The Four Mind Changers

The Four Mind Changers

Buddhist teachings often sound extremely negative because there is all this talk about suffering and getting sick and dying. That does sound pretty grim. Don’t we all just want to be happy? Most of us try to ignore death and dying, staying as far away as possible until we are confronted with the harsh reality of life. There is only one cause of death that everyone suffers from. The cause of death in all cases is birth. Every one of us who has been born, by the very nature of living, are going to die. (Except allegedly all this vampire stuff out these days, but that’s another story…) The Buddhist teachings are shouting at us in order to save us from misery—Don’t sleepwalk through life! Wake up to that fact and decide how you shall live your life purposely and fully.

A well-known Buddhist meditation is this simple phrase: Since death alone is certain and the time of death uncertain, what should I do?

Looking at life in this raw state of reality can cause us to wake up. Once we see these things more clearly, we can start to live our lives more fully present. It is cliché to talk about the person who is sleepwalking through their life to suddenly be given a fatal diagnosis, then finds the happiness and peace that they were looking for all along. Do we need a fatal diagnosis to wake up? If so, then know right now that being born is a fatal diagnosis. Knowing that, what should we do? Stephen Batchelor has an excellent chapter on this meditation in his book, Buddhism without Beliefs.

Another tool for our awakening is called the four mind-changers or four reflections to turn our minds toward the Dharma, or the truth of our being. There’s a wonderful commentary on these teachings in the book by Joseph Goldstein entitled, One Dharma, if you’d like to learn more.

The first reflection encourages us to contemplate the preciousness of our human birth. We all often take being alive for granted. Imagine all the activities and events that had to take place or not take place for each of us to be here in this very moment. Human beings are somewhat fragile, and Living isn’t always easy. We each have had our own challenges, the issues in our lives that we have grappled with. Each of us, we all navigated through all the dangers and pitfalls of our lives to arrive at this moment right now. So, to experience the this incredible point of awareness is quite miraculous. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We don’t know for sure what will happen this afternoon. By contemplating this fact, we can pour ourselves wholeheartedly into this moment. This is another paradox in Buddhism. To live life fully, we must recognize how easy it is to not live. This first reflection is telling us to not take so much for granted, to wake up with gratitude to this experience of life in all its complexity.

The second mind-changer or reflection is challenging us to wake up from this dreamlike state of pretending that anything is permanent. As most of us experience, western culture is often about accumulating things, accumulating experiences and even accumulating people in our lives. Checking off the list of things and activities and people we “need” to be happy, and wanting ourselves, and those things and those people to not only be a certain way, but to also stay whatever way it is that we like them to be. We try to control our lives so things can stay fun and cushy. But no matter how much we try, we cannot make things stay the same. A child once told Thich Nhat Hanh how grateful she was that things change. Otherwise, she would never grow up! So, we are asked to try loosening up, not trying to force everything and everyone to be just the way we think we want it or them to be. With this reflection, we are practicing accepting the ever-changing-ness of life. It doesn’t mean that Buddhists don’t do anything productive. It means we act from knowing that everything is impermanent and knowing that deep happiness will NEVER come from external things, activities or people.

“We’ve enclosed ourselves in a relatively small space by 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 sky out there.” - Larry Rosenberg, The Art of Doing Nothing (Tricycle Magazine, Spring 1998)

There is tremendous power seeing things and actions and people with fresh eyes, adding compassion and wisdom to each situation instead of a checklist for improvement. This is critically important to the way we view our own bodie, our own lives. Many of us are constantly trying to get things just right. Get a new haircut, find the perfect dress. Instead this reflection is encouraging us to waking up each morning and first focus on full awareness, instead of first on the to-do list. This idea seems like the polar opposite of what we have been taught to do, but it’s been proven to work a heck of a lot better than the method of accumulation and looking for external happiness. Our lives are like the sand mandalas that are made, everything we have will eventually wash away. We may wish for certain things in our lives to change more quickly or other situations to not change at all. But the question is: How do we look at each situation with curiosity and non-judgment. Our lives will continue to change and morph and become something entirely different, whether we want to or not. The joy of the journey is determined in whether we ride the waves of uncertainty, or grasp at everything with tight white knuckles.

The third reflection is that everything we do has consequences. In Hinduism, the belief is that karma is unrelenting; if this then that, there’s nothing you can do to “save” yourself from unskillful past actions. But Buddha turned this idea of karma on its head. His taught that yes, there is the law of cause and effect, but it is far more helpful to focus on what we are doing right now in this moment, than to worry about what we did ten years ago. How can we be more kind and more generous and more grateful and wiser right now? There is this element of grace that exists in Buddhism. The idea is that we can wake up at any moment and begin increasing the compassion and wisdom in our lives.

The four reflection is about how labeling things as good, bad or irrelevant is causing us suffering, If we don’t try something new, we will continue to get the same suffering in our lives. If we focus on what we’re afraid of, on what we don’t want, then we will have no time to learn from all the new experiences in our lives happening moment- to-moment. This reflection is encouraging us to see what truly is and work with it. Sometimes suffering may seem too harsh a word, but even that vague sense of dissatisfaction is robbing you of the joy just waiting to be experienced. Don’t live your life settling for good enough when it comes to experiencing joy and happiness. We might try to continue old unskillful habits rationalizing this is what we like, this is what we con’t like, and we don’t care about this other stuff. True happiness will always depend on what is within us, not what is happening to us. Aldous Huxley said that the measure of man is not what happens to him, but what he does with what happens to him.

So, this last reflection on curiosity and non-judgment is about fully experience “not knowing”. What if it was okay to not know, but to keep asking the question with an open heart? What if the answers that we are seeking are there in the silence of each moment? What if admitting that we don’t know and sitting in silence with that was the best way to find the best answer. The Buddha taught that not knowing frees us to find new answers. We can rest with the idea of “I don’t know”.

So, the four mind changers/reflections are:

• The preciousness of our human birth
• The contemplation of impermanence
• The law of cause and effect
• The fact that craving, aversion and ignorance causes suffering and will never bring us complete happiness

These four reflections are powerful tools to support us in transforming our sense of living, to infuse deep happiness into life, regardless of our external circumstances:

Purpose of this teaching is to see with fresh eyes, to hear with fresh ears, to taste, to smell, to feel the warmth of the breeze on your skin, as if for the first time. This week, imagine that you are experiencing some activity for the very first time. Imagine that you truly don’t know, and see how that changes the experience.

Since death alone is certain and the time of death uncertain, what should I do?

The Four Immeasurables

The Four Immeasurables

"Compassion and love, joy and equanimity are not mere luxuries.
As the source both of inner and external peace,
they are fundamental to the continued survival of our species."
--His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama

During the time of Buddha’s enlightenment, there was the beginning of a shift from a purely agrarian economy to some capitalism that was springing up in small towns around Northern India. One of the things that Buddha discovered was that along with the process of selling and buying also came greed, corruption, stealing, killing. Although the time may have been long ago, it seems that our financial situation continues to have elements of greed, corruption, stealing, killing. Buddha identified a reaction in people, that can happen in good times and in bad, when people feel a primitive sense of lack and poverty, have a sense of separation from one another, a desire, a craving to gain advantage over others, a need to put up defenses. As Buddha reflected on the negative impact of these thoughts and feelings, he could see that they were arising out of a sense of craving, aversion and ignorance. This reaction caused great suffering in the world then, and it causes great suffering in the world now.

So what do we do? Where do we begin? Is it an impossible task to overcome these historic and monumental struggles within and around us? The Buddhist teachings encourage us that there is a way to get better address the challenges we face. The Buddha discovered that we can get beyond these struggles: First, by recognizing them for what they are, then by practicing a kinder way of being and living, to see things more clearly, to act more compassionately and wisely.

One of the practices that the Buddha developed to help cultivate these attitudes and actions are call The Four Immeasurables, The Four Sublime States, which are LOVING-KINDNESS, COMPASSION, SYMPATHETIC JOY and EQUANIMITY.

The short prayer practice goes like this:

May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness,

May all beings be free from suffering and the cause of suffering

May all beings have sympathetic joy which is free from suffering

May all beings come to rest in the great equanimity which is beyond attachment or aversion to friend, enemy or stranger.

The Buddha taught the following to his son, Rahula (from "Old Path White Clouds" by Thich Nhat Hahn):

"Rahula, Practice loving kindness to overcome anger. Loving kindness has the capacity to bring happiness to others without demanding anything in return. Practice compassion to overcome cruelty. Compassion has the capacity to remove the suffering of others without expecting anything in return. Practice sympathetic joy to overcome hatred. Sympathetic joy arises when one rejoices over the happiness of others and wishes others well-being and success. Practice equanimity to overcome prejudice. Non-attachment is the way of looking at all things openly and equally. Myself and others are not separate. Do not reject one thing only to chase after another. I call these the four immeasurables. Practice them, and you will become a refreshing source of vitality and happiness for others."

So, the practice of the Four Immeasurables calls upon each of us to try to cultivate these four feelings and actions. In these practices, sometimes we don’t initially feel very loving or joyful. We start to say this prayer about everyone being happy and peaceful, and we don’t feel very happy or peaceful ourselves. Just sit with those thoughts and emotions; make friends with them. Feel it completely, then go back to the practice of visualizing being loving and kind. This practice is not to whitewash over longstanding emotions. RATHER, it is to uproot those old habitual emotions, see them for the illusion that they are, and replace them with kinder and more productive ways of viewing the world.

Loving-kindness - I want all beings to have happiness and feel love.

Compassion - I want all beings to be free from suffering.
Sympathetic Joy - I want all beings to never be separated from sublime joy
Equanimity - I want all beings to live in equanimity, beyond judgments of friend, enemy, stranger.

Love, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity practice is a way to transform our world:

1. We see more clearly how we are interacting in the world.

2. We explore a new way of being, to be open to new ways of seeing ourselves and others.

3. We learn to fully embody these experiences as we deal with ourselves and others.

Using Awareness to expand the possibilities

In Buddhism, we practice mindful awareness, striving in each moment to be fully aware of what is happening. Many of us seek out this practice because we feel stressed and overwhelmed by our daily lives. It might seem that mindfulness is 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 mindfull is to be aware in three ways—by not pushing away, by not holding on to, by not ignoring. 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 of 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.

As I shared a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been so struck by the simplest of sayings from George Santayana. “Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness. “ So, how do we become aware of what is possible? In Buddhist practice, knowing the full range of possibilities can only occur by being fully present in each moment. We are taking in information in each moment, processing the world around us. But we most often take in information and immediately filter it through our past experiences. Some of this filtering is good—we learn early on that stoves are hot and that we don’t want to put our hands on a hot stove or we will get burned. But other of our filters are not so simple or so serving. We might have had an abusive parent, whose actions caused us to believe that we are not worthy of love, that there is something wrong with us, that we are something less than. It might seem that pushing those experiences away would be the best way to overcome these horrible misperceptions. But, once again the irony of mindfulness is that we must first be fully aware of what we are thinking, what we are feeling, how we are responding, in order to open ourselves up the full range of possibilities.

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 more clearly, and we begin to create new possibilities. On most days, most of us probably spend 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, tonight when you brush your teeth, you could try holding the toothbrush in the opposite hand that you normally use. It seems simple enough. But, research shows that something as simple as using a different hand to brush your teeth causes your brain to grow new neural networks. 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. The loving-kindness practice that we do at the end of each hour is another way to be open to new possibilities. We do this visualization and continue to be present with what arises. Sometimes when we are visualizing the person in our life who we find it difficult to be with, we don’t feel very loving and kind towards them. The practice calls on us to stay open to the emotions and thoughts that arise in the moment of trying to send them loving-kindness. We practice staying present with whatever comes up. And this age-old practice has been proven to help open us up to new possibilities, new ways of seeing the people in our lives, new ways of seeing ourselves, new ways of responding. So, this simple practice of mindful awareness can transform our lives in uncountable ways. Not pushing away, not clinging to, not ignoring things in our lives, but rather waking up to, bringing awareness to, seeing with fresh eyes, the habitual reactions in our lives. In that moment of clarity, in fact only in that moment of clarity, can we choose a new way of responding, a new way of being.

This new way of being is said to be the ultimate freedom.

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 the veil of karmic impurities.

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 conditioned ways of being and see life full of new possibilities. You are “The Torch of the Truth”!

What does "being in the moment" really mean?

There’s an often quoted statement in Buddhist writings about “Being in the Moment”, and encouragement about the freedom that arises from just being in the moment. In Buddhism, we are taught that being fully present is the doorway to true freedom, to deep happiness, not dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, not acting out of conditioned habits. But what does that really mean?

There is a wide spectrum of interpretations to “being in the moment”. One extreme is to use it as an excuse for bad habits. Haven’t we all had those moments where we tell ourselves that we just want to “be in the moment”, we don’t want hassle with changing our bad habits, we don’t want to think about the consequences of our actions. We’re having fun, or we just want the relief that comes from acting in old, comfortable ways. And yet, from a Buddhist perspective, this is NOT what being in the moment is about at all. In Buddhism, being in the moment is about being compassionately aware of what’s happening, and open to fresh ways of responding.

We all struggle against dogma, that tendency to want everyone and everything and every situation to fit into some nice little box, where one size fits all, one rule fits all. How easy life would be if there was one rule that fit all situations. The Buddhist precept of not killing seems so straightforward, but if you were in a situation where you could kill one person and save the lives of a thousand people, what would you do? The world is far too complicated to have any rule that would work in that way. So, in each situation, to be truly deeply happy, we must ask ourselves, “What is the most compassionate action in this moment.”

There was a quote from Noah Levine in Tricycle Magazine about transforming our survival instinct. We have been conditioned to care about ourselves and our families first. But in Buddhism, we’re asked to look from a higher level at the survival instinct, to a compassionate awareness for all. Noah suggests that being in the moment AND our long term survival is about asking ourselves, “How can I use my life’s energy to benefit all living beings?” Okay, that might be a bit of stretch to begin with, but I would offer a baby step of “How can I act without harming myself or others?” It might seem counter-intuitive, but it has been proven to be true. Taking a larger perspective would bring us more joy and more happiness versus continuing to focus solely on our own needs and concerns.

Noah Levine is speaking from experience. In his book, Dharma Punx, he talks honestly about his own addictions, living on the street, doing drugs, getting to a point where he cared only about his own obsessive needs, even stealing from his family and friends to feed his short term happiness. This is the extreme of selfishly being in the moment. For Noah, He was able to finally drop these horrible habits by first forcing himself to sit in the moment with each thought of wanting to do drugs, without acting on his desire to do drugs. Just sitting, just being, not acting upon, not knee-jerk doing, but holding back, examining, asking ourselves deeper questions. And he knows the pain in the moment, the frustration that arises when we try to hold back from reacting in our conditional ways. Just sitting with that frustration is about being fully present in the moment.

Each of us has habits that we know are not serving us, that have captured us and taken away some of our freedom. Think for a moment about those habits in your life that are ultimately causing you pain, even if they might be pleasant in the moment. The Buddhist path is at its essence solely about waking up in this moment in order to stop doing what is ultimately causing us or others pain.

The Zen Master Dogen describes enjoying momentary pleasures like licking honey from a razor's edge! To be fully aware of the dangers that come from being addicted to something that doesn't last. I would add that if the consequences of our actions were that immediate, like licking honey from a razor’s edge, most of us would stop doing them immediately! But since it’s usually not that immediate, we need some supporting tools to change.

The practice of “being in the moment” is a tool to help us stop reacting in old, conditioned ways. STOP! Wait for a moment. Wake up to those thoughts and emotions that are trying to lure us into old unskillful habits. The practice of mindfulness is about creating a gap between stimulus and response, buying ourselves some time to reflect on our options. George Santayana said that “Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.”

Waking up to what we are really thinking and really feeling and really doing is the first step in radically changing the way we live our lives. And, it seems that is often the biggest obstacle to starting a meditation practice. When we first start to really listen and observe what we are thinking and what we are doing, it can be very discouraging. We all have thoughts that we think and things that we do that we know are not serving us. The paradox is that the practice of mindfulness, of waking up in this moment is the ONLY way that we can get beyond these obstacles to happiness. To support our practice of staying present, we can remind ourselves that the possibility exists for a deeper long term happiness that is there in each moment, just waiting for us. All we need to do is try to stay compassionately present. Each moment is an opportunity to begin again, to try anew. To Start over. To start fresh. Thank goodness for each new moment to begin again.

We may not get it right every time, but the teachers are telling us to just continue trying, to make being present/being mindful/being compassionately aware a priority, and soon it will work a little , and the more we keep trying, the more often we will succeed.

So, perhaps this week, each of us can look at some thoughts or actions in our lives that are not serving us in the long term. Identify what it is that is not serving the greater good. And see what happens when we just be in the moment with that old habit, with the desire to just be with, not to immediately act on, but to create a gap that can help uncover all the new possibilities.

George Santayana said that “Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.” – and that is what being in the moment is all about.

The Practice of Serving Others

On Memorial Day weekend, we can take a moment to have gratitude for those who have served us and to remember the value of serving others. Integral to the Buddhist teachings is waking up to the fact that we are not separate beings. Often, it probably seems like we are going through life negotiating for our piece of the pie, but the Buddha taught that is just an illusion. The Truth of being is that we are intimately interconnected, in fact no separate self exists. For us westerners, that can seem like a crazy idea, us with our individualism and our proclamation that we need to be free to be happy. In Buddhism, this simple notion gets turned on its head. Yes, we need freedom to be happy, but it’s not found in staking out our territory more definitively. Freedom in the Buddhist teachings, is about freedom from this fixed notion of being separate from others. Freedom is about being free from our need to feel separate. Freedom is recognizing our interconnection and rejoicing in that.

So, on this special holiday for remembering those who have served us, we can take this weekend to reflect on what it means to serve others. In Mahayana Buddhism, serving others is seen as so important that each of us would give up total and eternal bliss in order to stay present with others and help them become enlightened as well. Would you be willing to give up total bliss to serve others? In our little minds, we often find pleasure at the the expense of others. We feed our egos, we act impulsively, we harm others through our hurtful words or actions. The first step on this enlightened journey is to wake up to this harm we are causing others and commit our intention to do no harm. We can all be the caretakers of our life and the lives of others by being more skillful in our words and actions towards others and towards ourselves. With this passionate intention to serve others, we can be more forgiving and more grateful for the words and actions of others towards us. Once we start to feel the freedom that arises from forgiveness and gratitude, a space is created in our lives for more forgiveness and gratitude to unfold.

With more attention and intention given to a desire to serve others, we start to loosen our grip on the needs of our own ego. In serving others, it becomes less important to obsess about our own concerns and worries. Imagine letting go, even a little, of the continuous soundtrack in our head of what we need to be happy, what we must do, what we must have, what others must do for us, in order for us to be happy. In this moment, we can begin to imagine a life of service, spending more time thinking about how we can be of service to the world, and less time thinking about what we need the world to give us. In Buddhism, we are taught that we already have everything we need to be happy. Abraham Lincoln said, “People are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” So, we can start here, start now. This is NOT about being a doormat and being a slave to others. This is about rising above the little inconsequential day-to-day things we usually focus on, and inspire ourselves to think of how we can embody higher levels of service.

In How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life by the Dalai Lama, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, he points out that, Buddhism, there are two basic types of practices: Sutra (which is about studying and practicing the teachings of other enlightened beings) and Tantra (which is the practice of imagining ourselves as enlightened beings) . For example, in Tantra, we use the power of imagination in a practice called deity yoga. The Dalai Lama describes it in this way. “Imagine:

1. Replacing your mind as it ordinarily appears, full of troubling emotions, with a mind of pure wisdom motivated by compassion

2. Substituting your body as it ordinarily appears (composed of flesh, blood, and bone) with a body fashioned from compassionately motivated wisdom

3. Developing a sense of a pure self that depends on purely appearing mind and body in an ideal environment, fully engaged in helping others. This distinctive practice of Tantra calls for visualizing yourself with a Buddha's body, activities, resources, and surroundings, it is called ‘taking imagination as the spiritual path.’”

At first it might seem uncomfortable. Who am I to imagine being Buddha? Imagine being Jesus? Isn’t it a lie to imagine having qualities that I don’t yet have? Enlightened teachers have answered these questions for us. You inherently are the Buddha—inherently awakened. These practices open us up to the true reality to our beings. At first, it might seem like you’re just making stuff up with imagination. Think of it instead that you are uncovering who you truly are. We all have the potential for great goodness. This visualization practice just uncovers that which is already there.

The Dalai Lama encourages us to purposely imagine ourselves as having a divine body, a divine mind. This is an imagination meditation; you need not be thoroughly convinced from the depths that you actually have pure mind, body, and selfhood. Rather, based in clear imagination of ideal body and mind, you are cultivating the sense of being a deity, compassionately helping others...to engage in Tantra at any level demands a powerful intention to become enlightened for the sake of others.

So, on this Memorial Day, we can take these precious moments to reflect on the wonderful things that others have done for us, and recommit ourselves to being of service to others. Through the power of our imagination, we can awaken to our true being and serve others from that place of selflessness. On this day, we can focus on forgiveness and gratitude, for others and for ourselves. We can have joy for our interconnectedness, joy in the fact that we are not separate. That is what this whole journey is about.

The Problem as Antidote by Janet Taylor

I’ve been reading Joyful Wisdom by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, who is the son of the great Tibetan teacher, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. Mingyur writes very clearly that meditation is about using our minds to end the suffering that our minds are causing us. Within in the problem is the antidote. When people first get interested in meditation, they are often motivated by getting rid of stress, learning to relax, or even making a deeper spiritual connection. Yet, when we first start meditating, it can be a very challenging experience. When first taught to be aware of our thoughts, it may sometimes seem that the thoughts multiply and even speed up, sometimes they seem to build in their tenacity to smother us. We’ve been thinking all this crazy stuff all along, and now it’s worse because we’re so painfully aware of this crazy stuff. So, a critical element of learning to meditate is recognizing that within the very problem, this runaway mind of ours, is the antidote to the suffering caused by the mind. It is about learning to rest with, make friends with, our thoughts. In meditation, we are neither trying to run away from, nor are we trying to run towards our thoughts and emotions. In meditation we are practicing not running anywhere. Just sitting, just making friends with whatever irritating thought we might be having at any moment. And not getting too attached to any thought we deem pleasant either. Just being with all our thoughts in a non-judgmental way.

This awareness with non-judgment is the antidote to our suffering, but I appreciate that is a very challenging task. The Buddhist story that goes along with this teaching is the monk who goes into the cave to meditate and is visited by hungry ghosts, which represent his crazy thoughts. First, he tries to run away from them, but they follow him unceasingly. Then, he become obsessed with them, and the fear inside him grows, which causes the hungry ghosts to grow as well. Finally, he decides to sit down and serve them tea and make friends with them, and then they go away. Such is the practice with our own thoughts.

We can just keep sitting with our thoughts, trying our best not to be afraid of them AND trying not to latch onto to any passing happiness that does arise. Isn't it true? Feelings of happiness can be very seductive. Yes, we are learning to meditate to end our suffering and have lasting happiness, but when happiness spontanesously arises, we are instructed to just sit with that as well. Ever been having a really great time and started wishing that it would never end, that it would just go on and on forever. Then, when the “great time” is over, the holding on to it diminishes the experience of it.

Or when we feel depressed, and recognizing that feeling causes our thoughts to go into overdrive of fear that this bad feeling will last forever. As long as random thoughts are driving our happiness, we will never be happy, at least not for very long.

So, with meditation, we recognize the power of our minds to directly impact our experience of life. Through meditation, we are training that power for good, for sense of deep happiness and deep peace, unentangled from whatever is happening externally.

Think for a moment—what was it that got you interested in meditation? Was it running from something or running towards something? Right now, get that sense of what your initial motivation might have been. Now imagine that you stop running, you stand still, your thoughts still might be racing ahead or behind you or all around, but you just stop chasing them and stop being chased. Imagine sitting down in the middle of all the thoughts you have and making friends.

Our thoughts are not the enemy, our thoughts are just thoughts--fleeting, ephemeral, electrical impulses. If you were to look into your brain, you can see the energy created by thoughts but not the thoughts themselves. These ideas that we can get so hung up on, are only as real as we decide them to be.

Mingyur Rinpoche has terrible anxiety attacks as young monk, and used the power of meditation to just sit with these wild thoughts that he would have. Just sitting, not making up a story, just being with our thoughts can have a deeply transformative impact on how we experience life.

There’s a wonderful book that's available for free on the Internet by Lama Yeshe entitled, Make Your Mind an Ocean. In it, Lama Yeshe describes this incredible happiness that comes from a mind not tied down to its random thoughts. The Mind as an Ocean ebbs and flows with each moment. Imagine your own thoughts rising and falling away without getting stuck in any way. How peaceful that would be…

"Since everything is like an 'apparition,'
Perfect in just being 'What It Is' -- as it is.
Having nothing to do with 'good' or 'bad,'
'acceptance' or 'rejection' --
You might as well just burst out laughing!"
-- Tibetan master Longchenpa, fourteenth century Tibet

Bodhicitta and Bodhisattvas

For Mother’s Day, it seems appropriate to discuss two key concepts in Buddhism called Bodhicitta and Bodhisattva. The word Bodhicitta is a combination of the Sanskrit words meaning "awakening" or "enlightenment” and mind or consciousness. So, Bodhicitta can be translated as "awakening heart/mind" or "mind of enlightenment". For example, at the end of each Sunday service, we dedicate the merit that we have accrued to the benefit of all beings. The merit we are accruing through practicing meditation and mindfulness is the awakening of our mind, or more accurately our heart-mind, the wisdom of our being. And it’s important to note that the compassion is combined with wisdom. It’s not about just giving everything away to others and just doing whatever others want us to do. It’s about having the wisdom to know what truly is the compassionate thing to do.

In the Mahāyanā tradition, which is the school of Buddhismwhich started around the first century, it’s taught that once we awaken to our true nature, just as the Buddha did, compassion and wisdom will prompt us to help all other beings to become enlightened as well. So, Bodhicitta, the awakened heart-mind, is a key component of enlightenment.

There are even two types of bodhicitta identified:

§ Relative bodhicitta, which refers to a perspective in which we work for the good of all beings as if it were for ourselves.

§ Absolute, or ultimate, bodhicitta, which refers to the total freedom from attachments (particularly attachment to the idea of a separate, solid self) and from fixed ideas about the world and how it should be.

So, the term bodhicitta in its most complete sense would combine both:

· the arising of spontaneous and limitless compassion for all sentient beings, and

· the falling away of the attachment to the illusion of an inherently existent self. Once we let go of this attachment to being separate and solid, we recognize the innate interconnectedness of all beings.

That’s a pretty tall order! We might not make it completely in this lifetime but the idea is that we strive for getting as far as we can along the path. And it might be helpful to think of Bodhicitta like being a great mom; Being a great mom to not only your own children but being a great mom to the all beings.

Patrul Rinpoche in his book Words of My Perfect Teacher, talks about the various stages of Bodhicitta, of how we might not immediately experience Absolute Bodhicitta, but we dedicate ourselves to building up compassion and wisdom.The lowest level is the way of the King, who primarily seeks to attain enlightenment first for his own benefit but who recognizes that his well-being depends crucially on that of his kingdom and his subjects. The middle level is the path of the boatman, who ferries his passengers across the river and simultaneously, of course, ferries himself as well. The highest level is that of the shepherd, who makes sure that all his sheep arrive safely ahead of him and places their welfare above his own.

So, within this context of Bodhicitta, A Bodhisattva is anyone who, having experienced enlightenment, the experience of full awakening, who is then motivated by the great compassion that arises from that awakening, to spontaneously wish to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all beings, and then works toward achieving that goal.

In this holistic sense of compassion and wisdom, We can think about not only feeling love for our own mothers and not only for our own children, but also how we can be a mother to ourselves and a mother to all others in our life.

I’ll end with Patrul Rinpoche’s wonderful words about taking a vow of bodhicitta, how cultivating bodhicitta is like imagining that every being was at one time our mother, at another time our child:

“Of all the countless living creatures throughout the vast reaches of the universe, there is not one who has not been my parent in the course of our succession of lives without beginning. I can be certain that, as my parents, they have all looked after me with every possible tenderness, given me the very best of their own food and clothing and nurtured me with all their love, just as my present parents have done.

My old mothers, how could I ever liberate myself alone and leave you all behind here suffering? For the sake of all beings, I shall awaken the sublime bodhicitta. Learning to emulate the mighty deeds of the Bodhisattvas of the past, I shall make whatever efforts are necessary, till there is not one being left suffering.”