5.5 mins read
At the very beginning of How to Transform Your Life, on page 3 to be precise, and maybe just in case people don’t read any further, the author Geshe Kelsang Gyatso evokes the heart of the Buddhist mind-training teachings – which is basically to get over ourselves and be concerned about others instead.
The author asks:
Since this world evolved, human beings have spent almost all their time and energy improving external conditions in their search for happiness and a solution to their problems. What has been the result?
We can pause to answer that question, perhaps coming up with something along these lines:
Instead of their wishes being fulfilled, human suffering and problems have continued to increase while the experience of happiness and peace is decreasing.
If we agree with this at all, what does it show us? = That our methods are clearly not working. Which means we need to change them up.
Built into the mind-set of ordinary people is grasping at a real Me who is important. The effect of this is that our wishes are very important. And this leads to attachment, or uncontrolled desire, wishing to fulfill our wishes all day and all night. This is not a good set up because our wishes cannot all be fulfilled, and certainly cannot stay fulfilled, and so we end up stressed, disappointed, angry, depressed, and so on.
Self-cherishing makes everything about me. Maybe someone brings up a topic not related to us, such as their vacation in Mexico where we have never been, and we still manage to somehow make it about us, “I was on vacation once!” And because we make everything about us we do not have the happiness we long for.
We must understand this through our own experience. If we check carefully how we are experiencing problems and unhappiness, we can understand that they are all created by our uncontrolled desire, wishing ourself to be happy all the time.
We are misunderstanding where happiness comes from, thinking that it is about me and about manipulating stuff out there. When it is not.
Self-cherishing sets us up for disappointment. Try checking its psychology out in reverse next time you feel annoyed or disappointed. “I’m annoyed. Why? Because I was attached to something happening or not happening and it didn’t. Why was I attached to that? Because my wishes are so important. Why? Because I am.”
Most of our energy is going into ourselves because we are so super-duper important – how is MY life, MY diet, MY weather, accommodation, job, relationship, etc etc. This Me Me Me mind would be fine if it worked, but it doesn’t make us happy, it doesn’t solve our problems, and it doesn’t lead us to enlightenment. We have been trying and testing it for many years — since beginningless time, if Buddha is to be believed — and it hasn’t worked yet.
So we have to flip this around. Flip a switch! Just stop it!!! And wish for others to be happy all the time instead!!!
By stopping this wish and instead wishing for others to be happy all the time, we will not have any problems or unhappiness at all.
The irony is that when we stop wishing for ourselves to be happy all the time and instead wish for others to be happy all the time, we become the happiest person alive.
If we check all the times we are unhappy we shall see that we have excessive self-concern. Psychologically, samsara is the experience of the Me minds of self-grasping and self-cherishing — we are trapped in the Me of it all, an ego prison.
We can then think about anybody at all and wish for them to be happy all the time, providing they are somebody other than us.
We can also bear in mind that I am only one single person and the reality is that there are billions or trillions of other living beings, human and otherwise, so of course my happiness is not as important as theirs. If I take this reality on board, I’ll be a lot happier. This is a massive spiritual shift. And it works where nothing else has worked.
If we sincerely practice every day stopping wishing for ourself to be happy all the time and instead wishing for others to be happy all the time, then we will understand from our own experience that through this practice, which prevents attachment to the fulfillment of our own wishes, we will have no experience of problems or unhappiness at all.
The same actions can have a very different meaning through this practice, even giving our whole life a far larger sense of fulfillment, while simultaneously creating the causes or karma for a whole different and better world to appear in the future.
For example, I can eat that grilled veggie sandwich (which I’m about to order in Whittier café) with a boring small-minded motivation, just wolfing it down out of attachment because I want to be happy all the time. Or I can be smart and eat it with the wish to nourish my life so that I can better use it to help others be happy all the time, starting with the friend who is joining me later. Same number of calories maybe, but everything else is different. We can transform all our daily stuff into the path to lasting happiness and mental freedom just by changing our heart.
Our selfish desires are constantly throwing us out of the present moment — we think things like, “I’ll just get this thing out of the way and then I can relax”, simply postponing our joy and feeling vaguely discontented all day. This stopping practice puts us in the present moment and makes every day more fun — being mindful of love is rich and present, and we have no itch to be elsewhere.
Comments welcome below.
(*Thank you to Gen Rigpa for coining this phrase! If any of you are in LA, be sure to check out his teachings — they’re clear, interesting, and excellent.)
12 Comments
I find it very difficult to cherish others,i think they will take advantage of me if i do,and i don’t want that at all,i have been taken advantage of at my most vunerable,on several occassions,to me most people are arseholes and i don’t think about cherishing them at all,i believe in geshe kelsangs teachings,they saved my life,so i believe in them,i will try to cherish close friends,i have maybe 1 and thats about it,i know self grasping,and self cherishing,are my biggest enemies,and im good at both of them,no wonder im a mess lol.xx
It might be worth looking at your limited sense of self and how you are holding onto yourself as someone who cannot cherish others easily. Let go of that self, it doesn’t exist. Feel more identified with your peaceful Buddha nature. And in that space you’ll have more freedom to start by cherishing one person and then widening the circle. Check out this article for some more advice on how to do this: https://kadampalife.org/2019/05/06/the-meditation-game-changer/
Thanks for your reply,it seems as if my limited sense of sense does exist,but if you say it doesan’t then maybe it doesan’t?i have budda nature,but i also have hatred and revenge in my mind,for my abuser,and my tormentors,geshe kelsang gyatso is the only person i can treasure,as his book introduction to buddhism,saved my life,so he is only person i can treasure,nobody else as earned the right to be cherished,other than geshe kelsang gyatso,so i will cherish him as hes earned the right to be cherished,but nobody else as in my opionion,many thanks for your reply,mr david alan messenger.xx
Profoundly simple. Loved the challenge to “just try it.”
Let me know how you get on?
I wouldn’t agree that my happiness is less important than others. I believe as usual a healthy balance needs to be held. I”m not the most important but I’m not less important.
If I am only one and others are countless, on an objective scale who is more important?
This instruction is not saying we are not important or that our happiness doesn’t matter, but that we are not the MOST important. It is because our happiness is important that we need to learn to cherish others — that way we are setting ourselves up with an endless source of happiness.
When I become unhappy I do remember it’s my self cherishing mind and try and stop self cherishing in that moment. If only I could be more aware before I get to that point and remember to cherish others then self cherishing wouldn’t arise. Lots more work to be done!
Thank you again! Lisa x
True, the earlier we catch it the better — hence the expression “always rely upon a happy mind alone.” Lots of work to be done, for sure, but all of it is taking us in a new and infinitely better direction.
Yes I totally agree with this article, we do sometimes forget this, and it’s like being pointed to the right track again, (and again and again…..) bless us so that we may never forget this. Thankyou🙏😀
i thought today about emptiness meditation being like ‘saying bye-bye’ to all the things we normally see, and then saying ‘hello’ to what’s left. an absence. would that not work here? not sure. saying bye-bye to thoughts about self as they arise, and saying ‘hello’ to what’s left. others. (an absence of self invites others, non?). o well. wonderful article full of goodness. thank you.
I like that very much.