Seven Points of Mind Training

Point 3 : Transformation of Bad Circumstances

13: Be grateful to everyone.

Point Three : Be grateful to everyone.

Commentary :

(A more literal translation of this slogan is "Contemplate the great kindness of everyone.")

This slogan also is dealing with kundzop, or conventional reality. That is to say, without this world we cannot attain enlightenment, there would be no journey. By rejecting the world we would be rejecting the ground and rejecting the path. All our past history and all our neurosis is related with others in some sense. All of our experiences are based on others, basically. As long as we have a sense of practice, some realization that we are treading on the path, every one of those little details that are seemingly obstacles to us becomes an essential part of the path. Without them we cannot attain anything at all - we have no feedback, we have nothing to work with, absolutely nothing to work with.

So in a sense all the things taking place around our world, all the irritations and all the problems are crucial. Without others we cannot attain enlightenment - in fact, we cannot even tread on the path. In other words, we could say that if there is no noise outside during our sitting meditation, we cannot develop mindfulness. If we do not have aches and pains in our body, we cannot attain mindfulness, we cannot actually meditate. If everything were lovey-dovey and jellyfishlike, there would be nothing to work with. Everything would be completely blank. Because of all these textures around us, we are enriched. Therefore, we can sit and practice and meditate. We have a reference point - encouragement, discouragement, or whatever. Everything is related to the path.

The idea of this particular teaching is actually to give our blood and flesh to others. "If you want me, take me, possess me, kidnap me, control me - go ahead, do it. Take me. I'm at your service. You could bounce on me, shit on me, cut me into pieces or anything you want. Without your help I would not have any way to work with my journey at all." That is a very, very powerful thing. In fact, one of the interesting sayings of Lang-ri Thangpa, on the Kadampa teachers, was: "I realize that all mistakes belong to me and all virtues belong to others, so I cannot really blame anybody except myself."

There is a little phrase which might be good to memorize. In Tibet we used to stick it on our door handles and things like that. The saying goes: "Profit and victory to others; loss and defeat to myself." That sounds terribly self-flagellating if you look at it the wrong way. In particular, the popular idea of Catholicism is to blame everything on oneself as an ultimate guilt concept. But in this case, we are not talking about guilt or that we did something terribly wrong. It is seeing things as they are. By "profit and victory," we mean anything that encourages us to walk on the path of the dharma - that is created by the world. Yet at the same time we are filled with loss and defeat all the time - that is ours. We are not supposed to sulk on that particular point, but we are supposed to take pride in that. It is a fantastic idea that we are actually, finally fearless persons - that profit is others' and loss is ours. That is great, fantastic! We may not find that to be so when it is early morning and we have just woken up and feel rather feeble; although at the end of the day, when we have had a few drinks and our belly is filled and we are relatively comfortable, we might feel that way. But fundamentally it is true.

These statements are not based on guilt or punishment, like the Jewish idea of oy vey. But it is actually true that a lot of things that we tend to blame others for are our own doing - otherwise we wouldn't get in trouble. How come somebody else doesn't get in trouble and we do get in trouble? What causes that? It must be something happening to us, obviously. We can write our case history and employ our own lawyer to prove that we are right and somebody else is wrong - but that is also trouble we have to go through. It is all trouble, problems. And trying to prove our case history somehow doesn't work. In any case, hiring a lawyer to attain enlightenment is not done. It is not possible. Buddha did not have a lawyer himself.

The slogan "Be grateful to everyone" follows automatically once we drive all blames into one. We have a feeling that if others didn't exist to hassle us, we couldn't drive all blames into ourselves at all. All the sentient beings, all the people in the world, or most of them, have a problem in dealing with "myself." Without others, we would have no chance at all to develop beyond ego. So the idea here is to feel grateful that others are presenting us with tremendous obstacles - even threats or challenges. The point is to appreciate that. Without them, we could not follow the path at all.

Walking on the path of the dharma is connected with dealing with our neurosis. But if there were no neuros-ees, we couldn't develop any neuros-is. Therefore, we should feel very grateful to such persons. They are actually the ones who are pushing us onto the path of dharma. I will tell you a little story bout Atisha, who is the source of these teachings. Atisha was invited to teach in Tibet, and he had heard that the Tibetans were very kind, gentle, hospitable people. So he decided that he should take along with him one object of practice - his attendant, a Bengali servant who was very short-tempered. Since the Tibetans were so kind and good, Atisha took his servant along so that he could practice lojong on him. Interestingly enough, he said later on that he needn't have brought this person, as the Tibetans were not as good as he had heard.

If someone hurts you, you should be thankful to them for giving you the opportunity to practice. But you do not have to expose yourself to be hurt, that would be some sort of martyrdom. You don't have to ask to be hurt, but when you come up with such a situation, then all the things we discussed apply. It is not that you have to stage the whole thing. Instead, somebody will blame you and then you will think, "It is mine." You don't have to avoid such situations and you don't have to cultivate them. You just lead your life, being very sane, and you don't hurt anybody else. But if anybody happens to hurt you, then you know what to do. It is very simple. We are not talking about deliberately jumping on a sword. That would be a misunderstanding. Instead you are making a close relationship with the person who is hurting you.

At a further level of development it may be possible to stop an attacker by force to prevent him from having the karma of having injured you. But that is a very high level of sympathy. For instance, there is a story about a Tibetan teacher who was ambushed by his enemies, who were going to kill him on his way to teaching seminary. He pulled out his dagger and said, "This is the tooth of a tiger," and he stabbed the chief, killing him on the spot. Everybody was so shocked, they let him go. That is an entirely different approach. I think it would be too dangerous for us to go as far as that. As long as you know what you are doing, it is okay, but that sort of approach escalates warfare.

"Loss and defeat" is not really pain in the fundamental sense, it is just a game. It is that you did not get what you wanted, so you feel somewhat irritated, the little things that go through our life always. It has nothing to do with real pain. We do not always get what we want and are always frustrated with that. We are resentful toward something or somebody or even toward ourselves if we expend our money or if we run into somebody's car or anything of that nature. It is not really pain, it is just hassle.

This whole approach is dealing with all kinds of hassles and transmuting them and working with them as a workable journey toward enlightenment. We are not talking about fundamental pain. I think one of the problems we have, particularly in the Occidental mentality, is that we make too much of a big deal of the whole thing. We complicate the whole thing unnecessarily, and we have no idea how to play games properly. It is not a big deal, it is an exchange. You are finally putting your name on the dotted line. It is a lighthearted situation - including death. Keep that in mind. Make a slogan out of that. Whatever takes place, you do not take all that seriously. Whatever comes up, you do not regard as the ultimate, final problem, but as a temporary flare up that comes and goes.

This obviously needs a lot of understanding and training. A person cannot practice this without preplanning the journey and having worked with his or her state of mind. There is also a need for some understanding of the shunyata experience, basically speaking. There is no ground at all to begin with, so anything that takes place in the groundlessness becomes workable. Those things are actually very powerful - they used to be, anyway. When I was a teenager it turned me on a great deal. It is so direct and very simple and helpful - particularly when you are facing hassles.