The way we interpret the world out there is exactly what Buddha is saying is the basis of our happiness and suffering. This is really shocking, so we have to prove that to ourselves, and it’s across the board, you know?
Actually, the Buddha says that when you’re fully developed spiritually, using this Buddhist approach, what you’ve actually achieved is that you’ve removed from your mind – utterly removed, utterly eradicated – all the neurotic emotions, the disturbing emotions, what they call afflictions.
We all know them: attachment, anger, jealousy, anxiety, fears, hopelessness, despair. We know these are suffering, but the analysis we give in the world for why we have them is because of things out there.
The Buddha’s got a much more direct picture. He says, yes, the world, of course, it plays a role, but those actual disturbing emotions are the main cause.
One characteristic of these emotions is that they’re very disturbing: that’s pretty clear. Check the last time you were anxious or jealous. You don’t say, “Wow, I was anxious yesterday and it was just great!” These emotions are, by definition, disturbing.
But why these emotions are disturbing really takes time to see because we’re totally addicted to them from countless lifetimes of being caught up in them. They’re all the voices of ego, if you like, so they’re very gripping, and we run to them, magnetized by them. But as we start to see our mind, and then go ever more deep, ever more deep, ever more deep, and catch what’s going on in our mind ever more quickly, before it becomes unbearable, we’re going to see that these unhappy emotions are rooted, deep down inside, are impelled by, are underpinned by, very clear conceptual stories that are misconceptions. One of the many terms used for them is “delusion”: that really expresses this quality.
In other words, they are disturbing because they’re misconceptions, distorted conceptual stories, opinions; they’re deluded assessments of the world out there.
It seems very abstract to say it like that. But when we learn to unpack them we’ll see that these conceptual stories of attachment, anger, jealousy, anxiety are the lenses through which we perceive the world when we suffer. And then we can change the stories, these misconceptions: we can use wisdom and virtue to argue with them.
Attachment’s a really good example. When you’re overly emotionally hungry for something, such as the cake or the boyfriend or the new job – which appear to us as so much more delicious than they really are – you are also underestimating your own worth. You think, “I am nothing,” and you feel you’re missing something, so therefore you crave the thing, the person, the job, always assuming that when I get that, then I’ll feel better, then I’ll be more worthy, then I will be happy.
What this delusion, attachment, does, basically, in its bones, is exaggerate – exaggerate the deliciousness of that thing and exaggerate the power of that thing or that person or that event to make me happy. Literally, we’ve got it wrong, Buddha says, but it’s extremely hard to see this because it’s deep down and it’s very instinctive.
And then there’s anger, which is what arises when attachment doesn’t get what it wants. Think about when you were a kid – well, let’s face it, even as an adult! – and you’re freaking out because your sister hurt you: you truly believe the whole world has collapsed: “Mummy, Mummy, Janet was mean to me!” Then my mother would tell me, “Bobsie, darling, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.” Literally, anger exaggerates. Then after a while you calm down and you realize it wasn’t as bad as you thought.
Buddha’s point is that when we start to listen deep down in our bones, we’re going to identify these misconceptions. But this is really quite sophisticated because it’s not the way we think in our culture, you know? We usually just rush out to the external event and focus on that as the problem. It demands a lot of precision, a lot of courage, and a lot of patience with ourselves.
I was just talking to somebody I know – I’ve known her for years, since she was a kid – and she’s got a life, and she’s successful, with children, a good family, all the things she’s wanted, but she’s been having crippling anxiety – panic attacks.
So we were discussing it, and like with most of us, to one degree or another, it’s rooted for her in her feeling that she’s not worthy, that she’s less than she is, and so she looks up in an inappropriate way to people she thinks are amazing. I mean, people can be amazing, and it’s good to look up to people, but if you’re looking up at a person with a feeling of “poor me,” and, “they’re better than me,” and “I want their approval,” that is a painful experience. It feels real, but it’s a total misconception.
She’s experiencing a constant craving to prove herself to this group of professional colleagues, and then enormous anxiety that she’s going to fail. That’s a story the mind tells, but we don’t notice the story, and this is the tragedy. We don’t notice the story because it’s so automatic and we believe it so totally, and then it just drives us and becomes enormously emotional, and it’s only when it becomes emotional and we’re having anxiety attacks that we then notice it.
One of Buddha’s gifts to us, I would say, is the skill to learn to focus the mind every day – three minutes, five minutes, seven minutes. You’re training yourself to watch the breath – there’s nothing fancy about the breath – to pay attention to something, therefore you’re training yourself to not buy into and follow blindly all the emotions. You’re stepping out of the emotions and just watching the breath.
Initially you think you’re getting worse, but you’re not: you’re just noticing them, that’s all. You mightn’t achieve much focus, but the big skill you will achieve is that once you open your eyes and you start dealing with your boyfriend, your husband, the children, the traffic, the boss, and all the world again, you’re gradually developing this ability to have awareness, not only of the boyfriend, the children, the traffic, but also all the thoughts in your mind. That’s the skill we have to learn, and eventually, as we become more and more sophisticated at hearing those thoughts beneath the emotions, that’s when you start to use your wisdom, your virtue to argue with them, deconstruct them – and that’s when changes start to occur.