The Dalai Lama's Book of Wisdom

published by Thorsons (www.thorsons.com)

The Dalai Lama's Book of Wisdom (which is in fact extracts from some teaching in 1993 in London called Power of Compassion. I love the intro - "I am a Buddhist and my whole way of training is according to the Buddhist teaching or Buddha Dharma. Although I speak from my own experience, I feel that no-one has the right to impose his or her beliefs on another person. I will not propose to you that my way is the best. The decision is up to you. If you find some point which may be suitable for you, then you can carry out experiments for yourself. If you find that it is of no use, then you can discard it."

The book's 4 sections cover:

* Contentment, Joy & Living Well
* Facing Death & Dying
* Dealing with Anger & Emotion
* Giving & Receiving

We do not know the vast majority of the five billion human beings on this earth, therefore the majority of people do not give us the opportunity to show tolerance or patience. Only those people whom we know and who create problems for us really provide us with a good opportunity to practice tolerance and patience.

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As death becomes something familiar to you, as you have some knowledge of its processes and can recognise its internal and external indications, you are prepared for it. According to my own experience, I still have no confidence that at the moment of death, I will really implement all these practices for which i have been prepared. I have no guarantee.

Sometimes when I think about death, I get some kind of excitement. Instead of fear, I have a feeling of curiosity and this makes it much easier for me to accept death.

In my daily practice of prayer, I visualise eight different deity yogas and eight different deaths. Perhaps when death comes all my preparation may fail. I hope not! I think these practices are mentally very helpful when dealing with death. If you are fully prepared then, at the moment of death, you can retain your peace of mind.

Anger and hatred are two of our closest friends. When I was young I had quite a close relationship with anger. Then eventually I found I had a lot of disagreement with anger. By using common sense, with the help of compassion and wisdom, I find I now have a more powerful argument with which to defeat anger.

Just as you have the instinctive natural desire to be happy and overcome suffering, so do all sentient beings; just as you have the right to fulfil this innate aspiration, so do all sentient beings. So on what exact grounds do you discriminate?

The basic fact is that all sentient beings, particularly human beings, want happiness and do not want pain and suffering. On those grounds, we have every right to be happy and to use different methods or means to overcome suffering and to achieve happy lives. It is worthwhile to think seriously about the positive and negative consequences of these methods. You should be aware that there are differences between short-term interest and long-term interest and consequences - and the long-term interest is much more important. Buddhists ususally say that there is no absolute and that everything is relative.

With the realisation of one's own potential and the self-confidence in one's ability, one can build a better world. According to my experience, self-confidence is very important. That sort of confidence is not a blind one; it is an awareness of one's own potential. On that basis, human beings can transform themselves by increasing the good qualities and reducing the negative qualities. Seen in this light, every human action becomes significant.

The smile is a very important feature of the human face. But because of human intelligence, even that good part of human nature can be used in the wrong way, such as sarcastic smiles or diplomatic smiles, which only serve to create suspicion. I feel that a genuine, affectionate smile is very important in our day-to-day lives. How one creates that smile largely depends on one's own attitude. It is illogical to expect smiles from others if one does not smile oneself. Therefore, one can see that many things depends on one's own behaviour.

There is both positive and negative desire. Mahayana Buddhist literature mentions two desires or two aspirations. One is the aspiration to be of benefit to all sentient beings and the other is to attain fully the Enlightened state for that purpose. Without these two types of aspiration, the attainment of full Enlightenment is impossible. But there are also negative things which result from desire. The antidote to this negative desire is contentment.

The sense of contentment is a key factor for the attaining of happiness. Bodily health, material wealth and companions and friends are three factors for happiness. Contentment is the key that will determine th outcome of your relations with all three of these factors.

Buddhist literature mentions five types of objects of desire: forms, sounds, odours, tastes and tactile sensations. Whether or not these objects of enjoyment give rise to happiness, satisfaction and contentment, or conversely, give rise to suffering and dissatisfaction depends very much on how you apply your faculty of intelligence. Much depends on our own attitude.

In order to practice the application of joyful effort successfully, one must have the ability to concentrate, to focus on events, actions of goals.

The Buddhist interpretation is that genuine compassion is based on a clear acceptance or recognition that others, like oneself, want happiness and have the right to overcome suffering. On that basis, one develops some kind of concern about the welfare of others, irrespective of their attitude to oneself. That is compassion.

Your love and compassion towards your friends is in many cases actually attachment. This feeling is not based on the realisation that all beings have an equal right to be happy and to overcome suffering. Instead it is based on the idea that something is 'mine', 'my friend' or something good 'for me'. That is attachment. Thus when the person's attitude toward you changes, your feeling of closeness immediately disappears. With the other way, you develop some kind of concern irrespective of that person's attitude toward you simply because that person is a fellow human being and has every right to overcome suffering.

Actually genuine compassion and attachment are contradictory. According to Buddhist practice, to develop genuine compassion, you must first practice the meditation of equalisation and equanimity, detaching oneself from those who are very close to you. Then, you must remove negative feelings towards your enemies. All sentient beings should be looked on as equal. On that basis, you can eventually develop genuine compassion for all of them.

It must be said that genuine compassion is not like pity or a feeling that others are somehow lower than you. Rather, with genuine compasion, you view others as more important than yourself.

In order to generate genuine compassion, first of all, one must go through the training of equanimity. This becomes very important because without a sense of equanimity towards all, one's feelings towards others will be biased. So now I will give you a brief example of a Buddhist meditative training on developing equanimity. You should first think about a small group of people whom you know such as your friends and relatives, towards whom you have attachment. Second you should think about some people to whom you feel totally indifferent. Third, thinkabout some people whom you dislike.

Once you have imagined these dfferent groups of people, you should try to ley your mind go into its natural state and see how it would normally respond to an encounter with these people. You will notice that your natural reaction would be that of attachment towards your friends, that of dislike towards those people whom you consider your enemies, and that of total indifference towards those whom you consider neutral. Then you should try to question yourself.

You should compare the effects of the two opposing attitudes you have towards your friends and your enemies, and see why you should have such fluctuating states of mind towards these two different groups of people. You should see what effects such reactions have on your mind and try to see the futility of relating to them in such an extreme manner.

I have already discussed the pros and cons of harbouring hatred and generating anger towards your enemies, and I have also spoken a little about the defects of being extremely attached towards friends and so on. You should reflect upon this and then try to minimise your strong emotions towards these two opposing groups of people. Then, most importantly, you should reflect on the fundamental equality between yourself and all other sentient beings.

Within the body there are billions of different particles. Similarly, there are many different thoughts and a variety of states of mind. It is wise to take a close look into the world of your mind and to make the distinction between beneficial and harmful states of mind. Once you can recognise the value of good states of mind, you can increase or foster them.

Buddha taught the principles of the Four Noble Truths and these form the foundation of the Buddha Dharma. The Third Noble Truth is cessation. In this context, cessation means the state of mind or quality, which, through paractice and effort, ceases all the negative emotions. It is a state in which the individual has reached a perfected state of mind which is free from the effects of various afflictive and negative emotions and thoughts.

The state of true cessation is, according to Buddhism, the refuge that all practising Buddhists seek. The reason one seeks refuge in the Buddha, is not because the Buddha was from the beginning a special person, but because the Buddha realised the state of true cessation.

Naturally emotions can be positive and negative. However, when talking about anger etc., we are dealing with negative emotions. Negative emotions are those which immediately create some kind of unhappiness or uneasiness, and which, in the long run, create certain actions. Those actions ultimately lead to harm to others and this brings pain or suffering to oneself. This is what we mean by negative emotions.

In Tantric practice, there are meditative techniques which enable the transformation of the energy of anger. This is the reason behind the wrathful deities. On the basis of compassionate motivation, anger may in some cases be useful becaue it gives us extra energy and enables us to act swiftly. However, anger ususally leads to hatred and hatred is always negative. Hatred harbours ill will.

Now, form the standpoint of health, negative emotions like hatred are very bad.

Your mental state should always remain calm. Even if some anxiety occurs, as is bound to in life, you should always be calm. Like a wave, which rises from the water and dissolves back into the water, these disturbances are very short, so they should not affect your basic mental attitude. If you remain calm, your blood pressure and so on remain more normal and as a result your health will improve.

The third source of happiness is our companions. It is obvious that when you are mentally calm you are honest and open-minded. Even if there is a big difference of opinion, you can communicate on a human level. You can put aside these different opinions and communicate as human beings. I think that is one way to create positive feelings in other people's minds.

I think there is more value in genuine human feeling than in status and so on. I am just a simple human being. Through my experience and mental discipline, a certain new attitude has developed. This is nothing special. You, who have had a better education and more experience than myself, have more potential to change within yourself. I come from a small village with no modern education and no deep awareness of the world. Also, from the age of 15 or 16, I had an unthinkable sort of burden.

Each of you should feel that you have great potential and that, with self-confidence and a little more effort, change really is possible if you want it. If you feel that your present way of life is unpleasant or has some difficulties, then don't look at these negative things. See the positive side, the potential, and make an effort.

Now you can see how to minimise anger and hatred. First, it is extremely important to realise the negativeness of these emotions in general, particularly hatred. I consider hatred to be the ultimate enemy. By 'enemy', I mean the person or factor which directly or indirectly destroys our interest. Our interest is that which ultimately creates happiness.

The ultimate source of my happiness is my peace of mind. Nothing can destroy this except my own anger.

According to our experience with anger, if you do not make an attempt to reduce it, it will remain with you and even increase. Then even with small incidents you will immediately get angry. Once you try to control or disipline your anger, then eventually even big events will not cause anger.

In the Buddhist text, A Guide To The Bodhisattva Way of Life, the great scholar Shantideva mentions that it is very important to ensure that a person does not get into a situation that leads to dissatisfaction, becuase dissatisfaction is the seed of anger. This means that one should adopt a certain outlook towards one's material possessions, towards one's companions and friends, and towards various situations.

Our feelings of dissatisfaction, unhappiness, loss of hope and so forth are in fact related to all phenomena. If we do not adopt the right outlook, it is possible that anything and everything could cause us frustration. Yet phenomena are part of reality and we are subject to the laws of existence. So this leaves us only one option: to change our own attitude. By bringing about a change in our outlook towards things and events, all phenomena can become friends and sources of happiness, instead of becoming enemies and sources of frustration.

I am quite sure that if this Fourteenth Dalai Lama smiled less, perhaps I would have fewer friends in various places. My attitude towards other people is to always look at them from the human level. On that level, whether president, queen or beggar, there is no difference, provided that there is genuine human feeling with a genuine human smile of affection.

My favourite quotation from Shantideva's book (A Guide To The Bodhisattva Way of Life) is 'As long as space endures, as long as sentient beings remain, until then, may I remain and dispel the miseries of the world.'