Wishing everyone Losar Tashi Delek, a happy Tibetan New Year of the Female Wood Snake, we began our practice with the usual opening chants and śamatha meditation. After this, Acharya Lhakpa Tshering offered commentary on the thirteenth and fourteenth verse of Ngulchu Tokmé’s 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva. What to do when someone harms or says unpleasant things about you?
Formal Meditation: Entering Noble Silence
During our practice of śamatha, it is important to pay attention to our posture of body, speech, and mind. Sitting firmly grounded yet relaxed, we turn inward and are simply aware of what appears to our minds, without any evaluation or judgement.
For the posture of speech, it is said that we can think of formal meditation as entering a space of noble silence. We step away from the usual daily activity and, for a moment, don’t speak or use words at all.
Sitting in this physical posture and space of noble silence, we connect with the heart of awakening, bodhicitta: seeking genuine freedom, well-being, happiness, and the state of buddhahood for the benefit of everyone.
Keeping Our Big Vision in Mind
Beginning the discussion of our root text, Acharya Lhakpa mentioned that Gyelse Tokmé Zangpo’s 37 Practices condenses the practice of the Mahāyāna. In short, we set out on this heroic path of a bodhisattva with the intention to achieve enlightenment in order to free all sentient beings from the confusion of samsara.
With this big vision or dream in mind, we pursue it till its completion. What does this mean for our practice? In what ways can we approach our experiences as a path? The thirteenth and fourteenth verse each point to a particular aspect of our lives and how to take that as part of our journey. The first of these reads as follows:
“Should someone sever my head
Even though I did not do the slightest wrong
Through the power of compassion, to take on
Their negativity for myself is the practice of a bodhisattva.”
(Quoted from A Guide to the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva, translated by Christopher Stagg)
Turning Suffering into Path
Without a doubt, the world we live in and experience on a daily basis includes all kinds of difficulties and people harming us. Acharya Lhakpa joked that if one of us would find a peaceful place to practice the dharma without such situations, to please send him an email or let him know!
Although the root verse speaks about one particular form of great suffering — our own death — it is really about the way we can utilize hardships and pain in such a way that they become the causes and conditions for attaining enlightenment. It is not so much about someone actually cutting off our head but more about what we should do in response to any kind of harm, great or small, that is inflicted upon us. Ngulchu Tokmé writes that the path of a bodhisattva is to take on their negativity in return through the power of compassion.
How (and why) should we do this? Acharya Lhakpa explained that the person who inflicts any degree of harm on us is simply overpowered or controlled by mental afflictions like attachment, aversion, or ignorance. Furthermore, living in an interdependent world since beginningless time, he/she/they surely have benefited us at some point. Yet, above all, we have committed ourselves to seek enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. This aspiration includes anyone who might harm us. Instead of harming this person in return, we generate compassion and give rise to bodhicitta.
Taking Small Steps in Everyday Life
Acharya Lhakpa further commented that we may not be able to respond to suffering with compassion and give rise to the heart of awakening right away. However, we can at least begin by reflecting on our actions and learn how to work with suffering on our paths. If we are not able to do so and continue this downward movement of nonvirtuous activity due to our mental afflictions, we will never find a place that is in harmony with practicing the dharma and fulfilling our dreams.
Having the understanding that nonvirtuous activity is due to mental afflictions, and the person who harms us accumulates negative karma as a consequence of that, we engage in the practice of tonglen (“giving and taking”). This means that we take on his/her/their negative karma and give the virtue we have accumulated ourselves in return. This is something we can practice in everyday life, in small steps. For example, Acharya said, when someone cuts the line at the grocery store, instead of reacting negatively, we can just let it go.
Taking Unpleasant Words Onto the Path
The fourteenth verse follows the same way of thinking:
“Even if some should proclaim unpleasant things
About me throughout the three-thousand-fold universe,
With a mind of loving-kindness, to speak of their qualities
In return is the practice of a bodhisattva.”
Our resident teacher shared that he thought this verse is particularly helpful in our twenty-first century, especially when thinking about how fast news spreads these days. Whether someone says something about ourselves, our close ones, our country, or whatever it may be that we experience as unpleasant, we don’t act (or react) negatively in return nor do we hold onto such incidents. Basically, this verse teaches us to take anything we feel as being unpleasant onto the path.
Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche’s Pith Instruction
Usually, we very much like hearing pleasant words or praise, and we easily get upset when people say unpleasant things or blame us. Acharya Lhakpa shared that he had the great fortune once to receive a pith instruction from Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, the teacher of his own teacher, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, that relates to this. “Khenpo Rinpche gave this pith instruction to me, and it is still very vividly present in my mind and very, very beneficial for me. I hope it will bring the same magnitude of benefit to all of you.”
In short, Khenpo Rinpoche instructed not to get attached to the good things people say about us nor to hold onto any negative comments.. These are just a play of their thoughts. Praise or blame follow from people’s conceptual thinking. Those, in turn, are driven by the mental afflictions. So, if someone praises or blames you for something, it merely shows their mental constructs and afflictive emotions.
Furthermore, we know from our own experience that these remarks are not trustworthy or stable whatsoever. A person might have a positive thought and praise you in the morning, and have a negative thought and blame you the very same evening. Thus, there is no point in getting attached to either one.
When Things Go Viral
Ngulchu Tokmé writes in this verse that we should practice loving-kindness, “even if some should proclaim unpleasant things about me throughout the three-thousand-fold universe [Acharya’s emphasis].” This, Acharya Lhakpa commented, must be something greatly unpleasant. He likened this to someone expressing something negative about you and it going viral, the words finding their way to all corners of the world.
Instead of reacting negatively out of pride, which would become an obstacle for fulfilling our dream of attaining enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, we say positive and good things about that person in return. This will help to break or tear down our pride and thus bring us closer to attaining our goal. “Pride is one of the obstacles to attaining complete enlightenment. There is no enlightenment if there is pride. Therefore, to attain our goal, we should be free from any pride.”
The pith instruction given here by Ngulchu Tokmé and mirrored in the words of Khenpo Rinpoche is that of letting go of our attachment to pleasant things and aversion to unpleasant things. Acharya Lhakpa summed it up by saying:
“If our dream is to attain the state of omniscience, if that is what we are truly seeking to achieve, we need to let go of our attachments and not be affected by any negativity. By clearing away these obstacles, we will attain the state of omniscience.”
To conclude, Acharya Lhakpa emphasized not to get lost in the words and examples of extreme violence or unpleasant things mentioned in the text.
“Please try to get the message or instruction given here and how to apply that in our path. We don’t have to apply all that is taught but take one stance or word that is useful in everyday life. If this gives you the message, I think that will be okay.”
Following those words, we dedicated the merit and Acharya Lhakpa wished everyone a wonderful day, afternoon, or night, and warmly invited everyone to join again next Sunday.
