Making this Precious Human Life Meaningful

In your life, in order to achieve happiness for yourself, for your family, and for others in society, for your country and the world, and, of course, the biggest way of thinking, for the numberless sentient beings in each of the six realms—there are numberless universes mentioned by science and not only by the Buddha, there are numberless human worlds, not only this one where we are now. The meaning of life is having a good heart. Even if you don't believe in reincarnation and karma, of course, it’s having a good heart.

I know in the West there are many people who don’t particularly believe in reincarnation and karma but who have a good heart, thinking of others, concerned about others. There are many people more concerned about others than themselves. Within the animals, there are many animals who take care of others. For animals who would normally eat others, like tigers who eat deer, which is very common, some tigers take care of deer. I’m sure you have seen things like that. Not only tigers but many other animals who usually eat other animals, take care of them in certain cases; the enemy who eats them in some cases serves them. They take care of them. I think there are many different cases; it’s so inspiring to see.

I think I watched this two or three times, a tiger taking care of a baby deer. Normally, this is what they eat, but while he was taking care of the deer, he was looking here and there to see whether there were any other tigers coming. Then he took it into the long grass where it was safer. He tried to carry it in the mouth but couldn’t. When he found the right place, the baby deer didn’t run away. It’s very interesting. Somehow it stayed with the tiger, not like a baby with its mother but always with the tiger. It’s very interesting. I think there must be many different animals like this.

When I was in Singapore I got a picture of a mother deer. Our cook Angela, who serves Geshe Chonyi, the abbot of Kopan and resident teacher of ABC Singapore, gave me a picture of a mother deer. The mother deer, in order to protect her two or three babies to not be eaten by tigers, gave herself to the tigers. She was looking at the babies—I don’t know how much distance from them—and she gave herself to the tigers. She didn’t run away, one tiger here and one at the back. She was standing like this, looking at her two or three babies there. If she gave herself, then the babies would be safe for that time.

Angela had the picture, so I asked her to make it bigger. I thought of using it as a book cover. I think there are many incredible animals like that, who are usually the enemies of others, but in this case who help others.

I heard about an old man, I don’t know from which country, who maybe fainted on the bed—not on the bed, on the chair—with his head like this. Then, the dog he had went in the bathroom and soaked a towel in the toilet water and put it on the chair where the man’s mouth was. He made the towel wet and put it here so the water went in the man’s mouth and woke him up. It happened like that. Can you imagine what animals can do? Do you understand?

It’s really unbelievably inspiring for me to see the animals who are usually enemies to each other but here are really taking care of each other. It’s so incredible. I think that I bought a book, or somebody gave it to me, where there are many stories that happened like this, not just made-up stories but real ones. I didn’t get to read the whole book; I just looked at certain parts while in the Aptos house. It’s really incredible.

So, in that case, why can’t we human beings do better than that? We need to do better than the animals, you see? As His Holiness often says, human beings have a brain to think, to see more deeply than the animals. But it’s unbelievable. We have an incredible brain but we use it to harm the world. Can you imagine? We use it in an unbelievable, political way to harm the world to get power, for our happiness, to achieve happiness for ourselves, for our family. It’s very simple. That kind of motivation is nothing; it’s totally nonvirtue, do you understand?

His Holiness, like many others in the world who bring happiness to millions and millions of people in the world, uses the brain in a different way, only to bring happiness to others, others who need happiness. But while we also have the opportunity to do that, we only use it for harm. Harming others means harming ourselves; benefiting others means benefiting ourselves; bringing happiness to others naturally means bringing happiness to ourselves.

That is the minimum, that is the lowest way of thinking correctly, It’s correct but it’s the lowest way of thinking. So, I’m saying, this is the minimum even though we might not believe in reincarnation and karma. I want to emphasize this tonight, then stop here.

When you get too much desire, you always want more, better, more, better—more money or anything, a house, so many things—better, better, always better, and more, more, more. If you have a thousand dollars, you want ten thousand; if you have ten thousand, you want a hundred thousand; if you have a hundred thousand, you want a million, then a billion, a zillion, a trillion! I don’t know the numbers after that; you have to add by yourself after that. I have no words. So anyway, like that, there’s no end. Then, after some time, death comes and it’s all gone. This life is gone. It’s like that, on and on.

In that way, there’s so much suffering. Your life has no happiness, no satisfaction, no satisfaction, and then greater and greater and greater dissatisfaction. Life has so much unhappiness, even though you might be living in a jewel palace, made of diamonds, eating million-dollar food or whatever, even though physically there’s no particular sickness, but the mind is like this; it’s is so unhappy, so unbelievably miserable, with unbelievable dissatisfaction.

There was a Time magazine a long time ago, many years ago, when we started meeting at Kopan, that each year featured the most successful person in the world. They used the person’s picture on the cover of Time magazine. They did that for a few years and then stopped. “Successful” means who made most money that year. Time magazine described the person’s life, how he was too scared to go outside in case he was kidnapped. His life was disordered, with so much fear, so much unhappiness and dissatisfaction. That is an example.

So think, “I’m born. This is one time I’ve received a most precious human body, (or you can say a perfect human body, even more precious than just a human body) therefore, I must practice contentment. When there is desire, I must control my desire and practice contentment to bring happiness in my life, to not open the door for suffering for myself and so much suffering and unhappiness for others. To stop that, I must stop the dissatisfaction of overpowering desire. I must practice the satisfaction, the contentment, that is renunciation, (practicing contentment and satisfaction is the same) to make my human life meaningful.”

Do you understand? You have to think like that. His Holiness said, “I’m a religious person, a Dharma person, but to make my life meaningful as a human being, the quality of a human being, I must practice satisfaction and contentment. That is a happy mind.” You develop every happiness from your mind, in this life and up to nirvana and enlightenment, great nirvana. You should think like that.

Otherwise, you think, “I’m using my precious human life as garbage. I’m using this precious human life I’ve received this one time as garbage.” Thinking like that, your life is kind of wasted; it’s like garbage, like used toilet paper. So, think like that.

Then also, when you are conditioned to get angry, when you are in the situation where you are about to get angry, remember patience. Actually, from the morning you should plan to practice patience. You need to do this, otherwise you forget and anger comes so easily. Because the mind has been habituated with that from beginningless rebirths, it arises so easily. Patience doesn’t arise like that. Except for those who practice patience, patience doesn’t come like that. For most of us, it’s so difficult to practice patience, but anger arises so easily.

So, I will stop here. When the situation arises to get angry, you must think, “To make my precious human life meaningful, I must practice patience. I can’t use my human life to get angry. Even animals get angry, so what’s the use of that? Even animals, if somebody harms them, the animals harm back. That is nothing special. When one country does bad things, the country that is harmed does bad things in return. That is normal; even animals do that. Even groups of animals fight, so that’s nothing special. To practice patience makes this precious human body I’ve received this one time meaningful instead of bringing suffering.”

If you get angry, you bring suffering; if you practice patience, you bring happiness to yourself and happiness to the other person, happiness to the family, happiness to the world. A larger way of thinking about this is that you bring happiness to the world. If you practice patience with the other person, that means you are practicing patience with the world, you are bringing happiness to the world. That is the purpose of a human life; that is why you are a born as a human being, to not harm.

Even animals can harm but can also benefit, as I mentioned before. Normally they eat others but they can also help them. I mentioned that many animals do that, so you must practice patience. You should inspire yourself, you should encourage yourself to practice patience, thinking, “I’m going to practice patience to bring happiness to my life, to bring peace to my life, and to bring peace to others’ lives, to people in the world.”

I think I’ll stop there. We’ll do tsog. In life, there are these basic things. Even if you don’t believe in reincarnation and karma, even you don’t think of others, at least if you want happiness, this is the way, this is what you should do. You have a human rebirth, otherwise nothing else is special. If you don’t do this, nothing is left, then, sooner or later you die and it’s all finished. This human body, this precious human body has been used like garbage, like used toilet paper.