If you behave in this way, you will have a calm and dignified demeanor and people will naturally respect you. They will want to emulate your peacefulness and will help accomplish your various worthwhile projects.
138.By being wise, your mind will not waver.
Not dependent on the opinions of others,
you will be steadfast, kind, and not deceived.
Therefore, devote yourself to wisdom.
Training in Good Wisdom
If you have clear wisdom that can discriminate between good and bad, between what to practice and what to avoid, you won’t be adversely affected by what others say and will be immune to misleading advice. Rather than trying to please confused people or succumbing to people who pressure you, you will be able to think for yourself, make wise choices, and carry them out with confidence.
Sharp wisdom is very important in both Dharma and practical matters. Wisdom enables you to think clearly and logically and to understand what is and isn’t beneficial. You will be able to get the information you need and listen to others’ ideas with an open mind, but you will also have the strength and clarity to make decisions by yourself. You won’t be deceived by bad companions or be wishy-washy, changing your mind according to whomever you talk to, and you will be able to bear responsibility gracefully. Since there are many disadvantages to lacking wisdom and many advantages to having it, willingly work to develop it.
139.Truth, generosity, tranquility, and wisdom —
a king who has these four excellent qualities
will be praised by celestial beings and humans
just like these four excellent Dharmas.
Honesty builds trust and cooperation. Generosity enables people to connect in a lovely way and fulfills their needs. Tranquility gained by restraining the senses and regulating your physical, verbal, and mental activities brings a dignified demeanor that others naturally respect. Wisdom that can discriminate between what is to be practiced and what is to be abandoned enables us to make wise decisions with confidence without being influenced by misleading companions.
Anyone who cultivates these four qualities will be praised by humans and celestial beings. These qualities are especially important for monarchs and leaders who make policies that affect many people — cultivating them will make leaders effective and their actions more beneficial. They will be able to encourage people in the Dharma path without using Dharma jargon and will easily be able to accomplish projects on a practical level.
140.Wisdom and Dharma always increase
in [a king] who consults with those who are
restrained in speech and pure,
and possess undefiled wisdom and compassion.
A Special Friend
To continually improve your wisdom and virtue, rely on special friends and advisors. Nagarjuna outlines four qualities of such friends. First they are honest and their speech is restrained. A monarch does not need someone who flatters him and says he is a good leader when he is in fact harming others. A monarch has no use for those who sing his praises and tell him that people love him dearly when in fact he is unpopular. Rather a leader needs those who, with a good motivation, speak to him directly and frankly, saying what is helpful. He needs friends who care about him and tell him when people are unhappy with the leadership. These companions will tell a leader when he is making a mistake and will counsel him in how to fix the situation.
Second, such friends are content and have few desires. They are pure — meaning they are not always looking out to get something more or better for themselves — but consider what is good policy and what benefits others. Third, they possess wisdom and intelligence regarding both the Dharma and worldly affairs, which enable them to give sound advice. Fourth, they deeply wish to benefit others and are not easily angered. Such compassionate friends give unbiased advice. Although it is difficult to find companions who are completely free of anger, at least they should not be irritable and complain constantly.
When you develop friendships with such people, automatically you will come to have the same qualities as them. Keeping the company of those who are honest, good-hearted, contented, and wise makes a big difference not only to you but also to other people who are influenced by your actions. Spending a lot of time with people who encourage you to lie, cheat, drink, gamble, and do other ignoble things will influence you to do the same. In addition, clear-thinking, ethical people will see the type of people you associate with, project those same demeaning qualities onto you, and lose their respect for you. Their bad behavior will gradually rub off on you, and without you even realizing it, your values and behavior will degenerate.
Lamrim teachings tell us that it is difficult to distinguish misleading friends — it is not as if they have horns on their heads. Rather, we identify them by noticing the detrimental effect they have on us over a long period of time. If you find that your mind becomes harsher, more uncontrolled, and deluded, and that your destructive actions increase and your good qualities decrease, that’s a clear indication that you’re associating with misleading friends. In that case, distance yourself from them and cultivate friendships with wise and ethical people. Of course, by that time it may be too late — they may already have exercised strong influence over you and you, too, may be blind to the negative consequences of your friendship.
At present, with all our heart, we want our practice to be excellent. We sincerely want to relinquish all that is adverse to higher rebirth and highest good and to adopt everything that is in accord with them. Since we are ordinary beings, that wish is still not stable in us, and we don’t have much control over our thoughts and actions. For this reason it is especially important that we keep our distance from misleading companions and associate with good friends.
Because many unpleasant and unfortunate things result from being with misleading friends, great masters have composed prayers to never, even for a second, come under the influence of misleading friends in all future lives. We should pray like this too.
141.Those who speak beneficially are rare.
Even more rare are those who listen.
And more rare yet than these are those
who quickly implement something beneficial.
142.Having realized that though unpleasant
it is helpful, quickly put it into practice,
just as a prudent person, in order to become healthy,
takes medication, even though it is noxious.
Parents who want to benefit their children in the long term and prevent them from cultivating bad traits must sometimes say things that the children don’t like to hear. Similarly, friends with the four qualities — who are people who want to benefit us — may give us good advice that challenges our afflictions. Even if it piques our pride, we should trust them and follow it. If, simply because it is unpleasant to hear, we turn our back on those who care about us and give us good advice, we are the ones who lose. That would be like refusing to take medicine when we are very ill simply because it is foul-tasting.
It is rare for someone to speak words that are beneficial in the short term as well as in the long term. It is even more rare for someone to listen to such advice thoughtfully and with an open mind. It is rarer still for someone to consider the meaning of the advice and implement it with willingness to undergo immediate discomfort in order to accomplish a long-term beneficial purpose.
143.You should always reflect upon
the impermanence of life, health, and political power,
that way you will with true effort
strive uniquely [to practice] Dharma.
Continually Meditate on Death and Impermanence
Nagarjuna tells the monarch, “Right now your power and fame are intact, the kingdom is safe, and the populace praises you — yet all this is ephemeral, like clouds in the sky. Someday it will all disappear and become nonexistent. You, too, will die, although you don’t know when. For this reason, engage in Dharma practice with great diligence.”
Your sit
uation may be similar: in this moment, there is no threat to your life or well-being. You are healthy, your affairs are in good order, and you live in a relatively peaceful place, free of famine and epidemic diseases. Nevertheless, remember that all of this is subject to change and disintegration. Life is fragile like a water bubble; in a moment, you could have a stroke, heart attack, or accident. Keeping this in mind, put all your effort into practicing the Dharma — it is the only thing that will benefit you at the time of death — and do not complacently assume that your pleasant situation will continue as it is. Do not be smug and unconcerned but make your life meaningful through purifying destructive karma, creating virtuous karma, listening to teachings, and practicing the six perfections.
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24.Although plantain plants are commonly called “trees” and can grow up to twenty to twenty-five feet in height, they are not actually trees. What appears to be a tree trunk at the base of the plant is actually a pseudostem made of layers of leaf sheaths.
6. Taming Attachment and Understanding the Qualities of Buddhahood
FORSAKE THE CAUSES OF LOWER REBIRTH
The causal practices for higher rebirth and highest good have been explained above in detail. Now follows an explanation of the causes of lower rebirth, which are to be avoided. These include attachment to intoxicants, gambling, sexual lust, and hunting. When we tame our attachment to these, much of our harmful behavior will automatically stop, we will have more time for Dharma study and practice, and we will have more mental space to cultivate love, compassion, and bodhichitta.
144.Seeing that you will definitely die,
and that, when dead, you suffer from your negativity,
do not engage in any negativity
even for the sake of temporary pleasures.
145.In some cases, the dire [result of negativity] is not observed;
in other instances, the dire [result] is observed.
If there is comfort in one,
why do you have no fear of the other?
We are definitely going to die. If we have engaged in destructive actions, after death we will find ourselves in an unfortunate rebirth as the ripening result of these actions. Once that destructive karma is expended and that lower rebirth is finished, some virtuous karma may ripen that will lead to our birth as a human or celestial being. But even in an upper rebirth, more suffering will ensue. The different types of problems human beings experience — from extreme poverty, terrorism, discrimination, and excruciating illness to minor annoyances, relationship problems, and drought — are results similar to the cause in terms of our experience and the environmental results of our destructive actions. Seeing all these disadvantages of destructive actions, we should definitely give them up.
As a leader, the monarch has a lot of power. He should take care not to misuse this power by killing or compelling others to kill. In fact, considering the karmic results that would befall him in future lives, he should never even think about killing. Government leaders and people with economic power have the opportunity to create great virtuous karma by benefiting society. However, should their afflictions overwhelm them, they also have the ability to create significant destructive karma by harming large numbers of people as well.
Engaging in destructive actions may seem to bring some immediate benefit. For example, if you steal money through extortion, misuse funds that have been entrusted to you, overcharge customers, or avoid paying taxes and fees, you can buy food, clothes, medicine, a house, maybe even some luxury goods, or you can go on a wonderful vacation. But ultimately you will have to experience the karmic results of that action. In addition, the pleasure that you experienced as the immediate consequence of the action isn’t true happiness — it is the duhkha of change, which will eventually bring you problems and disappointment.
Furthermore, that fleeting happiness isn’t actually caused by stealing. It is the result of virtuous karma created in past lives; depriving others of their property is only a secondary condition for experiencing that happiness now. So even though happiness seems to come from destructive actions, don’t be fooled — you will eventually have to experience their painful results. While you may do destructive actions and think that there is nothing to fear because no one saw you and no one knows you did them, you will still have to undergo their suffering results in future lives. Therefore, have a strong determination to abandon destructive actions.
Sometimes we don’t experience the horrid results of our destructive actions until future lives and other times we experience them in this life. If we feel comfort and security when the results aren’t seen in this life, shouldn’t we be afraid of those actions when we see people experiencing the results of similar actions? Instead of thinking that our good situation in this life nullifies or excuses our destructive actions, seeing others experience the results of their harmful actions now, we should refrain from committing those destructive actions ourselves.
Implicitly, Nagarjuna advises us to do virtuous actions such as prostrations, circumambulations, and meditation. Even though to do so may entail some temporary discomfort or hardship, ultimately such actions are of enormous benefit. When we remember that creating virtue brings the bliss of awakening we will be encouraged to work for what is beneficial in the long term.
146.From intoxicants come the world’s disdain,
your own failure, and the loss of your wealth.
Confused, you do what you should not.
Therefore, always refrain from intoxicants.
Give Up Attachment to Intoxicants
People who drink and drug a lot are disdained even by ordinary people, let alone by the wise. People who are frequently intoxicated are not reliable and can’t be trusted to accomplish their work or to do anything properly. Colleagues and family members talk derisively about them.
Drinking and drugging also consume a lot of time — you have to buy the alcohol or drugs, prepare and take them, and then after the immediate high wears off, spend time recovering your senses. It is also financially detrimental — not only do you spend money on liquor and drugs, but you don’t show up at work or you make bad business decisions while intoxicated. As a result your family suffers from the lack of funds as well as from the lack of your emotional presence in their lives. Children suffer from shame when the community knows that their parent has a substance-abuse problem. In addition to children losing respect for their intoxicated parents, the parents’ example also sets the stage for the children to self-medicate through drinking or taking drugs.
In addition, getting intoxicated makes you confused physically and mentally. Eventually your body and health deteriorate; you may neglect your appearance, becoming disheveled and dirty. Being intoxicated makes you lose the ability to discriminate between what is good to do and what isn’t, and as a result you get involved in activities that make you look foolish. People who are usually discreet lose control of their speech and say all sorts of things that they later regret. They fight with strangers or quarrel with family members, destroying relationships with people they cherish. Unable to restrain their emotions, some people commit violent crimes and are arrested when intoxicated. While their life may have been going quite well before this, now the course of their life is changed because they must serve time in prison, pay fines, or spend a lot of time and money in the court system.
While there are many more disadvantages, these are the easiest ones to see. Thus as an act of kindness and respect for yourself as well as the people who care about you, abandon drinking and drugging.
147.Gambling causes attachment, unpleasantness,
and anger, deception, trickery, and an occasion for wildness,
lying, pointless chatter, and harsh speech.
Therefore, always refrain from gambling.
Give Up Gambling
Gambling also has many disadvantages, though nine are specifically pointed out here. You become greedy for others’ wealth; worry about whether you will win or lose makes your mind unea
sy and unpleasant. You will be overcome by unhappiness and anger when you lose, and will resort to deception and trickery in order to win. When you gamble, your mind and behavior become excited and wild. Your speech becomes uncontrolled, you lie to others and get involved in pointless chatter and harsh speech. Seeing the faults of gambling, give it up.
148.Most attachment to women
comes from the belief that women’s bodies are pure.
But in actuality there is no purity
in a woman’s body at all.
General Refutation of the Cleanliness of the Body of an Attractive Person
When the text says women, we should understand this to mean “women, for example.”25 In fact, male and female bodies are equally unclean. Nagarjuna points this out at the end of the section when he reminds the king that his own body is impure. In Engaging in the Bodhisattvas’ Deeds, Shantideva also discusses the filthy nature of the body at length. There, too, you should understand that he was teaching an antidote to sexual desire to an audience of monks.
For yogis who practice mother tantra, it is obligatory to prostrate to and circumambulate women. Women are considered extremely precious and equal companions in Dharma practice — one gender is not higher than the other. Also, from the viewpoint of the subtle body — the formation of the channels, winds, and drops — men and women are the same.
According to the Vinaya — the monastic code of discipline — the Buddha established full ordination for both men and women, as well as novice and lay ordination for both men and women.
Because of the distinct physical difference between men and women, when a couple has a child, the mother undergoes more hardships on behalf of the child and extends more compassion to the child. A mother keeps the child in her womb for nine months, and after giving birth, she is usually the one who looks after the child more, always making sure the child is safe, healthy, and happy. For this reason, we emphasize recognizing others as having been our mothers in past lives and recalling the great kindness of our mothers.
Practical Ethics and Profound Emptiness Page 20