Christmas & Buddhism: The Santa Clause Effect

In this talk, I tackle what I call “The Santa Claus Effect” - the dreaded post- Christmas hangover. I explain that the reason we feel such a letdown is that because so many of us place the cause of our happiness on one singular event. Yet Dharma teaches us that when we look for happiness and fulfillment outside, we will suffer. I cover how we can use Buddhist elephant teachings to avoid that drizzly, gray, letdown feeling.

Transcript

So,

When I was a child,

I had a fairly vivid memory of being in the back of the car on Boxing Day.

And I was lucky enough to grow up in a small town where both sets of my grandparents lived fairly close by,

Which was very,

Very unusual for my age group.

Most people that moved to Vancouver Island,

At the most their parents had moved there and their grandparents were in Nova Scotia or Ontario or England or somewhere.

So I was one of the only one of my friendship group who had both sets of my grandparents in the same town.

And I was also blessed in that they were extraordinarily fun,

Loving,

Patient,

Kind,

Extraordinary people.

They were a giant part of our life growing up and until almost my 30s I was blessed that they all lived to a fairly healthy ripe old age.

So on Boxing Day,

After the big Christmas extravaganza,

We'll get to that in a minute,

We used to drive to one of my grandparents' houses for Boxing Day dinner.

And I remember,

I don't know how old I would have been,

Maybe four,

Five,

Six,

Something like that I'm guessing.

And I remember being in the back of the car and this is pretty normal for us around here,

It was filthy,

Rainy,

Miserable,

Grey,

Depressing sort of day.

And I was in the back of the car driving to the grandparents' house,

Well I wasn't driving,

I was being driven,

You got me.

And I remember looking out at,

Going by some little houses,

Kind of dingy little houses,

Kind of a not very pretty little street and there was Christmas lights on,

It was midday,

11am,

12 noon,

Something like that.

And I remember it looked incredibly depressing,

Incredibly depressing to my little mind and heart.

And the lights were on but it was all over,

You know,

Christmas was over,

The fun,

The build up,

It was yesterday,

Today is just kind of this hangover day.

And I remember getting kind of dark inside and feeling this depressed feeling,

I wouldn't have known what to call it,

Just the bleakness of it's over and there's these lights but we're finished and it's raining and it's kind of miserable and grey and now I have to wait 364 more days for the fun again.

And it kind of,

It played with my mind a little bit,

I was perhaps a little bit too much of a deep thinker as a kid and it affected me quite a bit and I felt really sad and confused and kind of thinking,

In a way,

What's it all about?

What's it all about?

So off we go to the grandparents' place.

Now let's rewind 36 hours from that ride in the car on the rainy miserable day with the sad little Christmas lights was my story.

On Boxing Day,

The day after Christmas,

So let's rewind to Christmas Eve day.

We were a fairly blessed family and childhood in some ways,

So is my mom and my dad,

The three kids,

I'm the middle child,

Who would have guessed that?

And both sets of grandparents,

One aunt,

One uncle who didn't yet have kids so Christmas was a fantastic affair in our family.

Christmas Eve was a lot of fun,

The anticipation,

Santa's coming,

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

To this day,

Love the Christmas stocking more than any other part of Christmas.

And all the hype,

The excitement,

The joy,

It was positive.

We would sometimes go see pageants or do beautiful things.

Back then in the old days,

Quamichin Lake used to freeze over and we lived on Quamichin Lake and you could go skating with your friends and dad would have a bonfire.

It's all pretty magnificent,

But the big hype was Santa and the presents and the food in the family.

But let's get real,

Your little kid is the presents,

It's the wrapped stuff under the tree.

So Christmas Eve,

We'd be all wound up on sugar and one Christmas Eve was my mom's least favorite because we were setting out carrots for the reindeer as one does and cookies present as one does and my dad said to my mom,

Who was the mother of three children,

Approximately one year old,

Five year old and nine year old on Christmas Eve doing a whole turkey dinner the next day for the entire extended family and around 7 p.

M.

When her kids are just about to go to bed and we're going,

Mom,

Where's some cookies for Santa Claus?

Dad chips in.

Well,

You know you guys,

What Santa Claus really likes,

The Naima bar and beer.

Now for the uninitiated,

The Naima bar is the world's best sweet treat,

But it's not the sort of thing you have sitting around in your pantry.

So guess who had to make the Naima bar is my mom through gritted teeth,

Probably with visions of divorced sugar plums dancing in her head.

She did it though,

Trooper mom,

She pulled off the Naima bar on Christmas Eve and put it out with a beer for Santa.

To this day,

I think he's got some pretty strange eating habits.

So we go to bed and in our house,

Like a lot of your houses,

Some of your houses,

We were allowed when we woke up in the morning be that 4 a.

M.

,

4.

30 a.

M.

,

5 a.

M.

,

Whatever hyperactive little kid,

Santa's come,

Oh my goodness,

Clinging,

Clinging,

Clinging,

Clinging,

Clinging state one was in.

We were allowed when we got up to go get our stockings and bring them into mom and dad's bedroom,

Which was really cool.

We didn't have to wait.

No delayed gratification in the Fraser household.

That probably says a lot about me too.

And we were allowed to go into the mom and dad's bed and they'd be like,

Hi,

Good morning,

Oh,

She's put the coffee on and we were able to open our stockings and our stockings were pretty cool.

They weren't just,

You know,

Nuts and oranges.

Those are lovely,

But we got like cool little gifts,

Crafty parents that give you some cool little gift that you had to build or do something with that would keep you busy for a while.

And it was just spectacularly,

Excitingly,

Wonderfully,

Super duper fun.

Then we were allowed to unwrap one gift because around 10 a.

M.

The grandparents,

The aunt,

The uncle arrived and that's when we opened all the gifts as a family and dad was smart.

He'd pick a gift again that would keep us busy,

Keep us active,

Keep,

Keep us engaged from say 7 a.

M.

Till 10 really an amazing day.

And our tree was,

There was a lot of gifts.

It was a little cray cray.

And then the grandparents would come in and they'd be carrying more gifts and it was amazing.

It was,

It was an extraordinarily fun,

Fun,

Fun event and they were thoughtful gifts.

There were things that we wanted or didn't know we wanted but matched our interests.

It was really a spectacular day.

And then the food and the turkey hangover and then watching the movies or whatever one did and it was a really,

Really super fun day.

And by the end of the day everybody was wrung out and tired and pretty filled up,

Pretty filled up.

And then the next day,

Right,

This little kid and it's all over.

It's all finished.

All that anticipation for weeks.

Ever been in school getting towards the end of the December term and Christmas is coming and you've maybe got a week or 10 days and it's just the anticipation,

The anticipation,

The looking forward to what's going to be.

And then here it is and maybe it even meets your expectations.

Ours usually did.

It was fantastic.

But then what?

Then it's gone.

Then it's gone.

And then comes the letdown.

Then comes the depression.

Then comes the search for the next shiny object.

The search for the next Santa.

The search for the next gift.

The search for the next cool thing to look forward to.

So years ago when I was conceptualizing writing a book about certain topics,

I was going to call it the Santa Claus effect.

So this Dharma talk is the Santa Claus effect.

This cycle that is laid out so well by the Buddha of clinging and wanting and grasping and looking to the future for something that will make us happy.

And then maybe we get it.

We sometimes don't.

Sometimes we do.

But when we get it,

It can make us happy for a while for sure.

Everything from a candy cane if you want a little bit of sugar to a love affair if you want a whole lot of sugar can keep us happy for a while.

But then Boxing Day comes.

Then comes the letdown.

Then comes the day after,

The week after,

The year after,

The multiple years after where the thing we so longed for,

Looked forward to,

And at least subconsciously believed would keep us happy ever after,

Didn't.

Now consciously most of us when we're older than four or five or so,

We're aware that no thing,

No person,

No job,

No anything really.

We pretty much understand and I think we pretty much accept that nothing's going to keep us happy ever after.

And yet so much of our behavior belies the fact that we understand it won't keep us happy ever after.

We're still searching and looking and hanging on for the next big or small thing.

It plays out in meditation retreat,

Right?

If you really like yoga more than you like sitting meditation,

You're kind of looking forward to yoga at four o'clock.

That's neither good nor bad except it can cause a bit of suffering.

What if you came in and you had to go home and there was no yoga because nobody in the world could possibly teach yoga except Neil.

So if Neil's out here,

He's like,

No yoga.

It's like five other yoga teachers in the room,

But that's not the point.

Or you were looking forward to the Dharma talk.

Actually I did this once at the 10 day.

Some of you may have been there for a number of reasons on about day six of 10 and that was one of those pretty tough retreats in that people were meditating really hard,

Meditating a lot,

A lot more than we are here.

I had them doing a lot more sits,

Longer sits,

Very much more strict,

Not in a negative way,

But in terms of the form,

In terms of the format.

And so a lot of people look forward to the Dharma talk as a chance to relax their bodies a little bit,

Not being as precise of a posture,

A chance to relax their minds a little bit when they'd been really,

Really focusing concentration practice,

Tightening,

Tightening,

Tightening the chance to relax the mind a bit and receive,

Receive a talk.

You know,

The Dharma talk was the highlight of the day for some people.

And then on day six in the morning I announced there would not be a Dharma talk.

Holy hell,

It's a good thing they didn't have darts on them.

There was a general rumble of discontent from the crowd.

Most of it was silent because you're all very well behaved,

But it was like people were pissed.

People were not happy that I took away something to look forward to.

I think the idea was even if it's a really mediocre talk,

It's better than meditating.

It's better than another 45 minutes with a screaming back and a neckache and a trembling body and a mind is like,

No,

Don't make us focus on one more effing breath.

So yeah,

But it was good.

I did it partly deliberately.

I did.

I'm a tricky little monkey because then people got to look at,

I had an expectation that there'd be a talk and now there isn't.

Boxing Day hangover,

The Santa Claus effect.

If you think of the cycle of our human existence as laid out by the Buddha,

But the dude,

Buddha didn't invent anything.

Did he?

He observed the truth of our experience as humans and he put terms to it that made something very clear that we'd all experienced way before we heard the four noble truths we've experienced.

I'm a little kid in the backseat driving to granny and granddad's for another sumptuous meal and yummy apple pie made with granny's grabbing stein apples from her orchard and all the good things.

And I'm depressed because Santa's not coming again till next year because the fun,

The excitement,

The hype is over.

Now what?

What's the next object to make little kid Cheryl feel excited?

What's the next thing for little kid Cheryl to look forward to?

What's the next thing that makes it feel like it's all worthwhile?

The cycle of grasping and wanting and at least subconsciously believing there's an answer,

Even the Dharma and answer that will take care of it all.

Has it taken care of it all?

In my own limited life experience so far,

The Dharma is supportive.

The Dharma is helpful.

The Dharma has helped me negotiate some losses with less suffering and more grace.

Not all of them.

The Dharma has helped me deal with some changes of fortune with less angst and pain,

But I have all sorts of angst and pain and moods and troubles and anxieties.

I'm not all fixed yet by any means.

So even the Dharma can feel like the answer.

Now there's something that's going to make me happy ever after.

It's a real and I risk myself because this is being live streamed.

I normally wouldn't say this on a more public talk,

But I'm going to.

One of the difficulties with the modern mindfulness movement is that meditation and even to some degree Dharma is offered as a happiness fix.

It's offered as a happiness prescription,

As a happiness pill.

Practice mindfulness so you'll be happy.

Practice mindfulness and you'll have less stress.

Practice mindfulness and you'll feel better.

Practice mindfulness and your blood pressure will come down.

Now some of those effects are related to the practice of a mindful meditation practice or another quieting practice,

But we're so hardwired,

At least in North America,

To search.

I mean it's in the US Constitution,

Isn't it?

The pursuit of happiness.

Is your inalienable right as an American?

Apparently not as a Canadian.

It's not in our thing.

But for their thing,

It's life,

Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Dukkha is written in their constitution and I'm not being a smartass.

The pursuit of happiness is Dukkha.

It's waiting for Santa,

Looking for Santa,

Wanting Santa.

The pursuit.

The pursuit.

I don't want to pursue happiness for the rest of my life,

Do you?

I just like to let go and be happy.

I'd like to let go and sometimes feel the sadness of loss and be okay.

I'd like to not pursue anything,

Thank you very much.

I'd like not to pursue the hope,

The distance,

The clinging,

The thing in the future,

The answer.

Let's rewrite an internal constitution that says let go and allow the natural happiness to arise,

Not my quote.

That might be Thich Nhat Hanh as well.

I'd have to look it up.

Let go and the natural happiness can arise by not pursuing anything,

By just doing what we've been working with a bit,

This retreat,

Which is attempting to let go,

Attempting to clear,

Attempting to source the happiness that's inside,

The wellbeing that's already present and it sure doesn't feel like that.

When I'm anxious,

Angry,

Feeling sorry for myself,

When I'm in drama or trauma or difficulty,

When I'm angry at my spouse who didn't make me happy ever after either.

You're fired wherever you are back there because that's the next Santa Claus,

Right?

I'm 12-ish,

Give or take.

The next Santa Claus is called Sean Cassidy,

Pop superstar,

Do-ra-n-ra,

The world's sexiest hardy boy.

If you were a Parker Stevenson fan,

You're really deluded.

Clearly,

Sean Cassidy was the sexiest one.

Madly,

Madly,

Madly in love.

I spent countless,

Very sweaty hours thinking about Sean Cassidy in the way I think maybe only an adolescent,

Pre-adolescent can do,

Male,

Female,

Gay or straight.

The amount of absolute adoration of a pop star,

A TV star,

Whomever.

I'm not saying that's bad or good either,

But it's the next Santa Claus.

It's the next thing that can deliver us from ourself.

It's the next thing that can bring us happy ever after.

That's the phrase.

I'm fond of saying,

Some of you that are familiar with my couples work,

I say quite a bit,

We should all create a class action suit against Walt Disney for the whole happily ever after myth.

What an unrealistic expectation that is.

You got to figure about eight,

Nine months later,

Cinderella and Prince Charming are in my office looking for divorce therapy.

Happy ever after doesn't work.

The ups and downs of the journey of an extraordinary,

Ridiculous adventure of attempting to walk side by side ish with another human being and something committed.

Great,

But it's sure not going to bring happy ever after.

You got to wait 365 more days to feel good again.

So this is the way our psyches tend to work in a subtle and in a very gross,

Non-subtle way,

Is looking for something,

Someone,

Some event,

Some idea,

Some accolade,

Some moment of grace,

Some good feeling in our body,

Something delicious to eat,

Coconut ice cream out of the blue.

Say what?

Richard brought up the food tonight and I noticed,

I didn't say anything,

But I noticed there was no dessert on my plate and I thought,

Oh,

Too bad.

Little moment of awe,

Too bad.

Then he went to take the plates down and scraped them and there was magic ice cream that showed up.

Then he came up and then my little heart just went,

Yay,

Goodness,

Your mood can go up and down based on the presence or absence of dessert.

You clearly shouldn't be at the front of the room.

But we look,

We seek,

We desire.

It's not your fault.

You're not foolish.

You're not masochist most of the time and you're certainly not fans of being unhappy.

But think of it.

Here we are in this beautiful time of year where probably not a lot of us in this room.

I know there's those of you in this room with small children who very deliberately have a less,

Shall we say,

Craftily commercialized Christmas.

You do things more of meaning,

More homemade,

More special,

Definitely some gifts and some special surprises.

I think every child and adult,

I still get one,

Should get a Christmas stocking filled with neat surprises.

But you certainly can celebrate the joy of giving,

The joy of Donna,

Generosity,

Giving and receiving the joy of finding something special for someone that lights them up.

That's all beautiful.

Don't misread this at all.

But if we can't be as happy the day after when we're in the car and it's raining and the lights that were so dazzling and filled with hope and filled with what was coming and filled with the excitement now seem at least to my little mind back then as bleak and sad and lonely and it's all over as a letdown,

Then we're in the constant cycle of some sara of worldly life of craving,

Wanting,

Getting,

Maybe enjoying,

Maybe not.

Sometimes we get things and they're a disappointment,

But let's say we get them and all they were,

They fulfilled my expectations.

That was really cool.

And now what?

And then we're in the realm of always seeking,

Always looking outside of ourselves for something and sometimes inside of ourselves,

Sometimes through good psychotherapy,

Personal growth,

Artistic pursuits,

Creative pursuits,

Travel experiences.

These can be very positive,

But if we're an experienced junkie,

It's the same loop as being a heroin junkie or buying stuff with our money junkie.

It's needing the hit.

It's needing the object.

This cycle,

The Santa Claus effect,

Trademark of waiting,

Wanting,

Anticipating this will bring me the happiness.

This jolly fellow in his red jacket and his flying reindeer will bring me the happiness and I'll feel good for a bit.

I'll feel good for a bit.

This interesting person who I might want to kiss one day,

I feel good for a bit.

I feel good for a bit.

Maybe even this meditation retreat where my elephant is with other elephants and feels a bit of resonance and feels a bit of hope,

I'll feel good for a bit.

Don't get me wrong.

I want you all to feel good a bit,

A lot,

And a lot more often,

But I'd like to also help encourage a continuum of bits,

A continuum of something much more reliable than Santa Claus or Sean Cassidy or coconut ice cream.

Something a lot more reliable because no one and nothing can take it away.

No one and nothing can bring it because it's already there.

That Wellsprings,

One form I talked about it,

I think today,

The depth.

I sometimes say the elephant.

I haven't talked much about the elephant on this retreat.

There's a stuffed elephant.

Hello people out there.

That represents an analogy of the part inside us,

The depth inside us that already has it all figured out.

The elephants are awakened to self.

You could say you're enlightened to self.

It's not really yourself.

It's an awakening.

It's that Wellspring.

It's the knowledge.

It's the,

It's already fine.

Absolutely fine.

Doesn't need nothing.

She can just be,

Can just be happy when the storm is raging of loss and old age and death or when it's calm and shining and the day seems perfect and the possibilities seem limitless.

Either way,

The elephant is okay.

So sometimes we talk about it to,

For those of that haven't heard it put this way,

Most of you have.

We talk about the elephant as being our essential Buddha nature or awake nature.

And then there's our monkey and that's often what we are relating to the monkey who's not bad.

The monkey is adorable.

Your monkeys just cracked me up.

Believe me.

A mind that doesn't crack me up so much.

It's pretty mean,

But the monkey is more our ego self,

Our personality self,

Not entirely.

This is broad strokes right now.

And it's what Cheryl thinks about what Cheryl's going to do and what Cheryl thinks is important.

Some of it's wholesome.

Sometimes the monkey's right on target.

It's just on the elephant's back.

It's got it figured out.

It's in alignment.

Other times it's a little off base.

Other times it's crazy.

It's telling you that you're never ever going to be happy again.

It's telling you that no matter what you do,

You're never going to be good enough.

It's telling you that it's okay to stay in these toxic friendships with people that criticize you,

But a little you and shake your faith in what really matters to you.

Sometimes the monkey's a big liar.

Doesn't mean to be.

We were talking about that a little bit in some of the interviews today.

You know,

Don't hate your monkey.

Don't kick your monkey,

But don't fall for all this nonsense either.

It's like this,

You know,

Tricky little trickster that's trying to be happy and it's kind of bought into the Santa Claus idea.

Let's just get this.

We'll be good.

Trust me.

There's a whole banana shipment coming soon.

Let's bust in there or whatever its chaotic ideas are because imagine,

I mean,

If a monkey literally bust into an entire shipment of bananas,

It ain't too long until that monkey's going to be sick.

Sick from the very thing we thought would bring happiness because we overindulged in it and we thought it was the only answer.

So,

Think about that in the most simple terms.

What are some of the things that these days do a little thought experiment these days,

Big,

Medium or small that you are desiring that you would like to be different?

Perhaps you'd like a significant person in your life in a romantic way.

That's a beautiful aspiration.

If you can hold it lightly as an aspiration and open yourself up to it and start talking to interesting people,

It may be a path to follow.

It can be a beautiful way to assist with your awakening.

I've quoted this before,

But Joseph Goldstein,

Who's an American Buddhist teacher,

He says,

If you think you're enlightened,

Go spend a week with your family.

I like to up the ante.

If you think you're enlightened,

Get in a romantic relationship because if you want your clinging and your dukas and your stories to come up,

They tend to be intensified when the stakes are emotionally higher.

That's not a bad thing.

My teacher told me once,

Cheryl,

Relationship can be a very important part of the spiritual path.

I said,

Yeah,

Yeah,

No,

I'm good single,

Thank you.

Then a month later,

I met that dude in the back of the room,

So I blame llama Mark.

Wasn't looking,

Was all good,

No thanks.

My mind states,

I said this to the llama,

My mind states are much more calm when I'm not in a romantic relationship and I was right.

The good old days of calmer mind states,

But what an incredible unfolding to have a worthy companion at times,

Different companions at different times in our life and our path where we can see some of our stuff reflected or we can maybe hold each other through the dark times and gently lovingly kick each other's butts during the times when there's room to grow and all the things.

Relationships not bad,

Presence under the tree aren't bad.

Believing in Santa's a little dangerous if you're older than X amount of years old.

I don't want you believing in the illusion that someone,

Something including the perfect lover is going to fly in on the reindeer and make you happy ever after,

But enjoying bounty,

Enjoying,

Enjoying,

Receiving someone chooses something like this.

This was a gift that just speaks to your heart and it means a lot to you.

Beautiful,

Beautiful.

I'm not down on enjoying the present moment of presence.

See what I did there?

The presence is really good.

None of those things are bad or harmful or Dukkha except that we tend to rely on them to make us happy.

Couldn't it be great to be happy for no reason?

That's really the goal.

Happy for no reason means when I'm in the darkness of the storm,

When things in my life are deeply chaotically painful,

There's a lot of really challenging stuff.

I'm still okay.

It's that idea I've referred to and you've noted or heard plenty of other places like right now we've had pretty tumultuous weather in our short time here from pounding rain much harder than we're used to.

Today it was sleeting for a while.

It was almost snow.

Then it was sunny.

Then it was calm.

I'm up there so I can see the lake.

The lake was calm,

Barely a ripple.

I look out a few minutes later,

I was reading or preparing something and the trees are whipping back and forth and there's all sorts of turbulence.

But were we to get on a diving suit and go down,

I don't know how deep that lake is,

It might be shallow,

Let's pretend it's deep,

And go down deep into that lake,

It would be pretty unperturbed down low,

Even if it was lashing about around the top,

Maybe a gentle swell,

Maybe nothing at all.

That is the nature of mind.

Believe it or not,

Take it under advisement for now and explore it.

But sometimes you're going to experience it in little moments of grace,

With or without meditation,

With or without having ever heard any of these teachings.

There's times in your life where things are pretty turbulent and you take a breath and maybe something catches your eye that's interesting or pretty,

A beautiful little bird or the sun breaks through and it's just beautiful,

It illuminates a shaft of light,

And you forget to be unhappy for a moment,

For an instant.

You stop and you're in communion with that moment of grace or beauty or peacefulness and you feel fine.

And then something really troubling happens,

Is we remember we're not fine.

I was sharing with one of the groups today,

It's such a common experience and I like to use these common experiences that we can all relate to,

When you're going through a tough period in your life,

Maybe there's been a death or a diagnosis or a breakup or you've been fired or you've been told you have to move and you don't know where you're going to live.

There's a few seconds,

Maybe even a moment or two after you wake up in the morning where you don't yet remember,

Right?

You don't yet remember that so-and-so has passed away or you don't yet remember that your partner has walked out or you don't yet remember that the doctor says the tumor is cancerous.

There's just a few seconds or even a couple of minutes of grace and then you remember and then,

Right,

The dukkha,

The pain,

The suffering.

That's a really important thing to study for yourself.

It's a really important thing to think about.

I'm okay until I remember I'm not,

Right?

I'm okay till I remember things aren't the way I want them to be and I'm not being facetious.

If we've lost someone through death,

Oh my lord,

I don't want to minimize that by using the phrase they're not the way I want them to be except in terms of our dukkha,

Our suffering.

That's actually what it is.

Things aren't the way we want them to be.

Old age sickness and death are never the way we want things to be and yet nobody here is going to get out alive.

So these things are of course going to visit each and every one of our lives for,

I would hypothesize everybody in this room from the young to the slightly less young amongst us has experienced death.

Friends,

Loved ones,

Families,

Pets at the very least because they don't have very long life spans,

Those little fur buddies,

Do they?

So we understand this.

All of you understand this.

It's not actually particularly complicated but it's so hard most of the time to live by,

Isn't it?

Except when we get out of the way and that's why I again I'm going to refer to those few moments or seconds after you wake up and you don't yet remember the loss,

The difficulty and you're okay.

That is a critically important thing for you all to ponder.

I'm okay in this moment.

Again,

Today I've been calling that a moment of grace.

Namjoon Rinpoche used to say that was white Tara.

She easily lays back into grace.

She rests in grace and I didn't for years understand what he meant.

He gave me a very specific teaching on that because I was rebelling against white Tara at the time and he said what you don't yet understand is that white Tara just rests in grace.

I took it literally like she was a graceful feminine form which is how she's depicted but I believe he didn't mean that although that's fine.

He meant she's unperturbed.

She's happy for no reason.

She's at peace.

She's at grace unruffled,

Boundlessly able to give,

Not in Dukkha.

That's a wonderful aspiration for all of us and each and every one of us is capable of it.

Every one of us already does it sometimes.

In the middle of your worst day,

Something catches your attention and the clinging to the story,

The pain,

The loss,

The fear,

The anxiety drops away and you're okay.

You're in grace.

You're resting in grace.

That's a little bit what I'm pointing to when I talk about being happy for no reason.

So in the Santa Claus analogy,

I mean an apt analogy in mid-December,

Waiting for something we are looking forward to can be very wholesome.

Enjoying the heck out of the thing when we reach it without expectation,

I'm going to come back to that,

Is very wholesome.

Then letting it go,

Oh there's those two words again,

Letting go.

Letting it go with grace when it comes to an end is wholesome.

These days I still get a Christmas stocking and it's usually pretty marvelous and it's a lot of fun and I open it on Christmas morning and I laugh and my heart is touched and we laugh and it's really lovely,

But I'm not depressed on Boxing Day anymore.

You know,

I'm not,

Oh well that was,

That was fun and now we're back to the non-stocking days.

I get depressed or upset or devastated or knocked sideways by all sorts of things,

But not so much December 26th anymore.

So our work,

Should we be brave enough to undertake it,

Which each and every one of you is,

Is to examine how much it hurts when we cling.

And noble truth,

Cause of all our suffering,

Clinging,

One word clinging,

Tanha.

Examine it,

Look for yourself,

Thought experiment,

Bring up something that you want right now.

I started to talk about this a little earlier,

Bring up something that you want or you would like.

I started to talk about maybe you want a partner in your life,

Maybe you want to buy your own home finally,

Not be subject to the whims of landlords.

Maybe you want to go back to school and train in something you've always wanted to learn.

Maybe you want a pair of shiny red rubber boots to splash through puddles.

Maybe you want a kitty cat.

What I'd like you to want,

If you're going to crave,

If you're going to want,

If you're going to cling,

We all will,

Cling to something with the possibility of deliverance.

So cling to wanting to understand your mind more.

Cling to wanting to learn how to not cling.

Cling to a peacefulness and compassion and developing more of it.

There's nothing wrong with things.

Some of you have been to Lama Mark's home.

I've been to some of his other homes.

It was at Namjur Rinpoche's home in Kinmount,

Ontario back in the day.

And particularly Namjur Rinpoche had so many beautiful things in his home.

He had,

What do you call them,

Chests of,

Not chests of drawers like a wardrobe,

But chests in his living room with little drawers and little openings.

And now and then he'd say,

You know,

Terry,

Bring out the silks.

We call it the silks.

Terry would go and open up a cabinet and there'd be these four,

Five,

Ten,

Fifteen incredibly decorated or designed or hand painted silks that had collected stall after stall,

Purveyor after purveyor in India,

Let's say,

Where they'd gone and spent days just looking for beauty,

Looking for grace,

Looking for artistry,

Which in its own beauty and its offering and its precision represents to some degree a quality of mind,

A quality of mind that can focus and create something beautiful to give away.

And then he'd have gemstones,

But bring out the gemstones,

The gemstones and they bring out stones he collected from all over the world and you'd look at jade and you'd look at diamonds,

You'd look at all sorts of things I'd never seen before.

I don't know much about stones and you'd see the nuance and you'd learn about that.

Well,

Why?

That doesn't sound like meditation.

It is.

It's training the mind.

It's training the mind to appreciate beauty,

Noticing the quality of mind when we're around beauty,

Training the mind to see that artistry and attention and focus can create wonders.

There's so many ways to awaken your mind.

That's why we're not just doing sitting,

Walking,

Which other retreats we will do because most of us need more ballast in that,

More training in that,

But also,

You know,

Throw a stone in the lake.

Go look at beautiful things.

Walk the labyrinth.

Enjoy the coconut ice cream because it's a bit hard work being human.

Anybody notice that?

And sometimes just a bit of coconut ice cream can cheer you up and give you a little bit of energy to keep going.

So can a hug.

So can a kind word.

So can seeing a beautiful piece of art,

Looking at the hearts on the wall,

The tree on the wall,

Just there they are.

There's almost no adornment anymore in this room.

We've got this tapestry weaving that's been there I think every time I've been there,

But I don't remember those being there last time.

We've got hearts and trees and vines and I've looked at them sometimes and they've just given me a little,

Hmm,

A moment of grace,

A little moment of beauty.

So think in my life,

This is a different answer for each of us,

In my life what are some of the things,

Even if I wasn't identifying it this way until now,

What are some of the things in my life I am craving,

I am wanting?

And think of a few.

And it's okay,

Please don't beat yourself with a stick over it.

Just notice,

Oh I'm craving this,

I'm craving my roommate to be different than they are and to be less annoying.

I'm craving,

I'd like to be a little bit warmer right now,

A little bit cooler right now.

Sometimes I've experienced and I know some of you have as a retreat moves toward the end I crave it to keep going.

I don't want to go back there to real life.

This is real life.

What we're doing in my biased view is real life.

I don't want,

Don't make me go.

Don't make me go back there.

Don't go back there,

Go forward.

Take forward what you've learned.

Take forward hope.

Take forward grace.

Take forward compassion.

Take forward your renewed I hope commitment to practice or study or for the lack of generosity.

But think as you think what are things I'm hanging onto,

Wanting or craving that even if I hadn't articulated it to myself,

The truth is if I get really,

Really down with myself,

Really clear with myself,

I kind of do think that thing's going to make me happier.

It's all right,

But it's good to realize,

Oh yeah,

I'd kind of like a new car.

You know,

The car's pretty good.

It's got four tires.

The engine works.

It does everything I need,

But I kind of like a new one.

I'd like a pink one.

See all these colors now,

Like orange cars and pink cars and purple cars.

Personally,

I wouldn't mind a purple car.

I think that would be cool,

But I don't crave it enough to spend a whole lot of money to get it,

Think it would make me feel better and find out it was great for about a week.

Right?

It doesn't mean you shouldn't purchase a new vehicle.

If you've thought about it carefully,

It works for you.

It makes sense and you're going to enjoy it and it's like don't take any of these literally,

But oh my goodness,

I live in a reasonably small town and there are so many $80,

000,

$90,

000,

$100,

000 trucks in Cowichan Valley.

And there aren't that many loggers.

A lot of those $80,

000,

$90,

000,

$100,

000 trucks have a woman dropping her kids off at school and going back home in.

Is that good or bad?

It's neither.

But where do we believe that getting a ginormous car payment for a $100,

000 vehicle is going to improve our life?

If you need a vehicle of that caliber,

Which some people do for their work,

Then heck yeah.

Nothing wrong,

Please,

Anybody listening that has a truck,

You're not a bad person and you're not going to Buddhist hell.

That's not what I'm saying.

It's simply a representative thing.

The amount of people I've worked with in my psychology office back in the day who were in a job they really didn't like that was more or less making them sick,

That was draining their life force and 40,

45,

50 or more hours a week sometimes doing something that was not good for their being,

Was not good for their soul.

And the misery and the weariness and then they come to me or some other person with depression,

With anxiety and their doctor is like,

Oh,

You're depressed,

Take these.

Medication can be super helpful,

But I'm always curious,

Why are you depressed?

Let's look at that first.

Well,

I'm depressed because I'm drowning in debt,

I've got a giant mortgage and I'm working a job I hate to pay the mortgage and I'm never home in the house I'm paying for and on the weekends I can't really afford to do the things I wanted to do.

And one of the not very clever things I would come up with that would seem incredibly mind blowing clever to the recipient was,

Have you ever thought of downsizing your house?

Have you ever thought of getting something smaller that meets your needs and reducing your mortgage?

And our concepts are such that the persons for whom I would gently suggest that they could consider that if they wished,

They'd never thought of that.

It felt like they had no choice.

And this was a time when a lot of the houses being built,

If you know,

Couch and Valley up in the properties and whatnot were like five,

Six bedroom houses with three or four bathrooms.

There's nothing wrong with that.

If you're an extended family,

It's brilliant.

But I'm talking about mom,

Dad,

And one kid sometimes in a five bedroom house with three or four bathrooms doesn't mean it wasn't a beautiful house.

Maybe it had a pretty view.

Maybe it was wonderful.

But if you're selling your soul to pay the mortgage on it and you're miserable and sick and your doctors prescribing you stuff to keep you going,

Maybe you want to take a look at what's actually happiness.

Some of those people for their own reasons,

Circumstances and choices did end up choosing to downsize and had more freedom.

Weren't mortgage poor,

Could live their lives in their smaller,

Perfectly lovely house.

It had a roof and walls,

Toilets that flushed and all the things that are useful.

So we can get very deluded and seek and purchase things or engage in things and forget we have a choice.

We always have a choice.

Sometimes bad luck makes the choice for us.

We can get so sick.

We can't work and why could never retire.

I could never leave my job.

I could never down,

You know,

And then circumstances can radically change.

And we do what we thought we could never do.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that maybe we want to take a real good look at what actually delivers us from Dukkha and what actually enhances our wellbeing.

And it's probably not your stuff.

And it's probably not bigger,

Fancier,

More expensive stuff that's nicer than the stuff I've got,

But there's pretty much the same function.

If you've got abundant funds and you want to buy and enjoy a big house,

Fantastic.

No problem.

But if you're in a big house that's creating burden and limiting your possibilities for growth,

For dancing,

For retreats,

For,

For,

For sitting and watching the sunrise,

Cause you've got time and presence,

Then you might want to reconsider what matters.

Ultimately,

It's hardly a novel thing.

This is not my finding.

It's something we're all familiar with,

But when persons on their death bed that are lucid and able to converse and able to reflect or asked,

You know,

What do you regret and what do you wish you'd done more of?

And invariably the answers are things like,

I wish I'd had more time with people I love.

I wish I'd spent more time with my family when I was working so hard back then.

I wish I'd,

I wish I'd done a little more traveling or some of the experiences I kept putting off for later or,

Or it's never,

I wish I'd had a bigger truck ever.

Okay,

Maybe once,

But you know,

I can't speak forever.

I don't want to be inaccurate.

It's not,

I wish I had a bigger house.

Is it?

It won't be for any of us,

Not a person in the room.

What would it be?

What would it be if tomorrow morning we go on our email,

Please don't till Monday and there's a note from the doctor.

I know that's not generally how to do it saying,

You know,

We've got really bad news.

You've got XYZ,

New strange illness.

You're going to be very healthy.

You're going to feel fine for six months and then you're going to drop dead.

It's going to be painless.

What would you do more of healthy alert?

Six months time limit.

You already know for the most part what you do more of.

That doesn't mean you should go quit your job and everything tomorrow.

That might be foolish and unskillful,

But it's a really good thought experiment to play.

What would I do more of?

What would I do less of?

And then maybe just maybe we can all course correct a little bit towards those things that are more important that we think we'll get to later and we'll wait till we have more time.

There isn't more time.

There's 24 hours in a day.

There's never more time.

It's such a stupid phrase.

I'll do that when I have more time.

I probably say it right.

I wish I could make time for that.

You can't,

But you could use some of the time that you've got that we've all got.

We've all got the same.

How do you have time to go to the gym?

Well,

I'll tell you what,

My significant other gets up at four 30 in the freaking morning so he has time to go to the gym.

He's insane,

But that's how he doesn't find any extra secret hours you all don't know about.

So it's helpful to play that thought experiment.

The other thought experiment I use quite a bit because I find it can help me course correct is what would I do if I won a lottery tomorrow?

And I don't spend a lot of time fantasizing so much about what I'd spend the money on,

But what I mean is if money was no issue as of tomorrow,

If one didn't have to work to create income to buy food,

If the money was there,

What would you keep doing and what would you do less of and what would you stop doing?

Again,

That's not saying run out and quit your job tomorrow if you don't care for your job,

But it might be saying start looking more actively to move to another income generating area that you would enjoy more,

That would support your lifestyle in a more healthy manner.

I use that thought experiment frequently and it helps me course correct what I'm doing for income.

Luckily my answer is usually if I literally won a lottery tomorrow,

I'd build us lots of retreat centers,

But I would keep doing a fair bit of what I do now that generates income.

I would do less of it and I would take larger chunks away from it to teach and do more retreat,

But I love that I've cultivated the point toward the answer is I would still keep doing a lot of what I do to create income.

I would just do it a little less of it.

I want that to be our answer for all of us that we would do it for free.

We would do it for free.

Here I am doing it for free and this is the most happy I ever am is,

I'm going to try not to cry now because the tears are coming,

Is when I have such an honor in some tiny,

Teeny way to maybe say one thing in these couple of days that is helpful or useful or makes you think a little bit differently in a way that helps you access the happiness that's already present,

That helps you access that which is,

Is,

Is wiser sometimes than our beliefs,

That our fears,

Our fears of finances,

Our fears of security,

Our inability to see that having a really big house with lots of rooms,

It's a really pretty house isn't actually serving our needs if it doesn't,

Right?

If you've got lots of income and the mortgage is no problem,

Great,

Stay in the house.

Just look at our lives,

Each of us,

Two low thought experiments.

If I had six healthy months to live and then just going to die in my sleep painlessly,

What if anything would I do different?

If I suddenly money was out of the equation,

I didn't have to worry about creating any income at all,

What would I,

If anything do different?

And then if you're able to course correct a little bit bit by bit,

Wisely,

Compassionately do that.

Don't wait for Santa Claus to deliver you.

Don't wait for Sean Cassidy to make it all okay.

Now don't wait for a lottery either.

We're already wealthy beyond measure.

We've all got food to eat.

We're in,

In places where we keep warm and dry.

We have people that care about us and we care about,

We've got community and we've got the faculties to be able to hear and understand and practice the Dharma.

We're outstandingly blessed and yet so many of us,

Myself included,

Suffer so much in here and in here because of the small misunderstanding that the happiness can come from outside.

So we practice.

We stumble through,

We fall down,

We get up again,

We go away,

We come back a few years later and say,

Okay,

Some of the times I've felt okay.

Some of the times I had moments of grace.

Some of the times a difficult,

Challenging Dukkha change came at me and I wasn't knocked totally sideways.

I went,

Oh my goodness,

That's not good news,

But I kind of rallied and it didn't,

It didn't destroy me in the same way as before.

Some of that may have been when I was working with my mind and my heart in certain ways.

A few of us were talking today a couple of different times saying,

You know,

We came to the Dharma because there was no other choice.

Like things were so bad and so difficult in here or in here that it was an act of desperation.

Something like,

I can't live with this mind anymore.

The anxiety,

The pain,

The depression,

The despair.

Maybe,

Maybe there's a way to work with the mind that will bring some peace.

Right?

And it does not always,

Not instantly,

And it doesn't for most of us last all the time,

But a moment of grace,

Which you have when you wake up in the morning before you remember to be sad,

Before you remember to be lonely,

Before you remember you're scared,

Before you remember you're broke,

Not dismissing any of those real Dukkas and how hard they are,

But there is the moment of grace before you remember.

And so we practice letting go.

What if in that moment,

Even in your bed still,

You can,

You kind of wake up,

Oh,

What day is it?

Feeling okay.

And then boom,

Remembering.

What if in that moment you could just lay there and put your hands on your heart and breathe a little and saying,

This too shall pass.

This is part of life.

This is difficult.

I'll be okay.

Even that,

Even that will help a little,

Will help a little.

Like when we're in grief and someone hugs us and we can cry with them,

It helps a little.

It doesn't take the grief away.

But what do they say?

A burden shared is a burden half,

I think,

Is a phrase,

Something like that.

So there I was,

Five-ish years old,

Little existential Cheryl Fraser with this big old brain totally didn't understand and couldn't cope with going,

Wow,

Life is depressing.

Like bleak,

Bleak.

What's it all about?

What was all that hype about yesterday?

It didn't last.

It was a really horrible realization actually.

It really shook my little teeny tiny soul.

But when the questions didn't go away as I got older and got trained and sought 13 years of the highest,

Best training in North America on the mind and psychology and emotions and Dukkha called something different,

Depression,

Diagnoses,

DSM.

I still had the same kinds of questions.

What about the hangover after the high?

What about that?

Why don't they last?

Why don't the good feelings last?

So eventually,

As many of you know the tale,

You could probably recite it yourself.

Eventually instead of continuing after my postdoc to get a Ivy League professorship like the other seven people in my exclusive program of the eight best in North America,

I went to India and I sat at the feet of masters and mistresses.

That sounds weird.

Female masters.

And I kept looking for more answers to why we suffer,

For more answers to why it's so darn hard when we're so darn privileged and lucky,

Those of us in this room,

For why love doesn't last forever and why it hurts so much when Santa Claus goes away and we're left with nothing but empty boxes and Christmas paper.

But you know it's all a point of view because we have two eight month old kittens at our house and their idea of joy are empty boxes and Christmas paper.

It's just your point of view whether the box is empty or a super fun kitten cave.

And sometimes it's that easy.

When it's a small hurt,

It can be that easy to just shift our perspective,

Right?

Glass half full for goodness sakes.

Or glass half empty.

Well it's also not quite half full and I'm actually thirsty and dry so I'm going to have a sip,

Excuse me.

A shift in perspective.

For small things,

That's where I want us to practice a lot is with the small things.

Let go of the small things.

So little disappointments.

Oh there's no dessert tonight.

Oh I'm kind of cold.

Oh xyz.

Oh I was going to sit there but someone's in the chair I liked.

And the more we practice letting them go,

Coming back to neutral or happy,

You're building the muscle.

Trust yourselves.

It doesn't mean you can get horrible news and be oh that's too bad.

Although sometimes you'll even find that.

Something really upsetting will happen that would have normally,

As I said,

Knocked you sideways,

Brought you to your knees and you might be a little more knocked,

Rocked,

But not necessarily brought to your knees.

A little more strength,

A little more view.

A little more view of the bigness of it all and the temporary nature of even our deepest hurts.

So I guess to rather bully the metaphor into place,

Every day is Christmas Day.

Santa Claus comes every moment,

Bringing gifts,

Bringing the present moment.

Oh,

Groan on that one,

Sorry.

But the gift is always there and we just need to settle into it and go there,

There.

Everything is beautiful.

Everything's abundant.

Everything's joyful.

Everything's okay.

Even when it's hellaciously not okay,

It's still okay.

I think that's plenty.

So how about we sit together for a few minutes,

Letting go of the concepts,

Letting go of the talk,

Letting go of the waiting for something or someone to bring us all the happy.

And instead,

Happiness is available.

Please help yourselves.

I'll close with a little blessing,

But just a logistics reminder.

Tomorrow morning will be the same as this morning.

The chapel will be open early.

Our first sit is at 7.

15.

Please be settled by about 7.

10.

Marie will ring the bell at quarter to seven in the dormitory hallway.

Stay and practice a little if you'd wish.

Go out and look at the cloud or the stars or the rain or whatever we've got.

And if you practice anything at all,

Right before you go to sleep,

Just repeat,

Let go,

Let go,

Let go.

The few of you driving home and back,

Just be a little more alert than usual.

Your bodies may be a little bit slower after a full day of meditation.

Your reaction times might be a little less quick,

So just pay good attention and be skillful and safe.

We'll see you in the morning.

By the merit of this strengthening activity of listening to the Dharma,

Of studying our minds and hearts,

Of letting go,

May there be a cessation of the defilements.

You will remember that in this very moment,

Everything's actually okay.

May the day be well and the night be well and the midday hours bring happiness too.

May both the day and the night always be well and by the blessing of the triple gem,

May all be auspicious.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Stay with your experience.

Take it slowly and let go.

Reviews

Absolutely what I needed to hear this morning, in the early days after Mommy’s death, brothers and sisters bickering/not communicating, and Christmas just days away. And me craving connection and affection. Awareness helps me reset.

The images of the elephant and monkey are new to me, and such helpful touchstones.

Thank you. 🙏🏽💕