Robina’s Blog
24 December, 2020
This time of coronavirus and being stuck in our house is forcing us into retreat mode. It’s fantastic! So why do we go crazy? Because we simply don’t know what to do with our mind; we don’t learn it. In our culture we define ourselves as social beings. We think it’s depressing to be on our own!
A bird needs two wings: wisdom and compassion. Compassion, being useful to others, is the point. But as His Holiness the Dalai Lama says, compassion is not enough; we need wisdom.
“Wisdom” sounds very grand, but it’s practical. We all have minds; we all have unhappy emotions, we all have love and kindness and intelligence. The Buddhist view is that we need to learn to become intimately familiar with the contents of our mind so that we can reconfigure all the stories in there. We’re not set in stone. We need to become our own therapists, as Lama Yeshe puts it so beautifully. We ourselves will be the beneficiaries of that. And then we can be useful to others.
The ideal scenario for doing this inner work is on our own. How can I possibly work with my anger in the middle of a fight with my sister? How can I help others if I don’t have a clue what’s going on in my own mind?
Even five minutes morning and night
I always quote this: apparently something like forty percent of all women on the planet who get murdered are killed by the bloke in the same bed. That’s not about feminism. It’s about not being conscious of what’s going on in our own mind. The very nature of the delusions, especially attachment, which underpins anger and the other neurotic emotions, is to look outward, to dump on the other person, to blame. And it’s about never thinking for one second that we need space.
As Buddhists, of course, it’s ideal to take serious retreat time: weeks or months. But if we can’t do that – or even if we can – it’s vital that we take some time every day, morning and night: like bookends to the day. At the very least, read a few little aspirations, do some meditation, say a few mantras.
Or simply start your day with a motivation: “I’m going to do my best today to control my speech.” Speech is huge; it can do so much damage. You know who you’re going to be with that day, don’t you? You know you’re going to be with the kids, the husband, the boss or the person at work you can’t stand. Unless we intend to do something, we won’t do it. As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, “Everything exists on the tip of the wish.”
Environment plays a huge role
I work with people in prison. The very first prisoner I ever met was a young Mexican-American called Arturo, in the mid-1990s. He wrote to Mandala magazine when I was the editor. He said he’d read a book by Lama Yeshe and was moved by the teachings about compassion. Arturo had been in gangs since he was 11, in juvenile prison since he was 12, and then was tried as an adult at the age of 16 and given three life sentences. He was 18 when I met him.
He was brought up on the streets of Los Angeles, where there are hundreds of gangs. That’s all he knew. That was his environment, those were his conditions. He had a good heart, he was intelligent, but when you’re in that environment you’re forced to behave in a certain way. It’s like there’s no choice.
If he’d seen that book of Lama’s while he was on the streets, he would have laughed and thrown it in the toilet. But, suddenly, there he was in the Security Housing Unit – SHU, as they call it – in permanent lockdown twenty-three hours a day, with space and time to reflect. The better part of himself could come to the surface.
Conditions play such a huge role. I can see that with myself. I was brought up in a family of seven kids, all close in age. We were poor, so had to share beds. We were all on top of each other! There was fighting all the time – of course there was! It was chaos. And I was the worst! I was such a bully. We were seven dynamic human beings all struggling for space, struggling to find who we were.
When I was 13 my mother sent me to boarding school. I was so naughty. Her breaking point was when she discovered me prancing up and down the main street – in her lipstick, earrings and high-heels! – trying to seduce the greengrocer’s 16-year-old son!
What do you think happened at boarding school? Suddenly, I had my own bed, I had my own desk. I had discipline and structure. I went to Mass every morning. I studied and I passed exams for the first time. I was in heaven. I became a saint over night!
And what had changed? The same as for Arturo: my external conditions. I finally had the space to discover my mind. I discovered my own potential. It was like a miracle.
So even though the mind is the main thing, conditions play such a powerful role.
One day at a time
So take time every day, like I said. It’s not selfish. It’s intelligent. It’s self-respect, I tell you. You do your purification practice at the end of the day, and then, as Lama Yeshe says, you go to bed with a happy mind.
And you go one day at a time.