So today is our final talk on the ways in which suffering is born in us.
And we looked at the four noble truths a few weeks ago and then expanded on the second truth that points to the causes of our stress,
The causes of our suffering.
And that cause is clinging,
Clinging,
Holding on,
Grasping.
Often when our minds associate with clinging,
There is a strong wanting.
We want certain things to happen or we don't want certain things to happen.
And that leads to a grasping that can build into what we've been looking at,
Which are these fires could build into greed,
Hatred,
Delusion.
I think it's pretty common that we don't consider that clinging looks like not wanting.
In the original language of the Buddha,
The word is tanha,
Tanha,
That typically translates into wanting or greed,
But it more directly means thirst,
An unquenchable thirst.
So when we look at the roots of our stress,
The roots of greed and of hatred and of delusion,
We can see that even aversion,
Not wanting has this quality of thirst to it.
When we are experiencing pain,
That aversion to pushing the pain away,
Of wanting it to be otherwise,
Is so strong.
It's as tight as the wanting of pleasure.
It's clinging.
And we also don't think of delusion as a type of clinging.
Do we cling to our ignorance?
So I'd like to look at that a little bit.
Delusion in a simple form is the misunderstanding around what brings us happiness.
Sometimes the delusion is that having a particular experience or getting stuff is somehow going to make us happy.
The delusion is that something other than ourselves is going to do it for us.
And there's also some confusion and projection onto our experiences of who we are.
We have these ideas of who we're supposed to be and the idea of what should be happening.
And then we have projections about other people too.
So then we get into the type of delusion that has to do with bias and prejudice.
We all have that.
We all have judgments.
And what happens with these judgments is they get solidified and they become who we are.
Our projected views,
Our ideas,
This is who I am.
This is who you are in my projected world.
So each of us kind of live in an individual bubble of delusion,
Which distorts our perception and distorts our expectations of experience.
The classic example that's given of delusion is of being in a storm and you're really vulnerable to the elements.
And if you can find anything to provide shelter in that situation,
What happens is you cling to it and you refuse to relinquish it.
This is my,
This will help me get through.
But it is,
You know,
The question is,
Is it actually providing the refuge that you seek?
Can we instead use it to help us survive?
Can we instead choose to navigate the storm?
Delusion tends to happen when our experience in our lives is fairly neutral.
We count on intensity,
Both pleasurable and painful,
In order to feel alive.
When things are neutral,
What happens is we often want to just go and take or turn on some video.
And sometimes we have the habit of going into a deluded state when our experience is painful and spacing out or rumination is a method of self-protection.
Another way that we fall into delusion is we get really busy.
We're so busy we can't notice anything else.
It's an interesting exercise to notice when you tend to zone out and you might start to see a pattern there.
It's said in some Buddhist circles that without delusion,
There wouldn't be greed or hatred.
And it's also considered to be the most difficult to understand because logically,
Logically the idea is that if you're deluded,
How can you see that you're deluded?
Somehow it doesn't quite work together,
But it's possible to see it.
And that has a lot to do with the strength of mindfulness and paying attention to the body.
What's very interesting about this is that these roots of unskillful behavior,
I talked about the spectrum of greed,
The spectrum of aversion,
And the spectrum of delusion.
We're all in a spectrum all the time with them.
We're not always in greed,
But there's wanting.
We don't always have hatred,
But there's aversion.
And we're not always deluded,
But there's confusion.
There's a spacing out.
And these unskillful behaviors,
They're impersonal within us.
We don't have to take them personally in a sense of defining ourselves by them.
I'm a greedy person or I'm an adversive person.
When human beings are born and they grow up without any kind of practice of self-reflection or self-awareness,
These forces operate within us and for some people to a greater or lesser degree.
And the conditions of life in our society and all the kinds of things that affect us kind of inform and become predominant ways of working.
There's either the wanting mind or the aversive mind or the deluded mind,
The confused mind.
And what happens is with mindfulness,
We start to see these things and we start to see them and we're less inclined to see them as something that defines who we are or that we're identified with.
They're just forces within the mind that arise and they exist for a time and then they can diminish.
And our role in practice in mindfulness is not to judge when we are experiencing greed,
When we are experiencing hatred,
Not to get angry at ourselves,
But just notice how am I relating to this deluded state of mind right now?
Am I deluded?
Even asking that question,
Where is there delusion in my view?
I do this quite a bit in my practice,
In particular when I'm in relational practice with somebody else and they're bringing something,
Some view or some projection that lands as a contraction in my body.
Then the question comes from me,
Where am I not seeing?
Something is happening and I'm contracted and there's delusion in my view.
Let me see.
So there's a misunderstanding when we have delusion in our view around what brings us happiness.
And the delusion is that there's somehow having pleasure or being right or having or wanting something is going to make us happy.
The delusion is that other things are going to do it for us.
That if I have a better job or more money or better sex or more recreational opportunities,
If my relationships were better,
Better this,
Better that,
If I have more power or if I can just express my anger in a better way or maybe get my way more often or feel like I'm important or be right.
Like these are all the ways and that's only some of them that we're trying to be happy and they're kind of delusional.
So the ignorance is really around what brings us happiness.
So there are some flavors around this disconnection that you may want to start to recognize within yourself.
Fixed view.
This is how it is.
Spacing out or a dullness in the mind,
A sleepiness,
Agitation.
That's a form of delusion.
Worry,
Uncertainty,
Stubbornness,
Judgment is a form of delusion and doubt.
So these are some of the ways that delusion plays out for us.
And mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the direct antidote.
It's the direct antidote.
When we can bring our practice,
When we can pay more attention to what's happening here with balance,
Then the clouds start to clear.
The more we see and know and the clarity,
The clarity is our secure refuge.
So as you start to notice or ask the question,
Where am I deluded?
Where am I not seeing?
Is there delusion in my view?
Remember that it's not personal.
It's all of us and these are just forces within us and our practice is to meet them kindly.
So thank you for your consideration.
