Into the Heart of Life (21 page)

We have yogis in our community. They are monks, but until they left Tibet for India, they lived in caves. They do the most advanced tantric practices. Before he died, Khamtrul Rinpoche called the yogis together and said, “Now I am going to give you the supreme secret teaching. This is something from my heart that I have to transmit to you.” The yogis all felt very intrigued, wondering what this teaching was going to be. And it turned out to be the lojong text called
Seven Point Mind Training
written in the twelfth century by Chekawa Yeshe Dorje, who was inspired to compose that text by these same
Eight Verses
we are reading now. So lojong teachings are not only given at the beginning of one’s practice. They are also given in the middle and at the end. If we could just practice this, that would be enough. We don’t need anything more. In all the traditions of Tibet, this is the essence.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and all the great masters teach these basic principles again and again, because our self-cherishing mind is so strong and so subtle at the same time. This teaching just keeps wearing it away. When non-practitioners think of Tibetan Buddhism, they often think of all the rituals and deities, all the glamour. But when I think of what Tibetan Buddhism is fundamentally about, it is bodhichitta and lojong, which put others before oneself. This is why Tibetan Buddhism has stayed so pure. It hasn’t degenerated. Actually tantra came to Thailand, Sri Lanka, and other countries, but after some time it became corrupt. It did not degenerate in Tibet because they have had this incredible emphasis on the purification of motivation from the very beginning.

This quality of bodhichitta is really the essence of the path in Mahayana Buddhism. Books are written praising bodhichitta in beautiful words: how this aspiration for enlightenment for the sake of others really is the wish-fulfilling gem, the jewel beyond price. Tibetans regard bodhichitta as the one practice which completely transforms the whole of our spiritual and worldly life. Awakening to bodhichitta is like changing base metal into gold, and so it is precious beyond words.

The
Eight Verses of Mind Training
challenges what is called the self-cherishing aspect of the mind. It is not intended that we should constantly humiliate and hate ourselves. It does not mean that we should only think about the bad things in ourselves, and that at any time when we think of our good qualities we feel guilty, as though we are being prideful. That way, we end up feeling tight and low in self-esteem.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is very impressed with science, and every year he holds a mind-science conference that gathers different kinds of top scientists to discuss the similarities and differences between science and Buddhism. His Holiness once had a seminar with all sorts of psychiatrists and neurologists and Western experts concerned with the mind. Perhaps he had been giving some reflections on self-cherishing because one of these scientists asked him, “Well, Your Holiness, how do we deal with low self-esteem and self-hatred?”

His Holiness looked completely blank, and said, “Ah, what do you mean?”

The scientist said, “Well, you know, when you feel unworthy, and you don’t like yourself, and you feel very heavy and sad.”

His Holiness looked puzzled and asked his translator, “Hmm, what does he mean?” So the translator explained, and His Holiness sat there thinking. He said, “Oh, I think very rare, very rare.”

The scientist turned to his eminent colleagues and said, “Who ever suffers from a sense of low self-esteem or self-hatred?”

Everybody put their hands up.

His Holiness had to really think about it because Tibetans, at least traditional Tibetans living in old Tibet, didn’t suffer from this. Nowadays, modern young Tibetan refugees have identity problems, but not so much the older ones. They have a great sense of self-worth and self-esteem no matter what their social status. It is not pride. It is a sense of inner confidence, a sense of being basically all right.

Tibetans arriving in India had lost everything. The Chinese Communists had taken over their country. Many Tibetans lost family members and friends who were killed or imprisoned. The Communists destroyed monasteries. They killed monks and nuns and ravaged the culture. They tried to take away that which was most important of all to the Tibetans, which was their Dharma. Those who were able fled to India and Nepal. Often there were hundreds in a group trying to escape and maybe two or three managed to get out. It took months for the Tibetans to cross over the difficult terrain of the snow-covered mountains. And if they managed it, they found themselves in a completely different culture—the language was different, the food was different, and it was very hot. They were sick and devastated refugees, and they had nothing.

When I first went to India in 1964, the Tibetans had been out for about four years. They were so poor, and many were just living in tents made out of sacks. They were working on the roads, even the lamas. And they were so worried about what was happening to those they had left behind in Tibet. Nonetheless, what struck everybody who met these Tibetan refugees was how cheerful they were! They had such presence. They were so friendly and generous. They weren’t self-pitying—they were beautiful, and radiantly at peace with themselves despite the trauma they had suffered.

Exchanging self for others does not leave us feeling depressed and downtrodden and full of self-contempt. In fact it gives us a tremendous sense of inner courage which we can carry with us into even the most disastrous situations.

In the
Bodhicharyavatara (The Way of the Bodhisattva),
Shantideva points to the difference between ordinary pride and self-confidence. Pride is a klesha, an afflictive emotion, but self-confidence is essential for the spiritual path. Cherishing others beyond ourselves requires an enormous amount of self-confidence and fearlessness.
The Way of the Bodhisattva
and the
Eight Verses of Mind Training
hit at our pride and the tight knot of self-cherishing which seems to sit at the center of our being.

May I always cherish all beings

With the resolve to accomplish for them

The highest good that is more precious

Than any wish-fulfilling jewel.

The first verse means exactly what it says: May I always hold everyone dear, with the determination to win for them “the highest good,” which of course is liberation. All beings without exception want to be happy. They don’t want to suffer. As human beings, we expend enormous energy, time, and money on what we hope will make us happy. One of the tragedies of our modern consumer society is that it tries to sell us a deal for happiness which the Buddha already proclaimed as the path to suffering.

Our consumer society is firmly based on the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion, with an emphasis on the ever-increasing generation of greed and desire. Our society is founded on self-advertisement, on the selling and promotion of self, and this expression of the three poisons just creates samsara. Our society also glorifies violence. I am always horrified when I get glimpses of the movies people watch in the planes and so on. These movies are full of people fighting and blowing each other up!

So this verse offers us another way of looking at life. As Shantideva says, when we seek only our own happiness, we just end up with more frustration and suffering. But when we seek the happiness of others, we discover our own happiness. Numerically, as sentient beings are infinite and I am just one, it makes more sense to be concerned with the many. His Holiness the Dalai Lama says his first thought on waking in the morning is how he can use this day to bring happiness to others.

In Indian mythology wish-fulfilling jewels belong to the gods, and such jewels grant anything one may wish. And yet the verse tells us that the aspiration to give joy to others beyond ourselves is more precious than such a jewel. The reasoning is that even if we had the wish-fulfilling jewel in our hands, it could only fulfill our wishes in this lifetime. But we will carry with us the aspiration for the happiness and enlightenment of others throughout endless lifetimes, and it will bring us much good karma and benefit. Such aspiration reflects a transformation of the mind, and we will take it with us until enlightenment is reached.

Therefore, the second verse says:

Whenever I am in the company of others,

May I regard myself as inferior to all

And from the depths of my heart

Cherish others as supreme.

Now I can well understand how certain women might resent this verse and think that as women we have always seen ourselves as inferior. So again I want to emphasize what I said at the beginning. The verse does not suggest that we see ourselves as inferior and others as superior, and that we must be passive and groveling and full of self-contempt. Rather, it is this attitude of delight in bringing happiness to others that is underscored. It is not a matter of subservience but of seeing through our inherent self-concern.

The Buddha spoke of the quality of loving-kindness as being like a mother’s love for her only child. And nature programs a mother to love. If nature didn’t predispose us to love our little baby, then we might just throw it away because it is too much trouble! But even most animals love their offspring and defend them literally to the death if need be. So we already have that instinct inside us: we just need to promote and expand our natural impulse until that feeling of melting love extends to all beings. Throughout countless lifetimes all beings have been our children and we have been their mother. And they have each been our mother, too. Giving compassion toward all beings completely transforms the heart. It is how we may recognize that every being who comes into our presence wants happiness. Whether they are friendly, aggressive, or indifferent, all beings want only happiness.

Open heartfelt joy arises when we give happiness to others. While the words in the text may sometimes seem to suggest a kind of debasement, it is not about that. A classic image is one where we have two pieces of cake. One piece is big and the other is small, and we don’t regard it as a sacrifice to give the big piece to someone we love. If we think in terms of self-sacrifice, then giving becomes heavy and we end up with a sense of “Oh, poor me, I am always giving and giving and everybody else is taking and taking.” We end up feeling inwardly deprived and dry. But this practice is actually the opposite of that attitude. The opposite of self-sacrifice is not a matter of promoting our own ego. Rather it is a matter related to giving to others with joy and genuine delight in their happiness.

In Buddhism pride is regarded as being threefold. One aspect involves arrogantly thinking that we are better than others. We may be proud of our looks, wealth, talents, family, or race and feel that we are somehow superior to others. But there is also the pride that comes with thinking we are just as good as others. Then there is the pride that comes with thinking we are inferior to others. All these aspects of pride are self-referential. Some people who are psychologically disturbed feel badly about themselves; they feel inferior and they hate themselves. But still they are absorbed in themselves. They can’t think of anything outside of themselves. They want to talk only about their problems, their feelings, and the horrible things that have happened to them. Any talk of others bores them to tears. They want to come back to me through the whole time one is in their company. Pride arises not only from thinking that we are wonderful but also from thinking that we are awful. All these aspects of pride are expressions of the ego.

This sense of pride suggested in the text as a matter of feeling superior, inferior, or equal points to the comparing mind. Whatever comparison we make expresses duality between ourselves and others. As soon as we meet somebody, we normally start to compare. Even when we think, “I am just as good as you are,” we have immediately made that separation. An open spacious mind does not compare.

Now of course if we are in a situation where we are always giving out and giving out, it could very well happen that after a while we become like an empty bottle. So we also need to replenish ourselves. In Buddhism, this is usually done through meditation practice, where we fill ourselves up in order to be able to give ourselves out.

Most people think of the nuns of Mother Teresa as going around the streets of Calcutta sweeping up the dead and dying, but what they don’t understand is that the nuns pass at least half their day in prayer. They breathe in as well as out, and in this way they can keep going. It strikes me that the sisters of Mother Teresa and her volunteers have trained to see Jesus in everyone they care for—Jesus said that he would come back as the poor and the sick, and so the nuns and volunteers believe that they are not just serving some wretched beggar on the street, but rather that they are serving Jesus. It gives them a tremendous feeling of privilege to be allowed to care for their Lord, and therefore they don’t feel the sense of pride that “I am so good to be helping this poor person.” They are caring for Jesus, and it is with a sense of honor and of love.

Likewise, in Mahayana Buddhism, it is said that all beings have buddha nature. This means that the essence of our being, the true nature of our mind, is primordial awareness, which is blissful emptiness and clarity. It is beyond time and space and transcends the idea of subject and object. Unborn awareness is likened to the sky. We all have it, not just human beings. Animals, and mosquitoes, too, have buddha nature. Every being that we meet is inherently a buddha. Our tragedy is that we don’t realize it and identify ourselves instead with our very ordinary affliction-ridden personality.