Becoming Enlightened

by Dalai Lama XIV

Among the many religions that assert a Creator God there are some followers who say that Buddhism is not a religion because it does not accept a God that created the world. Some of my Islamic friends, for instance, have told me that much of the advice found in Buddhism is very beneficial to people, including Muslims, but that many Muslims do not consider Buddhism to be a religion. Similarly, some strict Christians say that because Buddhists do not accept the existence a permanent self-arisen being, they are nihilists.

Since we seek Buddhahood in order to be of greatest service to others, we must identify what is needed to achieve it—an altruistic intention to become enlightened, strong enough to cherish others more than yourself. Therefore, all Buddha’s teachings are either directly or indirectly concerned with engendering this altruistic attitude, and increasing its force: they feed into it.

Buddhists assert that the self always has been reborn and is set up in dependence upon the mind-body complex for a given lifetime. This self, person, or “I” is mainly based on an individual continuum of consciousness. A particular human being is set up, or designated, in dependence upon a human mind-body complex, the core of which is a human continuum of consciousness.

To avoid taking rebirth in such dire situations and to attain rebirth in a more favorable situation we must engage in a moral practice that avoids the ten nonvirtues mentioned above: the three principal physical nonvirtues—killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct; the four principal verbal nonvirtues—lying, divisive talk, harsh speech, and senseless chatter; the three principal mental nonvirtues—covetousness, harmful intent, and wrong views.

there are two types of valid experience: higher and lower. Those on a high level of spiritual experience have, for example, trained in the altruistic intention to become enlightened to such a point that their wish to attain Buddhahood for the sake of others is genuine, without any contrivance; they also have realized emptiness with incontrovertible inference or even with direct perception; and they have developed meditative concentration to the point of becoming clairvoyant and generating miracles. We, however, being on a lower level, do not now have these qualities. Still, we could have a keen interest in the practice of love and compassion that effectively buoy our outlook when we become depressed or deflate us in situations when we become proud. Even this lower level of attainment can be amazingly beneficial.

Many Buddhists meditate on special gods of wealth to try to get rich, medicine gods to improve their health, gods of long life to achieve longevity, and fierce gods for power, but altruism is the most effective tool for attaining all these things. Altruism puts your mind at ease. If your mind is at ease you will live longer, your body will be healthy, sickness and disease will diminish, and you will have many friends without having to resort to trickery or force. Altruism built on love and compassion is the avenue to all these benefits. This is the beauty of Buddhism. But if you leave your afflictive emotions as they are, then even if you imagine a god of long life to your right, a god of wealth to your left, and a god of medicine in front of you, and you recite a mantra a billion times, still you will find it hard to achieve anything.

Buddhists hold that liberation is a quality of mind, a mental state free from the bondage of painful emotions and karmas (actions) driven by them.

If suffering were created by a permanent cause, there would be no way to overcome it, since a permanent cause would not be subject to change. Fortunately, suffering is a dependent-arising, produced in dependence upon impermanent causes and conditions. Because the causes themselves are in a process of change, the suffering produced by them is subject to alteration. This is why Buddha taught that if the causes are mutable, their effects are also mutable.

the second noble truth, Buddha points out that starting with a defective attitude about self leads to other destructive emotions—mainly lust and hatred. These, in turn, motivate counterproductive actions, producing suffering. It is all a matter of cause and effect.

Whether you believe in religion or not, it is important to identify these destructive tendencies for what they are. Poison needs to be recognized as poison. If you do not see them clearly, you might view these outbursts as just a natural part of living, rather than signs that you are trapped in counterproductive behavior. They are simply harmful to both yourself and others. The fact is that suffering from mental and physical pain, change, or pervasive conditioning arises when we fall under the influence of misconceptions about the nature of people and other phenomena. This is the message of the second noble truth, the truth about the origins of pain.

If you do not eliminate the bias of being attached to some and being hostile to others, any love or compassion you generate will be biased.

Even if I have to do it alone, I will free all sentient beings from suffering and the causes of suffering, and connect all sentient beings with happiness and its causes.

Now that you have a strong resolve to help others, when you analyze whether you have the capacity to actually help others, you realize that in order to be effective you must attain your own perfection in body, speech, and mind. This is accomplished by achieving the enlightenment of a Buddha so that you can thoroughly know others’ dispositions and also know what techniques to teach them. You must become enlightened in order to most effectively benefit others. When this double aspiration (to help others and to attain your own enlightenment in order to be of highest service) becomes as strong outside of meditation as it is in meditation, you have generated the altruistic intention to become enlightened, and have become a Bodhisattva (a hero intending to achieve enlightenment).

appreciation and valuing do not necessarily depend on the motivation to help.

Enemies are particularly valuable for cultivating love and compassion because anger destroys love and compassion, and the antidote to anger is patience, which can be practiced only toward someone harming you. Since enemies provide a valuable opportunity for practicing such forbearance and tolerance, they are very valuable, even kind.

Unlike a doctor who brings pain in order to help, an enemy harms you intentionally; this is how an enemy provides a chance to cultivate patience. THERE IS NO GOOD REASON FOR BEING EGOCENTRIC

All pleasures, small or great, arise from virtuous actions, and all pains, great or small, arise from nonvirtuous actions.

12. If aging happened all at once, it would be intolerable.

A beautiful internal attitude is more important than external beauty. Only you can make your mind beautiful.

This person wants happiness but is deprived. How nice it would be if she or he could be imbued with happiness and all of its causes! —This person wants happiness but is deprived. May she or he be imbued with happiness and all its causes. —This person wants happiness but is deprived. I will do what ever I can to help her or him to be imbued with happiness and all the causes of happiness!