Verse 1: All Beings Are Superior to Wish-Granting Gems
May I always cherish all limited beings by considering how far superior they are to wish-granting gems for actualizing the supreme aim.
We ourselves and all other beings want to be happy and completely free from suffering. In this, we are all exactly equal. However, each of us is only one person, while other beings are infinite in number.
Now, there are two attitudes to consider: that of selfishly cherishing ourselves alone and that of cherishing others. The self-cherishing attitude makes us very closed. We think we are extremely important and our basic desire is for ourselves to be happy and for things to go well for us. Yet we don’t know how to bring this about. In fact, acting out of self-cherishing can never make us happy. On the other hand, those who have an attitude of cherishing others regard all other beings as much more important than themselves and value helping others above all else. And, acting in this way, incidentally they themselves become happy.
For example, politicians who are genuinely concerned with helping or serving other people are recorded in history with respect, while those who are constantly exploiting and doing bad things to others go down as examples of terrible people. Leaving aside, for the moment, religion, future lives and nirvana, even within this life, selfish people bring negative repercussions down upon themselves by their self-centered actions. On the other hand, people like Mother Teresa, who sincerely devote their entire life and energy to selflessly serving the poor, needy and helpless, are always remembered for their noble work with respect. Others do not have anything negative to say about them.
This, then, is the result of cherishing others: whether we want it or not, even those who are not our relatives always like us, feel happy with us, and have warm feelings toward us. If we are the sort of person who always speaks nicely in front of others, but says nasty things about them behind their backs, of course, nobody will like us. Thus, even in this life, if we try to help others as much as we can and have as few selfish thoughts as possible, we shall experience much happiness.
Our lives are not very long; 100 years at most. If, throughout their duration, we try to be kind, warm-hearted, concerned for the welfare of others and less selfish and angry, that will be wonderful, excellent. That really is the cause of happiness. If we are selfish, always putting ourselves first and others second, the actual result will be that we ourselves will finish up last. Mentally putting ourselves last and others first is the way to come out ahead. So don’t worry about the next life or nirvana; these things will come gradually. If, within this life, we remain good, warm-hearted, unselfish persons, we will be good citizens of the world.
Whether we are Buddhists, Christians or communists is irrelevant; the important thing is that as long as we are human beings, we need to be good human beings. That is the teaching of Buddhism; that is the message carried by all the world’s religions. However, the teachings of Buddhism contain all the methods for eradicating selfishness and actualizing an attitude of cherishing others. Shantideva’s marvelous text, Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior (Skt. Bodhicharyavatara), for example, is very helpful for this. I myself practice according to that book; it is extremely useful.
Our minds are very cunning, very difficult to control. But, if we make constant effort and work tirelessly with logical reasoning and careful analysis, we will be able to control our minds and change them for the better.
Some Western psychologists say that we should not repress our anger, but express it. They say, in fact, that we should practice anger! However, we must make an important distinction here between mental problems that need to be expressed and those that are better not to express. Sometimes, we may be truly wronged and it’s right for us to express our grievance instead of letting it fester inside us. But, it is never helpful to express it with anger. If we foster disturbing negative emotions such as anger, they will become parts of our personality. Each time we express anger, it becomes easier to express it again. We do it more and more until we are simply furious persons completely out of control. Thus, in terms of mental problems, there are certainly some that are properly expressed, but others that are not.
At first, when we try to control disturbing emotions, it is difficult. The first day, the first week, the first month, we cannot control them well. But, with constant effort, our negativities will gradually decrease. Progress in mental development does not come about through taking medicines or other chemical substances; it depends on controlling the mind. Thus, we can see that if we want to fulfill our wishes, be they temporal or ultimate, we need to control our minds not to have self-cherishing. For this, we need to rely on other beings much more than on wish-granting gems. In other words, we need always to cherish other beings above all else, because the attitude of cherishing others is what will actually fulfill all our wishes.
Improving our minds and actually doing something to help others are both important. First, if we do not have a pure motivation, whatever we do may not be satisfactory. Therefore, the first thing we need to do is to cultivate a pure motivation. But we do not have to wait until that motivation is fully developed before actually doing something to help others. Of course, to help others in the most effective way possible, we have to be fully enlightened Buddhas. Even to help others in vast and extensive ways, we need to have attained one of the bhumi levels of mind of an arya bodhisattva – that is, we need to have had non-conceptual cognition of voidness – emptiness – and to have achieved the powers of extrasensory perception. Nevertheless, there are many levels of help we can offer. Even before we have achieved these qualifications, we can try to act like bodhisattvas. But, naturally, our actions will be less effective than theirs.
Therefore, without waiting until we are fully qualified, we can generate a good motivation and, with that, try to help others as best as we can. This is a more balanced approach and better than simply staying somewhere in isolation doing some meditation and recitations. Of course, this depends very much on the individual. If we are confident that by staying in a remote place we can gain definite realizations within a certain period, that is different. Perhaps it is best to spend half our time in active work and the other half in the practice of meditation.