by Lama Thubten Yeshe
At some point in your life you are going to have to make the following
strong determination: "I'm tired of
being a servant to my ego. My ego rules my mind, and even though it gives
me nothing but trouble,
continuously, continuously, with no time for rest, I spend my entire life
as its servant. My mind is
constantly in turmoil only because of my ego. I'm not going to be a slave
to my ego any longer!"
For example, we would all like to have beautiful bodies; our ego wants
our body to be beautiful.
But at the same time, our attachment -- sneaky, grasping attachment --
makes us eat more than
our body requires. Thus our body becomes fat and heavy. So all the worry
and bother that we
experience as a result comes from these two departments, ego and attachment.
This is just a simple
example, common in many of our lives.
Check it out for yourself. Perhaps your body needs very little food, but
your grasping attachment to
over-eating makes you fat, heavy and uncomfortable. At the same time, you
also worry about losing your
beauty; these two things are in conflict. So which do you choose, the ego's
wish for a beautiful body or the
attachment to eating food? Look into your mind; find the one you cling
to most. One mind is there,
grasping at beauty; the other is there too, knowing consciously that if
you eat too much you'll get fat and
destroy whatever beauty you have. Still, you can't stop eating; these two
minds agitate you, give you a
psychological beating. But despite their constantly mashing you, you keep
saying "Yes, yes, yes...." It's
funny.
So funny. Completely. The human mind is so funny. So silly, if you really
check up. The idea that thin is
beautiful, fat is ugly comes from the mind. Of course, I agree, if you
are too fat it can be physically
unhealthy; that's OK. But the idea, the picture created by attachment and
desire of what is beautiful, what
is ugly, is so silly, isn't it? It's not the reality of the fat that bothers
you but the idea that it's unattractive.
Why? Because you are clinging to reputation, worried about what other people
think of you. I tell you, the
mother sentient beings on this earth are so silly. People in one country
think something is pretty; people in
another country think the same thing is ugly. Here, this is bad; there,
it is good. To some, this is beautiful;
to others something else is beautiful. It's all made up; they're just different
ideas.
Otherwise, where is the external, permanent, absolute beauty? It is only
the way our ego mind interprets
objects that makes them beautiful or ugly. You check up; it's so simple.
When you do the body sweeping
meditation, for example, where your mind examines every part of your body,
try to find the beauty.
Check up: what's beautiful, which part are you clinging to as beautiful?
Check up: your interpretation of
what's beautiful and what's ugly is so superficial; it's just your ego's
projection, but it makes you so
confused. You're confused even now. You don't know any longer what is good
or what is bad. Really!
When you go to the bathroom, you don't stand there admiring what you've
just deposited into the toilet
bowl, do you? Same thing; when you gaze into the mirror at your beautiful
body or face, when you get
stuck on the aspects of yourself that your ego's projection has deemed
attractive, let your mind travel into
your body from the inside of your nose all the way down, trying to determine
exactly where your beauty is.
You'll find that basically, every part of your body is identical to what
you've just excreted. This is scientific
reality, not a matter of belief. The object of beauty that you cling to
is attractive simply because of an
extremely superficial judgment made by your fickle mind.
Look at the confused young women of today. They run from one man to another,
to another, to another,
another man, another man, another man...they experience so much trouble,
more trouble, so much trouble.
But at the same time, they're expecting, "Maybe this one will be good for
me, maybe that one will be good
for me...." These are such superficial experiences, all mental projections,
projections painted by their egos.
"Maybe this, maybe this," with expectation, " Maybe this, maybe this, maybe
this...." No satisfaction at all;
always trouble.
Perhaps you're thinking, "Oh, Lama's putting women down too much." Men
are the same thing! Such deluded
men. They change their wives, change, change, change, superficially discriminating,
"Good, good, good...."
Then, after a while "good" turns to "bad," so they change again. Then good,
then bad, then change; then
good, then bad, then change. Their judgment, good and bad, beautiful and
ugly, is so completely superficial;
it has nothing whatsoever to do with reality, either inner or outer. There's
no understanding, no
communication, and such fear and insecurity, all because of ego and attachment.
All this comes from the mind. We're totally preoccupied with our ego's
superficial projections, while we turn
our backs on reality. No wonder we're completely confused and unable to
communicate properly with any
living being. All this comes from our big ego.
Therefore, it is highly worthwhile to switch your mental attitude from
the attachment that is always saying,
"I, I, I" to purely dedicating your life to the welfare of others. Recognize
that you have been building
attachment for years and years but still have nothing to show for it; it
is so important to be aware of this.
When you dedicate your life to others you are acknowledging that true human
beauty is not on the outside,
that beauty is not the view projected by your ego onto another person's
skin, but rather that what is truly
beautiful is others' inner potential. When you see that, you respect other
sentient beings, instead of
respecting only yourself and spending all your time developing your two
inner departments of ego and
attachment.
Wherever you go -- East, West, sky, earth, beneath the earth -- there are
other sentient beings. If,
through having recognized the false conceptions of ego and attachment,
you generate the pure motivation
of dedicating your life to others, your life will become truly worthwhile,
you will give real meaning to being
alive.
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