harmful to us. The mind projects these things.
Since there is no change to the mind, the nature of life is always the same, constantly filled with problems. Our life’s experience is constantly filled with problems. This is because our ordinary, impure, negative thoughts, the wrong conceptions, judge or project, labeling things as harmful or bad and believing it. From year to year it constantly goes on like this. Again there is anger, so it’s the same. In early life it’s like this; also in later life it’s the same—the same or maybe worse in the later part of life.
All this happens because the one practice, what is called patience, is not mentioned there. That advice is mentioned nowhere. That one positive attitude, that technique, patience, is never mentioned in the [psychology] guidelines. That’s the problem. That’s why there’s no progression, why we constantly experience the problems again and again. Instead of our anger becoming lighter, briefer in later life, it doesn’t change by the year or month. There’s no development of the mind in a month, a year, even in the whole life.
BODHICITTA: THE BENEFITS OF PATIENCE
When what is called “patience” is practiced, once the mind is transformed into patience, right at that second, anger—this unhappy emotional mind, this harmful thought—is stopped. The absence of that mind is peace, happiness. It’s tranquility, relaxation.
With this method, with patience, there is peace in everyday life; there is happiness in our own mind. And as much peace as there is, with the absence of these negative thoughts, by the way, there is better health. Even concerning health there’s better health, even physical health. By the balancing of the four elements1 the circulation of blood and all these things are improved, these are all controlled or relaxed, balanced, peaceful, healthy. And by the way, the heart is also healthier. Many of these health problems don’t arise. Our life has much peace and there’s much harmony.
Not only that, because we don’t express anger but only kindness and generosity toward others, we don’t become a condition for others to become controlled by the emotional, negative mind of anger, and out of anger to create nonvirtuous actions, the cause of sufferings that the person has to experience in this life or in other lives. That’s one peace that we are causing them, that’s the one peace. The absence of all this is the peace for that other person. That is what we are giving the other person by practicing patience.
Another thing is that with patience we express kindness to the other person. As I mentioned yesterday, we see that person as unbelievably kind. By practicing patience with that person, we see how he is so precious. From our realization of patience, all the peace and happiness that we feel inside our heart, at the very core of our heart, the big peace that we feel, the tranquility, has been given to us by this person. It has happened because of this person, depending on this person being angry at us, disliking us, disrespecting us. By doing those actions we have been made to practice patience. Disrespecting or criticizing, doing those actions makes us practice, makes us develop our mind.
By knowing that the realization of patience that we have—the quality of the mind that we have achieved and the incredible peace that we feel in the depth of our heart—is by the kindness of this person, we feel that this person is extremely, unbelievably kind, and so precious, so important for us. For us, he is so precious and so kind. What comes out of that thought of patience, that feeling of kindness, is that we then want to make offerings to that person. We feel the kindness so strongly and we want to offer something, we want to repay the kindness. So what comes is generosity toward that person.
In some ways, we become a teacher, an example to the other person, helping the other person learn. Instead of getting angry when somebody harms us, we practice patience, and we become his teacher, an example, an inspiration. Even if we don’t teach meditation, we don’t give teaching, our attitude and our actions become the best teacher to the other person.
Even if our anger doesn’t diminish much month by month, within this short period, by continuing this practice, practicing patience, within some years there will definitely be some progress. This can definitely happen, which means that we have peace in our life, we are able to obtain more peace in our life.
THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPASSION
There are basically two main things missing in Western culture. The reason problems don’t get solved with these psychological methods, why the mind doesn’t develop, is that there’s no mention of the happiness of the other person. Here it’s only concentrated on our own gain. What about the other person’s happiness? That’s never mentioned. If we express our anger, it hurts the other person who also, like us, wants happiness, who also doesn’t want suffering. What about that? The other person’s happiness is never brought up. That is never questioned; it’s never brought up as an object of concern.
The one big thing missing is advice on compassion. In this culture or form of education, the one big thing that is missing is compassion for others.
The other thing is karma, action and result, explaining that this kind of motivation creates such an action that results in happiness. With a positive attitude, a good heart, and the positive actions motivated by that, the result is happiness. Because the attitude is not one of anger, ignorance or attachment, but a positive, pure attitude, we produce a pure action, a virtuous action, and the result is happiness. On the other hand, the attitude possessed by the three poisonous minds—anger, ignorance or attachment—the actions motivated by that are nonvirtuous, and that brings the suffering result, problems now and in the future.
That happiness or suffering comes from our own mind. In our own life, it is created by our own mind; it comes from our own mind. We ourselves are the creator. Because we ourselves are the creator, we have the complete freedom to abandon, to eliminate the cause of suffering, of all our problems, and to obtain all the happiness.
So the advice, the education about compassion and karma is not there. And because of that, the psychological methods don’t really eliminate the problem. They can’t completely eliminate the problem, including the cause.
THE MEANING OF LIFE
As I mentioned when I started this talk, it’s extremely important to practice compassion, to live our life with compassion. Without that, how dangerous it is, how dangerous it is. That itself means it is extremely important that we ourselves practice compassion, because with this everyone receives peace from us and nobody receives harm. Like this, we ourselves are fully responsible for all sentient beings’ happiness; they are dependent on us practicing and keeping the mind in the nature of compassion.
As the reasons, as I mentioned before, who should we practice compassion on first? Should it be the one we call “enemy,” the person who disrespects us, who doesn’t love us? Who should we practice compassion on first, that person or ourselves? First ourselves. From those two, first we should practice compassion on ourselves. Because, as I mentioned yesterday, basically if we’re concerned with our own happiness, then in our life each day, that is dependent on having a peaceful mind, on keeping the mind subdued, so the most important thing is to practice compassion. Now, from morning until night, for each twenty-four hours, we should live our life with this compassion toward others, with the feeling of universal responsibility, not only for our family, for the people in our life, not only for friends, but for enemies and strangers—especially enemies—for all sentient beings. All the sentient beings are included in these three: stranger, enemy, friend.
So, in the morning when we get up, the first thing we should do is generate the thought remembering the meaning of life, the purpose of life. We should remember why we have this precious human body, why we take so much care of this body, why we spend so much money on this body. It costs so much money to take care of this body, to have a place for this body. We spend so much money on the house, so much money on food, so much money on clothing and medicines. We have to work so hard day and night for that. Why are we doing this? We have to remember the purpose. Why is it important to take care of, to cherish this life? Why is it important to take care of this body, why? To free everyone, every sentient being, from all the obscurations, from all the sufferings, and to cause them happiness and especially to lead them to peerless happiness, to full enlightenment.
To do this service, this is the meaning of our life, this is why we have a human body—to feel that we are responsible for every sentient being’s happiness. Because whether they receive peace and happiness or harm from us is dependent on our attitude, on whether we have compassion toward them or not. Therefore we are fully responsible for all sentient beings’ happiness.
We should remember this the first thing when we get up in the morning. What is life for? What are we living for? Why do we survive? Why are we living? This reminds us why; this lets us understand the importance of life, especially this precious human body. By beginning with this meditation we remember it the whole day. When we eat breakfast, we remember it before we eat; we remember what we’re eating this food for. Before we eat our breakfast we remember the meaning of life, that we are responsible for all sentient beings’ happiness. Then, before eating lunch, we remember this; before eating dinner, we also remember this; before going to sleep, we remember this. Like that, this way it lets us understand, lets us be aware that what we’re doing here—eating food, sleeping, doing meditation, studying, and all these things—is not for us but for other sentient beings. It’s for sentient beings. This understanding naturally comes. This awareness, this change of attitude, naturally comes, that our life is not for ourselves but for others, for other sentient beings. This helps us to naturally change our attitude. This is the reason we need a long, healthy life, the reason we need to survive. This life is used in order to be able to serve others. If we take care of ourselves, of our body and mind, then we can serve other sentient beings.
With this mindfulness of the meaning of life, that we’re responsible for all sentient beings’ happiness, then all actions become Dharma, pure Dharma, unstained by the self-cherishing thought. All these actions become Dharma, which means they are the cause of happiness [for all sentient beings]. The main thing we should concentrate on in our everyday life is developing the attitude of compassion. We should study about compassion, how to develop it, its evolution, the graduated practice we need to do in order to develop compassion. That is the main attitude, the main practice. As I mentioned yesterday and today, the importance of this is that by studying compassion, by meditating on compassion, by training the mind in compassion, it becomes greater, and gradually the mind becomes transformed. The realization of compassion then comes, and gradually we can attain great compassion toward all sentient beings.
This is the great contribution we can make that is missing in many systems of education, particularly in common education, especially in the West, in the subjects taught in schools or universities. The practice of compassion, this education, what we’re doing here, becomes a great contribution to the world peace. Not just in this one world but in all the numberless worlds. It becomes a great contribution to the peace of all sentient beings.
When we have compassion, through this we are able to bring everyone to happiness, to temporary and ultimate happiness. That’s how it becomes a contribution. Each person’s meditating on compassion becomes a great contribution toward all sentient beings’ happiness.
I’ll stop here.
Notes
1 According to Tibetan medical theory, the four elements of earth, wind, fire and water should be in balance within our body to maintain health. [Return to text]
