Month: October 2010

The Eighty Fourth Problem

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Stories about ourselves and how we are doing  arise non-stop in our minds and influence our beliefs about reality and about what happens in each day. These mental impressions – thoughts and feelings – often  revolve around some sense that we are not in the right place, that something is wrong with us. This feeling that our life is out of sync or that from time to time we do not know where we are going is not new. The Buddha’s fundamental insight, more than 2500 years ago, was that there is an unsatisfactory quality to our lives and that we are frequently aware of being out of balance. It is just the nature of life. We often have to deal with uncertainty and difficulties.

As told in the story of the farmer meeting the Buddha, we will always have our “eighty-three problems” – anxieties about our career or finances, difficulties in relationships, fears about sickness and health, getting the balance right in living with others, and so on. It is the “eighty-fourth problem” – that we think all of these should not be in our lives from time to time  – that adds to our difficulty and makes our day full of distress. When we fall into this eight fourth problem we go on to make ourselves more miserable over the fact that we have problems.  We judge our situation harshly because we are lacking a feeling of ease. We feel we have to “get rid of” something. We so quickly make the move from “something” is going wrong at the moment, to “I” am wrong, and read events as some sort of sign of an interior or psychological malaise. One thing which meditation does is allow us sit more easily with the gaps in our experience without panicking or needing to fix them.

Suffering becomes a block in our sense of being when any position is taken as an identity – when how you are becomes who you are. When we wake up to how human life on this planet actually is, and stop running away or building walls in our heart, then we develop a wiser motivation in our lives.

Keeping our heart limitless

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There are days when we have experiences which make us feel that it is better to close our hearts. However, all the great wisdom traditions encourage us towards a softening of the heart, toward a warm opening to others, even when that seems to be dangerous. As humans, a huge portion of our energy each day is spent dealing with anxiety and the fear of losing safety. These can arise suddenly and take all our attention, encouraging us to close, to become cool, to harden around ourselves. In Buddhism, one antidote to this is to cultivate an opening toward others in “Metta” or Loving-kindness practice. Metta has the connotations of “spreading” or “expanding”. It is radiant. It reaches out. It is an active friendliness  in interpersonal relationships which we cultivate. It works against the fears which  make our lives narrow and dark, and the tendency to dualistically split our lives into “me” and “them”

As a mother at the  risk of her own life protect her child, her only child, even so should one cultivate a limitless heart with regard to all beings. So with a heart of boundless friendliness  should one cherish all living beings; radiating kindness over the entire world.

The Buddha, Sutta Nipata I, 8 b – The Metta Sutta.

Sometimes wisdom comes through sadness

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Even in our sleep
Pain which cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart
Until, in our own despair,
Against our will,
Comes wisdom
Through the awful grace of God.

Aeschylus

Who others really are

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To relate to others compassionately is a challenge. Really communicating to the heart and being there for someone else…means  not shutting down on that person, which means, first of all, not shutting down on ourselves. This means allowing ourselves to feel what we feel and not pushing it away. It means accepting every aspect of ourselves, even the parts we dont like. Only in an open, non-judgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space, where we’re not all caught up in our own version of reality, can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly.

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

Fragmented

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We are fragmented into so many different aspects. We don’t know who we really are, or what aspects of ourselves we should identify with or believe in. So many contradictory voices, dictates, and feelings fight for control over our inner lives that we find ourselves scattered everywhere, in all directions, leaving nobody at home.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Always commenting, observing, judging

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It continually strikes me how difficult it is just to allow things be, and not add on a layer of commentary or anticipation about them. Maybe it is because our brains are disposed toward negative experiences and are always vigilant for possible threats, as Rick Hanson’s excellent book, The Buddha’s Brain tells us. So we are disposed to have a background hum of anxiety, and find it hard to just relax.  This means we create scenarios about potential futures, some of which never actually happen. Whatever the reason,  I was made aware of it this morning in a phonecall which left me troubled.

Afterwards I went for a walk in the beautiful woods near the source of the Allondon river. As I sat and listened to the sound of the water I was struck by how nature just does not worry about the meaning of life or the implications of its actions. It is not continually analyzing or counting. It is just faithful to its being. The river flows, the leaves fall, the seasons pass without the need to stand outside and observe their action. It is harder for us. Our minds are continually seeking active involvement with something. One instant, they run outward toward something, the next moment, they turn inward and away. Our practice is to try and develop stability and constancy in the mind, our capacity to simply be with life, and not always to think about it. As Pema Chodron reminds us, we cannot be in the present moment and run our storylines at the same time.

We tend to run our whole life trying to avoid all that hurts or displeases us, noticing the objects, people, or situations that we think will give us pain or pleasure, avoiding one and pursuing the other. Without exception, we all do this. We remain separate from our life, looking at it, analyzing it, judging it, seeking to answer the questions, ‘What am I going to get out of it? Is it going to give me pleasure or comfort or should I run away from it?” We do this from morning until night.

Charlotte Joko Beck