Lama Zopa Rinpoche

By seeing that person as a wish-granting jewel, there is no mental suffering. By cherishing a
wish-granting jewel we cannot achieve enlightenment but by cherishing that person we can.
So, this person we call an enemy is more precious than a whole sky filled with wish-granting
jewels. Thinking in that way, we should hold him most dear at all times, whatever state we
are in, happy or unhappy, up or down. We should cherish that one person with our body,
speech and mind.
Thinking like this, we ourselves become a wish-granting jewel to other sentient beings. This
is not something we do only in a temple or Dharma center but not in our own home. It’s
not like that. We should happily dedicate our body, speech and mind to every person in our
family.
The more we cherish others, the more we see their kindness, the happier we will be to serve
them. The opportunity to offer service brings such great happiness. We naturally, joyfully,
want to serve others as much as possible because that is where the Buddha, Dharma and
Sangha come from. Even the small things we do to serve others make our life so joyful, so
happy, whether they are in our family or outside it. This is how bodhisattvas feel.
For bodhisattvas, to achieve nirvana, the blissful state of peace for themselves alone, is like
used toilet paper. Here the texts say “used toilet stone.” I remember how in Buxa, because
we used stones instead of paper, the toilets filled completely and became unusable. And it
was a long time before they got fixed. When I first went to Sera in south India, the toilets
were again filled with stones. So the text says “used toilet stone,” but we can read that as
“used toilet paper.” For bodhisattvas, it is like that: achieving nirvana for themselves alone is
something to immediately be thrown far away, just as we discard used toilet paper, never to
use it again.
On the other hand, for bodhisattvas, the thought of being born in the hells for sentient
beings—even for one sentient being—brings them unbelievable joy and happiness; much
greater happiness than an arhat experiences achieving nirvana.
There is the story of one of the Buddha’s previous lives, in which he was a bodhisattva and
the captain of a ship carrying five hundred businesspeople. On board was a man carrying a
spear with which he intended to kill those five hundred people. The bodhisattva captain saw
that and, out of great compassion, was concerned that if that man killed all those people, he
would be born in hell and would have to suffer there for many eons. Therefore the
bodhisattva killed him and faced the consequence of his being born in hell instead. But what
happened was that, in reality, killing him with such great compassion purified a hundred
thousand eons of the bodhisattva captain’s negative karma, which meant he was able to
become free from samsara and achieve enlightenment a hundred thousand eons sooner.
That is what happened, even though his wish was to be reborn in hell instead of the man
with the spear.
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