Losses

We’re born into this world, and, in the beginning, it seems like more and more things are coming our way. We’re getting more control over our bodies. Our bodies are getting stronger. We learn more. Our minds are getting more intelligent. Then it reaches a point where it stops developing and begins to deteriorate and fall away. You begin to realize we’re living in a world where things are taken away all the time.

As the Buddha said, there are some losses that are serious and some that are not. The ones that are not are loss of relatives, loss of wealth, loss of your health. You can lose those things and it doesn’t take you to hell. And often when you lose those things, you get them back. But you’re going to have to lose those things at some point in life. So you have to be prepared.

This is why he points out there are some things where the loss really is serious: That’s loss of your right view and loss of your virtue, because that kind of loss can take you to hell. You don’t have to wait to hell at the end of your lifetime.

If you live in a world where you have wrong view, and you don’t think your actions make much of a difference, or your intentions—the quality of your intentions—won’t bear fruit, you can create all kinds of harm for yourself. And it’s a miserable world to be in. It’s a world where people just have to fight, fight, fight to get what they want.

But if you have right view, you realize, “Okay, the quality of my intention will determine the outcome over the long term. So always put good intentions in.” And even better, try to make them skillful intentions.

The difference is that with good intentions you can have some greed, aversion, or delusion mixed in a little bit, especially the delusion. You don’t know that the intention is not going to be skillful. If it’s skillful, you’ve learned from your good intentions. In other words, you’ve acted on your good intentions in the past, and you’ve learned that some don’t actually give good results—because of the delusion. You learn to overcome your delusion through trial and error. That’s a much brighter world.

And, of course, if you live with virtue, you’re not harming anybody, and there’s no need for regret. There’s no need to deny the wrong that you’ve done or tell yourself that the people you wronged don’t matter, because you’re not wronging anybody. You can live in a world with human beings, live in a world with all kinds of beings, and be friends, be on good terms with one another.

So have a very clear sense that there are certain things we’re going to lose in this world. It’s just the nature of things. But your virtue and your right view—you don’t have to lose those. You lose them only when you throw them away. So they’re totally in your power. Take care of the things that are in your power. That way, you keep yourself safe. Your happiness is a solid happiness. And it’s a happiness that spreads around.

If you live in a world where everything is a zero-sum game—other people win, you lose; other people have to lose when you win: That’s a world in which we create barriers.

But in a world where you do good and act on good intentions, everybody benefits, and those barriers get torn down. The line between “us” and “them” gets erased, and it’s just us: We’re all in this together.