15 April, 2024

We can have our cake and eat it too

 

QUESTION

Dear Venerable Robina,

 

Thank you for reading my message and I hope you are keeping very well. 

 

I am struggling with the teaching from Lama Zopa entitled Samsara is Not a Pleasure Park. I understand what he means and I do understand the different types of suffering, and agree that in its nature, samsara is suffering for every being still stuck within it. 

 

But I am struggling because I still want to experience it! The incredible richness of the human experience, all the amazing achievements in music, art, architecture, and beautiful customs of the different people of the world are fascinatingly attractive to me, and I want to go into the world and experience them. To me this feels important because human life is so precious, and while I am alive and healthy, I can experience these wonders of the world. 

 

This seems to be at odds with many teachings which seem to say that my time would be better spent on a meditation cushion in practice or in retreat. In several situations I have even chosen not to continue with important practices because I knew that I did not have the ability to remain dedicated in the long term. Yet, in my core, I do know that practice is so important too. 

 

Can you help me reconcile these two seemingly opposing ideas? 

 

Thank you, with many prayers for your health, long life, and happiness.

 

K

 

ANSWER

Happy to hear from you, K!

 

Your points are perfect!

 

As you well know, there are different levels of teachings for different levels of mind.

 

The first level, entry level, junior school, if you like is Buddha’s teachings on the four noble truths: there is suffering, there are causes, there is the possibility to cease suffering and its causes, and then the methods of how to do it.

 

We need that first!

 

Then we can go to the more advanced teachings of the bodhisattva path where now, having clearly understood suffering, we can learn to be in the world but not tainted by it.

 

That’s what you want, so go for it!

 

But the ability to live life fully, enjoy all the amazing art and music and pleasures, is totally dependent upon our ability to understand and apply the teachings of the first level: that is to say, to enjoy them without attachment. What takes the place of attachment is compassion and wisdom. That’s what brings joy!

 

The key is to understand attachment and how it functions to cause suffering. The problem isn’t all the marvelous things in the world, it’s our attachment to them. When there’s huge attachment, no matter how glorious the art or music, we will only suffer.

 

When we live our life driven by compassion and wisdom, not attachment, we can have our cake and eat it too!

 

These words are easy to say, but to get to this level takes a lot of thinking and meditating. 

 

The methods are all there.

 

Much love,

Robina

 

QUESTION

Venerable,

 

Thank you so much, I understand. 

 

All of my prayers for your health and happiness!

 

K

 

ANSWER

Good!

18 April, 2024

When we understand that our delusions cause us to suffer and then to harm others, then we can have compassion for harmers

 

A bird needs two wings: wisdom and compassion. But proper compassion needs a clear mind. As His Holiness says, “Compassion’s not enough. You need wisdom.” Even more bluntly, Lama Zopa says, “Meaning well is not enough. We need wisdom.” And wisdom is what you get as you work on your own mind: lessening neuroses, lessening your depression, lessening your discontent, lessening your anger, lessening your low self-esteem, growing your goodness, growing your self-confidence, and therefore growing clarity. That's what informs your ability then to see others and to be appropriate with them, know how to help them.

 

So often our trouble, I think, in our culture is that our compassion is fairly sentimental, you know? Usually, it's just for the innocent victims: the little doggy, the child who gets hurt; that’s about it, really. I mean, we’re very limited in our compassion. Someone needs to be an innocent victim in order to receive our compassion. If we see a person punch someone, and then the other person punches them back, we won’t have compassion for either of them. We’ve got to have a person who's a victim and then someone to blame. 

 

But the Buddhist view of compassion is that it encompasses all beings, the victims and the harmers. Why? Because we’re all the victims of our own delusions, our own neuroses. We’re all in the same boat: we're all neurotic; we all suffer from our own rubbish, and we harm others as a result. That’s a really powerful point, and I think this is really the basis for beginning to have compassion for people who are the troublemakers, for the harmers. This is a very difficult point for us, but when we understand it, the logic is clear. 

 

Once we decide to own our anger, our jealousy, our depression, with humility, and realize, “Yes, this is causing me pain, yes, these are my problems” – no need for guilt, just owning them, humbly – the more we can see that this is what is breaking my heart. This is a really powerful step in our practice. 

 

We like to point the finger at somebody who we think caused these states of mind and then try and get ourselves off the hook: “Well, I’m allowed to be this way.” If we stop doing that, then we can begin to recognize what’s causing our misery: the delusions themselves.

 

This doesn't mean that bad things don’t happen; this doesn't mean your boyfriend wasn’t mean to you; this doesn't mean that people aren’t mean to you – that's not being discussed here. This is looking at our own unhappy states of mind, and recognizing – this is the point now – that anything we've ever done to harm anybody, since we were tiny, is coming from these unhappy states of mind.

 

Think about it: when you were a little girl you got angry and hit your sister; you shouted at your mother; you might have taken something that didn't belong to you; you might have said rude words to somebody; you might have killed the ants, killed the fish. Why did we do these things? Because of our own attachment and anger. 

 

It’s very courageous to look at this. We don't, most of us, run around raping and killing too many people; we don't jump on little girls all day; we're not stealing and lying all day, but we’ve all done things to harm others. When we recognize they’ve come from our delusions, our own misery, then we can understand why other people suffer – and why they harm others. If we don't get this, we cannot have empathy for others.

 

So, for instance, what is going on with a person who’s a pedophile? It’s called attachment. You might have attachment to cake, right? Aren’t we fortunate that we’re not born with a tendency to want to jump on little boys all day? Can you imagine the nightmare? Think of the suffering. Look at your own suffering of being attached to food; look at your own suffering of being depressed; look at your own suffering of thinking you're not good enough. Look at the pain of all of that. 

 

Can you imagine the pain of being born with the tendency to want to jump on little girls all day and not knowing why – you have no view of karma. Or jumping on anybody, or having any addiction: you want to watch video games for five hours, or eat all the time. We all have addictions of some kind: it’s called attachment. We’ve all got our own trip; it's simply a question of the object, and a question of degree.

 

If you have the view of karma, then you understand that you brought these tendencies with you, and you're driven by them. Then we can own these tendencies, see how they cause me pain, and then cause me to harm others. 

 

Well, everyone is just like that! Then we can have compassion for them.