BODHICITTA - Take Refuge in Bodhicitta
By
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
(September & October 2001 Newsletter)
Our
lives are so busy; we are preoccupied by many family and other obligations. When
your life is so busy, there is no other refuge than your good heart. Your good
heart is the most important thing in which to take refuge. Even though you might
want to do long practices, sitting meditation, many prayers or retreat, your life
is usually so busy that you don't have time. You have too many other obligations;
you can't do everything that you'd like. If this is the case, your only refuge
is your good heart, your compassion, the thought of benefiting others, bodhicitta.
If you take refuge in that, if you can practise that, no matter how busy you are
- even if you cannot do many hours' sitting meditation, prayers, preliminary practices
and so forth - you will have no regrets over lost opportunities, now or in the
future. In this life and in all future lives, you will go from happiness to happiness
to enlightenment.
There are so many practices you can do - what's the most
important? What's the most important thing to practise in life? Meditation. What's
the most important meditation, the most important Dharma practice? I would say
that it's the good heart, your very precious thought of loving kindness, compassion;
the thought of benefiting others, bodhicitta. That is the best meditation, the
best Dharma practice.
As Shantideva also said when talking about the benefits
of bodhicitta in the Bodhicharyavatara, "After checking for many eons, the
buddhas discovered that bodhicitta is the most beneficial thing for sentient beings."
[Chapter 1, verse 7.]
That means that bodhicitta is the best thing for you
too. This quotation also explains what's best for you. What's the best way to
take care of yourself? What's the best thing for your own well-being? It's bodhicitta.
The buddhas' discovery applies equally to you.
There are so many problems in
life - cancer, AIDS, relationship problems, being in debt, not having enough money,
job problems such as other people being jealous of you or interfering with your
work or being unable to find a job. There are so many problems. But the one answer
that takes care of everything, the one solution to all your life's problems, the
one thing that fulfils all your wishes, is again your mind, your good heart, your
bodhicitta.
If you have a good heart, you don't give harm to others; you always
help others with their problems, whatever they are. That causes you to have a
long and healthy life. The lam-rim teachings talk about the eight ripened qualities
of a good rebirth [see Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, p. 460]. One of these
is a long life, the cause of which is explained as being saving or sparing the
lives of others, animals or human; for example, giving them food, medicine, clothing
or helping them in various other ways [Liberation, p. 462].
Therefore, in your
everyday life, try with a good heart to benefit others as much as possible. If
you can do this, whether you are offering others great service or small, you're
continuously creating the cause of your own success - wealth, long life, good
health, everything. Your actions are harmonious with such results. Thus, your
good heart fulfils all your wishes for any happiness, including the highest, peerless
happiness of full enlightenment. Actions done with a good heart are never non-virtuous,
only virtuous. Actions done with a good heart only benefit and never harm others.
Therefore, when you act with a good heart, you never create the cause for sicknesses,
only health. Your wish to benefit others is a healthy mind. That healthy mind
makes your body healthy.
Overcoming illness with bodhicitta
Nowadays, many
highly intelligent Western doctors, psychologists and scientists have checked
and proven with their wisdom that diseases such as cancer come from the individual's
own negative attitude. Cancer comes from the negative mind. Therefore, the way
to heal cancer is to have a positive attitude, a pure mind.
For example, in
Singapore, there was a Chinese Dharma student who had AIDS. He informed his guru,
a very high lama called Rato Rinpoche, who lived in Dharamsala. Rinpoche sent
this student instructions on how to do the special bodhicitta practice that I
mentioned before, tong-len, as a remedy, a method for him to practise. So, he
practised for four days and then went to the hospital for a check-up, where the
doctors told him, "You no longer have AIDS." After four days they found
no trace of AIDS. When I heard this, I thought he must have spent many hours a
day practising tong-len, so I asked him, "How much did you practise?"
"Four minutes a day," he said!
He practised only four minutes a
day, but during that time his compassion was unbelievably strong. There was no
space in his mind for his own AIDS. His only concern was for the many other people
who have AIDS. During those four minutes a day he felt so much compassion that
tears poured down his cheeks. He felt it unbearable that other sentient beings
should suffer from AIDS. Why could the doctors find no trace of AIDS after he
had practised for only four days? Because even though he had practised meditation
for only a few minutes a day, the meditation that he did practise had the power
of an atomic bomb. His compassion for others was so powerful that it purified
his mind of vast amounts of negative karma.
Do you remember the quote from
Shantideva that I mentioned before, how bodhicitta purifies inexhaustible heavy
negative karma? That's what happened here. The principal cause of AIDS is negative
imprints left on the mental continuum by past negative actions. This student's
compassion was so powerful that it neutralised the karmic cause of his disease.
In
the same way, meditation can also cure cancer. The same reasoning applies. In
my own experience, five or six people with terminal cancer completely recovered
by reciting the mantras of various buddhas with whom they had a connection. They
had been told by their doctors that they were going to die, that they had only
two or three months to live, but by purifying the principal cause of their cancer,
which was in their mind, they completely overcame their disease. Mantra recitation
can also heal other sicknesses, such as heart disease.
I heard about a person
in Spain who had a very serious heart disease. His heart was enlarged and the
doctors gave him only a short time to live. The geshe at our Nagarjuna Centre
in Barcelona advised him to recite Guru Shakyamuni's Buddha's mantra, TAYATHA
OM MUNE MUNE MAHA MUNAYE SOHA, 300,000 times. Geshe-la gave him a big number to
do! Anyway, he followed Geshe-la's advice, and his heart decreased in size until
it became normal. I was also told by a famous Spanish musician about someone else
who had recovered from AIDS through meditation, but I don't know the details of
that case.
However, what I'm trying to emphasise here is that generating a
good heart is the best way of taking care of your health.
Nowadays, there
are many new diseases occurring, many new dangers to life. The best way to avoid
experiencing those sicknesses is not to create their cause. Thus, a good heart
is the best protection from disease. And, should you contract any disease, developing
a good heart is also the best way to overcome it.
Source:
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
(2001). Making Life Meaningful. Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: USA.