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Karuna TalkFrom The
Instructions of Gampopa, a commentary on the root text by Khenpo
Karthar Rinpoche, p. 56.
. . . suffering and sickness are a cause of stable renunciation for a practitioner of Dharma, and therefore should be understood to be a kind and valuable teacher. First of all, the experience of sickness and suffering by a practitioner is a cause of his or her future happiness, because this experience of suffering, if it is undergone with awareness, will exhaust the karma that produced it. If this sickness were not experienced now, and the karma ripened later, it would ripen as a much more intense experience of suffering lasting for a much longer period of time. Furthermore, sickness and suffering exhort the practitioner to renunciation because they show that there is negative karma. Therefore, as a practitioner, you should rejoice in the present experience of suffering, and also use it to further your renunciation by recognizing that it means you still have karma that could lead to tremendous future suffering. |