(For Podcast, click here. For ITunes version, click here)
“Each of us are always at the brink of truth in each moment.
Every breathing moment of our lives presents us with the possibility of
awakening to wisdom or getting mired in fear.
Every action, every thought we generate gives us an opportunity to
discover our true selves. We alone can choose.”
–Ajahn Sumano Bhikkhu with Emily Popp,
from Meeting the Monkey Halfway
Another way to encourage us upon this new journey is a
teaching found in the preliminary practices of Tibetan Buddhism, called Four
Thoughts to Turn the Mind towards The Dharma, (The Four Mind Changers).
They are designed to “loosen our preoccupation with
our preconceived notions about how life is, and, to open ourselves up to much
wider horizons, to open ourselves up to a more spacious, universal perspective,
of ourselves, of other people and of the world around us.” (From Lama John Makransky, author of Awakening
Through Love.) We are encouraged to
start each day by reminding ourselves of these truths.
These four powerful thoughts are:
1. We are the ones causing any sense of struggle in life.
2. We can
explore how cause and effect create our experience.
3. We can
celebrate the preciousness of human birth.
4. We can
find joy in impermanence .
How can we apply these four thoughts to transform the
way we see ourselves and the world?
First, as we discussed in the teaching on the Four
Noble Truths, each of us often has an ongoing sense of suffering or at least
vague feeling of dissatisfaction. Samsara is a Sanskrit word defined as the
condition of going around and around, thinking and doing the same things and
getting the same result. We all want to
be happy, so we continue search for the house that will make us happy or the
relationship that will make us happy, or the job that will make us happy. We are happy when we’re eating ice cream but
not when we’re eating brussel sprouts. We have divided up our world into two
sections: that which we think will bring
us happiness and everything else.
Dukkha is this general sense of dissatisfaction—it is not the world
causing us to be dissatisfied but rather us causing our own
dissatisfaction. And that is a root
cause of our suffering. Through
reminding ourselves regularly about the truth of this statement, that WE are
causing a sense of struggle, then we can begin to change our perspective. We can reinforce each day that we can choose
to be happy.
Second is the reality of Karma, the law of cause and
effect. We are creating the patterns in
our lives by doing the same thing over and over again, things that might not be
creating a sense of happiness. The Dalai Lama said “there is no way to
happiness, happiness is the way.” What
would it be like to see the world through eyes of happiness? The Buddhist teachings offer that the reason
this perspective is so difficult is because we have spent much of our lives
creating conditioned responses that create a sense of struggle and
suffering. We often do not see
situations for what they actually are, but rather through the filter of our
past experiences. With this reminder, we
can begin to look for the cause and effect of our thoughts, words and actions.
There was a guy I met at church a few years ago who I
immediately disliked. Everyone else kept
telling me how nice he was, but I wasn’t having any of it. I felt irritated at the mere sight of
him. It took me six months to realize
that he looked almost exactly like my sister’s ex-husband—no wonder he seemed
awful! I wasn’t actually seeing this
real person standing in front of me, but was seeing him through the filter of
my memory of someone he looked like.
Once I began to meditate regularly, I started to see
these filters I was putting on many people and situations in my life, even on
myself. I’d like to tell you that once
you meditate regularly, the patterns immediately go away, but that
unfortunately isn’t exactly how this practice works. First, we start by seeing them more clearly,
until we recognize the suffering that we are causing ourselves and others by
not being fully present and clear. Then,
we start to get a chance to respond differently.
Moreover, we often cause our own suffering by needing
to place blame. We get Karma confused
because we see life through our filter of our old unskillful thoughts and
habits:
·
We blame the
World: Everyone around us is causing us this
suffering; I could be happy if it wasn’t for them (or him, or her…)
·
We blame
ourselves: It’s all my
fault because I’m horrible; no matter what I try to do, I can’t change . I was born this way, my childhood caused me to be this way. There’s no hope for a different outcome. Woe is me…
We can begin to recognize these patterns in our lives
and see each moment as an opportunity to see things more clearly and to respond
differently. Explore new
possibilities. And it starts quite
simply with a new awareness. It has been
our minds perception of all things as either opportunities for our happiness or
opportunities for our not being happy. We can have a new thought that life doesn’t
have to be a struggle. Imagine that
we can start each morning with the thought, “I am happy” and carry that
perspective with us throughout the day, regardless of what arises. We can begin to look for the good. We usually find what we’re looking for.
I have to admit to having a fear about just simply
being happy. If I didn’t feel a sense of
struggle, a need to change things, then what would I do? Would I just sit in my bed all day and not
move? It brings up fear about not being
motivated, not being productive, not moving forward. I can almost hear my mind shouting, “I need a
sense of struggle to survive!” Ah,
there’s the false perception. In
Buddhism, we are urged to at least consider that our motivation can come
instead by being a channel of light and love, of compassion and wisdom, and
pro-actively chosen happiness—that can be enough motivation to get out of bed
in the morning. We can be spiritual and
still operate in this world. Our
motivation can come FROM knowing that we can use passion instead of fear for
motivating our thoughts, our words and our actions. All that we need, all that we’re searching
for, exists for us in this moment. We
need only wake up to these profound teachings that have been proven to work
over and over again for centuries upon centuries.
In the Dhammapada, the Buddha is quoted as saying:
“The
thought manifests as the word;
The
word manifests as the deed;
The
deed develops into habit;
And
habit hardens into character;
So
watch the thought and its way with care,
And
let it spring from love
Born
out of concern for all things…
As
the shadow follows the body,
As we think, so we become.”
Buddha said it, and Charles Fillmore and Myrtle
Fillmore who founded Unity said the same thing.
How many people must tell us this Truth before we trust that it’s true,
or at least doubt enough that it might be true, to give it a try. Our thoughts and awareness can be very
powerful tools for overcoming our suffering.
The third thought is the preciousness of human
life—how incredibly amazing is it that you are alive in this moment?!? Think of all the things that had to happen
(and had to NOT happen) for you to get this chance at experiencing living. We can choose to see life as a gift instead
of a burden.
Ric Elias is a man who happened to be on the plane
that crash landed in the Hudson River a few
year ago, and everyone survived. He gave
a talk one time wanting to share how this single event, a few minutes spent
expecting to die, then miraculously being sparred, how those few minutes made a
world of difference in the way he lived from that moment forward. He decided to take those few minutes of
incredible emotional upheaval and transform the way he experience his life and
how he interacted with those around him, to be more loving, more kind, more
grateful. A simple thought of the
preciousness of human life can dramatically change our perspective. Let’s not wait till we almost die before we
realize this fact!
Lastly, we can celebrate the joy of impermanence! Not feeling sad because things are constantly
changing but being joyful because each moment is the perfect moment to start
fresh, to start anew. Instead of trying to get everything just right, start
right now in enjoying everything as is.
We can finally give up on getting everything to be perfect before we
start to enjoy living. No matter what
your circumstances, you can begin in this moment to experience joy.
Reflecting on these four thoughts increases our
willingness to release the grip on our habits of clinging to ourselves, of
shutting down, of closing in, of believing our own projections. It begins with bringing awareness to a
painful moment, to questioning what’s behind the pain, and to creating a new
thought, the thought that life doesn’t have to be a struggle. Our true being can come through, our true
Buddha nature can guide us, and can break down our filters, so we see the world
and others just as they are. So, we can see ourselves just as we are as well.
“We’ve enclosed ourselves in a relatively
small space of limited thinking. It binds us in, and we’re not aware that we’re
living in a tiny, cluttered room. BUT
with the practice of mindful awareness and quiet reflection, it’s as if the
walls of the room are torn down, and you realize there’s a big beautiful
spacious sky all around.”
-Larry
Rosenberg, The Art of Doing Nothing (Spring 1998)
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