We have been going through the meditations on mindfulness of death. If we are not mindful of death, we won’t be mindful of the preventive measures, Dharma. Preventive measures are actions we take – something that we do – to avoid worse rebirths. So, we’re thinking in terms of future lives and beyond – “beyond” meaning liberation and enlightenment – rather than this lifetime. Although there are benefits to thinking in terms of this lifetime, this lifetime is not our main focus. If it is, we’re doing a Dharma-lite version of this practice.
We’ve begun the meditations on the shortcomings of not being mindful of death. There are six of these. We’ve gone through the first three – that (1) we will not be mindful of the preventive measures, (2) even if we are mindful of them, we will not put them into practice, and (3) even if we do practice, we will not do so purely.
Last time, we had a long discussion about the assertion that the purity of our spiritual practice depends on the level of our detachment from this life. Detachment, as we discussed, is a state of mind. To be detached from this life means to give up clinging to life’s fleeting pleasures. This is gained by being mindful of the fact that no situation in life is static. Nothing is going to last forever; everything is going to change.
The Eight Transitory Things in Life – Overcoming Our Childish Attitudes
The presentation found in the lam-rim goes on to explain that in order to practice purely, we need to give up the childish attitudes that we have toward the eight transitory things in life (’jig-rten-pa’i chos-brgyad), or eight worldly dharmas, as it’s usually translated. The childish attitudes have to do with being all excited when things are going well and being all depressed when things are not going well.
The eight are listed as four pairs of opposite states. These are:
- Receiving gifts, attention, love, or whatever gain it might be; not receiving these things or losing what we have
- Things going well; things going poorly
- Hearing good news; hearing bad news
- Being praised; being criticized
The point is that these things are transitory, which is the word that’s translated as “worldly,” jigten (’jig-rten). The Tibetan word actually means “something with a basis that is perishing.” Jig (’jig) is “to perish”; ten (rten) is a “basis.” So, that’s why I translate it as the “transitory things in life.” I think that that’s more the connotation here, especially since the meditation on these eight is directed toward how nonstatic these things are, that they’re changing all the time.
Why are they changing? This is something that we need to understand. It’s because they are things that ripen from karma. We have a lot of karmic tendencies, both positive and negative karmic tendencies. Experiencing things going well is the result of positive karma. Experiencing things not going well is the result of negative karma. Karmic tendencies are ripening all the time, and it’s very difficult to predict which ones are going to ripen now and which ones later. That’s why samsara goes up and down. Until we purify ourselves of all these various karmic potentials and tendencies, we are going to continue experiencing these up and down things. Also, obviously, they are transitory; they don’t last.
Methods for Gaining Equanimity toward Transitory Things
How do we deal with these transitory things? There are several methods we can use. One is simply to look at them with the attitude of – as my teacher would often say – “nothing special.” We receive praise? Nothing special. We receive criticism? Nothing special. “What do you expect from samsara?” as Lama Yeshe used to say – his famous phrase. That’s really true. What do we expect from samsara? So, there’s nothing special about any of these, and as I said, they are not going to last.
There’s also the point that though there are some people who praise us, there are also those who criticize us – and vice versa. The line that I always find very useful when it comes to people disliking and criticizing us is, “If not everybody liked Buddha, how can I expect it to be the case that everybody will like me?” If people found fault with Buddha – his cousin really despised him – there’s nothing surprising at all that some people don’t like us. So, our expectations should not be unrealistic.
When things are going well, we can apply methods to take advantage of them and use them. That’s similar to taking advantage of the precious human rebirth. When things are going poorly, we can apply the lojong (blo-sbyong, attitude training) methods to change negative circumstances into positive ones by, for instance, looking at them as a way to deplete negative karma and an opportunity to develop patience. We can also do tonglen (gtong-len, giving and taking) meditation, thinking of everybody else who has the same type of problem – which gets us out of the “poor me” attitude – and taking on their problems. It's a practice that helps us to develop self-confidence and the courage to deal with negative situations.
All of these are methods that we can use and practice in meditation. So let’s try with these pairs. Again, there are four pairs.
The first one, receiving and not receiving things, can be understood in a very broad way – receiving or not receiving attention, love, gifts, kindness, and so on. The next one, going well and not going well, can be about health issues or just the things going on in our lives.
Participant: What about one’s mood?
Dr. Berzin: I think that that’s a very good example, one that everybody can relate to. Our moods are certainly changing all the time. Sometimes we’re in a good mood; sometimes we’re in a bad mood. Sometimes we feel like working or doing whatever it is, and sometimes we don’t feel like doing it and can even be quite negative.
Then there is hearing good news and hearing bad news, and then being praised and being criticized or abused.
These pairs tend to overlap each other.
OK. Let’s try to find examples from our own lives in which we have these childish attitudes. Being “childish” in the Buddhist sense means that we haven’t developed very far in our spiritual practice and aren’t spiritually mature. We act, in a sense, like little children. The classic example, of course, is a baby – that when things don’t go well and the baby doesn’t get what it wants, it cries. Although we might not actually cry, we often have moods that are similar to those of a crying baby. The other extreme is that we get overly excited about things going well. So, this is all related to our discussion of detachment, isn’t it?
Let’s choose some examples, particularly examples of times when we have gotten out of balance. And let’s separate the meditations according to the various antidotes that we can apply.
First, let’s think in terms of “nothing special.” Because experiencing these transitory things has to do with the ripening of both positive karma and negative karma, things are going to go up and down – so, nothing special. “Same, same,” as they say in India. We just need to ride through whatever happens. Although we have to take these types of things seriously to the extent that we have to deal with them, the point is not to get too caught up in them. We want to think in terms of our more long-term goals of reaching liberation and enlightenment or even – as is the context here of the initial scope – just benefitting our future lives.
So, how do we do the meditation? We first try to recall a specific situation and the feeling that we had. We then try to look at it from a more objective point of view: “Well, there’s nothing special about this. Things have gone well; things have not gone well. It’s unrealistic to expect things always to go well, just as it is unrealistic to expect things always not to go well.” As they say about meditation in general, do this without hoping that it will go better or worrying that it is not going better now. We just go through life trying to build up the causes for things to go better and to purify the karma that would ripen into things going poorly. Of course we aim for things to go better, but that’s not the point. The point is not to have these childish attitudes when what naturally happens in samsara happens. It’s also to examine what kind of realistic or unrealistic attitudes we have about life.
Also, I think it’s important to try to recognize the degree to which we have these childish attitudes – like getting overly excited when things go well and getting really depressed when they don’t – and to see the disadvantages, namely, the suffering that they cause.
Let’s do this for five minutes.
[meditation]
Any comments or questions?
Participant: I found it difficult to find an antidote, actually.
Dr. Berzin: We listed the various standard antidotes. The question is to find one that is effective.
Participant: But I’ve been searching for it for a year.
Dr. Berzin: Well, the most effective antidote, of course, is meditating on the voidness of the “me” that is so excited or so depressed. That obviously is the deepest antidote to it. The other ones are just provisional antidotes.
Participant: I tried to apply that. What I was thinking of was how my mood is quite often very connected with the Dow Jones. I’m always checking my stock report.
Dr. Berzin: This is true for many people in the current economic crisis. Their moods are related to how the stock market is doing. But if you have been following the stock market for many years, you know it constantly goes up and down. Even if it goes up a few points, you know that the next day it’s likely to go down. Ultimately, it’s only numbers on a piece of paper or numbers on a screen.
If you have enough money to be invested in the stock market, you’re not really going to be affected by what it does day-to-day. If you don’t have enough money, the stock market is irrelevant. Then you just have to watch the money that you have. But worrying about it is certainly not helpful. It’s transitory – it’s going to go up and down your entire life. The important thing is, “Do I have enough to be able to take care of myself and my family?” Anything beyond that is extra. Think of all the people who are much poorer than yourself and who manage.
As I said, you can think of impermanence. You can think, “Nothing special. This is not just the ripening of my karma” – well, it’s your karma that you have enough money to invest in the stock market – “but also the ripening of the karma of the society in general, the collective karma. And that I have no control over whatsoever; therefore, why get upset about it?” As Shantideva said, if there’s something we can do about it, why worry; just do it. If there’s nothing we can do about it, worrying won’t help. So, in either case, don’t worry.
When We Have Equanimity, Do We Stop Feeling Happy or Unhappy?
The issue that I was thinking of and which is related to our detachment discussion was does equanimity, the attitude of “same, same” to things going well or things not going well, mean that we don’t have any feelings of happiness or unhappiness? When we develop a balanced attitude toward the eight transitory things, do we no longer feel unhappy when things are going poorly or happy when things are going well?
Participant: If you are asking this question, then I guess you’re indicating that we can still feel happy but maybe not too excited.
Dr. Berzin: Yes, that’s the point.
Participant: Our happiness doesn’t depend, then, on external things.
Dr. Berzin: Ultimately, that’s correct. There is, of course, rejoicing that things are going well.
I think that the feelings of happy and unhappy are sort of mellow, sort of smooth and easy. They’re not so strong. You feel sad, but it passes, and it’s not a deep sadness.
Participant: I guess what we’re doing is adding is perspective, rather than eliminating the feeling. We’re putting it in perspective according to our understanding of karma.
Dr. Berzin: Right. It’s not that we’re just robots. But the feeling of unhappiness or ordinary happiness is not necessarily upsetting (zang-zing). This is the point. It’s not an upsetting state of mind, and it’s not terribly extreme.
Participant: You could be in a state of equanimity and dwell in one of these dhyanic states, couldn’t you?
Dr. Berzin: Well, you could be in a state of equanimity in one of the higher dhyana (bsam-gtan, Skt. dhyāna), these levels of mental stability, but then you would be sitting in meditation and not looking at your stock market returns. You would instead be absorbed in meditation on something a little bit more significant. But let’s face it, who’s going to be able to actually achieve these dhyanas? So, let’s speak about equanimity in more realistic terms.
There are several definitions of equanimity. From the point of view of the preliminaries to the seven-part cause and effect meditation for developing bodhichitta, equanimity means being free of attachment and repulsion. I think that’s the main meaning here. It means not being attached to things going well and not being depressed when things are not going well. That doesn’t negate or exclude feeling happy or unhappy. But I think it also means that the level of happiness or unhappiness that we feel is going to be lower. It’s a smoother ride, as it were.
Participant: It’s without disturbing emotions, I think. It’s happy and unhappy without any disturbing emotions.
Dr. Berzin: It’s happy and unhappy with fewer disturbing emotions. Also, if a situation in which things are going well comes to an end, we’re not upset, and if we get into a situation in which things are not going well, we’re also not upset. Of course, it’s nice when things not going well come to an end, but we don’t have the expectation that now it’s always going to be good.
Participant: It doesn’t make the mind shaky.
Dr. Berzin: Right. It doesn’t upset the energies. Obviously, it’s probably easier to deal with things going well than things not going well.
Participant: I think that if your expectations have already been fulfilled, you can think that you don’t have any expectations. It’s when things start to go badly that you really notice the expectations you had. So, when things are going well, it’s quite easy to think, “Things could be going differently, but, still, I would be able to cope just fine.” But, then, when things are going differently…
Dr. Berzin: Right. But I think that we can look at things going well or not going well as something that is just normal. It’s like with my website: When donations come in or when people send emails saying that they really appreciate it, I don’t get very excited about that. That’s fine, because there are also periods when nothing comes in or when criticism comes in.
So the question is, does detachment mean that we don’t take things seriously and, therefore, that we don’t feel happy or unhappy? I don’t think that’s the case. That would be denying conventional truth. A lot of this comes down to just accepting reality: “This is what’s happening now, and it will change. Nothing stays forever.”
Now, here, in this particular place in the lam-rim, it’s saying that in order to be mindful of death and to practice the Dharma, one needs to gain detachment from these eight transitory things. Now, as a quiz, why is that?
Participant: Because we’re preoccupied with what’s going on in this lifetime.
Dr. Berzin: Also, what’s going on is that samsara is continually going up and down, which is absolutely normal.
Participant: But it’s also the other way around – that when I am mindful of death, I’m not so upset about those transitory things.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Mindfulness of death is the antidote that’s being explained here. If we think in terms of death, we can see that all these things going well or not going well are irrelevant. As I said, when they’re going well, we can take advantage of the situation. When they’re not going well, we try to transform them by changing our attitudes.
So let’s think about this for another five or seven minutes. If there’s one type of situation that’s troublesome for us – like for you, the stock market – apply the antidote specifically to that situation.
Also, we have to relax. This is an important thing. If we’re totally preoccupied with a certain situation and then we try to apply the antidote – whether it’s being mindful of death, impermanence, or whatever – we’ll put up a fight: “But the market! But my portfolio! My money! And taxes! And I have to pay this and that!” We’ll resist. On the other hand, if we’re convinced that the antidote is correct – that things are impermanent, that at the time of death, it’s not going to matter in any case, and so on – then we can also relax, in a sense, almost surrender, and let go. Of course, we can also think, “Who is it that’s holding on to all of this?”
[meditation]
Any further comments on this?
Participant: You said that we have to be convinced that the antidote is correct.
Dr. Berzin: Yes.
Tonglen
Participant: When doing tonglen, I might think, “May all the suffering of all beings come to me, and may it ripen through the suffering I am experiencing now.” But it’s impossible for their karma to ripen through me.
Dr. Berzin: Right. If we are suffering from cancer, for instance, and do the giving and taking practice, thinking, “May everybody’s cancer come on me and ripen on me. May I give them happiness and health, and may nobody have to suffer from cancer,” would it actually happen that we take away their cancer? No, that wouldn’t happen. Otherwise, Buddha would have done it already, and there would be no suffering.
But what that practice can do in some very, very special cases is to act as a circumstance for some of our negative karma to ripen for us and, also, for some of the positive karma of others to ripen in them. But that’s very, very rare – only if there’s a super karmic connection. But what it is effective for is developing a wider perspective. We’re not just thinking of “poor me” but of everybody else who has the same type of problem. Also, thinking to take on their problems means having the courage to deal with their problems, which means having the courage to deal with our own problems, rather than just thinking “poor me.” Also, when we are thinking to give them happiness, we are changing our own attitudes so that we ourselves come to feel happiness in this situation. It’s not that “oh, I’m so happy I have cancer”; it’s that we’re dealing with it in a very positive way. So, we can see that this is a very effective method, one that’s not to be taken absolutely literally.
Participant: But are those really the kinds of thoughts you have while you are doing the practice?
Dr. Berzin: Is considering these thoughts while we are doing the practice mean we’re being insincere with the practice? No. I think these things are implicitly understood. To do the practice, we have to be sincere: “I really want to take this suffering on me.” That’s why we do these very strong visualizations with the practice – first, of dirty substances like tar, filth, dirty water, or whatever coming in. That deals with “I don’t want to get my hands dirty.” Then, we do stronger visualizations, visualizing feces, urine, vomit, pus, and these sorts of things. Then, we visualize whatever it is that we’re most afraid of – rats, spiders, cockroaches, fire, and so on. We have to be very strong to do these visualizations. They are not at all recommended for people who are emotionally unstable. But doing them develops the courage to face things that we really don’t want to deal with.
The tonglen practice is very, very advanced, actually, and not for the lighthearted, as they say. It’s not just this Dharma-lite version of “black light comes in and white light goes out,” and that’s it. That’s a very, very light version of the practice. The real thing is much heavier.
Participant: So what would you recommend for our level?
Dr. Berzin: It depends on each person’s level. I certainly don’t recommend tonglen as a beginner practice, not at all. Here, the point is death meditation, thinking, “When I die, it’s not going to matter how many people were or weren’t nice to me, how many letters I did or didn’t receive from loved ones, or how many arguments we did or didn’t have. It will all be absolutely trivial. So, why was I so upset? Why did I spend so much emotional energy in my life being involved with that rather than practicing Dharma methods?” This is the point here. It’s death meditation. We can see that that’s the case from what follows, which is even heavier.
The Ten Gem-like Innermost Attitudes from the Kadam Tradition
Equanimity toward the eight “perishably based” (mundane) phenomena can be gained through adopting the ten gem-like innermost attitudes from the Kadam tradition (bka’-gdams phugs-nor bcu). These are the four trusting acceptances (gtad-pa bzhi), the three diamond-strong convictions (rdo-rje gsum), and the mature attitudes toward being expelled, finding, and attaining (bud-rnyed-thob gsum).
The Four Trusting Acceptances
- As our innermost outlook on life, being willing to accept with total trust the Dharma, the preventive measures
Do I really trust these preventative measures fully and entrust myself to them? Do I trust that the Dharma is really the most significant thing in life and in death?
- As our innermost attitude toward the Dharma, being willing to accept with total trust even becoming a beggar
It doesn’t matter if I lose all my money in the stock market. I know that this is not the ultimate goal or the ultimate source of happiness. Therefore, I’m willing to practice and to put all my effort into practicing, even if it means becoming a beggar.
- As our innermost attitude toward becoming a beggar, being willing to accept with total trust even having to die
I’m going to spend all my time or at least most of my time doing Dharma practice.
- As our innermost attitude toward death, being willing to accept with total trust even having to die friendless and alone in an empty cave
Now we’re talking about a really very advanced level. Even so, we don’t have to understand this literally as being like Milarepa and going off to live in a cave.
Participant: Sometimes I have the fear that I will die alone in an apartment in a slum area.
Dr. Berzin: Yes, exactly. In other words, I entrust myself to the Dharma by putting my main effort into practice.
As His Holiness says, most of us can’t put one hundred percent into Dharma practice. Still, rather than having worldly ambitions, seeking fame, wealth, and so on, we can be content to be beggars. In other words, we can choose to live on a very modest income so that we can spend more time practicing Dharma, rather than spending all our time making money. And we are willing to trust it, even if it means dying. Now, how do we understand that? Are we talking about starving to death? What are we talking about?
Participant: Keeping precepts – for example, in the Jataka tales, there are stories of monks who give up their lives in order to keep their precepts.
Dr. Berzin: I don’t know that those extreme examples – feeding ourselves to hungry tigers and so on – are ones that any of us would actually follow. We’d have to be super aryas to be able to do something like that. What we’re talking about here is being willing to die entrusting ourselves to the Dharma and preferring to live a life of poverty, rather than one of worldly success. “Somehow I will survive, even if I have to die alone,” this sort of attitude. As Shantideva said, “It’s not so important how many friends I have. They’re just going to be distractions.”
Participant: This might be an issue if you live in a country where Buddhism is prohibited.
Dr. Berzin: Well, yes, you might have to go to a concentration camp or prison to keep your beliefs.
Participant: Like the Tibetans in China.
Dr. Berzin: Right.
The Three Diamond-Strong Convictions
The next three are the diamond-strong convictions:
- To go ahead with our Dharma practice without consideration for what others think
For instance, you, Christian, are leaving your job and your career here.
Participant: But that’s not because I’m affected by what other people think.
Dr. Berzin: Well, but the main concern wasn’t what other people thought. Other people might think that you’re quite crazy to leave a well-paid job to go and do an intensive Dharma study course for four and a half years. But this is the type of thing that it’s talking about. You’re willing to entrust yourself to the extent that you are willing to live a life of poverty, even if it means being in a terrible situation and perhaps even dying. This is what it says: go ahead without consideration for what others think.
The next one:
- Keep the constant company of deep awareness of our commitments
This is what you were referring to, Dirk: keeping our commitments, vows, and so on very strongly.
The next one:
- Carry on continuously without getting caught up in useless concerns
Useless concerns – like looking at the stock market every hour. There are many other useless concerns that we have. I have to confess that I’m a news junkie. I look at the news on the Internet many more times a day than is necessary. It’s a distraction from my work and a form of laziness. But this is what it’s saying: don’t get caught up in useless concerns.
The Three Mature Attitudes
The last three are these mature attitudes:
- Being willing to be expelled from the ranks of so-called normal people
You become a Dharma freak, in a sense.
Participant: Yeah. It goes against the grain of society.
Dr. Berzin: It certainly goes against the grain of society to leave a job, for instance, to do a three-year retreat.
- Being willing to find ourselves regarded among the ranks of dogs
Our parents, for example, might think very badly of us if we give up our jobs or something like that – although it’s very important, particularly if we become monks or nuns, to have the approval of our parents. That’s absolutely necessary. But others might think that we’re crazy.
- Being completely involved in attaining the divine rank of a Buddha
In other words, we’re completely focused on becoming a Buddha. This is what bodhichitta is all about?. I don’t care if people consider me abnormal or even if they consider me among the ranks of dogs: I’m aiming to become a Buddha.
These, then, are the ways to overcome being caught up in the eight transitory things in life and having immature or childish attitudes toward them.
Let’s just think about these points as a whole: How much do I actually trust the Dharma and entrust myself to the Dharma? Am I willing to make it my life? Am I willing to disregard what other people think and willing not to care about making a whole bunch of money, getting fame, and all of that? What are my priorities?
[meditation]
Concluding Thoughts
There are many people who have followed these teachings, these guidelines. We don’t have to look to Milarepa as being the only example. So many lamas and geshes went into monasteries without having any financial support. They lived very, very poor lives, got hardly any food – just what they got at the pujas, which is very little – in order to pursue the Dharma. Many went on to live in caves to meditate and things like that. There are also many Westerners who went to India or Nepal for a long time and who lived on very, very little.
I followed that path in my life – not that I want to boast about it. I was aiming to become a university professor, a top university professor from Harvard. My professor at Harvard had found me the most wonderful starting job at a top Ivy League university in North America, and I said, “No, thank you. I’m going back to India to make my life there.” He thought I was absolutely crazy. All of them thought that I was completely crazy, but I went. I lived on almost nothing there, though I had one friend who helped me a little bit. For twenty-nine years, I lived in a hut with no running water and no toilet. This thing of living like a beggar – I still don’t have a salary. I still live on very, very little, but I wouldn’t give my life up. This is the attitude of being willing to die. There’s no way that I’m going to give up what I’m doing and become a university professor, which I could do if I wanted to.
This idea of entrusting oneself to the Dharma is not so farfetched. And we can gain inspiration from the people who have done this, as well as gain confidence that it actually is possible. Geshe Dhargyey always used to say that there’s never been a completely sincere Dharma practitioner who has starved to death. Somehow, they get support.
This doesn’t mean that everybody has to go to India or Nepal. We just need to know what our priorities in life are. To help us set those priorities, we do these meditations. We have this precious human life; we have this opportunity to really do something with it; it’s not going to last. If we haven’t done much, there’s a good chance that, after we die, we won’t have another opportunity for a very, very long time. So, this is all part of the death meditation.
Participant: Which tradition do these ten points come from?
Dr. Berzin: They’re in the lam-rim. They’re called “the ten gem-like innermost attitudes from the Kadampa tradition.”
Participant: From which text did you take them?
Dr. Berzin: It is in Pabongka’s lam-rim, but there are lam-rims by the Fifth Dalai Lama, the Third Dalai Lama, the First Panchen Lama, and the Third Panchen Lama. There are many different lam-rims. So, I’m not sure if they appear earlier in one of those.
These ten, by the way, can be found in my book of Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey’s teachings, Anthology of Well-Spoken Advice. There’s probably a footnote there indicating where he got them from.