Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Chapter 5. The Room Before It Is Named
Things appear as truly existent when we fail to analyze them, but when we do analyze them
we can see that everything is created by our mind. There is nobody else who has come and
created our problems for us—“I’m creating your problems”—they are all created by our
mind. We are the creator. That is why in his teachings the Buddha said,
You are your own enemy
And you are your own guide.
You are the creator of your own suffering
And you are the creator of your own happiness.
As I have mentioned, we are the creator of our day-to-day life’s problems, hour by hour,
minute by minute, second by second, and we are also the creator of our day-to-day life’s
happiness, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second.
We need to go beyond this life, however, to past and future lives. We have been born as a
human being this time but we are also the creator of all our past and future states, whether
as a hell being or a god or whatever. Just as we are the creator of our own samsara, we are
also the creator of our own nirvana—the blissful state of peace for ourselves, freedom from
the oceans of samsaric suffering—and our own ultimate happiness, the total elimination of
all obscurations and the completion of all realizations, the peerless happiness of
enlightenment.
Everything depends on our mind. Everything, whatever we want, is in our hands. If we don’t
want nirvana, if we want samsara, it’s in our hands. If we don’t want enlightenment, if we
want hell, it’s in our hands. If we want happiness instead of problems, it’s in our hands; it’s
all up to us. It depends on how we use our mind. With our body and speech we do actions
that lead to happiness or problems, but it all depends on the creator, our own mind.
Thinking in the correct way brings happiness; thinking in the incorrect way brings suffering.
Thinking in a healthy, virtuous way brings a healthy life. We want others’ help; we do not
want harm from them. Similarly, numberless others want our help and do not want to be
harmed by us. We are one; others are numberless. Whether we help or harm them is up to
us, so we are responsible for their happiness or suffering.
Every day, every hour, every minute, we have total responsibility for all living beings. Not
only human beings but also nonhuman beings: hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, insects,
gods, demigods—all living beings, all sentient beings, are our responsibility. It is like that in
reality. We are not only responsible for the happiness of our family, our parents, our spouse
and our children, we are responsible for all living beings.
In that way, our life is not meaningless, not at all. It is not at all hopeless. That is totally
wrong. If we think like that, intellectually we may know the Dharma but we are not
practicing, we are not thinking, we are not using the Dharma for our mind. Were we to
understand the Dharma and practice it we would know that life is neither hopeless nor
meaningless.
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