The Source of Satisfaction
In this teaching excerpted from teachings on the Heruka Vajrasattva tsog practice, given at Vajrapani Institute, California, in July 1983, Lama Yeshe explains that our quality of life comes from our own mental attitude. This teaching is published in chapter 21 of Big Love: The Life and Teachings of Lama Yeshe.
According to the philosophy and psychology of tantra, if you comprehend the fundamental nature of all existence, everything manifests as a blissful object. Without that wisdom, objects alone cannot make you blissful. Human experience shows this to be true. When you are having a painful, miserable time, nothing you see makes you happy. If I show you something beautiful when you feel terrible, does it make you happy? No. There’s no magnetic energy. Normally, subject and object sort of magnetize each other to produce an atmosphere of pleasure or pain. The qualities of life do not come from outside but from your own degree of satisfaction. If you have richness within you, everything external will satisfy.
A happy, satisfied family life comes from people’s minds, not from their material possessions. Rich families in America are not necessarily happier than poor families. However, if you are born into this society, it is hard to see that possessions don’t bring happiness because the whole society is built on the connection between wealth and satisfaction. However, this attitude is the complete opposite of the truth.
I’m not taking a shot at America just because I’m a foreigner. When I come to America, I don’t have any particular agenda; I just look and see what’s going on. Perhaps I’m critical because I’m not involved in the American way of life; if I were, I probably wouldn’t notice the things that I see. True satisfaction comes from within yourself. This does not mean that you have to give up your American pleasures; whether they become pleasurable for you depends on your mind. American pleasures can make you miserable. If that happens, it is your own fault, not that of American society.
The Buddhist attitude is, “I am responsible for the quality of my life. I am responsible for my own satisfaction.” You cannot blame your father or your mother, your husband or your wife. That sort of blame is endless. It is illogical, and incapable of solving problems. Materialism and capitalism breed wrong ideas. From the Buddhist point of view, wrong ideas are the main cause of suffering.1
1 This teaching is included in Becoming Vajrasattva (Wisdom Publications), pp. 165–66.