Into the Heart of Life (6 page)
Read Into the Heart of Life Online
Authors: Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
Tags: #General, #Religion, #Buddhism, #Rituals & Practice, #Tibetan
Q: If people close to you generate negative karma through their actions, can you do anything to lessen the negative karma that they create for themselves?
JTP: The Buddha actually said that we are all heirs to our own karma. However, one could do purificatory practices and keep these people in mind. For example, if one was doing Vajrasattva meditation, imagine that Vajrasattva is on their heads and purifying them also, and dedicate the merit to them. In addition, one could do positive deeds, like rescuing animals, or giving to some worthy cause, or whatever else, and dedicate the merit to them. Beyond that, there is not much we can do.
We are heirs to our own actions, and people are in that situation where they are creating their own karma. Perhaps the most we can do is give our own example. This will let them know that their conduct is not the way we think life should be led, and that what they are doing is not the kind of action of which we approve. Beyond that, what can one do? One cannot force anyone to do something if they don’t want to do it. We are not responsible in that sense for others. We are responsible to our children to set them a good example, but what they do with that is up to them. Likewise with our partners or anyone else—we cannot lead their life for them. We can try to set the example of what we believe to be the right thing to do, but beyond that, whether they follow it or don’t follow it, that’s their responsibility, that’s their choice. We do have a choice, and if they make the wrong choice then it’s not our fault. Perhaps you could leave a few interesting novels of a spiritual type around the place and hope they pick them up!
People are going to do what they are going to do. All you can do from your side is to send them loving-kindness and compassion, do some purification on their behalf, and set a good example.
Q: You talked about purification. I’m really interested in the karma that I keep producing.
JTP: Are you a Buddhist of the Tibetan school? There are a number of purificatory practices in Tibetan Buddhism. For example, apart from Vajrasattva, there is the practice of Nyungné, which is a two-day fasting ritual based on the visualization of the thousand-armed Chenrezig, or Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. That’s very powerful for purification. But it would be difficult if you’ve never done it to perform it by yourself. So for that it would be good to organize a Nyungné gathering.
The prostrations to the Thirty-five Confession Buddhas is another purificatory practice. Tibetan Buddhists believe that the reason we are in such a mess and haven’t realized ultimate reality yet is because of the heavy clouds of obscurations which are caused by our previous unwholesome karma. Therefore, the quickest thing to do about it is to clean up, and so there are a number of purificatory practices in order to get out the scouring brush and really get to work.
Usually, the most we can do is take a little teaspoon, but these practices are more like those big plows—snow-plows—which kind of shovel all the garbage out. If we do these practices with real conviction and with heartfelt dedication, they work very quickly. Then the signs, such as dreams, appear that we are purifying a lot of past negative karma. But of course, the important thing is not to create any further negative karma in the present.
Q: Can you be specific about abortion? For instance, if someone has had that in their past, and wants to purify that. How would you do that?
JTP: In the Tibetan tradition, there are the four powers. First is the power of remorse—we regret whatever unwholesome action we did. We genuinely regret it. It’s no good thinking, for example, “Oh well, but what I did was kind of clever, and nobody else would know how to do it as well as that”—that’s a kind of subtle pride in doing something which was unwholesome. And that is not regretting; there’s no remorse, and then it doesn’t purify. So first of all, we have to deeply regret—we are really sorry we did that action. But remorse doesn’t mean that we keep on and on. There’s regret, but it’s not like continually picking at the scabs.
Then there is the power of reliance. That means we rely on something outside of ourselves to really help us. In this case, we rely on the purificatory practices like Vajrasattva—we believe that doing this Vajrasattva practice can really help us purify this karma.
Then we have the power of promising never to do it again. It’s like we took poison, then we’re really sorry we took that poison, and we vow we’re definitely never going to do that again. Finally there is the power of the antidote—that means that we do something which is the opposite of what we did before. For instance, if something has been killed, we save life or we try to help children. We try to do what we can to create good karma, the direct opposite of the bad karma. If we do that with sincerity, that will help to purify.
Perhaps in the case of something like abortion, it may be a good idea on the anniversary to offer prayers for that being’s good rebirth and wish him or her well on the journey through samsara. Because of course abortion is a terrible thing—we’re not pretending. But also, there must have been some short life karma since the fetus of that child was born in circumstances where it couldn’t come to fruition. Since then the consciousness has gone on and has taken other rebirths. So while we regret that we did what we did, still it is no good holding on. The child has gone on now. Just send prayers to wish him or her well, wherever they may be in samsara and then, as I say, do things which can compensate. For instance, if you have children, be kind to them—love them and make them know how welcome they are.
Rely on the fact that there is a way to go beyond this—it’s all right. In this world of birth and death, we come into being and we go, don’t we? Don’t hold on to it.
Q: Is there a kind of collective karma?
JTP: No. Not from the Buddhist point of view. Anyway, collective karma is the aggregate of all the individual karmas, and if we share certain similarities, then they may come together so that we might be born in the same kind of circumstances with others of similar karmic backgrounds. I think that’s what happens. But from the Buddhist point of view, there is no collective karma—that’s a philosophical idea.
Q: I’ll tell you what I thought in the back of my mind. It’s something that comes to my mind when I’m trying to deal with cynicism. It seems to me that there has been a certain amount of spiritual progress overall. A notable example is that there is perhaps less slavery in the world today than there once was. And I find great hope and solace in the notion that we have collectively made some progress in overcoming these unwholesome practices.
JTP: You mean the world is full of remorse? There has never been such an increase in prostitution, including child prostitution, than in these days. The exploitation of human beings is ghastly. Look at the importation of these people—just recently, all those people that died in the back of the truck. And that goes on in the hundreds of cases, if not thousands and millions. And there is still slavery and bonded labor carried on in many parts of the world today.
We hope that we are progressing, but there is increasing violence, especially among the young, and there are widespread suicides. I mean, I do want to hope that we are learning our lessons, but sometimes I really wonder. I don’t know if society is improving. It would be nice to think so. I’m usually surrounded by lovely people and so I get a rather rosy view of what’s happening in the world. But when you look at so many countries in the world and the sheer brutality, and not just in Asia or in Africa, but in Europe and the United States, then you wonder, Are we learning anything? And so many of the young people are coming up and making exactly the same mistakes all over again—even more so sometimes.
There are wonderful people in this world, but there always were wonderful people in the world. We don’t have a present-day monopoly on having saints. We don’t have the monopoly on beautiful selfless people; we don’t have the monopoly on having people who are looking for a genuine spiritual path. All throughout the ages, there have been people like that along with the others, and those others are still with us—our whole consumer society is based on pouring oil onto the fires of our delusion and our greed and our violence. Look at the movies.
I’m not trying to be pessimistic here. I also would like to be optimistic, and there is something in me that is optimistic, because we all have buddha nature and hopefully that will triumph. Light eventually has to triumph over darkness. Even if the darkness lasts for a million years—we switch on the light, and the light is there. The light is always there. It can never ever be destroyed. The light is the ultimate reality. But in the meantime, we are very dominated by these emotional poisons, and our society encourages that. It encourages ambition and success at the expense of others. People are becoming far more stressed-out than they ever were before. They have no time for their families; their children are neglected. The bonding which took place between people is disappearing.
Q: I was just thinking that we all have the potential to give birth to wisdom, which may compensate for the fact that yes, there are these terrible things occurring.
JTP: Yes, as I say, we all innately have the seed of buddhahood within us. That is our true nature. Our true nature is good—totally good. And in the end, that has to triumph. But it is taking a long time. Of course, in terms of eternity, this is nothing. Historical time is just a finger snap.
But that’s why, from our side, we have to make the effort, because if we don’t make the effort, we tend to slide downwards—at the very least into complacency—and we just try to be comfortable and to have a nice time. But that’s not what this life is about. This life is really about developing spiritual muscles and doing something meaningful, not just outwardly, but inwardly. And that takes effort, because the pull of gravity is very strong. It pulls us downwards if we are not very careful. We have to be vigilant; we have to be alert. We cannot become complacent.
Q: Sometimes karma is used as a reason for not intervening in difficult situations, for example when one witnesses adults abusing children.
JTP: Well, that’s the same as saying, if you’ve got a toothache, “Oh well, it’s my karma to have a toothache so I won’t go to a dentist.” That’s nonsense, isn’t it? Maybe it’s also your karma to go find a good dentist. Likewise, if someone is abusing children, then maybe it’s that child’s karma to find someone to help them. If you’re putting karma as a reason for everything which happens then we don’t do anything, do we? But nobody does that. If you’re sick, you go to a doctor. You don’t just sit there and say, “It’s my karma.”
Q: But you hear very often, “Okay, it’s your karma; it’s their karma.”
JTP: Well maybe it is, because we’ve had endless lifetimes in which we’ve planted a million, billion seeds, both negative and positive, and you don’t know when they’re going to come up. But it’s not what comes up which is the important thing. It’s how we respond to what is happening to us. Do we respond intelligently, with skillful actions, or do we not? And just ignoring a difficult situation shows a lack of compassion, a lack of understanding, a lack of appreciation, an inability to place oneself in the shoes of another, and so forth. Clearly, if someone is suffering and one can help, then maybe it is one’s karma to develop more compassion by helping.
Q: When I asked one of my lamas why the Tibetans ate meat, he pointed out to me that there were very few vegetables growing in Tibet. He said that if you ate one lettuce, how many insects were in that lettuce?
JTP: As the Buddha pointed out, this world is covered with much dust. In other words, in this realm of birth and death, things are not perfect. But there is a difference, I think, between dealing with slugs on your cabbages and with cows and sheep killed in the slaughterhouses. I think there is a level of consciousness which is rather different between a slug and a cow.
Q: What if you’re in a relationship where your partner is a meat-eater and you have to prepare his food for him?
JTP: I guess you feed him meat! I know a number of people who themselves are vegetarians but cook meat for their lamas.
3
Creating Happiness
I
of the Buddhist path as a temple, then in order to gain entry we have to go through the front door. This front door is the commitment of taking refuge. To take refuge means we are fleeing from something. What are we escaping from?
Nowadays, the world is full of refugees. Refugees are seeking refuge. They are fleeing from wars, enemies, and natural disasters that have occurred in their countries; they are escaping to some place which they hope will give safety and protection. So in Buddhism, we are all refugees. We are seeking to escape, if we have any sense, from the problems, conflicts, and difficulties of this round of birth and death. In particular, we are fleeing from conflicts which are created by our untamed, undisciplined minds, by the poisons of our delusion, greed, ill-will, pride, and jealousy, which cause so much disturbance to ourselves and to others. We are in flight from the problems of not getting what we want and getting what we don’t want—old age, sickness, death. There are so many problems in this world.
Where can we find a refuge? We can find refuge only in ultimate truth. That’s the only really firm ground. Nothing relative can ever be a true refuge.
It is worth noting that our consumer society always places happiness on the outside, on what we have and on what we achieve. The message is that our happiness and satisfaction rest with what we own, with what people think about us, our image. We are led to believe that if our house is bigger than our neighbor’s house, or if we have more cars or a bigger television or the latest computer, this will give us a real sense of inner satisfaction, even joy. Whether you believe this or not, it’s a fact that almost all of us are subject to this mentality. Even little children aren’t free—when you watch children’s television you see that the commercials are aimed at producing that kind of wanting, desiring mind. Because, of course, if we don’t keep wanting and desiring, then we won’t keep buying, and corporate profits will suffer. Purchasing is what it’s all about.
Most of us have our basic needs satisfied. We have somewhere to live; we have clothing to cover us; we have sufficient food. Actually, our needs are very small. And yet we pass beyond our needs into greed, into artificial desires which are continually being stimulated by our society. And the majority of people fall for it. They really believe that if they have a bigger, better house or a bigger, better car, or a more interesting and attractive partner, then they will have reached nirvana! We do feel this, especially the bit about the partner. We think that if we could just find the ideal relationship with that perfect person who does exactly what we want them to do and is totally satisfying to us in every way, we would be perfectly happy. This is very telling.
We’re like hamsters in a wheel. We’re constantly running on this treadmill, working hard and exhausting ourselves but getting absolutely nowhere, because no matter what we have, there’s always something else more. The majority of the world goes for it: we believe that if we only had whatever it is that we desire, we would finally be satisfied.
In the Buddhist tradition, we regard as a refuge the Buddha, his teachings, and the community of those who have realized those teachings. Why? The Buddha was a prince who had everything he wanted. He had three palaces for the three seasons of the year, he had doting parents, a beautiful wife, and he even had a son. He was very handsome, athletic, and intelligent. He had lots of wealth, slaves and servants, concubines, silks, gold and jewels, and everything else a prince could possibly want. Outwardly he had everything. So why did he leave home searching for the cause of his dissatisfaction?
During outings when he had left the palace, he beheld the spectacle of a very old man, a sick man, and finally, a corpse. This was a great revelation for him, because these things had been hidden from him during his life of indulgence. Maybe they were not physically hidden from him, but he had not really thought about these things.
While we are young we usually don’t think of old age, sickness, and death. Those things happen to those old fogies elsewhere. We don’t think that inevitably they will happen to us. The Buddha left home because he had experienced that life is not the way it always appears to be. The Buddha started from where we are.
We think of life as something pretty static, fairly secure. We’re always trying to keep what we have, keep our relationships the way they are, stay looking much the way we did when we were in our prime. We deny the very real facts of change and impermanence, that everything changes moment to moment—the cells in our body, the thoughts in our mind. Everything everywhere in every moment is in a state of flux. But we try to hold on. We continually deny the fact that everything is changing, everything is flowing, and that meetings end in partings.
When the Buddha was enlightened in northern India 2500 years ago, he realized his full human potential, a potential that we all possess but which is normally closed to us. It wasn’t that he was a god—he was a human being. After his enlightenment, he set off on foot and traveled to Benares, now called Varanasi. Outside Varanasi there is a small park, Deer Park, and here he met with his five erstwhile companions who had left him after he had given up extreme austerity and had begun to eat again. He taught what is called “The First Sermon,” or in Buddhist terms, he first turned the Wheel of the Dharma. And what did he teach as the quintessence of his understanding of his enlightenment? He didn’t talk about joy and love and light. He talked about suffering. He talked about the basic unsatisfactory nature of our existence as we normally lead it. The Buddha started right where we are, and said that the ordinary life of an ordinary person is in a state of dis-ease. Somehow, it’s never quite right. Sometimes it’s extremely wrong, and sometimes it’s almost right, but it’s never
exactly
right.
Basic dissatisfaction runs through all our lives, and the Buddha called this
dukkha
. It comes in many forms, of course, from gross physical suffering to emotional and mental pain, to spiritual suffering. There are so many forms of this sense of unease because we have been on this planet for thousands of years. Almost everyone wants to be happy, not just human beings: animals, insects, all sentient life basically wants to be happy. When most people open their eyes in the morning, they don’t wake up and think, “How can I be as miserable as possible today and make everybody else miserable too?” Some people might, but the majority don’t.
We’d all like to be happy. And we expend a great deal of effort trying to make ourselves happy. Through the centuries people have pondered this dilemma of how to be happy and stay happy. So how is it that most people are so unhappy? Not only are they miserable, but they make the people around them miserable, too. Many people have a great deal of pain in their lives, which they try to alleviate in whatever way they can. Others, however, on the surface at least, feel quite content with their lot. The issue of contentment is a very important one.
After his enlightenment, the Buddha started teaching from exactly where we are. He said, “Life the way we lead it is not satisfying. There is an inner lack, an inner emptiness, an inner sense of meaninglessness which we can’t fill with things or people. What is the cause of this inherent unrest, this inherent sense of dissatisfaction which eats at us?”
The Buddha taught that the essential reason for this dis-ease within us is our grasping, desiring mind, which is based on our essential ignorance. Ignorance of what? Basically, the ignorance of understanding the way things really are. That can be explored on many levels, but we’ll deal with it first of all from the point of view that not only do we not recognize impermanence, we also don’t recognize our genuine nature. Therefore, we’re always grasping outwards. We don’t realize our inner interconnection, and we identify always with this sense of self and other.
Now, as soon as we have the idea of self and other, we therefore have the idea of wanting to acquire that which is attractive and to push away that which we want to avoid. Then this sense of inner emptiness has to be filled up, and we give in to grasping, clinging, and attachment. And of course we think in our delusion that our grasping, clinging mind, our attachment to things and to people, is what will bring us happiness. We do it all the time. We’re attached to our possessions; we’re attached to the people we love; we’re attached to our position in the world, and to our career and to what we have attained. We think that holding on to these things and to these people tightly will give us security, and that security will give us happiness. That is our fundamental delusion, because it’s the very clinging which makes us insecure, and that insecurity which gives us this sense of dis-ease, this unease.
Nobody binds us with chains to this wheel. We clasp it; we grip it with all our might. The way to get off the wheel is to let go. Do you understand? That grasping, clinging mind is the cause of our suffering, but we’re very deluded because we think that our greed and our lusts and our desires point toward the sources of happiness. However much we deny it, we really believe that somehow or other, if all our wants are fulfilled, we will be happy. But the fact is that our wants can never all be fulfilled. Wants are endless. The Buddha said that it was like drinking salty water—we just get more and more thirsty.
What does Buddhism mean by non-attachment? Many people think the idea of detachment, non-attachment, or non-clinging is very cold. This is because they confuse attachment with love. But attachment isn’t genuine love—it’s just self-love.
When I was eighteen, I told my mother I was going to India. I remember I met her on the street as she was coming home from work and said, “Oh, Mum, guess what? I’m going to India!”
And she replied, “Oh yes, dear. When are you leaving?”
She said that not because she didn’t love me, but because she did love me. She loved me so much that she wanted me to be happy. Her happiness lay in my happiness, and not in what I could do to make her happy.
Non-attachment doesn’t have anything to do with what we own or don’t own. It’s just the difference between whether the possessions own us or whether we own the possessions. There is a story of a king in ancient India. He had a palace, concubines, gold, silver, jewels, silks, and all the nice things that kings have. He also had a brahmin guru, who was extremely ascetic. All that this brahmin owned was a clay bowl, which he used as a begging bowl.
One day, the king and his guru were sitting under a tree in the garden when the servants came running up and cried, “Oh Maharaja, Your Majesty, come quickly, the whole palace is in flames! Please come quickly!”
The king replied, “Don’t bother me now—I’m studying the Dharma with my guru. You go and deal with the fire.”
But the guru jumped up and cried, “What do you mean? I left my bowl in the palace!”
What we’re talking about is the mind. We’re not talking about possessions. Possessions and things are innocent; they are not the problem. It doesn’t matter how much we own or what we don’t own: it’s our attachment to what we own which is the problem. If we lose everything tomorrow and say, “Oh there we are, easy come and easy go,” there’s no problem; we’re not caught. But if we are distressed, that is a problem.
Clinging to things and to people reveals our fear of losing them. And when we do lose them, we grieve. Instead of holding things so tightly, we can hold them more lightly. Then while we have these things, while we have these relationships, we enjoy them. We treasure them. But if they go, well, that’s the flow of things. When there is no hope or fear in the mind, the mind is free. It’s our greedy, grasping mind that is the problem.
There’s a story about a kind of monkey trap which they use in Asia. It’s a hollowed-out coconut which is nailed to a tree or a stake. This coconut has a little hole in it just big enough for a monkey to put his hand in, and inside the coconut they put something sweet. And so the monkey comes along, smells the bait, puts his hand into the hole, and grasps the sweet. So now he has a fist holding the sweet. But when he tries to withdraw his fist through the hole, he can’t. So he’s caught. And then the hunters come and just pick him up.
Nothing is holding that monkey to the coconut. He could just let go of the sweet and be out and away. But the greed in his mind, even with his fear of the hunters, will not let him let go. He wants to go, but he also wants to have the sweet. And that’s our predicament. Nothing but our insecure and grasping mind is holding us to our hopes and fears. This is a very fundamental and important point, because we are trained to think that satisfying our desires is the way to happiness. Actually, to go beyond desire is the way to happiness. Even in relationships, if we’re not holding on, if we’re not clinging, if we are thinking more of how we can give joy to the other rather than how they can give joy to us, then that also makes our relationships much more open and spacious, much more free. All that jealousy and fear are gone.