usefulness, but that some people would likely misuse it, and grave consequences
would ensue. So he stopped its development. As Mipham Rinpoche said, scientists
may have provided us all with good food and easy transportation and other
benefits, but when we ponder seriously the deadly weapons that were produced
by some ignorant nations, we cannot enjoy that food or even sleep well at night.
Once, when the extraordinary scholar Gendun Chophel was on the way to Lhasa,
the capital of Tibet, he surprised many people by inventing a small wooden boat
that could travel over the water by itself. He told people that if they were to
construct the same boat according to a much larger and better design, then they
would be able to travel across the great ocean.
Seeing that the root of all suffering is the mind’s delusion, the noble beings of
the past, though quite capable of scientific invention, chose instead to focus their
efforts first in cutting the roots of disturbing emotions, and then in exemplifying
the path of Shakyamuni Buddha.
These days the United States is like a small pure-land with many advanced
technologies and facilities—yet many Americans have mental problems. Mental
problems create more suffering than does physical disease. As Ju Mipham says in
his Traditional Shastra,
The suffering of hunger is great,
But the endless suffering of mind is greater.Stories of people committing suicide by starving themselves are very rare. People
will always try to feed themselves and save themselves from hunger. Mental
suffering can be temporarily relieved by consuming good food, drinking alcohol,
or singing and dancing. But that is not an ultimate solution, so we hear of many
cases of suicide. If the root cause of suffering, the root of mind, is not severed, no
matter what method we employ, we will not be free of suffering and the binds of
delusion. Even if we are born in a pure-land, we will not enjoy happiness. The
Amitabha Sutra says, “Those bodhisattvas and bodhisattvanis who are born in the
pure-land of Sukhavati have no ego, no sense of ‘I’ and ‘you.’ They are male and
female buddha-deities.”
As the peerless yogin Milarepa sang,
Knowing one’s mind as the dharmakaya,
That is better than meeting the Buddha.Knowing the nature of mind and its natural perfection is far better than meeting a
buddha personally. To repeat a famous line, in The Treasury of the Dharmadhatu,
Longchenpa says, “Simple recognition of the nature of being is called ‘buddha.’”
The very moment the nature of mind is seen as primal awareness, we understand
that the word “buddha” refers to nothing beyond that recognition.