Living the Answers
Q: Usually I come home from work in a state of frenzy after a one-hour commute through heavy traffic. I need to find some peace right away. How can I go about it?
A: Demanding peace as a quick fix every time your mind becomes crazy will inevitably bring you disappointment. This is known as tanha, or craving. This sort of craving, the Buddha said, leads straight to suffering because we cannot really control the mind according to our wishes.
What will bring tranquillity to your mind is acceptance of what is—the willingness to be with whatever arises. Whatever is happening, be it frenzy or delight, you learn to accept. Note the characteristics of your mind’s condition. In particular, note its pattern of arising and passing away. Everything that arises in your mind passes away; these conditions are merely visitors.
Occasionally your concentration will develop into a peaceful state of mind. This is probably what you want to happen “right away.” Isn’t this like what electronics companies advertise as “entertainment on demand?” Demanding a certain state of mind sabotages the opportunity for that very thing to happen.
Understanding what factors cause us to fall so far out of balance is important. What drives us crazy? Identify the causal connections so you can solve the problem at its source. You will see that you get into a state of frenzy from running against the world so hard. The wise shift their approach to the world to a way that takes them above the world.
Q: I take one day a week out of my hectic life and practice meditation from 6:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. For the first hours my mind is often restless and busy-minded. Then a transition takes place and things smooth out. By the evening I am much more clear and alert—usually. However, sometimes the restlessness and busy-mindedness carry on the whole day. When this happens, is there something I can do to get a few minutes of that peace of mind that I long for?
A: Don’t long for anything. Just keep investigating the states of your mind. As an impartial, open-minded observer, don’t judge any mind state as better than another. This attitude will promote the peace you are seeking.
When we are looking for something or other, we set ourselves up for the disappointment that comes with not getting what we want. Don’t set yourself up for suffering by coming into your practice with expectations.
Sometimes the mind is wild and nutty, sometimes serene and peaceful. Wisdom is the attitude of accepting things as they are. Wisdom recognizes that all conditions are changing, are apt to be unsatisfactory, and don’t belong to the meditator.
Spending one day a week in practice alone or with spiritual friends is a praiseworthy way to make good use of free time. A feeling of inner development will arise and begin to overlap both ends of your meditation day. That is, before your day of practice, the mind will begin to prepare and purify itself in readiness; afterwards, you will find your Dharma practice carrying over into the workplace. This will encourage you to further strengthen your commitment to your practice.
As you experience these direct benefits, you will begin to make a habit of sitting every day, even if only for five minutes before going to work. As your practice evolves, your meditation day will expand into meditation days, for you will discover how to meditate in the midst of the tensions at work.
What if everyone followed this? What a different world we would soon create.
Q: I am very interested in committing a long period of time to intensive meditation practice. However, I have a high-paying and interesting job aboard an Alaskan cargo ship. If I quit my job in order to practice intensively, they won’t take me back because a lot of people want my job. And if I find that I have had enough meditation practice or that it’s not for me, I will be without a job and with nothing but my savings to support me. How can I deal with this conflict? I feel trapped in this situation.
A: Don’t make a problem out of it. All you need to do is bring more and more awareness into your life on the ship. As you increase your mindfulness, you will gain spiritual insights that will shape the course of your life. This is a lot easier than you think. Right now you have created an either/or dilemma, which only causes suffering and conflict—although it also gives you a great opportunity to examine doubt, indecision, confusion, and fear. You are suffering solely because of your fabricated misperceptions. Examine these. The future will unfold itself.
Q: I can’t seem to find the right place to keep my meditation practice going. There are too many interruptions at home and at the meditation center nearby. I would like to attend retreats but cannot afford to be away for long periods from work. Where can I go?
A: Sometimes the idea comes to leave everything behind and go into a forest to practice. The thought that there are too many disturbances and that you need to be in a different, more suitable environment is a trick of the mind that keeps the meditator in doubt and discontentment. It can be disempowering. Disturbances come from our own heart. Don’t be so easily deceived into thinking that where you are is inappropriate or unsuitable. On the other hand, this is not to say that moving to other places is never useful. It all depends.
An important aspect of proper meditation practice is quelling the perception that things we don’t like are disturbances. Make sure you are able to discriminate between factors that make for an unsuitable formal meditation environment and factors that arise already saturated with aversion.
Most of the forest monks I associate with here in Asia say no place is remote enough to be out of the range of motorcycles and boom-boxes.
Q: I know I could be doing more in my life spiritually and feel guilty that I am not. It’s a dilemma for me.
A: The fact is that you are already doing as much as you are capable of doing well. There is always the possibility of doing more, and that possibility can become tied up with guilt and doubt. Your life is quite busy with responsibilities to your children and husband. If you undertook to do more practice, you would be taking quality time from your existing commitments.
Many of us identify with high-minded ideals about how the world should be or how we should be, and then take them on as our social or spiritual conscience. A voice inside harasses us to do more, to be better, to not be lazy, and the rest, making for a nasty bundle of contrived guilt. This guilt can dishearten us and weaken our resolve to progress in life.
What you should do is what you are obliged to do, but in a better way. Work constantly at improving your relationships with other people and with the things in your life. If you practice restraining your superficial desires and try to do the best you can under all conditions, your life is bound to progress. Work from where you are, from your present level of awareness. Later, new interests will emerge, and you will be prepared to live them through. They too will pass away, and the next things will emerge. And so it goes.
Q: I am a judge in a municipal court. Last week I had to sentence a good man who made only one bad mistake to life in prison. This is the first time I have had to hand down such a severe penalty. The homicide resulted from a series of unfortunate misunderstandings. Frankly, I have been agonizing over this decision since the pretrial hearing.
A: The world and the Dharma are at odds, you see. The world flows in a different direction than the principles of compassion that you cherish in your heart. The world is mostly interested in survival at any cost. There is no end to the injustices that occur every day, no end to the situations that don’t accord with loving kindness.
You have studied Buddhist principles and learned that everyone has to face the karmic consequences of the actions they do with intention. We know that it would be a far better solution for criminals to spend the rest of their lives rectifying their mistakes by serving others than for them to be locked up behind bars. But no one dares to look at this situation with wisdom. If criminals were helped to see the workings of their karma and were given a chance to develop their minds and learn to control their behavior, when they eventually died, they would do so in peace, without anger and bitterness. It is the force of these unskillful feelings that sets up their future births as beings who are even more destructive than before. Casting human beings into high-tech dungeons is a short-sighted and compassionless approach to crime.
What I am saying is right for an ideal world. You, as an appointed judge, however, have a certain duty in the conventional world. You must therefore carry out the will of the state as required. You must honor your duty. At the same time, by remaining faithful to your spiritual path of meditation and developing wisdom, you will also preserve your innate compassion. In this way, you will find many opportunities to help people during your years of service to the state.
Q: I would like to meditate regularly, but I love music. I don’t think they go together—or do they? What about musical meditation tapes? Would they be acceptable?
A: You’re right, they don’t usually go together. In most cases, music doesn’t help create a suitable environment for meditation. Music distracts the mind, drawing it to itself and engaging it there.
Music produced for meditation is designed to soothe the mind. This, too, engages and absorbs one’s consciousness and disables the mind from either investigating or releasing the things it clings to. Meditation music is just music for relaxing; it produces a kind of sleep. This may be useful when the mind is hyperactive or tumbling about in anxiety. But it doesn’t encourage meditation in the true sense: as a skillful means for waking up and seeing the truth of things.
If you pay attention to your emotional cycles, you will notice that music often leads to depression. First we get excited by the music we love. We listen to it with friends and that deepens the experience. We think about it often and search it out to hear it again. The search leads to frustration and disappointment because later experiences can’t replicate the original. Our memory deceives us. The same sounds no longer enchant us, for the music has become familiar. Having been over-stimulated, we search for sensual experiences that make us feel high again. When we can’t find them, or when they don’t carry the same impact for us, the mind sinks into depression. This common cycle, which is hidden behind the search for more and more pleasure, is rarely recognized.
This problem may arise with regard to craving music. However, if you can either take music or leave it, you are following the middle way, and music won’t be a problem for you. You can find the middle way by observing the mind just as it is. Observing it as it is, we don’t want to add anything extra. There is usually enough going on in the mind already! As we become more proficient in observing, we come to understand the nature of happiness and the way to realize peace. All the sages have pointed out the way to the empty mind, the mind that doesn’t cling to anything whatsoever, which is what brings real happiness and peace. This everyone must see and learn for themselves.
If you would like to experiment with a mind that isn’t passionately involved with or clinging to anything, you are invited to practice meditation. Then compare the mind that is absorbed in music with the mind that is coolly dispassionate and decide which you like better.
Q: You have been talking with us for almost two hours now. You keep emphasizing “be present in the now,” “do your work in a cool and present manner,” “be patient,” “be centered,” and the like. This all sounds well and good. But if I worked only when I was centered and cool, I wouldn’t been able to get much done. I see this kind of advice as disempowering for those of us who have to work in the outside world. Maybe monks can do everything in a cool and collected manner, but some of us have responsibilities to look after.
A: I hear what you are saying. You are not seeing how doing things in a proper way is critical to the kinds of results you get from your efforts. This is a subtle point, yet essential if you want to find genuine satisfaction in your work.
It’s not the size or extent of one’s responsibilities that is the issue, but the way one goes about one’s duties. Regardless of whether someone is contracted to oversee the United Nations or has just promised to water a friend’s plants, how you go about your work will determine the results.
Q: Are you saying that things will go better if I do less but do it in a cool manner?
A: That’s what I’m saying. You think that this will cost you customers and money. Yes, it’s possible, but not necessarily so. One thing proper meditation teaches you through inner experience is the value of peace. If you do your duties with a cool, peaceful heart, that peace will deepen. And from that place of peace you will know what needs to be done as you go about your job.
If your emphasis is on speed, efficiency, and productivity, the result will be confusion, regardless of whether you succeed in getting the results you want or not. In fact, if you do succeed and win the prizes, you won’t know what to do there at the top of the heap. Your mind will be spinning so rapidly that you won’t have the balance and sensitivity to appreciate your situation fully. You won’t endeavor to live in moderation and contentment, but rather will be caught up in discontent. In the midst of that confusion will arise more confusion. This is the endless cycling in samsara that the Buddha talked about.
Q: What do you mean when you warn us about overinvolvement in the world?
A: The world I am talking about is the one that engages our habits, instincts, fears, hopes, and all the rest that ensnare human beings. This world is constantly poised to foil our attempts to be free in the moment.
Q: If I don’t desire things, nothing will happen in my life.
A: On the contrary. If you free yourself from compulsive desires for all manner of unskillful and unnecessary things, the space that is left will be filled by contentment. Contentment is a subtle and profound energy. You might think nothing will happen in your life without desire catapulting you onward. In reality, then everything good has room to happen. The contented heart is able to manifest all kinds of amazing things. It isn’t limited to the nagging wants associated with who you think you are. Let contentment and silence happen in your life. Loosen your grip on the few things you crave and discover that the whole world is waiting for you.
Q: I am often quite ill. How in the world can I practice when I don’t feel well?
A: Your practice is looking you right in the face, so to speak. Make use of the limitations and the focus that come with chronic illness as your practice. Is there aversion? What do you want to escape from? What do you want to replace it with? Can you fix things so they stay in place permanently? Who is it who wants things to be other than what they are? Is there value to that strategy? Here is your practice.
Q: Can you recommend a strategy for making good use of my time while waiting in long lines? It’s especially difficult to be patient and accepting when I’m rushing to an important meeting and have to stand in line for a taxi.
A: Patience is a great virtue. It’s wise to make use of the opportunities that present themselves every day to develop this virtue. In these kinds of situations I do two things: First, I think how fortunate I am that the line is not four times as long and that this isn’t the Indian Immigration Office in Calcutta. Secondly, I increase my effort to focus on the meditation object that I work with. Every moment that my mind is with my meditation object, I know that I am doing the very best thing I can do in that moment. In fact, this line is here for my benefit. And then the queue just moves along, I get where I need to be, and everything is fine. I do not buy into exasperation or indignation. Things are as they are.
When the heart is cool, everything works out and time loses its power to make us restless and irritated.
Q: Should I endure a very difficult situation or move on to a new one?
A: Spiritual teachers throughout the ages have advised their students to endure the difficult and to live in an environment suitable for spiritual growth. These two don’t necessarily fit together, do they? In fact, they may be contrary to each other.
Both suggestions are right, but at any given moment only one may be true for you. This ambiguity is because truth is beyond right and wrong. Truth isn’t determined by time, and thus isn’t about consistency either. It manifests differently according to circumstance. Being trans-rational, truth speaks as an inner guidance beyond the rational mind. It is this voice that is trustworthy and takes us beyond our dilemmas.
It is worth emphasizing that patient endurance is a great attribute. For instance, some cold, wintry night when the heater has broken down and the neighbor’s dog is barking endlessly and you are suffering from a blistering headache after a particularly crazy day at work, can you still be calm and tranquil? Suppose the world heaps more on you: a screaming baby, and maybe an allergy that itches like hell. And on top of all this, the next day is your annual evaluation day at work, and you need to be clearheaded and alert. Can you maintain equanimity and be at ease in the midst of all this? If you can, you have tremendous power.
Things happen, but they don’t happen to you. Practicing patience and endurance, you know that all these minor catastrophes, like every unpleasant condition that has ever occurred, will give way and change. This is a wise perspective to maintain in a world of uncertainty.