3. The Perfect Human Rebirth

THE NEGATIVE MIND

The essential guru yoga practice brings about realizations that lead to enlightenment. This is like fuel for a rocket. Discipline is the main thing: when we eat food, when we go to bed before sleep, we should have the discipline of meditation, a discipline for the mind. Because the main purpose of meditation is to clear the mind of negativity and impurity, we should meditate many times during the day. In this way, the sick mind can be cured. If it didn’t depend on our own efforts, it would be impossible, but it’s very possible. Therefore, we must each meditate in order to subdue our mind.

Realizations cannot be transplanted, and the only way they can be attained is through following a method based on discipline, based on our own efforts. This is just what Guru Shakyamuni Buddha did, following the methods of the previous buddhas. After him countless beings practiced correctly and attained enlightenment. Therefore, it’s also possible for us. All buddhas were sentient beings, suffering and so forth at one time. The difference between them and us is that they practiced the teachings correctly and so became enlightened more quickly.

The mind that craves eating food, drinking tea, putting on beautiful clothes and so forth is an attached, negative mind, wanting to enjoy comfort and worldly happiness, seeing the objects of its attachment as beautiful. For example, think about the peanut butter we offer here at Kopan. Delicious! The untethered mind sees it and rushes to it. We don’t check, we don’t recognize the character of our own mind; we just let the mind act as it wants. We must check and bring the mind back. Besides being an attached mind, the mind that sees the object as beautiful and wants to possess it for reasons of comfort is a selfish mind, taking more care of itself than of other beings.

Attachment is the creator of all suffering, causing even greater ignorance to develop. The attached mind leads to nonvirtuous actions that make us even more ignorant. Attachment is the servant of ignorance. If we help our attachment grow, we help our ignorance grow. Attachment comes from ignorance, from the unknowing mind. Fundamentally it arises from the mistaken mind. Hatred also arises from this mistaken mind. They are like a sick person’s possessions. Nobody wants to touch the body or belongings of someone who is sick with an infectious disease like T.B. And yet the sickness is in the mind; it’s not related to the physical body or the possessions. The suffering result comes back to our sense of self; we are suffering physically because of our mental suffering. When we practice the Dharma, we are disciplining ourselves to subdue the various negative minds in order to overcome our suffering.

The whole reason everybody—all people and animals—try to avoid problems is because nobody wants to suffer. Unless we can overcome the cause of suffering, that fear of suffering will continue. We can’t overcome the cause with good food or beautiful apartments. Even the richest family in the world has no solution to suffering. They are all still ignorant of what suffering truly is and of its cause.

Practicing the Dharma and meditating correctly will ensure that we stop our suffering now and that we will no longer have to experience it in the future. Some people think that Dharma practice is only for the poor—for beggars and so forth, or that Dharma and meditation are only for the “crazy.” Such people do not know the meaning and purpose of the Dharma and meditation. They think that it is merely a fad or something. Even if they’re in a place where Dharma exists, they don’t attend a meditation center due to ignorance. They think that because they have wealth, a house, a spouse, friends and so forth, they don’t suffer. They see suffering as disease, injury or starvation, not recognizing the nature of suffering. Their concept of suffering is, “One day things are OK, and another day there are problems.” But this is not the definition of suffering, and they continue to mentally suffer.

Suffering is not knowing the underlying cause of what we do, of cause and effect; it’s not knowing the difference between negative and positive actions. Not recognizing these or not knowing our own ignorance is suffering; and so too is not recognizing the nature of our own mind. From the Dharma point of view, freedom from ignorance is freedom from suffering.

The basis of world politics is greed, hatred, jealousy, pride and so forth. The basis of the Buddha’s politics is to prevent the branches of the negative mind from arising.

When we eat, we should visualize the Buddha abiding in our heart, thinking, “I shall make this food offering to the Buddha abiding at my heart, so that I can attain enlightenment by completing all the virtues that lead to enlightenment and by purifying all negative minds with the total aim of guiding all sentient beings to enlightenment. Furthermore, if I eat this with greed and selfishness, it only strengthens this greedy, selfish mind, which disturbs my happiness and the path to enlightenment. The nature of all this food is the Buddha’s sacred mind; it does not belong to me but to him.” The object is to overcome our attachment, so, remembering its shortcomings, we eat with an unattached mind.

When there is trouble with the body, there is trouble with the mind. A clean body doesn’t result in a clean mind, but a clean mind does result in a clean body.

How can we sentient beings purify the negative mind? We can be released from suffering by seeing absolute truth, how things really exist. All the meditations and disciplines we practice are for the purpose of fully realizing the absolute truth. Of this, in A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva says,

[9:1] All of these practices were taught
By the Mighty One for the sake of wisdom,
Therefore, those who wish to pacify suffering
Should generate this wisdom.¹

To do so, we need a lot of help. We have to do so much purification, so much cleaning. All meditations and practices are for the purpose of purifying the obscurations of the mind in order to see the absolute truth, which is the method to cut off ignorance. Then, through our own mental practice, perfect happiness will arise.

We should not talk too much because this distracts the mind. For example, if we talk while trying to listen to a lecture, we miss the point, or while we are eating, we forget to notice the taste of the food. Attention to what we are doing strengthens the concentration and brings us closer to enlightenment. It stops selfishness and attachment from entering the mind. Such discipline must continue until the mind is purified, not just for the duration of this course.

The negative mind has been obscured by many delusions for numberless previous lives; it cannot be purified by practicing for only a month or a year. We need to persevere over a very long time, because the negative mind has no beginning and is very powerful. It’s an incredible undertaking, but the most profitable job there is. A crippled beggar who practices Dharma is actually doing the best work. He is the truly rich man.

We must not cling to our delusions. We need a guru to attain enlightenment. When listening to our guru, we can question what they say, but if we were to listen while waiting for mistakes, that is listening with a negative mind.

THE WRONG VIEW: SAMSARA 

The reason we are still in samsara is that from beginningless time we have had the wrong concept that sees the suffering realms as realms of pleasure and happiness. This view has betrayed us, showing samsara as opposite to its true nature. We must avoid seeing greed as good.

Medicine, food and clothing should be used without attachment, to keep the body healthy and allow us a long life for the purpose of the pure practice of the Dharma. While we should look after our body, we should also regard it without attachment, as a temporary dwelling place of the mind. If we can develop a deep understanding of the suffering realms and a strong fear of ending up there, we will stop using these things as mundane comforts. Just as we feed an animal to make it healthy and strong for work, we should feed our body and use it for Dharma practice.

Usually as we are feeding, clothing or pampering our body, we feel, “This is me; this is my body,” as if it’s a permanent possession to be had forever. This view is not only the greatest hindrance to the realization of impermanence, it also leads to greater attachment to the body. The feeling of permanence deep in our heart blocks the ability to see objects and ourselves in their true nature. If we were to realize impermanence, we would see how all objects are changing every second. This would transform the mind from negative to positive, stopping us from wasting time and giving us more time to practice the Dharma.

For example, a Tibetan meditator was meditating on impermanence so intensely that when he left his cave for a pipi, he had no time to cut the thorns that had grown up around the entrance and often tore his robes. Thinking he might not live to return, he didn’t waste time cutting the thorns that caught him. For years, he didn’t cut those thorns and spent more time meditating.

Working and living for our own mundane comforts and enjoyments alone is leading a life like an animal.

The concept of “world peace” depends on an absence of war, which is enforced by the use of force, control of other countries, destruction of property and so on—the complete opposite of Dharma peace. The former is endless, but the latter has an end. Trouble and happiness do not exist by themselves; they are concepts of the mind.

Delusions can be gross or subtle. The objects of the deluded mind are nonexistent; the objects it sees are illusions, hallucinations. The creator of that mistaken view sees the false, nonexistent object as existent. After delusions and the gross negative minds cease, there are still the subtle obscurations, which are subtle imprints of the delusions that remain on the mindstream. After these cease, the mind is completely pure, enlightened. It’s easier to cease the gross delusions. An arhat has done this but is not yet fully enlightened due to the subtle obscurations that remain.

The mind purified of delusion is free from ignorance and the twelve links. But we still have subtle obscurations and go to a pure land where there is no death and rebirth. Here, we attain enlightenment by following the higher path. Some beings attain a pure land with ignorance, not following the bodhisattva’s path, and without bodhicitta, but having other realizations. They then have to destroy their delusions by following the bodhisattva’s path. Even though they are out of samsara, without bodhicitta they can’t become enlightened.

THE EIGHT FREEDOMS AND TEN RICHNESSES 

[WFGS pp. 83–85]

The eight freedoms are also sometimes termed the eight “rests”—the human is “resting” from these restless states. The eight freedoms are being free from being born as (1) a hell being, (2) a hungry ghost, (3) an animal, (4) a long-life god, (5) a barbarian, or (6) in a dark age when no buddha has descended, (7) holding wrong views, and (8) with mental or physical problems that preclude us from understanding the Dharma.

The ten richnesses or endowments refer to the ten things that give us the opportunity to practice the Dharma perfectly.

The first of the ten richnesses is birth as a human being. But this is not enough. Think about how many humans lack the other richnesses.

The second of the ten is being born in a religious country, which means a country in which Buddhism is present. If we are born in a place where there is no Buddhism, it means that there are no fully ordained monks, and therefore we cannot become ordained. Ordination is a discipline that protects the mind from negative actions, freeing the mind, keeping it away from delusions. This is a quick and profitable way to practice the Dharma and to reach enlightenment. As the number of monks increase, so the teachings of the Dharma increase.

In a religious country, there are people—monks and nuns—keeping the different levels of ordinations and precepts. This enables us to practice morality, as these are the people who grant the ordinations. We are extremely lucky to be born in a country where there are such people. Some may think that this has nothing to do with them, that it’s only a tradition or custom, but the person who becomes ordained is very fortunate, because keeping the different precepts is a quick way to be led to enlightenment and freed from suffering. People who observe such precepts are in the safest place; it protects them against the outside enemies and their harmful actions, like a protective fence surrounding them. If an ordained member of the Sangha were to go outside that fence, to break the ordination, there would be so many problems. Without the fence of the vows, there is no protection from danger, making it easy to be disturbed by living beings, elements and so forth. Ordination protects us from ignorance and creates positive action.

The third richness is being born with perfect organs.

The fourth richness is avoiding the five immediate negativities, also called the five uninterrupted negative karmas. They are killing your father or mother, killing an arhat, maliciously drawing blood from a buddha and creating a schism in the Sangha. Avoidance of these five immediate negativities is necessary for ordination. These extreme negativities are very difficult to purify. An arhat is beyond the suffering of samsara, so they don’t suffer when they are killed, but it creates very bad karma for the killer.

The fifth richness is having a belief in all three divisions of the Dharma: the Vinaya, the Sutra and the Abhidharma. Unless we are born with a belief in these three divisions of the teachings, we can’t develop our wisdom. Realizations depend on the complete understanding and practice of these teachings. Within the three divisions, the Abhidharma contains the explanations on the evolution of the universe, both about the mind and the outer universe. The Sutra explains much about the path and the absolute true nature of reality. The Vinaya gives the details of the precepts and ordinations, the necessity of taking them and many other things.

The sixth is being born during a non-dark period, a period when a buddha has descended and there are teachings. This is a non-dark period because there are still highly realized beings in the world who have the continued lineage of the teachings from the Buddha.

The seventh is being shown the teachings of Buddha or his followers.

The eighth richness is the existence of the complete teachings in the world. Our present gurus have received the teachings from other gurus back to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha continuously, without a break in the linage. The Tibetan Dharma practitioners look upon the present teachers as representatives of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha. If there were no existence of the experience of the teachings in the minds of beings, then something would be missing. It’s not enough for the teachings alone to exist; there must be realized beings.

The ninth richness is that there are still followers of the path of Buddha’s teachings. We must follow the path of Buddha’s teachings as our future enlightenment is only a creation of our own mind, and so is our suffering. There would be no suffering for all sentient beings if there were no reason for it, but all suffering is a creation of the mind. It’s vital to know this at the beginning.

Without looking for ourselves, we will be unable to find the solution to our problems for hundreds of eons. Yet, just as we can be our own worst enemy, we can also become our own best friend and helper. Through the purification of the mind, each human being can achieve enlightenment; the time it takes depends entirely on the person. If suffering were not our own creation, there would be no need to create our own enlightenment—but there is no suffering that is not a creation of mind, and if we don’t try from our side, we won’t find the solution to our problems.

However, when we try to perform positive actions there is often much interference from the negative mind. That is why there are fewer holy beings than non-holy beings. It’s difficult to be a holy person with a well-subdued mind because there are so many disturbances to our positive actions. Our negative minds interfere with the development of our Dharma practice. Even outside evil spirits and non-living disturbances such as elements afflict us. But when there is pure positive mind, there is no way that the interferences can disturb us, because these things arise from the negative mind. So today, to prevent those interferences as much as possible, the quickest method is to practice the Dharma.

Consider two countries, India and China for example, who wanted to create a war. India had some kind of negative aim toward China—they wanted to get some goods—so they put a bridge across the border. Then, they had a disagreement and because of the bridge the Chinese were able to cross easily and cause many problems. So, the bridge that was built by the Indians for that negative reason now causes the great problem of war. If those negative aims hadn’t been there, there wouldn’t have been the bridge, and there wouldn’t have been the problem. This is an example of how the negative mind creates problems. None of the interferences are the fault of the interference itself, but are only a creation of the negative mind, which creates the cause for the interference to happen. It’s just the condition.

Each topic in the Dharma practice is correlated. That’s why it is such a vast, profound and deep subject. There are two perfect guides. One is internal—the inner being we become—and one is external—the one who gives us the teachings. The outer guide is the causal guide and the inner guide is the resultant guide. When we talk about an enlightened one, we shouldn’t think that we are talking about something separate from ourselves. It’s within.

The tenth of the ten richnesses is having the necessary conditions to practice the Dharma, such as receiving the kindness and compassion of others. We must have a compassionate guru and somebody to help with food, clothes and so forth. In Tibet, a practitioner’s life was easy as far as begging went, because all the people greatly respected anybody who observed the precepts. Some benefactors gave food with faith and others with compassion, so there were no distracting problems of temporal needs. In most parts of the world, this is more difficult.

So, there are the chances to practice the Dharma.

The purpose of meditating on these eight freedoms and ten richnesses is to understand what it would be like to be stuck in the opposite states that we are now currently free from. For instance, if we imagine being born as a heretic, somebody with wrong views, we would see how ignorant we are, and what bad karma we can create. With such a mind, we would surely be reborn in the hell realm, where the suffering is unendurable. In the hot hell, it’s as if the earth itself were made of red-hot burning iron with no escape and no control or, in the cold hell, where it’s as if the body is one with the ice of the realm.

We need to discover how precious and vital having this perfect human rebirth really is, to help us understand and develop the mind, and to escape from suffering. The human birth has great freedom compared to the other states. When we are honest and see how lazy we are, following ignorance, how even if we receive the teachings we don’t follow them, we can use this meditation to destroy our laziness. We then do everything we can to not be born in these non-free states. It gives us an answer to the question of the purpose of the human life—its great freedom to practice Dharma and to escape from suffering.

It’s important to see the benefits of the perfect human rebirth so that when we come into contact with the teachings, we use them and aren’t lazy. Therefore, this meditation comes first within the lamrim. If we don’t understand the sufferings of other rebirths, laziness will stop us from using this method. The Buddha’s method is like this. Understanding the importance of treasuring this perfect human rebirth stops so many dangers, therefore this meditation is extremely precious. With it, we can escape ignorance and attain enlightenment. This is the technique of such highly realized pandits as Nagarjuna and Lama Tsongkhapa.

Meditating on the eight freedoms and ten endowments is not just counting numbers; it has great purpose. By deeply understanding the examples, we come to realize the value of the human rebirth. Unless we know about these lower realms, we won’t see the importance of this human realm. This is due to not realizing the deep ignorance of the beings in other realms.

We should feel so happy when we examine this. If we can sacrifice our lives for our possessions, why can’t we work for all sentient beings who have served and helped us since beginningless time? Not just feeling joyful about having as much as we have, we should prepare to receive whatever is missing in the future. We should create good karma so as to be reborn with perfect organs in the perfect situation to further develop our Dharma practice. During our meditation time, we should remember it all.

In this meditation, we should feel joyful for our perfect human rebirth. Then in the true Dharma way, we should take care of it and not waste it. On this basis we can develop our Dharma practice. Without it, there’s no possibility of following the true path. It was from this basis of the perfect human rebirth that the great yogis such as Milarepa gained enlightenment.

THE REASONS THE PERFECT HUMAN REBIRTH IS HIGHLY USEFUL

[WFGS pp. 85–87]

When we really check up to see how useful the perfect human rebirth can be, we see that it stops the ignorance of using our lives as if we were animals. We should also compare our precious human rebirth to the lives of those humans who can’t practice the Dharma. It’s a sad thing to consider an animal born as a human.

The selfish mind suffers from the concept of self-cherishing based on the delusion of the truly existing self. This ignorant, impure mind prevents everlasting happiness. Because samsaric happiness cannot be everlasting, these mental hindrances must be destroyed. The wise person doesn’t care for their present, small suffering because they know that, unless they purify their mind, their future suffering will be great. Greed, hatred and ignorance are not useful, even for a moment. This is the most important thing to realize. Kaka is better than chocolate since it doesn’t create a positive or negative mind and so is less of a hindrance to existence.

The great yogi Milarepa, Lama Tsongkhapa and other ascetic lamas lived in the essential practice of the Dharma by begging, under great temporal difficulties, before their powers were well developed. But they developed great energy from understanding the nature of ignorance, how it causes suffering. Also, by using themselves as examples, they understood the suffering of the great numbers of other beings. They renounced their own greed, hatred and ignorance and had the great determination to defeat their own negativities. In this way, their compassion became energizing—using the knowledge of their own suffering to understand that of others—and they could help other beings more quickly.

For the great yogis, each mental or physical problem that arose helped their realizations and practice, since they deeply understood the cause as rooted in ignorance, which they further tried to control. Instead of feeling angry with other people, they would feel it for their own ignorance, the only real enemy.

The perfect human rebirth is highly useful for many reasons:

1.   We can be free from samsara.
2.   We can become a bodhisattva.
3.   We can become an arhat.
4.   We can attain bodhicitta.
5.   We can attain other realizations.
6.   We can also attain the rank of a wish-granting king.
7.   We can experience worldly benefits.

It is highly useful because we can be free from samsara. This is our one chance to end the round of samsara and end all the mental sufferings and worries that we don’t desire. Yet we still keep on suffering as we have been from beginningless time. We often think that this suffering is new, but this is only due to our lack of understanding—each experience of suffering has no beginning, yet still we haven’t stopped it completely. We have always had imperfect births, births in irreligious countries where there is no Buddhadharma, thus creating more bad karma. So, this time, having attained the opportunities of the eight freedoms and ten richnesses, we have the possibility to extinguish suffering because we have so much freedom to practice the Dharma. This is the chance we have never had before. With this life, we have the freedom to break the continuity of suffering.

If there was no suffering mind, there would be no suffering body. Through Dharma practice, we work to stop suffering by realizing the absolute nature of existence. The reason we are born as a human with the freedom to practice the Dharma is the meaning of life. This is why you have come here from the West to do this meditation course. An airplane is used for flying in the air, not in the jungle or in the bushes. The perfect human rebirth has been created by our past lives for this vital purpose. It’s now in our hands to do it; it’s up to us, the pilots of our perfect human rebirth.

We are trying to figure out how to best use our lives. How quickly we travel to America depends on the cost. Similarly, the time it takes to reach enlightenment depends on our determination and the strength of our practice. The fewer mistakes in the practice, the shorter the time—but the practice must be pure, for purity is its foundation.

Just as different degrees of merit are created depending on our understanding, different degrees of merit are created by practices such as circumambulating. Going around a blessed holy object such as a stupa creates merit even for somebody of limited understanding, because the object itself is associated with the holy minds of so many buddhas, to guide sentient beings and to allow them to create positive karma. This is especially true for the famous stupas such as that in Bodhgaya. Because so many highly realized beings are associated with it, these objects remain holy until the earth is destroyed. Having been blessed by the holy beings, due to the power from the object’s side, even being near such holy objects purifies negativity and creates positive karma, even though we may not have a pure motivation as we are circumambulating them.

There are so many ways to create good karma, but without understanding the Dharma, they can’t bring quick enlightenment. Any action done with the expectation of comfort for this life is negative. Destroying the attachment to the happiness of this life alone is the purpose of the meditations of the practitioner of lower capability.

The student of one guru, with strong will and faith, cleaned the guru’s house for many years. Due to this good karma, he achieved enlightenment, despite difficulties in receiving teachings.

Also, in this lifetime, even if we don’t attain enlightenment, we can become bodhisattvas and attain clairvoyance to see the many past and future lives of countless beings. According to the level of realization, we can travel to the many other realms and help the beings there. As our realizations become higher, we will see more and more buddhas and hear their teachings. This is also possible in this lifetime.

With this perfect human rebirth, we can become a bodhisattva.

It’s also possible we can become an arhat, released from rebirth in samsara and having achieved everlasting happiness without going through the bodhisattva’s path. 

With this perfect human rebirth, we can attain bodhicitta, the mind that seeks enlightenment in order to benefit all other sentient beings.

We can also attain other realizations, such as a direct realization of emptiness and the true nature of mind. Our Dharma understanding arises from our practice.

With the perfect human rebirth, we can also attain the rank of a wish-granting king and have possession of many universes.

We can experience worldly benefits that naturally arise from the creation of positive karma.

We don’t usually pay attention to the usefulness of our human life, due to a lack of understanding of the Dharma. But now we are checking it to see.

If we look at the sufferings of lower beings, such as animals, we will see just how precious our human rebirth really is. This is important to know because clearly understanding these differences causes us to not use our human life as if we were animals. In this way, we destroy our ignorance and use our human rebirth for a higher purpose. The more we realize this, the more determination we will have to do this.

Animals do things such as sleeping, eating, desiring happiness for themselves, killing other beings and having sexual intercourse. If we do the same things as an animal, it makes no sense; it gives no purpose to our birth and life as a human being. There are far more suffering animals than there are human beings. Overwhelmed by suffering, how can any animal do anything positive?

The mind is beginningless. From beginningless time, we have taken rebirth in each of the six samsaric realms, forever circling in the cycle of death and rebirth created by ignorance. After one life has finished, the mind takes another body, either in the same realm or a different one. This is determined by what karmic seeds ripen at our death, seeds created by the positive or negative actions of our body, speech and mind. From beginningless time, we have been experiencing taking the bodies of human beings, animals, hungry ghosts and hell beings, all depending on the karma that ripens at the time of our death.

For instance, in one day, one month, or one year, we create all kinds of different karmas for future rebirths in all six samsaric realms—positive and negative ones. The experience of creating karma is beginningless. We are even creating karma at the time of our death. At the time of death, of all the countless karmic imprints we have on our mindstream, whichever is the closer, heavier or more habitual brings the result for the next life. If it’s the karma for rebirth as a pig, the craving and grasping for a pig’s body arise and push us into the link of becoming, where we will be reborn as a pig. At the death of the pig, if the karma to be reborn as a human being is the closest, heaviest and most habitual, we will take a human rebirth. The positive karmas for a human rebirth are almost invariably created in the human realm; in the lower realms it’s nearly impossible to create such karma. Because we can break the continuous, beginningless chain of negative karma in this human realm alone, this rebirth is extremely useful and precious for our escape from samsara.

Meditating without overcoming our attachment to our sense of self, our possessions or our reputation can never purify us or bring enlightenment. We are fortunate in that we have a method of making even our breath beneficial to each sentient being. Because this exchange of selfish concern for the concern for others is formless, we can’t see it, but each time as we exhale, we give all our happiness and merit to all other sentient beings and create the perfect peace of enlightenment. We should therefore feel most fortunate. In the past, we were born as a human being many times, but we have wasted those lives, using them only for our own self-interest. So, now we shall use this human life for other sentient beings as well as offering service to the infinite enlightened beings. We become the Buddha’s best servant by working for sentient beings, because enlightened beings exist only for the benefit of sentient beings, to lead them from suffering to enlightenment. When we help sentient beings, it’s the best offering to the enlightened beings, like the soldier who fights to protect the country and serves the king.

Because the vast majority of people on this planet have no freedom to practice the Dharma, their lives are not so useful. There are so many human beings on earth, but the perfect human rebirth is very rare. And compared to nonhuman beings, there are so few humans; they are rarer than jewels. The more we can understand how little freedom others have, the more we can appreciate how precious our human life is. Then, it’s easy to renounce worldly concern and use our rebirth for sentient beings, in contrast to ordinary people who dedicate their lives to obtaining material possessions and reputation, unable to find happiness in their worldly concerns and unable to discover Dharma happiness.

Of the two types of happiness, worldly happiness and Dharma happiness, beings of the lower realms are unable to experience either. While beings of the upper realms might be able to obtain some worldly happiness, very few are able to experience Dharma happiness. Not having met the Dharma, they are forever chasing worldly happiness alone. We have the most fortunate opportunity in that we have a human rebirth and, more than that, a perfect human rebirth where we have met the Dharma and the perfect virtuous friend and we have all the conditions to make the utmost use of this life. If we can’t see that, we can easily waste this life, not using it wisely.

Why is there so little peace on this earth? Why are we not released from ignorance? Why are there so few beings with pure, well-subdued minds and so many with suffering minds? The reason is that the vast majority of beings have no understanding of the Dharma’s perfect methods or of the usefulness of the perfect human rebirth in allowing them to practice the Dharma. As a result, they spend their lives pursuing happiness in unskillful ways, according to their worldly understanding. This limited view holds that life, which is meaningless, is only to be used in a worldly way: This short-sighted, sad view brings loneliness and boredom, unhappiness and dissatisfaction. We are so lucky that we can recognize the wise and beneficial alternative way of using this life.

If material possessions were the cause of perfect peace and happiness, we would already have perfect happiness, because in past lives we have had great wealth and numberless possessions. But even with that wealth the mind is still ignorant. To transform the mind’s inclination from negative to positive is the way to perfect peace. No jewel in existence can destroy even one of the thousands of negative minds we have; it can’t cut off even one of the negative mind’s tendencies. But the perfect human rebirth can be used to completely cease the billions of problems and their foundation: ignorance. Nothing can compare to one lifetime of a perfect human rebirth, even wish-granting jewels filling infinite space, because these jewels are unable to stop the continuity of even one single type of suffering. Stopping some degree of material suffering for a brief period through material means is not the end of suffering; it’s not the cessation of all suffering. True cessation from the Dharma point of view is ending the continuity of suffering.

Unless we can recognize the nature of suffering, we can’t recognize its cause. Nor can we recognize perfect happiness and the way to attain it. Trying to use worldly methods to obtain a temporary pause in our suffering only creates the cause for more suffering. Beings who do so are preparing for future suffering while thinking that they are stopping it. Because of attachment to temporal pleasures, they work to fulfill the desire for momentary freedom from unpleasant things. We have been working for attachment; we are slaves to it. If we were to truthfully check all of our actions, we would see that it’s our habit to always follow our attachment to pleasure. As the three negative minds always see the object in the wrong way, not in the ultimate way, they always cause problems.

WASTING THE PERFECT HUMAN REBIRTH

In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva says,

[4:17] With behavior such as this,
I shall not win a human body again,
And if this human form is not attained,
There will be solely wrongdoing and no virtue.

Having no chance to know the Dharma, animals have almost no opportunity to create positive karma; they are forced to create negative karma instead. Many humans, such as barbarians and heretics, are in the same situation. Therefore, those who have the perfect human rebirth, with its eight freedoms and ten richnesses, who fail to train the mind in Dharma practice are much more foolish and ignorant. Wasting this chance is the worst thing. To use it for the pursuit of samsaric happiness or for our own peace is selfish. We must use this time for the purpose of enlightenment. We must not be like the man with great wealth who dies of starvation because he doesn’t want to spend any of it.

Shantideva says,

[4:18] If when I have the chance to live a wholesome life
My actions are not wholesome,
Then what shall I be able to do
When confused by the misery of the lower realms?

The meaning of this verse is much the same as the previous one. If we were born as an animal, we would be unable even to enjoy samsaric pleasures, let alone practice the Dharma. The animal rebirth awaits us, depending on the ripening of the particular karma.

If we see an object and the buddha doesn’t, the object doesn’t exist. If a buddha sees an object it exists, even if we don’t see it. For instance, we can’t see nagas, but they exist. Nagas are sentient beings living in ignorance who can make or stop rain. Related to the karma of the beings living in a particular place, special pujas can be done to influence these beings.

THE EIGHT WORLDLY DHARMAS

[WFGS pp. 87–88]

The Buddha says,

From the time of conception in the mother’s womb,
Life continues until death,
Following worldly ways
Without following a new path.

The sufferings of death and after death are the fault of not following the new untried path as shown by the enlightened being. Any kind of worldly life, whether we pursue it in the East or the West, is the old life, the life experienced countless times in previous lives; there is nothing new.

Milarepa said many important things in his teachings, including exhorting us not to be attached to our own body. He also warned that food was like Mara’s spy, in that the more we enjoy it, the more attached we become to it. He gave this advice to his disciple Rechungpa,²

Son, if you want to practice the holy Dharma and have devotion arise from the depth of your heart, do not look back toward this life. Follow my truth. The relatives are Mara who delay you, who prevent you from practicing the holy Dharma. Don’t believe what they say. Cut off attachment to them. And food and possessions are the spies of Mara. The objects of desire are like Mara’s noose, tying you to itself, therefore definitely cut off attachment.³

Attachment to food and other enjoyments is what ties us to samsara, like “Mara’s noose.” This is what we need to free ourselves from. In other words, we must give up the eight worldly dharmas.

The main problem is not the object but the mind, the creator of negativities. If we can learn to control the mind, the objects will cease to be a problem. The pure mind, free of delusions, can change poison to medicine or kaka to nectar, bringing infinite happiness.

The senses of seeing, hearing and so forth are limited because they are caused by the mistaken mind controlled by karma and delusions. As a result, we invariably enjoy sense objects in the wrong way. By changing the creator, our mind, we can definitely change our sullied, deluded relationship with the sense objects, transforming them from objects of attachment into clean objects, from ugly into beautiful. Overcoming our attachment to the objects of our senses and learning to see them in the correct way, as they actually exist, is a long process and will only slowly happen as we develop our wisdom. It can’t be done straight away.

Consider a friend who always speaks beautifully. One day, instead, they speak angry and ugly words to us. Suddenly, we no longer see them as beautiful but as ugly. Their appearance hasn’t really changed, yet the sight of that same face induces anger. Then later, we make up—with words, gifts and so forth—and that ugly appearance changes again. Attachment sees beauty; anger sees ugliness. Only purification of the negative mind brings perfect peace.

Milarepa also said that our relatives are Mara in that when we want to practice the Dharma, they find ways of delaying us, leading us back to worldly ways. Because they can betray us in that way, we need to be cautious. He warned us of our home, saying it’s Mara’s prison, so difficult to escape from. Because we will have to leave all these objects of our attachment at the time of our death, it’s much better to do that now. He then concluded by saying,

If you can do all this,
You have the fortune of practicing the Dharma.

The door to the understanding of our own nature, the door to a positive mind, is the recognition of problems created by the negative mind, such as not wanting to meditate. Ignorance always likes things that are wrong and false, so of course it dislikes any new subject or practice. Because the Dharma asks us to meditate on ignorance, suffering, death and so forth, to our ignorance it’s not “pleasant.”

Since beginningless time, we have taken great care of our greed, hatred and ignorance. While we continue to work for those three poisonous minds, serving ignorance faithfully and working for our attachment and against our enemies, we will never be free from suffering. The Buddha’s way of helping us is to make us understand and allow us to make a free choice about which method to follow.

Unless we can renounce the worldly life through the practice of the meditation on impermanence, the Dharma actions we perform only become a service to the eight worldly dharmas. The eight worldly dharmas are four sets of cravings: craving for material possessions and craving to be free from lack of material possessions, craving for happiness and comfort and craving to be free from unhappiness and discomfort, craving for a good reputation and craving to be free from a bad reputation, and craving for praise and craving to be free from criticism.

Any action done free from the influence of the eight worldly dharmas should be done with a mind living in the practice of the meditation on impermanence. When our mind renounces the worldly life, any action becomes positive, a Dharma action. “Dharma” is not just a name. It has great meaning. It doesn’t only belong to Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and so on. The pure practice of Dharma is created by our mind. It’s the method shown by the enlightened being that he followed, practiced, and experienced completely. In the same way, the true nature of things and their impermanence don’t belong to a sect.

Literally “Dharma” means “holding” or “guiding,” holding us back from, firstly, the suffering of the three lower realms; secondly, the suffering of the whole of samsara, ruled by greed, hatred and ignorance; and thirdly, the subtle obscurations that block us from enlightenment.

Dharma leads us from these three levels of suffering to enlightenment. Each of us has to create our own essential practice of the Dharma and become a positive guide to ourselves instead of our own enemy. For example, when we crave an object due to ignorance, we easily follow the negative mind and create negative actions to obtain that object, such as stealing.

If we live in the pure practice of the Dharma, we will get what we need naturally—food, clothing, accommodation and so forth, and in our next life we will still be able to work toward enlightenment. Obtaining the happiness of this life is not the goal of our Dharma practice, but it will happen by the way, just as when we travel to another country, we see many things on the way, even though that is not our main purpose.

Since we don’t know the time of our death, it is most worthwhile to seek enlightenment soon. If we are living in the essential practice of the Dharma, there are fewer problems. Through understanding comes a great mental change, with less need for physical activity and, as a result, less physical worries. This happens when we renounce the eight worldly dharmas.

Problems don’t exist by themselves but arise from our attitude to situations we encounter. The same person is sometimes a friend, sometimes an enemy, depending on how they treat us. When we avoid the eight worldly dharmas, as our concept changes, we cut off so many problems, and understanding and peace happen naturally. By realizing their shortcomings, we must be as afraid of the eight worldly dharmas as we would be were we to even smell a poisonous plant.

Just as attachment to the eight worldly dharmas causes suffering when they can’t be fulfilled, with renunciation we are naturally free from that suffering. The peace of renunciation is inexpensive and doesn’t depend on rockets, factories, weapons, armies or presidents. Such peace continues until we reach enlightenment, growing stronger and stronger. It starts with renunciation of the eight worldly dharmas, which is like opening a door. It’s a simple step requiring an understanding mind that avoids ignorant, negative actions. We must know what negative actions are and what their results are in order to fully renounce them.

We are usually ignorant of the result of any negative action we do, such as taking drugs, which instead of the happiness it promises only makes us crazier and crazier. On the other hand, renouncing negative actions only makes us saner. It’s like a saw that cuts away the problems and confusion. It’s the opposite to the worldly desire that actually stops all happiness, including samsaric happiness.

Many people who don’t understand the Dharma and who have no experience of it are shocked by those who follow a spiritual path and give up worldly things. This is especially true in the case of parents of Western students. Many of them get angry, thinking their child is being forced to suffer deprivations and being taught not to think. At best, they think their child is foolish and leading a nonsensical life that will only bring more problems and rob the child of being self-sufficient.

However, all this is judged with ignorance, without understanding the benefits of following the path of the Dharma. Since they haven’t been through the experience, they can’t know. Besides not seeing the future benefits of such actions, they think it causes us problems in the present, which is totally opposite to reality. Renunciation of the eight desires releases us from the mental troubles of confusion and samsaric worries, bringing peace not only in the future but immediately.

It’s very dangerous to think of our meditation practice, “I was happier before doing this.” Such thoughts disturb our practice and destroy the merits of any virtuous actions we do. They are poisonous and block our chance at happiness. If we seem to have a problem with our practice, that means there is something wrong with the way we are practicing, not the practice itself. We should check what is wrong and identify its cause, which is some confused mental state. Until we sort this out, continuing our practice will be difficult.

With renunciation, the power of practice grows stronger, our future improves and we get things without trying. By not focusing on our worldly needs, we find we naturally have whatever we need. It is said that no great meditator has ever died of starvation or with the cold through ignoring their material needs. This refers to the sincere meditator and applies to both the present and the future.

There was a Tibetan called Geshe Ben Gungyal who had trouble satisfying worldly needs until he practiced the Dharma purely, after which it was easy. 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 things because of all the offerings people made. He said, “Before I practiced Dharma my mouth had trouble finding food but now food has trouble finding my mouth.”

This helps us to understand how things are created by the mind. The unenlightened mind is a friend to ignorance. Whereas when worldly people experience problems, their ignorance and anger increase, the wise ones use worldly problems for enlightenment and peace.

When we can renounce the eight worldly dharmas, the freedom we gain creates real peace. Renunciation is a mental attitude arising from a positive determination. This is difficult because it’s hard to change our mental attitude. The problems we face don’t come from the objects or situations but from our desire for them. Suffering is created by the mind. We must understand how this works beyond intellectual knowledge.

ATTACHMENT CAUSES US TO CIRCLE IN SAMSARA

The negative, attached mind has caused us to continue circling in the samsaric realms forever. From the smallest animal to the biggest, from the beggar to the king, those whose lives are not focused on the practice of the Dharma are concerned only with present problems, not with future suffering. Their greatest mistake is to always create the cause for greater suffering while trying to stop the temporary problems happening now. This is because they lack the understanding of the nature of both suffering itself and the cause of suffering. Therefore, they are unable to understand true happiness.

We won’t be able to overcome our problems until we can recognize our mistakes and accept these fundamental Dharma points: that worldly methods can never help and that, rather than alleviating the problem, they will only ever create the cause of future problems.

And the reason for this is that such methods are mostly done to obtain one of the eight worldly dharmas, craving to have the four desirable things or craving to be free from the four undesirable things. Most of us spend our life working for these eight worldly dharmas, like the slave working for the master. We should check up on our own actions even now, asking ourselves honestly why we are doing this current action. We can discover how to stop worldly problems by asking, “Is this what my attachment wants?” In this way, we can uncover the underlying cause of so many of our actions. But we must know that the result of actions done with greed, hatred or ignorance is always suffering and problems.

Attachment is the creator of samsara. Love mixed with attachment is love created by ignorance; with it, we still remain in samsara. This love is not the same as real love, and because of it, we have to experience its results in the three lower and three upper realms. Why doesn’t it bring peace? Because the principal cause is the unsubdued, untamed mind; the root mind is a confused, mistaken mind, because the three negative minds always see the object in a faulty way. They see the object in a way that is not true to an enlightened mind. Just as if we have a black mark on our face, we can’t expect to see a clean face in the mirror, it’s impossible for peace to arise from those three negative minds. Therefore, the whole problem is their fault.

All actions done with attachment to worldly desires are negative actions. When we attempt to cut off a problem using a mind of the eight worldly dharmas, this can only bring similar problems in the future because the methods are negative, arising from a mind that is not well-subdued. To stop that which was created by previous negative karma, we use a method similar to that used before, and so it continues. It’s just a cycle of suffering.

Besides the actions that are caused by attachment, we can also harm others to get our way. For example, a butcher’s livelihood is killing animals, which causes so much suffering for other beings. The butcher doesn’t think they are a negative person. They do that job in order to have a comfortable life; it’s their way of taking care of the worldly problems that arise. Their life as a butcher is due to previous negative karmic imprints ripening that bring about that life. The imprints have ripened and they must experience the result. As long as they don’t try to understand the Dharma, they will definitely have to experience the suffering result of the actions they are doing now as a butcher, if not in this lifetime, then in some other lifetime.

The method the butcher uses to obtain happiness–slaughtering animals—not only doesn’t stop them suffering in this life, it also creates great negative karma. Focusing solely on the concerns of this life, they are creating the cause of future suffering. Creating negative karma to stop negative karma is an impossible thing. This is nobody’s fault, but they will have to suffer in a future life and create more negative karma, and so it always circles around.

Stealing and telling lies are also actions created by our own attachment, creating suffering for us in the future and suffering for others. Any action—even reciting mantras or making music—done with attachment or anger only brings the result of being trapped in the cycle of samsara for a longer time and experiencing more suffering results.

Every action—eating, writing, playing, dancing and so forth—can be either a Dharma action or a non-Dharma action. No matter how it might look, if any action is done free from involvement in the eight worldly dharmas and with a bodhicitta motivation, it is a Mahayana action, and if it’s done with attachment and greed for the sake of the eight worldly dharmas, it’s a non-Dharma action.

How can we define a Dharma action? It’s any positive action that avoids and opposes the eight worldly dharmas; it’s any action motivated by non-attachment. Such an action creates positive karma and brings happiness in this and future lives. It’s the cause of a future human rebirth with better conditions and a religious life, bodhicitta, perfect peace and enlightenment.

When we come to really understand the Dharma, it can come as a kind of shock. Many people think it’s easy, just imitating another person—“If they close their eyes, I’ll close mine.” But the real Dharma is the person’s actions that are free from any stain of the eight worldly dharmas, free from attachment, free of hatred, free from ignorance. It doesn’t matter what the person is called because the action doesn’t depend on the title “Buddhist,” “Hindu,” “Zen,” “Christian” or “Muslim.” Others may even call them “evil,” but if their actions are pure and positive, they have the power to destroy the negative mind and to create good karma. Such actions arising from pure motivation are called the Dharma because they can lead to an escape from ignorance and bring enlightenment. This must be created by the mind, not by external actions alone.

Because the form of Dharma actions is not definite, the Buddhadharma is something that everybody can do. If we are unable to do it, it’s our own delusions that are blocking us, nothing else. It has nothing to do with class, caste, occupation, title or color of our skin. We are unable to practice only because we haven’t created enough merit due to our ignorance. The difficulties we face when we try to study the Buddhadharma’s deep and profound subjects only come from the delusions that obscure our mind; they haven’t been created by the enlightened beings trying to make the subject complicated.

Why aren’t more people practicing Buddhism? Because their ignorance doesn’t give them a chance. Renunciation and avoidance of the eight worldly dharmas is more powerful than the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb destroys a whole city and all the people, which would end anyway, but it can’t destroy the mind, which is continual. Even if the atomic bomb were to destroy all other beings and we were left alone on earth, other enemies would still arise to make us unhappy. Even if this realm ended, the mind would transfer to another realm because it has not been released from ignorance, the delusions are not cut off, and the continuity of previous negative karmas are still there on our mindstream. In other realms we meet other enemies, and we will always do so until the problem is resolved.

The cause of the external enemy is the mind. The real enemy is the inner enemy, ignorance. As long as we travel in the six realms befriending this inner enemy instead of destroying it, there will be no end to the problems with the external enemy. Rather than helping, actions such as destroying our external enemies with atomic bombs only create great negative karma.

The action of avoiding the eight worldly dharmas, however, is a purely mental one, creating the positive energy to bring all the realizations and finally enlightenment. It’s like fuel for a rocket. The rocket is just a useless machine until it has been refueled, and then it can go anywhere. The renounced mind brings us a quick escape from ignorance and the delusions.

Guru Shakyamuni Buddha became enlightened by completely purifying his mind of all negativity, and he became the object of respect and refuge for all sentient beings. All this was the result of his practice of avoiding the eight worldly dharmas, allowing him to work for the happiness of all sentient beings.

Due to the power of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s realizations, we are able to create incredible positive karma by keeping statues of him with the understanding of what this represents. Now, many Western people are starting to realize what the mind is, how what we have makes life meaningful, and so on. This too is the power of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s wisdom.

The power of the atomic bomb is nothing; it’s lost. It only has negative effects. This is unlike the power of renunciation, the benefits of which can affect numberless sentient beings, including those we have never heard of. We need to practice with our mind, as Guru Shakyamuni Buddha did.

Even this meditation course results from the existence of his teachings, the power of his enlightenment, and his practice of avoiding the eight worldly dharmas. The mind that has this practice is shapeless and cannot be seen, yet this mind is so incredibly powerful that numberless sentient beings can achieve enlightenment because of it.

If we want to be exactly like Milarepa, we have to practice the avoidance of the eight worldly dharmas. This is the fundamental practice of the Mahayana teachings and meditation. Many people, not understanding the importance of these subjects, study other practices such as kundalini yoga. While becoming very skilled in such techniques, they waste their perfect human rebirth, ignorant of the highest purpose of the human life. So many humans have achieved clairvoyance from such methods only to die and be reborn in the lower realms.

Practicing Dharma is the wisest way to use the human life and make it meaningful. Using our life in the most beneficial way is to be free from suffering, not to destroy our comfort or to miss the happiness of this life. By subduing the mind, our Dharma practice has the power to bring peace in this life. Whereas it brings the happiness of freedom, any pleasures that are received from actions arising from greed are the pleasures of bondage. The happiness from the practice of avoiding the eight worldly dharmas is the peace of renunciation.

Renunciation of the eight worldly dharmas doesn’t mean physical separation. That is not the definition of renunciation. A king who has everything can live in renunciation; the beggar without any belongings can still have attachment. We have to check up how we generate renunciation. What is the definition? Renouncing desire for the eight worldly dharmas is a mental attitude; it comes from the mind. Pure renunciation can never cause problems. Just as the cause is pure, the result will always be pure; it will be happiness. But if we see renunciation as rejecting objects without giving up our attachment to them, we cause problems for ourselves and others. Correct renunciation brings release. “Release” has a very tasty meaning.

The main problem is not merely the attachment to the things of the worldly life but also the greed and ignorance that are deep rooted in our mind. We have to both avoid the negative mind and at the same time avoid the actions of the negative mind, because when we create nonvirtuous actions, we perpetuate the negative states of mind and create this continual circling called samsara.

THE POWER OF RENUNCIATION

Not understanding is ignorance; if somebody were to abuse or slander us, due to our attachment to the eight worldly dharmas, we would really dislike and probably get angry with them, maybe even suddenly seeing them as ugly. All this creates negative karma and could well lead to creating bad verbal and physical actions.

Why do we have so many problems? Anger arises from our attachment being frustrated, from not getting what we want. Desire sees the object of its attachment as beautiful, but it’s a poisonous mind, one of the worst ones. Desire is a very tricky mind that always causes suffering, which arises from attachment. Because it’s a negative mind, the result can only be suffering, which generates more negative minds, thus creating the cyclic existence we are currently trapped in.

This all arises from attachment, such as craving praise and never wanting blame. For a person in the essential practice of the Dharma—avoiding the eight worldly dharmas, not following attachment—there is no anger, because without attachment to the pleasant there can be no anger at the unpleasant, so whether somebody abuses us or not is irrelevant. Their abusive words are like the sound of the wind; seeing no essential difference, we are utterly unaffected by them. Without anger or attachment, we no longer create negative karma and we experience complete, perfect happiness. Our mind is very strong. It’s very free, loose and released, whereas the attached mind is very tight.

You have all come to this meditation course seeking happiness, not suffering. Because we are all equal in desiring happiness, we must all make our motivation positive in whatever we do in order to create positive karma, which is the cause of happiness. We must make our motivation positive, even when listening to Dharma. Just taking the teachings isn’t enough to avoid rebirth in the three lower realms. Even taking the teachings with the sole thought that it will release us from suffering is a form of selfishness, a kind of self-cherishing, despite the fact that it will bring perfect peace.

Being unaware of the suffering of others can’t help anyone. We are exactly the same as all other beings in not desiring suffering and in only desiring happiness, so there is no reason to care more for ourselves than others. But the others are unlike us in that they haven’t met the teachings and don’t have the wisdom to follow positive actions and avoid negative ones. Because of that, they are always suffering and creating its cause.

From those suffering sentient beings come all our happiness, realizations and ultimately enlightenment. Because they have always been kind and they always will be, they are more precious than any possession. We must repay their kindness; we must take care of them, dedicating ourselves to them. There is no other way to enlightenment.

The best way to take care of them is to lead them to enlightenment but at present we don’t have the power to do so, therefore this is something we must strive to acquire. It means we must destroy all our negativities and develop fully all our positive qualities. This is the motivation we should have when we are listening to the teachings on the graduated path, when we are studying, meditating and doing purification practices. In cultivating such a pure motivation, the action of listening to the teachings becomes that much more powerful, benefiting both ourselves and all sentient beings.

The benefits of avoiding the eight worldly dharmas are infinite. The power of this practice of renunciation is such that we can never finish explaining its value. The more we understand the Dharma, the more we appreciate the infinite, transcendental wisdom of the buddhas. At the same time, we discover for ourselves how powerful and precious this practice is. It’s more precious than any jewels. Unlike a treasure of jewels, there’s no danger of it ever being lost or stolen. The more wealth we have, the greater the worry, the more preoccupied we are with that wealth, how to use it, how to protect it and so forth. But the more purely we practice the avoidance of the eight worldly dharmas, the more quickly our ignorance decreases and our wisdom arises, and the sooner the problems associated with material possessions disappear.

If we can live in renunciation of these worldly needs at the time of death, we will definitely avoid rebirth in the three lower realms. But anyone who has not renounced greed, even though they might have somehow developed some form of clairvoyance, will certainly be reborn there. In ancient times, there was a Tibetan who practiced tantra without practicing renunciation. With merely a look he could kill a hundred people. But when he died, he was reborn in the hell realm. Anything that fails to cut off greed and attachment can only keep us suffering; it can’t guide us to freedom.

The power of renunciation can allow us to transform a stone into a flower. There are said to be three powers that allow us to do miraculous things: the powers of medicine, mantra and the elements. But the power of this practice is the safest, strongest power to protect our mind.

So many meditators in past times have protected themselves with renunciation. For example, before the meditator Kharag Gomchung achieved his Dharma practice, he was in a very miserable condition, suffering so much from leprosy. Because others avoided him in his state, he was always alone, which made him very upset. Deciding to make this situation worthwhile, he went to stay in a little cave by a road to beg and recite mantras. There was no other practice. One night he dreamed he was in water and a man in white appeared and took him out of it. Much water came out of his body and, when he awoke, he found he was cured. This was due to the strength of his mind. He had trained his mind to renounce attachment to the eight worldly dharmas by going to the cave and practicing. Even temporary, mundane suffering can be cured by this practice, and the happiness arising through this practice can be developed until enlightenment. Kharag Gomchung didn’t aim to be cured of his leprosy, but this came about as a result of his pure practice.

Many people think that the renunciation that the Buddhadharma advocates is all about denying the things that bring a happy life and embracing things that cause suffering. Many think that if they had to renounce worldly pleasures, they would be miserable. Such a notion is completely wrong; it’s completely opposed to the logic we gain when we experience renunciation. The more attachment there is—the less renunciation—the more confusion and suffering will result.

This can be proven clearly by personal practice. If we train ourselves to overcome our attachment to worldly comforts, we will observe the effect on our mental state, how we become increasingly peaceful and happy. The notion that renunciation doesn’t bring happiness is wrong.

In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva says,

[8:80–82] In the same way as animals drawing carriages
Are only able to eat a few mouthfuls of grass,
Likewise, desirous people
Have many disadvantages such as these, and little (profit).

And since even animals can obtain this (little profit)
Those who are pained by their (previous) actions
Waste these leisures and endowments [freedoms and richnesses], so difficult to find,
For the sake of something trivial that is not so scarce.

The objects of desire will certainly perish,
And then I shall fall into the hellish states.
However, buddhahood itself is attained
With just one millionth of the difficulty.

When we engage in any action caused by the eight worldly dharmas, it’s like we are purposely keeping ourselves in ignorance, trapping ourselves in the cycle of death and rebirth. It’s very foolish. In fact, it’s crazy, but it’s not recognized as such by a worldly person because the ignorant don’t see ignorance as an affliction. To a worldly person, their actions that come from attachment are positive and good. This kind of disturbed mind is worse than that of a person [with psychosis], whose condition is temporary, because this ignorant belief in chasing attachment without a thought of purifying the inner afflictions can never cease suffering.

Many Dharma practitioners face difficulties in their practice, which they overcome by the practice of thought transformation, using problems in the path to develop the realizations. By utilizing current problems, they are effectively cutting the continuation of suffering that arises from the ripening of negative karmic seeds from previous lives. This is a wise action. They are also trying to not create any negative karma for future lives. For this reason, they practice Dharma, unheedful of worldly problems, thinking that by cutting off the cause of all suffering, they will cut off all worldly difficulties.

If we too can practice like that, with such great determination, we will overcome any worldly problems we have. When our disturbed states of mind are overcome, our worldly problems will be overcome. The ignorant mind is a very limited mind, always finding ways to continue the cause of suffering. The Dharma mind is the complete opposite to that.

Because the negative mind is that which is attached to the pleasure of samsara, using this human rebirth for that always creates suffering. There is not the tiniest bit of help or happiness that can come from the negative mind, from desire. How can it be useful? It’s important to know that its effect is always harmful.

Many people think, “Without desire, how can we enjoy food and so forth?” They feel that life is not worth living without desire. If we don’t check up, we can also make this mistake. This represents a lack of understanding of where desire comes from. Happiness doesn’t arise from attachment, anger and ignorance but from the opposite, from the minds of non-attachment, non-anger and non-ignorance, from wisdom. It comes from positive actions and positive minds. Perfect peace can only to be achieved by destroying the negative mind of desire.

Samsaric happiness that is recognized by the limited mind is of a binding nature, like being imprisoned by thick chains. The happiness that arises from Dharma practice is free and loose; its nature is freedom. The principal cause of samsaric happiness is ignorance—not having the realization of the absolute truth and any action done without this realization. When we intuitively hold the concept of a truly existing self, we create actions that perpetuate samsara and the pursuit of worldly happiness. The samsaric happiness that comes from this type of ignorance is suffering from the Dharma point of view. True happiness can’t arise from the negative mind.

Even if we can attain all eight worldly dharmas, such pleasures can’t last; in time they must become suffering. As such they are not real happiness. When we are attached to the eight worldly dharmas, we follow desire as a servant follows their master.

It’s stressed in the teachings of the Buddha that we should not trust desire and that we should not be attached to samsaric happiness, which is created by the deluded mind, is suffering in nature and is not true happiness. As long as we trust such pleasures, we will remain in samsara. True Dharma happiness is that which arises from the practice of renunciation of the eight worldly dharmas. This kind of happiness can never end, its enjoyments can never finish. However, the work to achieve this state can be finished. In the case of samsaric happiness, on the other hand, whereas the pleasure we might get always ends, working for mundane enjoyments never ends. When we eat, we make kaka, and then we are hungry again and must eat again (and make kaka again). This is what samsaric pleasures are like. Until we cut off the karma created by ignorance, we have to go round and round like this. As long as we still have the cause to take rebirth, we die again and take rebirth again, always cycling around. While we haven’t overcome the cause, it can have no end. 

The work of developing renunciation will end in time, but samsaric actions never can. The wise ones know the meaning of life, comprehending its best use. By understanding karma, they tirelessly work toward that which can be finished. Whereas samsaric happiness can’t be developed, the peace that arises from renunciation can be developed at higher and higher levels; the experience of that peace can never end.

We get pleasure from swimming, but if we stay in the water too long it becomes cold and we crave warmth. We are happy eating food, but if we eat more and more, we lose the taste, our stomach becomes bloated and we vomit. All this proves that the nature of such “happiness” is suffering; it cannot be developed, it always turns to suffering and it’s not permanent. Sherpas who enjoy drinking wine will drink one cup and then another because they liked the first, and so on until they become totally uncontrolled, without discipline, often fighting and shouting nonsense and breaking things that were obtained with great difficulty. Their minds aren’t happy, and this is caused by the wrong belief that fails to see the true nature of suffering. The same things can be said about people who use drugs.

IS THE PERFECT HUMAN REBIRTH EASY TO ATTAIN?

[WFGS pp. 88–90]

In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva says,

[4:16–17] Although today I am healthy,
Well-nourished and unafflicted,
Life is momentary and deceptive;
The body is like an object on loan for but a minute.

With behavior such as this,
I shall not win a human body again,
And if this human form is not attained,
There will be solely wrongdoing and no virtue.

This perfect human rebirth we now enjoy arises from the positive karma we have created through beneficial actions and through having developed our wisdom. Unless we cultivate our positive qualities—if we persist in “behavior such as this”—we won’t attain another human rebirth. Our future life depends on our present life’s actions. That’s why this present life is so important and precious. It’s more precious than the whole world filled with wish-granting jewels.

There are so many good things that we can do, especially in this lifetime. We can cease the cycle of death and rebirth. We have attained this perfect human rebirth depending on the causes created in previous lifetimes. It was the result of the virtuous mental, verbal and physical actions and the understanding that any actions based on ignorance and done with greed or hatred cause rebirth in the three lower realms. Based on that firm understanding, we led a moral life and practiced the Dharma, resulting in this life we now have.

There are many levels of positive motivation, but the ultimate motivation is the wish to attain enlightenment so that we can best help others. Other motivations can also be positive but have less power, such as the motivation to attain our own perfect peace. If we help others because we expect a reward in this life, we don’t create good karma.

Shantideva says,

[1:12] All other virtues are like plantain trees;
For after bearing fruit, they simply perish.
But the perennial tree of the awakening mind
Unceasingly bears fruit and thereby flourishes without end.

Samsaric pleasures are enjoyed once and then are finished. Dharma happiness continues to grow. (Here, Shantideva is referring to the “awakening mind,” bodhicitta.) Just as we plant the seeds from the fruit we have eaten so we can enjoy more at a later time, we must plant the seeds of positive karma so that we can experience happiness in the future.

Karma is the law of cause and effect in relation to the mind. If we fully understand how the mind evolves—the inner evolution—we can understand the outer evolution on a deeper level. Everything we experience in this world is an experience of the mind. Therefore, everything comes from the mind; everything is created by the mind. The earth that we see is created by our mind, although that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a mental fabrication. Whereas the mind has the power to perceive objects, anything that is not mind does not. Samsara is a creation of the mind, but buildings, mountains and so forth, which are also created by mind, are not in samsara.

Our current perfect human rebirth depends on the karma created by the previous lives’ minds. This means that the present is created by mind. If there were no mind, there would be no creation. There are so many ways to understand the Dharma—just a few words can mean many things to those who know.

In The Foundation of All Good Qualities, Lama Tsongkhapa says,

When I have discovered that the precious freedom of this rebirth is found only once,
Is extremely difficult to find again, and is greatly meaningful,
Please bless me to unceasingly generate the mind
Taking its essence, day and night.⁴

The cause for this perfect human rebirth can’t be created by the negative minds of attachment, anger or ignorance. Negative karma is a creation of mind, generally expressed through actions of body and speech. But greatly negative actions can be created in the mind without the involvement of body or speech. This is one of the most dangerous things. Even if we stay in silence in one place for our entire lives, we can still create negative karma and suffer for countless eons. The mind can be very dangerous, especially as it is responsible for the actions of body and speech. And yet every good thing is also created by mind. The whole focus of our Dharma practice is to overcome the negativities of the mind and to increase its positive qualities so there will be no room for the negative. This is the whole point of taking ordination and following precepts.

The mind is the creator of all suffering and all happiness. Attaining enlightenment is a matter of time. Wisdom requires energy and energy comes from the mind, through meditation.

MORALITY AND CHARITY

The two principal causes of a perfect human rebirth are morality and charity, with the intense wish to have such a rebirth. With an ignorant mind, it’s difficult to appreciate the need for morality and charity, and so we become increasingly habituated to ignorance and negativity. We think that being moral means going against our own self-interest and is a form of suffering. Such a mind is itself extremely lazy. We should understand the benefits of morality and charity and also understand the disadvantages of not practicing them.

It’s extremely rare to find anyone practicing pure morality and charity. We could easily count the number. With such an explosion of the negative mind, this practice is very difficult in both the West and in the East, but especially in the West. This is nobody’s fault; it’s something that has been created by the negative mind.

We must practice while we are still human if we want a perfect human rebirth in the future. In The Three Principal Aspects of the Path, Lama Tsongkhapa says,

Freedoms and endowments are difficult to find
And life has no time to spare.
By gaining familiarity with this,
Attraction to the appearances of this life is reversed.⁵

Circling in any of the six samsaric realms, it’s difficult to create the cause for a perfect human rebirth. In the three lower realms it’s impossible due to the great ignorance and suffering of these realms. In the upper three, especially the god and demigod realms, it’s difficult due to distractions. At the present time in the human realm it’s also very difficult and getting increasingly so. Yet, the cause for this present human rebirth was created in many previous human lives, not just one, so wasting it wastes so much previous time and effort.

In Dharma practice, the level of realizations depends on how much we have purified our obscurations. It takes time, and the continual energy and determination we need comes from our basic understanding of the importance of developing our mind and is the result of continual practice. It’s not easy, habituated as we are to laziness. But our laziness came through habituation, so just as we created it, we can destroy it. Just as the holy beings did, we must give up samsaric comforts and our pursuit of the happiness of this life.

From the Dharma point of view, morality is abstaining from the negative mind and negative actions, those actions that harm others. While we harbor such harmful minds, enlightenment is impossible. Abstaining from harming others is essential for morality. At this stage of our development, it requires a strong determination. We must want to take care of ourselves and our mind. Charity also requires the motivation to dedicate ourselves to other beings.

The practice of charity without morality brings rebirth as a rich animal, like a naga, for example. In the Buddha’s time there were many nagas living in the ocean. There was a great increase in their number at that time, and when a king who was surprised by that increase asked about it, the Buddha explained that this was due to the fact that these beings did not correctly follow the moral precepts they had taken in previous lives and failed to purify themselves after breaking the vows.

Not observing morality while practicing charity brings an animal rebirth with wealth in that rebirth. If we become a wealthy animal like a naga, in that lifetime we are too ignorant to create more charity, so that karmic result ends and only future suffering will ensue. As Chandrakirti says,

One who breaks the leg of the precepts
And is reborn as an animal
Never receives enjoyments
Once the result of charity has finished.

According to the Mahayana view, charity doesn’t depend on materials. It is our responsibility to help others have happiness, not to increase their attachment to samsaric pleasures. If we were to put drugs in the food we offer to a person living in ordination, thinking they might like it, it would disturb their practice and create negative karma. We must be careful what we give; we must be skillful in helping others. If we ourselves can purely keep vows we have taken, it helps cleanse the mind of obscurations and helps us not create more negativities.

The texts further explain the difficulties in creating the cause for the perfect human rebirth as follows. In the hell realm there are so many beings. This is a terrible place, a karmic creation without escape. Hell beings don’t die as we do, and the environment of the hot hells is extremely hot and totally dark. Their lives last a long time, varying in accordance with the karma they have created. It doesn’t matter how much they desire to escape, there is no freedom to do so. With all this suffering, ignorance, and the desperate desire to escape, there is no opportunity to create positive karma, especially through the practices of morality and charity. In these realms, the beings can’t create the cause for a human rebirth. The hungry ghost and animal realms are similar.

The beings in the god realms are too preoccupied with enjoyments. They have bodies of light, drink transcendental nectars and enjoy long life. They neither see nor recognize suffering and can’t practice renunciation.

Even in the human realm, it’s difficult to practice morality and charity. Just thoughtless abstinence is not enough. There must be motivation, determination and understanding of the suffering result of not practicing this way. Somebody alone in a cave, never coming out, isn’t necessarily practicing morality. We must make the choice.

People following morality are much rarer than wish-granting jewels and they are decreasing in number each year. It’s difficult to practice this way because the minds of us sentient beings are more and more obscured by ignorance. The mind of morality directly counters the negative minds of ignorance and greed, which find it difficult to practice for even a day.

Even when trying to observe morality, if we think that keeping moral conduct is like being in prison, our practice of morality will fall apart, and it will be very difficult to achieve the perfect human rebirth in a future life.

Therefore, because we can now see how difficult it is to create the cause for a perfect human rebirth, we must take the utmost care of this life since it’s so difficult to receive another one again. We can only create the causes for this to happen if we know what they are.

The cycle of suffering is such that as long as we don’t seek the truth through continuous Dharma practice, our problems will continue. If we don’t do this when we have attained a perfect human rebirth, then when? How long will we have to wait for another opportunity?

THE SECRET OF THE MIND

[WFGS pp. 90–91]

As we have seen, the highly realized Tibetan yogi Lama Tsongkhapa says that when we understand how meaningful the perfect human rebirth is and how rare, we will definitely avoid any actions that make life meaningless. He urges us to take its essence day and night.

To make the life meaningful, meaningful actions are required. To create such actions, we need to recognize the perfect human rebirth, therefore we start our meditation with this. This is the principal cause to build up the determination to persevere over a great length of time in order to attain all the realizations that lead to enlightenment. This takes a long time, depending on how quickly we purify our obscurations and many other things. Just as a long trip requires many porters, we need many supports.

We must have the sincere wish to create the determination. Why does it depend on determination? Because the trip from where we are now to enlightenment is the hardest trip; it’s something we have never attempted before, from beginningless lifetimes until now. And it’s so hard because it’s purely a mental trip. Because there are many obscurations and interferences blocking the way, we have to overcome all those hindrances. Destroying the self-created mental hindrances is harder than destroying the earth.

In our previous lives, we have killed every sentient being without exception countless times. Such actions are old habits; there is nothing new in that. Furthermore, each of us has been killed by every other sentient being countless times. There’s no reason to go on like this. It hasn’t helped. When we can deeply understand the causal creation of samsara, it can be very shocking to know the depth of the ignorance that underpins it. But with that understanding comes wisdom and with wisdom comes the method to overcome samsara, which leads to perfect peace.

The greatest solution to the negative mind is the meditation on impermanence and death. We might wonder if it matters whether we or anybody else dies today or tomorrow. This meditation supplies the answer.

Shantideva says,

[7:14] Relying upon the boat of a human (body),
Free yourself from the great river of pain!
As it is hard to find this boat again,
This is no time for sleep, you fool.

Being ignorant is like being asleep. When asleep we are unconscious of even large and heavy objects. If we don’t make the effort to wake the mind from ignorance, to gain enlightenment, and instead use our efforts for the comfort of this worldly life, all of our actions only create ignorance. As long as we work for attachment, hatred, pride, jealousy and the many other negative minds, we are working for ignorance. On the other hand, if we help sentient beings, if we have the ability to do this, we are working to help the buddhas, the enlightened beings. Following our delusions is acting as if we are asleep, unable to see the objects around us with any clarity. It’s as if we are constantly in the dark.

Although the mind is beginningless, until now the mind has been unable to recognize its own true nature. Recognizing the nature of the mind is what Shantideva calls the “secret of the mind.” It’s secret because this is the point so few people can understand and it’s the point that is vital if we are to transform the mind into an enlightened one. He says,

[5:17] Even those who wish to find happiness and overcome misery
Will wander with no aim nor meaning
If they do not comprehend the secret of the mind—
The paramount significance of Dharma.

Until we fully understand this subject, we shall make many more mistakes in our actions. Due to not recognizing the true nature of the mind, our actions always create the very opposite results from what we expect. We ignorantly create nonvirtue and expect happiness, not understanding we must create virtue to obtain it. As long as there are mistakes in our mental actions, there will be mistakes in our verbal and physical actions. Until we recognize the “secret of the mind,” no matter how long and how strongly we desire to be free from suffering and attain happiness, our methods will fail, no matter how hard we try.

As long as we don’t discover this inner secret, we are also generally ignorant of the way the external world functions. We have been using the mind from beginningless time until now, yet we still don’t know what it is. If we don’t recognize it when we are human, how can we do so when we take rebirth as an animal or a hungry ghost? It will be impossible.

Discovery of the secret of the mind is the key to opening the door to understanding every other existence. Like a medicine, this discovery provides the solution and cures all problems.

Therefore, we should use this perfect human rebirth like a boat to cross the ocean of suffering and reach enlightenment. This is the purpose of having such a rebirth.

There are three levels of a Dharma practitioner: the graduated path of the lower capable being, the graduated path of the middle capable being and the graduated path of the higher capable being. The goal of the graduated path of the higher capable being is full enlightenment and of the middle capable being is liberation from the whole of samsara. The goal of the lower capable being is to receive another rebirth in the upper realms. Although this mind is certainly not the optimum motivation to have, if we can’t attain enlightenment in this lifetime, it’s best to be reborn in the upper realms, so that we can create the karma to receive another perfect human rebirth. Then, using that life as a bridge, if even then it’s not possible to receive all realizations, we should create the causes for another perfect human rebirth. In this way, gradually, we will reach enlightenment.

There are two types of fear: useful, positive fear that causes us to prepare for our future life and useless, negative fear that arises from ignorance and doesn’t do that.

In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva says,

[4:23] So if, when having found leisure such as this,
I do not attune myself to what is wholesome,
There could be no greater deception,
And there could be no greater folly.

“Attuning ourselves to what is wholesome” doesn’t mean that we should not eat or wear clothes and so forth. If there’s no understanding of the Dharma, no matter what the action, even virtuous behavior is not Dharma practice. We who have received the perfect human rebirth have many freedoms, and if we don’t use this life to attain higher realizations, we are more ignorant than any animal. There is no greater folly.

Therefore, it’s important that even our practice of listening to the Dharma is done in the best way, making the most of the perfect human rebirth. Bodhicitta, the highest motivation, should be especially strong so that the listening becomes the most fruitful. If we don’t have this, then at least we should be determined to be free from the eight worldly dharmas and from having any samsaric motivation, such as wanting to learn the Dharma to teach others for the sake of our reputation.

In ancient India and in Tibet, the highly realized pandits had the full experience of the practice and fully saw their own nature and that of other beings. Yet they never showed pride. They looked humble, as if they knew nothing, like beggars, as if all they did was sleep and eat. But this was just their external appearance; the quality of their minds couldn’t be seen. People might ask them for teachings, but realized teachers don’t teach those who are not ready, for it might disturb them.

Even though such pandits had lifetimes of knowledge, they had not an atom of pride. Their minds were at rest and peaceful. They would never say, “I know the Dharma; I have these achievements.” They never boasted about their realizations as if they were in a marketplace. Instead, they were always very humble, accepting defeat so that others could have the victory. This is bodhicitta. Their only reason to strive for enlightenment was to benefit other sentient beings. We too should try to cultivate this motivation. We should think, “I am going to listen to this teaching in order to achieve enlightenment only to benefit other sentient beings.”

This is the motivation that makes an action most beneficial. How should we make the perfect human rebirth meaningful? The best, highest way is to work for the achievement of enlightenment in this lifetime. If not that, then we should work for the state of a bodhisattva, or the destruction of ignorance as an arhat, or the realization of bodhicitta, the fully renounced mind, and the understanding of the absolute truth to equip the mind before death. At least we should be sure to avoid a lower rebirth.

If we can attain bodhicitta, we definitely won’t be reborn in any lower realm. This mind has the power to protect us from negative karma. It has more power than all the material possessions on this earth, because those things can’t protect us from the cycle of suffering, from birth, old age and death. But bodhicitta can stop all these problems. It has incredible power and can be developed through meditation without having to fight, steal, kill or destroy.

However, if we know the method but don’t use it, then no matter where we go—even to the moon—we will never attain bodhicitta. And life will end before our travels are over, before we have seen everything. Without opening the door of wisdom with the Buddhadharma, we can never fully understand anything. We could continue to travel and study, yet there is too much to learn, even about our own body, let alone understanding the reality of other beings.

We should study the Buddhadharma and in particular the absolute nature of reality and then put it into practice by meditating and purifying. With the support of purifying our negative karma and not creating any more, our practice will bring realizations, which would be impossible to achieve without doing this.

Even now we don’t know such basic notions as what “I” and “mind” are. Becoming aware of our own nature makes it simple to realize the nature of the minds of other beings. To obtain full knowledge of the external environment, we have to make a full study of the knowledge of the internal environment, and this can only be done by making ourselves the object of study.

This is the key to the secret of the mind. Receiving all the levels of realization depends on purifying and overcoming the many different types of unsubdued mind. This isn’t as easy as sweeping rubbish from a room. It depends on the continual practice of the Dharma, on not being lazy and on surmounting many hardships. But any hardship is very worthwhile for the practice of the Dharma, because with the Dharma we can finish completely all the innumerable sufferings and their causes forever. By one action—the completion of our Dharma practice—all those sufferings and their causes can be completely ended. This could never be accomplished by any samsaric action, by any action of the negative mind. This is one of the reasons for the existence of Buddhadharma, why the Buddha showed the teachings.

DENYING FUTURE LIVES

It is incredibly worthwhile to experience any hardship for the practice of the Dharma. So many people undergo unbelievable difficulties just for this worldly life—a life that may go on for only five, ten, fifty or seventy years—so why not experience hardships for the practice of the Dharma, for the greater cause that will have untold advantages for so many future lives? It’s so much wiser to take care of all future lives and cease the cycle of suffering. From the Dharma point of view, this is the wise action. The other action is ignorant.

Furthermore, those who work for this worldly life only experience its result, which is a suffering rebirth in the three lower realms. Worldly comfort doesn’t last. In this life, we have to work until death, and even then, our work doesn’t end; in the next life we have to do the same thing again. Working hard for the sake of temporal comfort doesn’t end until we are free from ignorance, therefore there is no reason to experience these hardships taking care of this life. Although this kind of activity is meaningless, due to the ripening of our past lives’ karma we don’t get bored with it. This stems from our ignorance.

Because the lowest purpose of a human life is to avoid a lower rebirth, we have to make definite preparations before the time of death. Consideration of the next life is more important than thinking about how to live tomorrow or next year. Of course, we all have a general awareness in our mind that we will die at some time, but most of us have no idea when. How many days? How many years? Without wisdom, this is an area of complete darkness, despite the fact that everybody must die. Death is definite; the next life is definite. What is very indefinite, if we check, is that we will live into the future. So, why should we work for the future of this life, the existence of which is indefinite? We work to attain material things in the future, but we have no idea whether there will be a future. But we will have a future life with future suffering; that is definite, and because we currently create more negative karma than positive karma, there will be great suffering in the future. Therefore, it’s important that before this life ends, we make a definite preparation to never experience the sufferings of the lower realms.

We may think that in fact there is no existence of a future life, that this is a Tibetan idea. “We Westerners don’t have a future life.” But this fact doesn’t depend on belief. Not believing in future lives doesn’t mean they don’t exist. We think that there is no future life; yet we prepare for projects coming up next year and so forth. But can we really see that we will exist next year? We can’t tell if we will still be alive in three or four years. This is the nature of ignorance. But without knowing clearly, we still make arrangements.

You might ask me why I’m talking like this. You don’t want to know about death. The answer is that even though we don’t want to experience suffering; we can’t experience happiness without depending on the cause. To deny death is to want happiness without creating its cause.

We try to make arrangements to make our life permanent but it’s not. Without knowing clearly whether we will exist next month, we still make arrangements to buy these things then, to go here or there, to do this or that. Say, we plan to go on holidays to Greece in a couple of months. We’re happy; it should be a great trip. We aren’t thinking of today but of the future. But we have no idea if we will still be alive in a couple of months. It’s foolish to be happy about this very indefinite future holiday but be skeptical about death and our next life, which is very definite. Just denying future lives doesn’t stop them existing.

I think it’s really foolish to ignorantly deny that future lives exist, reasoning that they don’t exist because we can’t see them. This wasn’t taught in school; we didn’t read it in science books. And, based on that assumption, we don’t make any preparations. By this same reasoning, we shouldn’t make any preparations for our Greek holiday either. Being unconcerned about our future life is the greatest mistake.

We can’t clearly see the future of this life, yet we still plan and prepare for it in order to avoid suffering during those years ahead, so it’s illogical not to plan for future lives, which are also unseen. Because death is definite, it’s much more worthwhile to prepare for it than to work for the time before death, making plans about how to enjoy it. With human wisdom, this is easy to understand.

We think we are wise. We think that we know this and this, that we want to do these things, that we’re always correct. And yet we always make such mistakes, like not preparing for our certain death, not being aware of it and so on. And unless we prepare for the life after death, we will go through the suffering again, generally more than that of this life because it’s far more likely that we shall be reborn in the lower realms than the upper ones. This isn’t difficult to understand if we check up on our daily lives.

People who deny future lives and refuse to make preparations for it have the same level of ignorance as an animal; there’s little difference. Animals are only worried about the present life and everything they do is to take care of it for this short time. They never prepare for the coming life. The human who acts in the same way has exactly the same level of mind; they are equal. There is little difference between a hunter preying on deer and a spider preying on flies. Both are clever, taking care of this life. In fact, there are quite a few things that we humans can’t do as well as animals. The spider can make beautiful webs that we can’t, and there are so many other animals that can do things that we can’t do. Even a bedbug is so clever—it waits until the light is out and then it emerges to eat people, taking care of its worldly life. It’s very upsetting to see humans leading such a life.

The conclusion is this. Instead of always spending time making arrangements for the indefinite, we should prepare for the definite. If we know there is suffering to come, we should prepare for it. Once it arrives there will be no way to avoid what has happened; having fallen over a precipice and broken a leg we can no longer avoid the suffering result. Dharma is like a dam built before the flood; it helps the present as well as the future. Even the skeptic should prepare for future lives just as they prepare for the future of this one. They can’t afford not to.

The essence of this meditation course is to understand that unless it helps us prepare for our future life, doing anything makes no sense. Consider somebody working in a life-threatening job for money in order to buy things for the temporary comfort of this life that is also of short duration. For example, think about Sherpas on an expedition; they have to keep on doing dangerous things, expending all their energy. Soldiers also have many difficulties, in training, in combat, trying to get a higher rank for more money. The objective of any army job is completely self-destructive with respect to karma. Everything is for worldly comforts that last an even shorter duration than this life. For their entire life, a soldier works tirelessly for worldly comfort and money, causing their own destruction and the destruction of other beings, which is the complete opposite of bodhicitta.

In Precious Garland Nagarjuna says,

From nonvirtue all suffering arises,
As well as the unfortunate realms of the evil transmigratory beings.
From virtue all happiness arises,
As well as the happy transmigratory beings.⁶

It is very worthwhile to give up the worldly comforts of this life for Dharma practice, and we are very capable of bearing the difficulties we may experience in doing so.

It’s common for Westerners taught in a scientific education system to question the continuity of the mind after death. People think that when the body disappears, the mind also disappears. How can it be possible for the mind to exist without the body? Without the body, there is no brain, so how can there be a mind? It seems impossible. Such things as continuity of mind are not described in any English science books and are not the experience of most Westerners. If we believe that body and mind both cease to exist after death, like a candle flame being extinguished, then of course there couldn’t be future lives.

If we think like this, it’s the same as thinking we won’t exist tomorrow. If we are skeptical about future lives, we should also be skeptical about scientific explanations of the evolution of life on earth, but we totally believe this because we were taught it in school or have seen it written in books. The mind is not skeptical because it believes in what science says, even though we haven’t seen it with our own eyes. It’s not empirical knowledge; the source of our information is just another person’s thesis. In the same way, the evolution of past and future lives has been the experience of numberless beings; it’s the experience of the enlightened beings. They became enlightened only to work for numberless beings through the completion of the practices of bodhicitta and great compassion, with all kinds of different methods as fit beings’ minds. Through practice and realizations, they fully saw numberless past and future lives even before enlightenment. After the holy beings achieved enlightenment, they clearly explained to their followers what they experienced, and their followers wrote it down for us, the ignorant beings.

Then, others practiced the teachings and also received the same realizations and enlightenment, passing on their wisdom and experience to their followers. Such a teaching has no beginning; it’s a continual lineage. It’s not just one person’s experience. The pandits proved it through practice, and they wrote many commentaries on that experience, as did Tibetan yogis and lamas. In the same way, we don’t fully see the scientists’ experience, and yet we don’t contradict it. So how can we contradict the experience of those who experienced mental development? If we don’t believe the latter, we can’t believe the former.

Just as rebirth is an object of knowledge of the great pandits, so too is the existence of different realms, such as those of the hungry ghosts, gods and so forth. Even though we can’t see them, they exist. To negate any other person’s experience because we don’t see it ourselves is very foolish, keeping us a prisoner of ignorance and never opening the door of wisdom. Not believing, not trying to alter our thinking, we remain in a state of ignorance, always suffering and creating the cause of suffering and not understanding the cause of happiness. We run here and there, traveling to the East, returning to the West, but nothing has changed. To progress spiritually, we must practice with understanding. Without belief, we have no practice, and unless we practice, there will be no realizations.

With his omniscient mind, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha once prophesized that a man would be reborn in the god realm but the man said there was no such thing. To make him understand, the Buddha asked if there was a certain type of tree in existence and the man replied that there was. The Buddha denied it and they argued. The man’s conclusion was that it existed because it was in his experience. The Buddha then countered that it was the same with future lives and the other realms such as the god realm—they existed because he had seen them; it was in the Buddha’s experience.

Wasting this perfect human rebirth, the result of positive karma created in previous lives, makes both this life and our previous lives meaningless. We have the freedom to make every action meaningful and beneficial for ourselves and all other living beings, making it one with the Dharma. Any action we do, big or small, can become the most profound method of purification. We can even own material possessions in a Dharma way. Having this freedom, as we listen to Dharma, we should listen wisely, with a bodhicitta motivation, so that the action is of the greatest benefit to sentient beings. 

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Notes

¹ See A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (LTWA). The chapter and verse numbers precede each quote. [Return to text]

² Rechungpa (1083–1161) was also known as Dorje Drakpa; the “moon-like” disciple of Milarepa. Mara is the personification of interferences, both internal and external. [Return to text]

³ Taken from How to Practice Dharma, p. 181. [Return to text]

⁴ Taken from FPMT Essential Prayer Book, p. 111, which can be found in the FPMT Catalogue. [Return to text]

⁵ Taken from FPMT Essential Prayer Book, p. 117, which can be found in the FPMT Catalogue. [Return to text]

⁶ V. 21. Taken from Hopkins’ Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland, p. 96. [Return to text]