Commentary

Commentary to the Eight Verses

First Stanza

Legend describes the wish-fulfilling gem as very special crystal located at the top of a tree.  By standing at the base of the tree and touching it, one’s wishes are fulfilled.  Although priceless in its ability to procure for you everything you could wish for, the wish-fulfilling gem is still limited since it functions only in the context of one lifetime.  Only through reliance on sentient beings is Enlightenment attained. It is very important to understand the role sentient beings play in the attainment of Liberation and Enlightenment.  By applying the Six Perfections in relationship to migrators in the six realms, we can attain Enlightenment.  The Buddhas are the source of the teachings; sentient beings are the field of our practice.

Second Stanza:

By putting yourself in a humble position you avoid the delusions of pride and arrogance and are in a better position to learn.  Learn to look upon yourself as the possessor of lesser qualities and other sentient beings as possessors of greater qualities.  Good qualities come to a humble person.

Pride is a severe interference in spiritual practice.  By being proud and arrogant you never put yourself in the correct relationship to other sentient beings to learn from the situations you find yourself in.  Also, with a lofty attitude you fall prey to anger.  All it takes is one person to criticize you and you become aggressive in defense of yourself.

This is not to suggest you develop an inferiority complex, just humility. The teachings of the Kadampa Masters was to hold sentient beings more dear than yourself.  The first verse says they are more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel; the second that they have superior qualities.  This method of practicing humility will greatly help your spiritual development.

Third Stanza:

This verse deals with becoming aware of delusions, recognizing them as faults and abandoning them as soon as they arise. 

Shantideva said that if we look at the reason we don’t get beyond our current situation, we’ll see it is our mental delusions. 

Take anger, for example, one of the worst delusions.  With awareness you can learn to recognize this delusion as soon as it arises and ask yourself what it is doing to you.  By realizing that it is not producing anything useful, you will not want to be involved with it and when you are not involved, it ceases to be anger.

Fourth Stanza:

With respect to delusions, people generally fall into three categories:  those who are afflicted with intense delusions who are very negative; ordinary beings who have delusions but are less negative than those of the first category; and ‘good-natured’ people with few delusions.

Ordinarily when you meet a person with intense delusion all you want to do is make space between you.  In contrast, a person who is practicing mind training, holds such a person dear.  How is a relationship established between a spiritual practitioner and a very coarse person?  The spiritual practitioner becomes occupied with the thought of taking away the person’s negativity.  And he thinks of giving the person all of his good qualities: his love, his happiness and his peace.

The person who practices mind training considers a person of coarse character as a precious being to be helped and nurtured.  If you were always in good situations, you would lack opportunity for genuine spiritual practice.  A true practitioner sees difficult people as the very objective of spiritual practice.

Fifth Stanza:

When beings behave spitefully toward you, this verse teaches you to give that person the victory.  Let them be the winners and allow yourself to be the loser.  When you get hurt by other people and can accept their inflictions without retaliating you stop their negatives acts. 

The law of cause and effect dictates that for every effect there is a cause.  The harm we experience in this life (the effect) is the result of the harm we have brought onto others in previous lives (the cause).  If we can accept harm that is inflicted upon us in this life without retaliation we stop the pendulum.

Think about it like this:  “What will be the benefits if I retaliate when harmed?  What will be the benefits if I do not retaliate, but manage to work it out within myself?”  Reflect on this and come to your own decision.

Sixth Stanza:

How are we to deal with people whom we have helped who betray and hurt us in return? Normally, you would get depressed and feel deeply hurt. But in the Kadampa tradition, this person is looked upon as a spiritual teacher. Obviously there is a cause for the pain you have been exposed to, a cause you have created in the past.  Once you learn to comprehend and accept this, you’re on your way to transforming yourself in a way that really counts.

Seventh Stanza:

The seventh verse is the essence of the previous six verses.  Here is where the emphasis of your practice should be placed.  It is the meditation of giving and taking .  The meditation of giving and taking is a profound technique that you should not try to practice right away.  First work on your attitude.  Transform your narrow-minded and self-cherishing attitude into a more open-minded and caring attitude toward others.  Start by wishing you could take away all beings’ suffering and give them happiness instead.  Think: “Whatever is beautiful in the world; whatever brings happiness, peace and prosperity, may this be bestowed on all sentient beings.”  Thus, first you work on your attitude of giving.

Giving is a reflection of love; taking (away suffering) is a reflection of compassion. Giving and taking; love and compassion are bodhicitta.

Eighth Stanza:

What is the purpose of this practice?  To generate greater awareness and attain enlightenment.  In striving toward these objectives, many hindrances are encountered, but the main hindrance is attachment.  The eighth verse deals with attachments.  Although you have great aspirations for your spiritual practice, you don’t attain the results you would like.  Why is this?  It is because you continuously become sidetracked by your attachments.  Attachments come from a mind that is unable to let go.  If existence was timeless and objects eternal, it might be reasonable to form attachments.  But life is very short and objects impermanent.  If you endow objects with such an exaggerated sense of reality that they seem to be truly existent you become engrossed with them.  But objects do not arise, abide or cease by themselves; they are not inherently existent.  They appear in reliance on causes and circumstances.