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HOWTO MAKE EACH MOMENT OF OUR LIVES MEANINGFUL
enjoying shelter, protection from the elements, heat and cold;
helping them to have a long life. If you re a hairdresser, think that
you are offering your clients the happiness of having the beautiful
hair they want.
Whatever work you do, you can think in the same way. If
you re a comedian, singer or musician, think that you are offering
others the happiness of enjoying your performance, distracting
them from sadness, depression or perhaps even anger.
Also, it is not enough simply to motivate with bodhicitta at the
beginning of an action. As time passes, you have to check again
and again to make sure that you are still working for others and
not for your ego. If you find that you are motivated by the desire
for your own happiness, you have to transform this negative
attitude into bodhicitta again by remembering the kindness of
other sentient beings, thinking, I have received all my past,
present and future happiness from other sentient beings; there is
nothing more precious than them. The only thing to do in life is to
work for their happiness; to do anything else is meaningless,
empty. Even Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, my holy objects of
refuge and prayer, come from sentient beings how could
anything be kinder or more precious than others? Thus, every
hour that you work with this attitude feeling that others are
extremely precious and wanting to benefit them in the highest
way becomes Dharma, the true cause of happiness, the cause of
enlightenment.
Also, from time to time, rejoice. Fill your heart with happiness by
thinking, How fortunate I am that I can serve others completely,
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that I can offer them much happiness, that they can use me for
their happiness.
Taking care of your child with bodhicitta
If you have clinging attachment for your child, everything you do
to take care of him or her becomes the cause of samsara. Instead,
think, I am taking care of somebody who is the source of all my
past, present and future happiness, all comfort and enjoyment,
including the supreme happiness of enlightenment. Therefore, this
child is a very precious person in my life, one of the numberless
kind mother sentient beings. Moreover, this being s mind is
obscured, under the control of delusion and karma and
experiencing samsaric suffering, and completely dependent upon
my help. Therefore, I am responsible to take care. Just as my own
temporal and ultimate happiness depend on me, so do my child s.
This is the attitude with which you should take care of your
children. From time to time, rejoice: How wonderful it is. The
purpose of my life is to serve all sentient beings, and here I have
an opportunity to serve at least one of them completely. I am so
fortunate that my body, speech and mind can be useful in
bringing happiness to at least one sentient being.
This is how to make taking care of your children into a sincere
Dharma practice. This way, even if you don t have time to do
formal practice or retreat, you will never feel regret that you have
completely wasted your life.
Otherwise, your reason for having children is the same as that
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HOWTO MAKE EACH MOMENT OF OUR LIVES MEANINGFUL
for keeping a pet your own comfort. The ordinary attitude is
selfish pursuit of enjoyment for yourself alone, obsessively
thinking, This is my child; this child is mine, as if your children
existed simply for your own use. You are motivated by clinging to
the object and cherishing your I.
The most important education that you can give children is in
ethics and the development of a good heart. Without this, they
will have suffering lives, becoming, for example, unkind, violent,
and disobedient, not only to others but also to the kind parents
who provided them with a precious human body and took care of
them in many other ways. Such children will have neither love nor
compassion for others, and may even regard their parents as their
worst enemy. Additionally, they can be easily influenced by wrong
views and taught that these views are reality, for example, that
their parents are responsible for all their problems. As a result,
they can grow up hating their parents and regarding them as
enemies. Because of their uncontrolled minds, such children s lives
may fill with crime, relationship problems and depression, and
instead of finding peace, satisfaction and fulfillment, they just feel
that their lives are utterly without meaning.
The best way to be healthy and to avoid all sickness, even
AIDS, is to have a good heart and pure ethics. This is also the best
way to protect your life and live long. It enables sons and
daughters to live in harmony with the rest of their family,
especially their parents, and to be kind, loving and compassionate
to all other people as well. At the very least, it reduces the
suffering of relationships. Actually, whatever torture people
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experience is not inflicted by somebody else. It is caused by the
person s own concepts of hatred, jealousy, dissatisfied desire and,
especially, ignorance, the foundation of it all.
Ethics and a good heart make life much simpler, less
complicated. If children are educated in this way, their lives will be
peaceful, their hearts will be fulfilled and their deaths will be happy
and controlled. Ethics prevent you from harming others, while a
good heart makes you benefit them.
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