1. Bodhichitta Brings Happiness
By practicing the good heart, even for yourself, in day-to-day, moment-to-moment life, there is happiness even for yourself – a comfortable life, a life without fear, depression, guilt. All of these things – the package of sufferings – don’t happen. You don’t engage, because of the good heart, in all those things. It brings happiness to you, happiness now, happiness like the sun shining in this world, and happiness in future lives for yourself. Also, it brings peace in the world, towards other sentient beings, for anybody who is around you. (Lama Zopa Rinpoche)
Photo: Bill Kane, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 2016
(duration: 13 minutes)
Transcript of Video 1: “Bodhichitta Brings Happiness”
(You can read the transcript of the video below. Alternatively, you can read the same transcript alongside the video by clicking here to download it or view it in a separate window.)
As it is mentioned in the sutra teachings by the Buddha, it is explained some of these mindfulness practices. Of course, normally, if you can do, that is incredible, but especially when you are doing retreat, whether you are doing personal retreat or group retreat, this practice is extremely worthwhile to keep the mind in bodhichitta. Of course, there is also renunciation and right view; you can relate it to many things. You can do activities with the different parts of the lam-rim, but especially with bodhichitta; you can do every activity with bodhichitta. That is the most wise life, the most meaningful, the most beneficial life.
As His Holiness the Dalai Lama often says, “If one follows the delusions, it harms oneself and it harms others.” Here, “others” means numberless sentient beings. One thing is that if you follow the self-cherishing thought, for example, it does not allow you to gain the realization of bodhichitta, the good heart. It doesn’t allow you to generate the good heart, because you are totally seeking happiness only for yourself, only working for yourself. Whatever you do is only for yourself. When you are unable to generate bodhichitta, then you are unable to complete the merits of wisdom and virtue, the Mahayana path. You are unable to enter the Mahayana path and are also unable to achieve the exalted Mahayana path, the arya path. Because of this, then you don’t have all those incredible realizations, the wisdom directly realizing emptiness, nor all those many qualities that enable you to offer extensive benefit to sentient beings. It is so unbelievable that you won’t have that. You aren’t able to do extensive benefit for sentient beings; you can’t offer deep benefits. You cannot complete the path and achieve full enlightenment. You cannot cease the defilements, and so you can’t complete the path, so you can’t do perfect work for sentient beings and bring them to enlightenment. Even from that side, since sentient beings have to suffer for a long time, that is how sentient beings are harmed. That is one way that by following the delusions it harms oneself and harms all sentient beings. There is direct harm and indirect harm. If you think from life to life, this is why it harms numberless sentient beings; if you think in terms of life to life.
But if one practices Dharma, if one follows bodhichitta, the good heart, then it results in the total opposite – happiness for yourself and happiness for all sentient beings, for others. The happiness is like that. As I mentioned before, the happiness of this life just comes. Without even clinging to that, it just comes, if you have the good heart. Without even thinking about it, it just comes, not to mention the happiness of future lives, liberation from samsara, and full enlightenment. As well, all those four different levels of happiness, you are able to cause to numberless sentient beings. They receive that from you as well. By practicing the good heart, even for yourself, in day-to-day, moment-to-moment life, there is happiness even for yourself – a comfortable life, a life without fear, depression, guilt. All of these things – the package of sufferings – don’t happen. You don’t engage, because of the good heart, in all those things. It brings happiness to you, happiness now, happiness like the sun shining in this world, and happiness in future lives for yourself. Also, it brings peace in the world, towards other sentient beings, for anybody who is around you. It brings peace to others, then to the whole world, to others, to numberless sentient beings. All this comes from Dharma, from the good heart. Then, when death comes there is nothing to feel sad about. There is only reason to rejoice, to feel great happiness. When death comes, you can die with great happiness and joy, because there is nothing to regret, no reason to feel depressed, sadness.
Thus, the person who is seeking liberation, who is seeking the state of omniscience, needs to attend to many methods for collecting merits and purifying defilements. Then the means to that, the Omniscient One, who is extremely skillful, who has great compassion for us sentient beings, explained that even our daily life conduct, eating, walking, sitting, sleeping, doing our job, all the things that we normally do, not only studying Dharma and doing meditation, all these things, living in morality, also many other virtuous activities that you do, even these small activities that you normally do, by the way, the Omniscient One who is extremely most skillful and has great compassion for us explained that even these activities that we normally do become a method to collect unfathomable virtue, a means of collecting skies of merits. They become not only beneficial to oneself, but beneficial towards all sentient beings. The Buddha explained this to us, whose level of mind is lower. For those with lower mind – in particular, for those who do not have a bodhichitta realization – this is how everything you do becomes dedicated for the happiness of other sentient beings, how it becomes the cause of happiness for all sentient beings. This is something, immediately, to practice. Of course, there is lam-rim meditation, but even at other times, during the break times, do all your activities, as much as possible, with bodhichitta and the thought to benefit other sentient beings, to make your actions beneficial for all sentient beings.