The New Eight Steps to Happiness. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
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the advances of modern medicine, new diseases are appearing and old ones are returning. Every year more and more people die as a direct or indirect result of environmental pollution, and even the conditions that we generally regard as helpful, such as cars, electricity or medicine, are potential causes of untimely death.
People in the past generally had a more spiritual outlook, but nowadays the worldview of most people is increasingly gross and materialistic. It is very difficult to find people who hold pure and correct views; nearly everyone harbors views that are incompatible with spiritual development. Some people have a natural inclination toward wrong views, while others pick them up from their family or close friends or in the course of their education. Very few people manage to escape the influence of wrong views completely.
Our delusions are now very strong and difficult to control. We have so little inner peace that it is rare to enjoy a peaceful mind even for just a few hours. If we check our mind we will see that we are living in a state of almost constant discomfort and anxiety. As soon as we stop worrying about one thing, something else starts to bother us. Our delusions give us no rest. We have uncomfortable minds and experience very little real happiness. Our lives nowadays are extremely busy and complicated, filled with an ever-increasing variety of distractions. Even when we have the time to relax we tend to switch on the television or radio and are subjected to a multitude of ever-changing images and sounds. We are so used to being stimulated from the outside that we find it difficult to be quiet and enjoy the stillness of our own mind. Our attention span is decreasing all the time, and it is becoming more and more difficult to concentrate on internal development, such as cultivating pure views and pure intentions.
Our world is becoming increasingly dangerous and polluted, while internally our minds are becoming rougher and more uncontrolled. Although such conditions make conventional spiritual practice very difficult, if we practice the instructions contained within Eight Verses we can transform all these adversities into the path to enlightenment and live happily in the midst of this impure world. Rather than being an obstacle to our spiritual progress, the impurities of this present age can become fuel for our spiritual practice. Without practicing these teachings I think it is now very difficult to find true peace and happiness.
Atisha’s Teacher, Dharmarakshita, compared samsara to a forest of poisonous plants, because we are constantly surrounded by attractive and unattractive objects that stimulate the mental poisons of attachment and anger. He compared those who are unable to transform their adversities into the spiritual path to crows, which cannot eat poisonous plants. Practitioners of training the mind, however, are like peacocks, which are said to thrive on plants that are poisonous to other birds, because they can transform both attractive and unattractive objects into the spiritual path. They are able to enjoy attractive objects without developing attachment, and they can happily accept unattractive objects, such as sickness and other adverse conditions, without becoming angry or discouraged. Whatever circumstances arise, practitioners of training the mind can enjoy and make good use of them. Since in these degenerate times we are constantly surrounded by objects of attachment and aversion, we definitely need to learn how to transform them into the spiritual path by training our mind.
Through practicing Langri Tangpa’s Lojong, or mind training, teachings we have a wonderful opportunity to find true inner peace by destroying our self-grasping and self-cherishing, the main causes of all our suffering. This is very difficult to achieve through any other method. For this reason, at the beginning of Training the Mind in Seven Points, a commentary to Eight Verses, Geshe Chekhawa compares the instructions of training the mind to a diamond, to the sun and to a medicinal tree. They are like a diamond because just as a small fragment of a diamond is valuable, so putting even a small part of the instructions of training the mind into practice has great power to change our mind from unhappiness to happiness. They are like the sun because just as the first few rays of the rising sun lighten the early morning darkness, so even superficial experience of a part of these teachings reduces the inner darkness of our ignorance; and just as full sunlight completely dispels all darkness, so deep experience of the entire practice of training the mind overcomes our ignorance completely. They are like a medicinal tree because just as every part of a medicinal tree has curative properties, so every part of these teachings has the power to cure the internal disease of our delusions.
I could continue for many more pages to explain the good qualities of these teachings, but the only way that you will be able to appreciate them fully is by putting them into practice and experiencing their benefits for yourself. As Geshe Chekhawa says, “The meaning of this text should be known,” by which he means that it is only by understanding the meaning of these instructions and putting them into practice that we will come to appreciate all their excellent qualities. For example, a salesperson might try to persuade us of the excellence of a particular brand of tea, but the only way we can know for sure whether the tea is as good as he or she says is by tasting it ourself.
We know from our own experience that we can never derive pure peace and happiness from material things. No matter how perfectly we arrange our external situation, for as long as we remain in samsara problems will continue to trouble us. Indeed, it often seems that the more emphasis we place on material development, the more problems we encounter. Pure happiness can only be attained through developing our mind. Through improving our qualities of love, compassion and wisdom, we can gradually eliminate all our suffering and problems, and eventually attain the everlasting joy of full enlightenment. I guarantee that if you put the instructions of training the mind into practice in your daily life you will find the inner peace and joy that everyone is looking for. Understanding this, you should develop a strong determination to practice these instructions.
Vasubandhu
The Preliminary Practices
Inner realizations do not arise magically from the earth, nor do they fall from the sky. Gaining deep experience of the practices explained in Eight Verses depends upon certain inner conditions, which we can create by engaging in the preliminary practices. Just as a farmer needs to prepare the ground before he plants his crop, so we need to prepare our mind before we can hope to harvest a crop of spiritual realizations. There are many people who are very interested in meditation but who, not understanding the importance of the preliminary practices, neglect them and consequently are disappointed when their efforts in meditation do not yield results. They are like a farmer who fails to weed, fertilize or water his field, yet still expects his crop to flourish. The more conscientiously we practice the preliminaries, the more easily we will gain realizations from our practice of training the mind.
The preliminary practices perform three functions: they purify our mind of negativity; they accumulate merit, good fortune or good luck; and they help us receive the blessings of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Purifying our mind is like removing rocks and weeds from a field before sowing the seeds. At the moment our mind is polluted by the imprints of negative thoughts and the potentials left by all the non-virtuous actions that we have performed in the past. Until we remove this negativity from our mind through the practice of purification, it will obstruct the growth of virtuous qualities and our meditation will not produce results.
Secondly, we need to endow our mind with the strength to support the growth of Dharma realizations by accumulating merit. Merit is the positive energy of virtuous actions. Just as well-fertilized soil will produce an abundant harvest, so if our mind is enriched with merit we will harvest a bountiful crop of spiritual realizations.
Thirdly, we need to receive the blessings of the holy beings. Unless our mind is watered by a rain of blessings, or inspiring energy, from the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, it will remain like a dry field in which the seeds of spiritual realizations sown through meditation are unable to grow. The way to receive blessings is to develop strong faith and devotion in the holy beings and request them to bless our mind. Just as rain can bring a desert to life, so if our mind receives the blessings of the holy beings our virtuous potentials will be activated and spiritual realizations will grow in our mind.
If we prepare our mind well by purifying negativity, accumulating merit and receiving blessings, our meditations will be very successful. A simple way of doing this is to