Everyone wishes to have a happy life, including animals. But many are unhappy, and their unhappiness comes mainly from a causal relation of the mind. When we wish to own more material things, such desire will drive us to give more time and energy to fulfill that wish, resulting in bigger pressure, busier pace, less free time in life and eventually depriving us of any sense of happiness. Although the original intention of desire is to gain happiness for ourselves, it ends up destroying our happiness. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to properly manage our desire.

~Depicted from THE HANDBOOK FOR LIFE JOURNEY - On The Three Poisons-How to Handle Desire

A lot of people opt for a life in the middle whereby there is neither great suffering nor happiness – a relatively placid life in which they can also practice the Dharma. However, an ordinary life such as this is not necessarily long-lasting. We cannot avoid the eight types of suffering, including birth, aging, illness, and death, and may even encounter great vicissitudes in life. Without the Dharma, how do we confront these circumstances?

Hence, it is not just in times of suffering, but also in times of happiness, that we need the Dharma. With the wisdom and the force of the teachings to face happiness, to share our good fortune with others, then happiness will not obstruct our practice.

~Depicted from ARE YOU READY FOR HAPPINESS - How to Face Suffering and Happiness-How to Face Happiness

At the actual moment of death, it is necessary for the mother and child luminosities to come together. What is the child luminosity? The state of realization attained in one’s lifetime is called the child luminosity.

Highly accomplished practitioners have attained realization of the child luminosity already. At the actual moment of death, when the mother luminosity arises, they instantly merge the child luminosity with the mother luminosity and abide in this state. This is called liberation in the bardo.

~Depicted from GATEWAY TO VAJRAYANA PATH -Vajrayana Terminology

Why do we “watch the mind from the side” and not directly? If we watch the mind directly, the mind will be startled and disturbed, unable to rest quietly. If we proceed to watch the mind directly as soon as it enters a state of no- self, we will destroy that state since the thought of watching the mind is itself a kind of distraction. When that happens, the original state of tranquility disappears. As for watching the mind from the side, the mind can remain at rest and, at the same time, bring into full play its ability to supervise; as soon as distraction sets in, it will know and pull it back in place.

~Depicted from THE FOUR SEALS OF DHARMA - The Practice of Realizing Emptiness

The history of mankind is replete with tragedies and endless wars which all resulted from the mind and are the product of excessive desire. We all know about the inhumane treatment of slaves in the West over a period of four hundred years in which black people were bought and sold like animals. This is a manifestation of mankind’s unrestrained desire at its very extreme.

Therefore, we must subdue the mind and prevent it from steering our body and afflicting us. By taming the mind, we will have the courage to transform suffering into strength and the hope to retake the path to liberation.

~Depicted from ARE YOU READY FOR HAPPINESS - How to Face Suffering and Happiness-Taming the Mind as in Taming the Elephant

Buddhism believes the nature of happiness is neither a steady income nor harmony in the family, neither the joy of seeing the world nor a glass of water. Although all may bring a sense of well-being, they are not the nature of happiness.

The true nature of happiness is a special feeling from within. Sometimes this feeling is related to material matter; other times there is no connection at all. Material matter is only one cause or condition which creates a feeling of well-being. It can bring about a temporary sense of security or satisfaction, from which one can in turn derive temporary happiness. The different forms of happiness, such as a steady income, are sources of happiness but are not happiness itself.

If happiness is a feeling, what is the basis of this feeling? A feeling of happiness comes from satisfaction; a feeling of satisfaction comes mostly from a new and fresh sensation. These types of feeling are all related to our mind and have no direct connection with the material world.

~Depicted from ARE YOU READY FOR HAPPINESS - The Tibetan Buddhist View on Happiness

Some people think that it is because killing and stealing are against religious beliefs that people refrain from doing so. The truth is that killing and stealing should be forsaken because they are against the natural law and hence inevitable punishment. For example, is it against the Buddhist doctrine to take poison? Although Buddhism forbids people to take poison, the real reason is poison itself which is inedible. If you insist on taking it, you will be poisoned and experience pain. This is the result of acting against the natural law. Certain kinds of poison can take effect immediately; others may take months or even years for the effect to set in. The same is true of karmic results. Although we cannot see the actual workings of cause and effect, the manifestation of effect follows the same principle. If people see that a person remains in good health after taking poison but before the effect setting in, they then assume that the person did not take poison after all. Does this make sense? In fact, one should not equate absence of pain with non-poison; it is simply not time yet for the poison to take effect. Similarly, killing and stealing are like swallowing poison. They are bound to take effect, just a matter of time.

~Depicted from THE RIGHT VIEW - On Cause and Effect

The fact is that aspiring to save all the lives in the world is an impossible mission even for the Buddha who can only help those whose karma has ripened and are thus receptive to his teachings. To those with yet ripened karma, the Buddha is equally helpless. The same reasoning also applies to liberating living beings. For someone as wealthy as Indra, the ruler of gods, not even he could have bought and liberated all the beings there were. As there are an infinite number of sentient beings, it could be even beyond the Buddha’s reach sometimes to deliver beings from samsara, let alone what our limited ability can achieve. All we can do is to help other beings the best we know how.

~Depicted from THE RIGHT VIEW - Liberating Living Beings

Whether our practice is good or not depends essentially on mindfulness. Without mindfulness, the mind will go wild and we won’t even know it. Not only that, we will follow the mind in the direction it takes us, destroying in the end all the time and effort put into the practice.

Abiding in the state described above is called practice.

~Depicted from THE FOUR SEALS OF DHARMA - The Practice of Realizing Emptiness