Every being has the potential for perfection, just as every sesame seed is permeated with oil. Ignorance, in this context, means being unaware of that potential, like the beggar who is unaware of the treasure buried beneath his shack.

Actualizing our true nature, coming into possession of that hidden wealth, allows us to live a life full of meaning. It is the surest way to find serenity and let genuine altruism flourish.

If you’re always looking for novelty, you’re often depriving yourself of the most essential truths. The antidote to suffering and to the belief in a self consists of going to the very source of your thoughts and recognizing the ultimate nature of the mind. How could such a truth ever grow old? What novelty could “outmode” a teaching that lays bare the very workings of the mind? If we get tired of such truths and run after endless ephemeral new ideas, we’re only getting further from our goal. Attraction to novelty has one good side, and that’s the legitimate desire to discover fundamental truths, to explore the depths of the mind and the beauty of the world. But in absolute terms, the novelty that’s always “new” is the freshness of the present moment, of nowness, of clear awareness that’s not reliving any past or imagining any future.

The negative side of the taste for novelty is the vain and frustrating quest for change at any price. Very often, fascination with things that are new and different is a reflection of inner impoverishment. Unable to find happiness within ourselves, we desperately look for it outside, in objects, in experiences, in ever stranger ways of thinking and acting. In short, we get further away from happiness by looking for it where it simply isn’t to be found. The risk with that is that we may completely lose any trace of it. At the most ordinary level, the longing for novelty arises from an attraction to superfluity, which erodes the mind and disturbs its serenity. We multiply our needs instead of learning not to have any.

If the Buddha and many of those who’ve followed him really attained ultimate wisdom, what could we hope for that would be better and “newer” than that? The novelty of the caterpillar is the butterfly. Everyone’s goal is to develop the potential for perfection within. To attain that goal, we need to take advantage of the experience of those who’ve already trodden that path. That experience is far more precious than the invention of any amount of new ideas.

So to summarize, I’d say that unlike running after novelty, the spiritual life makes it possible to rediscover simplicity, something for which we’ve rather lost the taste. To simplify our lives by no longer torturing ourselves in order to obtain things we don’t really need, and to simplify our minds by no longer always turning over the past and imagining the future.

(Radio Canada interview)
Because they have the notion of a “stream of consciousness,” Buddhists see death as a transition, whereas, in the West, death is experienced in a very different way: if at times there are funerals with inspirational moments drawn from the deceased’s life, which is then celebrated, we must admit that in general such an event is a rather somber occasion. In the East, at least in the Buddhist world, a cremation almost resembles a celebration.
A great spiritual master is invited to preside over the rite. Family and friends are gathered, and after the ceremony, people often exclaim, “It went well! What a beautiful ceremony!” Then, everyone partakes in a sort of picnic or celebration: all express their joy to see that a great lama could attend, that many monks and nuns prayed for the deceased, that everyone could get together and meet. The atmosphere is a rather festive one.

I remember the death of Marilyn Silverstone, an American friend who was a nun and a great photographer. The U.S. ambassador, who had come for the cremation, exclaimed, “It’s unbelievable, everyone seems happy!” It truly is different, very much so compared to what goes on in the West because [in the East] we think of death as a transition, difficult to be sure, yet something we seek to prepare for in the best of conditions so that it will happen as smoothly as possible.

In short, the deceased is a bit like a sailor who has succeeded in crossing the ocean and who is greeted by cheers, “Bravo! Now that he has arrived safe and sound, we can at present sleep in peace…”

For years ornithologists were intrigued by the fact that bar-tailed godwits (a species of waders, in the family of birds who live principally near water, but who cannot land on or dive in water to fish) became so fat before their winter migration. “They looked like flying softballs,” noted the researcher Robert Gill. Indeed, they had to travel an immense distance, between Alaska, where this scientist would observe them, and New Zealand and Australia; however, scientists assumed that they migrated for the most part over land, where they could rest and feed. Therefore, the extent to which these birds overfed could not be explained, and this puzzled scientists.
Robert Gill wondered if godwits did not remain in flight for longer periods than previously thought.

Recently, researchers have been able to implant satellite transmitters in these migratory birds, transmitters light enough not to disturb these birds. How surprised they were when they discovered that godwits beat all the known records for nonstop flights, traveling up to 7,100 miles in nine days—the longest nonstop flight ever recorded. We can understand why godwits need such reserves of fat! The bar-tailed godwit has to elevate its metabolic rate between 8 and 10 times, traveling day and night, 40 miles an hour.
“I was speechless,” commented Mr. Gill.

But the wonder felt before such abilities goes hand in hand with a sadness that is equally great when faced with the devastation to which we subject nature and beings. Numbers come crashing down like a overwhelming indictment. Here is a sample:

• 90% of fish have disappeared from the oceans in the last century.

• Bee populations have been decimated in the last few years, and the repercussions on plant pollination, both wild and cultivated, are so great that some have speculated that the extinction of bees could, as a chain reaction, lead to that of humans.

• There were a million Saiga antelopes in 1990 in Kazakhstan and the bordering regions, only 82,000 in 2009, and, in the last month, 12,000 of these antelopes have died within a few days due to an epidemic of explosive growth.

What a waste! All this is due to the unbounded egotism of humans who seem incapable of going beyond the constricted outlook of their immediate self-interest, and thereby seem unable to consider the general welfare of other living beings, including their own.

The wonder evoked in beholding the beauty of nature is all the more poignant now because it is tinged with bitterness.

(Radio Canada interview)
To think about death is a healthy process, which is neither sad nor morbid. It shows lucidity because, otherwise, to mask reality is inevitably a source of frustration: when our death will approach and that of those dear to us will occur, we will be shocked and completely at a loss. But if we understand that death is a natural part of things, if we try to do what we can so that this transition happens as smoothly as possible, without distress or fear, and if we surround those who are departing with the greatest affection, love, tenderness and presence, we will be able to and known how to deal with death with serenity instead of being overwhelmed. I have heard Sogyal Rinpoche, a Tibetan master, say, “Don’t worry. To die is very simple: You breathe out, and you can’t breathe in.”

To eradicate death from the field of our awareness will not enable us to tackle it from a better angle. A Tibetan text describes our attitude as follows, “At first, we see death as if we were an animal caught in a snare.” This means that the idea of death is unbearable, a source of deep anguish, and that we struggle with it.

Next, if we take steps toward inner transformation, our attitude toward death will resemble that of a farmer who has ploughed his field, sowed it, and who, having done all that was necessary, has now no regrets. Whether hail hits his field or animals devour part of his crop, he has nothing to reproach himself with.

Finally, for an experienced practitioner, death is like a friend; in other words, it has become something very familiar—it is unavoidable, it is a transition, a good death is the crowning achievement of a good life—and we no longer experience feelings of panic, revulsion, or injustice in the face of death; we cease to think that the world should be otherwise because our rebellion against reality only compounds our agony. We must come to understand death and allow it to give meaning to each moment of our life as it unfolds.