Looking For Solutions To Our Problems In The Wrong Place

In this week’s dharma talk, we reflect on the reality of problems - everyone has them and no one escapes them. But while problems are inevitable, suffering is not. The challenge isn't so much that we have problems, but how we relate to them. Do we resist, cling, or rush to fix things, struggling more against a problem? Or do we see how our problems are our teachers, showing us where we're still holding on.

Transcript

So on the last talk that we had doing the mini retreats,

We were looking at this idea of how we look for peace and happiness,

Lasting peace and happiness outside of us.

How we,

When we look for it in the wrong place,

That what we find is we don't find it.

That we give our attention to something thinking that that's what peace and happiness is,

A higher self,

A more improved self,

A more realized self.

And in looking for our peace and happiness in this image,

What we find is we don't find the lasting peace and happiness.

We're looking in the wrong place.

And so I want to use that same theme for our talk today of looking in the wrong place for the cause of our suffering.

So I want to do this in the context of problems,

Right?

Of the way that we handle our problems,

Of the way that we push back on our problems,

Causing a lot of suffering for ourselves when we think the suffering is coming from our problems.

But in fact,

It's coming from how we are pushing back on our problems.

So I think we have to be clear that everyone in the world has problems.

There's no escaping it.

If you're rich,

You're famous,

You're a CEO,

If you're a monk,

A nun,

If you're married,

If you're single,

It doesn't matter who you are.

Everyone has problems that we all experience this little bit of friction,

Whether it's that day-to-day friction of just the difficult person,

The annoying person,

The disappointments,

The disagreements,

To up to the bigger life challenges of health problems,

Of financial problems,

Of bigger relationship problems,

That everyone experiences this.

This is the reality of the world that we live in.

Everyone experiences this.

But whether we suffer or not,

That is absolutely dependent upon how we relate to our problems.

That whether we push back on them or not,

Whether we tell ourselves this is so unfair,

I shouldn't be experiencing this,

Or whether we tell ourselves that everyone else is not experiencing problems,

I'm the only one,

Right?

So all of these ways in which we push back on our problems or not determines whether we are suffering or not.

And so there's a story about this high lama that used to travel around Tibet.

He would go to all the monasteries and he would stay there for a week or so giving his talks.

And he always had an attendant with him,

As is the custom that the high lamas tend to have an attendant with them.

But he had a bit of an unusual attendant.

The attendant was rather prone to being rude,

Saying the wrong thing,

Being disrespectful to the lama,

Being disrespectful to other people.

He didn't really,

You know,

He didn't bathe very often,

His robes were usually very disheveled,

He'd have stains on them.

He wasn't the model monk or the model attendant.

And so there was this one particular monastery that the high lama was giving teachings at,

And the attendant was with him.

And towards the end of the week,

Some of the monks that had been listening to this high lama,

Listening to these teachings,

Getting so much benefit out of it,

They went to the high lama and they said,

You know,

We're really,

We love you,

We think you're great,

We are so grateful for all of these teachings,

They've been so beneficial.

But it's been really painful seeing how your attendant speaks to you,

How he ignores you,

How he doesn't follow through on what you ask him to do,

How unkind he is to you.

And any one of us would be absolutely willing to step into his place and become your attendant,

And to respect you and to be kind to you and do what you ask us to do.

The lama's like,

Absolutely not,

This attendant is so precious to me.

Because as a high lama,

Everywhere I go,

Everyone is nice to me.

Everyone is kind,

Everyone is respectful,

They'll do whatever I ask them to do.

And because he does the exact opposite,

He lets me know if I'm not understanding something,

If I'm not getting one of the teachings,

How would I know if I didn't have this particular attendant?

He is my most precious teacher.

And so when we look at our problems,

As teachers,

As opportunities to learn,

Every difficult person,

Every annoying person,

Every difficult challenge that we face,

Every long line,

Every inconvenience,

Every delayed flight is an opportunity to see are we getting the teachings or not?

How would we know if we didn't have these these pointers for us?

And I would venture to say that everyone here has had many experiences where you've seen,

Yes,

I am getting the teachings.

Where you maybe used to get upset in the long line or in the traffic or if someone cut you off,

You've noticed there are many times now you don't get upset anymore.

You accept that this is a part of life,

That yes,

These things happen.

But my suffering is only dependent upon how I relate to it.

If I accept that these are the realities and I don't take it personally,

I don't attach to any story about why this shouldn't be happening,

I don't suffer.

And we benefit from that.

And we share it with others and we share it with our teacher and we go look,

The teachings are working.

And yet when the stakes start to get a little bit higher,

When it goes from the person that was short with us or the barista got our order wrong or the traffic jam,

When it goes from those little inconveniences and it starts stepping up to the big health problem.

Maybe we have a health problem,

Maybe someone we love has a health problem or now it's the big relationship problem.

There's a rift happening in the family or there's a rift happening within our group of friends or it's a financial problem.

I'm thinking I might get laid off or I just lost that big client,

Right?

I just made that big mistake and now I'm not sure whether my job is secure anymore.

So all of a sudden when the stakes start to get higher,

We go back into our default of pushing back on the problem.

Because while we can rationalize,

Yeah I let go of all those other little things,

The long line,

The person that was a little short with me,

The person that cut me off in traffic,

Yeah I let go of all those little things because they didn't really matter.

But this,

This matters.

This is more personal and I cannot let this go.

So we go up into our heads and we start telling ourselves these stories of why this shouldn't be happening and why it's so unfair and if only I had done this and if only I hadn't walked in the room then,

Then that wouldn't have happened.

If only I'd done this instead,

Then that wouldn't have happened.

And then if I said this and if they say that and then how can I fix this?

And we're grasping at some immediate solution,

Some immediate problem to it,

Pushing back on it,

Trying to find a solution.

And the whole time all we're doing is binding ourselves up in suffering.

We're feeling sick to our stomach,

There's a pit in our stomach,

We're contracted,

We're tight,

We're suffering.

And we are so convinced that our suffering is coming from the problem.

That our suffering,

If it's coming from the problem,

Then the solution must be what I'm doing.

I must,

I need to find an immediate solution to the problem.

So I need to keep staying up here grasping and pushing back and clinging even though that is actually what's causing my suffering.

But we're so convinced we need an immediate solution to our suffering and that it's to be found up here in our thoughts,

In our head,

In our pushing back.

And of course,

Many times,

I mean,

We can make up a lot of time we're suffering from simply nothing happening.

But a lot of times there is the backdrop of something happening.

The health problem,

The financial problem,

The relationship problem,

There is something happening.

But whatever your worst case scenario fear is,

It is not happening now.

Because for our modern day problems,

They are not immediate life or death situations.

And for our modern day problems,

Most of them just have an arc of time and space that's needed.

That's all.

There's no immediate solution to be had.

Right?

With the,

If we,

If we have a health problem,

Yeah,

We got to go see the doctor.

We've got to,

So we've got to make the appointment.

We've got to maybe do some more tests.

We've got to take the medicine.

We've got to see how this is going to play out.

If it's a,

If it's a relationship problem,

Yeah,

Usually it needs some time,

Right,

For everyone's heads to cool off a little bit so that,

So that the path forward can reveal itself.

Right?

Or if it's a financial problem,

Again,

Maybe we need to sit with a little bit with what's going on,

This new reality of what's,

What's happening now,

So that we can then start to find the path forward,

What's going to be the next step for us here.

But the problem is that we spend this whole time,

While the,

While the time is working its way out,

While the,

While the,

The solution to the problem is working its way out over time,

We're clinging to our suffering the whole time,

Convinced that what we are doing is the solution to our suffering,

Not causing our suffering.

And because we keep believing that every time the,

The problem reaches its natural conclusion,

And we're so convinced it was because of all this clinging and grasping and attaching,

We're so convinced that that's what,

What solved the problem,

That the next time another problem arises,

And it will,

We go back and we keep repeating the same patterns over and over again.

We're convinced that we're looking for the solution to our suffering in the right place when we are looking in the wrong place,

Because in fact,

What we are doing is creating and prolonging our suffering.

And so the problems,

When they come along,

They're,

They're like these little pop quizzes for us.

Where are we getting attached?

Where are we still clinging?

Where are we still pushing back?

How would we know that we still,

We are still attached if we didn't have these problems arising?

And it's not like we have to go looking for them,

They are a reality of life.

Everyone experiences them.

If we want to be looking in the right place to the solution to our suffering,

Then we need to see where we're attached so that we can let go.

And to let go on this path,

On the Buddhist path,

We let go with our mindfulness practice.

We recognize every time a problem arises,

And even just knowing in advance,

Yes,

We have,

We all have this tendency to go up in our heads and push back.

It shouldn't be happening.

It's not fair,

Right?

So as soon as we can recognize that this is happening,

Right?

That's the first step.

Ah,

Here it is again.

I'm,

I'm pushing back.

It shouldn't be happening.

I shouldn't have said that.

They shouldn't have done that.

This is so unfair.

Why is this happening to me?

It's not happening to anyone else.

Just recognizing,

Yep,

I'm pushing back again.

I'm pushing back again.

I'm attached to this idea that I should never experience problems,

Right?

So just that recognition initially,

Right?

All of a sudden we're,

We're out of the story.

And now we're starting to look in the right place.

Ah,

The problem is now pointing us to where the real,

The external problem is now pointing us to where the real problem is.

I'm still getting attached to things.

I'm still not accepting that life has ups and downs.

I think it should only have ups and no downs,

Right?

Ah,

This,

The problem is happening in here the way I'm resisting it.

And so we recognize it,

And then we accept what's happening by feeling it.

Because the feelings are real.

The story is not,

But the feelings are real.

And we can use all of the practices that we have.

We might use self-compassion one time.

Well,

Sweetheart,

This is really tough.

Yeah,

It is tough.

Yeah,

This hurts,

Right?

As a way to bring us into our experience.

We might use the other self-compassion of,

Just like me,

Millions of people around the world are experiencing this.

To again,

Pull us out of this,

I'm the only one experiencing this is so unfair,

And into reality of,

Yeah,

I'm a part.

Yeah,

I'm having this problem with another person.

Millions of people are having a problem with another person right now.

It's not something so inherently wrong with me or unique.

This is a normal human experience,

Right?

And again,

It helps to soften us enough to be able to come in,

To breathe mindfully,

To feel what's here.

And sometimes we get so wound up,

So knotted up in our suffering that there's a pit in our stomach.

There's a ball in our stomach of just tightness.

And in other times,

Then we say,

I need to go into that.

I need to feel that.

I need to breathe into it.

I need to really understand what it is,

Right?

When the pain is really,

We have created so much pain inside of our body from holding on,

To be able to go in and say,

What is this here?

What am I feeling?

What's the shape of it?

How intense is the pressure?

Is it sharp?

Is it dull?

Is it throbbing?

Is it static?

Really trying to kind of understand what it is that's here,

Really bringing our attention in,

Because sometimes we really do get ourselves wrapped up in such a knot.

And this is such a part also of still,

We have that first recognition kind of pulling us out,

But the temptation is wanting to go back.

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

I don't want to come out of it because I'm solving the solution up here.

I'm solving the solution of the problem and the problem that is causing my suffering.

So we have to be very careful,

Like,

Oh,

It's very tempting to go back up into what we think is solving the problem,

But in reality is prolonging our suffering.

So really coming into our experience,

Feeling,

Breathing,

Creating space for what it is that's here.

This is what's real.

There's pain in my stomach,

There's nausea,

There's butterflies,

Right?

Breathe into that,

Create space for it,

Allow it to be here.

And then once we've really pulled ourselves back,

We're really,

We're out of the story,

We're feeling less threatened.

We're starting to feel a little bit more,

Relatively speaking,

A little bit more at ease.

And then we can investigate what's the problem here.

Oh,

I keep thinking the problem is that that person is in my life and I wish that they wouldn't.

But actually the problem is that I keep pushing back on them in my head.

I keep telling myself that I shouldn't have anyone in my life that's a problem,

That everyone should be nice to me,

Should only be kind to me,

Should never rub me the wrong way.

That's right.

I'm attached to a belief that no one should ever be unkind to me.

Ah,

That's what this is revealing for me.

The problem was never them.

It was that I was pushing back on it,

Right?

The problem wasn't that this relationship is,

That there was a disagreement earlier and that there's now some separation there.

That's not the problem.

The problem is that I keep telling,

I keep going over why it shouldn't have happened and why if I'd only said this and why if they hadn't said this and why if they hadn't done that.

The problem was my grasping at an immediate solution,

My clinging.

I needed something to,

I needed something in the external to happen to get me out of this.

Ah,

Now I'm really seeing what the problem is.

I'm the one holding on,

Whether I'm holding on through wanting an immediate solution or pushing back,

But I'm holding on to this.

This is what's going on.

It's my attachment.

That's what's causing the suffering.

And so through investigating that,

Right?

Again,

We're like,

Ah,

Now I'm looking in the right place.

I thought my attachments were gone because I no longer got upset about the long line.

I no longer got upset about the delayed flight or the traffic,

But now when it's a little more personal,

Wow,

I can see,

You know,

Those attachments run deep.

Oh,

They can feel very personal once we start upping the the ante on this.

Wow,

Wow,

That problem is really showing me where I'm still attached.

And so we keep going in our mindfulness practice then too and also nurturing what it is that's here.

Because once we've recognized,

Once we've recognized that,

Um,

I'm so sorry,

I was just seeing something from Monica.

Okay,

Sorry,

I'm going to read that in a minute.

I thought there might be something wrong with the audio or the video.

Once we recognize what it is that the problem is,

I'm grasping,

I'm pushing back,

We accept the feelings,

We investigate what is the true problem here,

And we're able to see it more clearly then because we're a little bit pulled back now and all those Dharma talks start to make sense.

And we go,

Yep,

This is what I'm doing.

I'm clinging.

And then we can be nurturing to ourselves,

Right?

Like,

Oh,

Okay,

I see what's really going on here.

There's a fear of the uncertainty of the future.

What I need right now is some compassion,

Right?

We can breathe into that and say,

It's okay to feel the fear,

It's okay to feel the uncertainty.

Or I was,

I was afraid of what people might think of me,

Of what that other person now might be going around saying about me.

Oh,

Yeah,

There's some fear here about your reputation.

Okay,

Now I'm nurturing the problem again.

The real problem,

This is what I'm fearing,

And I'm getting to it,

Right?

And in that way,

Again,

We're dissolving the stress,

The pushing back,

The attachments,

The suffering,

We're dealing with the true,

The true attachment of needing to be seen in a particular way,

Needing to be seen in a,

In a,

You know,

Always in a good light,

Right?

Having this idea that there is some image here of me that needs to be seen by the world in some way.

And we see that,

And we recognize that,

Yes,

That's what I was getting attached to.

And I will always suffer as long as I attach to those images.

What I need right now is my care,

Is my kindness,

That mindful breathing into what it is that's here right now.

And starting to feel more calm,

More at ease,

More present through this,

Right?

And here we are then the same situation,

The same backdrop still happening,

The relationship problem,

The health problem,

The financial problem,

Whatever it is,

The same backdrop is still there,

But the suffering is gone because the suffering was found in our attachment,

Not in the problem,

But the way that we were relating to it.

And if we hadn't had the problem,

If it hadn't come along to point this out to us,

We wouldn't have known that we were still getting attached to things.

We would be deluding ourselves as many people walk around having externally peaceful conditions and thinking,

Oh,

I'm so enlightened.

I'm,

I'm really getting all this when it's like,

No,

You just got peaceful conditions right now.

Enjoy the peaceful conditions.

We all have them for a while and it's great.

Enjoy them,

But they'll change.

They'll change.

And then if we go back to resisting and complaining,

And it's so unfair and why is this happening?

And now I'm a bad spiritual practitioner,

Right?

Then we know we're looking in the wrong place for our suffering.

We want to be looking in the right place.

Our problems are showing us,

They are teaching us where we are not getting the teachings,

Where we need to go deeper,

When the stakes are higher.

Can we go deeper when it feels more personal?

Can we go deeper when our,

When our future seems really uncertain?

It's always uncertain,

But sometimes it reveals itself as appearing more uncertain than others.

Can we let go of our attachments there too?

Not just because someone was a little short with us,

Or just because of a long line.

Can we really see how deep our attachments run?

And then through our mindfulness practice,

Right?

This also really reveals the path forward.

So as we go through the whole process,

The recognize,

Accept,

Investigate,

Nurture,

Right?

And the investigative nurture,

So this is the RAIN that Michelle McDonald came up with,

Right?

The RAIN mindfulness acronym.

Nurture and investigation,

We can go back and forth between those.

I mean,

I find the more that we nurture,

There's a little more investigating going on.

And then the more that we investigate,

There's a little more nurturing that's needed.

And then we investigate a little more and like,

Oh,

Actually,

There's even a deeper fear in there.

I didn't know that.

But now I'm looking in the right place.

I'm also really getting to the root of my suffering of what am I holding on to?

What,

What unworthy image am I holding on to in here?

I'm really getting to the source of it.

The more that I stay with my mindfulness practice,

And then that helps me move forward because now I feel more at ease.

I feel more calm because I did,

I looked for the cause of my suffering in the right place.

And if I look for the cause of my suffering in the right place,

I can find the solution to my suffering.

I'm not just spinning my wheels.

And then I start to see the path forward.

And many times what we realize is there's nothing to do right now.

Because so much of our modern day problems,

It's just the,

It's just needs a little space.

It needs a little time,

Right?

And we can recognize there is nothing to do in this moment.

Maybe nothing to do in the external,

But we can recognize,

Yeah,

Maybe I should do a little loving kindness meditation,

A little tonglen meditation,

Right?

Just some mindfulness meditation,

Some mindful walking,

Right?

And we can recognize,

Yeah,

I probably need to do a little bit more of my practice.

And depending upon what it is that's going on,

Knowing what's the right practice for this situation.

Or maybe,

Maybe we recognize,

Okay,

I need to make an appointment with the doctor.

Instead of freaking out about this,

About what this health problem might be and catastrophizing it and just getting myself all bound up in the suffering,

Let me make an appointment.

And then let me also just come back and do some meditation,

Probably some compassion meditation,

Some loving kindness to keep our heart open to what it is that's going on.

Or maybe it's someone that we love that's going through it.

So I've got to keep my heart open.

It's so tempting to want to go back in and find a solution to the problem and immediate solution to the problem.

But that is really just prolonging,

Creating our suffering.

So also just being clear how easily it can come back,

Right?

Maybe it's the financial problem,

Right?

Maybe we have just lost our job or we have just lost a big client.

We've lost a big source of our income,

But we've used our mindfulness practice to bring us back,

Right?

So we're feeling a little bit more like,

Okay,

I'm not getting thrown out on the streets at this moment.

Maybe I can go cancel a few subscriptions of some things.

Maybe I can tighten my belt a little bit.

Maybe I need to cancel dinner plans tonight.

I need to be a little bit more cautious with my money.

Okay,

Okay.

Again,

Say we're doing some things,

Same backdrop,

And we can either not be doing anything in the external,

We can be doing some things,

But what we're doing is wise because we're using the wisdom and compassion of mindfulness to guide us forward in this way,

But we have our sense of steadiness of ease and calm because we're always going to have problems.

They're always going to be coming.

Nobody gets out of this without problems.

There's no escaping it.

But if we keep looking in the wrong place for the solution to our suffering,

Meaning if we keep looking for our problems,

Excuse me,

Back that up one more time.

If we keep thinking that the cause of our suffering are the problems in the external world,

Then we will never find the freedom,

The peace,

The contentment that we are looking for.

If we keep looking in the wrong place,

So our problems are like these little pop quizzes are our teachers.

They're pointing us.

If problems are arising and we're pushing back on them in some way,

Then we're still attached.

We're still not getting it.

Okay,

Great.

Good to know.

I've got to come back in and I've got to find out where am I holding on so tightly?

How deep is this attachment running?

Because again,

There can be a first layer.

I find there can be deeper and deeper layers the more that we go in through the investigating and the nurturing,

What we find is that,

No,

My God,

Yeah,

There's something really deeply embedded in here.

Some pain,

Some hurt that needs to be tended to so that I can be okay with this situation.

So the more that we acknowledge problems are a part of life,

Everyone has them.

And there are teachers,

They're pointing us and showing us if we're getting it or not.

And even we can call them our Ajaan in the Thai forest tradition of Buddhism.

An Ajaan is a teacher.

So some of you may know Ajaan Brahm in Australia,

Ajaan Sumedho,

Ajaan Amaro.

It means teacher.

And so we can think,

Ah,

Ajaan,

Ajaan problem,

Here you are again to teach me so that I can see where my suffering is coming from.

And then I can use the right practices,

Use my mindfulness practice to come in and see where I'm getting attached.

Because if I don't see where I'm getting attached,

I will never be free.

There will always be something that could come along and get me.

So every time we go in and we look and we go through the process,

And we really go through the full recognize,

Accept,

Investigate,

Nurture,

Stay with it until you truly feel at ease.

And not to expect that two hours later or one hour later that it's not going to come back again,

It probably will.

That default to pushing back on our problems is so incredibly strong.

Because also,

Because it feels so life or death,

Even though nothing's happening,

It feels so life and death in that moment.

I mean,

Even just something like a relationship problem,

It's that fear of,

Oh,

My God,

I'm going to be kicked out of the tribe.

And that would have meant when we lived in tribes,

If we had been kicked out of the tribe,

It would have meant certain death.

Right?

But we've got to keep pulling ourselves back to go,

No,

It doesn't mean that anymore.

It doesn't mean that anymore.

Almost every modern problem,

And I only say almost every because I can't think of one,

But there may be one,

But almost every modern problem that we have,

There is no immediate threat.

It is not a life and death situation.

It's just how we're relating to it.

And whether we're handling it with ease,

Accepting,

Yep,

This is what's going on.

We breathe,

Be mindful,

Be here,

Not push back on it.

And to recognize that sometimes it's just needs a little bit of space.

How many times with a relationship conflict,

Just needs a little space,

Just needs a little bit of time to sort itself out.

How many times we didn't need to do anything,

And then all of a sudden the problem gets resolved in some way.

And it's like all that suffering,

We didn't need to do anything.

And in all that suffering,

We are doing,

Are attaching and grasping and resisting practice.

Right?

So for all that mindfulness meditation,

Now we're spending hours really strengthening our attachments,

Our grasping,

Our clinging,

Our aversion.

So just to be so clear,

We're looking,

Not only are we looking at the wrong place,

We're keeping fixed in the wrong place every time we do this.

So we've got to keep pulling ourselves out,

Keep pulling ourselves out again and again,

To make sure we are not looking in the wrong place for the solution to our suffering.

It's not the problem,

And it's not the solution to the problem that's going to end our suffering.

It's the coming in and recognizing where we're getting attached,

So that we're letting go through wisdom and compassion,

Because that is the freedom that we want.

Not to not have problems.

You can't have that.

That's just not realistic.

Doesn't matter who you are.

We'll always have problems,

But it's changing our relationship to it by rooting out our attachments,

By using our mindfulness practice,

Looking in the right place,

And treating our problems like our teachers.

It's just like you've got the Buddha right there with you going,

Chris,

Look there.

You're looking in the wrong place.

Meredith,

You're looking in the wrong place.

The Buddha is right there teaching us,

Pointing us in the right direction.

We've gone over this in many Dharma talks.

Let's look in the right place,

And then we do it.

We follow the RAIN acronyms,

Using our mindfulness practice,

Using the self-compassion tools.

We free ourselves again and again and again,

And that is how we let go.

And so we're not playing whack-a-mole,

Just all that problem solved now,

Only to have another one pop up,

And now I've got to suffer again.

No,

We got to the root of the problem.

It was our attachment,

Our clinging,

Our grasping,

Our pushing back on this.

And every time we see that,

Every time we free ourselves,

We are a little more free.

Now we're looking in the right place,

So we want to make sure that we are looking in the right place for the solution to our suffering,

For the cause of our suffering,

To not delude ourselves that it's happening in the external world.

It is always happening in here.

And to keep bringing our attention back,

To keep coming back,

To use the problems as the guide,

Is to see our problems as our teachers,

To keep guiding us back to the true freedom,

The true peace,

The contentment that we really are seeking.

It's always here.

We just have to look in the right place.

Reviews

the story of the lama and his handler, best story! it reminds me of the saying, if someone throws salt at me it doesn’t sting unless there’s a wound. 🙏🧡🌻💛🧡🌻💛🙏

Very helpful! Thank you for this impactful wisdom.

Thank you Meredith. This is exactly what I needed to hear today. To understand that the situation I find myself in, is not the causing my suffering instead the way I relate to the situation is the real culprit. 🙏🏽