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Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, March 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.
“When you are working outside and see a beautiful flower that pleases you, that is your karmic view,” said Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the 16th Kopan course in 1983. “That view comes from your own mind, from virtuous thoughts. Anything which is disagreeable and disturbing to you is the result of bad thoughts in the past – negative karma. Whenever you experience sense objects – good smells, bad smells, when eating food, when looking around at views, practice awareness. When you see people or animals: when you see one person it makes you happy, another makes you unhappy. If one person is helping you, think, ‘This is the result of my good karma, of having the right attitude.’ If somebody makes you unhappy, think, ‘This is the result of my negative karma, the bad thoughts.’ It is so obvious, so clear, how liking or not liking, seeing something as nice or not nice, is dependent on your mind. When some people look at a particular person, they find him so nice, beautiful, good and so on; at the same time when others look at him they find him completely ugly, not worth being attached to! They see the one person in different ways.
“Let’s say you’re in prison and somebody unknown helps you get free. You see that person afterwards but you don’t see him as kind, you don’t have a warm feeling; but when you hear that he is the one that helped when you had troubles, suddenly you see him in a different way. You see him as having a warm beauty, as kind. For your mind, the person becomes nearer. Similarly, when a person is disturbing you, you see him as ugly, very bad, negative, black; but if you think of his kindness in destroying your selfish attitude, your bad thoughts, the view changes. He becomes closer and you feel warmth and kindness from the heart. Now you can see how it’s dependent on the mind. When you change your way of thinking, you will see things in a different way. With one way of thinking you see in one way, with another way of thinking you see in a different way. Some people see one place as very beautiful and like it, some see it as very ugly and undesirable.
“Like this, practice awareness of karma when you walk outside. When pleasure turns into suffering think that is the result of wrong attitudes, of negative karma. Also, you can maybe do meditations on all your past lives. Sometimes you had a good life, sometimes a horrible, terrifying, suffocating life, wanting to kill yourself. Then think, ‘All this came from the wrong attitude in my own mind.’
“We should use this awareness for something, for progressing the mind. We should use this awareness for more happiness, to decrease suffering, to lessen confusion. So, make the decision frequently, ‘This is the result of right attitudes. Therefore, what I should do from now on is renounce the non-virtuous mind as much as possible and practice the right attitude, a good heart, as much as possible.'”
Excerpted from the transcripts of Lecture 3 of the 16th Kopan course (http://bit.ly/16th-kopan-course) made available by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. Edited by Mandala for inclusion on FPMT.org.
Learn more about Lama Zopa Rinpoche, spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), and Rinpoche’s vision for a better world. Sign up to receive news and updates.