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How might we intuitively connect with this quality in those around us? Just as no one can tell us how to feel love, each of us can find our own way to sense the underlying goodness in others. One way is to shift the frame of time, imagining the person before us as a small child, still young and innocent.
Or, instead of moving back in time, we can move forward. We can visualize the person at the end of his life, lying on his deathbed, vulnerable, open, with nothing to hide. Or we can simply see him as a fellow wayfarer, struggling with his burdens, wanting happiness and dignity.
“Just as the great oceans have but one taste, the taste of salt, so do all of the teachings of Buddha have but one taste, the taste of liberation.”
This possibility is voiced by the Nobel laureate Nelson Mandela: “It never hurts to think too highly of a person; often they become ennobled and act better because of it.”
The mystic Simone Weil tells us, “The danger is not that the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but that, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.”
“Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the instruments of love.”
Buddhists call this the fierce sword of compassion. It is the powerful no of leaving a destructive family, the agonizing no of allowing an addict to experience the consequences of his acts.
As the African American sage George Washington Carver explained, “Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.”
This reclaiming of bodily life is part of a long and continuing struggle. The repressive Victorian society that Freud found so entrenched and unhealthy was built on centuries of denial. The Western heritage of neo-Platonism and medieval Christianity had devalued the physical and the instinctive in favor of the spiritual and the rational.
Suppose we feel a state of anger or longing. If we sense it carefully in body and mind, it will inevitably begin to change, to expand or intensify, dissolve or shift from one feeling to another. Anger may change to rage and then to hurt and then cycle back to anger. Or perhaps longing will transform into love or sadness and then to contraction and then back to longing, and then the thought will come, “What are we having for dinner?” All of this in one or two minutes.
As Albert Camus tells us, “We all carry within us our places of exile; our crimes, our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to transform them in ourselves and others.”
Just as the salivary glands secrete saliva, the mind secretes thoughts. The thoughts think themselves. This thought production is not bad; it’s simply what minds do.
The key to wise thought is to sense the energy state behind the thought. If we pay attention, we will notice that certain thoughts are produced by fear and the small sense of self. With them will be clinging, rigidity, unworthiness, defensiveness, aggression, or anxiety. We can sense their effect on the heart and the body.
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn puts it, “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.
But these are the contents of desire. What does desire itself actually feel like when it is present? What is its effect? What happens when we grasp our desires most strongly? There is a tension in the body, an emotional contraction, a stickiness of mind, a focus on the future. There is a driven quality. Anxiety, jealousy, rigidity, and insecurity all become stronger.
“If people are highly successful in their professions they lose their senses…. Sight goes. They have no time to look at pictures. Sound goes. They have no time to listen to music. Speech goes. They have no time for conversation. They lose their sense of proportion…. Humanity goes.”
Our inner abundance radiates a sense of worth, value, and ease, of having something to give to the world and enjoying doing so. Without abundance, we can be in the midst of riches and feel like a hungry ghost. Wise parents and teachers bring out abundance in their children by helping them feel that each has much to give, and providing them the opportunity to do so.
Usually,” says Ajahn Chah, “we believe outer problems attack us.” Things are wrong and people misbehave, causing our hatred and suffering to arise. But however painful our experiences may be, they are just painful experiences until we add the response of aversion or hatred.
Like a distorted autoimmune response, our misguided reaction of hatred does not protect us; rather, it becomes the cause of our continued unhappiness.
If we cling to anger or hatred, we will suffer. It is possible to respond strongly, wisely, and compassionately, without hatred.
A fearful situation turns to anger when we can’t admit we are afraid. As the poet Hafiz writes, “Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I’d rather see you in better living conditions.” Without insight, we are doomed to live our lives in this cheap room.
It’s like two arrows, the Buddha said. The first arrow is the initial event itself, the painful experience. It has happened; we cannot avoid it. The second arrow is the one we shoot into ourselves. This arrow is optional.
Of this basic suffering, the Buddha unfailingly reminded his followers, “It seems that although we thought ourselves permanent, we are not. Although we thought ourselves settled, we are not. Although we thought we would last forever, we will not.” We can try to distract ourselves, but our suffering will follow us. Facing our pain and suffering honorably is the only way we can grow.
here in the West we have forgotten how to grieve. Our streets, he says, are full of the ungrieved dead. Malidoma’s culture knows the value of grieving and offers rituals to honor our loss and pain. His African elders say that only by allowing our grief, outrage, longing, pain, and tears can we discover the wise heart that can contain them
A Chinese Buddhist text describes these seeds: “From intention springs the deed, from the deed springs the habits. From the habits grow the character, from character develops destiny.”
When I asked them how you can take a marriage vow that will last for the rest of your life, I was surprised by David’s answer: “You don’t.” Then Mary explained, “You take it anew every day.”
“Your true nature is something never lost to you, even in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of enlightenment. It is the nature of your own mind, the source of all things, your original luminous brilliance. You, the richest person in the world, have been going around laboring and begging, when all the while the treasure you seek is within you. It is who you are.”
Anagarika Munindra, taught us about dozens of kinds of silence: the silence of the mind and the silence of the heart, the silence of deep absorption, the silence of vast equanimity, the silence of non-perception, and the silence of the void.
“Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.”
