Happiness Starts When We Renounce This Life

Any action done free from the three poisonous minds of greed, hatred and ignorance is the cause of happiness. Renouncing suffering is the field of all happiness which includes the ultimate happiness of enlightenment and even happiness in this life.

“Renouncing this life” or “renouncing suffering”, these terms both mean renouncing the mind that is the cause of the problems, the thought of the eight worldly dharmas. Therefore “Dharma” includes even temporal techniques to stop attachment from rising. This is the actual Dharma, the method that immediately solves our confusion and mental illness. Bringing clarity and lack of confusion to the mind is the best way of bringing us happiness in this life.

Renouncing suffering doesn’t mean we’ll never have a stomach or knee pain, a headache or a cold. It doesn’t mean wishing to be free of all pain, but wishing to be free from the very cause of all suffering.

It has been the experience of these great yogis that we don’t have to wait until our future lives to experience this happiness. As soon as we stop the dissatisfied mind, immediately—immediately—there is the result, happiness.

At first we might be nervous about letting go of desire because it’s normal for us to equate desire with happiness. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. As soon as we let go of desire, we achieve inner peace, satisfaction and happiness. We become independent. Before we were dictated to, controlled by desire, but now we have achieve real independence, real freedom.

We can see in the biographies of the great yogis, Tilopa, Marpa, Milarepa, Lama Tsongkhapa and many of those highly realized beings, whose holy minds passed into enlightenment, how even without material possessions they generated great tranquility, great peace, and through that were able to realize the great achievements of the path. They didn’t even have the smell of the eight worldly dharmas but by completely renouncing the desires of this life, they received everything. They had the best reputation, perfect surroundings and sufficient material comfort.

In Milarepa’s autobiography The Hundred Thousand Songs he often says how, by renouncing this life’s worldly activities, great blissfulness comes and all the thousands of other problems associated with the worldly life are automatically cut off.

He had no possessions at all, and led an ascetic life in solitary places like caves. Although he lived like an animal his life was passed in great happiness, his mind always peaceful, without confusion or problems. He didn’t even have one sack of tsampa, the barley flour that is the most popular food in Tibet, but lived on nettles alone. Living without food, clothing, and reputation didn’t cause him any problems because of his Dharma practice. He achieved all the higher realizations and then enlightenment in that one lifetime all due to the power of his pure Dharma, renouncing suffering, renouncing this life. His mind was happier than that of the king who has great power, who has many bodyguards, many armies, many weapons. There is nothing to compare.

So it is completely wrong to think that Dharma only brings happiness in future lifetimes but not in this one. Dharma brings peace and happiness to the mind the very moment we practice and live in the Dharma. We feel its effects immediately.

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