The Power of Compassion

by: Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Quoted from a seminar on how to develop compassion and offer perfect service to others, was awarded by Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Love Hospice, Selangor, Malaysia, on May 14, 2006. Edited by Sandra Smith.

Subdue Anger Brings Peace

Good night. Sorry. A good afternoon. My time was mixed up. I would like to thank everyone for coming here.

You are here to learn about compassion and to help the world. There is tremendous encouragement, there is a great need to help sentient beings who have no happiness and who are constantly suffering. They desperately need your help. Thank you so much for the people who come here, whose intention is to benefit others and to learn how to do it.

I have to apologize for my habit of coming too late. All is long waiting.

First, I want to mention what has been read, what I heard, about a world filled with disaster or suffering, a world with so many problems. Can our compassion can do something to help? That's what I heard. I want to mention this to start the session this time. Something logical. Very logical.

It is said in Bodhicaryawatara (Lakis Hidup Bodhisatwa) by Indian professor Shantidewa that if you want to cover the whole world with a leather rug, if you want to cover up all the thorns growing in this world, there will not be enough skin to cover it so you can walk with bare feet without any hurt.

But, if you wear leather shoes, then wherever you go, to whatever part of the world you visit, thorns will not hurt your feet. If you wear shoes that have leather soles, thorns will not get past the shoes to injure your legs. Wherever you go, thorns will not penetrate into your feet.

That is, if your mind is subdued or defused - anger, ignorance, clinging, desires, dissatisfied thoughts, and all disguising and disguising negative attitudes - there can be no enemy in the world; You can no longer find enemies in the world. When anger, delusion, and disguising and disguising negative attitudes are eliminated, there will be no place where you can find the enemy.

Without taming your mind by training a good heart, compassion for others, of course, anger arises. Without taming the mind, with this fantasy, it does not matter how many outsiders you kill, it never finishes. There is no end, no end.

Basically, if you kill one person who harms you, then his friends will be your enemy. They become enemies for you. Then, their friends will be enemies for you. Then, from there, the whole community, hundreds, tens of thousands of people, the population of the whole country will be your enemy.

In general, in the war, hundreds of thousands of people are killed, although usually the conflict starts only between two people.

We are only talking about this life, the problem in this life. The effect you get from killing enemies is actually much worse than that. You want to have lasting peace, but you feel more dangerous than others. Even if you do not accept the loss now, this year, you will receive it later, in other years. They will harm you. They will hold a grudge and you will be in danger later.

Thus, given the continuity of the stream of consciousness, consciousness will still exist even after your body is destroyed or ceases to function. We can remember what we did yesterday, we can remember what our life was like yesterday because there is continuity from stream of consciousness from yesterday to today. From last year to the present, there is continuity of the stream of consciousness. Awareness last year continued, and today's awareness is a continuity of it.

That is why we can remember last year and our childhood. Some people even have the clarity of mind to remember the earliest moments of their birth. Most people can not remember it, but some people can even remember the moment when they first came out of their mother's womb.

Some people can even remember moments when they are in the mother's womb - these are people who have a very clear mind, unaffected by a lot of defilements, which have a very developed mind. Those who have such a mind can remember the process of conception in the mother's womb. They remember the times when they were in the mother's womb.

Similarly, we will bring so much peace and happiness in our lives. We bring so much peace and happiness to the lives of family members, husbands or wives, or children, or anyone else.

Of course, everybody wants that. We all want our family to love us, be happy with us. We do not want anyone to be angry with us, hurt us, treat us badly, or criticize us. We do not want any of that. We do not want our families to feel unhappy, have negative thoughts, be angry with us and engage in negative karma, which they have to bear on the consequences. We do not want them to suffer in any form.

Not only that. To all humans in the country where we are, we are not angry with them either; we do not hurt them. With a good heart, with patience, millions of people in our country will receive so much peace and happiness from us, from our patience, from our compassion. All humans in this world, and all other beings, including animals, will not accept the danger of our anger. All beings will not be harmed by us. They will receive so much peace and happiness from us. The absence of danger is peace.

Even if we are not involved in additional services or benefiting others, the absence of anger is the peace and happiness they will receive from us.

If we speak beyond the context of life in this world, then it can be said that countless living beings in other worlds will also not be harmed by us if we develop patience and compassion. If we stop hurting others by developing a patient and compassionate mind, then from life to life, countless living beings will receive peace and happiness from us.

Therefore, all this peace and happiness is what we can produce, starting from our families, then our country, then this world, and finally all living things throughout the universe. We can offer this because we practice patience and compassion.

Certain people who have anger against us, who harm us, we will not repay with the same anger if we develop patience and compassion.

Who is helping us develop this incredible and priceless quality within us? Who is helping us develop this quality so that we can finally bring peace and happiness to all sentient beings? Those who have anger against us, who torture us, are to our disadvantage.

They give us opportunities and help us to produce this inestimable quality within, so we can finally offer all this peace and happiness to countless other living things from life to life. Therefore, they are very valuable. No thank you can express our gratitude for this.

We do not need to talk about the next life. In today's life alone, we can offer so much peace and happiness through patience and compassion to our families and our country and the rest of the world. We can bring so much peace and happiness to them. That's very unusual. It will achieve our purpose in life. That is the true meaning of life, something that makes life worthwhile.

All because of the goodness of the person who has been angry with us, that harms us. Because of their anger and their evil actions, we are given the opportunity to train our inner, to train patience and compassion, to offer so much peace and happiness to the world, to countless living things.

I said before that the absence of danger itself is peace and happiness. Then besides, we offer service to others, so there is added happiness and peace. It's all because of the good of our enemy. Therefore, training the mind with that person helps us to have peace and happiness in our family and life.

All this is the answer. This is what we can do to help the world. It all comes from our side, who do not want to endanger the world and its inhabitants first. Start one by one, with one human or with the animal closest to us. From here, we can grow more and more, to bring happiness to others, not to harm others, and to give them happiness.

To do all that, we need to change our mind. We need to turn anger into patience, become compassion for others. What Shantidewa said is very true.
If we do not have anger, then wherever we go - East or West, at home or outside, in the office, wherever we go - we can not find the enemy. Conversely, by having anger, we will find enemies wherever we are. Even in a meditation center, even in a monastery, even in a cave, we will find enemies.

When we have anger toward someone, we see that person as a very undesirable figure. We do not like that person; he is someone we do not want to see.

But at the next moment, when we think of the goodness of that person - who has enabled us to practice patience and compassion - we will see it in a way that is completely opposite from before.

This person was not wanted before; we do not want to see it. It is not desirable. But now, he is the most precious and the best. No thank-you is enough to repay his kindness. He is better than someone who gives us a billion dollars or a million dollars. His kindness is different. His kindness is something that we feel deeply in our hearts. Now, it becomes very valuable; it is someone we must have in our lives. We feel very different from before.

Now, we can see that there are no enemies; no inherent enemies exist. Other people have not changed. We are the ones who change our mind; others have not changed. There was still the anger of the man there. If not, then we do not have the opportunity to practice patience. If someone else's mind changes to us, if he stops his anger, then we have no chance to develop our patience. So actually, wherever we are, we have no enemies.

If our friends are not angry with us, if our friends love us, then we have no chance to practice patience with them.

All living things come in three ways: either as friends, enemies, or strangers. Countless living beings are enemies, or strangers, or friends. If a living being is a stranger, then there is also no chance to exercise patience and calm anger.

Think, "In this country, in this world, among countless living beings - the enlightened and the unenlightened, those who are free from suffering and not free from suffering, ordinary beings - those who have anger towards me are one the only thing that gives me the opportunity to develop my mind, to benefit all living beings all over the world. This is the only party that allows me to tame my mind. "

Thus, this person becomes very valuable. When we see the good of the enemy, we do not want the enemy to suffer; we want to free the enemy from suffering. Compassion arises for our enemies. This is just one example. If we can develop compassion for our enemies, it will be easy to develop it to strangers or friends. It would be very easy to develop compassion for them. The most difficult is to develop compassion for the enemy.