(8.141) “He is honoured, but I am not.
I do not have the wealth he has.
He is praised, but I am despised.
He is happy, but I suffer.

(8.142) “I have much heavy work to do,
While he remains comfortably at rest.
His reputation has spread throughout the world,
But all I am known for is my lack of good qualities.

(8.143) “But what do you mean, “I have no good qualities?”
I have many such qualities.
In comparison with many, he is inferior,
While there are many to whom I am superior.

(8.144) “My morals, views, and so on degenerate
Through the force of my delusions, not because I want them to.
You, Bodhisattva, should help us regenerate them in any way that you can,
And willingly forbear any hardships you might encounter in doing so.

(8.145) “But he does nothing to help us,
So why does he make us feel so insignificant?
What use are his so-called good qualities to us?
He never uses them for our benefit!

(8.146) “Not only does he have no compassion
For beings such as us dwelling within the jaws of the lower realms;
Externally he displays pride in his own good qualities
And prefers to contend with the wise.

We come to understand a lot more about the person or people we feel superior to through this meditation.  But as well, we come to understand a lot more about ourselves, don’t we?   We discover things that generally we do not look at, we don’t bother to look at.  This meditation uncovers faults that we need to remove.  In this meditation they become so clear to us.  This meditation makes us want to help someone who we normally consider to be inferior.  In particular, we want to help them improve their good qualities, through praising them encouraging them and so on.  I think we develop a wish to help them without, without pride.  We help others humbly.

We can see clearly the pride that we have by putting ourself in the place of others and looking back to our former self.  We can observe the pride that we have, and it is embarrassing, isn’t it?  Embarrassing.  Awful.  We have it, and this meditation makes it so obvious to us.  We have a lot of pride.  Who really do we think we are?  We have an air of superiority.  “if you really are a Mahayanist, behave like one.  You think you’re a Mahayanist, you think you’re a spiritual practitioner, behave like one.”  Pride is one of our biggest obstacles, preventing any real spiritual growth, preventing us from helping others effectively.  The trouble is we are too proud to look at the pride that we have, aren’t we?  We all have pride, but we do not want to look at it. It is like we are too proud to look at it and to admit to it.  In this meditation we have to admit to it. “I have pride. It’s true.”

This meditation helps us to reduce and eliminate our pride, and it encourages us to work humbly to improve others’ good fortune, to improve others’ good qualities and so forth.  We can acknowledge our strengths.  Perhaps in this meditation we recognize that we do have some strengths, we do have some good qualities.  We can acknowledge those and develop a strong wish to use our strengths for the benefit of others.  We wish to use whatever good qualities we have in the service of others.

When we have pride, we feel easily slighted.  When others do not share our view of ourself, we feel like they are putting us down.  Actually, it is we have artificially inflated view of ourselves. 

Generally speaking, the world is a reflection of our own mind, so if we find ourselves surrounded by prideful and jealous people, what does that say about the quality of our own mind?  Where are all these prideful and jealous people coming from?  When we have pride, we make ourselves completely unteachable.  In fact, we see no reason to be helped because we are already faultless.  This stops all progress.  Geshe-la said we can help anybody except those with pride.  When somebody is humble and admits that it is their own mind which is impure, then everything can change.  Without this, nothing can change.  A bodhisattva understands that there are no faulty beings because in fact there is nobody there.  Venerable Tharchin said we need to take personal responsibility to remove the faults we perceive in others because they are coming from none other than our own mind.

Another way we can look at this meditation is what does the jealousy of the other person want?  If our ‘self’ is at others, if it is selfish, what does it want?  It wants all good things to be transferred to it.  If we assume the delusion of the other person, we want all good things to transfer to others.  The delusions of others are virtues within our own mind.  This is because we have everything backwards.

To enhance our experience of exchanging self with others, Shantideva now goes on to describe a special method where we put ourself in the place of others who may seem to have deluded minds towards us.  Where previously we have learnt to identify with the basis of others, that is their body, now it seems we learn to identify with the basis of others that is their mind.   In dependence upon their mind of jealousy, or their mind of pride, and so forth, we think I. We are imputing I upon that basis, aren’t we? We are bringing to mind their jealousy for example, and thinking I.

It is quite funny.  Normally we dislike people who have such delusions.  Here we learn how to love them. It seems we love them for those faults!  Then no matter what people are like, no matter how deluded their behavior, no matter how they feel towards us, we just love them. We love them. We love them as they are. A jealous person, we love. A proud person, we love. Competitive person, we love.  It is just three examples, but we can take any other delusion and regard a person with that delusion as someone whom we dearly love. Even, or especially, if that deluded behavior is directed towards us.

It is interesting how we normally distance ourselves from jealous, competitive, or prideful people.  Here we are doing completely the opposite — drawing closer and closer to them through identifying with the delusion that they have in their mind, a delusion they have towards us.  The fact is that beings in our world are deluded, aren’t they?  If we cannot like or love deluded beings in our world, then there will be no one to love!  We have to love them not despite their delusions towards us, but because of their delusions towards us.  If we don’t, then there is no one to love otherwise.  And it is worth asking ourselves once again, where do these deluded, childish beings come from in the first place?  Here, Shantideva shows us how to take those people who have deluded minds towards us, and love them for it.

This practice is unusual because generally we’re encouraged to focus on the good qualities of others, and in that way, love them.  That is what we normally do, focus on the good qualities of others, and then naturally a mind of love will arise towards them.  We can’t help it, we naturally will like, even love, people possessing those qualities.  And now Shantideva is giving us a method to love those with apparently bad qualities.  Then, it doesn’t matter how they are – we focus on people’s good qualities, naturally we come to love them; we focus on their bad qualities, naturally we come to love them.  With this wisdom, it doesn’t matter what they’re like anymore, we can love them.

I think what is extraordinary about these meditations is that out of one’s own self-centeredness, naturally delusions such as jealousy, pride, and so forth arise, but when we identify with others’ self-centeredness, their delusions, jealousy, pride, and so forth, naturally virtues arise in us.  If we identify with our delusions, they are delusions; if we identify with others’ delusions, they are virtues.  Interesting how that works.  Jealousy normally thinks, for example, that we want what others have.  If we generate jealousy, we have a delusion.  But the jealousy of somebody else wants them to have what we have, so if we identify with that, we will want them to have what we have.  In other words, we will want to give.  A virtue.  The same is true with all the other delusions (except ignorance).  By identifying with the delusions in somebody else’s mind, it functions to oppose the delusions in our own mind.  Amazing!

By doing these meditations, we find out a lot about ourselves.  We see ourselves from somebody else’s perspective, and this helps us realize how we are and how we should change.

(8.140) Putting myself in the place of those who are lower than, equal to, and higher than me,
And then regarding my former self as “other”,
With my mind free from the crippling conception of doubt
I should meditate on jealousy, competitiveness, and pride.

In Eight Steps to Happiness Geshe-la says that through the force of meditations such as these, we become more open to others’ point of view, more tolerant and more understanding, and we shall naturally treat others with greater respect and consideration.  This will help us improve our communication with others and our knowing how to help others.  We must try to free ourself from doubts, any hesitation, or resistance to these meditations for whatever reason.  We should not worry that if we identify with the delusions of somebody else, we will become a deluded being ourselves.  If we adopt the delusions of others as our own, they are virtues as far as we are concerned.  We must try to increase our faith and, in this way, remove any doubt or hesitation and resistance to engaging in these meditations.  Then we will get some experience, we will gain some glimpse of the incredible meaning behind these meditations that will inspire us more and more to exchange ourself so completely with others, even those whom we find difficult or dislike, or even hate.

We put ourself in the place of those who are lower, equal to, and higher than us.  There are those of course who we consider to be lower than, equal to, or higher than ourselves. not in all respects of course, but in certain respects.  We can divide others into those three categories.  First of all, we put ourself in the place of those whom we regard to be in some respect lower than us (that’s just about everybody since we have so much pride) and then we look back to our former self with jealous thoughts.

As a summary to the previous verses, Shantideva says:

(8.137) I completely dedicate myself to the happiness of others.
From now on, mind, you must understand this clearly
And not think of anything
Other than benefiting all living beings.

(8.138) Because my eyes and so forth are now at the disposal of others,
I should not use them for my own purpose;
Nor should I use them in any way
That is contrary to the welfare of others.

(8.139) Being principally concerned for others,
I will take anything
That I regard as belonging to myself
And use it to benefit them.

What I have is yours. That is what we must feel. What I have is yours.  In these three verses we give away everything.  My mind in the first of these verses, my body in the second, my everything in the third. My mind, my body, my everything.  It sounds like a love song, doesn’t it?  It is.  I have given myself to others, therefore we should think, I am yours, and what I have belongs to others, what I have is yours.  We ourself, our possessions, are the property of others.  We have given ourselves to others. What we have is the property of others. We have given what we have to others. Perhaps our self-cherishing is squirming right now. 

What happens then when we have given our self to others in this way? What happens to our normal sense of I? What happens to our sense of I as possessor?  This meditation really is liberating in the sense that we actually lose our “self.”  But perhaps it is more accurate to think that it is enlightening, in the sense that we lose ourself in others.  We don’t just lose ourself, we lose ourself in others.

The best thing we have to give to others is our own experience of Dharma.  Worldly things help people at most in this life, but the Dharma will help them in all their future lives.  If we do not have Dharma to give, we need to gain experience of it so that we have something to share.  If we do not have anybody to give the Dharma to, then we need to make connections with people and in the meantime build up the Dharma within our mind.  Naturally, as we gain experience of Dharma, people will appear to receive help from us.   Geshe-la also encourages us to improve our ability to communicate with others and to improve our appearance.  Part of cherishing others is appearing pleasant to others. 

We can also give our time to our Dharma center by working for it.  By giving our time to the center, we give our time to all living beings.  We complain about not having enough time, but that is because we have been selfish with our time.  The cause of receiving is giving, so the more you give your time to others, the more time you will have.  It’s karma.  Mentally you can do this when you go about your job, or any other time you are serving others.  Do not view it as ‘your time’, but instead a practice of you giving your time.  Giving is a mental act.  Giving time to the center gives time to all living beings, and as a result we create the karma to have all the time we need to get whatever done.  Time is infinitely compressible, there is literally no limit to what can be done.  To gain infinite time in every moment, in every moment give your time to infinite beings.  Its magic!

People must feel that we are there for them. A Bodhisattva has a sincere wish to be there for everyone at all times.  When they become Buddha they know that they can be with people, all people, at all times.  People must feel that we are there for them, people need Bodhisattvas, they need Buddhas in their life.  It is by generating this mind that wishes to be with all beings all of the time that will take us there.  We think, “I would like to be with everyone all of the time, but I currently can’t.”  But if I become a Buddha, then I can be.  This wish will take us to enlightenment.  Our spiritual guide is with us all the time because previously he had the wish to be with us all the time.  We can do the same for those we have the karma to help.

That is what happens when you’re in love.  You want to be with each other as much as possible.   Do the people in our life have that feeling from us.  Do they feel that we want to be with them all of the time, or do they feel like we have no time for them?  There is nothing worse than the feeling that ‘we bother others.’  We need to put everybody at ease around us.  One of the unique characteristics of Je Tsonkghapa is he makes everybody feel completely at ease and comfortable when they are with him.  As followers of Je Tsongkhapa’s doctrine, we need to do the same.

It is true that we need to interact with people and become a part of their lives, but we need to be careful to not ourselves become ordinary by doing so.   As the saying goes, we need to be in this world, but not ‘of’ this world.  We are here to help, but we are always aware of the bigger picture.  It is true we need to make a connection with people, but if they see us as ordinary and no different than everybody else, then there will be no way they can make any changes.  This is a skill to learn, to be able to be with everybody, have them feel completely comfortable with us, yet be different, going in a different direction, looking for different things.

Making the right choice is only a challenge because, as Shantideva has explained, we are holding so rigidly to self and other.  We are holding so rigidly to my suffering and happiness, others’ suffering and happiness.  We have to take the step of — it’s a big one, but we have to make it — regarding others’ suffering and happiness as our own. We have to. By moving into their space, entering into their life, by taking their basis as our own – their happiness and suffering, then, is my own.  How are we going to get to this mental space?  By moving into the place of others, entering their lives, by choosing and regarding their basis as our own.  

Likewise, we need to consider the suffering and the happiness that we experience as that of other’s.  This helps in several different ways:  Normally we think what happens to others does not matter, so if we think that ‘self’ is ‘other’, then what happens to our old “self” will not matter at all.  It will not be a problem.  We can break our identification with our suffering.  It is not our own, and since we are not identifying with it, we do not suffer from it.  Overcoming our suffering then becomes imbued with great meaning.  We feel by overcoming our suffering, we believe we are overcoming the suffering of all living beings.  We feel we are freeing them from their delusions, etc.  When we engage in our Dharma practices from the perspective of having already exchanged self with others, everything we do will create the karma of helping all living beings instead of the karma of just helping oen person.  This practice of exchanging self with others truly is a ‘magical mystery.’

(8.132) Never mind what will happen in future lives;
With employees not providing adequate service
Or employers not giving proper reward,
Even our wishes in this life will remain unfulfilled.

(8.133) By not cherishing others, we lose the excellent qualities of our human life
That allow us to attain happiness both now and in the future;
And if we actually inflict harm on others,
Out of ignorance we shall bring unbearable suffering upon ourself.

(8.134) If all the torment in this world –
All mental fear and physical pain –
Arise from cherishing oneself,
What use is this fearful spirit to us?

(8.135) Without destroying fire,
We cannot stop being burned;
Likewise, without destroying self-cherishing,
We cannot stop experiencing suffering.

For as long as there is self-cherishing in our mind, we are going to suffer.  Suffering ends when we destroy self-cherishing.   Why not self-grasping then?  Isn’t self-grasping the source of all fear, pain, and suffering, and it’s only through destroying self-grasping that our suffering will come to an end?  No, the actual cause of our suffering is self-cherishing.  Self-grasping is just projecting, fabricating an inherently existent self, inherently existent other, inherently existent world. That is all it is doing.  Self-cherishing is what acts on this ignorance, thus creating all the karma for suffering.  It will not even let us meditate on emptiness, will it? Self-grasping does not prevent us from meditating on emptiness, does it?  Self-cherishing prevents us meditating on emptiness.  Self-cherishing functions to protect the I created by self-grasping. Self-cherishing, as we know, is self-grasping’s best friend, protecting its creation. Self-grasping creates an inherently existent I, self-cherishing protects, cherishes that I, faithfully.

It is self-cherishing that gets us in all the trouble.   It is self-cherishing that creates all the problems.  It is through cherishing and protecting the self that is merely created by self-grasping that we bring upon ourself suffering now and in the future.  We destroy self-cherishing, we bring an end to our suffering, we bring an end to all our problems.

(8.136) Therefore, to eliminate my pain
And pacify the suffering of others,
I will give myself completely to others
And consider them as precious as I now consider myself to be.

We try to abandon our self-cherishing, replace it with a mind that cherishes others. We give ourselves completely to others, thinking, “I’m yours.”  We have to feel that with respect to everyone, “I’m yours.”  When we are at work, with our families, at the Dharma Center, etc, “I’m yours.”  That is true love, isn’t it? That is true love. I am yours. When we think, I am yours, with respect to everybody, then we have love, true love for everybody.    I’m yours, whatever I have is yours. This is the kind of love that we need to get.  Geshe-la once said we feel that we belong to others.

Shantideva’s wording here is very precise – I will give myself completely to others.  We quite literally give our “self” to others through exchanging self with others, identifying with them as the basis of imputation for our self.  That’s the degree of giving of ourself we need.  Literally, my “I” is yours. 

If we give ourself completely to others, then what is left of it for us?  Nothing.  It seems here, there is no self, we become selfless. Because we have given it to others. We become self-LESS, we have no self any more, we’ve given it to others completely.  We literally give our ‘self’ to others because we impute ‘self’ onto others.  There is no self we normally see remaining at all, we’ve given it completely. You have it, everybody has it — others now have our self. The pain of my self is eliminated, because self has moved to another place where it cannot be harmed. Isn’t that amazing? The pain of my self is eliminated because self has moved to another place, the place of others, where it cannot be harmed.

(8.129) All the happiness there is in this world
Arises from wishing others to be happy,
And all the suffering there is in this world
Arises from wishing ourself to be happy.

If this is only one verse from this chapter worth memorizing, it is this one.  Venerable Tharchin said this verse is the key to the universe and the fulfillment of our every wish.  We are simply confused about what is the cause of happiness.  In fact, we have it exactly backwards.  We can’t just choose to cherish others, we have to have reasons for doing so.  This verse provides all the reasons we need.  When we find ourselves in difficult situations, we can recite this verse like a mantra.  It will be like an inner spiritual guide that always reveals to us the correct path out of whatever difficult circumstance we find ourselves in. 

There are two main levels we can understand this:  At the conventional level, we can understand that through cherishing ourself we engage in negative actions and our mind is not peaceful, so it is the cause of all our unhappiness, and the same for positive actions arising from cherishing others.  But at a an ultimate level, literally all suffering in the whole world comes from our cherishing ourself, because the self-centered mind projects a world of suffering.  And literally all happiness in the whole world comes from our cherishing of others, because it will project a world of happiness.

Geshe-la explains in Eight Steps to Happiness that attaining enlightenment is really very simple, we need only change the object of our cherishing from self to others, then everything else will flow naturally from this.  This verse provides the core reason why we make this change.  Again, we should memorize it and repeat it like a mantra as we go about our day, especially in difficult circumstances.

(8.130) But what need is there to speak at length?
The childish work only for themselves,
Whereas the Buddhas work only for others –
Just look at the difference between them!

We know this, at least intellectually and actually from experience to some extent, we know the truth of these words.  In dependence upon our understanding and experience of this, we need to show an example to others that our happiness comes from working for others.  This is one of the most important examples we need to show as Kadampas.  It is important that we are to be seen to be happy working for others.  There are many, many people in this world now already showing this example.  Now is the time for Kadampa Buddhists to show this example out in the world.  Our tradition has broken out of the monasteries and the mountain caves, and it now lives in our homes, our places of work, and in the towns and nations we live in.

Kadampa practitioners must be seen in the world, taking responsibility in the world. Working hard in this world.  Seeking little gain for themselves other than a happy mind. We are taking responsibility, working hard, and seeking little gain other than a happy mind.  Because we seek no gain, because we are not concerned for our own happiness, we don’t experience problems like everybody else, and we’re able to maintain a peaceful happy mind, unlike anybody else.  As Kadampas, I think two of the most important examples that we must set are, (1) having no external enemies, and (2) seeking and finding happiness from a different source.  In this context, that means seeking happiness from the virtue of cherishing others and working for their happiness. That is the source of our happiness.

This next verse is great:

(8.131) If we do not exchange our happiness
For the suffering of others,
We shall not attain the state of a Buddha
And even in samsara there will be no happiness.

Imagine if we put on our publicity:  learn how to exchange your happiness for others’ suffering.  Nobody would come.  Self-cherishing would not normally think that was a good deal, would it?  Your suffering, for my happiness.  Generally, we think as long as we are happy, then it doesn’t matter if others in the world are suffering.  We think as long as we are happy, it doesn’t matter if other people in the world are suffering. If we continue to think like this, we will never be truly happy.  When we exchange self with others, we think, as long as other people are happy, it does not matter if I suffer.  If we think like this, we will eventually experience true happiness, the happiness of a Buddha.  Somehow we have to reach the stage where we feel that it is better that I suffer rather than others suffer. It is better. It is better that I suffer rather than others. It is better that others are happy rather than myself being happy. It is better.  This is a big mind.  Mothers have it for their children.  Bodhisattvas have it for everybody.

And we have to take this attitude right now into our work as bodhisattvas in this world.   We have opportunities to practice this day after day after day.  For example, if I can relieve the suffering of just one person, even if I have to undergo some hardship myself, then I will do so because it is better that they are happy.  Even if I have to undergo some hardship myself, if I can relieve the suffering of another or others, so be it. If I can make even one person happy, then even if I have to forsake my own happiness, so be it.  If we are enjoying ourself and somebody comes to ask us to help them in some way, are we bothered by this or delighted with the opportunity?  Our response depends on who we are cherishing.  We encounter this situation again and again and again. How many times have we had to make that choice?  Hundreds … is it me or them? And have we always made the right choice?

(8.125) “If I give this to others, what shall I have to enjoy?”
Such self-cherishing is the mind of a hungry spirit.
“If I enjoy this, what shall I have to give to others?”
Such cherishing of others is the mind of the enlightened ones.

We can feel the difference between these two attitudes.  These states of mind feel so different. It is not difficult for us to appreciate that one is the mind of a hungry spirit and one is the mind of the enlightened ones.  We can also understand mind here as a path. We often refer to minds as paths.  When put this way, it is easy to understand the first mind is really a path to becoming a hungry spirit, whereas the other really is a pathway to enlightenment.

We all have some merit.  In truth, compared to the vast majority of living beings, we have a ton of merit.  The question is what do we do with it:  enjoy it for ourselves or give it to others?  Money, time, power, reputation, position, etc., we all have these things to certain extents.  Certainly we have more than we actually need to sustain our human life.  So what do we give to others? How much do we give to others? How much do we keep for ourselves? Are we to enjoy anything that we have?

Again, Venerable Tharchin said we should mentally give everything away right now.  We may retain possession of some things, but only as a guardian or custodian of what belongs to others until we do eventually transfer possession as well.  But ownership, completely give it all away right now.  Everything we have belongs to all living beings, and we use it for their benefit.  If we impute “mine” on anything, we burn up our merit; but if we impute these things belong to “others,” then we accumulate merit.  We can see from this a very close connection between the practice of exchanging self with others – viewing all living beings as “self” – and the practice of giving.  We give everything to our new “self,” nothing belongs to “others” (our old self).  So powerful, so simple.

Venerable Geshe-la said we shouldn’t just enjoy the Dharma. We have Dharma teachings, Dharma books, perhaps we have the Dharma in our heart, but we shouldn’t just enjoy it for ourselves.  We should gain Dharma to share with others.  The more we give the Dharma, the more we have, which we can then in turn give some more in a virtuous cycle. 

(8.126) If we harm others for the sake of our own happiness,
We shall suffer the torments of the lower realms;
But if we are harmed for the sake of others’ happiness,
We shall experience the happiness of higher rebirth.

(8.127) If we hold ourself in high esteem, we shall be reborn in the lower realms
And later, as a human, experience low status and a foolish mind;
But if we transfer this esteem to others, we shall be reborn in fortunate realms,
Command respect, and enjoy good company and pleasant surroundings.

(8.128) If we use others for our own selfish means,
We shall experience servitude ourself;
But if we use ourself for the sake of others,
We shall enjoy high status and pleasing forms.

For me, these verses describe how a Kadampa should view their professional careers.  Basically the entire modern economy does the exact opposite of this, and we contribute in our own way.  But we don’t have to.  We can do as Shantideva explains.  Indeed, I would argue that if we do, we will have a much more successful career.  There might be some short-term gains we don’t enjoy by adopting such a selfless attitude, but in the long-run I would say we will do better by working in this way.  And even if we don’t, there is no doubt we will have a “successful enough” career.  Training in this way will enable us to make our career part of our Kadampa way of life.

If we possess basic Buddhist intention, that is a concern for future and not just for the present, then we will naturally refrain from selfish actions, will we not? We will naturally be more careful and more caring of others.  If we are concerned only for the present rather than for the future, it will seem to us like we will lose out, we will always be losing out if we consider only others’ welfare.  That is what it will feel like if we’re concerned only for the present – we will think we will lose out if we are considering only others’ welfare in this way.  But in truth, we will both gain.  The other person gains now, and we gain by creating good causes for the future.  We also gain now because we are happy because our mind is peaceful and virtuous.

We always have choice, but self-cherishing will not let us make the right one, will it?  We always have choice, but it seems self-cherishing will do everything it can to prevent us from making the right choice.  To self-cherishing it does not seem right – it seems unnatural, crazy even – to use ourself for the sake of others.   Self-cherishing will not even let us look to the future.  Why not?  Self-cherishing is not only just concerned with ourselves (a self that isn’t even us to begin with), it is only concerned with ourselves right now.  It is such a narrow mind.  Self-cherishing is cherishing the I that is appearing at the moment, it wants to make this present I happy.   To the self-cherishing mind, the future self is ‘other.’

There is no doubt to move across into others’ world requires a great deal of courage, trust in this Dharma jewel, and a clear understanding of the disadvantages of self-cherishing and the advantages of cherishing others.  From the perspective of our self-cherishing mind, we are having to make a lot of compromises, we are having to make a lot of sacrifices, and those are the last things that self-cherishing wants to make. It hates making any compromises, hates making any sacrifices, doesn’t it?  We feel like we are losing out. We have this strong feeling that we are losing out. Others gain, we lose. According to self-cherishing, that is how it feels, doesn’t it?  Others gain, we lose.  If we are going to overcome this hesitation, we must remind ourselves again and again and again of the faults of self-cherishing and the benefits of cherishing others.  Geshe-la explains this in essentially every book.  We must learn to trust in particular more and more the mind that cherishes others.

Shantideva is here to help us do precisely that.

(8.121) Because we have attachment for our body,
Even a small object of fear frightens us greatly;
So who would not revile as an enemy
Cherishing this body, which is the source of that fear?

It is not the body itself that gives rise to fear, it is the cherishing of our body, the attachment to our body that actually gives rise to fear.   If we did not cherish our body, if we had no attachment to our body, what would we be afraid of?  How much of our self-cherishing arises from grasping at, being attached to, and cherishing this body? How much? 

Shantideva goes on to say:

(8.122) Out of our wish to find remedies
For the body’s hunger, thirst, and sickness,
We kill birds, fish, and other animals
And even resort to attacking people!

(8.123) Sometimes for money or other possessions
We might even kill our father or mother,
Or steal the property of a spiritual community,
And as a consequence burn in the fires of hell.

(8.124) Who with wisdom would cherish oneself
Or grasp at this body?
We should view the self-cherishing mind as a foe
And despise it accordingly.

In verse 115 Shantideva says, “Through the force of familiarity, I generate a mind / That grasps at I with respect to this non-self-existent body.” Let go of it. Just let go. We need to let go of grasping at this body and being so attached to it.  It is not our natural basis of imputation.  We believe it is, instinctively, inherently. “It’s my basis of imputation.” We perceive our body and we think I, we grasp at I, and believe there’s nothing wrong with that. We believe there is nothing wrong with that, yet when we perceive another’s body, and think I something definitely seems wrong with that.  Why?  Look what happens when we cling to our own body and cherish it.  We develop such strong, strong self-cherishing in dependence upon it.  

But when we understand that everything is a projection of our own mind, it is correct, even natural, to impute ‘I’ where we currently impute other, and ‘other’ where we currently impute self.  Everybody looks at themselves and thinks “I,” and everybody looks at us and thinks “other.”  We alone look at everyone and think “others” and look at the self we normally see and think “I.”  Clearly, from a conventional point of view, we are completely mad to think in this way.  Nobody else does!

Stopping cherishing our body will serve to stop, or at least reduce, our self-cherishing.  If we try to stop cherishing our body, will we naturally stop or at least reduce our self-cherishing.  What happens when we cherish our body, we protect our body, we are so concerned for it?  All the other delusions naturally arise.  We must stop.  Stopping cherishing our body is a way of stopping us cherishing ourselves.  Stopping cherishing our body is also a method for reducing our self-grasping too because we normally think we are our body.  If we are trying to stop cherishing this body, aren’t we letting go of part of our samsara? Our body is part of our samsara, is it not?  We try to lose familiarity with our body as our basis. Through this practice of exchanging self with others, we try to lose familiarity with our body as the basis for our I. 

We are responsible for freeing all others from suffering.  Because they are part of our world.  We are entirely responsible for freeing all suffering living beings, all living beings from their suffering. Suffering living beings are part of our world, our samsaric world.  I think we can say it is our sole responsibility, there is great meaning to this superior intention we are to develop. “I myself, I myself will liberate all living beings from their suffering. I myself. My sole responsibility.”  And so it is for everyone else.  It is their sole responsibility too.  That seems like a contradiction, but only because we think in absolute terms, not relative terms.  As it is for us, so it is for everybody else, too.  It is only by freeing themselves from self-centeredness that their personal or subjective world of suffering can come to an end.  

There is no other way.  It is only by freeing themselves from their own self-centeredness that they can bring their own personal subjective world of suffering to an end.  It is only by developing compassion themselves that they will create an enlightened world, a pure world, for themselves and others. An enlightened world in which there is no suffering.  They create that world for themselves too — a world in which there is no suffering. Such a world is created through the force of their compassion.  Otherwise, otherwise they will continue to perceive and experience only suffering. In an impure world of their own making. 

A samsaric world, a world of suffering, is built on self-cherishing. An enlightened world, a world of happiness, is built on compassion.  We create an enlightened world for ourselves and others through removing our self-centeredness, through exchanging self with others, developing compassion, conjoining that compassion with wisdom, creating an enlightened world through compassion.  In this way, our world becomes an enlightened world. We free others from their suffering.  And so it is for everyone else, too. They too have to remove their self-centeredness, exchange self with others, develop compassion, conjoin that compassion with wisdom, and create an enlightened world for themselves and others.   The compassion that we need to develop then is a compassion wishing to bring others’ samsara to an end.  We aim for a compassion wishing to lead others out of their samsaric world, out of their world of suffering.  We want to lead them out of their self-centered world.  We try to develop compassion wishing to lead others out of their self-centered world because that world is a world of suffering, and for as long as they remain in it, they will continue to perceive and experience suffering.  They will perceive not just themselves suffering, but others’ suffering too. For as long as we remain in our samsaric world we will continue to perceive other suffering living beings.

To lead others out of their samsaric world, we need to destroy the ignorance of self-grasping, the ignorance of self-cherishing in their mind.  This is exactly what our own spiritual guide is doing with us — destroying our self-grasping ignorance, destroying our self-cherishing ignorance.  We wish out of compassion to destroy their ignorance of self-grasping and self-cherishing, because is it a cause, this ignorance is the cause of their samsara and all its sufferings.  To gain the power to be able to destroy their ignorance, we determine we must remove all traces of ignorance from our own mind.  How?  By meditating on emptiness with the most compassionate mind of all — Bodhichitta arisen from exchanging self with others. It begins with our training in exchanging self with others.

To gain experience of exchanging self with others, we must meditate. Every day we must meditate on exchanging self with others.  We can do this by first exchanging self with others, then engaging in whatever is our daily practice, recognizing ourselves as all living beings engaging in the practice.  We can also mentally feel we are on retreat all the time with the special view we talked about in early posts.  Geshe-la has explained many times that we must be meditating throughout our daily activities.  What does it mean to meditate?  It means to mix our mind with virtue, to familiarize our mind with virtue.  There is no daily activity we engage in that we cannot simultaneously be meditating – or mixing our mind with virtue.  Since attaining enlightenment really just comes down to changing the object of our cherishing from self to others, with the rest coming naturally, it is very important that we meditate on exchanging self with others, especially when we are with others so that we can deepen our experience of this practice.   Of course we need some time to sit down on our meditation cushion, of course sometimes we need to do retreat, but considering how many hours there are in a day, we will make much more progress if we make this our daily practice during the meditation break.  No matter where we are, no matter what we are doing, whenever you see others, think – “me.”  It is not difficult, just train in imputing ‘self’ on others and ‘others’ on self.  Just keep doing this and acting in whatever way seems natural as a result.  If we do this consistently, we will gain a deep daily experience of what this means.  Enlightenment will come naturally.

But there is no doubt if we are meditating on exchanging self with others during our daily activities, then eventually there will arise in our mind a powerful Bodhichitta strongly wishing to be whatever other people need us to be.  When we have this mind of exchanging self with others, we strongly wish to be there for others. To be there for all others, at all times. That’s Bodhichitta.  A Buddha is someone who is able to be with all living beings every day.  We can only become a Buddha if we want to become one.  Exchanging self with others is how we build that wish within our mind.  We understand that Buddha emanates, manifests whatever is needed by sentient beings.  Buddha is with all sentient beings all the time. All living beings, all the time.  This practice of exchanging self with others gives rise to a very, very powerful Bodhichitta.  We do not need to sit down to be focusing upon others.  We do not need to sit down to love someone dearly.  We do not need to sit down to do that, do we?  Of course, we also need to sit down and meditate, do retreat and so forth, but it is in our daily life that we will gain the most experience.  That’s obvious, our daily life is much longer than our time on the meditation cushion.

Shantideva is encouraging us to go further, to keep moving on, further and further and further, because we hold back.  We know we are holding back.  We are holding back on cherishing some of ourself. We are also still keeping some distance from others, it’s clear.  Perhaps, we are reaching or we have reached the stage where we do cherish others.  Of course we do. But do we care only for others?  Is our interest in others actually a self-interest?  Do we calculate everything through the lens of how things affect us?  We have to keep going forward until finally we have left altogether the world of the self-centered mind.

These times, especially in our societies, people really do need our love, they need to feel that our heart is totally open to them.  If we are really to help the people in our life, they need to feel that our heart is totally, totally open to them.  It is so important.  They must feel that we want to let them in. But there is still a part of our mind does not want to.  We have to overcome this, otherwise they sense it, and there is an obstruction for others, too.  With respect to the people we are to help, we have to open our hearts to them, they have to open their hearts to us.  When this happens, beautiful things will come then. Otherwise, there remain obstructions.

To protect themselves, people keep in place so many barriers, don’t they?  Everybody does.  There are so many barriers that we are keeping firmly in place.  How can we expect others to take down and remove their barriers, if we are not prepared to do so ourselves? They are not going to take down their barriers if we don’t take down ours. They sense, we sense, they sense.  If others are to be open with us, if they are to open their heart, which they need to do, then we have to open ours.   Opening our heart in this way is actually part of our Tantric practice of loosening the channel knots.  We need to invite everybody into our heart, literally, where we see all of reality taking place within our indestructible drop. 

Geshe-la and Shantideva are encouraging us to ‘forget our object of self-cherishing.’  We know that there is fear in our own mind at the prospect of that.  It seems dangerous to forget about the object of self-cherishing.  What would that mean? What would happen? Just forget about myself?  That seems dangerous, doesn’t it?  It seems dangerous as well, highly dangerous to go completely into the worlds of others.  What are we going to find there?  We do feel afraid, don’t we?  We believe that we would be so exposed, so vulnerable, so we hold back, even just a little bit, we hold back thinking we are protecting ourself. We keep a little bit our distance. We do not completely open our heart.  We have got to overcome this one, go further and further. This is what Shantideva is encouraging us to do, through familiarly, applying effort. 

We need a tremendous amount of faith, a tremendous amount of trust. We need to trust this Dharma jewel of equalizing and exchanging self with others.  Geshe-la says in Eight Steps to Happiness to transform our mind in such a radical way, we need deep faith in this practice, an abundance of merit, and powerful blessings from a spiritual guide who has personal experience of these teachings.  And he says with all these conducive conditions, the practice of exchanging self with others is not difficult.

These last two or three verses help us to overcome any fear.

(8.118) Out of his great compassion,
Arya Avalokiteshvara even blessed his own name
To relieve living beings from the fear of self-cherishing;
So I should recite his name mantra to receive his blessings.

(8.119) Do not turn away from learning to cherish others because it is difficult.
For example, a person’s lover may once have been her enemy, the mere sound of whose name induced fear;
But now through familiarity she cherishes him
And becomes unhappy when he is not around.

(8.120) Thus, whoever wants to swiftly protect
Both themselves and others
Should practise this holy secret
Of exchanging self with others.

Geshe-la describes samsara as the experience of a self-centered mind.  The samsaric world is a reflection of such a mind, in no way existing from its own side.  And we know the samsaric world is a suffering world. It is a world inhabited by suffering living beings who also in no way exist from their own side.  How can we bring such a world to an end? Only by destroying the self-centered mind. We do this through exchanging self with others and the wisdom realizing emptiness – chapter 8 and chapter 9 of Shantideva’s Guide.

Through compassion, naturally arising from exchanging self with others, conjoined with wisdom, we create an enlightened world in which there is no suffering.  If we think deeply from the point of view of emptiness, this is the only way to bring suffering to an end. There is no other way.  We cannot bring an end to suffering in samsaric world because that is its very nature, isn’t it?  Therefore, we must end the samsaric world itself.

After describing the practice of equalizing self and others, and giving us encouragement to train in this practice, describing its benefits, special advice and so forth, now Shantideva goes on to describe the practice of exchanging self with others.

(8.113) Seeing the faults of cherishing myself
And the many good qualities of cherishing others,
I should completely forsake self-cherishing
And become familiar with cherishing others.

(8.114) Just as I regard the hands and so forth
As limbs of my body,
So should I regard all living beings
As limbs of a living whole.

Again, Shantideva is helping us develop a new view of ourselves, as part of the body of all living beings.  Because all the parts of a body are united in a single whole, each part takes care of all the others.  In the same way, if we view ourselves as a part of the living whole, we care for each part.  The main point is this is a view we need to train in.  We have to apply effort to come to see ourselves as inseparably part of the same whole.  The hand does not think it is just a hand, it considers itself the body.  Every being, including ourself, is part of the fabric of our mind.  Others are literally parts of us, each being is part of our life.

(8.115) Through the force of familiarity, I generate a mind
That grasps at I with respect to this non-self-existent body;
So why, through familiarity with cherishing others,
Should I not develop a mind that grasps at I with respect to others’ bodies?

The main practice of exchanging self with others is to identify with all living beings.  Our “I” is just a label, we are what we identify with.  At present, we identify with something that does not exist at all, an inherently existent I.  But with familiarity, we strongly believe it to be ourselves.  This is just a question of familiarity, there is nothing about this non-existent that is us other than the fact we identify with it.  If we train in identifying with others, we can gradually come to literally feel ourselves to be all living beings, and to consider each being as part of ourselves.  Since we naturally cherish whatever we consider ourselves to be, if we consider ourselves to be all living beings, we will naturally cherish all living beings. 

If we make this one change in recognition, the entire Mahayana path falls into our laps almost effortlessly, and with it enlightenment.  Geshe-la says in Eight Steps to Happiness that the path to enlightenment is very simple:  all we need to do is change the object of our cherishing from self to others, and everything else follows naturally.  This means to attain enlightenment, all we really need to do is take as our main practice identifying with all others as ourselves.  When we see others, think “this is me.”  When we see ourself, think, “that is others.”  Again and again and again, we train.  With familiarity, this will become our view.  Then, everything else comes naturally.

(8.116) Although I work for others in this way,
I should not develop pride or pretension;
And, just as when I feed myself,
I should hope for nothing in return.

We discussed this in detail in an earlier post, but I find it important that Shantideva repeats it again.  We shouldn’t think we are special because we are training in exchanging self with others or that we are on the bodhisattva’s path.  This is a trick, a deception.  Our self-cherishing hijacks our Dharma to make us feel special and important.  Many great spiritual leaders – and many local resident teachers – easily fall into this trap.  I know I did, I know I still do. 

(8.117) Therefore, just as I protect myself
From anything unpleasant, however small,
So should I become familiar with
A compassionate and caring mind towards others.

It is familiarity that will take us to the point where we have exchanged self with others.   That is what we do over these next few verses.  We try to become more and more familiar with cherishing others and letting go of the cherishing of ourself.   At the end of the day, the practice itself is quite simple:  we keep thinking I with respect to others’ bodies, until we have actually forgotten altogether the object of our self-cherishing.  The object of your cherishing becomes only others.  At first the object of cherishing will become others.  With equalizing self and others, still to some extent there will be some self-cherishing.  But we learn to cherish only others. We continue with this training, until finally we cherish only others. That is the difference.  Geshe-la said in Eight Steps to Happiness that we need to forget our object of self-cherishing.  We can just forget it completely and think only of others.  This is what we are striving for.  Again, that doesn’t mean we don’t still take care of ourself.  We just take care of ourself so that we are of better service to others.