The only difference is the shape
by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
To a beggar, a businessman looks rich, but even though superficially they lead different lives, below the surface, they’re the same—both are simply working for the happiness of just this life; both ways of living are negative; both are worldly work. There’s no real difference.
In some ways, the beggar’s life is preferable. Many businessmen take care of their lives by cheating others, and cheating others means cheating themselves, because cheating others takes cunning, treachery and telling lies. In general, beggars don’t cheat others, therefore their lives are not as negative.
Students aren’t much better. They study hard from childhood until they graduate with a degree from a top university, but it’s all just to take care of this life. They might think that they are working for the good of their country or for world peace, but in the depths of their heart their main goal is only the comfort of this life. So even if it takes thirty, forty or fifty years for them to get their degree, they remain servants of the eight worldly dharmas.
If we really check up, this is the huge tragedy of life.
Then, no matter how high up the career ladder they climb, since everything they do is for the comfort of this life, they never become anything more than servants of the eight worldly dharmas. And what if they die three or four years after graduation? Having studied so much and worked so hard, what do they have to carry with them? Nothing! They can’t take their fat bank accounts along. All they can take with them to their next life are the imprints on their mindstream of all the actions they’ve done from the time they were born and beginningless lives, and those are all negative due to their attachment to mundane comfort. They worked all their life to create the cause of suffering, and this is how their lives finish. If we really check up, this is the huge tragedy of life.
The eight worldly dharmas are:
1. Craving for material possessions
2. Craving to be free from a lack of material possessions
3. Craving for happiness and comfort
4. Craving to be free from unhappiness and discomfort
5. Craving for a good reputation
6. Craving to be free from a bad reputation
7. Craving for praise
8. Craving to be free from criticism
These eight worldly dharmas (also called the eight worldly concerns) are the four desirable objects that we crave to have and the four undesirable objects that we crave to be free from.
In this way, a student is no different from an animal. A cow stays near her home, eating grass and sleeping. She can’t talk and knows nothing the student knows—she hasn’t even studied her ABCs. She certainly hasn’t gained a degree. Her whole life of ten or twenty years is spent trying to find the best grass and water she can. From birth until death, her whole life is dedicated to the comfort of this life, exactly the same as that of the student.
We can easily see that everything that animals do—going to the fields, coming back, eating, drinking—is motivated by attachment, clinging to this life. I haven’t heard whether they watch television or go to the movies, but it’s possible. I’ve heard that in the United States there are schools where animals are trained how to live in a house—where to sleep, where to eat, which chairs to sit on, where not to make smells. In the East, people teach dogs to make prostrations but that doesn’t make their minds understand Dharma; it’s only a physical action. They make prostrations when there’s meat, when they’re hungry. At night, they go to sleep with no virtuous thought or pure motivation.
If we analyze the lives of the student and the cow, they’re basically the same. Just as the cow’s life is negative, so is the student’s. The cow’s life is no higher than the student’s; the student’s life is no higher than the cow’s. When death comes, the student will have done nothing higher than the cow, even though he was born as a human being.
However smart he is, however great his reputation, whether he dives down to the depths of the Pacific or flies up to the moon, since his life is motivated solely by attachment to the comfort of this life, it’s all negative, all the cause of suffering. His way of looking for happiness might seem a little bit different from that of the cow, but it’s certainly no higher. Everything both of them do is motivated by the impure thoughts of greed, hatred and ignorance and keeps them trapped in the prison of samsara. One might have no possessions and lead a miserable life while the other has every possible material possession and great pleasure, but ultimately there really is not much difference. The only difference is the shape.
Ultimately there really is not much difference.
If a being has one shape we call it a human; if it has another we call it an animal. The actions are basically the same; the mind is the same. We might proudly think that we’re infinitely more competent than animals and that animals are low and uneducated, but if we really check whether our life is in any way more meaningful than that of an animal, we might get a bit of a shock.
How many animals are there in this world? How many people? Check up on the numbers and think about how every one of them is creating the causes of suffering because they’re controlled by the thought of the eight worldly dharmas.
First of all, think about all the billions of creatures in the ocean and what their minds are doing. If we could see into the minds of all those different types of fish, all those different creatures busily swimming back and forth, round and round, looking for food, seeking a safe comfortable place, all we’d find in the depths of their heart is the thought seeking only the pleasure of this life.
All the other creatures, too—the birds flying around in the air, the animals on the surface of the earth, the beings underground—what they have in the very depths of their heart is exactly the same thing, only the comfort of this life.
The only difference is the shape.
Now think about human beings. Take one city, like New York, and observe. Watch every person in that city; watch their minds. With the exception of only a few, they’re all doing the same thing with the same motivation as the creatures that fly, walk and burrow. They’re concerned with only the comfort of this life. Those flying in spaceships or airplanes, traveling in cars or floating on the water are all doing the same thing, all thinking in the same way. Their only concern is the comfort of this life, the pleasures of this life. Look closely at all the people and all the animals—you won’t find any difference.
Look at the people shopping, the people driving their cars, up and down, back and forth, always busy, day and night, night and day. What are they all doing? Why are they all working so hard? What’s in their heart? It’s the same thing, desire for the happiness of just this life.
Observe them. Everybody everywhere, so busy doing worldly work, is under the control of attachment, seeking the pleasure of just this life. Everybody’s too busy to think about Dharma but never too busy to do all this nonvirtuous work. Such an incredible number of suffering transmigratory beings.
We worldly people look down on animals, thinking that they’re stupid and low, but somebody who understands Dharma and knows about karma sees that we’re no different. The meditator sees us as totally obsessed by worldly concern and everything we do as suffering. We live in complete darkness, totally devoid of Dharma wisdom and completely unconscious of our actions.
Everybody’s too busy to think about Dharma.
We would probably argue that we’re not unconscious; we’re very conscious of what we’re doing. We know where to eat good food, how to make lots of money, how to work, how to do business, how to turn a profit, how to bargain, what the best consumer items are. Many people who pride themselves on their intelligence even think that animals don’t have a mind. To the meditator, however, human or animal, we lead our lives stumbling unconsciously into suffering, completely under the control of delusion.
Seeing this, we worldly beings become the objects of the meditator’s compassion.
From How to Practice Dharma: Teachings on the Eight Worldly Dharmas, a LYWA free book in which Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains how desire and attachment lead to suffering and how to abandon these attitudes so we experience peace and happiness instead. Edited by Gordon McDougall.
The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (LYWA) is the collected works of Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche. The Archive was founded in 1996 by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, its spiritual director, who chose the name Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive out of humility and in honor of his teacher. For practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism in general, and students of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche in particular, LYWA is an invaluable resource for authentic Buddhist teachings in the Mahayana tradition.
