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TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON 23

Lama Zopa Rinpoche leading prayers the day of the earthquake, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, April 25, 2015.
Photo by Ven. Sangpo Sherpa.

blockages to benefiting ALL SENTIENT knowing Dharma, they were born in the lower
BEINGS, to freeing them from all the realms, such as ants, because of anger and
sufferings and the causes of suffering, to being attachment. They were born due to delusion
able to give them all the causes of temporal and karma as an ant and so forth. You can’t
happiness and ultimate happiness, liberation imagine what it’s like when one falls in the
from samsara and full enlightenment. lower realms. To be born an ant after we die,
it’s hard to imagine. By not understanding
It is common knowledge that someone who Dharma and not practicing Dharma, being
has a good heart not only makes himself born as ant due to delusion and karma – can
happy, but also his family and parents happy – you imagine?
even someone who doesn’t know this person
can be made happy. Definitely that person can We have been born like that numberless
bring peace in this world. Living life with a times: from being a human to being reborn
good heart is the most important thing, even in the lower realms, as an ant. This ant we
animals become happy with you – the birds see, we have been exactly the same. Or as an
and the dogs – everybody. insect so tiny that you can only see through a
microscope, we have been exactly the same as
[It is the same for] caring for this tiny sentient that tiny sentient being, or as a being with a
being, this ant, that has been my brother and body huge like mountains.
sister in the past. All these ants have been
human beings before, like us. Due to ignorance We can’t imagine being born like this, as
and not knowing the “I” [correctly], and not an ant and so forth, we can’t imagine the