by Pema Chodron
No other healing elsewhere to be found
2.56
Than words of the omniscient physician,
Uprooting every ill and suffering,
The thought to turn on him deaf ears
Is raving folly, wretched and contemptible.
The analogy here is a very familiar one in Buddhist teachings: we suffer from an illness; the Buddha is a physician and master diagnostician; and the teachings are medicine. In order for the medicine to work, we have to take it as prescribed; we can’t just read the prescription. To be cured, we have to act according to the doctor’s words.
When people discover that they or a loved one has a terrible illness, they’re inspired to do whatever they can to find a cure. This helps not only the sick person, but everyone else with the same disease. In this case, however, we all have the same disease. While an illness like AIDS or cancer may affect millions of people, the disease of ignorance and self-absorption affects us all. To be given a healing remedy from the omniscient physician and not even try it—not even give it a good one or two years—is not just folly, it is raving folly, wretched and contemptible.
2.57
If along a small and ordinary cliff
I need to pick my way with special care,
What need to speak of the immense crevasse
That plunges down, unnumbered fathoms deep?
This immense crevasse refers to the samsaric mindset of continually seeking comfort and trying to avoid pain. Shantideva asks why, if we’re so attentive walking along a small and ordinary cliff, we aren’t at least that heedful about the dangerous crevasse of samsara? For endless lifetimes, we’ve been falling into this crevasse. Let’s finally get smart and not fall in anymore. And should we stumble now and then, let’s catch ourselves and climb back out. That’s the message.
2.58
“Today, at least, I shall not die,”
So rash to lull myself with words like these!
My dissolution and my hour of death
Will come upon me ineluctably.
2.59
So why am I so unafraid,
For what escape is there for me?
Death, my death will certainly come round,
So how can I relax in careless ease?
Whether we practice or not, death will come, So how can I relax in careless ease? In fact, we can relax if we regularly apply the four powers of confession. By reviewing what has gone before and bringing everything into the light, we will be able to relax and let go at the time of our deaths. Having looked honestly at the past and present, we can die with a clear conscience.
2.60
Of life’s experience, all seasons past,
What’s left to me, what now remains?
By clinging to what now is here no more,
My teacher’s precepts I have disobeyed.
Even though we can’t possibly hold on to anything, clinging remains one of our strongest habits. Useless though it may be, we devote much of our energy to grasping at that which is elusive and impermanent.
In this present moment, there is nothing left of the past but memories. Our nostalgia for the good times, our fear of the bad times: that’s all that’s really left. Instead of getting hooked further by nostalgia and fear, we can simply acknowledge these tendencies and question the intelligence of continuing to harm ourselves for the sake of such transient concerns.
2.61
This span of life and all that it contains,
My kith and kin are all to be abandoned!
I must leave them, setting out alone,
What grounds are there for telling friend from foe?
What are our criteria for telling friend from foe? A friend might be the cause of emotional upheavals and negative habits, while a so-called foe might profit us immensely. It’s often when someone hurts us that we have a breakthrough in understanding. The teachings often penetrate when things fall apart. “Friend” and “enemy” are common concepts; but it’s hard to say who will help or hinder the process of awakening.
2.62
And therefore how can I make sure
To rid myself of evil, only cause of sorrow?
This should be my one concern,
My only thought both night and day.
2.63
Therefore, all the sins I have committed,
Blinded in the dark of ignorance:
Actions evil by their nature
Or the faults of broken vows,
2.64
Mindful of the suffering to come,
I join my palms and ceaselessly prostrate,
And all my evils I will now confess
Directly in the presence of the buddhas.
2.65
I pray you, guides and guardians of the world,
To take me as I am, a sinful man.
And all these actions, evil as they are,
I promise I will never do again.
Shantideva ends with a summary of the four powers of confession and a passionate vow to free himself from the causes of sorrow.
It’s extremely difficult to resist the seduction of habits, even knowing how unsatisfying the end results will be. We persist in the same old patterns, which illogically hold out the promise of comfort. To rid ourselves of inevitable suffering, it’s crucial to acknowledge on the spot how we repeatedly get hooked. Dzigar Kongtrul calls this process developing “heartbreak with samsara.” Trungpa Rinpoche refers to it as “nausea with samsara”: nausea with the tendency to act on unwise impulses, over and over again.
This is a tricky practice for Westerners. We tend to regard our shortcomings as proof not of our humanity but of our unworthiness. The four powers of confession, however, place emphasis on pragmatic intelligence. We face the facts compassionately and get smart about promoting our best interests.
Being mindful of the suffering to come provides strong motivation to resist the undertow of harmful urges. In chapters 5 and 6, Shantideva will give detailed instructions for working creatively with the seduction of old habits. But first, we have to intelligently and compassionately acknowledge that we’re hooked.
So, in the presence of the guides and guardians of the world, Shantideva holds back nothing. Relying on the inspiration of awakened mind, he presents an unabridged version of his previous deeds and says Take me as I am. Having fully acknowledged past and present actions, he wholeheartedly aspires never again to be deceived by the false promises of addictions and rote responses. By cleaning the slate, he creates the opportunity for his basic sanity to emerge.
Transcending Hesitation
Commitment
CHAPTER 3 OF The Way of the Bodhisattva is the final chapter on preparing the ground for bodhichitta. Here Shantideva concludes his presentation of the sevenfold offerings with the final four practices: rejoicing, requesting the teachers to present the dharma, asking them to remain with us, and dedicating the merit.
Rejoicing in the good fortune of others is a practice that can help us when we feel emotionally shut down and unable to connect with others.
Rejoicing generates good will. The next time you go out in the world, you might try this practice: directing your attention to people—in their cars, on the sidewalk, talking on their cell phones—just wish for them all to be happy and well. Without knowing anything about them, they can become very real, by regarding each of them personally and rejoicing in the comforts and pleasures that come their way. Each of us has this soft spot: a capacity for love and tenderness. But if we don’t encourage it, we can get pretty stubborn about remaining sour.
I have a friend who, when he begins getting depressed and withdrawn, goes to a nearby park and does this practice for everyone who walks by. He finds this pulls him out of the slump
before it’s too late. The tricky part is getting out of the house, instead of giving in to the seduction of gloom.
When you begin the practice of rejoicing in others’ good fortune, you can expect to encounter your soft spot—as well as your competitiveness and envy. Sitting on a park bench feeling warmth for strangers is relatively easy to do; but when good fortune comes to those we know better, especially those we dislike, it can give us an up-close look at our jealousy.
This has certainly been the case for me. Until I began to practice rejoicing, I wasn’t aware of how much envy I had. I remember hearing that a colleague’s book was rapidly becoming a best seller, and being pained that my first reaction was resentment. Likewise, when I practice generosity, I see my holding back more vividly than ever before. By practicing patience my anger is harder to deny. For someone on the spiritual path, seeing this can be embarrassing.
Who would have thought that the practice of rejoicing would be a setup for seeing our neurosis? Our usual response would be to feel that we’ve blown it; but for aspiring bodhisattvas this isn’t the case. Because our intention is to wake up so we can help others do the same, we rejoice as much in seeing where we’re stuck as we rejoice in our loving-kindness.
This is the only way for true compassion to emerge: this is our opportunity to understand what others are up against. Like us, they aspire to open up, only to see themselves close down; like us, they have the capacity for joy, and out of ignorance they block it. For their sake and ours, we can let the story lines go and stay present with an open heart, and we can rejoice that we’re even interested in such a fresh alternative.
3.1
With joy I celebrate
The virtue that relieves all beings
From the sorrows of the states of loss,
And places those who languish in the realms of bliss.
To introduce the practice of rejoicing, Shantideva expresses his happiness that beings can move from lower to higher realms. According to tradition, beings in samsara are born into six different realms. The three lower realms are the states of loss referred to in verse 1. They are characterized by suffering so intense that, even though it’s dreamlike and impermanent, it seems eternal and inescapable. The realms of bliss refer to the three higher states, including the human realm. Here one has less suffering and therefore a far greater chance of freeing oneself from samsara.
Whether we believe these realms exist as actual places or simply as psychological states is not the point. Either way, it is our state of mind that determines whether we live in misery or bliss. Fortunately we have an inborn ability to free ourselves from confusion. It is this ever-present possibility of freedom that Shantideva rejoices in here.
We might wonder about this virtue that allows us to move from greater to lesser suffering. According to the Buddhist teachings, this shift occurs once we understand karma. When we fully accept that the actions of our body, speech, and mind have pleasant or unpleasant consequences, we’re motivated to act, speak, and think in ways that benefit rather than harm us.
I have a Buddhist friend who’s an inmate at San Quentin Prison in California. One day he was being harassed by a guard, but he did not retaliate. The other men saw this and asked him how he kept his cool. He told them that if he made the guard madder, he might go home and beat his children. This is the kind of virtuous and compassionate understanding Shantideva refers to in his opening stanza.
3.2
And I rejoice in virtue that creates the cause
Of gaining the enlightened state,
And celebrate the freedom won
By living beings from the round of pain.
3.3
And in the buddhahood of the protectors I delight
And in the stages of the buddhas’ offspring.
Shantideva rejoices in the possibility of gaining the enlightened state. In verse 2, this refers to the arhats and their experience of personal liberation. What joy, that beings can release themselves from the round of pain. Freedom is possible and we have role models to prove it. If they can do it, so can we. He rejoices in the arhats and in our own enlightened potential.
In verse 3, he delights in the full buddhahood of the protectors, as well as the partial enlightenment of bodhisattvas. How marvelous that they attain liberation for the benefit of themselves and others.
3.4
The intention, ocean of great good,
That seeks to place all beings in the state of bliss,
And every action for the benefit of all:
Such is my delight and all my joy.
The ocean of great good refers to aspiration bodhichitta. Once the intention to awaken for the benefit of others becomes our guiding principle, even emotional upheavals won’t lead us astray. People who are clear about their commitment become like mountains, remaining steady even when the weather gets wild. It is important to keep this in mind, and not to think we can’t go forward until the storms completely subside.
Shantideva rejoices in those who long to place all beings in the state of bliss and in those of us who even glimpse such an expansive aspiration and commit to training our minds. Likewise he rejoices in those actively engaged in relieving suffering for the benefit of all.
Now the reference to all beings may sound unreasonably vast; but really it’s just a way of looking out at the world to see if there’s anyone we detest, anyone we fear or can’t stop resenting. To include all beings seriously challenges our usual tendency to choose whom we like and dislike, whom we wish to see prosper or fail. These old habits die hard. So, while holding the intention to benefit all beings excluding none, we take it one step at a time.
I read a series of articles about a woman whose main practice was to stop hating political leaders. By day thirty-five, she reported “not doing too good but still not caving in.” That’s definitely the bodhisattva spirit. Allow ample time for change to occur, so you don’t lose heart just because the process goes slowly.
The practice of rejoicing overcomes jealousy and competitiveness. This is accomplished by heightening our unbiased awareness of those very qualities we wish to deny.
3.5
And so I join my hands and pray
The buddhas who reside in every quarter:
Kindle now the Dharma’s light
For those who grope, bewildered, in the dark of suffering!
Here Shantideva presents the fifth of the sevenfold offerings: the practice of requesting teachers to clarify our understanding of the dharma. Asking the wise to illuminate our confusion overcomes “wrong views,” such as believing that people are basically bad or that karma is a punishment bestowed on us by outer forces.
3.6
I join my hands, beseeching the enlightened ones
Who wish to pass beyond the bonds of sorrow:
Do not leave us in our ignorance;
Remain among us for unnumbered ages!
In verse 6, Shantideva introduces the sixth practice: asking the teachers to stay with us and not dwell permanently in nirvana. Without these examples of wisdom, it is difficult to connect with our own potential.
Wisdom and compassion are always accessible to us. Yet, without some example of what’s possible, we rarely tap into our inner strength. Great teachers often provide our first glimpses of the expansiveness of our mind. If they remain with us, we have living examples to remind us of our wisdom. Thus tradition says this practice overcomes the fear of remaining in ignorance and confusion forever.
3.7
And through these actions now performed,
By all the virtue I have just amassed,
May all the pain of every living being
Be wholly scattered and destroyed!
Here Shantideva presents the final practice: the practice of dedicating our merit. This practice overcom
es self-absorption. Instead of hoarding our good fortunes, we give it all away—to specific people or to sentient beings everywhere. We do this with the aspiration that their pain be wholly scattered and destroyed.
The word merit is problematic for some Western Buddhists. To say that doing virtuous acts will make everything go smoothly for us in the future just isn’t that convincing for some of us. Some may find Trungpa Rinpoche’s ultimate view more accessible. Accumulating merit, he says, depends on letting go of our possessiveness altogether. This can’t be done with a business-deal mentality; it’s not like putting money into a savings account for our retirement years. Merit can only be accumulated by letting go.
From this point of view, sharing the merit means surrendering completely, with an attitude of letting whatever happens happen: if it’s better for me to have pleasure, let me have pleasure; if it’s better to have pain, let me have pain. We aren’t collecting anything for ego to hold on to; it’s quite the opposite.
In verses 8, 9, and 10, merit is dedicated with specific intentions. First, Shantideva dedicates his merit to the sick. If someone you love is ill and suffering greatly, for example, you’re willing to give away all that you hold dear, with the aspiration that they benefit from your sacrifice. You could express this intention in words similar to Shantideva’s.
3.8
For all those ailing in the world,
Until their every sickness has been healed,
May I myself become for them
The doctor, nurse, the medicine itself.
3.9
Raining down a flood of food and drink,
May I dispel the ills of thirst and famine.
And in the ages marked by scarcity and want,
May I myself appear as drink and sustenance.
In verse 8, he gives three examples of how a bodhisattva might manifest: as a doctor, a nurse, and as medicine itself. His aspiration is not only to help people who are physically ill, but also to help those suffering from the sicknesses of craving, aggression, and ignorance. Thus he longs to help with material things such as medicine, food, and drink, and to bring benefit at the deeper level of spiritual nourishment. The main point is to not hold back for fear of ending up with nothing yourself.
