The Book of Joy

his experience reinforced his ability for compassion, his human qualities.
There are a number of cases where Tibetans who spent many years of
hard labor in Chinese gulags told me that it was their best period for
spiritual practice, for developing patience and compassion. One of my
personal physicians, Dr. Tenzin Choedrak, who years later managed to
come to India, was quite clever. In the gulag, he was prevented from
having the rosary and was forced to read Chairman Mao’s Red Book. So
he used the syllables of the words as his rosary and recited Buddhist
prayers, but in the eyes of the Chinese guards, he was very seriously
studying Mao’s book!
“So, like in Nelson Mandela’s case, when you are imprisoned, as you
said, it’s normal to experience great difficulties. But these experiences
can, with the right way of thinking, lead you to have great inner strength.
So I think that this is something very useful, particularly when we’re
passing through difficulties.”
I was quite struck by the Dalai Lama’s phrase of “passing through
difficulties.” We often feel that suffering will engulf us, or that the
suffering will never end, but if we can realize that it, too, will pass, or as
the Buddhists say, that it is impermanent, we can survive them more
easily, and perhaps appreciate what we have to learn from them, find the
meaning in them, so that we come out the other side, not embittered but
ennobled. The depth of our suffering can also result in the height of our
joy.
Shantideva, the Buddhist monk and scholar, described the virtues of
suffering. Because of the shock suffering causes us, our arrogance falls
away. Suffering also gives rise to compassion for all others who are
suffering, and, because of our experience of suffering, we avoid actions
that will bring suffering to others. Lopon-la and Dr. Choedrak would have
known these teachings by Shantideva and may have clung to them during
the years of hardship and seemingly endless suffering, making meaning
out of what must have at times felt like meaningless agony.
The Dalai Lama and the Archbishop were emphasizing that some
degree of tolerance and acceptance is essential, as is realizing that these
sorrows happen to all people, not just to us, and not because we have done