Into the Heart of Life (9 page)
Read Into the Heart of Life Online
Authors: Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
Tags: #General, #Religion, #Buddhism, #Rituals & Practice, #Tibetan
We take the eight worldly concerns with us everywhere. They are finely woven into the fabric of our minds. We meet them in daily life in our workplace, in our relationships with our friends, and at home with our family. They come with us into Dharma centers, too, very much so. This is what Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche referred to, of course, as spiritual materialism.
Egoism can easily take hold of our spiritual practice. We may study the Dharma, do practices, and go to teachings and retreats, but all can become means to enhance this sense of
I
:
I am a spiritual person; I have read so many Buddhist books; I have met all the best lamas; I have received all the main empowerments; I do important things at my Dharma center; I am special.
It really is up to us to question and honestly look at our mind. One Catholic priest I know said that we are like pieces of rough wood. If we always stroke ourselves with silks and velvet, that’s very nice, but we don’t become smooth. In order to become smooth, you need sandpaper. The so-called difficulties and problems that we meet with in our daily lives are as sandpaper and make us smooth. This is how we learn. This is how we really measure ourselves and grow up.
Underneath, we can see how intolerant we are toward ourselves. Caught by our self-judgments and prejudices, we have this picture of how we should be. But when things don’t fit in, this creates a lot of distress, anxiety, and tension. A lot of desire and aversion, hope and fear.
Instead of being swept up by the eight worldly concerns, we can cultivate our ability to be present and mindful. We can learn to step back and become aware of our thoughts and emotions as they arise, and discern that they are just thoughts and emotions—they are not
me
and
mine.
We can become more open and adaptable. Instead of identifying totally with our hopes and fears, our ideas and thoughts, we can see that they are just empty phenomena which arise for a moment and then disappear.
We can be present. The ability to be present, to step back from our thoughts and see them as just thoughts, and our feelings as just feelings, allows us to become master of our mind instead of its slave. If you truly controlled things as you want, you would be able to say to yourself in the morning, “Okay, today I’m going to be happy, peaceful, well-adjusted, kind and compassionate and loving to everybody.” And so it would be.
The first point in meditation, then, is to recognize that actually our minds are out of control. The Buddha described the average mind as like either a wild monkey or a drunken elephant in rut. If you’ve ever seen monkeys in the wild, you know that they spend their time eating, fighting, and copulating. As for elephants, during the mating season they are completely uncontrollable. And that is like the mind of most people: thinking about food; jumping around all over the place; stomping. This was the Buddha’s assessment—before the advent of television—of the average mind!
The point is that we have a mind, a mind which we take with us everywhere. We can go to the farthest reaches of the world, we can even go to the moon or to Mars, but we can never escape from our mind. Even when we sleep our mind is with us, active through our dreams. Our mind is constantly talking to us. It is our most intimate friend or enemy. Certainly, it is our most constant companion. But even so, generally, it is out of our control completely. And this is tragic.
We spend so much attention on matters of outer comfort and convenience, but even if you live in a palace, if your mind is out of control, you are miserable. You can live in a hovel, but if your mind is at peace, centered, you are happy. When I lived in the cave, I suppose outwardly it must have looked pretty bleak, but I was very happy. It was the happiest time of my life by far.
Once, I went to see my mother when she was living in Knightsbridge and working as the housekeeper for a very wealthy Canadian man. They were living in a very fancy part of London, and Hyde Park was just down the road. So there we were, in this very fancy apartment in the best part of London, with lots of wonderful food. There was everything you could possibly want, even two televisions. But I felt so bored really, and not very at ease in my own heart, which was my problem. And then I thought, “Well, please remember this whenever you think that external material comfort has anything whatever to do with making the mind happy.”
The point is that the state of our mind is where we dwell. And we really need to give much more attention to how we may cultivate a mind which is more peaceful, centered, and equanimous. Equanimous means that no matter what happens, we can cope with it. We don’t have to manipulate everything to our own satisfaction.
At an interreligious conference some years ago, I met a Sufi singer from Turkey. He sang a very beautiful Sufi song about things that can go wrong in life, and the refrain rang out, “What of it?”
We traveled back to the New York airport together as we were both heading elsewhere. He was going back to Turkey. When we got to the airport, though, we discovered that none of his luggage had arrived. But he just grinned and shrugged and said, “What of it?”
And we all laughed! The whole situation was just a fact.
He said: “Oh, this is great. I don’t have to take all that luggage anymore—I am free. I can just go.”
I admired him tremendously because he was indeed taking his words onto the path. And so, when things go wrong, we can also say to ourselves, “What of it?”
People think that the Buddha was pessimistic because he spoke first about the unsatisfactoriness of our ordinary everyday existence. But he didn’t leave it there. He didn’t merely say, “Oh well, life is suffering; bad luck.” He spoke of why it is suffering. Our everyday life is composed of suffering because we grasp. We hold on so tightly and yet everything is impermanent. Ultimately what we hold on to so tightly will change. It is not things which are the problem, it is our grasping mind.
We need to allow for meaning in our lives. That is, we need to get our own mind and life together. In this way, we can benefit the most people as well as ourselves. All the problems that really come in this world, apart from natural disasters, are caused by human beings. We cause endless problems with our out-of-control minds. Wisdom and compassion are desperately needed, and yet they dwell within our own minds. They can’t be bought.
We need challenges in this world. And we have to cultivate qualities which in themselves cannot be cultivated unless we are faced with challenges. Far from being setbacks for our spiritual path, challenges are the spiritual path. We must develop an attitude which is open and which takes everything we meet and uses it. If things go wrong, if people are difficult, we cultivate patience and compassion. If people are in need, we cultivate generosity.
The Buddha said that to practice the Dharma is to be as a fish swimming upstream. Now, swimming upstream is a very lonely journey. You might ask yourself, Is it worth the time and effort to swim upstream when everybody else is going down with the current? But it is those who can swim upstream who reach the source. So if we want to do something meaningful with this lifetime, then the place to start is right where we are. And the only time to start is right now, in this moment. It is the only time we have. The future is just an idea. The past is gone. And the moment is flowing—like this.
The most valuable thing we have in our life is our mind. We can cultivate it. We can learn how to use our mind skillfully. At the moment this very precious jewel called a mind is covered with a thick casing of the mud of the eight worldly concerns, and we have to wash it clean so the jewel can sparkle again. We cannot say, “I don’t have time,” when every single breath we take, if we are conscious, is an expression of our practice.
QuestionsQ: My question is about how to deal with people who make you feel good. I think of my friends, because they make me feel good. They say these nice things about me and that’s all right.
JTP: Well, that is all right, as long as you are happy and you also say nice things back to them and you love them. Ananda, the Buddha’s assistant, once said that he’d been thinking about companionship, and he felt that it was half of the spiritual path. The Buddha said, “No, Ananda, good companionship is the whole of the spiritual path.”
It is important to have good friends. But these good friends should be good friends because they also share good values—it doesn’t mean that we just hang out with people who feed our ego. But if they also have good values, that means they encourage us toward the goodwill in ourselves. Then it is right and proper to appreciate and love them. The point is that the people who are not so nice to us and who pull us down and create problems for us are also worthy of our love and appreciation and goodwill. In this way we should not make so much distinction. Of course, naturally, you are going to like people who like you, and that’s a bonus. But the important thing is to learn how to like people who don’t like you. That’s a practice.
Q: Sometimes people say very flattering things to me about how I am this or that, and it can make me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it really seems over the top! And I’m not quite sure what to do in these sorts of situations. Do you have anything to suggest?
JTP: Well, you look at what they say! And you ask yourself, “Is this true?” Well, I mean I have a lot of people saying incredible things about me, and I look at them and I say to myself, “Well, really, is this true?” As far as I can see it is total rubbish. They know and I know it’s not true. This is their very kind and gracious perception; it is their projection. You don’t have to think that this means you actually have these qualities. If you do, well, that’s very nice. But then you can also remember all the things which they are not mentioning which you have to work on. And likewise with criticism. If people criticize you, you can feel very grateful and look at them and say to yourself, “What they are saying about me, is that true? Have I not noticed that?” If it is true, I am very grateful they pointed this out because it is something I can work on. And if it is not true, then what’s the problem? So either way, praise or blame, we can work on it.
Q: I have a question about something you said before—if we meet somebody, then we always look for praise. There might be occasions when this person doesn’t appear to have goodwill and is harming people.
JTP: I didn’t say you should praise them. I said that you should wish them well. Even if they are really horrible people, you should wish them happiness, and especially, the happiness of realizing their true nature. Genuine happiness. Because if they are connected with their true nature which is naturally happy, then they will change and they won’t be horrible people. Maybe inside they have a lot of pain, even if they don’t acknowledge it. People who are genuinely peaceful and happy and settled within themselves are usually not difficult to other people. And so therefore whoever you meet—you wish them well. It’s not that you say, “Oh yeah, you’re fantastic.” Because maybe that person is not at all fantastic; maybe he or she is awful. But your compassion says, “May you be free from suffering; may you be happy.” Your first feeling is a feeling of goodwill, whoever they are.
There is a story of Dudjom Rinpoche when he was in New York. Dudjom Rinpoche was the head of the Nyingma tradition. He was walking along a street, and somebody came up to him with a gun to mug him. Dudjom Rinpoche just looked straight into his eyes as he smiled at him, and bowed. The guy was so freaked out that he dropped his gun and ran! According to Dudjom Rinpoche’s pure perception, he was just acknowledging the light within that person. Dudjom Rinpoche had no fear. And maybe he really transformed the man’s life, who knows?
The point is that we should take everything that we meet in daily life and use it as the path; there is nothing to discard. We can’t rest thinking only good things are worthy of practice while difficult things are obstacles to practice. Difficult things
are
the practice.
Q: Could you please explain what idiot compassion is?
JTP: This is an expression that comes from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. I think he meant a kind of sentimental compassion. But really, it is very easy to be genuine. Compassion is conjoined with seeing clearly, and the more we see how things really are, the more we realize how messed up almost everybody is. You see the desperation in people’s eyes because we are so locked in our ignorance. Even if somebody looks outwardly very affluent and happy and fine, we realize that they are still so vulnerable because they are acting from their ignorance and their ego-clinging: they are living far below their true potential, as almost everybody is. Acting like a little chicken—not understanding that we are all each truly a phoenix—is so sad.