The New Eight Steps to Happiness. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

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      The Pre-Eminent Qualities of

      These Instructions

      Since Eight Verses of Training the Mind comes from the wisdom of a fully enlightened being, it is a blessed instruction and very precious. To develop deep appreciation of its value I will explain some of its benefits. In general, by putting this instruction into practice we will experience both temporary and ultimate happiness. This is because through this practice we can eliminate the ignorant mind of self-cherishing and self-grasping, the root of all suffering and problems.

      Especially, this teaching shows us how to transform adverse conditions into the spiritual path, through which we will experience pure and everlasting happiness. From the point of view of spiritual development this present time is extremely degenerate, with many conditions hindering spiritual progress. However, by putting these instructions into practice we can make use of all these adversities and transform them into opportunities for spiritual growth.

      The minds of human beings today are less pure than they were in the past, and delusions and wrong views are more prevalent. Because human beings in the past had purer minds it was relatively easy for them to see pure beings such as Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, but nowadays it is difficult for people even to believe in the existence of holy beings. In the past people were less prone to distracting thoughts, and so it was easier for them to attain tranquil abiding and other advanced levels of meditative concentration. With the mind of tranquil abiding they could achieve various types of clairvoyance, such as the ability to see forms beyond the scope of ordinary vision or to hear subtle and distant sounds. Many gained the power to know the minds of others, or to look into past and future lives; and miracle powers, such as the ability to fly in the sky or emanate various forms, were quite common. In addition to these mundane attainments, countless people achieved liberation and full enlightenment.

      Gradually these attainments became less and less common. These days very few people can see Buddhas directly, and it has become extremely difficult to attain tranquil abiding, clairvoyance and other spiritual realizations. This is a clear indication that we are living in spiritually degenerate times. Not only is it more difficult to gain spiritual realizations but we also experience many difficulties and dangers that did not exist before. The political situation in the world is now very unstable, and with the proliferation of increasingly destructive weapons human life is more precarious than ever. Despite the advances of modern medicine, new diseases are appearing and old ones are returning. Every year more and more people die as a direct or indirect result of environmental pollution, and even the conditions that we generally regard as helpful, such as cars, electricity or medicine, are potential causes of untimely death.

      People in the past generally had a more spiritual outlook, but nowadays the worldview of most people is increasingly gross and materialistic. It is very difficult to find people who hold pure and correct views; nearly everyone harbors views that are incompatible with spiritual development. Some people have a natural inclination toward wrong views, while others pick them up from their family or close friends or in the course of their education. Very few people manage to escape the influence of wrong views completely.

      Our delusions are now very strong and difficult to control. We have so little inner peace that it is rare to enjoy a peaceful mind even for just a few hours. If we check our mind we will see that we are living in a state of almost constant discomfort and anxiety. As soon as we stop worrying about one thing, something else starts to bother us. Our delusions give us no rest. We have uncomfortable minds and experience very little real happiness. Our lives nowadays are extremely busy and complicated, filled with an ever-increasing variety of distractions. Even when we have the time to relax we tend to switch on the television or radio and are subjected to a multitude of ever-changing images and sounds. We are so used to being stimulated from the outside that we find it difficult to be quiet and enjoy the stillness of our own mind. Our attention span is decreasing all the time, and it is becoming more and more difficult to concentrate on internal development, such as cultivating pure views and pure intentions.

      Our world is becoming increasingly dangerous and polluted, while internally our minds are becoming rougher and more uncontrolled. Although such conditions make conventional spiritual practice very difficult, if we practice the instructions contained within Eight Verses we can transform all these adversities into the path to enlightenment and live happily in the midst of this impure world. Rather than being an obstacle to our spiritual progress, the impurities of this present age can become fuel for our spiritual practice. Without practicing these teachings I think it is now very difficult to find true peace and happiness.

      Atisha’s Teacher, Dharmarakshita, compared samsara to a forest of poisonous plants, because we are constantly surrounded by attractive and unattractive objects that stimulate the mental poisons of attachment and anger. He compared those who are unable to transform their adversities into the spiritual path to crows, which cannot eat poisonous plants. Practitioners of training the mind, however, are like peacocks, which are said to thrive on plants that are poisonous to other birds, because they can transform both attractive and unattractive objects into the spiritual path. They are able to enjoy attractive objects without developing attachment, and they can happily accept unattractive objects, such as sickness and other adverse conditions, without becoming angry or discouraged. Whatever circumstances arise, practitioners of training the mind can enjoy and make good use of them. Since in these degenerate times we are constantly surrounded by objects of attachment and aversion, we definitely need to learn how to transform them into the spiritual path by training our mind.

      Through practicing Langri Tangpa’s Lojong, or mind training, teachings we have a wonderful opportunity to find true inner peace by destroying our self-grasping and self-cherishing, the main causes of all our suffering. This is very difficult to achieve through any other method. For this reason, at the beginning of Training the Mind in Seven Points, a commentary to Eight Verses, Geshe Chekhawa compares the instructions of training the mind to a diamond, to the sun and to a medicinal tree. They are like a diamond because just as a small fragment of a diamond is valuable, so putting even a small part of the instructions of training the mind into practice has great power to change our mind from unhappiness to happiness. They are like the sun because just as the first few rays of the rising sun lighten the early morning darkness, so even superficial experience of a part of these teachings reduces the inner darkness of our ignorance; and just as full sunlight completely dispels all darkness, so deep experience of the entire practice of training the mind overcomes our ignorance completely. They are like a medicinal tree because just as every part of a medicinal tree has curative properties, so every part of these teachings has the power to cure the internal disease of our delusions.

      I could continue for many more pages to explain the good qualities of these teachings, but the only way that you will be able to appreciate them fully is by putting them into practice and experiencing their benefits for yourself. As Geshe Chekhawa says, “The meaning of this text should be known,” by which he means that it is only by understanding the meaning of these instructions and putting them into practice that we will come to appreciate all their excellent qualities. For example, a salesperson might try to persuade us of the excellence of СКАЧАТЬ