Title: Patience: a guide to Shantideva’s sixth chapter

4 : OVERCOMING SELF-CONCERN

VERSES 52–97

LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO BE ANGRY

Why Cling to What We Must Soon Leave?

52No one can destroy the mind anywhere

and by any means whatsoever, for it is immaterial;

yet, by clinging to it

the body comes to suffer physical pain.

53Humiliation, offensive words,

and disgrace — these bandits

cannot oppress the body.

What makes you angry then, oh my mind?

54Is it that the dislike of others

will consume me

in this or another birth,

that I try to avoid it so much?

55Is it that I try to avoid it

because it is an obstacle to the acquisition of my fortune?

My fortune will turn to nothing in this very life,

but evil will remain the same constantly.

56It would be better to die today

than to carry for so long this life of falsehood;

for, even if I were to live for long,

the agony of death would be the same.

57In dreams a man will enjoy a hundred years of pleasure,

only to awaken later;

another one enjoys only an instant

and then awakens.

58Doesn’t the joy of both end

in the same manner upon awakening?

It is the same at the time of dying,

whether you have lived long or not.

59Even if you gain numberless acquisitions

and enjoy many pleasures for a long time,

[you] will leave with empty hands, naked,

as if everything had been suddenly stolen from [you].

When we feel hurt because we have been criticized, the words of the criticism don’t have the power to hurt us; the pain comes from our attachment to praise. Perhaps somebody is simply explaining our mistakes to us, but we immediately label it a criticism and get angry. But even if we don’t have the mistakes that they say we do, there is still no justification for anger.

Just as it hurts when we are not offered a piece of cake when somebody else is, when we are insulted there is no physical pain but there is mental pain. Abusive words are only words. They don’t even have to be harshly shouted at us; they could be sweet words said in a soft voice, but if the intention behind them is to hurt us, they can cause great pain in our heart.

If we didn’t think we needed the admiration of others, we would not be unhappy to receive criticism; whether others admired us or not, whether we had a good reputation or not, our mind wouldn’t get disturbed. The more we crave a good reputation or praise, the more being criticized hurts. Our mind becomes depressed and aggressive.

When people suddenly lose their job, even if it is because of redundancy and not because they have performed poorly, they very often feel that they have failed in some way. They suffer from low self-esteem and think that people judge them as a failure. Feeling they have been unjustly given a bad reputation, they can have a nervous breakdown or even go completely crazy.

When somebody disturbs our comfort, we need to practice patience. When we don’t get what we want or get what we don’t want, we need to practice patience. And similarly, when our good reputation is destroyed by what somebody has said about us, we need to practice patience.

If somebody has stolen something from us, we might think we have a right to get angry, but we need to examine this. If we look at how important our possessions, our friends, and even our body are in our life, we can see how much we will suffer because of our attachment to them when we are about to die.

One day, for sure, death will happen. Life ends and there is death — it is as simple as that — and there is nothing we can do. No matter how much fear we have, no matter how much we regret not having practiced Dharma and developed a good heart, death happens. Whether we believe in reincarnation or not, we die. Whether we have prepared for death or not, we die.

Everything we have ever cherished in this life is left behind at the time of death. Whether it is one simple teapot or a mansion with thousands of cars and dozens of swimming pools, it is the same to us now. We can’t even take one strand of hair or one grain of rice into the next life. The poorest beggar and the richest billionaire are exactly equal in what they can physically take to the next life — nothing. All the wealth and power in the world is pointless at death.

Perhaps after long years of education we now have a well-paid job and have achieved a good standard of living with mountains of possessions. When we die, what will happen to all those things? Could we leave them today without any regret? Because one day, the day of our death, that is what we will have to do.

We also must separate from our family and friends. We cannot take them with us when we die. Our partner and children we love and who love us dearly are helpless in the face of our death.

We separate from our body at death, and that separation causes great suffering because, in some ways, our body is our most beloved possession. The body can do nothing for us at all at death. We have worked so hard for it all our life and then it lets us down by dying. We have taken such care of this body, which is soon to be a corpse: feeding it, clothing it, washing it, giving it medicine, giving it treats such as chocolate and alcohol. We bought it the most comfortable house and the finest furniture we could afford, so it could enjoy the best. While in one way it is our greatest possession, in another we have actually been its slave all our life, spending almost all of our time cherishing it.

Attachment to these things makes our death very difficult. They have complicated our life, and they will make us miserable at death. And dying with attachment means that we will almost certainly take rebirth in one of the lower realms.

Practicing the Dharma is the only thing that can help us at the moment of death. In the seventh chapter, Shantideva said,

How can you enjoy eating, sleeping,

and sensual pleasures while you are being closely

watched by Yama, the King of Death,

and all your exits are closed?37

Without the thought of death in our mind, samsaric pleasures will always be there to lure us away from what is important. We might be able to obtain whatever we think will bring us comfort in our life, but there is no certainty we will be able to freely enjoy it.

And even if we were able, what is the point of living a thousand years and always being surrounded by great wealth and comfort if we’re not leading a useful life? To live a long life without any illness or discomfort solely for ourselves is an empty life. All we are doing is living longer in order to create more negative karma and ensure more suffering in our future lives. Without a good heart, no matter how rich or powerful we might be, there is a great risk that, because of our self-cherishing, we will use our power to harm others. We are dangerous to ourselves and others. The shorter we live, the less damage we will do, so isn’t it better we die soon? Nothing gives meaning to life without a good heart. When we have a good heart, however, then there is a powerful reason to live a long time.

We should constantly be aware of death. When we wake up, our first thought should be, “This may be the last time I wake up in a human body.” When we get dressed, we should think, “This may be the last time I put on clothes. Somebody else may have to remove them from my corpse.” When we put the kettle on to boil water for a cup of tea, we should think, “I may die before the water has boiled.” In the same way, we see each action we do as being possibly our last.

We can also start each day with the thought of how amazing it is that we didn’t die during the night. In Friendly Letter, Nagarjuna said,

With all its many risks, this life endures

no more than windblown bubbles in a stream.

How marvelous to breathe in and out again,

to fall asleep and then awake refreshed.38

This understanding of the impermanence of our life is a real tool we can use at any moment. It is something we need to experience, not just read about. When a mind of anger starts to arise, by remembering the imminence of death we can see how dangerous an angry mind is, and we easily avert it. Remembering death is a great protection.

Nobody escapes death; there is nowhere in the world or beyond the world we can go where we can escape death. Not even Disneyland! We can go to Disneyland to stay forever young and we will still age at the same rate and we will still die. We can build the deepest, thickest fallout shelter to protect ourselves from the nuclear bombs that could destroy us, as so many Americans did in the middle of the last century, but we cannot escape death. None of those Americans died from an atomic bomb, but most died, and those still alive will die one day. We can bury ourselves in the middle of a huge mountain made of diamonds, something so solid and indestructible, but that will not stop death. There is no sanctuary that will hide us from death.

A popular quote says,

You cannot be sure which will come first,

tomorrow or the next life.

Therefore, do not put effort into tomorrow’s plans

but instead it is worthwhile to attend to the next life.

Perhaps we will still be alive tomorrow. Who knows? But we can be 100 percent certain that there is no certainty that we will be. That is certain. Without that certainty, will we have the strength to go against our habitual tendency to attachment and anger?

We need a strong understanding of impermanence and death to overcome anger, the most frightening mind. Having a mind of anger as we die ensures us of a lifetime of an unimaginable length in the terrible suffering of the hell realm. This is the worst possible thing that could happen to us and so we need to fear the mind of anger.

A Life Creating Nonvirtue Is Pointless

60An Objector Interjects: But, is it not true that as long as I am alive, by means of my fortune and possessions

I will be able to cultivate the good and destroy sin?

The Author Replies: Do you mean to say that in this way the good would not be lost and evil will not increase,

when you get angry, moved by desire for gain?

61If the one single purpose

of my life is lost,

then what good is a life

that brings only evil?

62An Objector Interjects: No, what I mean to say is that I feel hatred toward one who denigrates me

because his ill will leads many living beings to perdition.

The Author Replies: Why are you not angry then in the same way

with those who insult others?

63You are patient with those who show little love to others,

when their disfavor has been produced by others,

but you are not patient with those who insult you,

though this also has been produced by a third factor: the afflictions.

There is never any justification for anger. It might seem we have a right to be angry with somebody who blocks us from doing beneficial work, but that angry mind can cause only suffering. If we die with an angry mind, the harm will be incalculable.

Elsewhere Shantideva asks why we want no harm or disrespect for ourselves or friends but just the opposite for our enemies. Here he is asking why we are not at all disturbed when we hear somebody else has been hurt by unpleasant words, whereas when those same words are directed toward us, we are hurt.

If our enemy is harmed in some way, through criticism or whatever, we should feel the same way as we would for ourselves or our friends; we should have patience. And when the enemy is admired, we should feel happy in the same way we would if we or our friends were admired.

What our self-cherishing wants is for us to be happy and for our enemy — the enemy of our self-cherishing — to be harmed. If we were to hear our enemy had become very sick or even died, our self-cherishing would rejoice. So, to feel happy when they are admired is the complete opposite attitude to how our self-cherishing thinks. In that way, it becomes pure Dharma.

Feel No Anger toward Those Who Harm the Dharma

64Equally absurd is my hatred toward those

who harm or desecrate images and shrines,

or disparage the true Dharma,

for neither buddhas nor their disciples and teachings suffer injury.

65Put an end to your anger toward those

who harm your teachers, relatives, and loved ones, etc.,

by understanding, as before, that their aggression
is born

from causes and conditions beyond their control.

People can criticize the buddhas or even kill them; they can destroy holy objects such as statues and stupas, but from the side of the buddhas there is no anger at all. How can there be? A buddha has completely destroyed all delusions and developed all positive qualities so there is not even the slightest stain of delusion on their mindstream. Because there is no cause of anger, anger can never arise. This is true of even the higher bodhisattvas, those who have realized emptiness.

In The Jewel Lamp, Khunu Lama Rinpoche 39 said,

How could someone in whom the bodhichitta

of the supreme vehicle exists ever turn

toward the poison of self-cherishing, even for a moment?

How could they give up the nectar of cherishing others?⁴⁰

When we have bodhichitta, there is no way we could ever harbor ill will toward any other being, no matter what that being might do to us. This is the power of bodhichitta. Our mind only ever thinks of benefiting other living beings, instinctively, spontaneously, without being told to do it. Having destroyed our own self-cherishing, we no longer harm others, and because of that, we are protected from harm ourselves.

Shantideva finished the first chapter of A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life by saying,

I bow before these bodies

in which is born the jewel of the sublime thought.

I take refuge in these mines of bliss,

from which one receives happiness even when one
offends them.

Whether a buddha or bodhisattva receives help or harm from us, they will feel the same degree of compassion. If one person offers perfume or a massage to them and somebody else cuts their flesh with an axe, they have no discriminating thought at all; they don’t see one as friend and one as enemy. Living in the perfection of patience, they can never become angry no matter what occurs. No matter how much harm somebody does, that person only becomes the object of compassion for the buddha or bodhisattva. Therefore it is entirely inappropriate for us to become angry at somebody who harms holy objects.

ABANDONING THE FIRE OF ANGER

Both Harmer and Harmed Act through Ignorance

66Whether it is due to a conscious or an unconscious cause,

sorrow is inevitable for all embodied beings;

it is found in all sentient beings.

Therefore, accept it patiently.

67Due to their delusion, some offend,

others, equally deluded, become angry at the offense,

which of the two shall we consider free of guilt?

And who shall we declare guilty?

68Why did you do what you did in the past,

so that now you find yourself tormented by others in this way?

All beings act under the influence of their past deeds,

who are you to change this?

When we feel we are being hurt by somebody and want to retaliate, that is just the view of one thought: our anger. If we check, we will see there is no “person who is hurting us” from their own side and there is no harm. When we don’t label the person “harmer” or the action “harm,” they do not exist. It is just the view of our mistaken mind.

There is no reason to blame the other person for our harm. They are just a condition, whereas the cause is our own delusions. Say we put our hand in a fire. Of course we will be hurt, but it is pointless to blame the fire for burning us. It is our action that is the cause, triggered by our delusions. If we heard of a friend who committed suicide by jumping off a bridge, would we blame the bridge? We must look beyond the condition and see the main reason. If we have been harmed and become angry, the cause is our deluded mind, and specifically our self-cherishing.

When we get sick, we don’t blame the illness. We look for the cause in many places — the food we ate, the climate, being under stress, and so forth — but we don’t look for the real cause, the inner cause. Place, climate, diet — these things are conditions, but we rarely ask the important question, “Why am I suffering?” Unless we seek the main cause of our suffering, we will always use a mistaken method to overcome it.

For instance, trees, rocks, and so forth don’t have pain because they don’t have mind. Fire is hot and ice is cold, but fire and ice don’t feel the pain of heat or cold because they don’t have mind. If that is so, why does our physical body feel pain? Why do external conditions such as heat, cold, illnesses, and so forth cause our body to experience suffering? It is because the experience is created by the mind.

Then there is this question: Why can’t we have a mind that doesn’t create suffering for the body? When we investigate in this way, we can see that there is something in the relationship between the body and the mind that brings about suffering. If the mind were not deluded, there would be no physical suffering. However, until we can free ourselves from our delusions, we will continue to be plagued by all kinds of suffering.

Why, then, do we worry about the harm we feel from the attack of an enemy, but we don’t worry about the deluded mind that has caused this? The enemy has attacked us because they are controlled by their delusions; we are harmed because we are controlled by our delusions. Which is to blame, the enemy’s delusions or our own delusions? Are the delusions of the enemy any more to blame than the delusions within our own mind that brought about this situation? When we consider it, we cannot say that one is guilty and one is innocent.

All the problems and suffering we experience are the fault of ignorance, and specifically the self-cherishing mind. It forces us to do all ten nonvirtuous actions again and again, to kill and steal and lie, all to satisfy its demands. Whenever we experience difficulties, there is only one source of all those problems and we should put all the blame on that one. That source is neither an external factor nor our positive thoughts — our good heart, our compassion, our loving-kindness, our wisdom. It is the ego, the self-cherishing mind.

Not Allowing Anger to Spread

69Still, because I understand this,

I will devote my efforts to good,

so that all these beings

will carry thoughts of mutual amity.

70It is like a house on fire —

if the flames start spreading to another house,

one removes the straw

or any other flammable items.

71In the same way, one should abandon at once

all those things that could fuel

the fire of hatred in the mind —

for fear that the very substance of merit might be burned.

When we are angry at somebody, that will cause them to be angry with us. We have all seen this. Therefore we should guard our mind well, and never allow anger to overwhelm us. Otherwise it will take over like a fire in a house spreads from room to room. In Eight Verses on Mind Training, Langri Tangpa said,

During all my activities I will probe my mind,

And as soon as affliction arises —

Since it endangers myself and others —

I will train myself to confront it directly and avert it.41

Unless we constantly watch our mind and avert any negative thought that begins to arise, our anger can become stronger and stronger, taking over our mind. Then, because of that, we make others angry. Even if they weren’t angry before, they become angry when faced with our anger, creating the cause for future suffering for both ourselves and them. Furthermore, our anger becomes an obstacle to realizations. When we see anger arise, we must immediately and forcefully apply the antidote in order to stop it.

We cannot be completely free from anger until we have eliminated its source, the self-cherishing mind. This is the demon we need to destroy. We should think of holding on to the self-cherishing mind as like holding on to a burning branch, or like having a red-hot burning poker thrust right into our heart. We can’t stand it for even a split second, let alone a minute, an hour, a year, or the countless eons we have lived with this demon. Actually, the feeling of needing to be free from our self-cherishing should be billions of times stronger than the wish to be free from a red-hot poker in our heart, which would surely be only a small discomfort compared with the suffering that self-cherishing has inflicted on us since beginningless time. As Shantideva said in the eighth chapter,

If one does not abandon the self,

one cannot abandon sorrow,

as one cannot escape being burned

if one does not avoid fire.42

It is utterly meaningless to cherish the self the way we do. Cherishing the I, we reach out for objects of desire, and so dissatisfaction and then anger are never far away. Therefore this fundamental ignorance must be understood and destroyed. We should watch carefully, and the moment self-cherishing arises in our mind, we should avert it with all our might, unable to stand it for even one second. In its place we should develop the thought that cherishes others, the great thought of bodhichitta. This is the thought that brings all happiness — both temporal and ultimate — to ourselves and to others.

Whenever we feel exhausted in the middle of a retreat or some other Dharma activity, we should remember that we have died numberless times in beginningless lifetimes for meaningless things, creating negative karma through trying to gain material possessions and so forth. We have died so many times in wars or while climbing mountains, trekking, sailing, or surfing for pleasure. But we have never died for the Dharma; we have never died working for sentient beings. If we were to die today by fasting and doing prostrations, by bearing hardships to practice the Dharma, it would be a very worthwhile way to die.

A Little Pain Now Rather Than Great Suffering Later

72Wouldn’t it be fortunate if a man condemned to death

were freed after only cutting his hand?

Would it not be equally fortunate if one were to suffer pain

in this life instead of ending up in hell?

73If you are not able to withstand

even the insignificant pain of today,

why don’t you destroy anger,

which is after all the cause of suffering in hell.

74Thus, because of my own anger

I have suffered in the hells thousands of times,

but I did not achieve anything

for myself or others with this suffering.

75My present pain is nothing comparable to the pains of hell,

and it will produce great benefits.

It is therefore reasonable that I rejoice in this suffering,

which will free the whole world from its suffering.

As Shantideva said, it is better for a person to have a hand cut off than to be killed. When we practice the Dharma there will be hardships, but no matter how difficult it becomes, it is much better than having to face the suffering that will be the result of our negative karma, the result that will certainly happen if we don’t practice the Dharma. No matter how exhausted we feel or what problems arise in our practice, that is much better than experiencing the results of all those negative karmas.

We don’t need to talk about the lower realms — even if we were to be reborn as a human, we have to go through problems again and again: feeling hunger, being unable to find a job, running out of money, experiencing disharmony in relationships, fighting, and other difficulties. We take rebirth again and again and experience this kind of life again and again, going through the same problems, without any opportunity to practice the Dharma.

Therefore knowing that any hardships we face while practicing the Dharma are purifying so much negativity in our mindstream, why shouldn’t we happily bear them? Even if we get very sick, there is no reason for unhappiness; it is like having a hand cut off rather than being executed. This is the core of the thought-transformation practices. Rather than feel aversion for any problems we face, we see them as a means to get rid of our negative karma and accumulate positive karma, and so they are a source of all our happiness. In short, we transform suffering into happiness.

In the past, we bore hardships for possessions, reputation, and so forth, and all it brought us was rebirth in the lower realms. Now we are accepting a much lesser suffering in order to be free from that great suffering.

If we do a practice such as tonglen, where in meditation we visualize taking the suffering of all sentient beings and giving them all our happiness, possessions, and positive qualities, when we experience hardship we can think that we have prayed to take on the suffering of others and now it is happening. Now, because this suffering — cancer, relationship problems, or whatever — is manifesting, our prayers are being actualized. We should rejoice in that. In that way, we collect limitless skies of merit.

FINDING JOY IN OTHERS’ HAPPINESS

Overcoming Childish Self-Concern

76If others find joy and happiness

in praising a person who excels in virtue,

why don’t you also rejoice, O mind,

in praising him?

77This practice will bring you an intense delight

which is blameless, the source of further happiness.

The virtuous themselves do not object to it.

It is the best way to attract others to the path.

78If what you do not like about praising others

is that only the other person is pleased by it,

then you object to all rewards, even that of payment for services,

in which case, you have also rejected the future reward of your present effort.

When we praise somebody, telling others about their good qualities, we create merit and make them happy. We also make ourselves happy.

The most beneficial praise we can give, in terms of developing our mind, is to praise somebody we consider an enemy. This is because the enemy is somebody who opposes our self-cherishing, and so by praising them we are going against the desires of our self-cherishing. When we praise sentient beings, we are in effect remembering their kindness, and, of course, our self-cherishing can never see the enemy as kind. Therefore this is like offering them the victory and taking the loss upon ourselves, which is a key thought-transformation practice. This is a great remedy to pride and utterly against the wishes of the ego. To do this, we have to be very brave, and we need to really see the kindness of the enemy, not just superficially but deeply. We need to use all the thought-transformation practices and explore how only somebody who opposes us can give us realizations and allow us to attain bodhichitta and enlightenment.

In the eighth chapter, Shantideva said,

All those who live in torment in this life,

suffer only because of their desire for happiness.

All those who live in happiness, are in such a condition

because of their wish to make others happy.

But why say more?

Simply compare these two:

the fool who seeks only his own welfare,

and the sage who seeks only to benefit others.

Whoever fails to replace his own pleasure

with the suffering of others will not reach, of course,

the station of the Awakened, but neither shall he know happiness

even in this cycle of transmigration.

What is more, even if you leave aside future lives,

even in this life if the servant did not carry out his work

or if the lord did not pay him the salary that is due to him,

no visible results would be obtained.43

These verses are a kind of conclusion, like a very clear outline containing the whole of the bodhisattva’s path. In them Shantideva showed us that everything positive — all temporal and ultimate happiness — comes from cherishing others, from wishing others to be happy, and everything negative comes from only wishing ourselves to be happy. Therefore, by being happy when we see our enemy happy, we are defeating the self-cherishing mind and working toward enlightenment.

Small-minded concern for the self must bring unhappiness. When we consider it, we can see that this I we cherish so much is just one person, whereas others are infinite. No matter how many problems this I has, or how much pleasure and comfort, such things just relate to one being. How can we ignore all the other beings — all the hell beings, the hungry ghosts, the animals, the other humans, and even the gods and demigods — who are suffering so much? Working only for our own very limited happiness in this life and ignoring all others is childish.

We forget that every small happiness we have ever experienced is due to all these kind beings. Day and night we work only for ourselves, only ever concerned for our own interests, turning our backs on the suffering of others. We don’t see their problems. When we have a problem, it seems like nothing else matters. Living like this is a very sad life.

Others are suffering so much, and we have incredible potential to help them, but we are locked in our own selfish concerns. If this were not so, we could lead them to not just a better human rebirth but also liberation and enlightenment. By ignoring them, it is like we have a human form but don’t have a human mind.

When we think of ourselves as the most important of all living beings — which is how we act most of the time — we are completely hallucinating. Everybody wants happiness and nobody wants any suffering, but we forget that the only way to have real happiness is by cherishing others. What Shantideva said is very true, that the childish work only for their own ends, whereas the buddhas and bodhisattvas work only for others. There is no comparison.

When we see a holy being such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, we can feel how his whole nature is bodhichitta. Ours, on the other hand, is completely filled with selfish concern, where nothing matters but the interests of this I that rules us. The contrast between His Holiness’s incredibly peaceful, happy presence and ours is stark.

Without changing our attitude there can be no happiness, even samsaric happiness. As Shantideva asked, if we were able to be happy by not helping others, then why pay our employees? It is easy to see how ridiculous that argument is. Even in worldly terms, the employee must work for the employer to get wages to have a degree of samsaric happiness, and the employer must pay the employee to get their product made. If one decides not to help the other in this way, neither can be happy.

Therefore we must see the disadvantages of cherishing ourselves and the advantages of cherishing others. As Shantideva said in the eighth chapter,

Whatever calamities, pains,

and fears there are in this world,

they all are due to grasping at the self.

What will I gain by grasping at it in this manner?44

All the suffering we have ever experienced and will ever experience comes from this demon of the self-cherishing mind. When we see this, we can answer that question. We will gain nothing by grasping at it. It is no use to us at all.

We Should Find Joy Seeing Another Praised

79When your own virtues are being praised,

you wish that others may rejoice in them with you.

Yet, when the virtues of another are being praised

you do not wish joy even for yourself.

80If you have given rise to the thought of awakening,

by wishing happiness for all sentient beings,

how can you now become irritated

when sentient beings obtain happiness on their own?

81You claim that you seek for living beings the state of a buddha,

which assures them of the veneration of the three world spheres.

Then, how can you burn with envy

on seeing that they receive insignificant honors?

82The person who nourishes those that you are supposed to support

is in fact giving only to you.

Why do you resent and not enjoy the sustenance

your family has received?

83He who wants awakening for all sentient beings —

what will he not want for them?

How could the thought of awakening ever occur

to one who resents the success of others?

There is no happiness at all that does not arise from bodhichitta. It is the source of all the happiness of the buddhas, the bodhisattvas, and all sentient beings. Every single pleasure we feel, from a cooling breeze to a delicious drink, comes from bodhichitta, because it is the result of our virtuous action, which is generated by following the teachings of the Buddha.

There is nothing that compares to bodhichitta. All the universes filled with wish-granting jewels cannot compare. If we have bodhichitta we have the most precious jewel that takes us all the way to enlightenment. Therefore anything that blocks us from this inestimable mind must be overcome.

We say the refuge and bodhichitta prayers, praying that all beings achieve the state of buddhahood, but then we hope for our enemies to be unhappy or we feel miserable when we see that they have some success. That makes no sense at all. To want happiness for our friends but not for our enemies is to destroy any chance we have to develop bodhichitta, bringing suffering to them and to us.

We should practice patience by not being unhappy when we hear our enemy has received something good or not rejoicing when we hear they are suffering in some way. We can go further than that, however. We can rejoice when our enemy receives good things such as presents, praise, a good reputation, and so forth. We can learn to see them as others do and admire them too.

Not Enjoying the Suffering of the Enemy

84If someone else does not receive the offering

you wanted for yourself, it remains in the donor’s house.

It will not be yours any way.

What does it matter to you whether it is given or not?

85Should the recipient hinder the transference of merit,

the act of virtue in the faithful donor, and his own virtue?

Should he not accept, though he receives?

Tell me, what would not make you angry?

86Not only do you fail to regret the evil

you yourself have done,

you want to compete with others

who have done good.

87If some calamity came upon your enemy,

what in it would give you satisfaction?

What has no cause for its occurrence

will not occur merely because you desire it.

88On the other hand, if you could succeed in causing him ill merely by desiring it,

why should there be joy in you when there is suffering in him?

Even if there is some gain for you in his unhappiness,

the resulting loss will be much greater.

To be angry at somebody for receiving something when we don’t is the mind of a child. Perhaps you can remember this happening to you, maybe at Christmas, when somebody, an aunt or someone, gave your brothers and sisters lovely presents but didn’t give you one (or maybe they gave one that wasn’t what you wanted). Suddenly she doesn’t love you, and you hate your siblings. You shout and rage and storm out of the room, throwing yourself onto the bed and bursting into tears. Did you ever act like that as a child?

As an adult, we should be beyond that. If somebody receives something and we don’t, by getting angry we create strong negative karma that will mean future suffering — and we still don’t have anything. We need to go beyond this childish mind and recognize that it is the self-cherishing mind that has been hurt, and that by not responding to its demands, we are able to gain freedom from it.

Feeling gratified when we see that somebody who has hurt us is suffering in some way is also a very low mind. Finding satisfaction in the suffering of another will lead to suffering.

It is possible to turn our attitude around. Rather than wishing harm on our enemy, we can wish them happiness. We can even actively help them. For example, many years ago in Sydney, an FPMT student held a party that annoyed his neighbor, who retaliated by scratching the side of his new car. Not knowing what to do about this, he asked George Farley, an old FPMT board member, who recommended giving the neighbor a present. The student thought this strange but decided to do it, giving the neighbor a box of golf balls because he remembered he liked golf. When he presented them, the neighbor didn’t say anything. Later, however, the neighbor went over to his house and said how much he appreciated the gift. In that way, both families were happy, rather than developing animosity for each other. By giving the victory to the other person, we gain and the other person gains.

OVERCOMING THE NEED FOR PRAISE AND FAME

Praise and Fame Are Meaningless

89For this apparent gain is the terrible fishing hook

of the fishermen, the afflictions.

From their hooks the guardians of hell

will purchase me to cook me in their pots.

90Praise, fame, honors

will not give me

merit or long life,

strength, health, or bodily comforts.

91But the latter are the goods desired

by a sage who knows what is of benefit.

One who seeks only temporary pleasures, on the other hand,

can dedicate himself to drinking, gambling, etc.

92Some will even throw away their fortunes

and sacrifice their lives for the sake of fame.

But can one eat the syllables in words of praise?

Can one enjoy glory after death?

93Like a child crying in pain

when his sand castle is destroyed,

my mind weeps

when it has lost praise and glory.

94This praise is nothing more than a sound.

It has no thought of its own, therefore it cannot praise me.

The only cause for my joy

is the idea that someone else is happy for me.

95What does it matter to me then,

whether someone else’s rejoicing arises with respect to me or with respect to another?

This joy and happiness belong only to this person.

I do not share even a small part of it.

96If happiness in me is due to them being happy,

then I should have the same happiness whenever another is happy.

Why is it then that when someone finds joy in the happiness of others

I find no happiness myself?

97Therefore, if I rejoice merely at the thought of receiving praise,

there is no connection with this other person,

who is the cause of my happiness

and I am simply playing a childish game.

When a fisher puts a worm on a hook, it is not dead. Seeing the moving worm, the fish sees something to eat. It sees only pleasure; it cannot see all the suffering it will get by taking the worm, so it goes to the worm without hesitation. Then what happens? The hook gets caught in its mouth, and there is incredible pain and no way to escape. Then, before death, before the consciousness even leaves the body, its body is cut into pieces, causing it to experience unbelievable suffering.

We must see that all cyclic existence is suffering. What we think of as pleasure, what we crave, such as praise and reputation, is suffering. It will not bring us any happiness, and it will cause us terrible suffering in our next life.

We crave being praised and yet the praise is just a collection of words; it cannot bring us any physical advantage. We might seek pleasure in drinking alcohol or gambling, but these are at best transitory pleasurable sensations that cannot be sustained and will definitely end, turning into the suffering of pain. And, of course, we all know how a little drinking can lead to more and then to alcoholism. The habit of drinking becomes an addiction that destroys a person’s whole life, consuming all their money and harming their family terribly. When they die, they usually have a horrible death and are reborn in the lower realms.

Everywhere we look we can see people looking for happiness in samsaric things, not understanding that such things can never bring happiness. They even risk their lives looking for happiness! Every year thousands of people climb Mount Everest, looking for happiness. It is very difficult getting to the top, but many make it even harder by choosing the most dangerous route.

People throw themselves out of airplanes. They have big packs on their backs, and they all get in a circle and hold one another’s hands as they fall down to the ground. They trust their parachutes, but sometimes they don’t work. People jump off mountains with only a bungee tied to them. I’ve even seen a man on TV shoot himself from a cannon. These people are all looking for happiness, and many for a good reputation, but they cannot succeed because their mind has not become the Dharma.

Until we can free ourselves from the mind that is attached to the eight worldly dharmas, we will always suffer disappointment and unhappiness. We will be like children making houses and cars in our sandpit and crying in despair when somebody kicks them over.

Samsaric pleasure is very deceiving. It looks like a very nice friend: one who flatters us, telling us how fantastic we are while always cheating us. This is like the description of the cannibals in one of the commentaries on the eight Mahayana precepts. We are in a land where there are many cannibals. From the beginning they tell us many nice things — how much they like us, how they would suffer so much if we ever left them. And we really believe them. But then after we have trusted them and decide to live with them, they eat us! This is just what samsaric pleasure does.

Gaining a good reputation requires so much effort and expense, and then when we have it, no matter how successful we are, there is always the worry that we might lose it all. There are many examples of people working ceaselessly and spending incredible amounts of money — millions of dollars — all for a good reputation. And yet they can never lose the pain in their hearts that they might lose that reputation.

Even though Elvis Presley was the most successful entertainer in the world, the year he was going to die, maybe while he was singing the last song, he was crying, his tears flowing out. He had achieved the best reputation in the world, had countless friends, and was immensely wealthy, but there was still such sadness and depression in his heart when he saw he was going to die and still hadn’t achieved satisfaction.

Attachment to praise is dangerous but so too is aversion to blame. We get angry when somebody insults us, calling us a dumb animal, but if we called ourselves that, that would be different. And if they called our enemy a dumb animal that would be entirely different. Insulting words are just words. In themselves they have no power to hurt. It is illogical to get angry when they are directed at us but not at somebody else. If we hear a tape recording saying we are a terrible person, it does no good at all to smash the tape recorder to pieces.

We may think we have a right to get angry with the person who recorded it, rather than with the tape recorder, but again we should investigate that. The person is like the recorder; their body that produced the words is not to blame, and neither is their mind, which is as controlled by their delusions as the tape recorder is controlled by the one who recorded the message. To become angry at them is a useless thing to do, and only makes matters worse.