Giving up the eight worldly dharmas – Lama Zopa Rinpoche

The highly realized pandit and Madhyamaka philosopher Nagarjuna, who restored the sutra and tantra teachings of the Mahayana and caused them to prevail extensively in India when they had degenerated, said, “It’s better not to have the itching than to have the pleasure of scratching.”

In the example, he’s saying that if you don’t itch, you won’t scratch and damage your skin. What he means is that it’s better not to desire worldly objects than to have them.

The point is that if your mind is free of desire, you don’t have any problem with objects, such as the attachment that arises when you contact an object of desire. Conflict arises because there’s desire in your mind. If there’s no desire in your mind, there’s no way for problems to arise when you encounter an object.

Therefore, when I talk about giving up the eight worldly dharmas, I don’t mean you have to make the eight types of object nonexistent. Abandoning the eight worldly dharmas means abandoning the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas. If you abandon the thought of the eight worldly dharmas, you’ll have no problem with any object: when you experience pleasure, no problem; when the pleasure decreases, again, no problem; when somebody praises you, no attachment to that praise; if you’re surrounded by all kinds of material objects, no problem of craving or conflict in your mind.

Those who abandon the eight worldly dharmas never suffer from attachment. Even if the great yogi Milarepa, for example, was offered every material object in the world, he would never experience the kinds of problem that ordinary people would in that situation. His mind would never change. The minds of beings like Milarepa are always in a state of happiness and peace that cannot be destroyed by external conditions.

When people like us are happy—whether it’s for an hour or a day—it always changes, it never lasts. This is because our happiness arises from the situation, not from mental control. For example, if we meet someone who praises and compliments us, our mind feels uplifted and happy. But later, if that person blames or criticizes us, our mind suffers. This is because we have no mental control; our happiness and suffering derive from the situation we’re in. Our minds’ power is limited, so our happiness never lasts.
The happiness of pure practitioners like Milarepa is completely different. Their happiness arises from mental control, and their fundamental practice is abandoning and controlling the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas. This is their root, most basic practice. Since their happiness arises from mental control, instead of changing into suffering, their mental peace develops more and more, gets higher and higher. And it all start with their abandoning the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas; this is their very first practice—the practice that makes them pure practitioners.

As this is what they did, we should do the same. As long as we spend our lives following the evil thought of the eight worldly dharmas, our life is not a pure Dharma life; we are not Dharma practitioners. The definition is made according to practice.
People all over the world are meditating without understanding what real Dharma actually is. So even though they do all that meditation, their lives are wasted. Why is it not Dharma even though they spend most of their time in meditation? It’s because they don’t have a real understanding of the nature of suffering, of what suffering and its cause actually are; they don’t know the difference between positive and negative actions. Their minds are not aware of these subjects, which are actually the most important things for those seeking ultimate peace to discover. They think that simply meditating, just sitting in some position, is a good action, that it brings peace, but in fact it’s the opposite.

Why do people who meditate without the wisdom understanding these important subjects waste their time and life? It’s because most of their daily life—even the meditation they do, which they think is the cause of ultimate peace—is servant to the eight worldly dharmas.

When moths see a candle flame, they think it’s a good place to go. They don’t think that it will burn their body; they have no fear. If they were afraid, they wouldn’t so purposefully fly right into it. The more you try to stop them, the harder they try to enter the flame. This shows the nature of the animal mind. Anyway, when those moths fly into the flame they’re expecting only peace and happiness. They have no desire to suffer; they don’t plan on getting burnt. So why do they go there? It’s because they have no fear. Their lack of fear is due to their lack of understanding that if they go there they will suffer. What happens is the complete opposite to what those ignorant creatures think will happen—they get burnt; they die.

It’s very important to understand why they force themselves to experience this suffering, what makes them do it. This is the real science; this is the best way of studying science.

Why do the moths intentionally fly into the flame? Why do they try their hardest to get into it as quickly as possible? It’s because of their own ignorance—the mental obscuration that prevents them from discovering the actual nature of the situation: that the fire is hot and will burn them. Their ignorance makes them perceive the situation differently from the fact of it. Some people might think that moths are happy to be in there, but they’re not. If they knew what was going to happen they would avoid it at all costs.

Kopan Monastery, 22 November 1973. Edited from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive by Nicholas Ribush. Reproduced courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive

What Buddhism's About – Lama Yeshe

Some people think they know all about Buddhism and Buddhists just because they've read a couple of books. They pick one up, "Hmm. Let's see what this book says. Well, according to this it seems that Buddhists are really extreme. They believe in all sorts of strange stuff." They pick up another: "My goodness, Buddhists are completely nihilistic." They draw all sorts of wrong conclusions based on extremely limited information; they don't see anything like the whole picture. This is very dangerous.

Perhaps they read something from the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy, which is known for its rigorous intellectual approach to the subject of emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality, and can be very difficult to understand. This can lead them to think, "Oh, Buddhists aren't religious; they're atheists. They don't believe anything; they think that nothing exists. How can they consider themselves religious?" This too can be very dangerous. Other people might conclude, "Wow! Buddhists believe in three Gods. They say Buddha is one God; Dharma is another; Sangha a third. They must be super-believers. That's too much. In the West, we've never heard of such a thing as three Gods; only one. We're religious, but we only have one God. We can't even agree with the Buddhists on how many Gods there are."

If you look at just one tiny aspect of Buddhism, of course it might appear too much for you. But Buddhism is not just about one or two small things; it is not some tiny philosophy. Lord Buddha explained the nature of every single phenomenon in the universe.
At this stage, I have had about nine or ten years' experience teaching Buddhist philosophy to Westerners and experimenting with how it fits their minds, mainly in the one-month meditation courses we hold each year at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. In these courses we try to explain everything, but I have found that if we talk too much about the negative side of things, students completely freak out. Not all of them, but many do. They say, "These lamas emphasize the negative too much. Why don't they talk more about the positive? Buddhism isn't only about delusion and suffering. Why do they teach us this negative stuff day after day?" But the thing about Buddhism is that before you can put yourself into the positive path to liberation, enlightenment or God--whatever you want to call it, the name doesn't matter--you have to know how your negative mind works.

If you don't understand how the two extreme negative views of overestimation and underestimation function within you, how can you correct your actions and put yourself into the right path? Therefore, it is crucial to know the negative aspects of your nature. Actually, if you comprehend the evolution of your negative mind from beginning to end, you'll feel very comfortable. Conversely, if you don't know how it works, you'll finish up thinking that negative actions are positive.

Moreover, if you try to practice the path to liberation without a solid grounding in what is positive and what is negative, a simple question from someone challenging what you are doing can completely derail you. You might get confused and give up. That's the sign of a weak mind. You have to see the totality of the evolution of both the negative and the positive mind. Some people assume that Buddhism is probably a nice religion that always talks diplomatically and sweetly about holy things. When we start teaching Buddhism to beginners, we don't begin by talking about holy things. The first thing we explain is the basic nature of your present mind--what's going on down here, right now--not Buddha up there.

Lama Yeshe gave this teaching at Melbourne University in April 1975. Edited from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive by Nicholas Ribush. Reproduced courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive