Everyone wants to be happy in life. Everyone wants to achieve happiness. For an athlete, for instance, his idea of ultimate happiness is to win a gold medal in the Olympics.

For the glory of a gold medal and a few minutes on the podium with your national flag going up while they play your national anthem, you deprive yourself of the pleasure of nightlife, relationships, fun, going out with friends or even your partner. You will subject yourself to a special and stringent diet, train eight hours a day, sleep early and not stay up. You will stay away from friends and curtail many activities because you have to train and work hard. You have to push and discipline yourself.

You really have to transform yourself and change your schedule in order to get your body ready in the next four to eight years in the hope that when the day of the Olympics arrives you will be selected to participate.

So there is a lot of sacrifice and effort and deprivation involved, as well as a complete and radical transformation of the mind to be positive in accepting the hardship and the sacrifice, so that you can qualify. Then you hope that you can win a gold medal. If not a gold, then at least a bronze medal. Yet, the feeling of great joy and exultation that comes with winning will last for only a while. It is in fact very short-lived. This is a lot of effort and sacrifice that you willingly put yourself through. The training and transformation of the mind to patiently absorb the sacrifice and hardship you have to endure, is for happiness which is so short-lived.

We all want more than this. We want real and lasting happiness. We want total freedom from suffering. We want enlightenment – total inner peace, a state of mind where ‘nothing disturbs it anymore’. Enlightenment means a daily affair, it means a life affair and it means you’re able to benefit others tremendously. So in order to reach that transcendental state, don’t you think that our efforts must be much (much) more than an athlete’s?

We want this enlightened mind, this mind of complete peace that is ever-caring and ever-compassionate and always seeks to benefit others. This state of mind is attainable. How do we know that? Tsem Rinpoche shows us that this is the state of mind that holy beings like His Holiness the Dalai Lama have attained.
What touches me most in this book is the part in the section entitled ‘In the midst of chaos we are still happy’, where Venerable Tenzin Palmo tells us that, despite absorbing so much suffering from around him on a daily basis, His Holiness the Dalai Lama still continuously exudes happiness to all around him.

It is so uplifting to know that we can achieve a mind of total inner peace and happiness like that of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It is a mind that has completely transformed from an egotistical mind that is self-absorbed and self-grasping to a mind that is full of love and compassion for others. It is able to absorb all the pain and suffering from the people around and transcend it to reach a state of calm, peace and tranquillity. Just as the Venerable Tenzin Palmo had said, when we go to see His Holiness, when we look into his eyes, we see love and we see happiness. We don’t see sadness.

Someone like His Holiness Dalai Lama has been absorbing so much pain and suffering from people, listening to their problems daily for the last 50 years, losing his country, being called a hypocrite, being dethroned, being said negative things of, being treated with no respect as the political leader of his country, losing his empire, his whole people and seeing his people suffer. All the while having these people coming to him and cry for help. And he absorbs all this daily.

Yet in the face of all this, he is able to exude happiness. He is definitely not happy with what’s happening but he gives happiness because happiness is NOT based on what happens on the outside, it is based on INNER PRACTICE. Tsem Rinpoche assures us that we can achieve this state of mind – a mind of peace even in the midst of chaos -through practicing the Dharma.

Happiness is not about receiving happiness from others. On the contrary, as His Holiness and Tsem Rinpoche shows us, by fine example, happiness comes from giving happiness to others. Happiness is about making the people around us happy.

All suffering arises from the mind. All happiness arises from the mind. We can only find real happiness, if we have expunged our mind of all the causes of suffering, which actually stem from our selfishness. Real happiness can only come if we transform our minds and make people around us happy. Real happiness can only come if we have learned to control our mind, which is what mind transformation leads to. We can only control the mind if we take the Buddha’s teaching, the Dharma, and practice it sincerely through transforming our minds.

The Five Main Things I Have Learned from ‘Nothing Changes Everything Changes’

Happiness is not based on what happens outside, it is based on inner practice – the practice of mind transformation. The inner practice of mind transformation begins with our facing ourselves, finding the causes of our unhappiness that lie within us, accepting them and letting go of our clinging to them.
Why we make ourselves unhappy

The negative habituation of focusing outward for happiness

We have been habituated to focus outward on relationships, people, money, friends and our reputation as the outlet for happiness. But these outward objects do not lead to happiness. Why? They do not last. They are impermanent. The foundation on which they sit is very fragile – our bodies will disintegrate when we die. The buildings that we are now living in will eventually crumble.

We want real happiness that is stable and unchanging. Unfortunately, we seek them in the wrong places, by chasing goals based on outer wealth and outer betterment. These goals are generally self-serving and in the ruthless pursuit of them, we sacrifice our youth, our friends, spouses and family. Sometimes we even lose the things that really matter in our lives.

Eventually, we have to face ourselves, ascertain the reasons why we are unhappy and eradicate these causes of unhappiness. Only then can our mind move towards peace.
Unfortunately, when we are eventually forced to face ourselves, the horrible part is our karma for those things actually run out. Perhaps we cannot overcome it and are driven to do extreme things like committing suicide or inflicting hurt on others.
Facing ourselves and recognising how we create and reinforce negative karma or create a negative reputation. This can cause us to go off the deep end.

Whatever negative actions of body, speech and mind that we manifest in response to an experience will create negative karma. The action remains when we reinforce it, causing more negative karma. Negative karma multiplies everyday if not purified. Karma comes back to us in all its fury in the form of nasty experiences that are often laden with tremendous suffering.

Reinforcing and building negative karma by repeating these acts also leads to reinforcing our delusions of anger, hatred, jealousy, and attachment. If unchecked, it will pull us down and eventually it will come back to us in a full blown way. If we are not cushioned against a fall, our whole world and reality falls apart.

In fact, the reason for our unhappiness is because we are reinforcing something that is not real. Reinforcing something that is not real, and building up our negative karma in doing so, ends up in the negative karma coming back to us. Even so-called ‘good’ relationships can end up bad this way.
Reinforcing something that’s not real

Here is an example. We think we have the power of ending relationships or not wanting relationships, and we use it to end a good relationship. Then we want another relationship, we also end it. What happens is that a time will come when our karma builds up and someone else will do it back to us. We go off the deep end, commit suicide, do something violent, hurt others or take revenge. In the end not only do we hurt ourselves, but the hurt and damage we do to others may take a long time for them to recover from.
Creating a reputation for ourselves

Even if we do not believe in karma, at a normal psychological level, we create a reputation for ourselves by repeatedly reacting in a certain way to whatever situation or person is involved. People around us have built up preconceived notions about us based on our repeated reactions. People who have not met us will spread our reputation around and even add on to what has been said about us.
Complaining, explaining and justifying that we are not what our reputation makes us out to be – creating more unhappiness and causes for unhappiness

The notion that has created our reputation is what hurts us, especially when the reputation is negative – that we are lazy, irresponsible, and prone to anger. That’s when we start complaining that we have been misunderstood. We spend a lot of time trying to explain and justify ourselves to others. But when we look at ourselves deeply we have no results.
Why do we need to explain and justify?

We created a reputation ourselves through our actions and reactions in our every encounter and experience we had. Whether the preconceived notions that other have of us are true or false, we should not react to them by giving way to our anger and other emotions. We should not go around justifying, complaining, blaming and attempting to prove we are right. We have no results to show or support us.

It is the delusion of ignorance that makes us think we are good and did not do as much bad as others think we did or as others accuse us of doing. But even this comes from a cause, which may be habituation from a previous life.

We can either spend the rest of our lives defending our reputation and telling people we have been misunderstood OR we can transform ourselves. With the former we show no result. On a worldly level, we have no material assets and we are left alone as we have alienated everyone. Spiritually when we die, we may not be sure of a good life afterwards.

Hence, with our limited energy and time, wouldn’t it be better for us to transform ourselves, so that all the preconceived ideas about us will crumble, no matter how slowly?
Transforming our way out of suffering

We transform by learning the Dharma, contemplating and putting it into our lives and creating a transformation. That transformation today will create new ideas about us tomorrow that will lead us to the eventual peace and ultimate happiness we seek.

Transformation begins with accepting, letting go and forgiving. Transforming begins with taking responsibility.

Tsem Rinpoche had a lot of difficult experiences as a child. He was subject to a lot of abuse –both physical and mental. BUT he chose to use those experiences to NOT create a further reputation for himself. He chose to NOT complain, explain and justify. He chose to accept, let go and forgive.

Most importantly, in his own words: “I will not take the anger towards me and put that anger towards others or damage others but I choose to take the anger to realise that I did something in a previous life to get that. Therefore I accept it. By accepting, letting go and forgiving, I purify that karma. It’s done. That karma is thus used up. But if I harp on it, I focus on it, I use it again and do it again and think about it and I do negative things in relation to it or justify my actions by saying that it came from the fact that I was hurt and abused, no one, at the end, will accept that any more. In the beginning for one or two sessions. Not after that, if you continue”.

The important thing is to take responsibility. Have the courage to take action and responsibility. But a lot of people won’t do that. They will continue to justify their actions from previous actions done to them. “I was abused by my father”, “My husband cheated on me,” they continue to use that as an excuse for their state of being now.

Those may be contributing factors but right now what is contributing to your downfall? Your lack of knowledge? Your justifications? What are your actions now? If those past actions can lead you to what you are now, your experiences and reactions now can lead you to what you will be tomorrow.

You may have a past of abuse and neglect by your parents, for instance, and are out in the cold now. Yes that’s how you are now and it happened.

But you can’t live the rest of your life based on what happened to you and use that continuously. You can’t because you are grasping and holding on to a projection of something that had happened to you and not letting go. And you are still creating negative karma from that experience.

If we keep basing what we do now, tomorrow, or next year – on what happened in the past, and we just keep living the way we are and grow worse, a time comes when age catches up with us and it becomes very difficult emotionally.

If we keep holding to the past hurts and abuses, we lose. The past is what we had created. If we were at fault for what happened, we are reinforcing that fault. Even if we are not at fault, we are creating the fault because we hold on to it and act out of it; in fact, we create more negative karma to have the past hurts happen again.

When we get back at a person, over a past action against us, what he did is over, but what we do to him, because we are holding on to the past experience, creates more and more karma (causes for more suffering).
Transformation begins by letting go of attachment to wrong projections, your past reputation and by changing your current reputation

Transform by letting go of your attachment to wrong projections. When you keep saying “I can’t “, “I don’t have time” or “I’ll try” over and over again, you are reinforcing an attachment. You are using it as an excuse not to become better or to fail. This is an attachment based on a wrong projection that comes from ignorance, the source of deepest suffering. The main factor for us to stay in samsara is when we reinforce it over and over again.

If you have a reputation of not fulfilling commitments and not doing what you are supposed to do and disappointing people, letting your anger take over, being lazy – you can change all that. Instead of letting your past reputation prevail, change it now for the future. Whatever you want to be can happen now. Why? Because when you put in what you want to be, you become what you put your energy into.
Letting go of attachments

If you keep being attached to your past reputation, it will be very difficult to improve and become better. The best way to let go of attachment is realising you are attached, listening to Dharma teachings on removal of attachment, collecting merit and doing practices to cut out that attachment. Work on removing attachment because attachment brings unhappiness and disharmony. If it is attachment based, no matter how good things are now, no matter how good your motivation appears to be, it will bring unhappiness.

Remember the law of samsara– everything is impermanent, so long as we understand and remember this truth and reality, everything becomes easier to accept.
Transformation begins by letting go of grasping at projections, at conventions, at cultures, at upbringing and at expectations which are false

We need to let go of conventions, projections, cultures, upbringing and expectations, then we will feel less loss and find a greater purpose to our lives. In the first place, these are created by people who do not have wisdom. When we hold on to convention and culture, our actions and reactions from them may hurt others. Why? Others have their own upbringing and culture too that are different and may conflict with our own.

Our false projections- how we expect a situation to be, how we expect a person to be – are false and not based on true reality. Hence most of us suffer when these projected expectations are not fulfilled. Then we create suffering for others whose values, culture and background are different from ours.

Our false expectations lead us to fight, scold, and show a black face or say nasty things, when they do not meet our expectations. We create more suffering for others and ourselves. So we don’t create harmony and happiness from our projections.
We need the ultimate method to transform so as to realise our full potential

Even if you don’t believe in future lives, believe in this life. The beauty of Dharma and Dharma teachings is that it can be applied to your present life and it can benefit you now. Whatever we put our time to should bring real benefit to us. What’s more beneficial than learning the ultimate method of transforming our minds to bring benefit to others?

Without an ultimate method, without making time for it, whatever we do will be very limited and stunted, therefore we cannot reach our full potential.
In Summary: Transform Now to Create a Brighter, Happier Future

NOW is the best time to face ourselves and recognise our faults and negative qualities. Take responsibility. Let go and forgive. Let go of wrong projections and motivation – habituation from innumerable past lifetimes. They all arise from a selfish, self-grasping mind.

All our reactions to PAST experiences have led us to what we are TODAY. What we will become in the FUTURE is being determined by what we do TODAY!

WE cannot hold on to the past and live the rest of our lives based on what happened to us in the past and use that continuously.

BY holding on to and grasping at a projection of something that happened to you in the past and not letting go, you are still creating negative karma.

When you accept, let go and forgive, you purify negative karma.

Whatever we are doing to other people now is based on our hopes and dreams from the past, whether real or false. If we are creating a lot of negative karma, it’s due to our reactions to the experiences we had in the past.

People can be beaten and react positively. People can be beaten and react negatively. Deep Dharma practitioners who are beaten, move on saying “I purified my karma. I’ll avoid that. It’s ok. I forgive that person.” They don’t create more harm. People who don’t, they’ll probably take revenge, go kill, or beat people up.

What happened to us in the past is what we are now; but what will happen to us in the future depends on what we do NOW. We can only change what will happen to be better by seeking a higher wisdom to deal with it. One higher wisdom that will bring powerful positive effects is BUDDHA’S DHARMA.

However, if we continuously do not put effort towards changing and transforming, then what is happening to us now, due to the reactions we had to experiences in the past, will continue until we die. And unfortunately, continue into our future lives.

We don’t go to hell. We create our own hell by seeking things that are wrong. In our seeking of happiness in the wrong objects, we will not attain happiness. When you have attained ‘what you want’, based on attachment, you will create the negative karma for it to be taken away.

Everything is impermanent. However beautiful you are, you will not be beautiful one day; however rich you are, it will be taken away at the time of death. Ultimately you have to let go.
Transform while we still can – make spiritual haste while the sun shines

While we are experiencing very fortunate circumstances now and minimum obstacles, we should make full use of this window of opportunity to train and transform our minds. This is to build up a strong internal spiritual practice to cushion us and help us weather the storm of changing circumstances, as everything is impermanent.
Whatever we have now will be taken away. Hence, if we are currently enjoying a good life, we should also work hard and accumulate merits to secure a continuity of this life into the future. Take responsibility to improve and establish yourself for the continuity of a good life on your own merits, after the umbrella of luck and merits of parents or partners are gone.

More importantly, as our ultimate goal is true inner peace and enlightenment, we should immediately apply ourselves seriously to the training and transformation of our minds to achieve this.

Mind transformation is the ultimate method to attain true happiness and ultimate inner peace.

Mind Transformation – the Dharma practice to attain real happiness

Why we have to transform?

Spiritual practice or Dharma practice is about transforming our minds. Transforming our minds is to make people around us happy and then we will be happy. If we transform our minds, wherever we are, we make people around us happy and we will be happy.

We transform our minds because we love people. Transformation of our mind is out of pure love for others and hence when we engage in mind transformation, it is a spontaneous act and process.
Mind transformation has to be engaged in continuously

Only when we continuously apply ourselves to it will we see results. Our minds will transform. When we transform our mind, our speech is transformed. When our speech is transformed, we transform other people’s minds and lives. Hence transformation starts from the mind – a mind of love.
The effect on others when our mind is transformed

The effect we have on others, when our minds are transformed, is we make people around us happier and happier and less confused and clearer. When they spend more and more time with us, they become happier and happier. This is because our minds abide in a state of joy. Our mind abides in a state of joy because we wish to bring joy to others.
Controlling Our Mind
Redirecting our Energies

We can only bring joy to others if we have a controlled mind. We can have a controlled mind if we practice the Buddha’s teachings and transform our minds, redirecting our motivation, perspective, and view from a self–centred focus to a mind that is focussed on giving joy and happiness to others.
Redirecting our energies to bring happiness to others

A most important step to developing a controlled mind is to redirect all our energies to bring happiness to others.

Every single person on this planet has a lot of effort to work hard every single day for money, partners and reputation. No one needs to motivate you. Yet, when it comes to doing Dharma practice and work, to bring happiness to others, you have no time.

However, the pursuit of these worldly ‘objects’ is for a happiness that is not real because they are impermanent and illusory. It is grounded in the three poisons– ignorance, hatred and desire. This arises from self-grasping. Hence there will be no real lasting happiness. You will collect a lot of negative karma and reinforce the negative karma (in the process), as you hurt and damage people, which will translate into more and more suffering and unhappiness in the future.

We should direct our energies, efforts and motivation to an object which will bring permanent unchanging happiness. That happiness is real, it is inner peace and enlightenment.

We have driven in the best cars, stayed in the best houses, we’ve had wonderful things. We go through ups and downs but for how many more years? What are we waiting for? What are we expecting? What do we want? What can we want that we haven’t already had? What can we have that will bring us ‘what we want’? There is no difference
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It’s not too difficult or monumental a task to develop a motivation of being able to bring happiness to others through doing Dharma for others. Or by bearing with others and not giving up easily for the sake of others’ happiness. You do that all the time for the ones you love, for example, your children, working untiringly and selflessly for them.

Redirect this energy we have towards others. If we combine our energy with our Guru’s pure energy from the Dharma he teaches, and we redirect our energy to our Guru, he is like a magnifying glass which can concentrate the sun’s energy to ‘burn something for us under it’. What is burnt away is the self-centeredness that causes our suffering. When we do this, it will surely change our whole perspective. When that happens our whole view of the world changes. Everything changes and we are completely transformed.
Transforming our minds: an inner practice that results in a complete transformation from suffering and chaos to happiness and peace

The transformation of the mind is about a change of attitude and perspective, regarding our motivation and the object. Transformation is about a complete turnabout of our attitude and the way we see things and the way we perceive things. We cannot change the world but we can transform our view of the world. This is what our mind transformation is all about.

When we completely transform our perception of things and how we look at things, everything changes around us. Our motivation, our emotions and our delusions- like anger and jealousy- are transformed. Our view of happiness and success, our enthusiasm, the way we react to people, the way we talk and relate to people, all are transformed.

The result is that our negative habituation, our wrong projections and expectations of how things should be, WILL START TO GO AWAY. We complain less and less. We accept, forgive and let go more and more. We are more humble and admit our mistakes more and more. We are able to accept and bear with things, people and situations that we had previously found unbearable, more and more.
We start seeing reality, the way it really is

When we start seeing things as they really are– not what we want them to be or project them to be, we will experience happiness and joy. In the midst of chaos, we are still happy. We have the strength and we will be able to help others more and more. The strength comes from INSIDE, not based on the OUTSIDE. This is the INNER STRENGTH that we need to develop and to achieve in order to face the chaos of samsara. This chaos is the uncertainty of the sudden change of circumstances that uncontrolled karma brings us in samsara.

This is how we develop the state of the enlightened mind, which great masters like H.H. the Dalai Lama and H.E Tsem Rinpoche have achieved. This is the state of inner peace and ultimate stable and permanent happiness that we wish to achieve.

Nothing Changes Everything Changes

The transformation happens within us– in our minds. Nothing changes externally. We remain the same person, with the same identity, and our likes and inclinations toward food and clothing remain the same.

Hence, nothing changes for us externally, but everything changes for us internally.
Mind transformation– transforming our habituated self-centred motivation of seeking happiness for oneself to the motivation of benefiting and bringing joy to others.

Mind transformation begins with the pure motivation of benefiting others and making them happy. Our supreme goal is to benefit all sentient beings, give them happiness and take away their sufferings. This is to repay their kindness as every being has been our mother before in previous lifetimes. The all-encompassing motive is love and compassion.

In our day-to-day life, this supreme goal translates into:

1. engaging in Dharma practice and doing Dharma work with love, for the sake of others and to benefit them.
2. engaging in Dharma practice and doing Dharma work to bring benefit and happiness to others in response to their harm.
3. engaging in Dharma practice and doing Dharma work with joy and to bring ultimate happiness and joy to others through their own mind transformation.
4. accepting, letting go, forgiving, being patient and persevering out of great love and compassion for others.

Hence, all our actions of body, speech and mind are to make others happy or to bring happiness to others, to lessen their suffering and never to harm others or bring them suffering.
Transformation is about developing a correct perception of happiness based on reality
Letting go of incorrect or false perceptions- incorrect or false perceptions

A person perceives their life as a happy life as they have everything they want, they are comfortable. But this perception is not based on true reality, which is characterised by impermanence. When something happens, this happy state is like a bubble being burst. There is no internal cushioning and their whole world falls apart. Their reality comes apart. Their response to it is their negative reaction towards the people around them. They hurt and damage them. They fall into depression and even contemplate suicide.

At the other end of the scale, a person falsely perceives that the best thing to do with their life is to do nothing and remain inert. Because of their wrong perception of themselves, this person consistently fails and does not want to do anything with their life.
Transforming by developing correct perceptions of happiness, based on reality

Developing a correct perception that happiness comes from:

1. accepting and bearing with difficult situations and people for the sake of others
2. letting go and forgiving others and admitting our mistakes and saying sorry
3. absorbing and taking on the difficulties and suffering for the sake of others
4. practicing patience, perseverance and effort in relation to others
5. working to benefit others in response to their harm

Real happiness comes from doing all the above with the pure motivation of benefiting others and bringing them happiness out of love for them. Real happiness comes from seeing the reality of impermanence and interdependent origination. Eventually our minds will expand as we strive to make others happy. We learn to forgive other people and love them, despite their being difficult and bitchy.
Developing a happy mind by being able to bear with people and situations however difficult they are

As we do more and more real transformative spiritual practice, we will see our minds become very happy, very bright and we will see that we accept things. When we open our hearts to Dharma and we apply it, things that we had previously found unbearable, we are able to bear.

A mind transformed by Dharma is a mind with the ability to bear with people who are not practicing the Dharma, who are not doing spiritual practice, who are not good people, a mind with the ability to put up with them happily, continuously. No matter what others do to you, you don’t feel discouraged.

In our practice of mind transformation, we reach a state where we can take or bear everything. We can perceive everything. We can accept everything and what we give back is not negative energy but positive energy. Every single person that comes to us will leave us feeling happy. If we leave a person happy, that person’s mind brings happiness to other people. When we leave a person happy and radiate happiness, it means we have achieved a state of abiding in a mind of happiness.
Listening to the Buddha. Listening to the Guru to help guide us in developing the correct perspective

We listen to a person who is basically free from wrong perspectives and that person can only be a Buddha. A Buddha can give us that method and the way to change our perspective. Therefore, if we listen to the Buddha’s teachings, read the Buddha’s teachings, visually see the Buddha in images, it can help transform our mind.

Our guru is there to let us know what we can and cannot do, to cajole, to inspire, to help us to do what we are supposed to do. Most importantly, our guru can help and guide us towards developing a new perspective about people and situations we encounter in life.

We can check our minds and see how our minds have expanded since we entered dharma and listened to the holy teachings of Lord Buddha. We are able to bear things that we are normally not able to bear – that ability, from day one until now, is Dharma.
Mind transformation– changing from incorrect attitudes and motivation of doing Dharma practice and Dharma work on the basis of others to correctly doing Dharma practice and Dharma work for others.
Practising Dharma and doing Dharma on the basis of others and the negative consequences of having such an incorrect attitude and motivation.

If we do Dharma practice and Dharma work on the basis of others, we will only do practice and work if certain conducive conditions are in place. For instance, you will do Dharma practice only if other people are practicing. Then your mood will go up and down depending on whether your ‘conditions’ for practicing are being met. Or you are not going to join a Dharma group in the centre or you quit the group because they are all saints and too advanced in their practice for you.

So we can’t do Dharma work or practice on the basis of conditions like: ‘If I have this’, ‘If I get this’, ‘If that person or group is like that’. If you set up conditions, then you will just drop out and disappear for the slightest reason. People who do Dharma on the basis of others, may have frivolous reasons for Dharma –for socialising, for fun, for intellectual stimulation or for some personal benefit. These people will be easily disheartened and will give up Dharma easily. If for instance, they fall out with someone in a Dharma group because that person ‘did this to me’, they will leave straightaway.

If we practice on the basis of others, we will always get depressed, unhappy, stop, begin, go away, don’t want, think negative things and we’re always pointing our fingers at others.

There are also people who will join a Dharma centre only if it fulfils their expectations, such as the centre being quite established and well organised with a stable group of members, and if there are no cancellations. But if a Dharma centre were perfect and well established, the people in it are all wonderfully advanced practitioners, and there is almost perfection and zero problems, why would you join such a centre? What real Dharma practice will you be engaging in?
Practising with the ability to bear with difficult people and situations for the sake of others, out of love for them, and developing the qualities of patience, joyous effort, perseverance and compassion

The Dharma practice of mind transformation involves being able to bear with difficult situations and people, so that you will build up the qualities of patience, endurance, perseverance, joyous effort and compassion among others. These are the qualities that will not only provide the mental cushion you need when your whole world falls apart, but it will also develop for you the mind of inner peace in the midst of chaos. We live in samsara, even the centre is in samsara; hence there will be difficult situations and difficult people, there will be chaos and confusion.

Practicing in dependence on conditions is not dharma practice

If we practice Dharma in dependence on conditions like the Dharma group being wonderful, the people being well-organised and people doing everything perfectly, that is not Dharma. The whole basis of our practice is wrong.

If we can’t bear the people around us, how can we bear everybody outside? How can we practice to benefit all beings, which IS THE GOAL OF ENLIGHTENMENT?

If people don’t practice the Eight Verses, that is all the more reason we should get involved. Practicing the Eight Verses is what we should set as our spiritual goal or ideal. We are practicing to give, not to take. We are practicing on the basis of ‘because this doesn’t have, you wish to give’.

If we can’t practice patience with our own Dharma brothers and sisters, we can’t practice perseverance, effort and forgiveness with our own Dharma brothers and sisters, how can we ever attain the goal of benefiting all sentient beings, which is the goal of Enlightenment?

If you don’t go to a centre or get involved because ‘this person’s no good’, ‘that person’s evil’, ‘this person tricked me’, then your motivation is all wrong. Because, without these people, how do you develop the qualities to benefit others? If you can’t bear those who are around you, how can you bear everybody else outside?

If we tell everybody our guru is the highest Lama, and we are doing everything opposite, we bring our Guru down. Why? If our Guru is so high, why can’t he transform you? That’s how students destroy the Dharma.
Don’t expect perfection – but transform your attitude and everything becomes perfect.

Stop expecting perfection or there will be no real Dharma practice. The Dharma centre is not perfect, the Guru is not Buddha, the students are not perfect. Accept that. As the centre expands, there will be more and more problems.

It’s Samsara. It’s silly to say you are not going to practice because of imperfect conditions. It is silly because you are not going to find any place that has a perfect practice anywhere. However, if we change our attitude, everything becomes perfect. Why? Because everything we encounter becomes practice.
No perfection, but the Guru cares

Rinpoche is in the Dharma because he cares about people a lot. The only way he can extend his care is by giving Dharma because if he gives Dharma, he gives everybody the method of how to find new food every day. He teaches us how to plant crops and when our crops are great, we’re set. Then Rinpoche can help and impact more and more people. “I really don’t want people to have problems and if I can help them I will do it”.

We need to participate, contribute to the centre and to the Dharma, for the sake of others. We need to forgive, consistently and constantly, for the sake of others.
Further qualities and benefits that come from developing the correct attitude and motivation of doing Dharma for the sake and benefit of others, to repay their kindness

All other beings on this planet have been our mothers before and have shown us immeasurable kindness and love. Hence, we have to repay their kindness.

If we practice the Dharma and do Dharma work for the sake of others, we will not stop nor give up no matter how difficult the situation is. We will not be disheartened or depressed. We will be able to bear with all the difficulties and even tremendous hardship, no matter what is said or done to us or what happens. Tsawa Phutok Rinpoche shows us an example of this. Despite the tremendous hardship he suffered in jail in Tibet for 20 years, he happily suffered and absorbed the suffering so that Dharma could flourish in the three great monasteries – Gaden, Sera and Drepung. We will not give up even if we have to lose people or have to give up people. Even severe hardships or suffering will not cause us to lose our joy in doing Dharma for the benefit of others.
Repaying the kindness of all mother beings when we change from a negative/ incorrect to a positive/ correct attitude

Every single person has been our parent, and every single person will be our parent again. We need to repay the kindness of our parents in this life, past lives and future lives. All have been our parents and have been equally kind to us. How do we repay them back? By changing our attitude. How do we change our attitude? By practicing the Dharma and engaging in dharma work for others and dedicating our merits gained to them. We collect great amounts of merit this way. When we dedicate the merit to all mother sentient beings, we repay their kindness.

Every time we are aware, we repay their kindness. Every time we hold our anger or reduce it, we repay their kindness. Therefore, when we practice Dharma, we practice for others. When we have that attitude – that it’s for others – we’ll never give up.
A Growing Sense of Universal Responsibility

A growing sense of universal responsibility will open up in our mind. “I will bring happiness to everyone who comes to me. And whatever method I employ, whatever I have to give up, whatever I have to sacrifice, others are more important than me”.

Developing a Mind of Great Compassion

Working for others and benefiting them. In response to their harm, do more for them

We need to work on the scale of the universality of all beings having been our mothers in our many lifetimes. We work for the goal of enlightenment which is to benefit and bring happiness to all sentient beings. So in response to the harm that others do to us, we work to benefit them instead. Out of compassion, we recognise the suffering of every being and work to relieve their suffering.

So when you see someone in a lower state, you work more and you plot and plan how to help them.

Our Dharma centre is like a hospital. We are going to get all sorts of weird people, people with bad motives, people with seemingly good motives but who actually have a bad motive behind them; we’re going to have rich and poor, we are going to have beautiful and not beautiful, we’re going to have all types. But that’s what this is all about. You don’t allow people into the hospital on the basis of race, gender, sex, if they need healing. You allow them into the hospital of Dharma because YOU DON’T WANT PEOPLE TO SUFFER.

So whether they are rich or poor. Good or bad, evil or not, it doesn’t matter. Whether it takes them ten years to transform, whether they transform or not – it doesn’t matter. Why? In fact, them not transforming, not changing, them not becoming better, fuels you to do more meditation, more inner practice and think of more ways to help them.

If we can help one person in our Dharma community. We gain the ability, knowledge and the effort to help so many others.

To complain about others in the Dharma centre and to have fear and trepidation to do Dharma work is totally the wrong attitude. In fact, all this should fuel you to do more. If we live in an environment of no fear, no trepidation, and everything is beautiful and fabulous, why do we need to do Dharma? Why practice, when there is nothing more to achieve?

Similarly, if we make conditions to our Gurus, to the people and to ourselves, we show clearly that we are going the wrong direction in our practice. So we need to redirect ourselves.

Real practice is this. People who complain, who are bitchy and problematic, and who don’t transform, and people who gossip and create problems– we forgive them, love them and by our own example, transform them and by our own persistence and effort of not giving up, give them hope and courage. Don’t criticise and gossip and talk about them, and write about them, and say nasty things about them, but in response to their harm, give them benefit.

This is the way to happiness in this and future lives

If we do all this, then this life will be happy and future lives will also be happy. That is the purpose of our centre: to invite all the weirdos, invite all the fruitcakes and invite all those who can’t find themselves. Invite all the lazy, evil and ignorant people. They ALL DESERVE THE DHARMA. They want happiness just like us.

We need to invite all these people into our centre. They will be the objects for us to practice the Dharma and become real Buddhists. Real practice is when you fall down, you are humble and push yourselves and you don’t stop.
Listen to the inner voice of wisdom

Listen to the voice of wisdom. Don’t slip into your old habituation of self-centredness, of finding faults, criticising and complaining about people and about not being appreciated, and staying away because of all these excuses. Contribute and make the centre grow.

In the centre, there are many people and everybody’s special – they have their special needs and approaches and problems. We need to overcome each obstacle in our way, for us to master and to help another being. We are in Dharma and other work to make people happy. Then we can become happy. Whatever we do is to benefit others.

And then if you really practice and put in effort you will see. You will see that your complaints become less, the people around you become closer to you. You forgive people more and you find yourself more accepting of your own and other people’s situations.

This becomes more beautiful as our projections of how we expect things to be will start to go away. WE start seeing things as they really are and not how we wish them to be. With this, we will experience happiness and joy. In the midst of chaos, we are still happy. We have strength and we will be able to help others. This strength comes from within, not from external sources.

Cultivating wisdom and a peaceful mind by changing our view of the world

Not reciprocating the harm of others toward us

When people are nasty towards us, how we react back to them is how much suffering we create for ourselves. When we react negatively back to others, we create more harm for others and we create harm for ourselves. When people harm us, we should stop them but we should not reciprocate harm or vengeance on them.

If we have learnt the Dharma, we have a special duty not to react back to other people the way they react back to us. Why? It takes one person to stand up and say no. Like the Buddha says: “If someone gives us a gift, we don’t have to take it.” We can’t change the world but we can definitely transform our view and projection of the world.

If we change our view and projection of the world, it is as if the world has changed. Whoever is trying to harm you, you do not harm them back and instead say, “I’m sorry” a lot and you smile and you’re humble – their harm will stop.

It’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about stopping harm. All of us, have both good and bad points. Sometimes because of certain people or situations, or mostly habituations from our upbringing, the bad points take over.
Admitting to our mistakes

We all make mistakes. As we grow up, the way we’ve encountered situations affects us, and the way we react to other people results in mistakes made. It is difficult to admit to our mistakes, to say we are wrong and to let the other person win. However, when we don’t admit to our mistakes and let the other person know we are wrong, we may think we have won, but actually we create a lot of suffering for ourselves because we have to make a lot of explanations to cover up. Eventually, no matter how much we explain or talk, we will be ‘found out’. We will then become very unhappy.

The key is to face our mistakes, not to hide them, and to make amends with the people that we have hurt or damaged.

Even though we did not mean to hurt, the hurt has been inflicted: from their perspective they have been hurt. So we have to ask ourselves what we have done or said to hurt them. We have to understand that there may be people who have been traumatised by past experiences that cause them to have a low self-esteem. So, from their low self-esteem, they may have perceived a ‘little remark’ towards them as putting them down, and feel hurt.

People react differently. From our side we did not mean any harm. We didn’t mean anything bad. But sometimes other people may take it wrongly. The issue here is not who is right or wrong. The issue here is we are ONE. The others are MANY. So instead of trying to make the others fit into our scheme and our thoughts and our projections, the way we think things should be, we should try to fit into others. This is the real Dharma practice.

The practice of Dharma, the real growth of a Dharma centre is when individuals – teachers and students – see their mistakes, face up to these mistakes and apologise and heal. This is real transformation and real Dharma growth. This is how we take responsibility for our mistakes, our emotions and our speech. When we face our mistakes, then we are on the road to enlightenment. With the removal of our mistake, our mind will be filled with wisdom. What is Dharma? Right attitude, right conduct, right thinking. So when someone makes a mistake and they can face it. That is important.
After the mistake, face it, confess it and make amends

Confession is about facing up to our mistakes and confessing to ourselves about it. When we can do this, there’s growth. The confession is about you facing up to what you have done in your anger or hatred or desire.

When we get angry, for instance, at that moment, it feels good, but what happens when we calm down after that moment of anger? Anger is impermanent; once it’s over, where does it leave us? How will people accept us? Will they continue to respect us or love us? That’s more important than the moment of anger itself. This also applies to other mistakes we make. Hence, it is important to face up to our mistakes, confess, say sorry, make amends and move on.
We are not bad, but there is another point of view – the view of harmony and compassion

Rinpoche’s Dharma teaches in a very gentle and respectful way, that we are not bad but that there’s another point of view. It teaches harmony within the family, harmony with each other, harmony with your kids and elders, harmony with the law and with everyone around you. It teaches closeness and respect of those around us, especially elders. It teaches us respect for others and to hold them as supreme.

“Whenever I associate with others may I think myself the lowest among all and hold others supreme from the depths of my heart. This is the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation” This is important. This is the heart of the Dharma, this is our motto and the creed of our centre.

All beings are our teachers, even those who harm us. They teach us how to cultivate peace by our reacting with compassion towards them. In this way we develop a peaceful and compassionate mind, as our world view transforms with wisdom.

A Final Word about Real Dharma Practice

Dharma practice is when there is inner spiritual growth. The mind improves, grows and expands. People accept themselves and they grow. When they grow, the Dharma grows.

Hence the real Dharma practice is inner spiritual growth that sees the mind improve, expand and transform from holding a negative view of fears and false hopes of happiness in dependence on others, to a completely positive world view where love and joy come from the depths of our being and flows out to all beings spontaneously and unconditionally regardless of their harming or loving us. This is the inner practice and transformation that leads to total peace or happiness even in the midst of chaos.
A Daily Dharma Practice –Our Daily Sadhana

The inner practice of mind transformation is grounded in our daily prayers and sadhanas before our shrine/ altar.

Every single day, without fail, we should engage in daily sadhana and recite the Guru Yoga of Lama Tsongkhapa and the Migstema. This must become deeply habituated and instinctive in us as brushing our teeth in the morning, when we wake up, and at night, before we sleep. No matter how happy or sad or busy or free, we should engage in our daily sadhana and practice. We all have time for eating, even for meditating on buffets and lattes. So we must find time for our daily prayers and sadhanas. We must keep this essential basic connection to the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha everyday as we age, grow old and in the last moment of this life. A sadhana or Lama Tsongkhapa’s Guru Yoga is for self-transformation. Concentrate and meditate on it.
Why should you read this book? How will it benefit you to read this book?

When we are young, we look with horror at the old. who as they age become lonelier and lonelier and bereft of moral and physical support. There may be a lucky few, who seem to have everything, including their family to support them all the way. Yet even these so-called lucky ones also become physically and mentally handicapped with old age; they become immobile, wheel-chair bound or bed-ridden.

We are also looking at a fast growing group of people who, when their means to getting instant gratification for their desires and cravings as well as ‘superficial likings’ and friendship from others are gone, become so lost and bewildered, lonely and depressed that they spiral downwards because they have no mental cushioning for this eventuality.

How do we prepare for this inevitable process of aging and dying? How do we cushion ourselves against sudden or eventual changes of circumstances that cause us to lose our means of instant gratification of our desires and ‘likings’ or ‘friendship’ from others? The most effective method to develop this inner cushioning as well as to grow old gracefully and peacefully, is by a determined daily effort to practice mind-transformation that will change our view of the world, people, and situations to a positive one. This book is the mind transformation manual that you need. By using this manual as an unerring guide, you will develop a mind of peace and happiness for every minute of each day, in the midst of the chaos that surrounds you. A mind such as the Dalai Lama and other great holy compassionate teachers like Tsem Rinpoche possess.

Hence, this is a must read book and we should read it right NOW so that we can start practicing now for happiness!

The methods of mind-transformation here need to be engaged in consistently over a long period of time so as to develop the mind of permanent peace and happiness that you want. They are time-tested and deemed effective by hundreds of masters in the last 2,500 years of Buddhism. These masters cannot be wrong, because these were the methods they used to gain their own ultimate peace and enlightenment

It will be too late to practice, when we are already ageing and helplessly experiencing the sad debilitating and degenerating effects of ageing with a mind overwhelmed by gross fears and anxieties that will cause us to spiral downward in indescribable pain and suffering. It will be too late, when the conditions for us to enjoy the so called happiness in instant gratification and superficial likes and friendships are taken away.

Indeed, the moment we start to practice this real Dharma practice of mind transformation, we will see our minds start opening up and becoming lighter and happier. Why not start the road to true happiness now?

To put it in Tsem Rinpoche’s own words:
“We want Enlightenment – total inner peace, a state of mind where “nothing disturbs it anymore” (‘Gurus for Hire, Enlightenment for Sale’). Enlightenment means a daily affair, it means a life affair and it means every life you’re enlightened and you’re able to benefit others tremendously. So in order to reach that state, don’t you think that our efforts must be (much) much more than an athlete’s?”

For more interesting information:

• Gurus for Hire, Enlightenment for Sale – A Review
• Nothing Changes, Everything Changes Book Review
• Reasons Why You Should Read This Book!
• Finding Bigfoot
• Faces of Death

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If you are in the United States, please note that your offerings and contributions are tax deductible. ~ the tsemrinpoche.com blog team