Lesson 36 from A Comprehensive Commentary on the Words of My Perfect Teacher continues the meditation on impermanence, covering three further domains: the unpredictability of happiness and sorrow, the impermanence of excellence and mediocrity in worldly life, and the same in religious life.
On happiness and sorrow, the lesson shows through the story of the kingdom of Aparantaka — where seven days of raining grain and jewels were followed immediately by a rain of earth burying the entire population — that all fortunate circumstances rooted in wrongdoing are inevitably overtaken by suffering. On worldly impermanence, the lesson surveys the falls of the powerful and the unexpected rises of the lowly. On religious impermanence, it gathers sobering examples — a century-old monk who disrobed at ninety-six, a vinaya master who fathered children during the Cultural Revolution, a flying monk undone by a single vengeful thought — alongside their counterparts: former butchers and thieves who became genuine practitioners.
The lesson closes by identifying faith and renunciation as the twin foundations of practice, with four Kadampa causes for developing faith, and urging practitioners to practice as long as they live.
