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      • Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition

        The FPMT is an organization devoted to preserving and spreading Mahayana Buddhism worldwide by creating opportunities to listen, reflect, meditate, practice and actualize the unmistaken teachings of the Buddha and based on that experience spreading the Dharma to sentient beings. We provide integrated education through which people’s minds and hearts can be transformed into their highest potential for the benefit of others, inspired by an attitude of universal responsibility and service. We are committed to creating harmonious environments and helping all beings develop their full potential of infinite wisdom and compassion. Our organization is based on the Buddhist tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa of Tibet as taught to us by our founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.

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      • Die Stiftung zur Erhaltung der Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) ist eine Organisation, die sich weltweit für die Erhaltung und Verbreitung des Mahayana-Buddhismus einsetzt, indem sie Möglichkeiten schafft, den makellosen Lehren des Buddha zuzuhören, über sie zur reflektieren und zu meditieren und auf der Grundlage dieser Erfahrung das Dharma unter den Lebewesen zu verbreiten.

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      • La Fundación para la preservación de la tradición Mahayana (FPMT) es una organización que se dedica a preservar y difundir el budismo Mahayana en todo el mundo, creando oportunidades para escuchar, reflexionar, meditar, practicar y actualizar las enseñanzas inconfundibles de Buda y en base a esa experiencia difundir el Dharma a los seres.

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      • L’FPMT è un organizzazione il cui scopo è preservare e diffondere il Buddhismo Mahayana nel mondo, creando occasioni di ascolto, riflessione, meditazione e pratica dei perfetti insegnamenti del Buddha, al fine di attualizzare e diffondere il Dharma fra tutti gli esseri senzienti.

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        “护持大乘法脉基金会”( 英文简称:FPMT。全名:Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition) 是一个致力于护持和弘扬大乘佛法的国际佛教组织。我们提供听闻,思维,禅修,修行和实证佛陀无误教法的机会,以便让一切众生都能够享受佛法的指引和滋润。

        我们全力创造和谐融洽的环境, 为人们提供解行并重的完整佛法教育,以便启发内在的环宇悲心及责任心,并开发内心所蕴藏的巨大潜能 — 无限的智慧与悲心 — 以便利益和服务一切有情。

        FPMT的创办人是图腾耶喜喇嘛和喇嘛梭巴仁波切。我们所修习的是由两位上师所教导的,西藏喀巴大师的佛法传承。

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        護持大乘法脈基金會”( 英文簡稱:FPMT。全名:Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition )是一個致力於護持和弘揚大乘佛法的國際佛教組織。我們提供聽聞,思維,禪修,修行和實證佛陀無誤教法的機會,以便讓一切眾生都能夠享受佛法的指引和滋潤。

        我們全力創造和諧融洽的環境,為人們提供解行並重的完整佛法教育,以便啟發內在的環宇悲心及責任心,並開發內心所蘊藏的巨大潛能 — 無限的智慧與悲心 –– 以便利益和服務一切有情。

        FPMT的創辦人是圖騰耶喜喇嘛和喇嘛梭巴仁波切。我們所修習的是由兩位上師所教導的,西藏喀巴大師的佛法傳承。

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Lama Yeshe's Wisdom
Mar
15
2022

Immeasurable Love and Immeasurable Equanimity

Read all posts in Lama Yeshe's Wisdom.
Link to Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive Image Gallery

Lama Yeshe with Lolly and Dieter Gewissler’s son, Madison, Wisc., US, 1977. Photo by Morgan Groves, courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

Lama Thubten Yeshe (1935–1984), who founded the FPMT organization with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, was able to translate Tibetan Buddhist teachings into clear ideas that resonated with the Western students he met and taught in the 1970s and ’80s. These teachings by Lama Yeshe continue to profoundly connect with students today. Here Lama Yeshe discusses two of the four immeasurables.

The four immeasurables are immeasurable equanimity, love, compassion and joy. I’ll talk about just a couple of these.

The meaning of immeasurable, or limitless, love is clear from the words themselves. Fundamentally, we all have love; even animals have love. But the problem with our normal human love is that it’s limited. We choose our love objects very selectively, whether they be other people or anything else. There are innumerable phenomena throughout the universe, but we choose just a few favorite objects to love. This kind of fanatical love is actually a problem. Normally, we say love is always good. Its positive side can be good, but its extreme, narrow side is not. One reason it’s a problem is that it gives us an extreme view of its object, where we exaggerate its good qualities. Another is that it gives rise to the symptoms of conflict that always arise from the dualistic mind. The inevitable reaction to fickle, narrow love is conflict and discomfort.

Take, for example, the Dharma student. When you first get into Buddhism, your love changes slightly in that it now becomes, “I love Buddhism; I love Dharma; I love Lama.” Then it develops further in this direction: “This is really good. Before, I was down, but Buddhism has brought me right back up. Now I’m happy.” Now you’ve really got a taste for Dharma. The problem is that every time you imprint, “This is good; this is good; this is good; Dharma good; meditation good,” instinctively there arises the mind that thinks that anything that is not Buddhism is unimportant. Especially when you start studying philosophy and learn that there are aspects of other religions’ philosophy that contradict what we believe in Buddhism, you start to put other religions down. You get to the point where you don’t even like to hear the words Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and so forth.

That means you’ve lost your love. Instead of making you more tolerant and free, what you’ve been calling love has become a cause of conflict. I’m talking about love from the religious point of view. When you say, “I love Dharma,” be careful that you don’t love too much.

The point is that you should be using Dharma to solve your own problems, not create more. That’s its only purpose. The function of Dharma is to become an antidote to your own problems. If your love of Dharma causes conflict in your mind, makes you more narrow and limits your communication such that you just want to ignore practitioners of other religions, your love’s your problem.

The way your love becomes limitless is not through blind religious faith. It’s not that someone tells you your objects of love are innumerable and you simply have to believe it. There’s clear logic behind it. Say there’s somebody whom you already love. Ask yourself why you love that person. Usually you’ll reply that it’s because that person’s kind to you. That reason applies equally to all other sentient beings, but you should know all this from having studied the lamrim, so I’m not going to go into any more detail here. This is one of the reasons why understanding of the lamrim is a prerequisite to taking tantric teachings.

But don’t take immeasurable love literally. Just because you love all sentient beings doesn’t mean you have to give people whatever they ask for or sleep with everybody. True, profound, universal love can be wrathful too. True love doesn’t have to come with a smile; it can come with a frown. Our problem is that we interpret love too superficially. If people frown at us we automatically assume they don’t like us.

One Tibetan yogi said, “Evil friends don’t necessarily look like scorpions.” What he meant was that sometimes the people who are nicest to us are the worst for us. Scorpions are clearly dangerous, and their very appearance makes us afraid. But a person who strokes us lovingly on the arm, gives us gifts and whispers lovingly in our ear can be more dangerous than a scorpion. Such a person might even appear to be kinder to us than Lord Buddha. He was incredibly kind, but he never stroked our arm, gave us gifts or whispered in our ear. The false friend might demonstrate such superficial loving actions, but in the end will cheat us and ruin not only this life but also many lives to come.

We often find problems between parents and children. Most parents instinctively love their children, no matter what the children do. But when the children fail or do stupid things, the parents get worried. Sometimes their emotions and frustration manifest unskillfully as anger and aggression, and the children think that parents really hate them. They don’t see the deep love behind the scolding. This is just another example where what’s on the surface belies what’s underneath.

I don’t need to say anything about immeasurable compassion and joy, but I will make a couple of points about immeasurable equanimity. …

If you develop equanimity towards all sentient beings, you release all mental agitation. If you are extremely neurotic, if your consciousness is not fundamentally even, you’ll find it impossible to direct your mind into single-pointed concentration. If you can’t do that, it’s very difficult to practice tantric yoga.

The extreme mind is a big problem. Lord Buddha had two brothers. One of them had unbelievable lust. He was always running after women. He was totally impossible. He was so overwhelmed with lustful hallucinations that there was no way that Lord Buddha could give him teachings. For example, say I’m in a nightclub with twenty girls, dancing and drinking, and you come up to me, “Hey, let me tell you some Dharma.” I’m going to go berserk. Even if Lord Buddha himself wanted to give me teachings, I’d tell him to leave me alone. It was like that. So he had to come up with another solution.

One day Lord Buddha showed this brother a vision of another realm. It was a hellish environment with flames and smoke all around, and in the middle there was a huge cauldron sitting on a big fire, bubbling with boiling oil and surrounded by fearsome protectors. Somebody asked what the cauldron was for, and Lord Buddha’s brother heard one of the protectors say, “Shakyamuni’s brother is up there on earth, dancing, drinking, and lusting his life away, but when he dies he’s going to be reborn right here in this pot.” He totally freaked out. Suddenly he comprehended what he’d been doing and what was going to result. He was so upset that he couldn’t even eat. Then with his great skill, Lord Buddha manifested a vision of a beautiful, peaceful environment that was in complete equilibrium. No extreme suffering; no extreme happiness. That made his brother’s mind very tranquil and even, and at that moment, Lord Buddha gave him teachings. As a result, he realized the emptiness of his own mind, released his ego, and became an arhat.

Therefore, to practice the yoga method, you need a firm foundation of equanimity so that you can control your mind and set in the one direction. I can’t stress enough how necessary this is. But if you can develop equanimity, you will find that state of mind itself extremely blissful. The dualistic mind is a mind of extremes—uneven and unbalanced. It’s a painful mind. It’s the psychological equivalent of constantly having a nail poked into you. The extreme mind is a complete hindrance to your developing the peaceful, blissful mind of equanimity.


Published in Mandala July-December 2014. Excerpt from Commentary on the Yoga Method of Divine Wisdom Manjushri, Manjushri Institute, Cumbria, England, August 1977. Edited from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive by Nicholas Ribush.

 Through timely advice, news stories, and updates, FPMT.org and Mandala Publications share the wisdom culture inspired and guided by the teachings of FPMT founders, Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche. 

  • Tagged: advice from lama yeshe, four immeasurables, lama yeshe, lama yeshe advice, lama yeshe wisdom archive, lama yeshes wisdom
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The greatest problems of humanity are psychological, not material. From birth to death, people are continually under the control of their mental sufferings.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche

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