Living
Attachment tends to lead to negative consequences, whereas love and compassion lead to positive consequences. (p.20)
The sense of contentment is the key factor for attaining happiness. Bodily health, material wealth, and companions and friends are three factors for happiness. Contentment is the key that will determine the outcome of your relations with all three of these factors. (p. 23)
Good conduct is the way in which life becomes more meaningful, more constructive, and more peaceful. (p. 25)
The only option is to live and work together harmoniously, and keep in our minds the interest of the whole humanity. (p. 107)
Dying
If there is a way to overcome the suffering, then there is no need to worry; if there is no way to overcome the suffering, then there is no use in worrying.
Shantideva (p. 39)
Death is part of our lives (pp. 39-40)
Within the seed of the cause of events is the seed for their cessation and disintegration.
Death is at the intervening stage when the elements dissolve into the Clear Light and from there re-arise in another form. (p. 54)
It is peace of mind at the time of death which is the foundation for cultivating the proper motivation, and that is the immediate guarantee of a good rebirth, of a better life to come. (p. 58)
Compassion
One can overcome the forces of negative emotions, like anger and hatred, by cultivating their counterforces, like love and compassion. (p. 90)
...by nature we are compassionate,...compassion is something very necessary, and something which we can develop....genuine compassion is based on a clear acceptance or recognition that others, like oneself, want happiness and have the right to overcome suffering. On that basis one develops some kind of concern about the welfare of others, irrespective of their attitude toward oneself. That is compassion. (p. 99)
Genuine compassion is based on reason. By contrast, attachment is narrow-minded and biased. ...to develop genuine compassion you must first practice the meditation of equalization and equanimity, detaching yourself from those people who are very close to you. Then you must remove negative feelings toward your enemies. All sentient beings should be looked on as equal. ...genuine compassion is not like pity or a feeling that others are somehow lower than yourself. ...with genuine compassion you view others as more important than yourself. (p.101)
Interdependence
Characteristics of dependent origination: 1. Because the cause exists, the effect follows. 2. The very cause which brings about the effects must itself have a cause. 3. The effect must be commensurate with the cause. There must be a concordance between the two....there must be a sort of special relationship between cause and effect.(pp. 137-138)
To have a happier future, you have to take care of everything that is related to yourself. (p. 141)
Emptiness
What is the mechanism that really leads an individual to act against what he or she fundamentally desires (i.e., happiness)? Here Buddha points to the role of afflictive emotions and thoughts, like anger, hatred, attachment, and so forth, which blind the person's understanding of the nature of reality....the person has a rather false notion of self: there is a kind of unquestioned assumption of an independently existing "I"....something there which is somehow identified as the core of the being, the self,...a strong sort of grasping at that kind of identity or being. Based on that, you have strong emotional experiences....even in our day-today life we often find a disparity between the way we perceive things and the way things really exist. (pp. 143-144)
Nagarjuna identifies two types of ignorance: one is grasping at an inherent or intrinsic reality of one's own self or being; the other is grasping an inherent and independent existence of external events and things. (p. 150)
The true meaning of Emptiness is the interdependence nature of reality. Dependent origination can dispel extremes of both absolutism and nihilism. (p. 156)
As your insight into the ultimate nature of reality and Emptiness is deepened and enhanced, you will develop a perception of reality from which you will perceive phenomena and events as sort of illusory, illusion-like, and this mode of perceiving reality will permeate all your interactions with reality. (p. 161)
The concept of time, the idea of Clear Light, and even Emptiness itself, are not absolute. We cannot speak of them as independently existing entities. Therefore the Buddha taught the Emptiness of Emptiness. If we were to take Emptiness as an object and then again examine it, we cannot find it. (pp.162-165)
Interfaith
...the most important task of any religious practitioner is to examine oneself...and try to transform one's body, speech, and mind, and act according to the teachings and the principles of one's religious tradition....if one's faith remains only at the intellectual level, ...that is a grave mistake. (pp. 169-170)
Source:
The Dalai Lama. The Art of Living:A Guide to Contentment, Joy and Fulfillment. (Hammersmith, London: Thorsons, HarperCollins Publishers, 2001)
