Lama Zopa Rinpoche

whatever we have believed from morning until night—has all come from our mind, has all
been labeled by our mind.
This meditation is incredibly powerful, like an atomic bomb, destroying our enemy. An
atomic bomb is considered the most powerful weapon to destroy an external enemy.
Ordinary people in the ordinary world believe that the true enemy is the external enemy.
According to Dharma this is not so at all, and this mindfulness meditation is really the best
way to destroy the one true enemy, the inner enemy.
What we do to protect this nonexistent real I
If we do some profound scientific analysis, some inner scientific analysis, we can see how
much we believe in this totally real I that actually does not exist. It appears to be real from its
own side, we believe it to be one hundred percent real, but it is not there. By doing this inner
scientific analysis, this meditation, we can come to see this very subtle point, the
nonexistence of this “real” I.
Otherwise, without checking, because of our belief in its reality we have all these worries, all
these fears. Because of this wrong projection, when somebody passes us with her nose in the
air, looking down at us disdainfully, it hurts so much. Or when we do a good deed for
somebody, such as giving a thirsty person a glass of water, and don’t even get a simple thank
you, that really hurts. Being shouted at, being complained about, hearing disrespectful
words—all these things hurt us.
Especially nowadays, with the world economy in recession, people are trying to find ways to
make money, so they complain about any small thing that somebody else does. I don’t know
about England, but I’ve heard that in America you are supposed keep the front of your
house clear of snow and if you don’t clear it away well enough and somebody falls over you
will be sued, which in America means a huge expense.
There is a good example from the FPMT center in Sicily, Centro Muni Gyana. Once, while I
was giving a talk there a student explained how she had been sued. Her job was assisting in
the births of babies, delivering them from their mothers’ wombs, and one day a baby had
died. I’m not sure whether the baby was dead in the womb or it died during delivery, but the
mother blamed this girl, telling her she had killed the baby, that the baby died because she
had made a mistake. The girl talked with all her friends and they confirmed what she did was
right, that it wasn’t her fault, but the mother blamed her and wanted money from her. She
was trying to make money out of the situation. This is just one example.
Nowadays, with the downturn in the world economy, many people are trying to make
money in this way, trying to prove that somebody else has made a mistake, whether they
have or not. The girl asked me what to do and I did my own Mickey Mouse divination and
told her to recite the Vajra Cutter Sutra eight times. She did this immediately and later she
told me that she had won the court case.
Just reading the Vajra Cutter Sutra is unbelievably powerful but, of course, the main thing is
to realize emptiness, to eradicate the very root of samsara. That is what reading the Vajra
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