WHAT IS BUDDHISM?

Sambano, all my brothers and sisters in Mongolia.

Why is it so important to learn about Buddhism and to practice it? Because what we are
all seeking is happiness and what none of us want is suffering. Therefore we need to
abandon the real cause of suffering and create the unmistaken cause of happiness. The
actual cause of happiness is not outside. Even though people commonly believe that
suffering is connected to external situations, actually these are just the conditions for
suffering. Similarly, the actual cause of happiness is not outside, it is within the mind.
For example, when somebody gets angry with you, at that time think to yourself that
among all the numberless holy beings, such as the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and all
the other beings this person is the only one in your life with whom you can learn
patiencethe healthy, peaceful, happy, pure mind of patience, which brings so much
peace and happiness to your own life, as well as to your companions, family and
country, and to the rest of the world and all living beings.
If you dont practice patience and instead get angry, that habit leaves the negative
imprint of anger on the mental continuum again and again. Anger destroys your own
peace and happiness and brings so much suffering to your life. It harms your
companion, friends and family, as well as the people in your country, in the rest of the
world and all living beings.
So you can see how practicing patience with this person is the source of all your
happiness now and in the future right up to the peerless happiness, the complete bliss of
full enlightenment. And it is also the source of peace and happiness for others, starting
from your family and going out to all living beings.
When you think of the benefits of patience, which are as vast as the sky, you get a very
deep feeling for the kindness of the person who is angry towards you. You see how
precious that person is in your life. By looking at the person who is angry with you in a
positive way, it is so beneficial to develop your mind in the path to liberation and
enlightenmentparticularly patience. The positive thought seeing that person as kind
immediately brings inner peace and happiness, and because you dont get angry and
harm the person in return it brings peace to others. The person you previously called an
enemy then becomes your most kind friend. By practicing patience you are able to bring
so much peace and happiness to all sentient beings. This comes from your positive
thought. So you can see how your suffering and happiness as well as that of others come
from your mind.

When you look at the person who is angry with you as being negative and bad, label it
as harm, and then believe that label you create suffering for yourself and others. This
way of thinking causes anger to rise towards the other person and from the anger comes
unhappiness for yourself, for others and on a larger scale for all living beings.
When your mind is transformed into the peaceful, happy mind of patience, that brings
happiness to yourself and to all living beings. This is practicing Buddhism. This is
practicing what the Buddha taught. Without the practice of Buddhism, this paramita of
patience, one person can destroy a whole countrylike Mongoliaand even the whole
world. There are many recent examples of this happening.
If there were loving kindness, compassion, the thought of benefiting others and
contentment in the hearts of everyone in the world, there would be no need for weapons
or guns at all, and no reason to have armies. How incredible this country and the world
would be if everyone could generate and develop these most precious qualities of the
mind! With these inner qualities, you become a friend to everyone and everyone
becomes your friend. You love everyone and everyone loves you. How incredibly happy
the world would be!
It is the same if you can let go of desire. When there is strong desire, only seeking the
pleasure of this life for yourself it brings so many problems and so much suffering. You
become an alcoholic, and make life totally useless and meaningless. At this time we have
received a most precious human body that can be used to achieve every happiness. With
this body we can achieve so much peace and happiness in this life. More importantly,
we can achieve happiness for all our future lives. Even more importantly, we can
achieve ultimate everlasting happinesstotal liberation from the cycle of rebirth and
death along old age, sickness and all the rest of the sufferings and their causes
delusions and their actions. And even more importantly, we can achieve the peerless
happiness of full enlightenment, which is the total cessation of all the mistakes of the
mind and the achievement of all qualities and realizations. By achieving enlightenment,
we can serve others by causing numberless beings to gain the happiness of this life, the
happiness of future lives, the total cessation of sufferingliberation, and more
importantly the peerless happiness of full enlightenment.
Alcoholics cannot even do the works for this life. They cant even do their job properly
and they cause so much suffering to their familiesto the husband, wife, and children
instead of bringing them happiness and peace. They make the family poor instead of
bringing wealth.
So it is clear how all the problems of this life that harm you and harm others come from
the mindfrom the dissatisfied mind of desire. Therefore, if you can be educated in
how to be content and have a satisfied mind, your whole life can be filled with much
inner peace and happiness, and there will be great success for you, your family and the

world. By doing this, there will be no need for court cases and no need for prison. You
can say goodbye to depression, loneliness and suicide!
The dissatisfied mind, discontent and desire bring relationship problems one after
another for the whole life. You get swamped in relationship problems, like a person
drowning in mud who finds it difficult to get out. Due to this, your friend and
companion leave youand you have to suffer pain in your heart for years as well as all
the other sufferings.
So you can see how all your own peace and happiness and that of others, as well as all
the problems in your own life and those of others come from your own mind. Peace and
happiness come from a content, satisfied mindfrom a mind that has let go of the
dissatisfied mind of desire. Peace and happiness come from the pure, healthy, happy,
peaceful virtuous thought, which is Dharma; while negative thoughtthe unhealthy,
dissatisfied mindfills life up with so many problems and causes problems to the
family, the country, the world and all living beings, from life to life.
Therefore, letting go of desire and making yourself free from all the confusion and
problems that cause you to engage in so many different negative karmas in this life and
then to be born in the lower realms in future livesas a hell being, hungry ghost or
animalis giving independence to yourself. This is the way to fill yourself from deep
down in your heart with so much peace, satisfaction and joy. This is renunciation, the
very fundamental practice of Buddhism.
Also, if your attitude in life is self-cherishing and ego, that opens the door to so many
undesirable things and causes so many problems to your companion, family, friends
and to the world and all living beings from life to life. The minute you cherish the I, the
self, that itself is a problem because it brings no real joy and happiness in the heart. The
minute you cherish the I, that itself is an unhappy mind.
A selfish person thinks only of their own needs and happiness and has no concern for
the needs and happiness of others. The stronger the self-cherishing thought the easier it
is to create problems in life. Wherever a person with strong self-cherishing goesto the
countryside or to the city, to the east or to the westthey always find problems.
Whoever that person stays with, they will always find difficulties. Even if the other
person starts off as a friend, sooner or later they will find out how self-centred the other
person is and there will be disharmony and fighting. They will end up arguing, disliking
and hating each other. Wherever that person goes they will make so many enemies.
Instead of so many people becoming their friends, they will become enemies. Even if
they start as friends sooner or later they will become enemies due to the self-cherishing
mind. Self-cherishing is the greatest obstacle to achieving happiness in this life, so there
is no question that it prevents us from achieving happiness in future lives, liberation and
enlightenment. Self-cherishing is the greatest obstacle to benefit others, to bring

happiness to the family and to everyone in Mongolia, as well as to the world and all
living beings.
The great Bodhisattva Shantideva said: If one does not exchange oneself for others, one
cannot achieve enlightenment (peerless happiness). Leave aside the happiness of future
lives, even the happiness of this life wont succeed.
If the attitude is self-cherishing, even if someone is doing a job, working for others, they
will steal and cheat and lie and be careless and lazy, which will lead to worry, fear, court
cases and debts. Their life will be swamped by debts. Nobody likes a person whose
attitude to life is one of self-cherishing. When that person has problems nobody wants to
help.
A person who has a good heart, always putting others first, cherishing others and living
their life to benefit others has so much success in their life. That person brings so much
happiness to the family, to the countrylike Mongoliato the world and to all living
beings, from life to life. That person can cause all living beings to gain all the different
levels of happiness up to enlightenmentbesides being able to accomplish all of this
happiness for themselves. That persons heart is filled with so much joy and fulfillment.
They have no guilt or regret. There is incredible joy and happiness in their life both now
and in the future--like the sun shining. Even at the end of their life there will be so much
peace and happiness, and when they pass away it will be very inspiring for others. Even
if there is nobody else there to pray for that person, they will support and guide
themselves to a Pure Land of Buddha or another very good rebirth in the next life where
they can develop the mind more easily and quickly in the path to enlightenment.
So, here again, the happiness and suffering in our life come from the mind, from our
own mind. They are dependent on whether we live life with the self-cherishing thought
or with the thought cherishing others. Therefore the very heart of all Mahayana
Buddhist practice is letting go of self and cherishing others.
The great Bodhisattva Shantideva said: As long as you dont drop the fire, you cannot
stop the burning. Likewise, as long as you dont let go of the I, you cannot abandon
suffering. Therefore, to pacify harms to yourself and sufferings to others, give yourself
up for others, cherish others as yourself.
If your attitude in daily life is ignorance, anger and attachment, all your actions become
non-virtue and the result is only suffering and obstacles. If your attitude in life is nonignorance, non-anger, non-attachment, your actions become virtue and the result is only
happiness. From this you can understand again how suffering and happiness come from
your own mind, by depending on what kind of attitude you generatepositive or
negative. Therefore the happiest, most fulfilling and best life is one lived with the
attitude of cherishing and benefiting others.

Happiness comes from virtue, suffering comes from non-virtue. Every single happiness
that is experienced in this lifesuccess in business, good reputation, wealthcomes as a
result of past good karma. There is not one single happiness, including even the comfort
experienced in a dream that does not come from good karma. This means that all
happiness comes from Dharma. So if one wishes happiness, one needs to practice
Dharma, and one must practice all the time.
Regards the different levels of happiness: the first level is to not be reborn in the lower
realms and to achieve the body of a happy migratory beinga deva or human body.
This depends upon cultivating an attitude of detachment to this life. Then, by taking
refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, one abandons non-virtue and practices the
virtue of the ten moralities.
Achieving the second level of happinessthe everlasting happiness that is the total
cessation of all suffering and its causesdelusion and karmadepends upon
renouncing the suffering of samsara, the aggregates caused by delusion and karma
which are in the nature of suffering, then practicing the three higher trainings and the
five paths to liberation.
Even if one has achieved liberation from samsara for oneself, it is not sufficient. Not only
have all sentient beings been your own mother and kind, but also every single sentient
being is the source of all your past happinessfrom time without beginningpresent,
and future happiness. So the very purpose of our lives is to liberate the numberless
sentient beings, who want happiness and do not want suffering, from all the suffering
and its causes and bring them to full enlightenment. This is the very meaning of our
lives and the purpose of being human. In order to free the numberless sentient beings
from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment, we need to
abandon self-cherishing thought, and to generate loving-kindness, compassion and
bodhicitta and enter the Mahayana path. Then we practice the bodhisattvas deeds, the
six paramitas, and actualize the five paths and ten bhumis, which ceases not only the
gross delusionsthe disturbing thought obscurationsand karma, but even the subtle
defilements.
In order to bring the numberless sentient beings to enlightenment as quickly as possible
we need to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible and for this we need to practice
highest tantra. This depends on receiving a great initiation, which definitely plants the
seed of the four kayas on the mindstream. Then, with an attitude of bodhicitta based on
renunciation of this life and right view, emptiness, one actualizes the generation stage
and completion stage which cease in the quickest way the disturbing thought
obscurations and subtle defilements including the dualistic view and cause the
attainment of full enlightenment, the unified state of Vajradhara.

Therefore, actualizing full enlightenment quickly depends on the tantric path and that
depends on actualizing bodhicitta and the right view. In order to actualize bodhicitta
one needs to achieve the preliminary of renunciation of samsara and for that one needs
to actualize renunciation to this life. The success of all of this up to enlightenement
depends on correctly devoting to the virtuous friend. This is the whole progression of
the stages of the path to enlightenment.

Who is Buddha and How is Buddha Guiding Me?

Generally in a country and in the world, there is somebody amongst all the others who
has the greatest compassion and there is somebody who has the highest education and
somebody who has the greatest capacity. Buddha is one who has actualized the path of
method and wisdom, has completely ceased all gross and subtle defilements and has
achieved the fully enlightened mind, the omniscient mind perfected with all
understanding. Buddhas mind has not even the slightest ignorance and can see directly
all present, past and future phenomena simultaneously. Buddha has also trained in
great compassion towards every single sentient being without discrimination and has
perfect power to reveal all the methods that fit exactly sentient beings karma.
Numberless Buddhas achieved enlightenment by actualizing the path that ceases the
defilements. There are 1,000 Buddhas who very kindly generated bodhicitta and made
the vow to descend in this fortunate aeon to liberate the sentient beings of this world.
The first was _________, then Serthub, then Osung. Guru Shakyamuni Buddha is the
fourth.
Guru Shakyamuni Buddha very kindly made 500 prayers and vowed to descend to this
world to benefit us in this 100-age quarrelling time who were left out by other Buddhas.
He generated compassion and bodhicitta for all sentient beings and then practiced
charitygiving up his own body, wealth, family and so forth practiced morality,
patience and perseverance for three countless great aeons. Buddha completed the two
types of merit, virtue and wisdom, and achieved enlightenment. He then revealed the
teachings of the Four Noble Truthsthat show the path to liberation, the Paramitayana
paththat shows the path to full enlightenment, and the tantric path which brings
enlightenment very quicklyeven in one lifetime.
Therefore the path to enlightenment is very scientific. Buddha himself experienced the
path and then revealed it to others. In the same way, many great pandits analysed the
Buddhas teachings and many yogis practiced them. So many meditators from different
countries of the worldIndia, Tibet, China, Mongolia, Nepalachieved enlightenment
by practising the path correctly just as the Buddha explained. So practicing Buddhism is
not just blind faith. Even now, there are many meditators attaining the path.

Buddha is also guiding Mongolian people because Buddhism came to Mongolia many
centuries ago. Mongolians are so fortunate that Buddhism is Mongolias old culture and
therefore we must preserve and strengthen and spread it. It is very important for
everyone to learn and practice Buddhism in order not to waste this precious human life.
Bayurla.

Colophon:
Transcript of a Speech given by Rinpoche for Mongolian Radio in June 2004, transcribed and
edited by Ven Sarah Tenzing Yiwong.