We live in one of the most affluent countries in the world. Look how many people are desperate to live in the United States, to pursue the American dream, to own stuff and to consume. While we can see that wealth has brought a certain amount of ease and material comfort, a certain amount of happiness, it is obvious that it has not brought enough. No matter how much we own there is still so much suffering and discontent in our lives. People require more and stronger drugs, both legal and illegal, to stay sane and to escape the pressures of modern life. Many of our families are dysfunctional, resulting in mental, physical and sexual abuse. Depression is becoming as normal as the common cold as we tirelessly pursue the empty materialistic path of 'more is better.' By searching endlessly for external sources of happiness on our hedonistic treadmill we are steadily destroying our planet and have made our lives incredibly complicated and dissatisfying. As a New York Times' article recently asked, 'If richer isn't happier, what is?' Why when we have so much are we still so dissatisfied? What are we missing?
These questions are enormously important and lead us to search for deeper solutions. It is these questions that renowned Buddhist meditation master, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso helps us to answer in his new book, Transform Your Life - A Blissful Journey. In the introduction Geshe Kelsang provides us with a devastatingly simple yet profound insight:
"Happiness and suffering are states of mind and so their main causes cannot be found outside the mind. The real source of happiness is inner peace. If our mind is peaceful we shall be happy all the time regardless of external conditions, but if it is disturbed or troubled in any way, we shall never be happy, no matter how good our external conditions may be. External conditions can only make us happy if our mind is peaceful."
We have devoted all our energy towards external progress while ignoring our inner development. While we are certainly a wealthy country we are missing an essential ingredient, peace of mind. The ancient Buddhist wisdom understanding how to create happiness within the mind is Geshe Kelsang's gift to western society. After many years of study and meditation in Tibet and India, Geshe Kelsang came to the West to offer the inner path of wisdom and compassion. Since his arrival 25 years ago, he has written 19 books on Buddhist meditation and philosophy, and founded hundreds of meditation centers around the world that offer both general and in-depth study programs based on his works. Here in the Northwest these programs are offered by senior students of the author at centers in Seattle, Mt Vernon, Portland and Vancouver BC.
In Transform Your Life, Geshe Kelsang offers a collection of his essential spiritual advice, both for the beginner and the experienced practitioner. This advice clearly explains how to develop the real causes of happiness and how to overcome the deep causes of suffering within the mind. As he says,
"If we want true, lasting happiness we need to develop and maintain a special experience of inner peace. The only way to do this is by training our mind through spiritual practice - gradually reducing and eliminating our negative, disturbed states of mind and replacing them with positive, peaceful states. Eventually, through continuing to improve our inner peace we shall experience permanent inner peace, or 'nirvana'. Once we have attained nirvana we shall be happy throughout our life, and in life after life...Having overcome our own delusions such as anger, attachment and ignorance, and developed profound spiritual realization of universal love, compassion, concentration and wisdom, our ability to help others will be far greater. In this way we can help others solve their problems not just for a few days, or a few years, but forever."
Transform Your Life explains how to develop these liberating states of mind through the practice of meditation. This illuminating book offers many practical methods for maintaining love, compassion and wisdom in our daily lives, thereby making our spiritual practice relevant to our family, workplace and society. It also explains with great clarity the Buddhist understanding of reincarnation, karma, the nature of consciousness, how to develop a good heart and the ultimate nature of reality. Transform Your Life is a perfect guide both for those seeking practical ways to improve their lives and the world around them, and for those who wish to enter the spiritual path to the supreme happiness of nirvana.
By Gen Jangsem
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သင္႔ရဲ႕ထင္ျမင္ခ်က္ေလး ကုိ အမ်ားသိရေအာင္ ေျပာျပခဲ႔ပါလား