The Jewel Tree of Tibet by Thurman Robert

Author:Thurman, Robert [Thurman, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Published: 2005-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

As I see my chronic disease of cherishing myself,

As the cause that brings me unwanted suffering,

I resent it and hold it fully responsible—

Bless me to conquer this great devil of self-addiction!

The ninth stage is the stage of thinking of the advantages of other-cherishing, and realizing how others really are the source of all of one’s happiness.

For example, whenever someone is really happy, it is because of the love of others. Whenever someone does something for someone else and gives to others, he or she feels happy. Whenever someone develops higher ethical sensitivity, it is because she or he thinks of others. Whenever one develops the greater strength of tolerance and patience, it’s when others irritate her and she learns to overcome that. Think about a ring that you love—and the connections it gives you to others. Somebody else made it, somebody else found the stone and mined it, and somebody else fashioned it into a beautiful ring. Your clothes come from fabric that someone else created, some mother living being. Wool came from mother beings who grow it on their bodies as their fur; then it was shorn from them. Then spinners and weavers made the cloth, and others sewed it into its shape as a garment. When you have food, it’s because some farmers grew and cared for it, and somebody shipped it in a truck, and drove it, staying awake in the truck, and somebody cooked it.

Everything good in our life comes from others. If we enjoy poetry and words, it is because of language, and language comes from others who communicated in previous generations. Even our body comes from others, from the cells of parents who developed genes over billions of life experiences, from billions and billions of other beings. Our mind comes from others, our speech comes from others.

Others make it possible for us also to become buddhas. Without others to feel compassion for, we couldn’t have compassion. Without others’ suffering, we would never feel compassion. Without developing compassion, we couldn’t evolve to the state of buddhahood. Wisdom alone would leave us too quiescent and too complacent. If it weren’t for our communion with others, we would never evolve the magnificent embodiment, the great giant multiple butterfly embodiment of buddhahood, the infinite bliss of buddhahood.

Therefore, there’s a tremendous advantage to living fully aware that the real source of our happiness lies in other people and their happiness. We usually think of a wish-fulfilling gem tree as being populated by exalted other beings, our mentors, the Buddha, the bodhisattvas, Jesus, Mary, the Goddess, the gods. We think of them as powerful and happy and able to make us happy. But actually, you can consider ordinary living beings to be wish-granting gem trees, too. We become wealthy, for example, karmically and evolutionarily, only by giving gifts, and if there were no one to receive the gifts, we would not be able to develop generosity, and we would not be able to evolve wealth and substance. We become ethical

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