The Heart of Unconditional Love

by Tulku Thondup

  TURNING HAPPINESS AND SUFFERING INTO THE PATH OF ENLIGHTENMENT

  The above three methods can be found in a wonderful article by the Third Dodrupchen Rinpoche called “Turning Happiness and Suffering into the Path of Enlightenment.”182 The article is unique—short yet profound, with much advice that is highly relevant to today’s readers, whether lay or ordained. It teaches how to transform suffering—and happiness as well—into the path of peace and enlightenment.

  As the Third Dodrupchen writes elsewhere, there are three possible levels of meditative strength and realization:

  There are the superior, intermediate, and lesser ways of taking illness as the path. The superior way is to rest your mind in the [nature of the] severe pain without making any alterations. Then the nature of the illness—emptiness that is free from elaborations—will arise.

  The intermediate way is to bring all the illnesses and ill effects of all beings together in your severe pain and take that pain as the path [of meditation]. The pain and its emotional [causes] will cease because the pain becomes the support for virtuous deeds.

  The lesser way is to recognize that sicknesses are your past karmic debts. Don’t make efforts to heal them or turn them into objects of resentment. Instead, see them as occurring by the kindness of the Precious Jewels [Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha]. Then the effects [or debts] of those past evil deeds [which are the causes of sickness] will be purified.183

  Whatever obstacles we experience, if we can take them the right way, they won’t obstruct our spiritual path. Rather, they will become a tool to stimulate our advancement toward our destination: unconditional love and enlightenment.

  So try to feel joy when facing difficulties, for they provide the chance to purify unvirtuous past deeds, the cause of ills, and infuse us with the inspiration to generate yet greater virtuous deeds, the cause of healing and enlightenment.

  If your mental and emotional problems could become an inspiration for your spiritual progress, make a point to recognize them as such. That recognition will, in turn, fuel joy and inspiration in your mind. If you nurture and strengthen that joy by enjoying it again and again, you unleash the true healing energy of joy. With that, you can prevent anything from turning into an obstacle. But this is not just about averting challenges so they don’t harm you. It is about transmuting problems so that they fuel your healing momentum. The Third Dodrupchen writes:

  The meaning of not getting hurt by obstacles is not that obstacles like illness could be reversed or averted from taking place in the future, but that they will not be able to obstruct your accomplishments on the path. To achieve this goal, you must nurture two kinds of attitudes: stop the attitude of totally not wanting suffering, and develop the attitude of liking suffering. . . . Also, it is not good enough simply to use the arising of suffering as a support for virtuous deeds. It is definitely necessary that you also train your mind to have a strong and durable feeling of joy that has been inspired by recognizing the transformations that have taken place [in you].184

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  DEALING WITH CHALLENGING PEOPLE

  THERE ARE THREE WAYS to deal with challenging people, as advised in the teachings of Buddhism.

  1. The ordinary and simplest way is to avoid the person with whom you have a problem—whether, for instance, a harsh person who makes you angry or an attractive person to whom you are getting overly attached. Shift the focus of your mind to something helpful or unrelated, such as friends, flowers, music, or nature. If you don’t give the person attention, your mind will be free of them. If the person is trying to hurt or provoke you, and if you do not respond, you neutralize them and they may become helpless in trying to inflict harm and provoke you. They may give up and even change their attitude toward you.

  The strategy of avoiding helps you as well as them. It saves you from being hurt by this person and saves the person from getting further into the habit of creating bad karmas.

  2. The intermediate way is to eliminate or pacify your negative emotions toward this person by applying a powerful antidote. Pure loving-kindness and compassion are antidotes to all negative emotions. Chapter 4 details how to generate unconditional love by seeing even “foes” as your kind mother.

  3. The highest but most difficult way is to transform your anger, attachment, or other negative mental state into wisdom. If you have had any experience in meditation on the wisdom of loving-kindness that is free from concepts, as detailed in the Ultimate Buddha Stage (see chapter 9), you should use that. That will be the most effective way to deal with challenging people.

  I’d like to add that, in dealing with difficult people, it is important to be guided, not necessarily by what you would like, but by what will be most beneficial to you, them, and others. That is how to best help the person you are dealing with as well as people at large.

  If you cannot resolve the issue in a loving, gentle way, then harsh and wrathful words or actions may be necessary if they will be beneficial. Atisha says:

  The supreme teachers are those who confront your hidden faults.

  The supreme instructions are those that deal with your faults.185

  However, if you use harsh expressions, be sure that they come out of a peaceful mind and loving heart that wants to help others, like “tough love” or like the wrathful Buddhas. Wrathful expressions must never come out of selfish intentions or negative emotions, such as wanting to hurt another. Patrul Rinpoche writes: “There are times when the bodhisattvas are allowed to commit the seven unvirtuous deeds of body and speech, as long as their minds are pure and free from selfish intention.”186

  If harsh words or acts come out of negative emotions, they become evil deeds, which will mostly hurt others and definitely oneself. So refrain from expressing them at all costs. If you feel yourself burning with the urge to say or do something negative, just be quiet. As Shantideva writes:

  When your mind wishes to get attached

  Or get angry,

  At that time, don’t say or do anything.

  Remain like a log.187

  So we must remember that the Buddha of Loving-Kindness is present in all that we see, hear, and feel—even in the ugliest, harshest beings. If we are skilled and open, we will see the loving-kindness of the Buddha everywhere, like the sun rays shining through even the thickest, darkest clouds. Seeing, hearing, and enjoying all beings in the qualities of Buddha’s love, pray: OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUNG.

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  DAILY ACTIVITIES AS TRAINING IN LOVING-KINDNESS

  WE SHOULD MAKE AN EFFORT not to leave our practice behind on our cushion or in some weekend meditation hall. Our daily activities during off-meditation periods present many chances for us to continue to pursue the right path and make progress on it. We should try to maintain thoughts and feelings of loving-kindness in our mind and turn all our activities into loving-kindness in action, or at least make sure that our activities are supportive of, not destructive of, loving-kindness.

  If we don’t know how to do this, or don’t try to, we will lose many great opportunities. Unhelpful daily activities could even pull us away from the spiritual experiences that we earned during our meditation sessions. So, with thoughts of loving-kindness, we must try to turn all our daily activities into bodhisattva activities with great enthusiasm.

  During off-meditation periods, whatever our activity—such as cleaning, gardening, cooking, driving, washing, talking, or resting—we could combine it with the thoughts and feelings of the amazing aspirations of loving-kindness as the basis and engage in any wholesome work with the efforts of the Six Perfections to try to make the activity fully healthy, pure, effective, and beneficial for all or many.

  For example, if you are going to do gardening, first meditate on the Buddha of Loving-Kindness briefly with strong devotion. Develop the thought and feeling of loving-kindness in your heart, as you have learned to do earlier in this book. With the thought of loving-kindness in your heart, work on gardening with the Six Perfections.

  Training in the
Six Perfections can be explained in many ways, but for our purposes here they are as follows.

  When you garden (or do any daily activity), imagine that you are doing it to bring joy to infinite beings, visible and invisible. Do it for them without attachment. Then it becomes the perfection of generosity.

  Be the best gardener you can be, while staying peaceful. That is discipline.

  Happily put up with any challenges, while staying calm and humble. That is patience.

  Give your time, energy, and skill wholeheartedly and joyfully to the gardening, while being able to let go. That is diligence.

  Focus on your gardening calmly and fully, remaining in the loving-kindness nature of the mind. That is contemplation.

  Garden with full awareness with no—or with less—grasping at this or that. That is wisdom.

  When you finish, mentally dedicate the merits from your gardening work and meditation to all mother-beings as the cause of their happiness and enlightenment. Then gardening will become a powerful training in the aspiration of loving-kindness, as well as in loving-kindness in action. Training in loving-kindness with the Six Perfections is the most important path of training for enlightenment, according to Mahayana teachings.

  Jowoje Atisha explains the essential meaning of the Six Perfections:

  Not having attachment is the supreme among giving.

  Keeping the mind peaceful is the supreme among discipline.

  Remaining humble is the supreme among patience.

  Letting go of all activities is the supreme among diligence.

  Not altering the mind is the supreme among contemplation.

  Not grasping at [any object] is the supreme among wisdom.188

  Most importantly, if our mind is not separated from thoughts of loving-kindness, whatever we are thinking will become thoughts of loving-kindness, the precious bodhichitta. Then whatever we say and do will become the expression of loving-kindness, causing only happiness and benefit to others and oneself. If that happens, due to the power of such skillful means, all our daily mental, vocal, and physical activities will, like the natural flow of a stream, spontaneously turn into the activities of Six Perfections of the bodhisattva path. Every activity of our life will become, directly or indirectly, the cause of accomplishing the two accumulations—of merits and of wisdom.

  For beginners, however, it is important to stay away from people and objects that attract our minds in unwholesome directions. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are highly impressionable, since neither our minds nor our realizations are yet firm or strong. So we must always be alert about what we are feeding ourselves and what is happening before we associate with anything too closely. Ngulchu Thogme writes:

  Whomever you associate with, if they cause an increase in your three poisons,

  A decline in your studying, pondering, and meditating, or

  The disappearance of your loving-kindness and compassion,

  Then you must renounce such evil friends. This is the practice of bodhisattvas.189

  Although spending our life serving others is the ideal for a bodhisattva trainee, in our extremely rushed modern lives, instead of helping anyone, we could easily be dragged into unwholesome thoughts and actions by associating with unwholesome people or situations. If that is a possibility, staying away is the best solution. That is why the great Jowoje Atisha gave the following advice:

  This degenerate age is not the time for bragging, but for hard work. It is not the time for holding high positions, but for low posts. It is not the time for having servants, but for solitude. It is not the time to be concerned about having disciples, but about improving oneself. It is not the time to focus on words, but on meaning. It is not the time for traveling, but for staying put.190

  Some Important Points for Daily Life

  While meditating on loving-kindness, there are a number of points to keep in mind.

  First, whenever we witness suffering or think of someone who is in pain, we must immediately meditate on compassion. We should think and feel over and over: “May the suffering that this being and many others are experiencing cease, along with its causes. I will do everything I can to free them from this pain.”

  Second, we should pay extra-special attention to those who are particularly kind to us or close to us, and who are seriously suffering. Patrul Rinpoche writes:

  Especially, if you serve those who are your parents or those who are sick for a long time through your three doors, the merits will be immeasurable.

  The sublime Jowoje [Atisha] said:

  “If you generate loving-kindness to travelers from a long distance, those who are chronically ill and your old and fragile parents, the [merits of such practice] will be comparable to [the merits of] doing [high] meditations on emptiness with the essence of compassion.”191

  Third, it is usually easy to wish joy and enlightenment to people whom we like and care about, like friends and family, or to those we find attractive. But it is in these cases that we need to be especially careful to keep our meditation pure, or we could wind up strengthening attachment. If we do, our grip of grasping at “self” will become tighter; our intentions, more selfish; and our afflicting emotions— such as craving and obsession—stronger.

  If we notice that we are starting to get attached to the beings for whom we are wishing joy or to the feeling of joy itself, we should meditate on the suffering that beings face and the causes of their suffering, and generate compassion toward them. Meditating on compassion will free us from falling into thoughts of attachment. Longchen Rabjam writes:

  If meditation on loving-kindness is causing attachment, such as getting attached to family,

  Then meditate on compassion—[since thinking about] the causes and effects of suffering will prevent attachment.192

  Or you could meditate on equanimity to guard against falling into the ditch of attachment. Jigme Lingpa writes:

  If meditation on loving-kindness is causing attachment,

  Move to meditation on equanimity, free from discrimination.193

  Fourth, teachings on bodhichitta tell us that all suffering is due to grasping at “self”—“me” or “my,” “this” or “that”—and viewing it as real. That leads to our desiring attractive things and hating unwanted ones. All peace and happiness, on the other hand, come from wishing joy for others. So, using the tool of mindfulness and awareness, we must guard our mind from drifting into wrong thoughts and desires. Shantideva writes:

  Whatever happiness there is in this world

  Came from wishing happiness for others.

  Whatever suffering there is in this world

  Came from desiring happiness for oneself.

  What more need I say?

  Childish beings exert themselves for their own benefit.

  The Buddha acts for the benefit of others.

  Just look at the difference between them.194

  Shantideva therefore advises:

  Protect and preserve your mind [from negative thoughts].

  Aside from the discipline of protecting your mind,

  What need is there for many other disciplines? . . .

  Whoever wishes to protect their mind—

  I beg them with folded palms,

  Please maintain mindfulness and awareness,

  Even at the cost of your life!195

  Ngulchu Thogme also stresses the importance of guarding the mind from negativity:

  In brief, whatever activities you do, wherever you are,

  Check the conditions of your mind.

  With mindfulness and awareness,

  Always serve the needs of others.

  This is the practice of bodhisattvas.196

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  COMPASSION MEDITATION

  YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY LEARNED something about meditation on “sending and receiving” with compassion, known as tonglen in Tibetan. This chapter offers a meditation that combines sending and receiving with the Four Buddha Stages.

  Begin by enjoying the loving-kind
ness of the Outer Buddha with devotion, and let it awaken thoughts and feelings of loving-kindness in your mind as the Inner Buddha. Then, singing OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUNG, offer to all beings the radiant blessing lights of wisdom, love, and power of the Outer and Inner Buddha—that is, of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness and of yourself.

  See and feel that the habitual mental, emotional, and physical ills of all beings—such as sickness, sadness, pain, fear, and confusion—take the form of a smoke-like darkness pervading their bodies. The beams, rays, and waves of light emanating from the Outer Buddha and yourself completely fill the bodies and minds of all beings with loving-kindness.

  The lights dispel all the darkness in every being’s body and mind without leaving a trace. All are filled with blessing lights of wisdom, love, and power. Every being is fully transformed into a body of radiant blessing light and a mind of all-knowing wisdom, unconditional love, and boundless power with blessing energy waves resounding to the sounds of OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUNG. Repeat this meditation many times.