Month: February 2024

On enlightenment. . .
by

On enlightenment. . .

May all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all embrace happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all abide in peace, free from self grasping.
May all attain the union of wisdom and compassion.

What does this mean to me?

Although we’ve mostly forgotten, “wisdom” has its roots in vision. Not just any vision, but the ability to see things as they truly are. Compassion lets us act on wisdom in a way that reduces suffering.

Wisdom without compassion is like a doctor whose bedside manner could use a little improvement. Imagine your doctor, truthfully, said to you, “You’ve got three months to live. That’s the end of our appointment. Schedule a follow up at the front desk on your way out.” Does the doctor know lots and lots of stuff? He sure does. But his bedside manner – yikes! I don’t think this even rises to the level of wisdom. This is simply knowledge. When we have true wisdom we understand that wisdom without compassion is cruel.

When we have compassion, we feel for the sufferings of our fellow travelers in samsara. But what does that really mean? For me, the biggest part of compassion is generosity. Whether it’s sharing your skills, giving what’s needed, or seeing to it that a turkey survives Thanksgiving.

How would I explain this to someone else?

When we study the Dharma, we’re perpetual students of what is. We don’t have a word for it, but what we’re actually studying is reality ‘is-ing’ in every moment. Reality is dynamic, never static. From this point of view it’s impossible not to see that all in samsara arises and dies. It happens in every moment. It’s happening to us right now.

Recognizing this truth with a compassionate heart moves us to ease the suffering in samara with whatever skillful means we have. Do we walk by a homeless person and say to ourselves, “Well, they’re dying anyway, so why bother doing anything?” Compassion allows us to see this differently as in, “We’re all on the same journey. I’ll do what I can to ease the suffering of our fellow travelers”.

This is the power of the union of wisdom and compassion. We see things as they truly are and at the same time we recognize our joyful obligation to help.

How do I bring this into my everyday life?

My teacher, the Venerable Tashi Nyima teaches that the union of wisdom and compassion is true enlightenment.

Wow, this little prayer isn’t playing around, right?  When I look at this prayer I ask myself why is the order of things the way they are? First we free ourselves from suffering. Then we are instructed to embrace happiness. Then the instruction is to abide in peace. Only after all of this does the prayer talk about the union of wisdom and compassion.

Why was this order of things chosen? Well, it’s very hard to ease the suffering of others if you yourself are suffering terribly. Suffering can disturb the mind. Without a clear mind, how do we see the way to ease the suffering of others?

As to happiness, if you’re desperately unhappy, how can you help others to be happy? If you’re constantly grasping onto “my story”, or the idea of “this is my experience”, then how can you have peace much less offer peace to others?

This, I think is what they tell us on airplanes. If those oxygen masks fall, put your own mask on first, then attempt to help others. The Dharma is much the same way. We must remedy ourselves before seeking to remedy others. Or, as Christianity puts it, ‘remove the beam from your own eye so that you can see clearly to remove the mote from your brother’s eye.’

In whole, this prayer gives us instruction to attain enlightenment in three easy steps. And for just the price of studying and practicing the Dharma, you too be enlightened. Okay, they’re not particularly easy steps. And this isn’t a late-night TV commercial, although I’d argue it ought to be.

In my day to day life, as part of my job, I talk to many people who are suffering terribly . When I take those calls, I focus on answering in a way that gives information and at the same time acknowledges their suffering, their basic humanity, their buddha nature.

Do I get enlightened when I manage to accomplish this? No. But it does shift my world view from ‘me’ and ‘mine’ to ‘all’.  As in may all be free from suffering . We all have these small experiences in samsara where practicing shifts our world perspective and we have a moment of enlightenment. Our buddha nature peeks out and connects to the buddha nature in others, reassuring us that enlightenment is only ever a moment away.

On peace. . .
by

On peace. . .

May all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all embrace happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all abide in peace, free from self grasping
May all attain the union of wisdom and compassion.

What does this mean to me?

Who doesn’t want a little more peace in their life? Imagine someone came up to you and said, “here’s a recipe for peace”. What would be in that recipe? Would it be “listen to more opera” or “get more sleep” or maybe even “watch the news more”? That last one’s a joke, of course.

My local friendly AI tells me that peace is, among other things, “a state of tranquility and quiet.” That’s a good hint. Peace is a state of mind. So how does this peace arise in the mind? What are the causes and conditions?

The truth is, the mind is always at peace, like a clear storm-free sky. Hard to believe, right? Emotions, thoughts, desires are all like clouds in that clear blue sky. Peace isn’t imported from outside, it’s inherent. It’s always there. We don’t have to go anywhere special to abide in peace. We can abide in peace by freeing our minds of two pretty big, dark clouds: wrong views and afflicted emotions.

How would I explain this to someone else?

If you had to clean a mahogany floor that had decades of grit and dirt and stains ground into it, what’s the first thing you’d do? We may think the first step should be to get cleaning supplies. But there’s a step before that. The very first thing we have to do is realize that under all that dirt and grime, there is a clean wooden floor. If not, why bother cleaning? We have this realization without thinking about it. We know very well there’s a clean wooden floor there. All we’re doing is uncovering it.

In the same way, the mind is peaceful. The mind is not our turbulent thoughts or our afflicted emotions. When we work with the mind, we call our cleaning stuff prayers, meditation, aspirations, perseverance, and many other names. This prayer tells us that when we are “free from self-grasping”, we abide in peace.

What’s this self-grasping stuff? Can you really grasp yourself so tightly that you have no peace? We sure can. It’s things both big and small.

There are countless ways to grasp onto the self. Perhaps the self-grasping that causes the most suffering, is the distorted concept of “me” and “mine”. This is the biggest departure from peace. It gives us the strong desire to change reality.

This happens all the time at work. I get a lot of emails throughout the day. Sooner or later the thought comes, “I wish they’d stop emailing me!” The truth is that clients are emailing the company I work for. They could care less who responds, as long as it’s from the company I work for. At work, the email deluge isn’t happening to me, it’s just happening.

Clinging to the mistaken concepts of “me” and “mine”, we want to change reality. A more helpful thought would be, “How can I best respond so that clients don’t have to email again?” or “How can I document my files so that people have less causes to email the company?”

Self-grasping is the idea that when reality is not to our liking, we must take drastic, definitive action to change reality. This leads to a great deal of suffering. And of course, peace and suffering cannot coexist. It is the stormy conditions of the mind that need to be changed, not reality.

How would I use this in my daily life?

In my day to day life, I try to abide in peace. But honestly, it’s hard work. As soon as reality becomes inconvenient, I have the nearly irresistible urge to change it. I work with this by breathing and mentally taking a few steps back. I ask myself the question, “How much do I want to suffer?”

As we walk the path, how do we abide in more peace, with less self-grasping? A good start is working with the mind. If I want to suffer lots, I can continue on my futile path to trying to change reality. If I want to suffer less, I can work with changing conditions in my mind. As Pema Chodron puts it, “sounds easy, is not”.

The mind in its natural state is free from self-grasping. The more we learn to recognize the mind free of the stains of wrong views and afflicted emotions, the more we can resonate with our true state through prayers, meditation, or perhaps even smelling a flower. The more often we resonate with the mind’s natural state, the closer we come to abiding in peace, free from self-grasping.

What are your thoughts?

On Happiness. . .
by

On Happiness. . .

May all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all embrace happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all abide in peace, free from self grasping
May all attain the union of wisdom and compassion.

What does this mean to me?

Everyone, without exception, wants to be happy. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says over their coffee, “Gee. I hope I have a bad day. I hope nothing goes right.” That would be pretty bizarre.

If that’s so, why aren’t people happy? It’s certainly not for lack of trying. It’s definitely not because we don’t want to be. We all know that having even excessive wealth doesn’t make you blissfully happy. Imagine for a moment having all the material things you want: a high paying stress-free job; the million dollar home; the chauffer; the cook; the on call masseuse. Okay. Maybe the masseuse is just me.

But think about that. If you literally had every single thing you’d ever wanted, would you be deliriously happy? I know I wouldn’t be. The human mind is perverse. There would always be that one thing I want but can’t have. That’s the nature of the game of chasing happiness in samsara. We want happiness, but as Shantideva puts it, “With the very desire for happiness, out of delusion they destroy their own happiness as if it were an enemy.”

How would I explain this to someone else?

If you had your dream job interview tomorrow, would you spend tonight drinking to excess? Of course not. You don’t want to show up for your dream job interview with a hangover. Instead you’d probably make sure you get a good night’s sleep and eat a good breakfast. This is a gross example of putting in place and embracing causes of happiness. To get to the happy outcome of a smooth interview, you have to follow a path. The actions themselves are individual to everyone, but to get anywhere, you need a path to follow.

The Buddha taught that there is a path to the cessation of suffering. I think there are only two things that keep us from following the path the Buddha speaks of: wrong views and afflicted emotions. Isn’t that wonderful? No long lists to memorize, no complicated instructions, no fear you’ll fall into a lake of fire if you do it wrong somehow.

The Dharma keeps things simple. There are three afflicted emotions: attachment, aversion and indifference. Our afflicted emotions color everything we experience. We can’t just see a chair. The elaborations come: I don’t like that shade of blue; it should have arms, I like chairs with arms; it looks uncomfortable.

Our wrong views cause us to see separation and Other where there is none. Unfortunately lifetimes have worn grooves of afflicted emotions and wrong views into our consciousness. It’s to the point where we barely notice their distortion of our experience. But once we notice the distortions of afflicted emotions and wrong views, we’re more than halfway to embracing happiness and the causes of happiness.

How would I bring this into my everyday life?

The cause of afflicted emotions is wrong view. When we think about embracing happiness and the causes of happiness, it seems we should work with wrong views first. How do we do that?

When we practice the Dharma, we learn to see clearly. But I’ll be honest, a chair doesn’t look like a transformation of consciousness to me. It looks like. . . well. . . a chair. However I realize that “seeing” is really recognizing patterns of light. I know the chair is really a bunch of chair shaped atoms and molecules. Or something like that.

I use this understanding to guide me toward embracing happiness and the causes of happiness.

I think the biggest cause for happiness may simply be to see things as they are. Once we see the distortions of our wrong views and afflicted emotions, the illusions of samsara gradually fall away. We loosen our grip on samsara.

Does this mean that I wake up everyday and embrace happiness and the causes of happiness? No. But it does mean that we can view more plainly the causes for happiness when we recognize the distortions of our wrong views and afflicted emotions.

The beauty of the Dharma is that happiness and the causes of happiness look different for everyone. I believe that as we learn to see reality with less and less wrong views, the causes of happiness become clear. As we practice the Dhama, as we learn to clearly see our wrong views and afflicted emotions, we can bring happiness into our experience of samsara a bit at a time.

What are your thoughts?

On suffering…
by

On suffering…

May all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all embrace happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all abide in peace, free from self grasping
May all attain the union of wisdom and compassion.

What does this mean to me?

I guess the first question to ask is, what is suffering? Hunger, anger, jealousy, greed, envy, fear – these are all forms of suffering. But perhaps the greatest suffering is wandering lost in samsara. Just the feeling of being lost is suffering. It’s that sinking feeling you get when you’re following GPS and suddenly there’s a ROAD CLOSED sign ahead.

Now what? Which way do you go? In samsara, we have GPS. It’s called the Dharma.

We spend much of our lives suffering needlessly. The Dharma isn’t a guarantee against suffering. The promise the Dharma offers is to show us things as they truly are. It’s kind of like knowing how a magic trick works. When you see the flowers come out of an empty hat, you know there’s a hidden compartment. You know it’s an illusion. This is what the Dharma offers, a chance to see clearly. When we see clearly, we can see the path to the cessation of suffering.

How would I explain this to someone else?

What’s the point of praying for all to be free of suffering when we are surrounded by suffering in samsara? We pray that all will be free not only from suffering, but the causes of suffering.

Samsara is a place of actions (or causes) and consequences. I’ve battled my weight all my life. And at this point, Type II Diabetes is writ large in my life. Every time I test my sugar, I know the result has a cause. Ninety eight percent of the time the cause is what I choose to eat or drink.

For years and years, I made terribly unhealthy choices about my diet. What was I actually doing? I was putting in place causes for suffering. I was making a choice between instant gratification and my long term health. Unfortunately, I made the wrong choices most of my life.

And that’s okay. The Dharma is nothing if not free of irrevocable choices. Will you have karma from a poor choice? Absolutely. Do you have a chance to make different choices? Always. Every time we make a choice we are either putting in place causes for suffering or causes for happiness. Mostly, we choose suffering and we wander lost in samsara.

And that’s okay too. The Dharma teaches us how to recognize choices for what they really are. The act of choosing will certainly create a cause of suffering or a cause of happiness. When we practice the Dharma, we learn discernment. We learn to see the causes of suffering for what they are. Today’s choice is tomorrow’s consequence.

How would I use this teaching in my life?

Today, when I think about suffering, it comes down to small choices.

Does it feel good to lie in bed under the covers at five AM? It sure does.

Each day I know that because of my job, I’ll most likely talk to someone who is suffering terribly. It’s the nature of my job. In those moments I have a chance to make things better, or at least a chance to not make it worse. I can do this by seeing clearly.

I know I have a long day ahead of me. If I get out of bed and say my prayers and meditate, I know I will see more clearly. Does it guarantee I’ll say the right thing? No. But I have less of a chance of saying something that makes things worse.

I’m learning each day how to avoid placing causes of suffering in my life. I don’t always do it. I don’t get out of bed every morning, but mostly I do. And that’s okay. We call it ‘practice’ for a reason, right?

I bring this teaching into my daily life by asking myself a simple question throughout the day: How much do I want to suffer? We can either wander blown about by the winds of samsara or we can use the GPS of the Dharma to put our feet on the path to the cessation of suffering.

What are your thoughts?