Transforming Problems Into Happiness: Episode 4

In episode 4 of Book Club with Sarah Sati, Sarah discusses the concepts of adverse conditions and skillful means as they relate to buddhist teachings. She then reads from chapter five, which deals with applying transforming problems to various adverse conditions one is likely to meet with in life. Sarah concludes the teaching portion of the episode with an overview of the paramitas (perfections) and offers practice homework for applying the paramitas to enhance benefits to self and others and minimize adverse conditions.

Book Club is an opportunity to take a Buddhist text and explore it deeply from a more modern perspective. The second book in the Book Club Series is Transforming Problems into Happiness by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. It is not necessary to own the book to enjoy these sessions, which combine reading, explanation, and opportunities for direct experience to the listener.

See Sarah's live events to join the next session.

Transcript

Hello,

Hello,

Beautiful people.

Welcome back to Book Club.

As you know,

Probably by now,

I'm Saraswati.

This is episode four of Transforming Problems into Happiness.

The book is by Lama Zopa Rinpoche,

So you do not need the book in order to join us here.

Just briefly recapping before we jump in.

In our last episode,

We discussed the concept of emptiness.

That was a really big topic,

A divergence from the book itself.

I went over this concept because it's really important for our understanding as we're working with these mind transformation techniques from Mahayana Buddhism,

Understanding where eventually we're headed,

Which is this understanding of emptiness.

I talked about what it's meant in Buddhist terms,

What emptiness really means in Buddhist terms.

Then I read from chapter four,

And this chapter focused on what Rinpoche was calling anger and desire,

But as I interpreted for us,

Was really about attachment and aversion.

In this chapter,

Rinpoche gave us techniques for reducing these emotions,

Attachment and aversion or anger and desire through the actions of recognizing them as they arise.

That was the first action.

Then understanding their destructive effects.

Rinpoche really advises us to sit with and mull over all of the ways that these things cause more problems in our lives.

Then he gives us the instruction to work on cultivating patience and contentment,

These two qualities.

It's not enough to just get rid of anger and desire.

We actually need to have something that we replace them with.

The replacements that Rinpoche was talking about were patience and contentment.

Today,

I'm only reading one chapter.

Again,

I'm going to be reading chapter five,

But before I start,

Let's begin with a short motivation setting practice as usual.

However you are is perfect,

But if you would like to change your position right now to find a more comfortable seat,

Please go ahead and do that.

Your eyes can be open or closed.

There's no right way to practice.

Whatever feels safest for you and allows you to reflect in the most efficient way.

And take a moment now to settle,

Settling your mind and your body.

Maybe that means you need to move around a little bit to get out some last minute movements,

A little energy.

Just do what's necessary as you gradually and naturally make your way to physical stillness.

And if it feels safe for you,

Begin to bring your attention to your breath.

And there's no need to change it yet.

We're just simply becoming aware of the natural rhythm of breathing and bringing our awareness into this natural ebb and flow of experience.

And it's okay to observe and judge even.

Maybe the rhythm for you feels quite tense or challenging,

Or maybe it feels quite free or loose,

Or maybe something in between those,

Or maybe you can't feel it at all.

It's okay to notice what's going on in your body,

What's going on in your mind,

And to notice what's true for your experience.

Just observing and acknowledging.

Begin now to pay more attention to the exhalations.

You can let the inhalation come naturally,

No effort,

And simply watching the exhalations.

If it's okay for you in this moment,

Start to extend them a little bit.

Start to lengthen the exhalations.

And with each exhalation,

See if you can allow your mind and your body to settle just a little more with each long and smooth and slow exhale.

As you do this,

Try to imagine that each long exhalation is intimately linked to the release of stress,

Tension,

And problems.

Imagining that with each exhale,

Your stress,

Your tension,

Your problems,

Dissolve as the air leaves your body.

In keeping your awareness with your exhale,

Just continue to practice this dissolving sensation in whatever way it makes sense to you,

Just for a few moments in silence.

And as you do this,

Just encourage a deeper and deeper softening of defenses,

Tension,

Stress,

And any resistance to experience,

Just however this resonates with you.

In this feeling,

In this openness,

In this dissolved area,

Take a moment to reflect on why you are joining today.

What is your motivation for being here?

Observe how this noticing,

This asking and observing is itself an opportunity to cultivate contentment and patience.

Perhaps seeing how opportunities like this exist in every experience.

You're just simply looking and asking,

What is my own motivation?

And then applying patience and contentment to the answer,

However it arises.

This application works,

Whether it's a good,

Bad,

Or neutral experience.

Perhaps you can see that now.

If no motivation comes,

Can you find acceptance and contentment with that?

And this is a form of patience,

Acceptance,

And contentment.

And maybe a motivation comes and you feel excited or amped up in some way.

Just see,

Can you slow it down?

Don't let excitement cloud your vision.

Motivation doesn't come,

No big deal.

Motivation comes,

It's no big deal.

Maybe you aren't sure what you feel,

What you're experiencing.

And here you have this opportunity to be okay with that.

There's no pressure to feel or not feel.

And this is you applying patience and contentment,

Even to a neutral or a numb sensation.

And every moment gives us a chance to apply these teachings.

So just sit here with your experience,

Whatever it is,

And look at how you can apply patience and contentment to it.

And then drop that,

And let's join our voices together as we set a group motivation.

Or listening to these practices today,

Just repeat the words after me,

May my mind be clear enough,

May my mind be clear enough to use these teachings to cultivate contentment and patience,

To use these teachings to cultivate contentment and patience for the benefit of myself and others,

For the benefit of myself and others.

And may all beings benefit from my knowledge.

May all beings benefit from my knowledge.

And may the world thrive in peace and joy.

May the world thrive in peace and joy.

Here we are together again.

No rush.

No place to get to.

No thing to accomplish.

In this moment,

Everything is just fine,

Exactly as it is.

And we can relax into this okayness and we can relax into this okayness without fear.

Being rushed,

The pressure to get somewhere,

These are just imaginations of the mind.

When they arise,

We just let them go.

Take a deep breath in and let it out,

Maybe sighing as you exhale if that feels good.

And then repeat this a few times.

If it's right for you,

Just inhaling and a long,

Slow sigh as you exhale.

And let go and simply rest here for a moment in silence.

No point of focus.

Things come and go as they wish.

If your eyes have been closed,

You can open them,

Move around a little bit,

And we'll get started.

Finding just a comfortable seat to be listening in now.

No need to sit up straight.

Just knowing that a physical comfort also creates the right conditions for the mind to be free of defenses.

So today I'm going to guide a short reflection on the homework.

It's the standard routine.

We're kind of getting into the swing of things now.

The homework from our last session.

And then I'm going to prime us for this next chapter.

I'm hoping timing works out because it's a big chapter,

But after the chapter,

I really want to go over some of the concepts that are covered in the chapter before hopefully guiding a short practice.

And then as usual,

I'll offer some homework from this session to work on until our next session together.

So the homework is just a brief check-in.

You did it,

You didn't do it,

It doesn't matter because we can't have a big discussion about it due to the nature of our interaction here.

So rather what I'm doing is I'm just going to draw your attention back to the homework that I gave from last session.

Last session,

I asked you to practice recognizing the negative impact of attachment and aversion or anger and desire in your life.

And so to really look at how these things affect you and your life experience in a negative way and how they create more suffering,

And then to see how you could apply patience and contentment to relieve this suffering.

So as I said,

Even though we can't discuss your experiences directly,

We can just take a moment to reflect on the following question.

The question is,

How did or does,

Maybe you didn't do the homework,

Recognizing the negative impact of attachment and aversion influence the way you view your problems?

So I'll say it again.

How did or does recognizing the negative impact of attachment and aversion influence the way you view your problems?

Just take a moment to think about it.

So maybe you came up with some things like when you realize this,

When you recognize this,

It gives you more agency in your life.

And that's a really powerful lesson,

Seeing our sense of agency and how that sense of agency gives us power to change and transform our life experiences.

So you can remember here that our goal is to build on each session's homework.

And as we do this,

We're gradually deepening our understanding and our practice.

So now as we've been going through these sessions,

We have this sequential order of examining ourselves and our problems.

We're examining ourselves and our problems,

And we're examining our relationship to our problems.

Are we irritable?

Do we get frustrated when people interrupt us?

Even if those people are the people we love the absolute most,

And their interruption is a reflection of how much they love us back,

We're starting to look at ourselves more clearly.

And we're using this practice homework as an opportunity to take this out of the realm of this moment,

Out of the realm of this experience,

And into the realm of where it matters most,

Our actual lives.

So,

So far we've investigated the concepts of happiness in the first session.

In the second session,

We shifted our view of problems from being problems themselves to actually being opportunities and benefits.

And now we've begun this awakening process.

We've begun this awakening process as to how our mind states and our behaviors are the roots of our problems.

A tense,

Clenched mind state creates problems.

So we're learning some flexibility,

And that's what we're doing today in today's chapter.

So as curious as I am about how this process has been going for you,

I can't really get any feedback unless you send me a message,

But I am curious to ask you,

Are you using the process outside of our sessions,

The techniques we're talking about or not?

And if not,

Why?

And if yes,

What has been working?

What has been helping?

We want to keep asking.

We want to look again and again and again at ourselves and our experience and our relationship to experience.

And this is the way that we begin to have insight into transforming old ways of working with reality that haven't been working into new ways of working with reality that will bring us more lasting happiness and joy.

So,

As I said,

In today's reading,

We're going to look more deeply at the ways in which viewing problems as problems causes suffering.

And here Rinpoche is going through a series of adverse conditions that we may face in our lives and how we can use these mind training techniques to transform them.

And so it's quite a big chapter,

But before we get into it,

I just want to briefly touch on what is meant by adverse conditions in the Tibetan Buddhism traditions.

So what does it mean,

Adverse conditions?

And what are the specific types that Rinpoche addresses in this chapter?

We want to ask these questions now because this primes our brain to absorb the reading in a meaningful way.

So first of all,

Adverse conditions refer to situations or challenges that we perceive,

That's a key word,

As obstacles in our lives or difficulties or problems.

Now,

Here's another key point.

So one key point is that this is how we perceive them.

But the second key point is that these can be external circumstances,

But they can also be internal emotional states.

So it may be the case that you view your relationship as an obstacle,

Your romantic relationship as an obstacle.

But it may also be the case that you view your overactive mind as a problem,

Anxiety as a problem.

So it's often not one or another.

It's actually often a combination of both external and internal experiences that lead us to what we consider adverse conditions.

And so a few examples of these are things like illness,

Loss,

Conflict,

Failure,

Disappointment,

Fear,

Frustration.

You can kind of see when you look at each one like fear or frustration,

Maybe it's an adverse external condition.

I'm on a really high bridge,

And I'm afraid of heights.

Okay,

So you see the external component,

But there's also the internal component.

When I'm afraid,

I clench up and I tighten,

And that actually exacerbates my fear.

So again,

These adverse conditions are often a culmination of the joining of internal and external experiences.

But here's a really important third key point.

They aren't just about negative experiences.

We may act in unskillful ways,

And I'm sure you're familiar with this,

Unskillful ways that lead us to more suffering just as often with negative adverse conditions as with positive ones.

Like imagine a time you got really excited and you reacted in a way that was totally mindless or over amped up for the circumstances.

Maybe you're understanding compassion wrong and you're confusing it with empathy.

And so you have empathy burnout from working in a job where you have to constantly give and give and give and feel the experience of another.

Maybe you're viewing happiness wrong and you're spending all your money buying stuff,

Trying to be happier only to find out that you're poor and you can't afford your rent.

So I just am bringing your attention to this because it's not just negative things that create adverse conditions with our lives.

It's also positive experiences and how we're working with them.

So that is the next key component is what we're really talking about here is a very big topic and it's the topic of skillful means.

And that's what's covered in this week's chapter.

Skillful means here means the use of the right methods at the right moments applied to the right experiences.

We want to open our eyes to the possibility that the problems in our lives come from using the wrong methods to work with experience.

This is very liberating because now we can say,

Oh,

If I've been using the wrong methods,

There might be better ones.

This use of the wrong methods nearly always comes because we understand reality incorrectly.

So we don't have to hold ourselves to some kind of critical fault and berate ourselves for using the wrong methods because in a big way,

It's not our fault.

It's not because we're bad people or doing something wrong.

We're doing our best with what we've been given to work with.

But unfortunately,

We've often been given a model of reality that isn't the correct model of reality.

And so from that,

We use the wrong methods.

But like I said,

This is good news.

When we recognize that we've been using the wrong methods,

But that other better methods exist,

It's as simple as learning those methods and applying them in our lives.

And this is what leads to the lasting experience of happiness and joy that Rinpoche talks about.

So,

Excuse me.

As I read today's chapter,

What I really want you to do is I want you to be looking for where in this chapter you hear yourself,

How it uniquely applies to you.

So Rinpoche is going to be talking about a lot of different adverse conditions.

And I want you to be thinking,

What is the one that resonates the most?

Maybe there's one in this chapter,

Or maybe this sparks some idea in your mind of another situation or adverse condition in your life that is very relevant to you.

And I want you to be thinking about that,

Because that's the area that you want to move into.

And you want to ask,

If I'm having a lot of suffering here,

How might I be using the wrong method?

How might I be working with it in the wrong way?

So just simply listen as I read and try to see your life in the contents of this chapter.

Okay.

I definitely know we're going to be going long today.

So I'm just letting you know that the chapter is long,

But I'm going to get to the reading now.

And yeah,

Just find a good,

Comfortable seat,

Chill out,

Enjoy yourself.

No stress.

Just listen.

Chapter five,

Transforming your problems into the path.

Recognizing undesirable situations as desirable is one of the most powerful thought training practices.

It's the way to transform suffering into happiness.

Transforming miserable conditions into necessary conditions that help us move along the path to enlightenment has great benefit,

Especially in the exceptionally difficult times especially in the exceptionally difficult times in which we live.

In these difficult times,

Obstacles to practicing Dharma and achieving ultimate happiness are so numerous that you simply cannot avoid them.

There are certain problems such as having many demands on our time or being sick and ultimately dying that we will inevitably experience.

We have no choice.

When these circumstances arise,

You must be able to transform miserable conditions and unwanted obstacles into beneficial and necessary conditions that further your Dharma practice and help bring ultimate happiness.

If you cannot make use of every condition that arises,

Both undesirable and desirable,

You are in danger of losing the Dharma and you will never achieve the unsurpassed and lasting happiness of enlightenment.

There's the danger of losing Dharma even when you encounter desirable conditions.

A Mahayana thought training teaching says,

It is not good to be wealthy.

It is better to be poor.

If you are poor and experience hardships,

You can accomplish the Buddha Dharma.

The beggar's body is the aim of the Dharma.

Many famous Buddhist teachers,

Such as the great Lama Milarepa,

Achieved enlightenment by leading an ascetic life.

What does it mean to lead an ascetic life?

From this verse,

It may sound as if you have to become an actual beggar,

But it doesn't mean that.

Rather,

The point is to cut off worldly concern,

To dismantle the very foundation of all obstacles to completing Dharma practice and achieving ultimate happiness.

The teaching goes on to say,

It's not good to be praised.

It's better to be criticized.

It is not good to have comfort.

It is better to have discomfort.

If you have comfort,

You exhaust the merit accumulated in past times.

Experiencing problems is the blessing of the guru.

When you are praised or have earned a good reputation or an important position,

Again there is danger of losing the Dharma.

When desirable conditions arise,

And you are happy because everything is going exactly the way you want it to,

There is danger of losing the Dharma.

Furthermore,

Because you worry about the passing of these desirable conditions,

You are in danger of losing the Dharma.

And then,

When your desirable conditions pass,

As they inevitably will,

And you meet the opposite undesirable situation,

There is also danger of losing the Dharma.

It is very difficult to practice the Dharma.

If you lose even what small amount of thought transformation you attempt or pretend to do,

Your life will become extremely poor.

Whether conditions are bad or good,

Easy or hard,

Desirable or undesirable,

You need to be able to transform them so that they cannot hinder your Dharma practice and your journey to enlightenment.

Problems help you to achieve enlightenment.

When you have a problem,

Think,

This is the blessing of the Buddha.

This situation is purifying me by exhausting my negative karma and by helping me to train my mind in Mahayana thought transformation,

So that I can achieve enlightenment for the sake of all beings.

I welcome this problem as an opportunity for me to train my mind.

You cannot stop your suffering by identifying as a problem some harm that has come to you,

Or some undesirable situation has arisen,

And then thinking over and over again that the condition is a problem.

When you encounter an undesirable situation,

A thought arises that interprets your experience as a problem,

And this causes suffering.

The only way to stop that suffering is to give rise to another thought that recognizes and interprets your experience as happiness.

Only this thought can stop that suffering.

Only this thought can quell the unhappy mind.

Therefore,

Whenever a problem arises,

You can be happy by recognizing it as beneficial,

By seeing that it supports the generation of the path to enlightenment and ultimate happiness within your mind.

Rejoice each time you meet an obstacle.

Immediately think,

This appears to be an obstacle,

But actually it's not an obstacle.

Actually,

This is supporting the generation of enlightenment within me.

Enjoy the obstacle.

Be happy.

When you meet miserable conditions,

It is extremely important to use your mind skillfully,

To employ the skillful means of the Dharma teaching.

There is always a meditation to mix with whatever suffering you experience.

Not every problem should be approached the same way.

For one problem,

Apply one method.

For another problem,

Apply a different method.

When you are able to apply the teaching skillfully in this way,

All sufferings can be mixed with virtue.

In fact,

All experiences of suffering become virtue.

Accepting problems rather than rejecting them can make a big difference to your experience,

Helping temporarily to stop worry and fear.

On top of this,

If you can mix your problems with virtue by applying Mahayana thought transformation,

Your experience of problems will actually become Dharma.

You can use problems to generate what are called the three principal aspects of the path within your mind.

All the Buddhist teachings and the entire path to enlightenment are condensed within these three aspects.

The renunciation of samsara,

Bodhicitta,

The wish to liberate all beings and the realization of emptiness.

Using problems in this way becomes a cause of happiness.

Experiencing any problem exhausts particular past negative karma,

But transforming the experience of the problem into virtue results in happiness.

Think extensively and repeatedly of the great benefit you receive from suffering.

Outline each skillful means.

It is very important to think in detail of the benefits of problems since this is the main method of generating with increasingly greater strength and determination the thought of liking miserable conditions.

Recognizing undesirable situations as desirable is one of the most powerful thought training practices you can do.

This is the way to transform suffering into happiness.

Problems are just another form of teaching.

Problems give you the clearest introduction to Dharma and clear opportunity to renounce samsara.

Because problems demonstrate so effectively how the nature of samsara is only suffering,

Problems make it easier for you to quickly generate renunciation.

The first of the three principal aspects of the path to enlightenment.

Samsara means the cycle of desire and dissatisfaction,

Birth,

Death,

And rebirth.

It is fueled by karma and delusions.

By renouncing samsara,

We renounce our habitual grasping,

Unhappy minds.

By renouncing samsara,

We embrace our potential for enlightenment.

When you have a problem,

Think like this.

As long as I wander in samsara without freedom,

Controlled by karma and delusions,

The suffering that I experience is suffering I have created,

Not something that I do not deserve.

This is the nature of samsara.

When you think like this about whatever problem you experience,

Failure in retreat,

Sickness,

Relationship problems,

The fear and worry about the problem will immediately decrease and ultimately disappear.

You will feel less irritated and much more relaxed.

Your problem will not seem so unbearable or even as big.

In this way,

An unbearable problem becomes bearable.

When you have a problem,

Think of all the suffering that exists among human beings.

Think of the people who have many more or much greater problems than you have.

You may be sick,

But some people not only have a disease,

But one that is difficult to cure or incurable.

You may not like your work,

But some homeless people cannot find a job at all.

You may be having difficulty in your relationships,

But think of a pregnant or sick or dying person who has nobody at all to take care of them.

Of deserted husbands and wives,

Of children whose parents have problems with alcohol or drug abuse,

In every family there are many problems.

Every person always has some particular problems of their own.

Think of the people who live amid war,

Starvation and destruction.

Think also of all the beings who have not met the dharma and the people who have no freedom to practice the dharma.

These people do not even have the means to create the cause of happiness and abandon the cause of suffering.

When you think of other people with greater problems,

Your own problems seem very small and bearable.

And when your big problems become small,

It's even easier to see your small problems as almost pleasurable.

When you think in this way,

You no longer dislike miserable conditions.

That feeling of aversion disappears.

Remember that samsara is a depthless ocean of suffering.

Know that samsara arises because your aggregates,

Your mind and body,

Are contaminated by the seed of past karma and delusions.

Because you have not generated within your mind the remedy,

The true path and the true cessation of suffering,

You are still bound by past karma and delusions.

Because you are bound by past karma and past delusion,

Attachment arises when you meet a desirable object and anger or aversion arises when you meet an undesirable object.

Delusions arise because you have not removed the imprints left by past deluded thoughts by generating in your mind the remedy.

Delusions only arise when you have not applied the teachings of the dharma and have not practiced Mahayana thought transformation in order to control your mind.

As explained in the teachings on the Wheel of Life,

A disturbing thought arises and motivates the compounding karma that causes your continuing existence in samsara,

Your physical and mental aggregates.

So this life is the product of your past karma and disturbing thoughts,

And disturbing thoughts in the present cause your deluded mind to pass from one moment to the next,

From one life to the next.

Until you cease creating the negative karma and disturbing thoughts that tie you to samsara,

Your suffering body and mind will arise continually from moment to moment,

From life to life.

Don't point to some external thing and call it samsara.

Point to your own mind,

Your own body,

And remember,

This samsara is depthless ocean of suffering.

By thinking in this way,

Generate aversion to samsara and turn your mind toward liberation.

Mix the problem you are experiencing with the dharma,

The Mahayana thought transformation,

Thinking that suffering is the very nature of samsara,

And it causes the thought of renunciation of samsara to develop when you do this.

By renouncing samsara,

You mix your deluded mind with virtue.

When you experience problems,

It is also very good to think,

This is nothing,

This problem is child's play.

No matter what disaster you experience,

Even if somebody steals all your belongings,

Clothing,

Money,

Everything,

Even if you have a heart attack,

Even if your wife,

Husband,

Or all of your friends leave you,

Even if the worst situation imaginable comes to pass,

Think,

This is nothing,

This is child's play.

I have accumulated so much negative karma in the past.

These problems must arise.

I will inevitably experience the result of karma I have created.

This is the nature of samsara.

It is nothing to be depressed about.

This problem is like a great pleasure for me.

There are much heavier problems still to come.

Thinking of the heavier problems still to come makes your present problem seem smaller.

This is the psychology.

Actually,

All the teachings of the dharma and of Mahayana thought transformation are extremely profound psychological methods designed to completely remove the cause of even the smallest suffering.

When practiced thoroughly,

The dharma completely removes not only negative karma and disturbing thoughts,

But even the subtle imprints of these left in your mind,

And thus leads you to the peerless happiness of enlightenment.

Buddhist psychology is extremely skillful at leading people to the state of enlightened omniscient mind,

Using problems to train your mind in refuge.

You can use your problems to strengthen your refuge,

To strengthen your reliance upon Buddha,

Dharma,

And Sangha.

Think of all the sufferings you've experienced.

The only refuge that gives you perfect protection is the triple gem,

The Buddha,

Dharma,

And Sangha.

Because samsaric pleasure and relief are only temporary,

They are not reliable refuges.

But the triple gem opens us to our mind's potential for true liberation,

True freedom,

And lasting happiness.

And so it can never let us down.

So think,

No matter what problems occur in my life,

I'm going to rely on the triple gem.

All suffering of samsara comes from the same true causes,

Ignorance and disturbing thoughts.

Disturbing thoughts motivate negative karma,

Which leaves imprints in the mind,

Which in turn give rise to future lives and future experiences of suffering.

Again and again,

In every moment and every life,

You experience the suffering of birth and death.

Since beginningless time,

So much karma has been created,

And you carry within your mind the causes for so much future suffering.

You must think,

There are uncountable results of past karma I have yet to experience,

Oceans of samsaric suffering.

Only the triple gem has the power to liberate me from all true suffering,

And the true cause of suffering.

And since the triple gem has the power to liberate me completely from all samsara,

Why not from these problems that I'm experiencing now?

Therefore,

No matter how difficult my life is,

I won't give up refuge in the triple gem.

No matter how many problems I have,

I won't give up buddha,

Dharma and sangha.

Use your problems in this way to train your mind in refuge and strengthen your reliance upon the buddha,

Dharma and sangha.

Using problems to eliminate pride.

Whenever you experience problems,

Use them to eliminate pride,

One of the five primary delusions.

Until you completely liberate yourself from delusions,

You have no real freedom and are continually affected by past karma and disturbing thoughts,

And you constantly experience the suffering of change and the suffering of suffering.

In addition,

You will also experience the pervasive compounding suffering that keeps us locked in samsara.

Remembering this,

Think,

I'm going to cut off pride,

The enemy that destroys myriad good qualities.

I'm going to cut off this evil self-cherishing thought that is careless of other living beings.

Pride seems to be our friend,

But in reality,

It only brings us endless problems.

By remembering this,

We will immediately want to rid ourselves of this attitude.

Pride focuses on the problems of others and exaggerates your own good qualities.

When you realize that you yourself have many problems and you recollect them,

Pride does not arise.

Recognizing your own suffering eliminates pride and causes compassion to arise toward others who,

Like you,

Are suffering in samsara.

With pride,

You rejoice when others have problems,

And this prevents compassion from arising.

If you instead recollect your own problems,

Then the virtuous mind of wanting the happiness of others arises easily.

A thought training technique mentions,

It is not good to be praised,

It is better to be criticized.

When you are praised,

Great pride arises.

When you are criticized,

Your own mistake is blown away.

One of the benefits of criticism is that it immediately destroys pride.

It negates the unskillful thought of pride.

Free from pride,

You are able to make true progress in your life.

Otherwise,

If you are praised,

Pride will arise too.

When pride arises,

Negative karma is created.

If you let pride arise,

You will experience the result of rebirth in realms where there is no freedom to practice dharma.

When pride arises,

Even though you may have great aspirations,

You will have little capability to do anything for your own ultimate happiness or for the happiness of others.

Ultimately,

You will not succeed.

You cannot develop your mind and attain ultimate happiness if you allow pride to arise.

You cannot even properly learn about the dharma.

Your mind is like a balloon,

And the healing dharma is like water.

When your mind swells up with pride,

No dharma can get in.

You must empty your mind of pride to receive the dharma.

The great Kadampa masters explain that all the teachings of Buddha are meant to destroy pride.

One way to control pride is to contemplate your own mistakes.

Thinking of your successes causes pride to arise,

But when you look at your mistakes,

Pride disappears from your mind.

Consider how little you know.

Consider whatever worldly knowledge you may possess and even whatever small knowledge of the dharma you may have,

And then consider how little this knowledge has helped you attain ultimate happiness,

And consider how much more you have to learn.

There are subjects you may feel you know.

You may know the words,

But you do not have the realizations.

Although you may understand the explanations,

If you are still suffering because of problems,

You clearly do not understand the true nature of your mind,

Your body,

And your senses.

Thinking in this way helps to stop pride.

The Benefits of Rejoicing The practice of rejoicing can prevent the arising of pride,

Jealousy,

Or anger.

Whenever you hear that someone else has been successful,

Rejoice.

Always practice rejoicing for others,

Whether your friend or your enemy,

Even about samsaric success.

For example,

When you hear that someone has been successful in business,

You should rejoice.

When you hear that someone has found a partner,

Again rejoice.

You should think how wonderful it is that they have found the happiness they were seeking.

Practice feeling as happy for others as you do for yourself.

In other words,

Cherish others as you cherish yourself.

Feel happy when others find happiness,

As if you yourself had found happiness.

If you cherish only yourself,

You cannot experience happiness.

But if you cherish others as you cherish yourself,

Happiness arises naturally.

When you cherish others as you cherish yourself,

If someone finds the happiness they were seeking,

You naturally feel happy,

Without any need to think of reasons.

When something good happens to anyone,

You naturally feel happy.

Every positive trade is the result of past good actions,

And all can be a basis for you to rejoice.

When you see someone possessed of physical beauty,

Think how wonderful it is that this person has a beautiful body now as a result of practicing patience and morality in past lives.

When you see someone who is very wealthy,

Think how wonderful it is that this person is experiencing the good karma resulting from giving to other beings and making offerings to the triple gem in the past.

If someone is very intelligent or has more understanding of the Dharma than you do,

You can rejoice in this as well.

And if someone has done many meditation retreats,

Even if you have not had the chance to do any,

Rejoice for them and the good karma they have created.

Simply by rejoicing,

Without the need for extensive preparation or any special effort,

You can accumulate incredible merit,

Incredible good karma.

In one second,

You can accumulate merit infinite as space.

If you really practice it honestly,

Rejoicing in others is the easiest way to accumulate extensive merit and attain ultimate happiness.

Furthermore,

Immediately rejoicing when you find good qualities in others also stops feelings of jealousy.

When you feel jealous,

You may have the unskillful wish to interfere with the success and happiness of others.

But if you abandon jealousy and practice rejoicing,

Even though you yourself may not be successful now,

You create the cause to be successful and happy in the future.

By rejoicing now when others are able to do much Dharma practice and retreat and gain understanding and realizations,

You create the cause to have these experiences for yourself later.

Allowing pride and jealousy to arise creates not only obstacles to success,

Both now and in the future.

Obstacles not only to practicing Dharma and developing your mind,

But even to success in the worldly activities of this life.

Rejoicing is a skill.

It's a skillful psychological method to achieve happiness and a very important part of everyday life.

You will find that rejoicing when others achieve samsaric success and find the happiness they seek solves many of your own problems.

On the other hand,

If you do not practice rejoicing,

If you do not practice exchanging yourself with others,

Then no matter how many years you have this precious human body and these precious opportunities to practice,

No matter how much wealth,

Intelligence,

Or worldly or Dharma education you have,

There can be no lasting happiness or peace in your life.

Ultimately,

Is the inability to rejoice in others that causes depression and makes people crazy.

If you cannot rejoice in others,

No matter how long you live,

You will be unhappy and do crazy things.

Because you have this precious gift of a human body and because you have the Buddha potential within your heart,

You have the ability to bring tremendous and lasting benefit to yourself and to all other living beings.

But if you do not apply these Dharma practices in your daily life,

You will have cut off all of these benefits.

Using problems to purify negative karma.

Another benefit of having problems is that you can use them to purify negative karma.

Think,

All my problems come only from my negative karma.

This may sound heavy,

But remember,

If our problems come from our own karma and not from the outside,

Then we can eliminate our problems by eliminating our negative karma.

Remember the four properties of karma and apply them to your present problems.

The four properties of karma are that karma is definite.

Karma can expand.

One cannot experience a result without having created its cause.

And once created,

Karma is never lost.

We can apply our knowledge of these four properties to any problem that arises in our lives.

Take for example,

The experience of disharmony in a relationship.

This can arise due to having engaged in some form of sexual misconduct in the past.

When there are many problems and quarrels in your relationship,

You can think about them in terms of karma.

Think in this way,

I've created negative karma,

So I will definitely experience its results.

The reason I have been experiencing these problems again and again for such a long time is that karma can expand,

Can grow with time if it is not purified.

Everything in my life now has a cause.

For instance,

From committing sexual misconduct in the past,

My relationship is full of quarrels now.

And if I had practiced the perfections of virtue and morality in the past,

My life now would be happy and harmonious.

Because I have not created this good karma and have instead created bad karma,

I am suffering now.

Finally,

Remember that karma is never lost.

Even though it may be 100 eons before you experience the results,

The karma you have accumulated never disappears.

When the right time and perfect conditions occur,

That karma will ripen and you will experience its effects.

What do we do then,

Knowing that even if we do not create any new negative karma,

We still have to experience the eons of negative karma that we've already created?

If karma expands and is never lost,

What can we do to prevent ourselves from experiencing the results?

The answer is purification,

Which burns away the negative karmic seeds and prevents them from bearing fruit.

There are many purification practices,

But they are all based on the practice of the four opponent powers.

The power of the basis,

The power of regret,

The power of the remedy,

And the power of resolve.

So think,

In the past,

I did not purify my negative karma and the four opponent powers,

And I did not apply the appropriate dharma practice.

Since I did not apply the appropriate practice,

I have not created any conditions to prevent my experiencing the results of this karma.

Because I did nothing to counteract my negative karma,

I am now experiencing the results.

In this way,

Apply your knowledge of the four properties of karma to your present problem.

Think to yourself,

This problem is a teaching for me.

It's a teaching for me that if I don't like this problem,

I must abandon its cause,

My own non-virtue.

With regard to any past negative karma,

The first thing to do is purify by applying the four opponent powers,

And then abstain from committing the negative karma again.

In this way,

The problem becomes an extremely beneficial teaching.

Milarepa was a great Tibetan saint,

But before he became enlightened,

He used black magic to kill many people and animals.

Milarepa felt,

I am a very evil person.

I must confess and purify all of this and practice dharma.

With the strong wish to practice dharma,

Milarepa went to meet his future teacher,

Marpa,

And he became enlightened in that lifetime through rigorous purification dharma practice.

There are many similar stories of people who,

After experiencing some heavy problem,

Got completely fed up with their worldly life,

Sought out a teacher,

Received teachings,

And then practiced diligently for a long while.

They practiced diligently and then achieved enlightenment and ultimate happiness.

This has happened many times to many people,

Laypeople,

Monks,

And nuns.

In the beginning,

They had no intention to dedicate their lives completely to dharma,

But then the experience of some heavy problem caused them to generate complete renunciation of delusion and samsara.

People like this become very pure dharma practitioners,

Practicing despite many hardships and achieving very high realization of the path.

But you must not abstain only from creating heavy negative karma.

You must abandon even the smallest negative actions,

The smallest negative thoughts.

You desire not only great enjoyments,

But even the smallest comfort,

Even in your dreams.

Besides not wanting big problems,

You do not want even the smallest discomfort.

You do not want even an unpleasant dream.

Therefore,

You must cease creating the smallest negative karma.

Using problems as an inspiration to practice virtue.

Through your problems,

You can come to like virtue.

It is said that miserable conditions persuade you to practice virtue.

One of my teachers explained that problems act as a warning.

If you do not like suffering,

You must abandon negative actions,

Purify past negative karma,

And create good karma.

While you are experiencing a problem,

What you actually want is happiness,

Which is the absence of that problem.

So you must think,

If I want happiness,

If I desire the absence of this problem,

I must create the cause for happiness and the cause for the absence of this problem.

In this way,

You use everyday problems as teachings,

As reminders.

Problems inspire you to create virtue,

The cause of happiness.

If your life is free of problems and is utterly comfortable,

You may become complacent and you may not remember to practice dharma.

Problems such as being unjustly accused or suffering sickness or a loss prevent complacency.

They cause you to renounce samsara and attempt to practice virtue.

Just as you should abandon even the smallest negative thought,

So should you strive to accomplish even the smallest virtue.

The opportunities to accomplish virtues are countless and whenever an opportunity presents itself to you,

You should take it.

As much as you can,

Cherish all beings around you with a good heart and try to benefit them by giving them whatever help they need.

Give them every single thing you can to make them happy,

Even a few sweet words or some interesting conversation that benefits their minds,

Stops their problems even for a moment and makes them happy.

Use every opportunity,

Every action of your body,

Speech and mind to increase your virtue.

Using problems to train your mind in compassion and loving kindness.

Problems give you the opportunity to train your mind in compassion.

Everyone accepts that compassion is a good thing.

Even people who have no understanding of karma recognize that compassion is a good thing.

In order to cultivate compassion,

Think of the many beings who are experiencing problems similar to yours and also those who are experiencing more or greater problems.

Even if they have the same problems,

It may be a greater hardship for them to bear or they may be experiencing many other problems as well.

Think,

Just as I want happiness and do not want suffering,

Everyone else also suffering.

Everyone else also wants happiness and does not want suffering.

In this way,

We are all exactly the same.

How good it would be if all these things were freed from all their sufferings.

Furthermore,

Take this opportunity to generate the mind of a Bodhisattva and think,

I will free them from all their sufferings.

Use your problems in this way to train your mind in great compassion.

When you feel anger at the way others are treating you,

Remember the following verse by Shantideva in his guide to the Bodhisattva's way of life.

My karma induced me to receive this harm,

But didn't I harm this person by causing them to be lost in the pits of hell?

You receive harm from a particular person in a particular situation because in the past,

In some way,

You created a link with them by harming them.

That karma then causes them to harm you now.

Now this person is creating negative karma by harming you and this negative karma causes them to fall down into the pit of the hells,

Into unimaginable suffering.

By having forced this other person to create this negative karma to harm you now,

You actually throw them into the hells.

If you could truly understand this verse and remember it when someone causes you problems,

There is no possibility at all that anger will arise in your mind.

Instead,

Compassion for the other person will arise naturally,

Without choice.

Because you are motivated by compassion,

You want only to help the person with every action,

Word and thought,

Rather than to retaliate in anger.

Compassion will motivate you to pacify their mind,

To stop them from creating negative karma and help them to purify the negative karma they have already accumulated.

In a similar way,

You can use your problems to train your mind in loving-kindness.

When you have a problem,

You are devoid of temporal and ultimate happiness.

Remember all the other beings who are also without temporal and ultimate happiness.

You and they are exactly the same in wanting happiness.

Think how wonderful it would be if all living beings had happiness.

Furthermore,

Think,

I myself will endeavor to cause each and every being to have happiness.

This is a very powerful practice.

But I still want to hit some really key points.

So I'm going to go and I hope you can stay with me.

So I'm really curious,

You know,

Did you see yourself anywhere in these teachings?

You know,

In this chapter,

Rinpoche is bringing a lot of Buddhism to the table.

So that's number one.

I think I said this in the last session,

Like,

We don't have to be a scientist to use science.

And we don't have to be a Buddhist to use Buddhism.

But that said,

We do need some basic understanding of Buddhism or else maybe some of it is just kind of like flying over our heads.

So it's too much to go into all of the things that Rinpoche really hit on in this chapter.

But some key things that were being pointed out were basically that,

Look,

There are all of these obstacles that present in our lives,

But every obstacle that presents has one,

A practice to help deal with that obstacle.

And two,

Every obstacle can be transformed into wisdom.

That's really an important point in Buddhism,

That problems actually transform into wisdom.

And in fact,

That's one of the teachings that the kleshas,

The five kleshas,

If you're familiar with those,

And I won't go into depth on this,

But basically the five real obstacles in our lives that Buddhism talks about,

Like attachment,

Aversion,

Ignorance,

Pride,

These things are actually wisdom.

We're just looking at them from the wrong perspective.

And that is what the Mahayana thought transformation teachings are teaching us,

Is that we think we have problems,

But will we actually have our benefits?

And if we just,

I always do this turning motion because I'm thinking about a ball,

A crystal ball that I have that I've used to help me understand these teachings.

If you just look through the crystal ball,

You see a few things.

You see for one thing that I can't take anything that's in the crystal ball out of it.

Everything that's reflected inside of the crystal is connected in some way to the crystal and to the other things that are reflected in the crystal.

The second thing that I really love about using the crystal ball is if I'm looking at something through it and I turn it just slightly,

I can see that you can look at any situation from myriad perspectives.

And that's what Rinpoche is talking about,

That we really just need to shift our perspective a little bit.

And we need to see that how we've been viewing reality,

How we've been viewing experience is wrong.

It's based on confusion.

It's based on delusion.

And if we shift our perspective just a little bit,

We transform our experience of suffering into one of joy.

And so it seems at first that this chapter is really about solutions to adverse conditions.

But as I mentioned earlier,

Before I read,

This is really a chapter about skillful means.

This is like the overarching teaching that's happening inside of this chapter,

Teaching on skillful means.

And as I defined it,

That really just means using the right method in the right moment,

Always rooted in compassion.

That's a really key understanding.

It's the right method in the right moment.

Okay,

Great.

But it's always rooted in compassion.

I'll use a stock market example.

It might be the right time to buy an oil stock at this moment for me to make money off of it.

It's kind of a weird example,

But because there's no compassion there,

I'm actually putting money into something that's causing destruction in the world.

So even though the right time and the right method are combined in order to bring out a positive result without compassion,

That result may still end up being negative.

And so it's really important to recognize that skillful means means the right method,

The right moment,

The right experience rooted in compassion.

So this lesson is closely tied.

Skillful means is closely tied to a Buddhist teaching of the paramitas.

So maybe you have,

Or haven't heard about the paramitas before,

But I want to just speak a little bit about them now,

Because if we understand the paramitas and how we can apply them in our lives,

This is really the beginning to transforming our relationship to experience.

We have to transform our problems into wisdom,

And we can use the paramitas as a guidepost for this,

As a process for how to do this.

So the paramitas are often translated as the great perfections,

And they are virtues in Buddhism and specifically in Mahayana Buddhism that individuals use to cultivate their own best qualities on the path to enlightenment.

And so there are six of these perfections,

Which altogether really provide this framework for ethical and spiritual development.

We can also just kind of synthesize that and say they provide a framework to experiencing lasting happiness and joy.

And they guide us on how to look at our problems,

Not as problems,

But as opportunities,

And guide us towards the right skillful mean in the right moment.

So only five of the paramitas are qualities that you really work with,

And then the sixth is sort of what comes from that.

So the main paramitas,

The main qualities we want to look to develop in our lives are,

The first one is generosity.

And this is material gifts,

But also like time and support,

Sharing wisdom,

Even thinking rejoicing can be an example of generosity,

And practicing generosity.

So this is the skillful means,

Like the application of generosity.

It helps reduce attachment,

And it helps cultivate a sense of abundance and interdependence.

So if you feel like you're lacking,

If you find yourself grasping and desiring quite a bit,

Maybe envy or greed are really present for you,

Maybe those ring true.

This is not shaming,

Right?

This is like some of us are more greedy than others.

Some of us are more jealous than others.

You just recognize it.

Then generosity is the antidote.

So this is the paramita that you would want to work the most with.

The second one is ethical discipline,

And this involves maintaining moral conduct.

And I'll kind of elaborate on that.

It's really like living in harmony with ethical precepts.

So what do we mean here?

We're talking refraining from harmful actions and engaging in beneficial behaviors.

What are harmful actions?

These are things like lying,

Cheating,

Stealing.

So if you're somebody who has a problem with lying,

Cheating,

And stealing,

Or these things are coming up in your lives,

And again,

This can be about material possessions,

Like we can steal material possessions,

But we can also be people who steal people's time.

We can be people who come into a room and take over the room without offering generously others space to be present.

So you start to look at that and you say,

Okay,

Ethical discipline,

That's my practice.

That's what I need.

The third one,

I think we all need some of this,

Is patience.

So as we learned last session,

Patience is the antidote for anger.

It really,

It's the antidote for aversion.

If you're somebody who is constantly pushing things away,

Even if it's like,

I'm pushing my emotions away,

I don't want to look at my emotions.

Patience is the solution,

Is the antidote for that.

And so you want to look,

What do I do the most?

What seems to be causing the most of my problems?

And then you're looking at how can I apply one of these paramitas to eliminating this in my life?

So generosity or ethical discipline or patience.

And patience is really about acceptance and understanding and tolerance.

So those are really important.

The fourth is diligence or persistence.

I'm the kind of person,

This isn't true.

This is just an example.

I don't need any more diligence,

I think.

Not to brag,

It's just an area I'm not struggling in or many I am struggling in.

So definitely not to brag.

But if you're the kind of person who starts something and doesn't finish something,

Like maybe you say,

I'm going to start exercising,

But I don't,

Or I'm going to start studying the teachings of the Buddha,

But I don't,

Or I'm going to finish this book,

But I don't,

Then your antidote is diligence.

That is the right method for dealing with the challenges that you face.

And you can think first,

Like,

What are all the problems that my inability to stick with something causes in my life?

You think on that really hard.

You really bring all the problems to the surface.

When I was younger,

I smoked cigarettes and I hated smoking cigarettes.

It was just that every woman in my family smoked cigarettes.

So my earliest memories are practicing smoking cigarettes.

Pretty yucky.

But I remember I just wanted to quit smoking so bad,

But of course,

It was a physical dependency,

A physical addiction.

So I did this mind training on myself where all I would do is I would really be with the smoke.

I would smell it on my fingers and in my hair.

I would make myself look at how disgusting it was.

I would watch the coal burning in the tip of the cigarette.

I would look at other people smoking and I would always bring to my attention how many problems it was creating for them.

And this was one of the methods that I used to quit smoking.

And it was highly effective because I transformed my perception of smoking.

What's hard about quitting smoking?

Well,

One is the physical dependency,

But a big thing that's hard about quitting smoking is people like smoking.

They haven't quite understood just how many problems it causes in their lives.

Okay.

So that's a weird example,

But maybe kind of gross one,

But I give it to you because when we really think these are all the ways anger destroys me or jealousy destroys me or jealousy causes problems or greed causes problems,

We really make ourselves aware of those things.

And then we are able to see clearly why that problem is persisting in our lives.

And now applying the antidote isn't so difficult.

So if you're a really lazy person,

Which many people are no shame,

No judgment,

Just like,

Hey,

I'm lazy.

Then diligence is the solution for you.

So the fifth one then is concentration.

Like ADD is a major thing.

ADHD,

You know,

This is really the,

We have a few of the big diseases of our times,

Mental disorders of this time in the world.

But of course,

Nobody's going to pretend that focus and attention isn't,

Isn't one of the main ones.

So if you're somebody who lacks focus and attention,

Maybe you have problems that arise because your partner comes in the room and you never listen to them or your kids,

You don't listen to,

And this causes conflict for you.

You start to notice all the ways that a lack of focus and attention affects your life negatively.

And then from there,

You apply the antidote of concentration.

Now,

The really beautiful thing is of course,

There are many ways to apply all of these.

The sixth paramita is wisdom.

And this is sort of like saying that when I have,

Like,

Maybe I'm really greedy,

I have a lot of envy.

And so I'm going to work with generosity,

Big time.

I'm just going to focus on the practice of generosity and just like with,

Even though it hurts in the beginning,

I'm just going to give and give and give money,

Time,

Whatever.

And then eventually that transforms into wisdom.

And so that's the kind of component of the fifth paramita,

Which is just basically saying that if you use that practice,

Even though you have to fake it in the beginning,

Which is no problem,

Then eventually these paramitas transform into the sixth,

Which is wisdom.

So we can take these paramitas and we can say,

All right,

How can I apply them in our lives?

And how are they related to skillful means?

And they are deeply connected because as we've just kind of looked at each paramita provides a foundation for skillful action and it enables us to transform our opportunities,

Our problems into opportunities for growth.

And also at the same time to benefit others,

Because remember it's only skillful means if it's combined with compassion,

This is a really key point.

And so by developing and cultivating these paramitas,

We essentially develop the virtues necessary to respond skillfully to anything life throws at us.

Like it is just an absolute inevitability that we are going to have problems in our lives.

As we learned in the first session,

We're not going to get rid of our problems.

We are never getting rid of our problems.

That's the truth guys,

Gals,

Like let's just everyone's,

Let's just be with it.

Our problems aren't going away.

If that's true,

Then what?

Then we have to transform our relationship to them.

And that is what we are doing.

We are turning these difficulties into opportunities for spiritual development and compassionate service.

And so when we are thinking,

Okay,

I need to use generosity.

We can do things like offering support to those in need.

We can just look out in our lives.

We can just look in every small and big way.

Because remember Rinpoche said,

Even a small virtue is very important.

Even kindness is an act of generosity.

So how can you see if that's like where you really see yourself in the realm of generosity?

How can you see that applying generosity shows the opportunity to apply generosity?

Shows up literally every day in every single way,

In every moment.

And this is the same for discipline or patience or diligence,

And also for concentration.

There are key moments like concentration can feel like a more challenging one.

You can say,

How is there a moment to concentrate every second of the day,

But even brushing our teeth,

Even washing our hair is a moment to practice developing concentration.

So you pick one.

That's really what I'm inviting you here.

And I'm saying this now for the sake of time,

I'm not going to guide us in a practice on the Paramitas.

I'm going to save that for our next session.

And we'll come back to the Paramitas because this is a big teaching.

This is maybe I feel like one of the most transformational teachings we can bring into our lives right now.

We can execute it right now.

There's no barrier.

You don't need to go buy a book.

You don't need a special outfit.

You don't need any new technology.

You can apply the Paramitas immediately in your life and immediately they will begin to transform things.

So I'm offering for this session's homework,

You to pick one of the Paramitas.

You need to look,

What is my biggest problem?

And I'm sorry,

But this takes total bravery because you have to be willing to admit what your flaws are.

This is where we get rid of pride.

Like Rinpoche talks about,

You have to say to yourself like,

What's wrong with me?

I've done this enough.

I've done this so many times.

So I can honestly say this,

Like,

Am I greedy?

Yes.

Am I jealous?

Even this is an interesting example.

In Dutch,

The word for curiosity,

I'm going to probably pronounce it wrong.

My Dutch isn't very good,

But it's nieuwsgierig,

Nieuwsgierig.

And this is two words that are joined together.

And these two words are basically news and greedy.

So curiosity in Dutch has a literal translation of greedy for news.

And I thought that was so funny when I learned that because I am a really curious person and this actually has caused a lot of problems in my life.

Some people don't like somebody who asks a lot of questions.

When I looked at it in the framework of greedy,

Of greed,

I recognized how that could lead to problems for me.

That was actually a real epiphany for me.

So it's even like being willing to see in small ways,

These epiphanies in our lives,

Like,

Yeah,

It is greedy to just be like more,

More,

More,

More,

More,

More,

More.

I can tamper that a little bit.

And at the very least I can hide it when I'm in public settings and just be greedy at home on the internet or something,

Or reading a million books.

This is okay.

This actually leads to benefits,

But that public greediness of wanting more and more information that leads to problems.

So what can I do?

I can dampen that down.

How?

I can use either generosity.

I don't need to ask so many questions.

I can leave space for other people to ask questions,

But also patience.

I can just hold back.

I can trust that the information that I want is going to come.

So these are just a few examples.

Now,

Again,

We are not together.

Like we're not in a shared space where we can have a back and forth dialogue.

And this presents us with a great challenge and one that we can use for our benefit,

Because what I'm encouraging you to do for this session is to for yourself,

Look up the six paramitas.

Okay.

Or just write them down right now.

We have generosity,

Ethical conduct,

Patience,

Diligence,

And concentration.

Generosity,

Ethical conduct,

Patience,

Diligence,

And concentration.

So just forget about the sixth one for now,

Because that's a naturally occurring one.

I want you to pick one.

You can pick it now,

Or you can take some time later to reflect on it.

And then I want you to practice it between sessions.

Really practice it.

If it's generosity,

Anytime a thought comes up in your mind to give in any way that comes up,

Act on it.

Anytime there's an opportunity to be patient,

Maybe you're standing in a grocery store line and somebody comes up behind you,

Let them go first.

Try to always park in the back.

Concentration,

Is that your issue?

Then when you brush your teeth,

Watch yourself brushing your teeth.

Can you keep your mind focused on the feeling and sensation of brushing your teeth the whole time,

Of washing your hair,

Of flossing?

Every moment offers an opportunity to practice.

So get creative about it.

You know,

Pick the one that speaks the most to you,

That is the most relevant in your life,

And then get creative about how you apply the paramita that you've chosen to everyday experience in small and big ways.

But honestly,

Start small.

I was listening to this great podcast episode online,

And it was about money and the dharma of money.

This is an area in my life that I'm trying to grow on.

I tend to not.

.

.

I have maybe a bad relationship with money,

And maybe I need to improve that.

So I'm working on it.

I was listening to this podcast episode,

And he was really talking about this idea of how we look at any experience.

When we look at that experience,

Specifically,

We look at our relationship to money.

We have to be really honest with ourselves,

And then we have to look at how we can take these teachings and apply it to even that.

So in small ways,

Like if it's money,

Maybe you're greedy with money.

I don't know.

It's no problem to have problems.

That's not the problem.

The problem isn't having problems.

The problem is how you work with the problems.

So you say,

Oh,

I want to deal with money.

I want to deal with my relationships.

Just pick some small ways and start really focusing on applying it.

If it's money and you get this thought like,

I should give away all my money,

Which is what happened in this podcast.

These guys were saying,

Oh yeah,

I have this thought sometimes to give away all my money.

You don't have to give away all your money.

But if you have a thought to give away all your money,

It could be the impetus for giving a dollar to a homeless person on the street.

Controversial advice,

I know.

So just relax around it if you feel yourself tightening and do it in a way that makes sense for you,

Even if it means going online and donating a dollar to charity or getting dog treats.

I met this wonderful human being in Kathmandu when I was on retreat there a little while ago.

And he went to the store and he bought dog treats because there were dogs all over the road.

And then he bought candy,

Chocolate candy.

And so he had this huge bag of dog treats and chocolate candy.

And when we would go places,

He would give kids and animals treats.

And I was like,

Is this the best guy I've ever met in my life?

It was so sweet.

When he left,

He left Kathmandu before me.

He gave me the bag so that I could use it.

And then I was there giving out dog treats and candies.

And this is so hilarious because I was benefiting from his generosity.

I was over here thinking like,

I probably never would have thought to do this,

But here I am getting to benefit from it.

So buy some dog treats if there are dogs in your neighborhood and be generous to them.

All right,

That's enough.

You get it.

There are many ways to use this.

And that is what I want for you this between session time.

Take one of these paramitas and apply it in your life.

Okay.

Let's just pause for a second.

However you are is good.

It's a lot.

Maybe you want to shake a little.

Take a big deep breath in and out.

Let's let's dedicate this practice today.

Let's just be like as absolutely generous as we can.

I'm going to put my hands on my heart.

You don't have to.

It just resonates with me.

But if you want,

Please feel free.

And however it feels good for you,

I'm going to say some words,

But if you have some words you want to say or some thoughts or feelings you want to bring up,

Let's just dedicate this practice to the benefit of others.

I'm getting a little emotional,

But I'm not afraid of that.

And I hope you aren't either.

What matters in our lives if we are not benefiting others?

Nothing.

So just take a moment here and feel the power of compassion,

The power of the desire to benefit others.

Everything we do here benefit humanity.

All the merit,

All the benefits we accumulate,

Be used for the good of all humans,

All beings.

May we be benefits in our actions,

In our thoughts,

In our words.

May we be pure expression of compassionate wisdom.

I'm Sarah Sati,

And this is Book Club.

Next session,

I hope to see you again.

Appreciate your presence and your time,

Which is an absolute privilege.

On your part,

Meeting an act of generosity on mine and resulting in beneficial experiences.

Reviews

Thank you, so helpful because the commentary augments the reading
May this teaching benefit all beings 💟

Thank you so much for the generous and compassionate way in which you are imparting wisdom to us. I am learning so much from you. 🙏🏽