Originally posted on June 20, 2020. Reposted June 19, 2023, after it was read during Monday night prayers.
These days, I spend many hours a day alone in my dharma center. I spend a lot of time
meditating on my cushion and much of that time, I have been reflecting on the suffering
and discontent of my students, friends, family, and all people all around the world. There
is truly so much suffering, and I cry a lot during my meditations when I reflect on this
suffering. When I am not actively meditating, I am connecting with students and family
and friends around the world, through the internet or on the phone, responding to their
needs for spiritual guidance. They all experience various forms of suffering. Because
there are so many people who would like to talk to me, and I cannot talk to them all, I
thought I would write down some advice that I would like to offer them, and anyone else
who is dealing with the problem of suffering.
The first thing that comes to mind, is that it seems many believe that if only they could
completely eliminate suffering, then complete happiness would be theirs, as if they were
two totally separate and independent things. However, both the happiness and suffering
that we experience in our lives are not devoid of cause or condition. They don’t just
happen. Both are the results of a great many causes and conditions. As Buddhists, we
believe that they are the results of our actions in our past lives ( karma ) and that what we
will experience in our next life will be dependent upon the present actions of our body,
speech and mind. It is true that are ways to overcome our physical suffering. As we
change our outer circumstances and employ different means to do so, we have some
ability to alter our level of physical pleasure or discomfort. But, even if one were to
manage to arrange everything in their external environment just the way they want it, it
would still be temporary at best. And even then, while everything seems good, they still
will suffer the anxiety and fear of losing their comfort and trying to keep it together.
As I have recently written, in my composition, Dharma Gong to Wake Us from Ignorance :
Even if I attain physical, outer happiness
It is the suffering of change.
The feeling of mental, inner happiness
Can be unchanging, eternal happiness.
As difficult as it is to transform our physical suffering, it is even more difficult to
transform our mental suffering. A mere change in our external circumstances is not
enough to bring any real improvement to our mental anguish, as you can see from the
example above. That transformation has to come from within us.
That big house, wealth and fame is neither the cause nor the condition to bring about
mental happiness. That can only arise when we transform our own way of thinking.
Therefore, an inner well-being comes about only when we bring a change within us.
Actually, this is quite an amazing and radical discovery, and it is one of the greatest gifts
that the Buddhist teachings or any other religious or phisolophical system has given to
humanity: that there is a limitless source of well-being and contentment, which is not
dependent on pleasurable external stimuli, but arises from within the very nature of
consciousness itself. In the language of modern science, it is a hypothesis, which can
be tested by anyone with the inclination to do so.
In this day and age of immense competition, from a place of discontent, we constantly
look at and compare our own situation to something else or someone else. Thus, greed,
jealousy, and competition results in ongoing mental anguish. This is how we
deliberately push away our own inner happiness. For some, there is a feeling of grave
discontentment that they don’t have the means at present to be happy, and that one
day, when they become rich, will have the means to experience inner happiness. For
others, there is the notion that happiness will come to them when they find a partner,
get married and have a family. They end up finding innumerable ways to achieve
happiness. To attempt every which way to achieve happiness and to believe that it is
only possible in a distant future is, however, a completely wrong approach towards
attaining it.
If the factors for the causes of happiness are mistaken, then one will never be able to bear the result. The real root problem here is one of misidentifying the cause of happiness. In Dharma Gong , I write:
Don’t be like a mother, searching in the West,
for a child she has lost in the East!
Having turned the mind inwards,
don’t seek happiness outside!
So now, what can we do about it? It is only the first step to stop seeking outside for
happiness. The next step is to identify the methods to unveil inner happiness. Here, I
would like to offer a suggestion that came to me while reflecting on this piece. This is a
practical and simple contemplation that anyone can do, with a little bit of discipline and
consistency.
To contemplate happiness in the course of a single day, it is helpful to think of it in the
very moment you find yourself in. For instance, to begin your day, you can relish your
first meal. If you are having it with your family, you can take a few moments and truly
appreciate that time for however long your breakfast is. In essence, you have created
happiness for that duration.
Then after breakfast as you begin to meet people, you can direct your attention toward
appreciating the positive traits in the individuals with you interact. Even when you find
troubling aspects in someone, if you redirect your mind to your own faults before finding
one in the other, and genuinely appreciate the person before you, then in that moment,
you experience happiness. Psychologists say now that perhaps 95% of what we see in
another person is based our own mental projections imputed onto them. Actually, the
great Buddhist saint and philosopher Nagarjuna was saying just about the same thing in
the second century!
As your day progresses, pause to appreciate your lunch, whether at home or at a
restaurant. Even if lunch is unsavory at a restaurant, at that moment if you are able to
think of all the homeless, migrants or refugees, and countless others literally starving to
death, it will, in that instant, help transform your mental disposition, and bring gratitude
and happiness. Arguing or complaining over it, on the other hand, will only cause you
distress. Likewise, after lunch, if you engage mindfully with your body, speech and mind
during dinner, or any activity for the rest of the day, then you are able to establish
happiness within a 24-hour period – a day with inner happiness.
If you go with the whims of the untamed mind, you will never be able to find
contentment, you will never find happiness. There is always cause for self-made
discontentment that must be watched and constantly corrected. Conversely, if you
repeat the above meditations from one day to the next, you will become the cause of
your own happiness. Practice this repeated shifting of perspective away from noticing
flaws or distraction, and towards appreciation, gratitude, and the moment-by-moment
beauty of life. Don’t take my word for it. Try it and see what happens!
Happiness does not drop from the sky or grow from the earth, nor is it something to wait
for in the distant future. Is not something that if once attained, remains forever. On the
contrary, if you experience complete contentment at that very instant with whatever you
have, that is happiness. What destroys happiness is the insatiable mind fueled by
greed. This greed that bleeds into society turns our body, speech and mind towards
toward the causes and conditions of physical and mental suffering. So, if one is able to
reflect daily on the causes and conditions of happiness, then one will be able to bring
happiness and gradually, in days, months and years, will be able to bring this habitual
change and transform one’s whole life.
I would like to return to my earlier example of what can happen to our mind when we
constantly compare our own situation to those who have more. Instead of doing that,
you can do a similar short meditation to the one I have just described. This is a pratice
of shifting ones perspective away from how others are so much better off than you,
toward seeing and comparing what you have to those who are less fortunate: those who
are sick, starving, those affected by natural disasters, and so on. In so doing, you will
notice a gradual sense of contentment with what you already have. At the same time,
where jealousy once caused your mind to be unstable, this new orientation will cause
love and compassion to naturally arise within you.
Again, from Dharma Gong ,
If I have no peace of mind, what is achieved
by collecting and hoarding wealth?
The supreme wealth is contentment.
The supreme happiness is in helping others
In summary, if one wants to find genuine happiness, one has to curb greed, find
contentment and transform one’s own body, speech and mind. Another of the way to
achieve these goals is through meditation.
Meditate daily to challenge one’s sense of self-grasping, attachment and pride. You can
meditate for 5 minutes every single day when you wake up. In particular, meditate on
impermanence. There are two kinds of impermanence – gross and subtle
impermanence. Even if you are unable to meditate on subtle impermanence, begin to
meditate on gross impermanence. For about two minutes, just contemplate that all outer
phenomena are fleeting. We witness impermanence daily, including death, birth,
sickness, the days and nights, the four seasons, the five elements and so on. Then for
the remaining three minutes, contemplate the impermanence of your own existence.
Not others will die. Reflect on your own age, your physical condition, and an estimation
of how long you will live. In this way, reflect for two minutes outwardly then for three
minutes inwardly, every day. We will never be able to eliminate greed – the basis of our
anguish – without pondering death and impermanence for even for a few minutes. Not
knowing if we may even be alive tomorrow, we plan as if we are going to live for a
hundred years. This reflection on impermanence will provide an antidote to your own
self-grasping, which erodes our happiness, especially in these times. Meditate on
impermanence, an antidote for self-grasping .
In the afternoon, when you have time, meditate for about 5 minutes on the futility of
samsara (cyclic existence). Contemplate the true nature of Samsara and understand
the the meaning of ” samsara as an ocean of suffering.” Understand that despite all the
efforts we make to achieve happiness in samsara , there is nothing much to it and that
even while realizing there is suffering, we knowingly, happily and blindly jump into it.
From Dharma Gong:
It is so sad, poor beings like myself!
We want happiness in our minds
yet apply ourselves to actions that cause suffering
and have to experience the painful results.
Then reflect on why we do so, whether there is a way out, and if we can find other
means to escape from this suffering. So contemplate on the futility of samsara and
whether there is truly any purpose to it. Meditate on the futility of this samsara , an
antidote for attachment.
Further, in the evening, contemplate Bodhicitta – generate compassion. Contemplate in
this way: “All sentient beings are exactly like myself – they desire happiness and deplore
suffering. These beings, like myself, all run towards suffering and the causes of
suffering.” Then, generate a deep sense of unbearable compassion as you see these
sentient beings run towards suffering and run away from happiness. Aspire deeply that
they may truly part from all suffering and tread the path of happiness. Irrespective of
your state of mind, make such profound aspirations. By doing so, even if you are
undergoing immense suffering, such thoughts and aspirations will dramatically reduce
your own suffering. Meditate on Bodhicitta , a direct antidote to self-grasping and
pride .
If you need further explanations on meditating and cultivating Bodhicitta , it will be helpful
to refer to other resources. Without making this daily blog too lengthy, this is just a brief
introduction on how to recognize happiness, find contentment and how to meditate.
I, Khenpo Karten Rinpoche, wrote this brief account in June, 2020, during these
challenging times in which many people experience unhappiness, with the hope that it
can benefit some of my dear students. This blog was transcribed by my Dharma sister,
Dechen Bartso, through a series of audio recorded messages and conversations.
