The great Atisha, who was such an enlightened Being, had a monk in Nalanda who hated him. He was an older monk who only saw bad things in Atisha. When Atisha gave teachings, he never attended. He would influence others and say, “Don’t go to the teachings.” He only saw Atisha as fake and criticized him over and over again. He tried to make life difficult for Atisha in the monastery.
If it was me, I would have dropped an H-bomb on that monk right away, but because Atisha practiced these teachings, do you know what he did? When the great goddess Tara told Atisha to go to Tibet to teach Dharma, Atisha invited this monk to go to Tibet with him and sponsored the entire trip for him. And do you know why? No, not because Atisha was a fruitcake. Because he wanted to practice patience and love. And this was the best person, because he didn’t have anyone who didn’t love him; he only had people praising him. There was only one person who hated him, who constantly criticized him and constantly wanted to put him down.
Then Atisha said, “Hey, what a golden opportunity! Come with me to Tibet.” She was there for thirteen years with this monk who criticized Atisha until the day she died. And Atisha did wonderful prayers and ceremony and funeral for this monk to have a good rebirth.
Atisha’s practice is as famous as that of Shakyamuni Buddha in Tibet. In fact, we have teachings, we have lineages and teachings today thanks to Atisha. Even Tara’s practice is due to Atisha. Atisha taught us how to make offerings to accumulate merit. The first person who taught us how to make wealth vases and contain the energy to gain wealth was Atisha. He was the one who wrote the original Lamrim. He was the one who spread the vows of the monks that spread throughout Mongolia and Tibet. Since he was a pure monk, he created many new monks.
This great Lama served and compassionately cared for the old chum of a monk who had nothing but the ugliest things to say about him. Imagine that. And then when it’s our turn to practice, we’re not willing to do what Atisha did or we think he’s crazy for doing it. But when we looked deeper, Atisha saw a golden opportunity to practice patience, love and compassion because there was no one to hate him. He found a person and said, ‘Oh, this is my chance. I want to make sure that I destroy the last traces of my negative emotions so that I can become a Buddha to benefit others.” That was his reason.
tsem tulku