At the beginning of our life is birth, during which we suffer, and at the end of our life is death, during which we also suffer. Between these two come aging and illness. No matter how wealthy you are or how physically fit you are, you have to suffer through these circumstances.

On top of this comes discontentment. You want more and more and more. This, in a sense, is real poverty—always to be hungry, hungry, hungry with no time to be satisfied. Others might not be rich, but contentment provides them with fewer worries, fewer enemies, fewer problems, and very good sleep. On more than one occasion, when I have visited very nice homes in rich communities, I have peeked inside the medicine chest in the bathroom and found some medications to provide energy for the day and others to induce sleep at night. Contentment might do both of these jobs better since it reduces anxiety during the day, paving the way for sleeping peacefully.

Holiness, The Dalai Lama His; Hopkins Ph.D., Jeffrey. How To Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life (pp. 34-35). Atria Books.

Enemies provide us some of the best opportunities to practice patience, tolerance, and compassion. Shantideva gives us many marvelous examples of this in the form of dialogues between positive and negative aspects of one’s own mind. His reflections on compassion and patience have been very useful in my own practice. Read them and your whole soul can be transformed. Here is an example:

For a practitioner of love and compassion, an enemy is one of the most important teachers. Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannot build a sound basis of compassion. So in order to practice compassion, you should have an enemy.

When you face your enemy who is going to hurt you, that is the real time to practice tolerance. Therefore, an enemy is the cause of the practice of tolerance; tolerance is the effect or result of an enemy. So those are cause and effect. As is said, “Once something has the relationship of arising from that thing, one cannot consider that thing from which it arises as a harmer; rather it assists the production of the effect.”

Holiness, The Dalai Lama His; Hopkins Ph.D., Jeffrey. How To Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life (p. 75). Atria Books.

Visualization

The following visualization technique is very helpful in daily practice.

You remain calm and reasonable.
In front of you to the right, imagine another version of yourself who is a solid mass of egotistical self-centeredness, the kind of person who would do anything to satisfy an urge.
In front of you to the left, visualize a group of poor people who are not related to you, including some who are destitute, needy, suffering.
Be calm and unbiased as you observe these two sides. Now think, “Both want happiness. Both want to shed suffering. Both have the right to accomplish these goals.”
Consider this: We often work long and hard for a better salary, or we spend a great deal of money in hopes of gaining even more; we are willing to make temporary sacrifices for a long-term return. By the same logic, it makes perfect sense for one single person to make sacrifices in order to help a larger good. Naturally your mind will favor the side with the greater number of suffering people.

Holiness, The Dalai Lama His; Hopkins Ph.D., Jeffrey. How To Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life (pp. 84-85). Atria Books.