Following Anger & Desire
Brings No Satisfaction
by Lama Zopa
Rinpoche
 From the experiences of your everyday life
you can understand that there is no mental peace
when you do not control your mind but instead
follow anger. There is peace, however, when you
apply the meditations and teachings of the
graduated path to enlightenment in your daily
life and control your mind by practicing
patience, loving kindness, and compassion. This
is especially true in the dangerous
circumstances that cause disturbing negative
thoughts to arise.
As soon as anger begins to arise, you
should immediately recognize it and remember its
shortcomings. Anger does not bring the slightest
benefit or happiness to you or to others. It
brings only harm, making your mind unhappy and
more and more vicious. Also, allowing yourself
to be controlled by anger leaves an imprint on
your mind, so that the next time you meet
similar conditions, anger arises again. If you
don't practice the graduated path in these
dangerous circumstances, each time you get
angry, you leave imprints on your mental
continuum that are the preparation for more and
more anger to arise in the future.
Anger obscures your mind and makes your
everyday life unhappy. It can cause you physical
harm and even endanger your life. When you are
angry, you experience danger and unhappiness and
cause fear and danger to others. You are in
danger of destroying your happiness and material
possessions and those of others; you are in
great danger of harming the minds, bodies, and
even lives of others. While your anger is
strong, you can think of nothing other than to
harm. You wish to destroy immediately the object
of your anger. And once this thought has arisen,
it takes only a moment to harm, even kill, other beings. It does not take long
-- just a
moment.
Anger causes you and others great problems
from day to day in this life; and beyond this
life, it continues to give harm for hundreds and
hundreds of future lifetimes. By destroying
merit, anger prevents the achievement of
liberation and the state of omniscient mind.
When the heart stops, life is cut off; like
this, anger destroys merit and so cuts off the
life of liberation. Without the heart, there is
no life; without merit, there is no happiness,
no liberation, no peerless happiness of
omniscience.
Anger is extremely harmful. You don't even
need to think about the harm that arises from
anger in future lives; just think of the danger
anger causes in this life. In this life alone,
your anger continuously harms so many beings.
The antidote to anger is patience.
However, the angry thought itself cannot
practice patience or think of the shortcomings
of anger; another thought needs to remember the
shortcomings of anger and practice patience. By
applying the meditations and teachings of the
graduated path to enlightenment, particularly
those of Mahayana thought transformation, you
practice patience. Immediately there is
tranquility, relaxation, and much happiness in
your life.
The pain of anger is like burning red-hot
coals in your heart. Anger transforms even a
beautiful person into something ugly and
terrifying. What was happy, peaceful, and
beautiful completely changes and becomes dark,
ugly, terrifying. As soon as you apply the
teachings and practice patience, however, anger
stops; and as soon as it stops, even your
appearance suddenly changes. You become peaceful
and happy, and your warmhearted, loving nature
makes others happy as well.
FOLLOWING DESIRE
As with anger, as long as you follow
desire, there is no happiness or relaxation in
your heart. There is always something missing. If you examine your mind in
everyday life, you can see that something is
missing all the time. No matter how much you try
to enjoy different places -- living in a city or on
a mountain, going to the beach or to a beautiful
park; no matter how much you try to enjoy food,
clothing, anything that can be obtained on this
earth, there is always something missing in your
heart. No matter how many friends you have or
how long you enjoy their company, there is
always something missing. All the time there is
something missing in your heart. You are never
really happy.
Even when there is excitement in your
life, if you carefully examine the nature of
your mind, you will find there is still
something missing. You are not completely happy.
Watch your mind closely; examine it well: "Is
this happiness complete or not?" It is not
complete. There is still something missing.
That is why Buddha taught that no matter
where you live, it is a place of suffering; no
matter what enjoyment you have, it is the
enjoyment of suffering; no matter what friend
you accompany, it is the friend of suffering.
As long as you follow desire, there is no
satisfaction. Following desire is meant to bring
satisfaction but always results in
dissatisfaction. Although the aim is to gain
satisfaction, because following desire is a
wrong means, the result is only dissatisfaction.
You follow desire, and you are not satisfied.
Again you follow desire, and again you are not
satisfied. Again you try, and again you are not
satisfied.
It is like the life story of Elvis
Presley. I learnt about his life when I was in
Melbourne recently. While eating lunch one day,
we watched the life story of Elvis Presley on TV.
It was very interesting. His whole life story
was a very effective lam-rim teaching. In both
his early and later life he enjoyed pleasure and
excitement. Then, in his final year, when he
felt he was soon going to die. he became deeply
depressed. The words of his last song were: "I tried and I tried, but I
can't get no satisfaction." During his last
concert, he was singing with tears streaming
from his eyes, and the thousands of fans who
were watching him and listening to his song were
also crying. That was his last performance.
If you examine the nature of your mind
while you are following desire, there is always
something missing. Actually, following desire in
itself is suffering, in itself is a problem. The
whole thing is suffering in nature. No matter
how much you follow desire, you do not gain
satisfaction. The only result you receive is
dissatisfaction.
What causes problems and obstacles in
life? What causes the many internal and external
obstacles to your spiritual practice? What makes
you unable to succeed in your Dharma practice?
Following desire and not finding satisfaction.
When you listen to the news on the radio, read
newspapers, or watch TV, you can see that the
many disasters in people's lives come from
following desire and not finding satisfaction.
If you examine the nature of your mind,
analyzing and questioning yourself, you find
that as long as you follow desire, there is no
real happiness. Something big is missing. Your
life is empty.
 This
article is excerpted from the book:
Transforming Problems Into Happiness
by
Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher
Wisdom Publications,
www.wisdompubs.org
Info/Order this book
More books by this author
About The
Author
Lama Zopa
Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the
Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) -- a worldwide network of
Buddhist centers, monasteries, and affiliated projects. He is the author
of
Transforming Problems Into Happiness,
Wisdom Energy: Basic Buddhist Teachings, and Compasion y
no violencia (in spanish).
Visit his website at www.lamazopa.com.
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