E ma ho!

Now you have got what’s so hard to get—
The precious freedoms and advantages.
This one life alone means so little,
So why be so obsessed with it?
If to do some good for yourself and others too,
You listen to Dharma, and then reflect,
Then you are so fortunate—
This is what it means to be lucky.

This life is quite impermanent—
It will definitely disappear.
You think everything will stay just as it is—
How to come out from this confusion into the clear?
Cut the root of samsara’s confused appearances
By meditating on the meaning of what you’ve heard.
If you do this, you are so fortunate—
This is what it means to be lucky.   

If you do good, you’ll be happy,
If you do bad, you’ll suffer pain.
Think well about how karma works,
And you’ll gain certainty that it’s an unfailing law.
If then you act in a rightful way:
Doing what you should do and giving up the rest,
Then you are so fortunate—
This is what it means to be lucky.

The nature of samsara is the three sufferings—
When you know this in your heart, and it’s not just something you say,
And so you can free yourself and others from samsara’s ocean,
You cut off suffering right at the root,
Then you are so fortunate—
This is what it means to be lucky.

Meditating on impermanence
Cuts off attachment to this life.
Thinking over and over of samsara’s suffering
Makes you realize how worthless samsara is.
This gives you the determination
To strive for nirvana’s liberation.
If you do that, you are so fortunate—
This is what it means to be lucky.

Knowing samsara’s cause is belief in “I”,
You know its remedy to be selflessness,
So if you apply scripture and reasoning
To gain certainty that there is no self,
And if you meditate on selflessness, you’re so fortunate—
This is what it means to be lucky.

All beings have been your father and mother,
Knowing this, you train your mind in love and compassion.
This makes you stop worrying so much
About your own comfort and happiness.
When you give rise to supreme bodhichitta—
This is what it means to be lucky.

Everything in samsara and nirvana,
Without exception, is neither one nor many.
So all phenomena are empty of essence,
And knowing that, if you meditate on profound emptiness
Then you are so fortunate—
This is what it means to be lucky.

Meditating on emptiness cuts the root of existence,
Love and compassion free you from the extreme of peace,
When you bring together wisdom and means
That are stuck in neither existence nor peace’s extremes,
Then you are so fortunate—
This is what it means to be lucky.

When you’ve made the Mahayana path your sturdy base,
And you know so excellently
The way the totality of appearance
Is an infinite expanse of purity,
Then the four empowerments
Will ripen your continuum.
When you practice profound generation and completion—
This is what it means to be lucky.

The fruit of this generation and completion
Must ripen at the appropriate time.
This depends on your pure vision
Of your vajra brothers and sisters—it must increase!
So if pure vision dawns in your mind—
This is what it means to be lucky.

Another reason you might be lucky—
The freedoms and resources, this excellent base,
Is hard to find, and what’s harder than that
Is using it to practice Dharma correctly
So if you are on the path of correct practice—
This is what it means to be lucky.

Knowing what it means to be lucky,
Day and night, without distraction,
In order to accomplish great benefit
For the teachings and for all beings,
May all of us practice
The Dharma of the lucky ones!

 On December 27, 1997, in the Garden of Translation near the Great Stupa of Boudhanath, Nepal, this was spoken extemporaneously by the one only called “Khenpo”, Tsultrim Gyamtso. Translated by Ari Goldfield. Translation copyright 2012, Ari Goldfield.