“To sum up: In order not only to prevent all unfavor­able circumstances and adversity from afflicting your mind, but to cause them to elicit a sense of good cheer, you should put a stop to experiences of aversion toward both inner and outer obstacles - illness as well as enemies, spirits, vicious gossip, etc. Practice seeing everything solely in an agreeable way. For that to happen, you should stop seeing those harmful situa­tions as something wrong, but give all your effort to seeing them as valuable. For it is the way our minds apprehend situations that makes them agreeable or disagreeable. For example, those who reflect at length on the faults of worldly amusements become increas­ingly perturbed the more they are surrounded by admiring people and enjoyments; whereas those who regard worldly amusements as beneficial aspire to increase them.

By training in this way, you will become gentle-minded, easy-going, and courageous; there will be no obstacles to your spiritual practice; all unfavorable circumstances will arise as splendid and auspicious; and your mind will continually be content with the joy of serenity. To follow a spiritual path in a degen­erate era, such armor as this is indispensable.

Then, since you are free of the suffering of anxiety, other types of misery also vanish, like weapons falling from the hands of soldiers; and even illnesses, etc. tend to disappear of their own accord. We can learn from the saints of the past who say, "By not becoming distressed at anything and not succumbing to unhap­piness, your mind will not become troubled; since it is undisturbed, your nervous system will not become disturbed; due to that, the other elements of your body will not come into disequilibrium; as a result, your mind will not become m troubled, etc., and the wheel of well-being spins on."

They also say, "Just as birds find horses and don­ keys with sores on their backs easy prey, so do ma­levolent spirits find an easy target in people with fearful dispositions, but it is hard for them to over­ come people of steady character."

Therefore, the wise see that all adversity and felic­ity depends on the mind, and they seek happiness within the mind. Since they have the complete causes of happiness within them, they do not rely on exter­nals. They are not afflicted by the harms of sentient beings or anything else, and this remains true even at the time of death. They are always free.”

Jigme Tenpe Nyima