The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader and mentor of all Buddhists in the world. Many people use his teachings for their own benefit and live by the rules of the great sage, who claims that there are three roads to happiness.
Choosing a path is a conscious choice of a person. Many people are constantly changing paths, trying to find what will be the best way for them to find happiness. And they do the right thing, because a person cannot gain freedom and become himself from an early age. Usually, for a person to develop his energetic and spiritual world, it takes an average of 30-40 years from the moment of birth. The teachings of the Dalai Lama will help you become happier and walk this path.
Dalai Lama and Buddhism
Few people know the true dogmas of Buddhism. This is a doctrine that later became a religion. There are now almost half a billion Buddhists in the world who follow the rules of the teachings of the first teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha.
The Dalai Lama is the spiritual mentor of people and also the ruler of Tibet. Now the political power of the Dalai Lama has been lost, so the new sage, already 14 in a row, plays the role of teacher and mentor. He helps people all over the world, visits Buddhist temples, and receives a huge number of awards for his research and his wisdom. In 1989, Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize for his plan to create harmony throughout the world by eliminating weapons and violence.
Buddhists sincerely believe that every Dalai Lama, including the current 14th who took office at birth in 1935, are descendants of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. After the death of each Lama, the disciples begin the search for his reincarnation, and the chosen child becomes the new Lama.
Three paths to happiness
The current Dalai Lama in one of his books described three possible life paths that can and should lead a person to true happiness. They are different, so anyone in the world can find the optimal strategy for developing and increasing energy.
The Dalai Lama says that everything is ruled by a person's thoughts. This is the most important starting point. Start with the fact that you need to put your thoughts in order. Meditations and affirmations for every day will help you with this. It is important to have a goal or try to find one, since finding yourself is also a goal. Once you know what you need from life, you can begin to move towards harmony and happiness.
Path one: the compassionate path. The very philosophy of each Dalai Lama is tied to compassion, so each of the Tibetan sages follows the path of creation and goodness. They say in simple words, it is very important to be able to put yourself in the place of another person and understand what is pain and what is pleasure for him. The path of compassion teaches not only diplomacy, but also understanding. As the sage says, you can understand anyone - you just need to make an effort and try. Don't be so quick to judge people; you may not yet know what you would do in their place. Try to understand them, for only good can defeat evil. It is useless to knock out a wedge with a wedge - you will only make the situation worse. If you share your understanding with those in need, the Universe will give you happiness. Such a path in life can be thorny, because even the greatest Lama cannot correct all people.
The second path: the path of knowledge. Science is deeply respected by the Dalai Lama. He even supports cloning, but with some reservations, because even artificial intelligence can, according to the Lama, feel pain and suffering. This is a separate path leading to happiness. The sage himself has been engaged in science all his life, trying to devote as much time as possible to studying the universe. The fact is that science is not only a weapon with which people kill each other. Science has given us many pleasant moments and continues to do so. We can contact our loved one anywhere in the world without any problems by looking into their eyes. This fact alone is worth a lot. What can we say about research in the field of medicine? The Dalai Lama is convinced that people who develop and seek answers to questions or build something new always find happiness. The attempts themselves should bring satisfaction, because in knowledge we move forward and leave our mark on it.
The third way: complete denial. There is a famous phrase about how to answer the question “How are you?” - “I gave up my evaluative perception of the world, so I’m not doing well.” And it works. When you give up “good” and “bad,” only the very essence of the Universe remains, because It does not differentiate reality into positive and negative. Only we, the people, can do this. Striving for this, the monks retire to Tibet. What can worldly people offer on this path? Evaluate, judge less and appreciate what you have now.
These are the three ways to understand the world and find happiness. Live by the laws of the Universe, which will help you in any chosen path. Be happy and don't forget to press the buttons and
10.10.2016 05:20
Many people around the world get tattoos on their bodies, not realizing that they can...
Life lessons, principles of the Dalai Lama that will help make life a little easier
Be kind whenever possible. And this is always possible.
~ Dalai Lama
When the famous American presenter Oprah Winfrey asked the Dalai Lama if he had to forgive himself for anything, his Holiness replied: “I am not very tolerant of mosquitoes, not peaceful enough. And to bed bugs too.” Oprah was amazed that a man who had lived 78 years had nothing left to ask for forgiveness for.
Here are 10 life lessons, principles of the Dalai Lama, that will help make life a little easier:
1. Be compassionate
The topic of compassion has nothing to do with religion. This is a universal matter, a single condition for the survival of the human race.
~ Dalai Lama
Research shows that when you empathize, you experience pleasure comparable to sex, good food, or being in nature. Compassion is good for your health: it reduces stress, normalizes your heart rate and improves your immunity.
You can show mercy by trying to understand the person's feelings and emotions. To do this you need to talk to him and listen to him. This requires more than just an act of kindness: compassion involves emotional involvement. You will need to ask what help the person needs and hear their answer.
2. Be kind and help each other
My religion is simple, it does not need temples and complex philosophy. Our own minds, our own hearts are the temples, and kindness is the only teaching.
~ Dalai Lama
Being kind and generous doesn't cost much, but the benefits you get from it are significant. Michael Norton and his colleagues from Harvard Business School came to this conclusion after conducting a study. It found that volunteers who donated a certain amount felt happier than those who spent the money on themselves.
3. Find happiness
The goal of our life is to become happy.
~ Dalai Lama
When the Dalai Lama gave interviews, he said that he was bombarded with messages about material benefits. Very few people talked about forgiveness, compassion, patience and kindness. But these are the values that should be a priority for someone who dreams of being happy.
4. Experience inner harmony
The Dalai Lama advises spending some time alone with yourself every day. This time should be spent moving away from negative thoughts, anger, resentment, and fatigue. Try to replace them with positive emotions: optimism, gratitude, love, peace. He rightly says that a truly calm mind is the source of happiness and good health.
5. Don't harm others
If you can help, help. If not, at least do no harm.
~ Dalai Lama
If you tell lies, gossip about others, take advantage of or bully someone, the negative consequences will boomerang back at you. Keep this in mind before you start doing anything.
6. Take care of your friends
Don't underestimate friendship. She needs to be surrounded with tender love and care, because friends are the people you can trust. True friendship never depends on money or political views. Neglect of friendship leads to loneliness, and this is one of the reasons for the spread of depression in society.
7. Don't let technology control you
We must dominate technology, not become its slaves.
~ Dalai Lama
Did you know that the Dalai Lama has over eight million followers on Twitter? While he admires the achievements of social media in helping us communicate, he nevertheless warns against “abusing” it.
They can control you - just look at the people in restaurants glued to their smartphones.
Who's in charge? You or technology?
This is a poor substitute for true friendship and kills real communication.
8. Don’t argue or fight, but come to an agreement
Nonviolence means dialogue, the use of language. Dialogue means compromise, respect for each other's rights, finding a solution to conflicts and disagreements in the spirit of reconciliation. There is no one hundred percent winner or loser here - only half and half. This is practical, and therefore the only true way.
~ Dalai Lama
Whether we're talking about an international crisis or an argument you have with your friend or boss, the key to a peaceful outcome is dialogue. Learn the art of negotiation. The Dalai Lama recommends never dwelling on the past, but focusing on what is causing the problem now.
9. Save the Earth
10. Learn from your failures
When you fail, don't miss the lesson.
~ Dalai Lama
If you fail, it is important to figure out what went wrong. Maybe you made the wrong decision or didn't think the whole process through. You may not have worked out the worst possible scenario. Reflection will help you learn from your failures.
Can These 10 Lessons Really Change Your Life? Just try to apply them and you will soon see that truth, honesty, warmth and compassion will become the driving forces that will attract happiness to you.
Buddhist texts talk about four main obstacles that must be overcome in order to achieve success in meditation. The first of them is excitement, or absent-mindedness. This obstacle manifests itself at the gross level of the mind and represents the tendency to become distracted in thought. The second obstacle is dullness and lethargy, or drowsiness. The third is subtle dullness, which refers to the inability of the mind to maintain sharpness of perception and clarity. And finally, the most subtle level is subtle excitement, which is born from the transient, changeable nature of our mind.
When our mind is too restless, it becomes irritable and easily excited, and then our thoughts begin to rush after different ideas and objects, causing us to experience either elation or depression. Excessive excitement leads to a variety of moods and emotional states. In contrast, subtle dullness of mind, when it arises, brings with it temporary relief. It can be quite pleasant because it brings peace. But despite this, it is actually an obstacle to meditation. I have noticed that if birds and animals are fed, they become completely relaxed and content. When we hear a satisfied, well-fed cat purring, we can say that he is in a state of subtle dullness.
Dullness affects the grosser levels of the mind, while subtle dullness, which is in some sense the result of gross dullness, is felt at a more subtle level. In fact, it is very difficult for the contemplative to distinguish between genuine meditative absorption and subtle dullness. This is because in the subtle dullness a certain degree of clarity is retained. You have not yet lost focus on the object of meditation, but the vividness of perception is no longer there. Therefore, although there is some clarity in the perception of the object, yet this state of mind lacks vitality. It is very important for the serious contemplative to learn to distinguish between subtle dullness and genuine meditative absorption. This is also extremely necessary because there are different degrees of subtle dullness.
Another obstacle is agitation, where we are in a distracted state of mind with many distractions. This is a common problem that we encounter as soon as we try to focus our attention on a specific object. We find that our attention very quickly loses strength, we begin to be distracted, we are led by different ideas and memories, which can be both pleasant and unpleasant.
The fourth obstacle is subtle excitement, this is one of the types of excitement, but here we are talking mainly about distractions to pleasant objects. This obstacle stands out in its own category because pleasant thoughts are the biggest distractions from meditation. This can be memories of the past or thoughts of something pleasant, or thoughts about what we would like to experience. Memories and thoughts of this kind are often the main factor preventing successful meditation.
Of these four obstacles, the main ones are agitation and subtle dullness of mind.
How can we overcome these obstacles? Gross dullness, in particular, is closely related to our physical condition. If, for example, we do not get enough sleep, our mind may fall into a state of dullness. If we eat incorrectly - we eat the wrong foods, undereat or overeat, then this can also lead to a state of dullness. For this reason, monks and nuns are not advised to eat after lunch. By abstaining from afternoon meals, monks and nuns can maintain mental clarity that will facilitate meditation. In addition, when they wake up the next morning, they will feel a special sense of perception. So, proper nutrition is a very effective antidote to dullness of mind.
If we touch on the problem of subtle dullness, it is believed that it arises during meditation because we lack alertness and our energy is at a low level. When this happens, you need to try to lift your spirit, and one of the best ways to do this is to be filled with joy by thinking about your achievements or the positive aspects of life and so on. This is the main antidote to subtle dullness.
In general, subtle dullness is considered a neutral state of mind in the sense that it is neither beneficial nor maleficent (that is, it does not promote either beneficial or harmful thoughts and actions). However, what may happen is that at the beginning of a meditation session, the mind may be in a virtuous mood. For example, the contemplator remains in one-pointed concentration on the impermanent nature of existence. Then, at some point, his concentrated mind loses mindfulness and slips into a state of subtle dullness, although at the beginning of the practice its state was very positive.
Excitement occurs when we are in an overly elated mood or when something makes us very happy. As an antidote, we need to use the following method - we should try to knock down the joyful mood of the mind. This can be achieved through thoughts and ideas that naturally put us in a dark mood, such as death, the fleeting nature of life, or the fact that suffering is inherent in the very fact of human existence.
These methods can be applied in the context of all major religious traditions. Let's take a theistic religion as an example. If during meditation one finds excessive gross or subtle dullness of the mind, then one can lift one's spirit by thinking about the mercy of God or the merciful nature of the Lord. These thoughts can fill you with a feeling of joy, upliftment and relieve your mind from dullness. Likewise, if excessive agitation occurs, then we need to think, for example, about how rarely we manage to live in accordance with the covenants and instructions of the Lord, or remember about original sin. This will immediately give rise to humility in us and somewhat moderate our elation. Thus, these practices can be applied in different religions.
Let's summarize. In order to overcome the four obstacles to meditation, and especially the main ones (excitement and subtle dullness), two mental factors must be skillfully applied: mindfulness and vigilance. Vigilance helps us to constantly monitor our mind so that we can understand at any moment whether it is in the grip of agitation or distraction, or is focused on the object of meditation, or has slipped into a state of dullness. When we are aware of the state of our mind, we rely on mindfulness, which allows us to return our attention to the object of meditation and further maintain concentration on it. So we can say that the practice of mindfulness is the essence of meditation.
Whatever form of meditation you do, the most important thing is to remain mindful and make constant effort. It would be unrealistic to expect the results of meditation to appear very quickly. It takes a lot of effort over a long period of time.
Analytical meditation, even if we do not use the term, is constantly used in our daily lives and in almost every profession. Let's take an entrepreneur as an example. To achieve success, he needs a sharp analytical mind. During the negotiation process, he must weigh the pros and cons. Whether he realizes it or not, he is using the same analytical skills that we use in meditation.
In general, of the two types of meditation, it is analytical that most contributes to the transformation of the mind and heart.
Translation by Yulia Zhironkina
Love and the Natural Power of Healing
Ueda: So is the development of intelligence good for people? We are not just animals, but animals endowed with intelligence. Our intellectual abilities not only gave rise to civilization, but also gave rise to much suffering.
Dalai Lama: Yes it is. Most of our spiritual problems are due to the fact that we have a sophisticated intellect and a powerful imagination. Science and technology have essentially opened up limitless horizons for us. Therefore, we sometimes forget our fundamental human nature.
Ueda: Our fundamental nature, the nature of all human beings.
Dalai Lama: Yes, our fundamental nature is the nature of all human beings, and it arises from our fundamental nature as mammals. Let's look at modern medicine. If a person is sick, Tibetan medicine usually tries to enhance the body's natural ability to heal. However, Western surgical methods suggest simply cutting off the part of the body that does not work, as if we were talking about repairing a car. When a car breaks down, it cannot fix itself. The broken machine part must be removed and discarded. But our bodies are not machines. Even a damaged, sick or wounded human body has a natural ability to heal. If we rely too much on modern science and technology, our lifestyle becomes that of a machine and we lose touch with our fundamental human nature.
“Most of our spiritual problems are due to the fact that we have a refined intellect and a powerful imagination.”
In a person who has become like a machine, there is no room left for the development of love and compassion for others. We are full of knowledge, but we lack compassion.
Ueda: This idea seems very interesting to me because my first research work as an anthropologist was related to psychosomatics and the topic of the body's natural ability to heal. When I was about thirty years old, I lived in Sri Lanka for two years, studying the power of folk Buddhist exorcism rituals to heal the sick. The entire village participates in these colorful rituals. If a person does not get better in the hospital, if he suffers from depression or apathy, the villagers organize a ritual festival for him, which helps him heal through dancing and laughter that unites the entire village. Interestingly, in Sri Lanka they believe that evil spirits usually possess lonely people. They say: “Lonely people attract the gaze of evil spirits.” If other people look at us with kindness, evil spirits cannot reach us, but if other people ignore us or are angry with us, evil spirits can attack us. During such exorcism rituals, villagers come together to provide support to the sick person, spend time with each other, laugh, and it is the loving, compassionate gaze of the villagers that heals the lonely sick person.
Why do such exorcism rituals heal people? After returning to Japan, I began researching psychosomatics and immunology. I became interested in neuroimmunology, a then-unknown scientific discipline that studies how a person's state of mind affects the immune system and the body's natural ability to heal. I have learned that scientific research is beginning to confirm the reality of the forces that I witnessed during exorcism rituals.
“If a person is sick, Tibetan medicine usually tries to enhance the body's natural ability to heal. However, Western surgical methods suggest simply cutting off the part of the body that does not work, as if we were talking about repairing a car.”
When we cooperate with each other, when we are united by mutual trust, when we are filled with love and compassion, our immune system is strong. But if someone betrays us, if we feel abandoned, if we are angry or sad because of how we were treated, our immune system is significantly weakened. Feelings of loneliness combined with powerlessness weaken the immune system like nothing else. When we feel lonely and abandoned and can't do anything about it, when no one treats us with love and compassion, the body's natural defenses drop to their minimum. In such a situation, we easily get sick. In addition, we may be attacked by a disease such as cancer, which our immune system previously kept under control. Science has already proven that our mental health and physical health are connected at a deep level.
Dalai Lama: What you are talking about is a very powerful proof of the importance of peace of mind, compassion and kindness. In an industrialized society like Japan's, it is not enough to study Buddhist teachings and scriptures. We must try to connect these teachings with scientific knowledge. Fear, anxiety and stress weaken the immune system. Some scientists even say that anger literally eats up the capabilities of our immune system. On the other hand, a relaxed state of compassion and kindness brings us inner peace and supports and strengthens the immune system.
“But our bodies are not machines...If we rely too much on modern science and technology, our lifestyle becomes that of a machine, and we lose touch with our fundamental human nature...
Scientific facts indicate the importance of internal values for modern society. Neither medicine, nor injections, nor machines will give us inner values. We can only realize for ourselves how important these values are for us and make efforts to develop them. It is important now to explore these ideas in the laboratories of our own minds - especially anything related to emotions.
In a person who has become like a machine, there is no room left for the development of love and compassion for others.”
For these purposes, the Buddhist tradition offers a huge arsenal of tools. Buddhism categorizes emotions and explains in detail how to deal with negative emotions and enhance positive ones. In this way, Buddhism can take its important place in our daily lives.
“Fear, anxiety and stress weaken the immune system. Some scientists even say that anger literally eats up the capabilities of our immune system...
On the other hand, a relaxed state of compassion and kindness brings us inner peace, supports and strengthens the functioning of the immune system.”
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The spirit in Buddhist medicine is primary, and physical health is secondary, it is just a derivative of the state of a person’s soul. Therefore, the fundamental principle of Buddhist health care is very simple: happy people get sick less. Buddhist monk Barry Kerzin spoke about how the Dalai Lama and all other Buddhists take care of their health, what they get sick with, how they are treated and how they die at the lecture “Human Health: In Harmony of Soul and Body.”
This was a rare opportunity to learn something almost first-hand about the Dalai Lama, because he himself has not come to us since 2004 for reasons that have nothing to do with Buddhism. And that visit to Elista caused protests from China, which considers the spiritual leader of the Buddhists a separatist. Monk Kerzin is the personal physician of the Dalai Lama, and who else, if not him, knows all the intricacies of Buddhist health care.
How do Buddhists heal?
Barry Kerzin answered one of the main questions after the lecture, when he was asked: “What to do from the point of view of Buddhism if a person has a cold and has a sore throat?” “Go to the doctor,” the Dalai Lama’s personal doctor advised without a hint of irony.
Monk Kerzin, who, in addition to a Buddhist academic degree similar to our doctorate, also has an American medical diploma, answered in a purely American way. In the USA, you can’t even buy a regular gargle without a prescription from a doctor. If he had our medical diploma, he would simply advise gargling with a soda solution and taking a pill.
But if in our originally Western medicine the treatment ends with a pill, then in Buddhist medicine it is just beginning. According to Barry Kerzin, the main thing in it is the patient’s mood when he takes the medicine. At the same time, the Buddhist thinks: “I took the pill and now I will be cured. I will be fine, but it would be even better if everyone else who has a sore throat were also cured, and it would be absolutely wonderful if no one There's never been a sore throat in the world."
Such a positive attitude, which does not allow one to become fixated on one’s own health problems and does not even allow the thought that a pill will not help, is a guarantee of a Buddhist’s recovery.
In other words, the famous ancient Roman principle “A healthy mind in a healthy body,” from which Western medicine grew, is turned upside down by Buddhists, or, from their point of view, upside down.
For example, the Dalai Lama's personal physician is quite skeptical about the widespread stereotype of ideas about the healing power of yoga. Yes, it can help with some diseases of the respiratory system, but, of course, not infectious ones, he emphasized. It will help with blood pressure and some psychological ailments. But it will only help, it will not cure.
The Dalai Lama himself, who by virtue of his position as the spiritual leader of Buddhists meditates a lot and has a high degree of enlightenment, relies more on conventional training. According to his personal doctor, the Dalai Lama spends at least half an hour a day on the treadmill.
Barry Kerzin considers Buddhist “prostration” (analogous to prayer with prostrations and prostration in other world religions) to be a useful exercise in the morning. If there is also a spiritual component in it, then such exercise, of course, is even more useful.
What do Buddhists suffer from?
Buddhists suffer from all the same diseases that adherents of other religions and atheists suffer from. The main difference is in understanding the cause of the disease. And the cause of any illness for a Buddhist is his karma. From the standpoint of our worldview, it is difficult to find one synonym for karma. Therefore, Barry Kerzin clarified that in this case, “karma” is the long-term consequences of a person’s past actions.
If the actions were bad, unkind, then the person is doomed to get sick. What exactly is not so important, karma is not a diagnosis, but retribution for the lack of kindness towards others, and not only to people, but to all living beings, emphasizes the Dalai Lama’s personal physician.
From this, however, a question that is inconvenient for Buddhism logically follows. Why do even the most consistent Buddhists get sick and die, including the Dalai Lamas and even Buddhist gods?
The question, from a Buddhist point of view, is absurd. After all, Buddhists do not live one life, but continuously travel from one life to another. One life is probably not enough, explains Barry Kerzin, to pay off all the debts accumulated in previous lives.
How Buddhists Die
The death of a Buddhist comes in eight stages. The first four of them, according to the Dalai Lama’s personal physician, are well known to Western medicine. At the first stage, muscles and bones weaken. In the second, the juices “dry” - blood, lymph, hormones, and other biological fluids. On the third, the “fire” weakens and the body gets colder. On the fourth and final stage, the movement of the heart, lungs, and other organs stops.
At this moment, Western doctors diagnose the onset of clinical death. From the point of view of our medicine, a return to life is still possible within a few minutes, sometimes tens of minutes. And from the Buddhist point of view, the last four stages of dying begin.
Barry Kerzin did not explain the essence of each, citing the difficulty of understanding them for the uninitiated. He only said that at the very last eighth stage an experienced yogi can linger for days, weeks and even months. In fact, he is a corpse, but there is no decay, and an aura even appears around him, the feeling of which makes those around him feel good.
But for ordinary Buddhists who do not master this technique, a maximum of 72 hours is allotted for dying, no more.
By the way, it is easy to personally experience death in a Buddhist way. Its eighth and final stage occurs when a person yawns or sneezes. The same processes occur in the body at this moment, says Barry Kerzin, and after that bliss sets in. If you think about it, he's probably right. A hearty sneeze or yawn is truly bliss.
Scientific background of Buddhist medicine
According to Barry Kerzin, the main principle of Buddhist medicine - the positive attitude of the patient - has been unconsciously used by Western medicine for a long time in various schools of psychotherapy. But research into this phenomenon has been particularly intensive only in the last half century.
Barry Kerzin himself was invited in 2011 by the German Max Planck Scientific Society as a consultant for such research and personally takes part in experiments to find a material carrier of Buddhist health.
The search is carried out “at random,” as experimental scientists like to say. A variety of physical and chemical indicators are taken from experimental patients using various instruments, trying to determine which of them are reliably influenced by human emotions.
So far, according to the Buddhist scientist Kerzin, it has been possible to show that a person’s positive attitude strengthens his immune system and, accordingly, the body’s resistance to disease. But this has long been known even without Buddhism. So far no one has died from happiness, but from anger, melancholy and other negative emotions people definitely die prematurely.
The Dalai Lama's personal physician places some hope in epigenetics, the science that studies what happens not in the genes themselves, but around them. Allegedly, a person’s mood affects the rate of protein synthesis by genes. But for now this is not even a theory level, but only a hypothesis.
Kerzin’s special scientific pride is the discovery of periods of unusually large amplitude gamma rhythm in the electroencephalogram (EEG) of Buddhists in a state of meditation. True, a similar phenomenon is observed in epileptics at the time of a seizure, and very similar in schizophrenics during moments of exacerbation. But this does not bother the Dalai Lama’s personal physician.
“Epileptics then don’t remember anything, but a meditator remembers everything,” Kerzin objects and adds that the same gamma bursts were recorded on the EEG of mice at the time of their death, so what?
Buddhist Kindness Therapy
You can have different attitudes to what the Dalai Lama’s personal physician said. But among other things, he mentioned that he himself was a chronically ill lung patient, and a few hours before the lecture, fluid was sucked out of his lungs. “I couldn’t help but come, you were waiting for me,” he said simply, without affectation.
Lung drainage surgery, if anyone knows, is a rather unpleasant, tedious and painful procedure. But you couldn't tell by Barry Kerzin's appearance. He looked great, even fresher, perhaps, than many of the young listeners in the audience. This alone makes one wonder about the therapeutic effectiveness of the Buddhist principle of kindness to others.
But if only it were that simple. As if he had read the thoughts of the audience, the Dalai Lama’s doctor explained, using an example, what real Buddhist kindness is.
If someone insulted you, you are offended, you are furious. But if you think about it, Barry Kerzin explained, you will realize that it was not the person who offended you, but his words. That is, the words are to blame, not the person. Taking revenge on words is stupid. When you understand this, you will feel funny. You will laugh.
If you get hit on the head with a club, isn't it funny that the stick is to blame and not the person holding it, Barry Kerzin mercilessly continued to reveal the essence of Buddhist kindness.
There was a feeling, and with every word he said, that the feeling grew stronger that such a seemingly simple and easy Buddhist therapy was irrevocably floating into the distance beyond our reach.
“I know it’s difficult the first time,” the Dalai Lama’s personal physician smiled.
It is very difficult to feel kindness towards a person who hits you over the head with a baseball bat, even if it is your karma. To do this, you really need to be a very enlightened Buddhist.