On Loving-Kindness and the Gifts of an Open Heart

An Excerpt from Teachings Given by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in Nepal, 2024

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who is turning 90 in July, has been spreading his message of loving-kindness and compassion so wonderfully in this century. He is genuinely reaching out and publicly promoting the message of bodhicitta, compassion, and loving-kindness. It's a very simple message. And for us, the motivator for generating this mind of bodhicitta is the fact that you will be more happy if you care about other people, than if you only think about yourself. That's the motivator. We all want to be happy. So where does this un-happiness come from? It comes from a self-centered focus; worrying solely about yourself for so many hours throughout the day, and then not even recognizing that when you are thinking about other people, you're still thinking about yourself. These are the causes of unhappiness.

If you're trying to heal your sickness, clearly bodhicitta and loving-kindness are the medicine. Researchers studying the effects on monks who did 15 minutes of compassion practice found that something like 40 percent of their stem cells were activated in that 15-minute time period. Clearly, when your heart opens and feels that kind of loving-kindness towards someone, your body's ability to protect and heal itself is activated probably better than any supplements can do. Simple as that. Bodhicitta is better than any sleeping pill. And there are no side effects. Or rather, there are many good side effects. Every cell in your body is getting a message of loving-kindness.

If you want peace in your life, then the answer is bodhicitta. Why don't you have peace? Because it seems that somebody is interfering with your sense of peace. Somebody did something, or somebody made a comment that attacked your ego, or that touched your ego, or that pressed your buttons, and you are not able to respond to that any differently than in the habitual way in which you've always reacted to such things. You felt reactive, and took it personally, and you are still circling around it in a very small circle of thoughts and emotions. And consequently, you are staying at that level of thought, feeling and emotion, and you don't feel at peace.

Maybe it was that a friend made a comment, or a brother or a sister did something. For sure it's not pleasant, and maybe it's not good. But that one action, that one short moment has lasted 20, 30, 40 years, and it's still continuing and might actually take up the rest of your life. And it may even come up in the next life, that one single attitude, and those actions and hurtful feelings. So, what is the solution? It's bodhicitta. What is bodhicitta? Forgiveness. How do you forgive? By understanding their pain. Because very often, we are not understanding of their pain; we are not open to it, because we are completely stuck in our pain and we identify with that.

In those cases, it's not that you have a pain, rather you are pain. If you have a pain, then you are likely to have some window of opportunity to get out of it. But, when you are pain, then it is difficult to come out of it. Without identifying as the pain, you can recognize and see, Oh yes, it sounds like I am almost becoming what they are saying I am! Then you open up instead of just react. And then you can say, Okay what they did to me, what they said to me, for sure it's not acceptable. But you can also clearly see that what you're doing to them is also not good. And at some point you have to try and understand the full picture of why that person did that thing to you in the past, and also try to see clearly what you've been doing for the last 25 years to them in the way of your negative thoughts and emotions, and your occasionally criticizing them openly and judging them. Many years of that; it's equally not good.

Then it comes down to the question of, Yes somebody's got to change. Who is the one? Very often I've heard people say things like, I called my sister, and now it's their turn to call me. You actively decide to wait for somebody else to take a step. Why do you have to wait for somebody else to take a step? In the race toward enlightenment, you would want to be the first, wouldn't you? Even if you are competing with family members, you want to be the first, right? That's a healthy competition; you're competing in your journey toward enlightenment. However, you are sabotaging your chances whenever you are waiting for someone else to take the first step! Of course, I too have a tendency to wait sometimes. But then I simply remind myself, this is the race for enlightenment, and by my simply taking the first step, again and again and again, I will never lose. And if in the process I am not able to help the other person to open too, then at least I'm able to open myself up more than I had been previously. And then I just repeat the process. So take those steps. Each one is the step of bodhicitta.

Please just take a moment right now and see what it is that you are wanting to accomplish or achieve in your life. I hear many say, I really need some peace in my life. The answer is always loving-kindness. And you are probably saying, Oh, you mean showing loving-kindness toward everybody other than those people who I have a problem with? No, those people are the very first focus of your loving-kindness! And for now, you can forget about everybody else, okay? Because those whom you don't know have no power to create disturbances in you. But those whom you do know, do have a chance to create disturbances in you. And when you disconnect from those people, then they have more power to create disturbances in you. Therefore, they are the object of your compassion. The problem, though, is that instead you're avoiding them; you're running away; you're disconnecting; you're distancing. But the bodhicitta compassion is not distancing; rather its connecting and caring. And these simple words - connecting and caring - are what you're missing in relation to those people.

As I'm saying this, you might be thinking, It seems like he did not encounter big problems in his life. He doesn't know my famous person. No, I have a lot of famous persons. That's all that is missing: connecting and caring. And most of our famous person stories are not that powerful of a story. We can easily let go. We can forgive, and open our heart.

What is the gift of the dharma, the dharma which you have learned, which you have practiced, which has helped you? It is that you can help those people in your life who you have disconnected with, who you have not forgiven. You have the power to do that. And then absolutely, I guarantee, you will have peace. You'll gain a peace by forgiving them. What else do you want in your life apart from peace? If you name anything that you want, then I will explain how the answer is loving-kindness.

Just think about how loving-kindness is the answer. It's a very practical thing, isn't it? We are victims of intellectualizing and conceptualizing things too much in our life. This is what we do, we analyze everything, we calculate everything. But, if you are a good calculator, then the natural outcome of your calculation would be the healing. Any calculation which produces more pain than the existing pain is a bad calculation. And any analysis which produces more pain than an existing pain is a bad analytical approach. Any peace conference or meeting which produces more conflict is a bad conference, bad conversation, bad negotiation. Because in all of those conversations, what is lacking at their core is loving-kindness.

And there is no lack in our lives of people who will criticize. Just look at social media. The only thing to do with those people, who only know how to criticize, is to just not hurt them. That's the commitment. No matter what they do to you, don't hurt them. Be patient, be silent, be kind. Find a solution.

And in the end, they will learn from your silence more than they would from your pain speech. They will learn from your patience rather than from your aggression. What I am saying here is that there will be people who will bring about enough storms, but right now in the world, we need more people with constructive, not destructive, attitudes, and more of a focus on how people can be brought together, rather than becoming more separated. So to conclude, I will say it again, whatever it is that you want - anything - the answer is bodhicitta. It is the solution for everything.