by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Bad and good depend on the individual person's interpretation. In general, if
you are able to spend your life collecting more virtue and less negative karma,
that's a good life. Even spending half the life this way is quite good. Spending
even one quarter of the day creating good karma is better than spending the whole
24 hours creating only negative karma. So today, if you are able to create more
virtue than negative karma, that's a good life. Even though you might be exhausted,
even though you might have almost died from practicing Dharma, you had a good
life today.
Naropa, for example, had to experience the 12 great hardships
and the 12 small hardships under the advice of Tilopa. And Marpa would not allow
Milarepa to come to teachings and initiations; he received scoldings and beatings
only, no sweet words like "you are such a good disciple" or "you
have done excellent practice"; he only received Marpa's wrathful aspect.
Then Milarepa had to build a nine-story tower by himself, alone, and not just
once; he had to tear it down and build it three times. Because of doing these
intensive preliminary practices and following exactly his guru Marpa's advice
without having any negative thoughts towards him, Milarepa became enlightened
in that life.
That's the best life, you see, the best life. The definition
of a bad life and a good life is very important, because if you don't know you
will be very confused; if your connotation is wrong you will go in the wrong direction.
The result of this will be no attainment, no realization. The result will be that
the mind is empty.
There is an interpretation of bad and good life according
to attachment, according to ego. Then there is an interpretation of bad and good
life according to the point of view of Dharma wisdom, the wisdom understanding
karma, understanding lam-rim. Of course, they are totally opposite.
The common
thing in the world is to follow the interpretation according to attachment. So
if one has more success, more wealth, more external development, then that's regarded
as a good life: more and more things, more friends, more children, then grandchildren,
then their children—the more there is happening, the more successful the
life. So that's one view.
Of course, everyone is looking for peace of mind
and satisfaction in the heart, but they have no idea how to get it. Their methods
are through external development only. Even though they really want peace and
satisfaction, because of lack of spiritual education, Dharma education, they don't
have methods, they don't have knowledge of practice. So they end up just as the
Rolling Stones sang: "I can't get no satisfaction."
So from my
point of view, unless you have renounced attachment you will not find satisfaction.
You could be living in life-time retreat, or in the monastery or nunnery following
the moral disciplines, having sacrificed a lot of the pleasures of this life,
a lot of comfort, in order to live in pure morality, but if the mind is still
suffering, it's because it didn't renounce attachment, it is not separated from
attachment clinging to this life. You didn't make the mind free, so the mind becomes
friends with attachment clinging to this life, the mind associates with the thought
of the eight worldly dharmas.
Therefore, even if the body is in retreat or
in the monastery, the mind cannot enjoy following the moral discipline or the
meditation practices. There's no peace, no happiness in the heart. As the mind
has become friends with attachment, you cannot give up this life's comfort to
practice Dharma. Then it gets difficult to follow the advice of the virtuous friend,
it gets difficult to do service for the monastery, for the monks and nuns, and
it's difficult to serve other sentient beings.
Even though there is not yet
any happiness in the mind because you have the attitude of attachment clinging
to this life—you're stuck with that, not with Dharma—nevertheless, your
mind is protected from obstacles because you are trying, you are practicing morality.
Then you can have great peace and can practice Dharma without obstacles. It's
the same with somebody doing long retreat, or someone who's serving the virtuous
friend or other sentient beings. What I am saying is that even though your motivation
is more stuck with attachment and even though you mightn't experience any happiness
in your heart yet, it is still a good life because your practice of morality brings
good results, a good rebirth in the next life. Even though your mind is not completely
pure, even though the mind is not completely renounced, it is still a good life.
Of course, it takes time for this to happen. You need very intense and continuous
meditation, especially on impermanence and death related to karma and the lower
realms, and the general suffering of samsara, particularly the lower realms, and
the preliminary meditation, the perfect human body, how it is highly useful and
difficult to achieve again.
Or you could do the opposite: give up this life
and think, "Oh, it didn't make me happy." After many years of practicing
and studying Dharma—philosophy, highest tantra, anything that can be explained
by qualified teachers—after all that I didn't find happiness, so I'd better
try something else." You give up everything, and what you tried to abandon
before, for all those years, now you have all of them. You are without rule, without
discipline—you become a free guy.
So now you have a lot of physical
comfort, wealth, friends and so on and you believe you have enjoyment; in fact
it is a hallucination because the uncontrolled mind is the motivation. When you
don't think of the motivation and the future karmic result, this new life appears
as pleasure. But if you think of the motivation and karmic result, then you realize
it is not really a happy life.
What I am saying is that, according to my
interpretation, a happy life is when you have a good motivation and your actions
bring good results. As I mentioned before, Naropa and Milarepa had so much hardship
but it brought a fantastic future, the best future. So that is the best life.
But in the West the interpretation of a good life is whether or not it makes
me happy now. Now! This moment. Today. One is involved in the psychology of cherishing
oneself, which gives you so much inspiration that you are important. But practicing
Dharma is not rejecting yourself, it's actually the best way to take care of yourself.
Practicing renunciation helps you become liberated from samsara, so that's
what you need, otherwise you experience suffering again and again, without end.
And practicing the right view, emptiness: that's the best way of taking care of
yourself because it cuts the root of suffering. And what else do you need? What
is better than this? What else is there that is better than this?
Therefore
we must rejoice that we have met the precious Buddhadharma, especially lam-rim,
the integration of the entire 84,000 teachings of the Buddha, and that without
any confusion we can practice and achieve enlightenment.
Besides all this,
we are able to do so much service for other sentient beings. Without talking about
meditating on the stages of the path, practicing purifying negative karma, collecting
merits, without that. Therefore we should rejoice.