How to Be Happy

Thubten Zopa, Josh Bartok, Alisa Cameron

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780861711963
• eBook ISBN: 9780861719280
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

In How to Be Happy, Lama Zopa Rinpoche helps us find our good heart, the heart that rejoices in the happiness of others. In How to Be Happy, Lama Zopa Rinpoche helps us find our good heart, the heart that rejoices in the happiness of others.How to transform problems into happiness, how to find compassion for our "enemies", how to treat ourselves with kindness; it is on these persistent and universal challenges that Lama Zopa offers his wise and warm teachings. Including three wonderfully rich and evocative guided meditations, How to Be Happy works with the reader to show that happiness in this present moment is dependent on the wisdom of a truly open and generous heart.Anyone looking for advice on how to be happy - truly, meaningfully happy - will find Lama Zopa Rinpoche to be a trustworthy and skillful guide. He is a tireless teacher of methods that work for us when all is well, and also when life's troubles, big and small, seem unmanageable.

Meditations

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Taking and Giving

There is an important meditation practice called tonglen, which means “taking and giving.” It is the practice of “taking” all the suffering of all beings, transforming it, and “giving” joy and happiness to all beings. You can also use this practice to free yourself from your self-cherishing thought, to utterly destroy the self-cherishing thought. Here are some basic instructions.

IMAGINE BREATHING in a thick black smoke. Imagine that this smoke is all the suffering of the world, all the harm that comes to all beings, all the pain and sickness everywhere. Also breathe in all the undesirable environments experienced by humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and the many suffering beings in the hell realms. Imagine breathing this in through your nostrils and let it be completely absorbed into the self-cherishing thought at your heart, completely destroying that self-cherishing thought with each breath.

Remember: It is your self-cherishing thought that interferes all the time with your immediate and ultimate happiness and with your ability to free all beings from all their sufferings and obscurations and to lead them to immediate and ultimate happiness.

As you breathe in this smoke and absorb it into your self-cherishing thought, the self-cherishing thought starts to become nonexistent. As the self-cherishing thought becomes nonexistent, so does the “real” I, the I existing from its own side, which the self-cherishing thought regards as so precious and important. Just as the self-cherishing thought becomes nonexistent, so does the object it cherishes.

All that is left there is what is merely imputed. This merely imputed I then breathes out happiness, and freedom, and light—and offers charity to other beings. The merely imputed I breathes out and offers everything—all your own happiness and merit, the causes of happiness; your own body; your possessions—to the hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, and the beings enjoying the heavens. Your body becomes a wish-granting jewel and you offer charity to all beings. All their environments become pure realms.

Clearly envision that those who need money receive wealth—each person owns the whole sky filled with money. Those who need a guru find a perfectly qualified teacher who can reveal the whole path to enlightenment to them. Those who need medicine receive it. Those who need a doctor, or a husband, or a wife, or a friend, find one. Each being receives whatever is needed for happiness.

Through this practice, all beings receive whatever they need, and all these enjoyments become the cause only to purify their minds and to generate in their minds the path to ultimate happiness, so that they all become fully enlightened beings. Imagine they all become Chenrezig—the Buddha of Compassion.

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You can conclude tonglen by meditating for a little while on the emptiness of the I, maintaining awareness that the I is empty of existing from its own side.

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Giving Your Body Away

This is a short meditation on thought transformation, in which we dedicate the four elements of our bodies to the happiness of all beings, putting into practice the action of renouncing self and cherishing others.

HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA often quotes the following verse from Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:

Just like space
And the great elements such as earth
[and water, fire, and air],
May I always support the lives
Of all the boundless creatures.

With this verse we are requesting to become the basis, the support, the very life-foundation of all the inconceivably vast number of beings—and not just briefly, for a moment or two or a few days, but forever. When we give away our bodies in this fashion, it is up to those other beings to decide how to use the elements of our bodies—the earth, water, fire, air, and space—for their happiness. It’s not up to the elements to decide; it’s not up to us.

To do this practice, imagine the following: First imagine that the four elements that form your own body absorb into the four external elements of earth, water, fire, and air. Imagine that your flesh and bones absorb into the external earth element. Imagine that your body becomes the stable earth and is used by all beings in whatever way they wish for their survival and happiness, not only in this world but in all worlds.

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Imagine that your body is used by all beings as fields and crops; beautiful parks, roads, and vehicles; to obtain gold, diamonds, and other precious jewels; to build houses and cities; to make tunnels and bridges. Visualize this as elaborately as possible.

Your two eyes then become the sun and moon and work for all beings, illuminating them, guiding them. Your flesh becomes food for all beings. Visualize that your flesh absorbs into all the food in the world, all the food in all the supermarkets. You become pizzas, mozzarella cheese, macaroni, hamburgers, momos—and all beings everywhere are eating you. Again, it is important to think of not just one being in this world, but of all beings in every world. Give your skin to all beings—let your skin become the clothes that beings are wearing, or the hair or fur or feathers that keep them warm.

Visualize the blood, water, and other liquids in your body absorbing into the external water element, which is also used by all beings for their survival and happiness. Think of the many different ways in which the water of the world, which is none other than your own body’s fluids, is used by beings for their happiness. Again, visualize as extensively as possible the many different uses of water—it floods rice paddies, it flows through irrigation canals, it nourishes flowers, it appears as nectar, it quenches thirst everywhere. Beings are drinking you as orange juice, Coca-Cola, alcohol, mother’s milk, Gatorade.

Next, imagine that the internal heat of your body absorbs into the external fire element, which is used by all beings for their happiness. Think of how heat and the ability to burn benefit all beings—heat keeps them warm, it gives them light, it creates energy; heat is used for cooking and survival, for safety and exploration. As always, imagine this as extensively as possible, in as much detail as possible.

Your breath absorbs into the external air, the wind element, which is used by all beings for their survival through breathing and moving. Wind is light in nature and enables movement, grants freedom. Breath is life itself. Let yourself be breathed in by all beings, bringing life-sustaining oxygen to every cell in the body of every being.

Now imagine that all the sufferings and negative karmas of all beings everywhere ripen upon you—and thereby know that all beings are freed from all their suffering and its causes, all their negative karmas and obscurations.

Let all the harmful karma of all beings everywhere come to fruition, and let yourself receive all the results. Absorb all this suffering and all its causes into your own self-cherishing thought, destroying that thought and the object it cherishes, the “real” I. Now even the real I, which appears to exist from its own side, becomes empty.

All that is left is the merely imputed I, and this one now dedicates all your happiness and merit to all beings. All the beings in each realm receive and experience your past, present, and future happiness and merit. In the same way, also dedicate all the merit of the buddhas and bodhisattvas throughout space and time. Know that this merit is also received and experienced by all beings.

In this way, your body, composed of the four elements, becomes nectar—and into this nectar of your body flows the transcendental wisdom from the hearts of all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. The essence of all the worlds is also absorbed into the nectar. And this nectar nourishes and supports all beings, immediately fulfilling all their wishes, giving them ultimate happiness, ultimate joy.

And now, since you have o...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Publisher’s Acknowledgment
• Happiness
• Meditation
• Desire
• Attitude
• Peace
• Compassion
• Compassion for the Enemy
• The Good Heart
• Enlightenment
• Self-Cherishing and Cherishing Others
• Mind
• Work
• Love
• Ignorance
• Karma
• Labeling
• Emptiness
• Death
• Meditations
• About the Author
• About Wisdom
• Copyright Page