Transforming Adversity Into Awakening - Insight Timer Live

In this recent workshop held on Insight Timer Live, join Buddhist contemplative David Johnson for a talk on transforming difficulties into opportunities for growth and awakening. It is our own choice how we respond to adversity. When we harden ourselves to suffering, we may find we become more susceptible to it. On the other hand, if we are open to working with difficulties instead of constantly running away from them, we may discover opportunities for growth and awakening.

Transcript

So hello,

Welcome to this talk.

I'm delighted to be here again on Insight Time Alive.

So this morning's discussion,

We're going to be looking at transforming adversity into awakening.

So I think it's a very worthwhile discussion,

Very important.

It's about how we react mentally,

How we react emotionally,

How we respond to the difficulties that we experience in life.

And so it's all about empowering ourselves,

Taking responsibility,

Taking back control of our mindset and our life.

So hopefully a very practical talk.

And I hope to talk a little bit about what transforming adversity into the path means,

What this transforming difficulties into the path,

What it even means,

And then look at some of the practical steps we can take.

And I've sort of formed these into three parts.

The first is about letting go of resistance,

Softening our fight or flight response through acceptance.

So that's what I see as the first part.

The second part is about seeing what our perceptions are in a difficult moment.

And then we'll be able to transform our thinking,

Transform our perception of that event and use the event for growth,

Use it for patience,

Compassion,

The growth of our understanding.

And then the third part,

Which I think is essential is about kindness and compassion for ourselves when we're unable to transform things.

Right.

So sometimes we feel like we might be unable to transform something.

Something's just too difficult to transform,

But it's still an opportunity to cultivate self-compassion and kindness.

So those are what we are going to explore.

Before we get into the talk itself,

I do want to mention that if you want to make a donation today,

All of that goes towards our setting up a retreat center here in South Wales.

So none of the money that we're donated ever sort of just goes to us.

It goes all to this pot to set up a retreat center.

So any donations are very welcome.

So where to begin transforming adversity into awakening?

I think we begin with why.

Why transform adversity?

Why should I?

Why should I try and look at my difficulties differently?

And this first entails looking very honestly at the way life and difficulties work.

And so there's a story that I often like to tell that I first read,

I think in Ajahn Brahm's book about a man who traveled a great distance to see the Buddha.

And he went to see the Buddha about the many problems that he was facing in life.

So he came before him and he told him,

Look,

I'm a farmer and the land that I grow my crop on is poor quality.

I'm not yielding a healthy crop.

My wife,

She's ill and my children,

They're unruly.

My brother doesn't help.

And my community,

They expect too much of me.

They expect me to be able to produce food and I'm stressed and this and that.

And he went on about all these various obstacles and problems that he was facing.

And the Buddha said to the man,

I'm sorry,

But I can't help you with these problems.

And the man was,

You know,

Taken aback.

You were surprised.

What do you mean?

You're this awakened one.

You're this person who's supposed to be able to help people with their problems.

And the Buddha said,

You've listed 77 problems and we all have 77 problems.

Sometimes we solve some,

But then more.

Sometimes we solve our problems.

Sometimes we have more.

I'm sorry,

But I can't help you with those 77 problems,

But I can help you with your 78th problem.

And that is your belief that you should not have problems.

And so we firmly believe that life should not be about problems,

That having problems means things are not going well,

That we can't be at peace.

There's something wrong with our life that,

You know,

We need to solve,

To resolve,

That we're not in balance.

We think that that because we have problems,

Life is not in balance.

But the conclusion that we come to,

One of the facts that the Buddha tries to awaken us to is this is the nature of life.

That problems happen because we can't control the external world.

Right.

But what do we try to do?

We try to control the external world.

We try to,

You know,

Fix this problem,

Fix that problem.

You know,

Manipulate the things that are going on.

But it's endless.

That's what we discover,

Isn't it?

It's the more we try to fix these different problems,

We find that it's endless.

So the truth that we come to as a starting point is that we cannot control the external world.

But what we discover through meditation,

Through our spiritual practice,

Is that we can control our inner world.

And in the end,

That is how we find emotional freedom.

So I've seen some things online lately about this term resilience,

And it's a term I use a lot resilience,

And there's a growing number of people who don't like the word.

And I see things online saying,

You know,

Don't don't comment on how resilient I am.

It's not a positive quality to have,

I shouldn't have to have resilience,

I've been forced into it by things going wrong in life.

And you know,

Resilience isn't this positive quality.

But this perspective says,

I shouldn't have to have resilience,

I shouldn't have to have problems,

I shouldn't have to have to transform adversity into awakening.

It's a sort of like,

It's not fair mentality,

Life's not fair,

Life should be better,

People should be better,

I shouldn't have to experience difficult people.

And while I agree with the sentiment,

It would be nice not to experience difficult people in difficult situations.

The reality is,

You know,

What the Buddha's teachings are trying to highlight to us is,

Look,

Always wanting the external world to be different,

Is fighting a losing battle.

You can influence some things,

But ultimately,

We have no real control over the things that go wrong.

We've been born into an imperfect world.

It's characterized by unpredictability and adversity.

And we are human.

And we make mistakes,

We get confused,

We think irrationally sometimes.

And just as that's true for ourselves,

So is it true for everybody else.

So there's a lot to contend with.

And our ability to prevent or circumvent difficulty is quite limited.

So we try to protect ourselves and maintain order in our life.

But we just don't have the ability to stop all disasters from happening and to never have problems again.

Okay,

So this is the first thing we acknowledge that things don't always behave in a predictable way,

Or go our way.

So if we can't stop things going wrong,

Which if we're honest,

We can't,

You know,

I can't even guarantee that the rest of my day is going to go smoothly and problem free,

Right?

I can't guarantee I can I can influence small things,

I can decide that I'm going to take a sip of my coffee.

But I,

You know,

I cannot say that for sure,

I will not have another problem for the rest of the day.

So if I can't guarantee that,

Then I need a new way of relating to difficulty and change for my sanity,

For my well being for my peace of mind.

Because if I'm always fighting the world,

You know,

As we've said,

It's endless.

So the question then becomes not so much why do these things happen,

But what we can do about them once they do,

Trying to change our attitude,

Trying to see things in a different light.

So this is the first shift.

This is the first revolution in our outlook,

Turning away from why me it shouldn't be this way.

I shouldn't experience problems and looking instead to okay,

What can I do?

What can I do right now?

Only then are we going to be able to take full advantage of our situation,

Even if it is a bad one.

And so while it seems like there's nothing we can do in the face of obstacles that just keep coming.

Sometimes it's said that,

You know,

It seems like solving problems is like an uphill battle,

And it's really difficult,

But new problems seems to be very easy,

Just seems to be very easy and fluid for new problems.

So it can often seem that there's nothing we can do in all these obstacles that keep coming at us.

But the Lojong or mind training teachings,

Which is what I'm exploring here today,

The Lojong teachings,

They tell us that it's not true.

They tell us that the imperfect world can actually be an opportunity for awakening,

Rather than an obstacle to our goals.

How?

So in each moment,

We have a choice,

If we open up to it.

It's not normally a choice.

We don't normally see that we have a choice.

But we do have a choice.

And if we if I think of this quote from Viktor Frankl,

The Holocaust survivor,

The Austrian philosopher.

What's the quote?

It's,

It's everything can be taken from a man but one thing,

The last of the human freedoms,

To choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose one's own way.

So I love this quote.

And it's exactly what we're talking about here,

That problems can be endless.

But and you know,

Life can take everything away from us.

But there is one thing that we still can hold on to the last of the human freedoms,

This ability to choose our own attitude.

And in being able to choose our own attitude,

We choose our own way.

And actually,

We can grow more quickly,

If we're open to working with difficulties,

Rather than constantly sort of running away from them.

And the Lojong teachings,

They say that when we harden ourselves to suffering,

We actually become more susceptible to it.

Right.

So if we if we're cynical about people,

If we think everyone's bad,

You know,

Say in the office at work,

We think everyone's bad,

Everybody's out to get you or they're annoying and they're difficult.

And we don't like our job or something,

Then we will start to act more harshly more coldly.

And the more harsh or cruel we are towards others,

The more vulnerable we then become to getting irritated to getting angry to the hurt that people throw at us,

Because we expect the world to be that way.

And then when it happens,

We we get ourselves all riled up.

So we think I'm protecting myself.

And this cynical attitude comes about.

But what we find is it actually leaves us more vulnerable.

And it robs us of our happiness in other moments.

And so because we immerse our minds in it,

And remember what we think and perceive is our reality.

So if we think everyone's bad,

We think this person is going to come into the office,

They're going to do that thing that annoys me.

You know,

I'm expecting it,

I know what's going to happen.

And then,

Of course,

It happens,

They do.

And so then and then we're furious,

Even though we expected it.

So the Lojong teachings,

They say that,

You know,

Contrary to our instincts,

It's actually by learning to become more open to others more open to our world,

That we grow stronger,

And we become more resilient.

And taking responsibility as well.

It is our own choice,

How we respond to others,

Nobody makes you mad,

It feels that way.

And it seems that way.

I'm sorry,

If with this talk,

I'm being very much just to the point.

But the Lojong teachings are just very much to the point,

It's about cutting through our ego.

And so we look at this,

You know,

Nobody makes us mad,

We let the behavior of others trigger anger in our mind through our habit,

Of course,

You know,

It's not something that we,

You know,

Actively would have chosen in our life,

It is habit.

But it is something that we choose.

And we can reverse this,

We can learn new responses.

And it's about dropping the sword and shield,

You know,

The fight stance of the world,

Putting down the the running shoes,

The flight stance and softening our approach,

That's going to be how we find greater balance or peace in life.

We either give in to ingrained habits and compulsions like we have since the beginning of our life.

And if we have confidence in in reincarnation,

Then then lives before this.

Or we can recognize the limitations of our situation,

How life works,

And apply a considered realistic approach.

For example,

Let's say we're suffering from physical illness,

And our recovery is slow.

We can easily become quite despondent,

Quite demotivated,

Quite stressed,

Quite,

You know,

Physically and mentally at a dis-ease.

And these emotions will then actually affect our physical recovery.

But if we don't allow despondency to get the better of us,

If we accept our situation with courage,

With fortitude,

Then we can use it to train our minds to be more accommodating,

More understanding.

And then actually,

We can think about how might I be able to use this experience with physical illness now to help others in the future,

I might be able to support people in the future with this.

So that's what Lojung is about.

No matter what situation we encounter,

We strengthen our minds by bringing situations into our spiritual journey.

So our mind,

We tend to focus on what we can't control,

Don't we?

Rather than questioning how we respond,

Or whether we should respond at all.

So if we look at step one,

Then I mentioned these three sort of phases,

Three aspects of transforming adversity into awakening.

And if we look at the first part,

Then practical steps for transforming adversity.

Firstly,

I think it's about letting go of our resistance,

Softening our fight or flight response through acceptance.

When we encounter difficult events that are beyond our control,

Our suffering is made much worse if we think of ourselves as a victim in the situation and we resist the difficult event.

Because the majority of our emotional experiences are not caused by the external thing itself.

But in the way we tell stories to ourself,

The way we perceive,

The way we grasp and hold on,

Is how we interpret and personalize the events in our life.

So let's say there's a new difficult person,

A difficult colleague is introduced to our workplace,

And they don't respect us,

They talk down to us,

We feel embarrassed,

We feel sort of threatened by their presence.

Perhaps their job overlaps with yours a bit.

And then we tell ourselves stories,

Don't we?

We tell ourselves stories about how I'm not valued.

How everybody must think the same as this person.

Maybe they're looking to replace me,

That's why this person's come in.

They respect this person more than me even though they're new to this place.

This person is rude,

This person doesn't like me,

Nobody likes me.

All this sort of nonsense,

Extra noise,

These stories,

These beliefs that we tell ourselves.

And then we believe it,

Don't we?

We believe those stories.

Those stories hurt us and they cloud our perceptions,

They cloud what's really happening.

And then,

And it gives us a hard time,

Doesn't it?

The actual words the person said are done and gone.

And maybe they didn't hold the same meaning,

They're done and gone.

But there's this prolonged pain,

This prolonged hurt.

And actually because of all this clouded perception,

We might not see that in reality,

The person themselves,

The new colleague,

They're feeling intimidated,

They're feeling inadequate,

It's a new workplace,

They're not sure of themselves.

They're behaving in such a way because of their feelings.

They're not sure of themselves.

It's not about you,

It's about them.

So the real thing that determines how things affect us,

Like this new colleague coming into work,

Is not about them and what they say,

But it's more about how we handle our own responses,

How we react,

The stories we tell ourselves,

The thoughts we give attention to.

And we can see that there's no two individuals that respond the exact same way to a given situation.

So we need to ask ourselves,

How can one person be happy and patient when somebody else is completely devastated by something?

Same external event,

A car accident,

A broken washing machine,

Rising energy costs.

Some people respond with great pain,

With great anxiety,

With great worry,

And others not so.

And it's not always about their physical means,

They might have the money to pay for it or they might not.

But we see that some people can get quite upset about things and others don't.

Others can be quite patient about the problem.

So why the difference?

It's about their responses,

Isn't it?

It's about the stories that they hold on to,

The stories that they repeat.

Say we become offended at something a family member says or does,

That experience will affect us even more if we continue to dwell on it,

Keep repeating it over and over in our mind for days and weeks.

And we do that,

Don't we?

We hold on to the bad things that happened in our day and then we get home and we say,

You'll never guess what happened,

You'll never guess what so and so said.

And then we call our sister or our friend and say,

You'll never guess what happened.

We hold on and we repeat these stories to ourselves.

And it's our fixation that intensifies the negative feeling.

That's why it's so important to investigate the real causes of our suffering,

The internal causes,

Rather than assume that my initial response is always undeniably true and always correct.

If we quote Chandrakurti,

He says,

You know,

Attachment to one's own belief,

Aversion for another's view,

All this is thought.

It's nothing more than thought.

Handling difficulties and coming out of them a better person.

That's the whole point of the Lojong teachings,

That's the whole point of this transforming adversity.

But we can only do that if we aren't giving in to and defending our ego and our sort of initial perceptions,

Our initial way of seeing things.

Because the ego,

It can't face difficult situations.

It prefers instead to go through emotional dramas and blame everybody else for our problems.

And when we blame other people,

We blame the external world.

Then all we're really doing is giving them power over us,

Completely disempowering ourself.

So the first step,

I think we take responsibility by firstly looking realistically,

Okay,

Other people,

The natural world,

Politics,

Economics,

All of this stuff,

They are unpredictable in nature.

And they are largely just completely out of my control.

I commit to letting go of my resistance to this difficult situation right now.

I commit to letting go of my resistance to this difficult situation right now.

I commit to patient acceptance.

And my preferred definition of patience is to accept wholeheartedly whatever arises,

Having given up the idea that it should be other than what it is.

So accepting wholeheartedly whatever arises,

Having given up the idea that it should be other than what it is.

And so I think this is our starting point.

This is the softening the fight or flight response through acceptance.

Okay,

I might not like this situation.

It wouldn't have been my preferred way for this day to go.

But I accept wholeheartedly that this is what is arising in my reality.

I give up the idea that it should be different.

And just this simple act,

I give up the idea that it should be different is empowering.

Because what I've often found and what other people report back to me is that a huge chunk of the mental pain is the resistance is the it shouldn't be this way.

Why am I experiencing this?

Why do I have to deal with this?

And so if we can just at least let go of that part first of all,

We find that things do become a bit easier.

So this this acceptance is what I see is our first part of transforming adversity into awakening,

Softening our resistance,

Bringing some some acceptance.

Okay,

This is how it is.

The second phase step two,

With this commitment,

I accept what is happening,

We can look to our second step,

Which is actually looking and investigating what are the stories or beliefs that I have about this situation,

Then transforming those perceptions,

And using it for growth instead of using the situation for growth.

So how do we do that?

First of all,

I think we begin to get curious about our experience.

Ask yourself,

What am I believing right now?

What's the story in my mind?

True or not?

Forget about that.

Forget about you know,

Well,

This is how it is.

And we know whether it's true or not valid,

Or not forget about all that for now.

What am I believing?

What do I think is going on?

And if we examine that,

We'll see that we are personalizing this difficulty.

If it hurts,

We're personalizing this difficulty.

And over time,

We start to see how we do this with all of our difficulties.

And we'll start to see that the way that I personalize everything is a source of my misery in this situation.

That's that's where the pain is coming from.

And it's the way that I label the situation as well.

Even the word difficulty,

Problem,

Challenge,

Adversity,

These are labels.

A difficult situation is not a difficult situation from its own side.

We say difficult,

Difficult situation.

We see this coming together of causes and conditions and we say that's a problem.

That's difficult.

I don't want to deal with that.

Instead,

It could be seen as opportunity.

It could be seen as something that's going to launch me into compassion or patience.

So it's mind.

In the Dhammapada,

The Buddha says all phenomena are created by mind.

The mind is principle.

The mind goes before.

So it depends on how we interpret it,

How we label it,

Whether we put a positive or a negative label on it.

And so in that way,

It comes from our own mind.

So we first we become aware of the thoughts that we're having,

The stories and the beliefs that are present.

And then we can start to manage,

Educate,

Transform.

So what habits,

What beliefs are probably present?

Well,

Whenever something goes wrong,

One of the first things we habitually do is we look for someone or something external to blame.

Who did this to me?

Who gave me this unhappy mind?

Who did it and why?

We're sort of,

We're pointing,

We're looking,

We're looking for that person.

And then when we find them,

You,

You did this,

We become completely outraged by whatever we decide is responsible for our discomfort.

This this sort of way of responding,

There's no solution to be found with that way of thinking.

If we do find someone,

We say you did it or this situation,

This work situation,

It only makes our anxiety,

Our frustration,

Our resentment bigger.

How dare you?

How could you?

So this sort of habitual response,

We might think blaming somebody else releases me from responsibility.

I'm unhappy because of this person,

Because of this thing.

Therefore,

It's someone else's responsibility to fix my unhappy mind.

And that only that really only disempowers us.

And the result of thinking that way is that we spend our entire life trying to stop other people from causing problems for us,

And making them fix the problems they cause,

You know,

To solve our unhappiness,

You cause this,

You fix it,

Then I'll be happy.

And that's something that realistically can never be done.

And as Shanti Deva points out in his texts,

Dealing with our own reactions to things is actually a much more practical way to deal with suffering.

In his quote,

You know,

He says,

Where could you find enough leather to cover the entire surface of the world?

Whereas if you wrap some leather around your feet,

It's as if the whole world has been covered.

So we're trying to cover the whole world,

Right?

We're trying to fix the whole world to protect our mind.

But if we just protected our mind,

It's as if all problems have been solved.

It's as if the world has been solved.

So we've done step one,

We've accepted,

Okay,

The situation is happening in my life.

We've looked and we've become aware of the stories of the beliefs,

The who we are blaming.

Now it's about transforming those ways of thinking.

And this is about first of all,

Transforming the blame,

The blame belief.

And then it's also about replacing our pessimistic view of what this event means,

You know,

Turning it into an opportunity for growth.

So the Lo-Jong teachings,

They say that instead of blaming others,

When we do this sort of pointing,

The classic depiction is when we're pointing out to other people,

There is always three fingers pointing back at ourself.

And so the Lo-Jong teachings say that instead of blaming others,

We should look at our own egoistic mind,

Blame everything on that.

And that's not to blame yourself.

You're not blaming your whole self.

You're not blaming,

You know,

David.

It is to blame the mental afflictions,

The deluded state of mind,

The compulsive,

Unrealistic states,

Not the totality of our being.

I am not my unhappy mind,

Right?

I'm not my anxiety.

I am not my worry,

My anger.

They're temporary obscurations that arise in the pure luminous spaciousness of awareness,

This open,

Compassionate,

Calm awareness.

So we blame the mind of anger itself.

We blame the mind of frustration.

We blame our aversion.

We blame our attachment because it's those states that are actually causing our misery in the situation.

If I didn't respond to the situation with anger,

I would have no problem.

I might have an external problem,

You know,

Which will or will not have an external solution.

You know,

I said about the washing machine being broken or rising energy costs or a car crash or whatever.

But actually,

If I don't respond to the situation with an unhappy mind,

I don't have a problem.

I'm okay.

We can just do what we need to do externally.

So we acknowledge that these unhappy minds,

They're temporary risings.

They're not us,

But that we can be in control of them,

Not the other way around.

And we blame the painful feeling on those minds.

Then we look to see how I can turn this experience into inner growth.

How can I turn this difficult situation into cultivation of the heart mind?

How can I turn it into a movement towards the life that I want to live,

The qualities I want to have?

I can't control the external world,

But what I can do is work with my mind.

I can learn to cultivate and maintain a peaceful,

Happy mind.

I can turn inwards,

Build a beautiful house of compassion,

Wisdom,

An unshakable mind,

An unshakable house.

Everything that happens in our life always has different angles.

If a problem arises in our life and we only focus on the angle of pain,

The suffering that's happened to me,

If we only see that point of view,

Then we'll be miserable and that's all we'll see.

Young Yung Yimingyur Rinpoche,

He talks about it like your thumb.

In life we have our thumb here,

But when we suffer we bring our thumb all the way up to our eyes and then the only thing we can see is thumb.

All we see is the suffering,

That's all we see.

But there's so much more going on.

So if we focus there,

We'll continue to hurt and we won't want it to happen again.

But we can learn to look at difficult situations from another angle.

Just like a skillful mother who tells her child,

You know,

It's okay if Billy plays with your toy car,

He'll give it back to you when he's finished.

She gives her child another way of looking at the situation and his distress stops.

You know,

He thought Billy would never give his toy back,

He was freaking out.

You know,

My toy,

My toy.

The skillful mother gives the child another way of looking at the situation and the distress can be released.

And so we have to learn to look at problems in a different light.

If we just focus on the pain,

Then our pain gets worse.

Every time we think about the event,

We'll become hurt and that will increase our tendency to be sad,

To be sorrowful and it won't help us get over the problem.

Whether it's justified or not,

You know,

The hurt that we experienced,

Whatever happened,

It happened.

We want to stop being hurt.

So we need to try and look at the situation from a different angle.

And there are many different angles we can look at it from.

And this is where the Lojong teachings have a lot of depth.

And of course,

Just in this one session here today,

I can't go through every,

You know,

Way that we can transform every difficulty we're ever going to experience,

But we can look at a few generic ways.

One is we can try to look from a wider perspective,

See our situation and everybody involved in the situation from a larger context,

From a more neutral position,

Try to take yourself out of the situation and see it from a wider perspective.

See the many conditions and circumstances that came together to lead to this event.

If somebody hurt you,

If somebody said something,

Think about all the things that led to that person to say that thing.

So we try and take this wider perspective,

We can see that my limited perspective here might not actually be the truth.

There might be more going on in this situation.

We can think of it long term,

See how in time,

Things can change in many ways.

This might seem very difficult and dramatic right now.

But in five years time,

It might not be right.

And we see that the situation might be very challenging now.

But from the vantage point of a month,

A year,

A decade,

These challenges will seem much more manageable.

We can remember that our situation is workable,

That we have got through every difficult situation in our life so far.

Nothing has toppled you over.

If you're here listening to this talk,

Nothing has toppled you over just yet.

You've gotten through everything and you can change this situation for the better.

You can get through this situation,

Even if it doesn't improve,

Even if the situation doesn't improve.

If my worst fears are realized,

I can still hold the positive thought that this is an experience from which I can learn and I can grow.

I can use this situation.

So there's this wider perspective,

Long term perspective.

From our side,

We can think,

Well,

The pain of the problem is actually caused by my focusing on it inappropriately.

I have the power to control my mind.

I have the power to focus it elsewhere.

That sort of thought brings inspiration.

It brings motivation.

It brings the sense that I do have power here.

I'm not powerless to the external world.

I can do something here.

If we have confidence in karma,

We can think,

Well,

This situation,

I've just purified this particular negative karma.

That's done and gone with.

Great news.

We can look at the situation from the angle of compassion.

This person was angry at me.

This person hurt me.

But in their anger,

They were suffering as well.

They were unhappy.

Anger is painful.

Nobody would ever actually choose anger.

It's painful.

When that red mist descends,

We lose all control.

So we can think,

I know that they might not have control in that situation.

Just like me,

Sometimes I don't have control when I'm angry.

I say things that I don't mean.

I know that that must have been a very painful situation for them.

I hope that they find freedom from their anger.

I hope that they can find a way through it.

With compassion,

We could reflect on the ways that that person has been kind to us in the past.

If they're somebody we love,

If they're somebody at work,

We can think of the ways they might have been kind to us in the past.

We can try to see that the fundamental nature of all human beings is good,

And that it's only due to these distorted states of mind that obscure reality.

So we can look at that fundamental goodness,

Relate to others from that with understanding,

Their potential,

What they could be.

And there's another particular way of looking at it in the Lo-Jong teachings.

Remember that the Lo-Jong teachings are meant to be a sharp knife cutting through our ego.

They're meant to be right to the point.

And another way of looking at it is seeing this problem of this hurtful encounter,

This difficult situation,

Is an opportunity to grow our compassion and our patience.

And we can be delighted that we have received this opportunity.

So remember that we tend to think,

If I could just run off to a cave,

I'd be able to escape all my problems.

If I could just give away everything,

Run away from my job,

Get off to a cabin in the mountains,

Then I would be fine.

And perhaps we do have an opportunity to hide away,

Self-isolate or something.

But after some time,

You will start to think,

Oh,

Wow,

My mind is wonderful up here in the caves,

In the mountains.

I'm patient,

I'm relaxed,

I'm quite a calm person.

I don't get very stressed anymore.

And then you go to see family for Christmas.

Going to see family for Christmas is the ultimate test for Buddhists.

And it's like,

Oh,

It's all back.

I didn't learn anything new.

I didn't cultivate the mind.

I just hid away.

It all comes back.

The impatience,

The anger,

The frustration.

So as the old teaching goes,

We need adversity.

We actually need challenging circumstances.

We need difficult people.

Otherwise,

We're unable to cultivate great compassion.

We're unable to cultivate wisdom,

Patience,

Resilience,

The kind of qualities we need to realize the type of life we want to be an inspiring,

Kind-hearted,

Positive person.

The bodhichitta motivation,

That wish and aspiration to achieve awakening so that you can help all of the sentient beings.

That kind of awakening is not possible without adversity.

And how many of us can actually look back on really difficult times we've had and see now how it shaped who we are today and the way we handle things today and say,

You know,

I hated that situation.

It was really difficult.

But if I hadn't have gone through that,

I wouldn't have done this,

Met that person,

Cultivated this.

Can we see how those experiences gave us the ability to support and help others with greater ease and balance?

So this person said something that hurt me.

They hurt me.

Firstly,

Of course,

You need to do whatever you need to do externally,

Right?

If somebody is abusive and that needs action,

If somebody is hurtful,

You know,

We need to do whatever we need to do.

Lojong doesn't say,

You know,

Let yourself get stabbed,

Let yourself get abused.

Of course,

We need to do that.

But then internally,

What's my opportunity here?

Well,

If somebody's hurt me with words,

They've shown me in what ways I'm still vulnerable to hurt.

It will bring up all sorts of responses within you,

Right?

Which perhaps these ways of thinking they don't serve me anymore.

So here's a chance for me to instead cultivate compassion or patience.

We've already accepted the situation,

Tried to let go of the stories and blames.

Now we see the opportunity.

What can I do?

This is lojong.

This is mind training.

This is developing an attitude of happiness when problems arise.

And it takes training.

It does take training,

But it's absolutely possible to cultivate this kind of perspective that whatever happens in life assists me in my spiritual growth.

But it's not sort of my meditation practice is here,

10 minutes on a cushion in the morning,

And then I do the rest of my life.

But actually,

Every minute of your life is your spiritual path.

The original term for meditation,

Bhavana,

Means cultivation.

It's anytime that you're cultivating the mind.

So we are engaging in Bhavana,

We're engaging in meditation all the way through our day,

Every minute of every day,

Whatever comes up,

Whether it's good,

We transform it.

If it's bad,

We transform it.

Everything turns into our spiritual growth.

And this eases the pain in our hearts.

Suddenly we're much lighter.

Suddenly we are free to respond differently.

Now we're free to say,

How would I ideally like to respond here?

And instead of perhaps responding to someone's anger with more anger,

We can respond kindly.

And that person might be surprised because they were expecting,

You know,

A whole load of anger and harsh words coming their way.

And perhaps because of that response,

There can be a harmonious resolution.

Another way to deal with problems is to look at it as Shantideva recommends.

This is a quote I often love to draw on.

Shantideva's quote about,

You know,

If you have a problem and it has a solution,

Then why worry?

Why become upset?

And if you have a problem and it has no solution,

Also why worry and why become upset?

And I love this because,

You know,

We take the washing machine example as a very simple one,

But it can apply to any difficult situation in our life.

With the washing machine,

Does it have a solution?

Can it be repaired?

Yes.

You know,

Maybe.

Yes.

Then why do I need to become upset right now?

What's the distress going to do?

Is it going to help get this thing fixed any faster?

Well,

It's going to be repaired anyway.

It has a solution.

There's no need for me to become upset right now.

Does it have a solution?

No.

Let's say it can't be repaired beyond economical repair and you can't afford a new washing machine right now.

Why become distressed?

Why become upset right now?

Because it's not going to create a solution.

You're not suddenly going to have a washing machine appear or money appear for a new washing machine.

So the pain,

The distress is not actually going to do anything in that situation.

So it's a wonderful piece of advice,

A wonderful way to look at situations and see,

You know,

Other stories as the baggage,

The extra that I'm adding here.

Is it helping?

Is it helping?

Or is it actually just habitual?

Is it making it worse?

So these are the first two phases,

First two parts I see is the first,

The acceptance,

Letting go of our resistance,

Looking at what our thoughts are,

What our beliefs are,

And trying to see them from another perspective.

And then comes our third part.

They're not sort of steps because they overlap with each other.

The third part,

And that I believe is being sure that we're not just blocking out what we're dealing with,

That we're not just suppressing what we're dealing with.

Having kindness and compassion for ourselves when we feel unable to rise up to the challenge of transforming a difficulty.

Because sometimes,

You know,

With low drum,

We do have to start small,

We do have to train with the smaller things.

So we need to acknowledge that there are things that we won't be able to transform just yet.

And being,

Feeling unable to transform this feeling like this is just too difficult,

Is itself a difficulty.

And instead of beating ourselves up about it,

It's an opportunity to cultivate some self compassion and kindness,

Right?

Except,

Okay,

This is hard,

This is a difficult situation.

And that's okay.

It's okay that I can't,

I can't transform this right now.

And difficulties that come again and again and again,

Can be used as fuel for our motivation to practice more.

They show us where we still need some training,

Right?

So our renunciation in Buddhism,

Renunciation doesn't mean to renounce all of your things and your possessions and your family and run away.

Renunciation means to say,

No,

I am done with this suffering thing.

I'm done with this getting,

You know,

Feeling pain.

You know,

Okay,

So we recognize these problems keep coming and coming.

And we say,

Okay,

This is what the Buddha says in the first of the Four Noble Truths,

That although I try and try and try to make this world fit the way I want it to,

Problems keep coming.

And I'm done with experiencing all of this unhappiness.

I say no,

No more to any of this.

I'm done with suffering,

I'm going to cultivate my mind,

I'm going to get myself out of this.

And not only that,

But there are countless other sentient beings here experiencing the same difficulties.

My family,

My friends,

The people in my community,

They need help too,

They're experiencing these problems as well.

So I am determined,

I resolve to cultivate my mind for their sake,

So that I can help them too.

So we use it as rocket fuel for our bodhichitta aspiration,

We use it as rocket fuel for our practice,

For our motivation,

Rather than becoming despondent about it,

Because despondency,

It doesn't do anything,

It doesn't solve anything.

So this was a bit of an introduction to transforming adversity,

Transforming adversity into awakening.

This idea that we can train our minds to turn life's unfavourable circumstances around,

Make them work to our advantage,

So that our practice is not just on the cushion,

But our whole life is our practice,

Every minute of every day,

Brought into the path.

The main criteria is that we never give up,

Never give up in the face of adversity,

No matter what kind of world we're confronted with.

And when we think there's nothing we can do,

We realise there is something I can do.

And we see that that something is actually quite remarkable.

We're able to use adversity instead of allowing it to drive us into a corner with no answers.

So this is how we learn to face unfavourable circumstances and take them as the path,

As we say,

Taking life,

Taking adversity as the path,

So that we're working with our problems,

Not against them.

There's a quote here that I want to read from my teacher's book,

Tibetan Buddhism From the Ground Up.

And it's on this Lo-Dron,

This transforming adversity.

So he says,

Transforming adversity is an area of Dharma where our spiritual practice really transforms our daily lives.

We can begin modestly by accepting events and transforming small degrees of adversity.

We can start,

For instance,

With the person at work who is unhappy,

Disgruntled,

And who has a tendency to be insensitive.

Instead of reacting to this person and letting his or her qualities consume our minds,

We can choose to respond in a way that does not make us become unhappy ourselves.

The alternative,

Quite simply,

Is unhealthy.

Responding to life's adversities with mental afflictions like anxiety,

Resentment and rage creates illness.

These reactions are imbalances of the mind.

And because the mind is intimately related to the body,

All these reactions are physically unhealthy.

If we're in good health,

They make us sick.

And if we're sick,

They make us even sicker.

So I hope that this talk has been useful.

I hope that it's been interesting introducing this concept of taking our problems,

Seeing them differently.

Lisa,

What's the name of your teacher's book?

It's Tibetan Buddhism From the Ground Up.

And I have one more thing that I added this morning when I was reading a book,

If you'll bear with me.

And where is it?

So it's a story here.

Once a farmer's donkey fell into a dried up well.

Despite considerable fretting,

The farmer couldn't think of a way to save it.

In the end,

He thought,

Well,

This donkey is already old and it's also time to fill in this well.

So it's no use wasting energy on saving the donkey.

So he asked all of his neighbours to help him fill in the well with dirt,

With earth.

And the donkey quickly realised what was happening.

And it started to panic.

But after a while,

It calmed down.

And the farmer,

He looked down in the well and he was amazed by what he saw.

This donkey was shaking off every shovel of soil that came down on him and he was stomping it under his feet.

And then no time at all,

The donkey reached the opening of the well,

Jumped out and he ran away.

And our life is similar in that challenges,

Difficulties keep raining down on us.

But no matter how much misery strikes us,

If we can shake off that dirt,

Stomp it underneath our feet,

Not let it bury us,

Then we can escape the suffering of this ocean of samsara,

Just like the donkey escapes from the well.

So I just want to mention once again about if you would like to donate where your donations go,

As I mentioned at the start,

We,

Samadhi,

Our organisation,

We're setting up a retreat centre in South Wales in the UK.

And all of the money that we get from our events,

If you offer dana,

It all goes to that fund.

Myself and Manu,

The two founders,

We don't take any money from the fund.

It all goes to setting up this retreat centre.

So we can do talks like this,

Run retreats for people who are looking to do exactly this kind of thing,

Transform the difficulties of life into the path,

Into positivity.

So any donations you do make,

That's where it goes.

And I welcome any questions if anybody wants to ask anything.

So,

As I said,

I do hope that there was something practical in there.

There's so much more that can be said with Lojong,

With transforming adversity,

Because there is so much diversity in the kind of problems that we experience.

But I can absolutely say that there is a way of transforming everything.

Thank you everyone for your time this morning,

Or this afternoon,

Wherever you are.

I think we're actually into our afternoon now.

So it's been delightful to see you all to share these teachings.

And I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Please do follow my account.

We have a circle as well if you want to join.

And yeah,

I hope to see you again soon.

Thank you everyone.

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Oh i really appreciate your advice wisdom and practice :)