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Lama Yeshe teaching at Kosmos Centre, Amsterdam, 1980. Jan-Paul Kool (photographer) Photo courtesy of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
Clean-Clear: Refuge, Bodhicitta and the Nature of the Mind is the second volume in a series of Lama Yeshe’s collected teachings, forthcoming in May 2025 from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. This book contains introductory teachings given in England in 1976 and Holland in 1980. Compiled and edited by Nick Ribush.
Here we share an excerpt of Lama Yeshe’s teaching from Chapter 13 of this book, Defeating the Eight Worldly Dharmas:
The attitude behind the eight worldly dharmas, or phenomena, is a symptom of ignorance and ego and we have to recognize it as a negative motivation. For example, if you have the attitude that receiving a present is a source of pleasure and not receiving one is a cause of unhappiness, that’s not good. That attitude is a symptom of ego.
First of all, this attitude does not understand what is a gift and what is not. It functions at a very gross level. You don’t understand the broad view that the gift of other sentient beings is profound. If you think that giving chocolate is the only way to interpret giving—if you’re not giving chocolate, you’re not giving—your view is extremely narrow, and that’s a problem.
Another of the eight worldly dharmas is being attached to pleasant feelings and averse to unpleasant ones. That’s not good either. For a start, the way in which you interpret pleasant and unpleasant is completely relative; it depends. For example, one person considers meditating to be like going to a nightclub or the beach and finds it really enjoyable, while another considers it to be like being in prison and completely miserable. So, finding certain situations pleasant or unpleasant depends on your attitude.
Secondly, taking responsibility for your own liberation and enlightenment is not an easy job. It requires much effort. To demonstrate this, Shakyamuni himself spent six years in indestructible single-pointed meditation without food or other necessities in order to attain his goal. That’s not to say you should punish yourself in that way, but it’s a matter of putting right livelihood into the right channel, skillfully putting your body, speech and mind in the right direction, from peaceful environment to peaceful environment, which is, in fact, the path to enlightenment.
I say that following the path to enlightenment is not an easy job because our wrong conception mind, our grasping attitude, always overwhelms, interrupts and interferes with our efforts, and dealing with all this disruption can be difficult. So we should expect to encounter obstacles when trying to follow the path.
Nevertheless, the Buddhist interpretation of negotiating the path to enlightenment is not that it should be a miserable experience. We should not think, “I’m a religious person, therefore I should suffer; I’m a religious person, therefore I should not have plenty of bread and butter and should feel guilty if I do. Look at the people in Africa; they don’t even have water.” That sort of ridiculous thinking just makes you depressed. Also, it’s not right. You should not make yourself emotionally irritated, confused or guilty. That simply disturbs your tranquility and peace of mind. Read more of Chapter 13, Defeating the Eight Worldly Dharmas.
From Clean-Clear: Refuge, Bodhicitta and the Nature of the Mind, the second volume in a series of Lama Yeshe’s collected teachings containing introductory teachings given in England in 1976 and Holland in 1980. Compiled and edited by Nick Ribush.
You can find additional teachings, discourses, and advice from Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive website.
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Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), is a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.