Letting Go - 2 - The Power of Laughter

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This morning we continue a series of talks based on the book by Lama Surya Das, entitled, Letting Go of the Person you Used to Be.  This is a beautifully written book that cuts at the heart of suffering.  The subtitle is Change, Loss and Spiritual Transformation.   Last week, we began with a discussion about the importance of seeing clearing what is happening in our lives, not simply through the lens of our past experiences.  It turns out that our brains don’t register most of what is going on around us.  We are experiencing ourselves and the entire world through this filter of what we have decided is important and what is not.  We selectively choose what to pay attention to and not, and we decide most often on the basis of our past experiences.  This is sometime helpful.  There is a hum of the heater in the background, so we ignore it.  Someone in the other room is speaking—we might ignore it or try listening in or be irritated or even frightened by their voice. 

Because of the faultiness of these filters, there is great value in questioning our thoughts and our emotions when we are going through difficult times.  It can be difficult to know what is true and real, and what is simply our imagination.  I was watching a TED talk given by a forensic psychologist named Scott Fraser who explains how our brains fill in the details about what we remember.  Even if you think you have remembered something or someone 100% accurately, Fraser shows the scientific evidence that is most likely not true.  So, clear seeing is a process that is part of the Buddhist practices.  As part of the practice, we keep examining if our thoughts and our emotions are really giving us an accurate picture of what is happening internally and externally.  

In his book, Lama Surya Das wrote about the loss of his father, and how much sadness and grieving went along with that experience.  I lost my father ten years ago, and there are still days when I miss him so terribly.  We were very close.  He used to call and leave me a voicemail to just tell me he was thinking about me, and that he loved me.  After he passed away, the phone would ring, and I would think it might be him, then remember...   I kept one of those voicemails he left on my phone, and I’m not ashamed to say that I played it many times, just listening to his voice, mourning the loss of his generous, compassionate spirit.  In the midst of just sorrow and loss, how do we make sense of the tragedies in our lives—the loss of a parent, the loss of our health, the loss of innocence, the loss of purpose, the loss of understanding, the loss of meaning, the loss of friendship—all the people and things that fade away or get lost or die?

Lama Surya Das is clear about one point—we have a choice about how to respond to even the worst situations.  This essence of the Buddhist teachings is our ability to choose how to live.  We may not choose our tragedies, or our losses, but we definitely choose how we respond.  Of course, sadness and grieving are two appropriate responses in situations of loss, but we need not see our responses as one dimensional.  In the midst of sadness can also be understanding, there can be acceptance, there can even be love. 

A second point that Lama Surya Das makes is that most of us, we take life and ourselves far too seriously.  Yes, I said last week that we should prioritize mindfulness and meditation like our hair was on fire, BUT the Buddhist practices of dealing with loss and tragedy is to also about finding the joy and laughter in each moment, despite the tragedy and pain.  Anyone  ever inappropriate laughed at a funeral?  Or maybe it was appropriate?  Are our lives solely about being solemn and serious? 

When you think of someone special whom you have lost in your life, can you think of a joyous time that you spent together, perhaps even a time when you laughed together?  My father had the cheesiest thing he did that always made me and my siblings laugh—I have no idea where this idea came from—maybe it was a Texas thing.  He would grab my knee and say “got a can a corn!”  I would giggle uncontrollably and run off or just get tickled, and he would laugh in that deep, honest, warm way, that he always did.  As tragic as it is when I think of my dad’s death, I also remember that I’m so sad because there were some wonderful times that we had together.  

Maybe other people’s death didn’t include a sense of joy whatsoever.  We still have a choice to move forward with a sense of optimism.  Laughter and joy make life more manageable, even in the darkest of days.  Starting now, or perhaps you are already doing it, what will you do to infuse laughter and joy into your daily life, to create a life worth living and worth celebrating when it is done?  

Lama Surya Das encourages us to name our losses, acknowledge them honestly, then assess how best to move on.  What can I do to honor my father’s life?  What can do to I honor my own life? How can I infuse joy and laughter into my purpose in living? 

In Feng shui, the laughing Buddha is often used to remind us of the bliss that can be found in humor and smiling and the turn of the good joke, the simple pleasure of finding laughter amidst the pain. 

I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.  ~Woody Allen

Laughter is an instant vacation. ~Milton Berle

When people are laughing, they're generally not killing each other. ~Alan Alda

Letting Go - Part 1

(For Podcast, click here.  For ITunes version, click here)

This morning we begin a new series of talks based on the book by Lama Surya Das, entitled, Letting Go of the Person you used to Be.  This is a beautiful written book that cuts at the heart of suffering.  The subtitle is Change, Loss and Spiritual Transformation.   Who among us has NOT experienced loss and change?  I wish that it wasn’t true, but it seems that our greatest spiritual growth often comes in the times when life seems the toughest.  We each have the opportunity amidst the sadness and fear to choose exploration versus shutting down, to choose curiosity instead of fear.  Or at least choose curiosity about fear.

In this book, we will look at several Buddhist tools for leveraging these difficult times in our lives to accelerate our spiritual transformation, to deepen our sense of serenity and peace, regardless of what is happening in our lives.  Two of the methods we’ll being with are Realism and Laughter.

Buddhism is often criticized because it begins with acknowledging that life includes suffering—what a bummer!  Can’t we just gloss off the bad stuff?  Isn’t that what American culture is all about?  We often ignore or push away that which is unpleasant and uncomfortable.  OR, sometimes we go in the other direction and wallow to the depths of despair about our situation.  “Woe is me!  This is awful!  It’ll never get better!”

So, over the next few weeks, we are going to try something a little different. First, we will explore ways to be realistic about what is happening within us and all around us.  We can, as Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun often says, hold our seat amidst the storms of living, and see more clearly what is happening.  See Clearly—that is a tall order.  We all have collected many experiences in our lives up to this point.  Some are valuable in guiding us forward, and others are the exact thing that is holding us back.  Byron Katie has an elegantly simple process of seeing more clearly by asking four questions:

Step 1              Is it true?

Step 2             Can you absolutely know that it's true?

Step 3              How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

Step 4              Who would you be without the thought?

In Buddhism, we practice mindful awareness, striving in each moment to be fully aware of what is happening, teasing apart that which is an old unskillful habit and that which enlivens and encourages us.  Many of us seek out this practice because we feel stressed and overwhelmed.  It might seem that mindfulness is all about relaxing and letting go of that which we are stressed about.  But have you ever tried to relax and let go, only to find yourself holding on more tightly?  This is the illusory bind that our minds put us in.  In Buddhism, we are taught about the paradox of mindfulness, the paradox of practice, that to truly let go, we must first be fully aware, to be mindful is to be aware in three ways—BY not pushing away, not holding on to,and not ignoring.  We practice just being awake to what is happening in each moment.

These three instructions are the key to being fully mindful in the moment.  These practices of not pushing away, not holding on to, not ignoring enable us to become aware more fully with what is.  We start exactly where we are at, it is only from that starting point, that we can then see new possibilities in our lives.  The practice of mindfulness is the doorway to these new possibilities, new ways to see our selves and our lives and others.  By seeing more possibilities in our lives, we give ourselves the gift of a deeper, richer, fuller experience of living.  

I love a particular saying from George Santayana, which is so deeply buddhist.  “Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness. “  Albert Einstein has some wonderful quotes about seeing our selves and our lives with fresh eyes.  One quote is that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  The other quote I love is that "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." These are very Buddhist perspectives, encouraging us to see everything and everyone in our lives, including ourselves with a fresh perspective, like seeing with new eyes.

The paradox of the practice of mindful awareness is that by not pushing away, not clinging to, not ignoring, we start to see things and people and situations in our lives in new ways, and we begin to create new possibilities.  From The Power of Habit that I quoted a few weeks ago, the research indicates that 90% of what we do in any given day, we do out of habit.  On most days, most of us probably spend the majority of our time reacting in conditioned ways.  We wake up in the same way, we brush our teeth in the same way, we drink our tea or coffee in the same way, we respond to the stresses in our lives in the same way.  So, how do we wake up in the middle of our lives?

There are simple ways to try this theory out.  One way to open ourselves up is to change our routine in some way.  For example, today, when you drive or walk home, try taking a different route.  Try holding your coffee cup with the opposite hand.  Try eating with the opposite hand.  By not reacting in conditioned ways, we are actually training our brains to see ourselves and the world in new ways.   

We are creating new neural networks that enable us to create new possibilities in our lives. 

Another simple exercise that we can try is in this moment, cross your arms.  Something we all often do.  Just cross your arms in this moment.  Now, try crossing your arms in the opposite way.  There are so many ways in our lives to shake up our old way of seeing things. 

So, we can strive to see ourselves and our world realistically, with fresh eyes. 

In the teachings of Tilopa, a buddhist teacher around the tenth century, he says:

“If you strive in this endeavor, you will free yourself from the imprisonment of the endless cycle of suffering.

If you meditate in this way, you will burn away the karma of the past.

Therefore YOU are known as “The Torch of the Truth”.

Each of us can strive to not push away, not cling to, not ignore our old ways of being and see life full of new possibilities.  You are  “The Torch of the Truth”!"

Awareness' is the quintessential teaching of the Buddha--from the awareness of cool air as you breath in and then out, to the profound awareness of natural perfection. And with boundless compassion and courage, the sole purpose and activity of all the buddhas is to ring the alarm bell that brings us to this awareness."

-Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

And in the coming weeks, we’ll also talk about the use of laughter, not taking everything so seriously.  As Lama Surya Das says, we can enlighten up!  My favorite quote on the subject is by a Buddhist Master named Longchenpa who said, “Life is not as it seems, nor is it otherwise, so we might as well burst out laughing!”

AND, for those interested, in April, we will have a special chance to meditate WITH Lama Surya at his retreat center in Austin, Texas, the weekend of April 4-7^th.  I have some information about that if you want to pick up after the meditation today.  And the Temple will be giving away one scholarship to the retreat, so email me if you want to be considered for that.

Visualization:

Ham – So (and Inner chant)

Ham = Light of Love coming int hrough the crown of your; head

So = Light of Love going out from your heart

Basics of Buddhism - Final - What do you really want?

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Buddhist practices are designed to help us find and experience unlimited freedom—this is a freedom beyond all others—it is the inner freedom that liberates us from the mercurial mental and emotional ups and downs of daily living.  

When we were children, most of us thought of freedom as the ability stay up late or watch TV and we thought that was what happiness was all about.  Then, as we became teenagers, we wanted the freedom to be with our friends and we thought that would bring us happiness.  Then, we got out of the house, away from our parents and wanted the freedom that being on our own would bring, the freedom that money could buy, being able to do the things that we thought would make us happy.  This desire for freedom in some form or fashion seems to be an important part of our psyche.    So, here we are today. At whatever point you are in your life you are here, right now.  When you think about being free in this moment, what comes to mind?  What is the freedom you desire?

It’s powerful to be able to acknowledge that even though we’ve grown up, we may still might feel enslaved to our old ways of thinking about ourselves and the world.  We might still be enslaved to this old idea of freedom.  

In a superficial way, freedom is sometimes described as an ability to chase after any desire that we have.  We want the freedom to eat what we want to eat, to drink what we want to drink, the freedom to act on any whim that strikes us.  But what Buddha discovered is that acting on any whim that arises is actually no freedom at all. In fact, it becomes the worst kind of imprisonment.  We are imprisoned by our desires, forced to act on them, unable to withstand the feelings of withdrawal that arise if not acted upon.   What Buddha discovered was that NOT acting on every whim of desire was the FIRST step towards ultimate happiness.  Starting with a willingness to see clearly what these whims are all about, we start to see the world at a deeper level of richness, of fullness, of true reality, of true freedom. 

You are the one you’ve been waiting for.  You alone can transform your life.

We often put ourselves in prison, the prison of limiting thoughts and actions.  We keep seeking freedom from what is. Instead, we can learn to harness present awareness into a freedom to be with whatever is, a freedom with far less judgment and far move love and compassion.  In Buddhism, the desire for Ultimate Freedom is one of the tools that we can harness to find the long-lasting peace and happiness that we’ve been looking for all along.  As adults, we are no longer constrained by our parents or our past, but sometimes WE allow it to be so.  We may feel constrained by our old ways of thinking, our unskillful habits or constrained by our emotions, constrained by our illusions about what life is about or constrained by what we think we are supposed to be doing.  It’s easy to get lost in the shackles of illusions that keep us from being completely happy and at peace.  The Buddha taught that the only obstacle to complete freedom and happiness is our own misguided way of thinking. 

Buddhism teaches us to focus our desire on the inner freedom of choice.  Emotions or thoughts will continue to arise. We always have the freedom to choose IF to react and then HOW to react 

In a beautifully written book entitled Wake Up to Your Life, Ken McLeod gives an eloquent description of how bringing attention to our thoughts and emotions can free us from their hold.  He gives a four-step process for dismantling these old patterns.

1. Recognize:  When we have sensations or emotions or thoughts, we begin to pay attention to them early on. 
2. Dis-identify: We can start to see these sensations or emotions or thoughts as NOT who we are, see them as just ephemeral desires or aversions arising and allowing them to fall away. THOUGHTS ONLY HAVE POWER IF WE GIVE IT TO THEM.  EMOTIONS ONLY HAVE POWER IF WE GIVE IT TO THEM.  When we dis-identify with our thoughts and emotions, we are free to place our energy in more skillful responses.
3. Develop a practice: We practice not identifying with them.  Each time a thought or emotion arises, we have an opportunity to form a new habit, to pay attention, to examine it and dis-identify with it, so we can see it more clearly.
4. Continue the practice:  Each time a thought or emotion arises, we can apply the antidote of awareness and compassionate attention.  Again and again, until compassionate attention becomes the habit.

When compassionate attention becomes the habit, then we are truly free to live our lives in peace regardless of what arises.

Let’s not wait for some magical time when we get it right every time.  Let’s start now, working at it, with each thought and emotion, a fresh opportunity to practice, and with each opportunity, we open ourselves to this incredible freedom little by little.  Over time, our lives do become magical, in the sense of wonder and deep happiness that comes naturally from the experience of inner freedom.  We have everything we need right now, in this moment, to experience the ultimate freedom of choosing to be happy, regardless of our external circumstances, regardless of our old thoughts and habits.

“A life-time is not what's between,

The moments of birth and death.

A life-time is one moment,

Between my two little breaths.

The present, the here, the now,

That's all the life I get,

I live each moment in full,

In kindness, in peace, without regret.”

Chade-Meng Tan, One Moment 

(Author of Search Inside Yourself)

Transformation through Habit Change

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This morning I wanted to spend some additional time talking about the kleshas, the three poisons of craving, aversion and ignorance in the context of habits.  We had a lively discussion last Tuesday night about what exactly it is that causes us to change our habits.  Isn’t that what this is all about?  We’ve been hurtling through life at warp speed, feeling the stress and struggle of suffering in all its various forms, and also having moments of great joy and pleasure and wondering how to savor life more deeply, this precious experience of life that we have been given.

In fact, that is exactly what the Buddha did 2500 years ago—he simply changed the habit of the way he interacted with the world, how he interacted with himself, how he interacted with each moment.  At the simplest level, we are trying to make mindfulness, meditation and positive visualization a habit—pure and simple.  I don’t know about your experience, but I find that I catch myself being mindful and then fall back asleep in distraction, then wake up a few moments…or a few hours later, and remember to be mindful again.  Everything that we have ever done here at the Temple Buddhist Center or will do, is about supporting each other in making Mindfulness, Meditation and Positive Visualization a habit that happens more and more often.  So, what can we do to increase the habit of these power practices?

Last Tuesday, during the discussion about recognizing that moment of craving or aversion or ignorance, Brent made a comment that stuck with me, because I now know that my answer was wrong or at least very incomplete.  He suggested (Brent, I paraphrase, forgive me!) that willpower is what enables us to transform our behavior.  I responded that willpower alone never works according to the research, and that is partially true, but I’ve spent the week reflecting and researching on the role of willpower in changing our habits.   

For anyone interested in diving deeper into this subject, I am going to recommend the book that Pam and Roz recommended to me, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.  In it, he encourages us to see more clearly how cues lead to routines or habits, lead to rewards, which create cravings, which reinforce the habits in order to get the rewards.  Cues can be thoughts, or a physical experience or sensation or locations, or an action, that is now hardwired into us as a signal to respond in a certain way. 

“Most of the time what we do is what we do most of the time.

Sometimes we do something new” (Townsend & Bever, The

integration of habits and rules).

When Buddha sat down under the Bodhi Tree, trying to find an end to suffering, he had a new thought and a new experience that arose.  Now, it’s said that he was immediately enlightened and never went back and went on to teach for 45 years from this place of awakening.  I wasn’t there 2500 years ago, so I can’t be sure, but I suspect that the reality MIGHT have been just a little bit different.  I suggest that Buddha sat under the tree, and had this new thought and this new experience, then continued to reinforce it through re-thinking the thought (through motivation to end suffering) and re-experiencing the action (mindfulness, meditation and positive visualization).  So does willpower play a role in changing habits, particularly the habit of being mindful instead of being distracted?

Wendy Wood and David Neal wrote a fascinating psychology article entitled, “A New Look at Habits and the Habit–Goal Interface”.  Now, that’s a little dry but basically they found that having a goal in and of itself did not change the habit.  Having a goal is a good start--we can all create the goal of meditating for five minutes each day, but when we are then faced with the hardwired habits that we have been building and nurturing and redoing our whole lives, so it seems that having a new goal may not be enough.   

So, is it willpower?  Can we will ourselves to change? 

Back to Charles Duhiggs research, he found that two factors contribute to new habits. 

First, it turns out that we only have so much willpower to begin with. Duhigg describes a research project where people were placed in a room with radishes and cookies. Some participants were told to eat the cookies and others the radishes.  The cookies were warm and smelled so good, fresh from the oven, and the radishes were, well radishes.  The cookie eaters were savoring their cookies, and the radish eaters were forcing themselves to eat the radishes.  Some radish eaters even picked up a cookie to smell it more closely, then put it down and picked up a radish.  Imagine the willpower that took! 

After five minutes, the researcher re-entered the room and asked each group to perform a puzzle about connecting dots on a geometric shape in specific way, they said it was just something to kill time in order to wait for the next step in the process.  The puzzle they gave them was actually impossible to solve.  The cookies eaters had plenty of willpower left to persist in the solving the problem, while the radish eaters, their willpower was depleted, and they struggled mightily.  On average, the cookie eaters spent 60% more time trying to solve the puzzle!  They had lots of willpower left to persist when things were difficult!

The conclusion was that willpower is a muscle—one that we can train to use, and one that gets tired if we are required to use it too much.  AND, willpower can be built up over time.  The other example given was the significant research and training that Starbucks has done about dealing with cranky customers—I guess that goes back to our story last week about the craving for coffee, the cue of the smell and the crankiness that arises from not satisfying that craving.  Starbucks trains their employees to prepare for what they will do when faced with a cranky customer.  Prepare in advance, before the craving or aversion arises. 

This preparation enables us to respond differently when the going gets tough.  Let’s apply this to meditation.   Maybe there was a Sunday some time ago that you wanted to get here on Sunday morning at 9 am to meditate.  The alarm sounded and you hit the off button and went back to sleep.  When you awoke, maybe you were glad you slept in rather than meditate, OR maybe you were disappointed in yourself for not getting up.  What the Buddha did with his disciples was create a supportive environment in order to change their habits little by little.  There were rituals that the monks and nuns were taught to change their habits. For example, each night as they went to bed, the put their begging bowls by the side of the bed, upside down, which is done when a monk or nun dies.  When they would awake, they were instructed to use that moment of realization that they were still alive and to recognize the preciousness of this life that we have been given.  So, what preparation might we do to create that visual cue when we awaken, or during the day or at night, whenever you find your willpower waning and challenging your mindfulness and your goals?

The second important component of successful habit change is taking things in bite-size pieces.  Starting a diet by radically changing everything you do in your life is well-researched to be very likely NOT to work.  BUT, changing something small, can start a chain reaction of positive habits.  For example, simply keeping a food journal one day a week, has been proven to create a series of changes in the way you respond to food. 

So, what bite-size pieces of mindfulness, meditation or positive visualization could we make in our lives this week to get the new habit being formed?  I can tell you all the wonderful things that the Buddha taught, but if it doesn’t result in you creating healthier  habits, then it really is a waste of time. 

Brent, I apologize!  Willpower is a component in habit change, as long as we build it slowly, with preparation and recognition of our limitations.  AND, combine it with new goals and motivations that are available at our fingertips when the going gets tough.  This is what the Buddha realized, and what we can now practice. 

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius

  

“Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.” – Buddha

  

“Simplicity is the key to brilliance.” – Bruce Lee

Basics of Buddhism – 6 - Addictions and Afflictions

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This morning we continue a series of talks about the Basics of Buddhism by exploring how we cause our own suffering.  We all do it at some time or another—we think, speak or act unskillfully.   Buddhism offers some practical ways to untangle the power that we give to unskillful thoughts, unskillful emotions and unskillful actions.

As we explore these practices to change our thinking, there is some helpful research that is being done in the field of addiction recovery.   First, Roz and Pam shared with me a new book entitled, The Power of Habit  by Charles Duhigg.  In it, he encourages us to see more clearly how cues lead to routines, lead to rewards, which create cravings out of the cues.  When you start having a cup of coffee in the morning, and you get that little jolt of caffeine, you create a routine of wanting the reward of the coffee high.  Over time, just smelling coffee gives you a little jolt, BEFORE YOU EVEN HAVE A SIP.  If you don’t drink any coffee after smelling it, you may start to experience the discomfort of craving.  We have bodily sensations that are unpleasant because of the habit that we have formed around coffee.  This can be true of any routine that we establish that includes some kind of reward.  There are the habits of drinking and drugs and smoking, and the other habits of anxiety, depression and fear—in fact both sets of habits can reinforce and support the other.

Finding the cue, the routine, the reward and the craving is exactly what The Buddha was teaching.  In Sanskrit the word for this craving, aversion or ignorance (the three poisons) is Klesha or affliction.  The Buddha noted that craving, aversion and ignorance were at the root of our suffering.  We can now see through the lens of the scientific research, that he was right. 

Another excellent psychiatric study, entitled “Craving to Quit” by Brewer, Elwafi and Davis, details the positive impact that mindfulness training can have on eliminating unskillful habit loop.  They outline three contributors to addictive behaviors:

• Over-ruminations (cyclical mind-states) 
• Internal sensations (emotions, bodily sensations) when we try to run away from or wallow in some uncomfortable feeling.
• External cues: past experiences that were pleasurable, neutral or painful that now drive our present response.

In Buddhism, we practice uncoupling thoughts/emotions of craving and aversion from reaction by no longer ignoring them.  We can in fact develop a tolerance for craving and aversion.  We can be mindful of thoughts, emotions and automatic behaviors and objectively observe them rather than being sucked into responding in our old habitual unskillful ways.

Every day, we have many opportunities to practice! First, we can practice in a controlled environment, like our focused meditation time, and secondly and equally powerful, we can practice in the moment of an afflictive thought or emotion arising.  It is powerful to practice in the eye of the storm.  With time, these practices become a new default mode of simply being present to whatever is arising.

AND we can use this process to develop skillful habits as well.   In the book, the author gives the example of toothpaste.  In the early 1900’s, only 6% of people brushed their teeth.  Through advertising, people were encouraged to create a routine in order to look more beautiful and have greater health.  The advertising connected the activity, toothbrushing with a positive reward, beauty and health, and made it a routine to do every morning.  Toothbrushing went from 6% to 65% in just two years.

There are no ads for mindfulness and meditation, at least none that are as powerful as toothbrushing, because these practices don’t always have an immediate reward, the issue that we have with working out or eating right.  So, we can overtly build in a short-term reward to encourage the routine leading to a habit of mindfulness and meditation.  Our February Love Challenge of meditating at least five minutes a day can be this opportunity.  In the Buddhist teachings, we are encouraged to meditate like our hair is on fire, having that great of a sense of urgency.  But, perhaps, meditation could be rewarded in some subtler way—it’s even been proven that if we who love our to-do lists, put meditation on the list, then check it off each day, that feeling of reward that we get when we accomplish something good for ourselves, that can create the habit. 

In the article on addiction, the psychiatrist emphasizes that realizing our thoughts and emotions only have power because we give it to them is also a powerful step towards changing our habits.  If we try to merely distract ourselves from them, or ignore them, we might find temporary relief, but we are not getting to the core, to the source of the suffering—this is why many addiction recovery processes fail.   Instead, we can learn to become disenchanted with these afflictive thoughts and emotions, to realize that we have the power to see through them and beyond them, then practice taking away that power through creating a replacement habit of mindfulness. 

Techniques to create the gap and become disenchanted

Recognize shenpa:  Pema Chodron is an American Buddhist nun who has studied the Buddhist teachings for over 50 years.  She has written many incredible books and given talks on how we get hooked-when we know what we are thinking or feeling is irrational, but we can’t shake it. The Tibetan word is Shenpa.  She also calls it that “sticky feeling”, the feeling like we can’t shake something off, like having an itch that you feel like you must scratch or you’re going to die.  Addiction can be seen as getting hooked, when we feel like we must take that drink or smoke that cigarette or eat that food, or we feel like we’re going to die.

We can also get hooked in smaller moments, when we get hooked into old habits and emotions triggered simply by a situation or something someone says.  Someone says something to you that makes you tighten inside.  Pema calls it pre-verbal, a yucky feeling at the pit of our stomach perhaps.  Then, the thoughts come and the intense desire arises to respond in a unskillful habitual way.  Think of a time when you’ve been criticized by someone.  Recall the exact moment when they said something negative about you.  What did that feel like?

Rise above:  To broaden our perspective, the monk Matthieu Ricard encourages us to use a visualization of the ocean, imagining soaring above the ocean of afflictive thoughts and emotions, instead of being caught in a boat on the surface, in the midst of the storm.  Meditation, mindfulness and visualization can be key practices in overcoming addictions and afflictions.  Hooray for this possibility of transformation, without any special equipment needed! Just our minds!

Serve others:  Another method of dissolving the power of unskillful thoughts is finding ways to serve others, instead of myopically focusing on ourselves.  One practice that works well in AA is when a newly sober person is given a job to make the coffee or set out the chairs, a simple job that serves others.  How might you serve others to get beyond your limited ways of thinking?  With this new understanding, we then practice again and again.  Through consistent practice, we strengthen the mental muscle of choosing the more skillful path.  We actually are re-wiring our brain.

In her book, Taking the Leap, Pema Chodron related a story that was circulating after 9/11.  It was said that a Native American grandfather was speaking to his grandson about the violence and rage in the world, and he likened it to having two wolves in your heart.  One wanting to be vengeful and angry and the other wanting to be understanding and kind.  The grandson asked him which of the two wolves would win….and the grandfather said, “The one you choose to feed.”

Today and every day forward, we can make the commitment to feed the right wolf, to be aware when we have that tightening in our gut, and sense negative thoughts and emotions arising, AND we can pull the plug, not feed them.  We can forego that short term sense of pleasure, trade it in for a longer term sense of well-being and happiness:

Matthieu Ricard in his book, Happiness, recommends three specific practices that correlate to these techniques mentioned above, for getting beyond unskillful actions and moving towards a deeper sense of happiness and well-being, regardless of our external circumstances or our habitual thoughts and emotions:

•Concentration (strengthening our ability to stay present) Identify the positive result you’re getting from the unskillful behavior.   Part of this mindful awareness is discovering how our fear and unskillful behavior is actually serving us.  If we overeat, we might do so because we remember the short term relief that comes from doing so.  If we get angry, we want that sense of relief when we first strike back.  A major part of mindful awareness is looking for the short term payoff.  Right now, take a specific example of a bad habit you are trying to stop, and bring to mind a recent situation where the desire to respond in that unskillful way was so strong AND when you did actually follow through with the unskillful action.  What did that desire initially feel like right before responding?  Then, what was the payoff that you imagined and received?  Psychologically, it is often described as some sense of relief.  I can’t stop thinking about that drink or that cigarette, until I give in, and in that action, we do feel some relief from the sense of suffering.  Mindful awareness enables us to catch ourselves in that moment of fantasizing about the good feeling we will get from doing the unskillful thing, AND TO REINFORCE THE LONG-TERM NEGATIVE RESULTS—THIS IS A CRITICAL STEP TO STOPPING THE HABIT.  Replace the thought and emotion about the short-term payoff with a different thought about the long term good of a skillful response.   

•Loving-kindness (cultivating positive mind-states) We can trust in our innate goodness.  Find the strength that is within you to change—it’s there within every single person.  If you are constantly telling yourself how bad you are for having these reactions and responding unskillfully, you are feeding the wrong wolf.  Trust in the fact that you are innately good, that there is good within each and every one of us, that we each have an enormous amount of energy and power that we can focus with laser-like precision to change the way we respond.  I work in a spiritual center that has the largest Alcoholics Anonymous group in the city.  I personally know dozens of recovering alcoholics and addicts who had been abandoned by their family and friends as completely unsalvageable, and many have found the power within themselves (and through the strength of the group support and process of AA) to transform their lives into good, even into joyful living!  It is possible!

•H.A.L.T.  Choiceless awareness (not taking things personally)   There’s an easy acronym that some of you may have heard, H.A.L.T.  Halt.  I learned this many years ago when I was reacting in very irresponsible ways, and I’m amazed at how helpful it has been.  HALT stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.  Whenever these kinds of emotions arise in us, we can begin to see them as signposts, reminders to HALT, to pause, TO CREATE A GAP, to consider carefully whether we want to act upon our urges in that moment.   

RECOGNIZE—RISE ABOVE—SERVE OTHERS