The Power of Compassion: A Collection of Lectures

Some of my close friends have high blood pressure, yet they never come near to having crises in their health and they never feel tired. Over the years I have met some very good practitioners. Meanwhile, there are other friends who have great material comfort yet, when we start to talk, after the initial few nice words, they begin to complain and grieve. In spite of their material prosperity, these people do not have calm or peaceful minds. As a result, they are always worrying about their digestion, their sleep, everything! Therefore it is clear that mental calmness is a very important factor for good health. If you want good health, don’t ask a doctor, look within yourself. Try to utilize some of your potential. This even costs less!

The second source of happiness is material facilities. Sometimes when I wake up in the early morning, if my mood is not very good, then when I look at my watch I feel uncomfortable because of my mood. Then on other days, due perhaps to the previous day’s experience, when I wake up my mood is pleasant and peaceful. At that time, when I look at my watch I see it as extraordinarily beautiful. Yet it is the same watch, isn’t it? The difference comes from my mental attitude. Whether our use of our material facilities provides genuine satisfaction or not depends on our mental attitude.

It is bad for our material facilities if our mind is dominated by anger. To speak again from my own experience, when I was young I sometimes repaired watches. I tried and failed many times. Sometimes I would lose my patience and hit the watch! During those moments, my anger altered my whole attitude and afterwards I felt very sorry for my actions. If my goal was to repair the watch, then why did I hit it on the table? Again you can see how one’s mental attitude is crucial in order to utilize material facilities for one’s genuine satisfaction or benefit.

The third source of happiness is our companions. It is obvious that when you are mentally calm you are honest and open-minded. I will give you an example. Perhaps 14 or 15 years ago, there was an Englishman named Phillips, who had a close relationship with the Chinese government, including with Chou En Lai and other leaders. He had known them for many years and he was close friends with the Chinese. One time, in 1977 or 1978, Phillips came to Dharamsala to see me. He brought some films with him and he told me about all the good aspects of China. At the beginning of our meeting there was a big disagreement between us, for we held completely different opinions. In his view, the presence of the Chinese in Tibet was something good. In my opinion, and according to many reports, the situation was not good. As usual, I had no particular negative feeling towards him. I just felt that he held these views due to ignorance. With openness, I continued our conversation. I argued that those Tibetans who had joined the Chinese Communist Party as early as 1930 and who had participated in the Sino-Japanese War and had welcomed the Chinese invasion and enthusiastically collaborated with the Chinese Communists did so because they believed that it was a golden opportunity to develop Tibet, from the viewpoint of Marxist ideology. These people had collaborated with the Chinese out of genuine hope. Then around 1956 or 1957 most of them were dismissed from the various Chinese offices, some were imprisoned and others disappeared. Thus I explained that we are not anti-Chinese or anti-Communist. In fact, I sometimes think of myself as a half-Marxist, half-Buddhist. I explained all these different things to him with sincere motivation and openness and after some time his attitude completely changed. This instance gives me some confirmation that even if there is a big difference of opinion, you can communicate on a human level. You can put aside these different opinions and communicate as human beings. I think that is one way to create positive feelings in other people’s minds.