11. Week 2 - Teaching 8

Yesterday the weather was beautiful, warm, and sunny. Today, it was rainy and cold. It’s teaching us, my mind is like this. My mind is very similar to the weather. One day happy, peaceful, positive. The next day, unhappy, unpeaceful, full of negativity. When our mind changes our situation changes. When our mind is peaceful, positive, everything is perfect. When our mind is unpeaceful, negative, everything is unpleasant. This shows that our mind isn’t stable. We cannot maintain a peaceful mind, even for one day. Our mind is uncertain, like the weather.

We don’t have a special method to control the weather, because external conditions naturally appear. But we do have a special method to control our human mind. Buddha’s teachings, in particular Lamrim practice. By putting Buddha’s teachings into practise we can control our mind. If our mind is peaceful and happy, we are happy. If our mind is unpeaceful and unhappy, we are unhappy. With practising Lamrim we can control our mind.

When we read, contemplate, meditate on Advice from Atisha’s Heart, which was originally taught by Buddha in the Sutras, we should think we are receiving direct advice from the hearts of Buddha, Atisha, Je Tsongkhapa, and our Spiritual Guide.

We make a strong determination to put this advice into practice in our daily life.

Atisha’s Advice teaches us how to control our delusions and how to show a good example. This is most important for everyone. If we follow this advice sincerely day and night we will gain the ability to control our delusions such as attachment, anger, jealousy, pride, greed. We should continually apply effort to become very familiar with the practice of Advice from Atisha’s heart so that we can solve both our own and other’s problems of attachment, anger, and ignorance. We should know clearly and always remember that without gaining control over our delusions there is no real method to solve human problems.

Try to equalise enemies and friends so they become equal objects of our affection. We should not only regard our friends, but also our enemies as objects of our compassion, as objects of our love. He is giving this advice. We should regard both our enemies and friends as objects of our affection and love, and objects of our compassion. This advice is according to common appearance. According to the text we develop anger towards our enemies, whereas our friends are objects of our attachment. In reality, the real danger is that every day we are getting angry with our friends, our lovers. The more our attachment increases, the more our anger increases. Because there is strong attachment we want their company more and more and more. But it doesn’t work out that way, so we get angry. Also we’re always living closely with our friends. It is very easy to get angry. In this way there is a danger we will develop anger every day. Our friends are the objects of both our attachment and our anger. We need to be free from both attachment and anger and always keep affectionate love towards our friends.

Some couples, some friends, spend their whole lives arguing and fighting. It’s like a hell realm. Only during the night for a few minutes, maybe an hour or two, they’re not fighting. Then when they’re finished, they fight again. As a consequence of their karma it’s also difficult for them to separate. They may say they wan’t to live separately, but practically it’s difficult. Sometimes it gets so bad they may even wish to kill each other.

We need a special method to solve this problem. The best method method for solving this kind of problem, and eliminating and preventing anger from developing in our mind is the practice of patience. We have many methods but for the beginner right now, the way to solve this problem is the practice of patience. Wise practitioners can eliminate it by remembering emptiness and remembering any other Dharma realisation. But for the beginner, patience is such an important practice. When we are together with our friends we need to practise patience.

Shantideva says, in chapter 6 of GTTBWOL: “Those who disregard all suffering to destroy the foes of suffering and so forth are the true conquerors worthy of the name ‘hero’. Other so-called heroes merely slay corpses.” What this means is that we accept voluntarily and happily all difficulties and suffering to gain victory over our real enemy - the enemy of anger and other delusions. Such a person is a real hero or heroine. Killing enemies who are living beings is like killing dead bodies. We are not heroes in doing this. Compared with enemies who are living beings, our delusions are harming us 100 times worse. If we practise this Dharma and gain Dharma experience, the person who tries to harm us actually helps us to progress in our spiritual practice.

We accept with good reasons:

• This is the best method to improve my practice of patience.
• I must accept this because it is my karma.
• If I accept it is purifying my negativities.

These are all good reasons. Or:

• I am a Mahayana practitioner, I never give up compassion for all living beings. Therefore my friend must be an object of my compassion. I will never get angry with his or her bad activity but accept it happily. If I do this I will gain many good qualities inside my mind. Then we become real heroes or heroines.

Generally we need to practise patience unless there are some specific reasons for us to avoid this situation. Otherwise if there’s no other possibility of avoiding this situation, and there is no danger or obstacle, then we should try to accept the situation and be patience. If our friends are saying strange things, they’re just words. It doesn’t matter. Say, “Yes, you’re right.” There’s no need to argue, no need for disharmony.

We can think, may all the difficulties and sicknesses of living beings ripen upon me. Through this may all living beings be free from sickness.