BEGIN THE DEVELOPMENT OF TAKING WITH YOURSELF.

WHEN EVIL FILLS THE INANIMATE AND ANIMATE UNIVERSES CHANGE BAD CONDITIONS TO THE BODHI PATH.

DRIVE ALL BLAME INTO ONE.

BE GRATEFUL TO EVERYONE.

THE INSURPASSABLE PROTECTION OF EMPTINESS IS TO SEE THE MANIFESTATIONS OF BEWILDERMENT AS THE FOUR KAYAS.

AN EXCELLENT MEANS IS TO HAVE THE FOUR PROVISIONS.

IN ORDER TO BRING ANY SITUATION TO THE PATH QUICKLY AS SOON AS IT IS MET, JOIN IT WITH MEDITATION.

THE CONCISE EPITOME OF HEART INSTRUCTION: WORK WITH "FIVE FORCES."

THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR TRANSFERENCE IN THE MAHAYANA ARE THE "FIVE FORCES." BEHAVIOR IS IMPORTANT.

THE PURPOSE OF ALL DHARMA IS CONTAINED IN ONE POINT.

Meditation is the source, compassion is the overflow of that source. The nonmeditative man has no energy for love, for compassion, for celebration. The nonmeditative person is disconnected from his own source of energy; he is not in contact with the ocean. He has a little bit of energy that is created by food, by air, by matter -- he lives on physical energy.

Physical energy has limitations. It is born at a certain moment in time, and it dies at another moment in time. Between birth and death it exists. It is like a lamp that burns because of the oil in it -- once the oil is exhausted, the flame goes out.

The meditative person comes to know something of the infinite, becomes bridged with the inexhaustible source of energy. His flame goes on and on, his flame knows no cessation. It cannot disappear, because in the first place it never appears. It cannot die, because it is unborn.

How to bridge oneself with this inexhaustible source of life, abundance, richness? You can call that inexhaustible source God or you can call it truth or anything that you wish to call it. But one thing is absolutely certain; that man is a wave of something infinite.

If the wave looks inward it will find the infinite. If it goes on looking outwards it remains disconnected -- disconnected from its own kingdom, disconnected from its own nature. Jesus calls this nature the kingdom of God. He again and again says, "The kingdom of God is within you. Go within."

Meditation is nothing but a bridge to go within. Once meditation has happened, the only thing that remains to happen is compassion.

Buddha, the original master in Atisha's line, said that unless compassion happens, don't remain contented with meditation itself. You have gone only halfway, you have yet to go a little further. Meditation, if it is true, is bound to overflow into compassion. Just as when a lamp is lit it immediately starts radiating light, it immediately starts dispersing darkness, once the inner light is lit, compassion is its radiation.

Compassion is the proof that meditation has happened. Love is the fragrance that proves that the one-thousand-petaled lotus in the innermost core of your being has bloomed, that the spring has come -- that you are no more the same person you used to be, that that personality has ceased and individuality is born, that you are not living any more in darkness, that you are light.

These sutras are practical instructions, remember it. Atisha is not a philosopher, no wise man ever is. He is not a thinker; thinking is only for the mediocre, the foolish. The wise does not think, the wise knows. Thinking is an effort to know; it is guesswork, groping in the dark, shooting arrows in the dark.

Wisdom is knowing. And when you know, you need not guess. You are not guessing that this is morning and the birds are singing and the trees are bathed in sunlight. You are not guessing it, you are not thinking that it is so. If somebody is guessing it, then he must be blind or at least drunk. It is an experience, and every experience is self-validating.

Atisha is not a speculative thinker. What he is saying is not a philosophy or a system of thought. It is how he has attained; he is showing you the way. And the buddhas can only show the way -- you will have to walk on it, nobody else can walk for you. Nobody else can do it for you; no proxy is possible in existence.

Yes, others can communicate how they attained, what pitfalls to avoid, how to go on judging whether you are moving in the right direction or not, what energies to use and what energies to discard, what is helpful and what is a hindrance. They can give you little hints about the path -- and I say "little hints"; they cannot give you a complete map either, because each individual will have to follow a path that is a little bit different, and each individual will come across unique experiences that nobody has come across before and nobody may ever come across again.

Each individual is so unique that no absolute map can be given, only hints, vague hints, indications.

You are not to cling to these instructions. Just understand them, absorb them, and don't be a fanatic. Don't say, "This has to be like this. If it is not like this then I am not going to follow it, then something is wrong." It will be something like this, but in a very vague way. It will have a similar fragrance but it will not be exactly the same; similar, yes, but not the same. One has to be aware of it. If one is not aware, then one becomes a fanatic -- and fanatics have never arrived, their very fanaticism prevents them.

These are small hints. These are not mathematical, these are not like two plus two is four. In the world of the mysterious, sometimes two plus two is three, sometimes two plus two is five. It is very rarely that two plus two is four, very rarely; it is the exception, not the rule. It is not mathematics, it is music. It is not logic, it is poetry.

When you read a logical treatise, you read with a different mind. If you read poetry you need a totally different approach. In logic there is a clear-cut process, the process of syllogism -- you know that this is so, and this is so, therefore this is bound to be so. There is a "therefore."

In poetry there is no "therefore." Poetry takes quantum leaps. Poetry is a vision, not a logical process; a song, not a syllogism. Yes, even the song has some intrinsic logic in it, but it is not on the surface. And it is not for those who are on the path, it is only for those who have arrived.

Once you have arrived you will see the whole logicalness of each step that you had taken, but not before it. You will see why you had to jump, why you had to take a certain step. When you were taking that step, nothing was clear, nothing was absolutely certain or guaranteed. You were taking that step according to your feeling, not according to your thinking. But later on, recapitulating, looking back, thinking can be revived. Now you can search for the undercurrent of logic.

Those who have arrived are very logical. But those who are on the path, if they try to be logical, they will never survive. This is one of the paradoxes to be understood. Hence the statements of Buddha, Tilopa, Saraha and Atisha are really very logical, but only for those who have arrived. The logic can be felt only backwards. When you are progressing towards the goal, the ultimate, everything is vague, hidden behind a cloud. It is like the early morning mist. In the afternoon, in the full noontide, the mist will have disappeared. But that full noontide has yet to happen.

So think, meditate, feel these instructions, but don't take them in dead seriousness. There are bound to be a few differences. A few things are going to happen on your way which did not happen on Atisha's way. A few things are going to happen on your way which have not happened on my way. There are as many ways in the world as there are people. Nobody can stand in your place; even those who are standing very close to you are not standing in exactly the same place. Your angle of vision is bound to be a little bit different from the angle of vision of somebody who is standing just by your side holding your hand. No two persons can see the world in exactly the same way, it is impossible. And everybody has to move from his own place, his own space.

Now, Atisha existed one thousand years ago. He must have seen a totally different world, he must have walked through a totally different world, with a different kind of language -- where a different kind of understanding was prevalent, where different attitudes and approaches were still valid. They are no more valid, they are no more relevant, that world has disappeared. Atisha's world exists no more.

Still, his instructions are of tremendous importance, taken nonfanatically. Taken fanatically, you miss the whole point. One has to be very very loose and relaxed. While thinking about the past buddhas, one has to be available to them, open to them, but unclinging and detached, knowing perfectly well that centuries have passed, knowing perfectly well that "I am not Atisha, so how can I follow these instructions absolutely?"

But Atisha is not telling you to follow his instructions absolutely. He is simply giving a glimpse of his vision and the way he has arrived at it. He is simply sharing his poetry with you, his compassion with you.

Remember it -- otherwise it is very easy for people to become fanatics. Why do millions of people in the world become fanatics? For a simple reason: by becoming a fanatic you avoid all experimenting, by becoming a fanatic you escape from thinking on your own, feeling on your own. By becoming a fanatic you throw all responsibility on somebody else's shoulders -- Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Atisha.

Remember, your responsibility is such, it cannot be given to anybody else, it cannot be thrown on somebody else. Your responsibility is absolutely yours. You will have to think, you will have to feel, you will have to meditate, you will have to walk, for yourself. And let me remind you again: you may come across scenes which Atisha has never come across.

If you go to the Himalayas and you want to climb Everest, there are many ways to climb it, many sides. From one side you may come across beautiful valleys and rivers and trees. From the other side you may not come across any river, you may not come across trees at all, you may come across only rocks and rocks. From the third side you may come across glaciers, virgin snow that has never melted. And you all will reach the top.

Those who have reached the top will always be considerate and liberal. They cannot be stubborn, they cannot say, "This is the only path," because from the top they can see that there are many paths. They can see many pilgrims arriving, reaching from different routes. And each route has its own world. Atisha followed a certain route. But he was very fortunate to have three enlightened masters; he reached Everest by at least three routes. His vision is very comprehensive, his vision is wide, it is not narrow.

Jesus says, "My path is narrow but straight." He followed only one master. Naturally his path is very narrow and straight. It is not the case with Atisha; his path is very zigzag and very wide. It contains many paths in it, it is a great synthesis.

The first sutra:

BEGIN THE DEVELOPMENT OF TAKING WITH YOURSELF.

Let me remind you, in the last sutra Atisha was saying that when you take the breath in, let it become your meditation that all the suffering of all the beings in the world is riding on that incoming breath and reaching your heart. Absorb all that suffering, pain and misery in your heart, and see a miracle happen.

Whenever you absorb somebody else's misery, pain and suffering, the moment you absorb it, it is transformed. The natural tendency is to avoid it; the natural tendency is to protect yourself against suffering. The natural tendency is to keep aloof, not to sympathize, not to empathize. People, even when they sympathize, sympathize only formally. They pay lip-service; they don't mean it. If they really meant it, they could have helped the other person. They could have absorbed his suffering, they could have drunk his suffering.

And it happens a few times, and you know it: there are people, if you meet them you feel an unburdening. When they are gone, you feel light, you feel flowing, you feel more vibrant, more alive -- as if they have taken a great burden off your head, off your chest, as if they have poured some nectar into your being. You feel a dance left within your heart when they leave. You wait again and again for them to come to you; you seek their company, you enjoy it, because you are nourished by their presence.

The opposite kind of people also exist. If they meet you they leave you more burdened than you ever were. They leave you in a kind of despair, disgust. You feel you have been sucked, your energy is lower. They have taken something from your energy and they have not given anything to you. This is an ordinary experience.

If people avoid you, remember, they are not responsible. Something in you makes them avoid you. If people don't want to meet you, if they find excuses to escape from you, remember, they are not responsible. You must be doing something negative to their energy.

If people seek you, if people become friendly immediately, if people feel a certain affinity -- even strangers would like to come and sit close to you, would like to hold your hand, would just like to be with you -- that means you must be knowingly or unknowingly helping them. Everybody is burdened with great misery, everybody is under great suffering, everybody's heart is hurting. There is much pain.

Atisha says before you can do this with the whole existence, you will have to start first with yourself. This is one of the fundamental secrets of inner growth. You cannot do anything with others that you have not done in the first place with yourself. You can hurt others if you hurt yourself, you will be a pain in the necks of others if you are a pain in the neck to yourself, you can be a blessing to others only if you are a blessing to yourself.

Whatsoever you can do with others, you must have done to yourself before, because that is the only thing that you can share. You can share only that which you have; you cannot share that which you don't have.

Atisha says:

BEGIN THE DEVELOPMENT OF TAKING WITH YOURSELF.

Rather than starting by taking the whole misery of the world and absorbing it in the heart, start with your own misery. Don't go into the deep sea so fast; learn swimming in shallow water. And if you immediately start taking the misery of the whole existence, it will remain simply an experiment in speculation. It won't be real, it can't be real. It will be just verbal.

You can say to yourself, "Yes, I am taking the misery of the whole world" -- but what do you know of the misery of the whole world? You have not even experienced your own misery.

We go on avoiding our own misery. If you feel miserable, you put on the radio or the tv and you become engaged. You start reading the newspaper so that you can forget your misery, or you go to the movies, or you go to your woman or your man. You go to the club, you go shopping in the market, just somehow to keep yourself away from yourself, so that you need not see the wound, so that you need not look at how much it hurts within.

People go on avoiding themselves. What do they know of misery? How can they think of the misery of the whole existence? First, you have to begin with yourself. If you are feeling miserable, let it become a meditation. Sit silently, close the doors. First feel the misery with as much intensity as possible. Feel the hurt. Somebody has insulted you. Now, the best way to avoid the hurt is to go and insult him, so that you become occupied with him. That is not meditation.

If somebody has insulted you, feel thankful to him that he has given you an opportunity to feel a deep wound. He has opened a wound in you. The wound may be created by many many insults that you have suffered in your whole life; he may not be the cause of all the suffering, but he has triggered a process.

Just close your room, sit silently, with no anger for the person but with total awareness of the feeling that is arising in you -- the hurt feeling that you have been rejected, that you have been insulted. And then you will be surprised that not only is this man there: all the men and all the women and all the people that have ever insulted you will start moving in your memory.

You will start not only remembering them, you will start reliving them. You will be going into a kind of primal. Feel the hurt, feel the pain, don't avoid it. That's why in many therapies the patient is told not to take any drugs before the therapy begins, for the simple reason that drugs are a way to escape from your inner misery. They don't allow you to see your wounds, they repress them. They don't allow you to go into your suffering and unless you go into your suffering, you cannot be released from the imprisonment of it.

It is perfectly scientific to drop all drugs before going into a group -- if possible even drugs like coffee, tea, smoking, because these are all ways to escape.

Have you watched? Whenever you feel nervous you immediately start smoking. It is a way to avoid nervousness; you become occupied with smoking. Really it is a regression. Smoking makes you again feel like a child -- unworried, nonresponsible -- because smoking is nothing but a symbolic breast. The hot smoke going in simply takes you back to the days when you were feeding on the mother's breast and the warm milk was going in; the nipple has now become the cigarette. The cigarette is a symbolic nipple.

Through regression you avoid the responsibilities and the pains of being adult. And that's what goes on through many many drugs. Modern man is drugged as never before, because modern man is living in great suffering. Without drugs it will be impossible to live in so much suffering. Those drugs create a barrier; they keep you drugged, they don't allow you enough sensitivity to know your pain.

The first thing to do is close your doors and stop any kind of occupation -- looking at the tv, listening to the radio, reading a book. Stop all occupation, because that too is a subtle drug. Just be silent, utterly alone. Don't even pray, because that again is a drug, you are becoming occupied, you start talking to God, you start praying, you escape from yourself.

Atisha is saying: Just be yourself. Whatsoever the pain of it and whatsoever the suffering of it, let it be so. First experience it in its total intensity. It will be difficult, it will be heart-rending. You may start crying like a child, you may start rolling on the ground in deep pain, your body may go through contortions. You may suddenly become aware that the pain is not only in the heart, it is all over the body -- that it is aching all over, that it is painful all over, that your whole body is nothing but pain.

If you can experience it -- this is of tremendous importance -- then start absorbing it. Don't throw it away. It is such a valuable energy, don't throw it away. Absorb it, drink it, accept it, welcome it, feel grateful to it. And say to yourself, "This time I'm not going to avoid it, this time I'm not going to reject it, this time I'm not going to throw it away. This time I will drink it and receive it like a guest. This time I will digest it."

It may take a few days for you to be able to digest it, but the day it happens, you have stumbled upon a door which will take you really far far away. A new journey has started in your life, you are moving into a new kind of being -- because immediately, the moment you accept the pain with no rejection anywhere, its energy and its quality changes. It is no longer pain. In fact one is simply surprised, one cannot believe it, it is so incredible. One cannot believe that suffering can be transformed into ecstasy, that pain can become joy.

But in ordinary life you are aware that opposites are always joined together, that they are not opposites but complementaries. You know perfectly well, your love can at any moment become hate, and your hate can at any moment become love. In fact if you hate too much, intensely and totally, it is bound to become love.

That's what happened to the person called Saul who later on became Paul and founded this ugly phenomenon, the Christian church. Jesus is not the founder of the Christian church, the founder of the Christian church is Saint Paul. And the story is worth remembering.

When he was born, his name was Saul. And he was so anti Christ that his whole life was devoted to destroying Christians and Christianity. His whole dedication was to persecute Christians, destroying any possibility of Christianity for the future, and effacing the name of Christ. He must have hated tremendously, his hate cannot be ordinary. When you devote your whole life to the object of your hatred, it is bound to be really total. Otherwise who cares? If you hate something you don't devote your whole life to it. But if you hate totally, then it becomes a life-and-death problem.

Persecuting Christians, destroying Christians, destroying their power-holds, arguing with Christians, convincing them that this was nonsense, that this man Jesus was mad, a neurotic, a pretender, a hypocrite, one day it happened, the miracle happened. He was going to persecute more Christians in another town. On the way he was alone, and suddenly he saw Jesus appearing out of nowhere and asking him, "Why do you persecute me?"

Out of shock, terror, he fell on the ground, apologizing, crying great tears of repentance. The vision disappeared, and with the disappearance of the vision the old Saul disappeared. To remember this point he changed his name to Paul; the old man was dead, a new man had arrived. And he became the founder of the Christian church. He became a great lover of Jesus -- the greatest lover the world has ever known.

Hate can become love. Jesus did not appear; it was just the intensity of his hate that projected Jesus. It was not Jesus who asked him, "Why do you persecute me?" It was his own unconscious which was suffering so much because of this hatred for Jesus. It was his own unconscious that asked him, "Why do you persecute me?" It was his own unconscious that became personified in the vision of Jesus. The miracle happened because the hate was total.

Whenever anything is total it turns into its opposite. This is a great secret to be remembered. Whenever something is total it changes into its opposite, because there is no way to go any further; the cul-de-sac has arrived.

Watch an old clock with a pendulum. It goes on and on: the pendulum goes to the left, to the extreme left, and then there is a point beyond which it cannot go, then it starts moving towards the right.

Opposites are complementaries. If you can suffer your suffering in totality, in great intensity, you will be surprised: Saul becomes Paul. You will not be able to believe it when it happens for the first time, that your own suffering absorbed willingly, welcomingly, becomes a great blessing. The same energy that becomes hate becomes love, the same energy that becomes pain becomes pleasure, the same energy that becomes suffering becomes bliss.

But start with your own self.

Make a small experiment with your own pains, sufferings and miseries. And once you have found the key, then you can share it with the whole existence. Then you can take all the suffering of all the world, or all the worlds.

Ride on the incoming breath and your small heart is bigger than the whole universe, if you know what miracles it can do. And then pour out your blessings. It is the same energy passing through your heart that becomes bliss, that becomes a blessing. Then let blessings go riding on the outgoing breath to all the nooks and corners of existence.

Atisha says: This is compassion. Compassion is to become a transforming force in existence -- transforming the ugly into the beautiful, kissing the frog and transforming it into a prince, transforming darkness into light. To become such a medium of transformation is compassion.

BEGIN THE DEVELOPMENT OF TAKING WITH YOURSELF.

WHEN EVIL FILLS THE INANIMATE AND ANIMATE UNIVERSES CHANGE BAD CONDITIONS TO THE BODHI PATH.

This is the Buddhist alchemy: all evil can be transformed into the bodhi path, the path to become a buddha. Evil is not against you, you just don't know how to use it. Poison is not your enemy, you just don't know how to make medicine out of it. In wise hands poison becomes medicinal, in foolish hands medicine can become poison. It all depends on you, on your artfulness.

Have you ever looked at the word evil? Read backwards, it is live. Life can become evil, evil can become life; it all depends on how you read it.

There are three things to be understood about this sutra, to change bad conditions to the bodhi path so that you can attain to bodhichitta, the mind or no-mind of a buddha. The first is: do not resist evil. That is a saying of Jesus; there is every possibility that Jesus got it from Buddhist sources. He traveled in India; he had lived in India before he started his mission in Israel.

That's why in The Bible there is almost no account of his life. Only once is he mentioned as having gone with his parents to the great temple and that he argued with the rabbis there. He must have been nearabout twelve at that time. After that incident there is no life story in The Bible. For eighteen years he simply disappears from Israel, and then suddenly when he is thirty he appears again. His ministry lasted only for three years; by the age of thirty-three he was crucified.

Where had he been for eighteen years? It is a long period. And why does The Bible mention nothing about it?

In Tibet there are still books available which relate everything about those eighteen years. He had been in the East. In fact that was one of the reasons why he could not be accepted by the Jews, because he brought something very alien and strange. Although he was quoting the prophets from the Old Testament, he was giving to those old ancient statements new meanings that had never been heard before. He was bringing something foreign into the Jewish world.

For example, this statement: Do not resist evil. Now this is very un-Jewish. The Jewish God is very much against evil; he is so much against it that there are stories that he destroyed whole cities like Sodom and Gomorrah. He destroyed whole cities because those cities had fallen into evil. There were good people there too, but to destroy the evil people even the good people were destroyed.

The Jewish God says, "I am a very jealous God; if you don't obey me you will be destroyed." He is very dictatorial. And the Old Testament says evil has to be punished, an eye for an eye.

Jesus says again and again, "You have been told that if somebody throws a brick at you, throw a stone or a rock at him. But I say unto you, if somebody hits you on one cheek, give him the other also."

This is alien, strange, to Jewish thinking. But this is not alien to Buddhist thinking, this is pure Buddhism. Do not resist evil. That is the first thing if you want to absorb evil in your heart and transform it. If you resist it, how can you transform it? Accept it.

Jesus says, "Love your enemies." The Jewish God cannot love his enemies, so why should man? If God is incapable of loving his enemies, how can you expect poor man to? "And love your enemies," Jesus says, "as you love yourself." Again, he got it from some strange sources that the Jews were not aware of. This is a Buddhist approach, this is the contribution of Buddha to the world -- one of the greatest contributions ever, because this is the inner alchemy. Accept evil. Don't resist it, don't fight with it, don't be angry with it; absorb it, because it can be transformed into good.

The art of transforming suffering, pain, evil, into something good is the art of seeing the necessity of the opposite. Light can exist only if darkness exists. Then why hate darkness? Without darkness there will be no light, so those who love light and hate darkness are in a dilemma; they don't know what they are doing.

Life cannot exist without death. Then why hate death? Because it is death that creates the space for life to exist. This is a great insight, that death is the contrast, the background, the blackboard on which life is written with white chalk. Death is the darkness of night on which life starts twinkling like stars. If you destroy the darkness of the night the stars will disappear. That's what happens in the day. The stars are still there -- do you think they have disappeared? They are still there, but because there is too much light you cannot see them. They can be seen only in contrast.

The saint is possible only because of the sinner. Hence, Buddha says don't hate the sinner, he makes it possible for the saint to exist. They are two aspects of the same coin.

Seeing this, one is neither attached to good nor detached from bad. One accepts both as part and parcel of life. In that acceptance you can transform things. Only through that acceptance is transformation possible.

And before you can transform suffering you will have to become a witness; that is the third point. First: do not resist evil. Second: know that opposites are not opposites but complementaries, inevitably joined together, so there is no choice -- remain choiceless. And the third is: be a witness, because if you are a witness to your suffering you will be able to absorb it. If you become identified with it you cannot absorb it.

The moment you become identified with your suffering you want to discard it, you want to get rid of it, it is so painful. But if you are a witness then suffering loses all thorns, all stings. Then there is suffering, and you are a witness to it. You are just a mirror; it has nothing to do with you. Happiness comes and goes, unhappiness comes and goes, it is a passing show; you are just there, a mirror reflecting it. Life comes and goes, death comes and goes; the mirror is not affected by either. The mirror reflects but remains unaffected; the mirror is not imprinted by either.

A great distance arises when you witness. And only in that witnessing can you become able to transform the baser metal into gold. Only in that witnessing do you become a scientist of the inner, a detached observer. Now you know the opposites are not opposites, so they can be changed into each other. Then it is not a question of destroying evil in the world, but of transforming evil into something beneficial; transforming poison into nectar.

DRIVE ALL BLAME INTO ONE.

The third sutra. The ordinary mind always throws the responsibility on somebody else. It is always the other who is making you suffer. Your wife is making you suffer, your husband is making you suffer, your parents are making you suffer, your children are making you suffer, or the financial system of the society, capitalism, communism, fascism, the prevalent political ideology, the social structure, or fate, karma, God... you name it.

People have millions of ways to shirk responsibility. But the moment you say somebody else -- x, y, z -- is making you suffer, then you cannot do anything to change it. What can you do? When the society changes and communism comes and there is a classless world, then everybody will be happy. Before it, it is not possible. How can you be happy in a society which is poor? And how can you be happy in a society which is dominated by the capitalists? How can you be happy with a society which is bureaucratic? How can you be happy with a society which does not allow you freedom?

Excuses and excuses and excuses -- excuses just to avoid one single insight that "I am responsible for myself. Nobody else is responsible for me; it is absolutely and utterly my responsibility. Whatsoever I am, I am my own creation." This is the meaning of the third sutra:

DRIVE ALL BLAME INTO ONE.

And that one is you. Once this insight settles: "I am responsible for my life -- for all my suffering, for my pain, for all that has happened to me and is happening to me -- I have chosen it this way; these are the seeds that I sowed and now I am reaping the crop; I am responsible" -- once this insight becomes a natural understanding in you, then everything else is simple. Then life starts taking a new turn, starts moving into a new dimension. That dimension is conversion, revolution, mutation -- because once I know I am responsible, I also know that I can drop it any moment I decide to. Nobody can prevent me from dropping it.

Can anybody prevent you from dropping your misery, from transforming your misery into bliss? Nobody. Even if you are in a jail, chained, imprisoned, nobody can imprison you; your soul still remains free.

Of course you have a very limited situation, but even in that limited situation you can sing a song. You can either cry tears of helplessness or you can sing a song. Even with chains on your feet you can dance; then even the sound of the chains will have a melody to it.

The fourth sutra:

BE GRATEFUL TO EVERYONE.

Atisha is really very very scientific. First he says: Take the whole responsibility on yourself. Secondly he says: Be grateful to everyone. Now that nobody is responsible for your misery except you, if it is all your own doing, then what is left?

BE GRATEFUL TO EVERYONE.

Because everybody is creating a space for you to be transformed -- even those who think they are obstructing you, even those whom you think are enemies. Your friends, your enemies, good people and bad people, favorable circumstances, unfavorable circumstances -- all together they are creating the context in which you can be transformed and become a buddha. Be grateful to all.

A man once came and spat on Buddha, on his face. Of course his disciples were enraged. His closest disciple, Ananda, said to him, "This is too much!" He was red-hot with anger. He said to Buddha, "Just give me permission so that I can show this man what he has done."

Buddha wiped his face and said to the man, "Thank you, sir. You created a context in which I could see whether I can still be angry or not. And I am not, and I am tremendously happy. And also you created a context for Ananda: now he can see that he can still be angry. Many thanks, we are so grateful! Once in a while, please, you are invited to come. Whenever you have the urge to spit on somebody, you can come to us."

It was such a shock to the man, he could not believe his ears, what was happening. He had come expecting that he would anger Buddha. He had failed. The whole night he could not sleep, he tossed and turned and could not sleep. Continuously the idea haunted him -- his spitting on the Buddha, one of the most insulting things, and Buddha remaining as calm and quiet as he had been before, as if nothing had happened, wiping his face and saying to him, "Thank you, sir. And whenever you have this desire to spit on somebody, please come to us."

He remembered it again and again. That face, that calm and quiet face, those compassionate eyes. And when he had said thank you, it had not been just a formality, he was really grateful. His whole being was saying that he was grateful, his whole atmosphere was grateful. Just as he could see that Ananda was red-hot with anger, Buddha was so cool, so loving, so compassionate. He could not forgive himself now, what had he done? Spitting on that man -- a man like Buddha!

Early the next morning he rushed back, fell down at the feet of Buddha, and said, "Forgive me, sir. I could not sleep the whole night."

Buddha said, "Forget all about it. There is no need to ask forgiveness for something which has already passed. So much water has gone down the Ganges." Buddha was sitting on the bank of the Ganges under a tree. He showed the man, "Look, each moment so much water is flowing down! Twenty-four hours have passed -- why are you carrying it, something which is no longer existential? Forget all about it.

"And I cannot forgive you, because in the first place I was not angry with you. If I had been angry, I could have forgiven you. If you really need forgiveness, ask Ananda. Fall at his feet -- he will enjoy it!"

BE GRATEFUL TO EVERYONE.

To those who have helped, to those who have hindered, to those who have been indifferent. Be grateful to all, because all together they are creating the context in which buddhas are born, in which you can become a buddha.

THE INSURPASSABLE PROTECTION OF EMPTINESS IS TO SEE THE MANIFESTATIONS OF BEWILDERMENT AS THE FOUR KAYAS.

Atisha talks about the four bodies. These four bodies are significant to be understood. The first is called dharmakaya: the body of the ultimate law. And what is the ultimate law? Emptiness is the ultimate law: all is empty.

If you really want to grow, you will have to let this insight soak into you: all is empty. Life is empty, death is empty, all phenomena are empty -- because nothing abides, everything passes by, all is dream stuff. If this is understood, this will protect you. How can you be insulted if all is empty? How can you be miserable if all is empty? How can there be pain if all is empty? You are empty, the other is empty, so you must have seen a dream that the other was insulting you, that the other spat on you.

If you really want to protect your understanding, this is the first body to grow around yourself, the body of emptiness, the milieu of emptiness. All is empty.

Buddha used to send his disciples to the funeral pyres to meditate there. The newcomers had to be there for three months in the beginning. Where bodies are burned, they would just sit there and watch, day in and day out. People would be brought in, burned, and then the friends would leave. What kind of life is this? What substance has it got?

Just the other day, the man was so haughty, so proud, so egoistic, that if you had said anything wrong he would have jumped on you. And now where is he? Disappeared in the flames. This is what life is. "Sooner or later I am also going to be on the funeral pyre and all will be burned. So why bother, why make so much fuss? It is only a few days' dream. And those few days are not much in the eternity of time, they are just momentary."

Let this body of emptiness grow around you; you will be protected by it.

The second body is nirmankaya: the first arising of compassion. When all is empty, when everybody is on the funeral pyre, then compassion arises. It is not to be cultivated, remember; it arises out of the first body. If you cultivate it you still believe in the ego. If you cultivate it you still believe in character, if you cultivate it you still believe in virtue. And if there is no self, what is virtue? If there is no self, what is character? If there is no self, then what is good?

First settle into nobodiness and then the second body arises of its own accord. Nirmankaya means the body of creation. It is strange -- the first body is the body of emptiness, and the second body is the body of creation. But this is the insight of all the great buddhas, that if you become a nobody, a great creation arises out of you. The whole starts flowing through you; you become a vehicle, a passage, a medium, a voice, for the whole.

And with the second body arising, the first experience will be of great compassion. Of course in the beginning it will be partial, conditional, caused by the suffering of others. You see an old man dying on the road and compassion arises, you see somebody starving and compassion arises -- it has a cause outside. If nobody is dying and nobody is starving, there will be no compassion. In the second body, compassion comes and goes; it arises in certain situations and disappears in certain other situations.

Out of the second, the third crystallizes. The third body is called sambhogkaya: the body of bliss. In the third body, compassion is unconditional. It does not arise and does not disappear; it remains, it abides. It is not a question of whether somebody is suffering or not; in the third body, one simply is compassion. In the second body, compassion is a relationship; when there is a need it happens. In the third body, compassion becomes your very state of being: need or no need, it is there. It is like a light burning in the night; it goes on radiating whether somebody is in the room or not. Whether somebody needs light or not, is not the point; the light goes on radiating.

In the third body, the body of bliss, compassion is a natural phenomenon. Just as you go on breathing, even while you are asleep you go on breathing, a buddha is compassionate even while asleep. A buddha is simply compassionate. Compassion is not something that arises like a wave and disappears. Now compassion is oceanic.

And the fourth body is called swabhavakaya: the body of the ultimate nature, of spontaneity, of your innermost being as it is. In the fourth body, all distinctions disappear, dualities are transcended. Good/bad, self/no-self, mind/no-mind, samsara/nirvana, God/devil -- all dualities are transcended. One simply is, with no distinctions, with no categories, with no divisions. This is the existential body; this is the real thing to be attained.

Each seeker after truth passes through these four bodies.

AN EXCELLENT MEANS IS TO HAVE THE FOUR PROVISIONS.

How to attain these four bodies? There are four provisions. The first is: observe. Observe without evaluation, observe everything, don't miss any opportunity to observe -- because it is not a question of what you are observing, the question is that observation is growing. Observe everything -- the trees, the birds, the animals, the people, the traffic, your own mind and its traffic, your own reactions, others' reactions. Use every situation to observe, so that observation becomes deep-rooted in you.

And the second is: analyze, but only after you have observed -- don't mix them. At first, observation has to be simple observation, with no analysis, no judgment, no evaluation. When you have observed, then analyze, then go into details, then dissect. Then see its parts, how it is made, because each experience is very complex. If you really want to understand it you will have to dissect it into its parts.

And then the third is: choose that which brings more and more bliss, silence, serenity and calmness to you.

And the fourth is: discard all that which brings tension, anxiety, anguish and hell to you.

These are the four provisions. If you follow these four provisions, four bodies will arise in you.

IN ORDER TO BRING ANY SITUATION TO THE PATH QUICKLY AS SOON AS IT IS MET, JOIN IT WITH MEDITATION.

And remember, each situation has to become an opportunity to meditate. What is meditation? Becoming aware of what you are doing, becoming aware of what is happening to you.

Somebody insults you: become aware. What is happening to you when the insult reaches you? Meditate over it; this is changing the whole gestalt. When somebody insults you, you concentrate on the person -- "Why is he insulting me? Who does he think he is? How can I take revenge?" If he is very powerful you surrender, you start wagging your tail. If he is not very powerful and you see that he is weak, you pounce on him. But you forget yourself completely in all this; the other becomes the focus. This is missing an opportunity for meditation. When somebody insults you, meditate.

Gurdjieff has said, "When my father was dying, I was only nine. He called me close to his bed and whispered in my ear, 'My son, I am not leaving much to you, not in worldly things, but I have one thing to tell you that was told to me by my father on his deathbed. It has helped me tremendously; it has been my treasure. You are not very grown up yet, you may not understand what I am saying, but keep it, remember it. One day you will be grown up and then you may understand. This is a key: it unlocks the doors of great treasures.'"

Of course Gurdjieff could not understand it at that moment, but it was the thing that changed his whole life. And his father said a very simple thing. He said, "Whenever somebody insults you, my son, tell him you will meditate over it for twenty-four hours and then you will come and answer him."

Gurdjieff could not believe that this was such a great key. He could not believe that "This is something so valuable that I have to remember it." And we can forgive a young child of nine years old. But because this was something said by his dying father who had loved him tremendously, and immediately after saying it he breathed his last, it became imprinted on him; he could not forget it. Whenever he remembered his father, he would remember the saying.

Without truly understanding, he started practicing it. If somebody insulted him he would say, "Sir, for twenty-four hours I have to meditate over it -- that's what my father told me. And he is here no more, and I cannot disobey a dead old man. He loved me tremendously, and I loved him tremendously, and now there is no way to disobey him. You can disobey your father when he is alive, but when your father is dead how can you disobey him? So please forgive me, I will come after twenty-four hours and answer you."

And he says, "Meditating on it for twenty-four hours has given me the greatest insights into my being. Sometimes I found that the insult was right, that that's how I am. So I would go to the person and say, 'Sir, thank you, you were right. It was not an insult, it was simply a statement of fact. You called me stupid; I am.'

"Or sometimes it happened that meditating for twenty-four hours, I would come to know that it was an absolute lie. But when something is a lie, why be offended by it? So I would not even go to tell him that it was a lie. A lie is a lie, why be bothered by it?"

But watching, meditating, slowly slowly he became more and more aware of his reactions, rather than the actions of others.

This is what Atisha says:

IN ORDER TO BRING ANY SITUATION TO THE PATH QUICKLY AS SOON AS IT IS MET, JOIN IT WITH MEDITATION.

Whatsoever happens -- good, bad, success, failure -- immediately become aware of what is happening. Don't miss a single moment. Don't lag behind -- be present to it, and you will be surprised, errors will start disappearing from your life. And then whatsoever you do will be right.

People ask me what is right and what is wrong, and my answer is: If something arises out of awareness, it is right. If something arises out of unawareness, it is wrong. Right and wrong is not a question of what you do, but of how you do it. It is not a question of what, but of how -- meditatively or nonmeditatively, alert, awake, or doing things as if you are a sleepwalker.

THE CONCISE EPITOME OF HEART INSTRUCTION: WORK WITH "FIVE FORCES."

These are the five forces. The first force is intensity, totality. If you really want to have a transformed life, if you really want to become a light unto yourself, if you really want to know the ultimate mystery of existence and the ultimate ecstasy of being alive, then the first force is intensity, totality. Whatsoever you do, do it intensely, to the optimum. Don't be lousy, don't be lazy, don't be partial. Go into it wholeheartedly, let it become a total absorption.

If you dance, dance so totally that the dancer disappears and only the dance remains, and it will be a transformation. If you love, love totally, so totally that there is no lover found. The lover is found only if you are holding something back. That which you are holding back becomes the lover. If you are holding something back, that which you are holding back becomes the dancer, the singer. If you are totally in the dance, in the song, in the love, who is left behind there to say, "I am the lover, I am the dancer"? Nothing is left.

And totality transforms.

It is only at one hundred degrees intensity that one evaporates from the material into the spiritual, from the earth into the sky, from the ordinary into the extraordinary.

The second force is familiarization: do and be what you really want to do and be. Life is lived according to gestalts that you have created around yourself. If you really want to be something else, then familiarize yourself with it. If you want to play the guitar, practice. If you want to dance, practice. If you want anything to happen in your life, imbibe more and more of it and drop all that is against it. And the way to drop it is not to use it, because by using it you create ways for it to come into you again and again and again.

The third force is the force of white seeds. "White seeds" is a metaphor. Atisha means, drop all that is black. Don't go on cultivating the black seeds of anger, jealousy, hatred, possessiveness, domination. Drop all black seeds. Even if they arise, watch, absorb them in the heart, and they will become white seeds. And what are the white seeds? Love, compassion, service, sincerity, sensitivity, awareness -- these are the white seeds. If one day you want to have white flowers in your life, you will have to sow white seeds.

And the fourth force is reproach -- to completely abjure ego-oriented thoughts. Watch: whatsoever arises out of the ego, whatsoever is an ego trip, immediately disconnect yourself from it. Even to linger with it for a little while is dangerous, because lingering will give it energy. The moment you know it is an ego trip, immediately disconnect yourself.

And everybody knows when they are going on an ego trip. It is not an art to be learned, everybody is born with it. You know it; you can go with it in spite of your knowing -- that is another matter -- but you know it. Whenever pride arises, whenever the ego raises its head, you know it. Cut that head immediately in a single blow.

And the fifth force is the force of the dedication of all virtue to the welfare of others. Whatsoever good happens to you, immediately share it. This is one of the most fundamental things in Buddhism. Don't hoard it, don't be a miser. If love has arisen, share it, shower it. If you cannot find people, shower it on the trees, on the rocks, but shower it. Don't hoard it -- because if you hoard it, it turns into poison; if you hoard it, it goes sour and bitter. Share it.

And the more you share, the more will be coming into you from unknown sources. Slowly slowly, you will be able to know the ways of inner economics. The outer economics is hoard if you want to have things. And the inner economics is just the opposite: hoard, and you will not have it. Give, and you will have it; give more, and you will have more of it.

The sutra:

THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR TRANSFERENCE IN THE MAHAYANA ARE THE "FIVE FORCES." BEHAVIOR IS IMPORTANT.

All these five forces can be significant only if you behave, if you act according to them. If you simply contemplate over them they are meaningless, they will remain impotent. Actualize them in your life.

And the last sutra:

THE PURPOSE OF ALL DHARMA IS CONTAINED IN ONE POINT.

That point is the ego. The ego is false. If you live according to the false ego, your whole life will remain false. If you live without the ego your whole life will have the flavor of reality, truth and authenticity.

Think, meditate, practice.