More teachings related to Bodhichitta by Lama Zopa
Rinpoche
The heart of the Dharma is bodhicitta, so your attitude should
become that. Dedicate whatever you are doing, put effort into
whatever you are doing, for all sentient beings. That includes
friends, enemies, and strangers. By studying the lam-rim you will
understand how to do that. That is the most important thing. You
can do some meditation on emptiness every day. Read the part of the
lam-rim on guru devotion. Read, study, and meditate every day on
those outlines until you have some stable realizations of seeing
the Guru as Buddha.
The very last piece of advice is: Don’t think "I’m going to live
for many years," following the concept of permanence. This life is
like last night’s dream, very short, or like lightning in the
sky—it appears while it is leaving. Therefore, put all your effort
into Dharma, as I mentioned before.
You will encounter problems. At that time, use bodhicitta,
emptiness and patience. When you encounter problems, apply Dharma
to bring peace in your heart and the heart of the other person.
Sometimes there is no peace, but your methods can bring ultimate
peace to that person, and to your heart and mind.
In “Universal Education, Essential Wisdom” (Essential Education,
Foundation for Developing Compassion and Wisdom), I gave very very
basic advice that the important practice to apply to bring peace to
all sentient beings, even animals, is to practice kindness, not
only to human beings, but to animals, day and night; all of the
time, practice kindness. From this, your life, your heart, is
always in peace, day and night, under any circumstances, during
difficult times, or during easy times. The result from one positive
action, one kindness to one sentient being, brings happiness in
100,000 lifetimes.
At the study group, you are practicing kindness all of the time.
You can imagine how you will have unbelievable peace and happiness
all of the time, in this life and future lives, from your
compassion and loving kindness. Right away, every day, you make so
many people happy, as the days, weeks, and months pass, wherever
you travel, wherever you live.
Whenever you see good things happen to others, think how
wonderful it is that they have this happiness, this success. If
somebody has a beautiful house, car, family, or friend, you
rejoice. When somebody makes a great profit in business, you
rejoice. Basically, this person has great happiness, and you think
how wonderful it is. If the person has a great education, more
understanding of the Dharma, practices more, or has a beautiful
body, you rejoice.
This doesn't directly use karma, but by practicing kindness to
others and rejoicing, you collect merit like limitless skies.
Rejoicing is the easiest way to collect merit. You collect all the
merits. You are always creating the cause of happiness. You are
making your life meaningful all the time. You are making your life
beneficial for yourself and all sentient beings. Whenever people
see you or remember you, there is always happiness. When they see
you their minds are always happy.
When you rejoice for somebody whose level of mind is lower than
yours, you collect double the merit. If they are the same level as
you, you get the same merit. If they are at a higher level of mind,
you get half the merit. For example, if one who doesn’t have the
realization of bodhicitta rejoices in one day of a bodhisattva’s
merit, that person collects half the merit of what that bodhisattva
collects in one day. I am talking about how much merit you collect.
Without rejoicing, it takes 23,000 years. When you rejoice, you
collect that merit in one second, so you can see how rejoicing is
the easiest way in life to collect extensive merit.
Now you can rejoice in one bodhisattva’s merits. It is
unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable. Bodhisattvas are not just
one but numberless, so the amount of merit you collect could make
you faint. There are numberless bodhisattvas and sentient beings,
so you can just imagine how much merit you collect.
As it says in the
Three Principal Aspects of the
Path, by renouncing attachment and desire,
it becomes very pure Dharma. Each time you practice that, it
becomes very pure Dharma. Any time you renounce delusion, it
becomes pure Dharma. Any time you go against attachment and desire,
it becomes pure Dharma, as attachment and desire only lead to
suffering. There are so many people in the world, so much suffering
in organizations, countries, etc. through following desire and not
practicing contentment. There are so many people engaged in illegal
things who end up in prison. They have to suffer a lot and make
many people unhappy. They get killed and punished. Renouncing
attachment and desire is one method to bring peace and happiness
into your life, into your heart, to create inner peace.
When somebody harms you, forgive him or her. Immediately the
other person receives so much peace and happiness and you also
receive much peace and happiness. Most people get angry and want to
get back at the person, and they do the opposite and give harm back
to the person. As a result, the person’s family members and friends
will harm you. You will be harmed by that person 500 times, not
necessarily when you are in a human body. From that negative karma,
from harming that person, you experience getting harmed or killed
by that person 500 times. It makes you suffer on and on without
end. There is the one complete negative karma that has four
aspects:
1) The base, 2) thought, 3) action, and 4) goal.
When all of these are complete, you can receive four suffering
results:
1) The ripening aspect result— rebirth in the lower realms for many
billions of years.
There are three suffering results in the human realm:
1) The result similar to the cause—being killed by others.
2) The possessed result, concerned with the place. Whatever view
you hold is bad, the appearances you see are bad, and you live in a
very dusty place. Medicines and food become harmful to you and can
cause harm, sickness, and death
3) Creating the result similar to the cause—you kill again
because of the past imprint of killing, and you engage again and
again in that negative karma.
You can see how one negative karma today results in so much
suffering. It can make you faint. If you think about it, you have
created so much negative karma today with your body, speech, and
mind, this week, month, and year. From birth and from beginningless
rebirths, you have created karma which has not been purified, not
finished by experiencing it. If you really think well, you can’t
stand having one negative karma near you. You can see how
forgiveness is incredible. It stops you from harming others and
others from harming you with their body, speech, and mind. Also, so
many people, friends, family, and so forth, who are all connected
to you, don’t engage in negative karmas because of you.
The next point is, if you do some harm, make some mistake,
immediately apologize so it doesn’t make the person angry with you,
make him or her angry or suffer. If you say sorry immediately, the
person doesn’t become angry, and it brings a release. If you can
practice like this, it’s unbelievable.
Do not get angry. Have peace in your heart. If you practice like
this, with patience, you give happiness to all sentient beings, not
only your family, but people at work too, not only in this country
or this world, but after this life, to all sentient beings.