Cultivating Wise Hope Wishing Understanding Desire

This is a talk given at our weekly Sit Raleigh Meditation Society Tuesday night group. In this discussion the concept of Wise Hope is explained and broken down. The difference between hope and wise hope. How the Buddhist teachings can guide us in gaining clarity of what wise hope is and isn't. How we can cultivate it. There are voices from some of the students towards the end of the track. Please note this talk discusses the Buddha's Five Daily Reflections which includes aging, illness and death. If these topics are triggers for you please consider another talk. Thank you.

Transcript

So according to Cambridge Dictionary,

Hope is to want something to happen or to be true and usually have a good reason to think that it might.

But why is hope is different than hope?

Hope is optimistic.

And that definition talks about maybe having a good reason,

But often we have hope without any good reason.

We want our team to win,

Our candidate to win,

We want to have this outcome for the weather,

On the day we're going to do something that it needs to be sunny.

Wherever it really is,

We want things to go a particular way.

Rarely do we really have influence on the outcome.

And then if it doesn't go our way,

We can get upset,

Hopeless,

Frustrated,

Angry,

All those emotions that we would put on the negative side of things,

The unpleasant side of things.

Living near NC State,

I think how different the reactions are when the teams win or they lose.

And while there is absolutely skill,

Incredible skill and talent in the players,

Whatever sport it is,

There's also lots of chance in those games.

So that wish,

That hope,

Was it really based upon?

So Roshi Joan Halifax is a teacher that I,

She's a Zen teacher from the Zen Center in New Mexico,

Santa Fe.

And she said that wise hope is something deeper and more resilient than simple optimism.

She said,

It's not merely blind optimism,

But it's rather rooted in an understanding of the uncertain nature of life,

Right?

From the Buddhist perspective,

The ground isn't solid.

We think it is.

We would like it to be.

And when we walk outside,

It feels that way.

But there's such things as a ground.

Earthquakes,

The ground changes.

It's seemingly unchanging in our timescale,

Right?

Things look,

You look around,

You drive around town and it seems like the road is here,

The building is there,

The tree is there.

But if you take a look at pictures from 10 years ago,

The skyline is totally different.

And there's major highways that weren't here 20 years ago.

Things change.

And if we have the view that they're unchanging and they're solid and completely reliable in that manner,

When we find out otherwise,

We are really distressed and frustrated in all those unpleasant feelings.

You know,

Just looking at this from the Buddhist perspective,

The Four Noble Truths,

We laid out that there's unpleasant experiences and pain and suffering and discontent,

The first truth,

We call it dukkha.

The second truth,

There's that thirst for things to be a particular way,

Which is the way I want them to be.

And sometimes they align with my desires.

But in the big picture,

Very often they go differently than I wish them to be.

That's just our experience.

If we are really holding tight to wanting something to be a particular way and we don't get our way,

That's where the suffering comes in when things are unpleasant.

And suffering can even be there when we are experiencing pleasant things.

Because things change,

Even in the midst of something really pleasurable or a nice experience,

That will still come to an end at some point,

Like the end of the milkshake,

The end of the concert,

The end of the piece of cake.

They might be very pleasant,

But at some point the plate is empty,

Right?

And if we can't just accept it,

Okay,

That's the piece of cake I'm having,

And I'm just going to enjoy what's there.

I'm not going to be upset when the last bite is on my fork.

But that's really what happens when we're upset about pleasurable things,

About nice things.

When we're willing to accept things as they are,

That's where we can have the experience in the Third Noble Truth of freedom,

Of awakening,

Which means,

Wow,

I can be okay,

Even in the midst of terrible experiences,

Or not getting what I want,

I can still be totally fine.

Because it's going to change anyway,

And it's temporary,

And I'll be okay.

But we have to have an understanding of that.

And that's what he gave us in the Fourth Noble Truth.

He laid out a path.

And the path is not only to give us a way to relate to hope,

And wishing,

And desires,

But for everything.

But I'll tie it to hope.

I don't know,

I'm talking about music,

So.

Let's say your favorite band is coming to town,

And tickets are really hard to get,

And you know that it says on your phone that at eight o'clock in the morning on Tuesday,

That's when you can buy tickets.

So you're given the facts,

You understand.

But you still have a wish that I'm really hoping,

You set your alarm,

You get up on time,

You do all the things.

But if you understand,

Which is the first factor of the Eightfold Path,

There's a possibility that there's 50,

000 other people that want those 3,

000 tickets,

That you might not get them.

That if that's what happens,

That's what happens.

And so you set your intention.

That you're going to get up on time,

And you're going to have everything ready.

Your phone's going to be charged,

Whatever you got to do,

You're going to be as ready as possible.

So if you've done all the things that you can do,

You've taken skillful actions,

Which is the next one.

Action.

And then you have to accept the outcome.

You know,

You fill out the form on your phone,

You hit the button,

Little thing spins a bit,

And then you find out what happened.

You got them or you didn't.

That's it,

Right?

You know,

If we don't look at things through the lens of reality,

And we don't get them,

We might feel really terrible,

Really angry.

This is,

You know,

Life isn't fair.

Why did this happen to me?

Well,

It might have happened to 47,

000 other people,

Literally,

In the same few moments.

And if you're trying to get,

You know,

Some big stars tickets,

I mean,

That's what happens.

You know,

Not only are people in one town trying to get them,

People all over the world are trying to buy those tickets.

They're going to fly in from all the way around the world to go see whoever it is.

So that same thing,

That same experience,

On either side of getting them or not getting them,

Can happen.

But how we meet that moment,

That's really what's important.

Of course,

You want what you want.

We all do.

But if we don't learn how to meet what comes down the pike,

And I'm using really kind of unimportant examples at the moment.

Not that music is unimportant,

It's not.

And not going,

You know,

Not getting to see someone that you really like and wish to see and all that,

That is disappointing,

For sure.

But there are bigger things in the world that are on the continuum of hopelessness,

Hope,

And wise hope.

So currently,

I'm in a program,

It's called GALA,

Global Awareness,

Local Action.

And it's focused mainly on our situation on planet Earth with the environment,

With extinction,

Pollution,

With the change in our climate.

And in this group of a hundred some odd folks meeting for the last five Saturdays,

There are people that have been working on these issues for 40 years,

Maybe 50 years or more.

And there was a point when things seemed to be going the way they wanted them to go,

And they were hopeful.

And then things changed.

They changed politically,

People,

You know,

Countries chose to do things differently.

Corporations,

Countries didn't meet the outcomes they said they were going to,

The goals,

For whatever reason,

It's really not,

It doesn't even matter why.

And so they became hopeless,

Disillusioned,

Depressed,

Angry,

Hateful,

And,

You know,

Not everybody,

But just listening to some of the people really having trouble with,

Now it's like this.

That this is,

Regardless of whether you think it's good or bad,

Now it's like this,

That's just the moment.

It's what we learn when we're on the cushion,

We're paying attention to our breath,

And then we get pulled away by the car horn.

That's just how it is in the moment.

You can decide whether you think it's good or bad,

That's not important.

The important thing is,

That's how it is,

And how do you meet it?

You accept it,

Or do you let your emotions get the better of you?

When we let our emotions get the best of us,

We become unable to behave skillfully,

Or as skillful as we could be when our emotions are basically under control.

When we look at the situation,

And regardless of whether we think it's good or bad,

We say,

Okay,

This is how it is,

Now what?

What's next?

Okay,

I got a flat tire,

Well,

I'm going to fix it.

What does that mean?

I'd better pull over and see what's next.

Yelling and screaming,

You know,

Being angry about it,

Won't fix our tire,

Won't help us get to where we're going.

It's just going to be,

It's going to make an unpleasant situation more unpleasant,

It's a second arrow,

As the Buddha talked about.

So,

When I think of what's really important about wise hope,

In the big picture,

You know,

The Buddha told us that there were five daily reflections to pay attention to.

That we are of the nature to experience aging,

Old age,

Sickness,

And death,

The loss of everyone we care about,

And the loss of all that we care about.

We are subject to our karma,

The cause and effect of all our actions.

We just hope that we won't get sick.

If we hope that we won't age,

We hope that we won't die,

We won't prepare,

We won't take care of ourselves in the right way.

We will be really shocked when things happen,

That we,

Because we've just,

Well,

I wish for it,

I hope those things don't happen.

We all hope those,

You know,

We all hope we don't get sick.

Most of us don't hope we're going to die,

Or the people we care about are going to die,

Of course not.

It doesn't mean that those things,

At some point in the future,

Won't happen.

And so,

If we haven't prepared ourselves to understand that this is simply the truth of our existence.

I saw it at the hospital all the time.

A 95-year-old person dying of old age,

Basically,

And their children or their other loved ones just losing their mind.

How could this happen?

Really,

How could this happen?

That's,

Well,

From the Buddha's perspective,

Because they were born,

That's actually how it happened.

You want to get down to,

You know,

Nuts and bolts of the medical situation,

Hardening of the arteries,

Whatever actual conditions,

But the cause of birth,

I mean,

The cause of death is birth.

Ultimately,

Right?

I know,

I don't know those people's minds,

But I heard that enough,

That they just were not willing.

They just hoped,

Just not looking,

Not paying attention,

Not using wisdom,

Not trying to truly understand the true nature of the way things were.

Then they left suffering.

That doesn't,

That's not to say that if you lose someone and you understand the true nature,

That yes,

We are all the nature to that.

It doesn't mean that you won't grieve,

That you won't be sad,

Even shocked in the moment.

But then instead of just being completely blown away,

You will grieve,

You will be sad,

Which is normal.

This doesn't say that we won't have emotion,

But we will understand how to meet the thing.

We won't be completely knocked off our feet because we didn't think anything like this could ever happen.

It's really just meeting the moment with wisdom.

If you don't think that you're ever going to die,

Well,

Let's say,

For instance,

You don't make a will.

And then you or someone else who hasn't made a will passes and they have left a mess for who's ever left behind.

Or depending where you live,

The state takes everything and their heirs and who's ever left behind gets nothing.

Or it's just a big mess.

Because they were unwilling to look at the truth of our experience.

You know,

The same thing happens when a storm is coming.

Those people in Jamaica and Caribbean,

They got hit really,

Really hard and a bunch of people died.

But had everybody just wished it'll just go around the island or not hit their house or then and just stayed put,

The number would have been just unbelievable if people didn't take shelter and,

You know,

Do all the preparations.

They understood the situation,

Right?

They set an intention,

Whatever that happened to be,

Board up the house,

Put things away,

Get out of Dodge.

And those were their actions.

And some of those people,

You know,

They still lost everything.

They might even have lost their lives.

I don't know.

I mean,

It's impossible for me to know that.

But the point is that it could have been so much worse.

That was one of the strongest storms ever to make land since they've been keeping records.

And you look at the numbers in comparison to some other storms,

Not a lot of people died,

Right?

I mean,

It's still terrible.

Any loss of life is a tragedy.

But there were storms that are lesser that killed more.

Right.

And so they didn't just have this blind hope,

This optimism that,

Oh,

It'll be fine.

I don't,

You know,

I've weathered other storms.

I can weather this and just stay put.

I mean,

That's foolishness.

That's the opposite of wisdom.

And that's rolling the dice.

And just,

That doesn't come from a place of understanding.

It's just hoping that it goes your way.

You know,

I was just thinking how,

How developing wise hope and,

You know,

The other part of it is this understanding that things are uncertain and they often don't go our way.

But if we have set these intentions and understand the situation and take these actions,

With a strong wish that we get what we want,

You know,

That's the goal.

But also not being completely unmoored when we find out that it didn't go away.

And a couple of years ago,

When I was building my house,

I had spent,

I don't know,

Probably almost six months doing the insulation.

It was a grueling,

Just insane job.

And I can tell you more about it another time if you're interested,

But it was crazy.

And before I started it,

Which,

Before I started that part of the job,

I even bought the material,

Which I had had for,

At that point,

Two plus years.

I contacted the building department in writing and in person.

And I said,

Here's what I want to do.

This is not the usual way it's done.

Here's the material.

Here's all the paperwork.

Is this acceptable?

Yes.

So time goes by.

I do all the work.

I finish it,

And I call for the inspection.

And my inspectors retired.

There's a new guy.

And he was supposed to show up the first day,

And he showed up,

And I happened to be in the loo.

So he failed me for,

I was in there for a minute.

And I came out,

And I had the thing on my phone,

And he failed,

And it costs you $175 when you fail.

He was already gone.

Yeah.

So he comes the next day,

And I really tried to be smiley and happy and not hold a grudge at what I thought was unfair treatment.

I didn't bring that up.

And he looked around,

And I had no idea what he was looking at.

And I,

He asked some questions,

And I told him.

I spoke to this man and this,

And he said,

Well,

I wasn't present for those conversations,

So it didn't happen.

And he basically was walking out.

And I tried to salvage the conversation and get some sort of guidance on what was next,

And he wasn't really willing to do anything.

He just left.

Had I not had this practice,

It would have been a really bad outcome that day.

I'm pretty sure of that.

But because I spent enough time on the cushion to be able to drop into my breath and pay attention to my body in the midst of really bad situations,

I didn't say anything unkind or mean or unskillful.

I mean,

My energy was out.

I can tell you that.

And he knew I was upset,

But there was no,

Nothing I did required an apology.

Let's put it that way.

Nothing I did made things worse.

I didn't get what I wanted that day.

And I thought I had done everything that I should have.

And it turned out I actually did.

It didn't matter that day.

It took almost six months and hundreds of phone calls and thousands of dollars for someone to write a piece of paper that says it's all good.

It's actually better than good for us to be able to start working again.

There were times over those months where there were moments of hopelessness,

Moments of real frustration,

Anger.

But then there's that eightfold path again.

There's looking,

What is the truth of this situation?

I mean,

Understand it.

Like right now,

Yeah,

Not good.

One way or another,

Something will change.

Something will change.

It won't be like this forever.

That is the truth,

Right?

And so when those difficult things would arise,

I had tools to work with.

And I got through it.

My wife and I,

We didn't fight about it.

We figured,

We said,

What can we do?

And we took the steps one foot in front of the other.

And these tools,

Both the tools of the eightfold path,

The tools of meditation,

Which are part of that,

I think through that period of time,

When there would just be moments where just anger would arise and there was nothing really to do with the anger.

I know in the past before this practice,

It's easy,

You want to get rid of it,

You put it on someone else.

And who's ever near you gets that negative energy.

But that's not,

It's not nice.

The results aren't good.

And when you're trying to practice a path like this,

There's nowhere in that path that says do that.

It's definitely not suggested.

But what I noticed so many times,

And just thinking about it,

I can feel it,

That I would notice that frustration arise.

I'd see a piece of paper.

I think about something.

I look at my phone and realize that it's three months and the engineer hasn't yet sent the thing.

And he told me he would send it in two days.

And I called him a week ago and I'm trying to be patient.

And I noticed the frustration in the body,

The tightness,

The stomach ache.

And I just closed my eyes for a second.

And I'd take a deep breath and a slow exhale.

Sometimes two.

And I was okay again.

And I didn't yell at my wife.

There's nothing to yell her about.

She didn't do anything.

But I didn't know,

You know,

I didn't want to feel that way.

But I didn't do that.

And she didn't do it to me.

And we got through what seemed an impossible situation,

A hopeless situation by doing this practice.

And by the wise hope part was that we were putting one foot in front of the other.

We were taking whatever action we could and following through and being patient,

Being careful with our speech,

You know,

When we would call up the building department.

We would make sure we wouldn't take out our frustration on them.

That wouldn't help.

You know,

All these,

You know,

This is not a question of what's right and what's wrong.

Because there are times in our lives where we will be treated wrongly in ways that are unacceptable.

And we still have to find a way to meet those things.

Just because you're right.

What is that thing?

Do you want to be right?

Do you want to be happy?

You know,

We don't always get,

We can't control what other people do.

You know,

That's beyond our means.

And that's part of wise understanding.

So when we go into things,

Understanding that sometimes it's going to fall apart,

It's going to go wrong,

And we can still meet it okay,

And we can get through it.

That's where the hope part comes in.

But,

You know,

Like I talked about with those tickets,

Getting through it doesn't always mean it goes our way.

It doesn't mean that in the end,

The outcome is what we wanted.

What it means is in the end,

We can continue on and be okay in here,

Even when it goes completely sideways.

The outcome is the opposite of what we want.

That's freedom.

Equanimity,

Which,

You know,

If you have wise hope,

You can be equanimous,

Is that no matter which way it goes,

You can be okay.

I mean,

I really think that's what the Buddha was talking about.

That awakening.

That we can,

You know,

Be in that little boat in the ocean and just kind of go with the waves.

It goes up a little bit,

Goes down a little bit.

If we want to keep it how we want it,

You know,

You're out in the ocean,

In the waves,

You're going to be really unhappy,

Because sometimes it's going to go up and down.

And but,

You know,

When I think about lots of the experiences with the house,

There were a lot of things like that.

And being able to go up and down with the tide.

You know,

My wife and I,

I think we had two or three arguments in four years and three months of building the house.

Which seems,

I don't even know how that,

You know,

That was it.

But it was,

You know,

This practice that gave me a way to keep my feet planted,

Even when I felt like there was nothing there.

And I just have so much incredible gratitude that this practice exists,

That the Buddha discovered these teachings,

And that the literal millions of people that came before us,

They practiced and they passed it on.

Just like this,

Right?

They sat together,

You know,

Sometimes with thousands of people,

Sometimes with two people,

And they shared these teachings.

They think actually now there might even be more than 2,

600 years.

But whatever it is,

It's a long time.

And today we get to have the benefit still still of these beautiful teachings.

And if we're willing to put them into action in our lives,

We can have the same benefit.

It doesn't take anything special but willingness.

Thank you,

Everybody.