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| Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche |
Sense pleasures and desirable things are like salt water -
The more one tastes them, the more one's thirst increases.
To abandon promptly
All objects which arouse attachment is the practice of a bodhisattva.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: Whatever comfort, wealth, beauty and power you enjoy today is the result of some minor good actions in a past life. However many of them you have, it is the characteristic of ordinary people never to feel satisfied. You may have more wealth than you actually need, you may have triumphed over many opponents, and you may have close relationships with friends and relatives, but it is never enough; even if coins of gold were to rain down on you from the sky, it would probably not be enough.
When craving all sorts of desirable things becomes so ingrained in your mind, trying to satisfy your wants is like drinking salt water - the more you drink, the more you feel thirsty.
The destructive power of dissatisfaction is illustrated by the story of King Mandhatri who had accumulated a lot of merit in a past life and was reborn as a universal monarch. He gradually ascended the different levels of god realms, eventually reaching the celestial Heaven of the Thirty-Three.
There he was able to share the throne with Indra, the god of the gods, who had a life-span of many kalpas, could enjoy the fruits of the wish-fulfilling tree, drink the nectar of ambrosial lakes, and illuminate the whole universe with the light emanating from his body.
King Mandhatri could have continued to enjoy such exquisite happiness. But he conceived the idea of killing lndra, to make himself even more powerful, and become the greatest being in the universe. This thought came to him just as his merit was exhausted, and he died wretchedly, falling back into the ordinary world.
Looking at life in the great cities of ancient and modern times, you can see how people feverishly accumulate ever-increasing amounts of wealth but die still without having satisfied their cravings.
As Lord Atisha said,
And stay without desire.
Desire does not bring happiness,
It cuts off liberation's very life.
To know how to be satisfied with what you have is to possess true wealth. The great saints and hermits of the past had the ability to be content with whatever they had, and with however they lived. They stayed in lonely places, sheltering in caves, sustaining their lives with the very barest necessities.
When you know how to judge what is enough for you, you will no longer be tormented by wants, desires and needs. Otherwise, as the saying goes, "Craving is like a dog - the more it gets, the more it wants."
The followers of the Buddha, the arhats and the shravakas, possessed only their saffron Dharma robes and a begging bowl. They spent their lives absorbed in deep concentration. That was how they freed themselves from samsara.
They did not hanker after wealth, fame, or position, which they saw as utterly meaningless and left behind without a second thought, like spittle in the dust.
Nowadays, people chase busily after externals and are preoccupied by what they can get. As a result, learning, reflecting, and meditating have declined, and with them the Buddha's teachings themselves.
Learning, reflecting and meditating are, in fad, the only things of which you can never have enough. Not even the most learned sages - such as Vasubandhu, who knew nine hundred and ninety-nine important treatises by heart - ever thought they had reached the ultimate extent of learning, and were aware that there was still an ocean of knowledge to acquire.
The bodhisattva Kumara Vasubhadra studied with one hundred and fifty spiritual masters, yet no one ever heard him say that he had received enough teachings.
Manjushri, sovereign of wisdom, who knows all that can be known, travels to all the buddha fields in the ten directions throughout the universe, ceaselessly requesting the buddhas to turn the Wheel of the Mahayana for the sake of beings.
Be satisfied, therefore, with whatever you have by way of ordinary things - but never with the Dharma. If your ordinary desires and dislikes are insatiable, on the other hand, and you have no wish for the Dharma, you can only sink lower and lower.
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