Sometimes I think that 'enlightenment' is just a different perspective. Radically different, but dealing essentially with the same stuff that my ordinary perspective deals with. I think of a piece of material with one pattern on the 'right' side that reveals something totally different when you turn it over. The pattern on one side is not that on the other - though in fact it is made up of the same material. So - it's a question of figuring which side you want to see and then finding the rules by which the pattern is constructed.
Over the years I've come up with a list of these rules - a comparison of the rules that govern ordinary reality and the ones that govern enlightened reality (for lack of a better term.) [If you want to see the whole list, look here .] The other night, as I read before going to sleep, another rule came clear. The simplest expresession is, "The more I wish for others to have, the more I will have myself." I did not reflect much on whether the contrary might also be true, that is, "The more I wish to have for myself, the less I will have." That was for another day.
And indeed, the next day I came across a quote from Shantideva that expresses the same principle (and maybe is where I got it in the first place.)
All the joy the world contains
Has come through wishing happiness for others.
All the misery the world contains
Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself
Though I was thinking more of wishing good things to others, and Shantideva is speaking of wishing happiness - the real issue is how wishing itself works. So - this is the rule of enlightenment. The rule for ordinary living, in contrast, is that we must want things for ourselves to get them - and perhaps even go so far as to want others not to have them (because there isn't enought to go around.)
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