Why Do We Suffer?

We're going to start with a story tonight,

A short story by a friend of mine,

James Henson,

About a man who had a good life.

He loved his wife,

He loved his kids,

He had a good job,

He had plenty of time off to spend time with his family,

To do the things that interested him,

And he was happy.

And then a little ghost started coming and whispering in his ear,

And he said,

Why do you have to get up so early for work every day?

Would it kill them to let you come in a little bit later?

What's your family doing all day long when you're at work?

Would it hurt them to make the house a little cleaner for when you come home?

Man,

It sure would be good if we had a little more money in the bank.

Could relax a little.

Seems like our neighbor's doing really well.

Man,

If only you were doing that well.

What would happen if you lost your job?

That would be a nightmare.

What would happen if your wife stopped loving you if she left you?

Oh my God.

Looks like it's going to rain today.

Of course it is.

It's your day off.

And on and on the whispering continued,

Until eventually the man didn't even notice the ghost any longer.

He just got so used to it.

So nothing changed in the man's world except for this ghost whispering and that he was no longer happy.

And I think we're all here because we have a little ghost that whispers in our ear all the time.

And we know it's not normal.

I mean,

It's common,

But it's not normal to have this little whispering going on all the time.

And we can even think back to a time.

We have to go back pretty far though to try and remember a time when the ghost wasn't around.

When we were super young and we'd go out and play every day and we were just so excited to play.

We weren't worried about how we played yesterday,

How we're going to play tomorrow,

How are we looking while we're playing.

We just played.

We were happy and we were joyful and we were present.

And then the little ghost started coming along and whispering in our ear,

Are you going to wear that today?

That's not what the cool kids are wearing.

Everyone's going to think you're a dork.

Did you just say that?

They must think you're such an idiot.

Look at all the popular kids over there.

You're never going to be like them.

And on and on the little ghost kept whispering.

And as it kept whispering,

We became more and more self-conscious.

We became more and more concerned about what others thought about us and how we viewed ourselves in the lens of how other people thought about us.

And the problem isn't so much the ghost's whispering,

The thoughts,

The voices,

All of the things we've been talking about the last few weeks,

The thoughts of chasing,

Of comparing,

Of judging,

Of narrating.

It's not even so much the thoughts that are the problem.

It's that we believe them,

That we think they are facts,

That they are accurately describing our reality.

And that out of these thoughts is an illusion of a little separate me,

A little independent me inside of me.

And every time I'm hurt,

Every time someone criticizes me and I feel that sense of hurt,

I feel that little me inside.

I feel like I've got to console that little me.

If I'm disappointed,

If I'm embarrassed,

It feels like there's a little me inside that I've got to console.

And the feelings are real,

The energy that we feel,

But the little me is not.

And yet this little me runs our whole lives.

So we spend our whole lives trying to appease this little me,

Trying to make it happy.

And maybe we have those periods of time where we get all of our little ducks in a row,

Where everything seems good,

All of our relationships seem in order.

There's no big disagreements,

No arguments happening.

We don't have any big unexpected bills.

If all the machinery works,

The car works,

The kids are okay.

We don't have any aches and pains.

I'm kind of like,

Everything's okay now.

And then the little ghost comes along.

Do you remember when that person dissed you last year?

I do.

I do remember that.

And now that's a problem.

And off we go.

And we are creating imaginary problems of things that are not happening.

And then because of that imaginary problem,

We've got to create an imaginary solution for the imaginary problem that's not happening.

And then through the imaginary solution that's not happening about the imaginary problem that's not happening,

We are trying to appease a little imaginary me that is not real and that is not happening.

And we appease it maybe for a short period of time.

And then it goes,

Hmm,

But what else?

It starts whispering again.

Another imaginary problem,

Another imaginary solution needed.

Coming back into reinforcing this imaginary little me.

And out of all of this mental activity arises this massive misperception of a separate independent me at the center of the universe.

And I am in control,

Independent of what everyone else is doing.

I am making decisions.

I am the one forging my own way forward.

Independent of everyone else.

And even just tonight,

We can look at coming on this call tonight.

Each of you thinks you made an independent decision to come on this call tonight.

But we know,

I mean first of all we know it has to be in relationship to me.

I have to be on the other side of this for this at least to start.

But then how did we come on this call?

Who did you know that brought you on this call?

Three of you were on this call because of Pamela.

And if you hadn't known Pamela,

You may not have been on this call.

If Pamela hadn't been the attorney that represented us at the hedge fund when we were having a class action lawsuit against a Chinese company that defrauded us,

I wouldn't have met Pamela and you guys wouldn't have been on this call.

Think of all the millions and billions of different causes and conditions that led to that.

The Chinese fraud,

Me being at the hedge fund,

Pamela being the attorney,

Having an interest in meditation that we started working together.

From there,

Pamela offering it to Kimberly as a gift.

You gave her a private meditation session with me.

And Kimberly accepted the gift because of some interest that she had in it.

Because maybe you had seen something in the past about meditation,

Maybe about Buddhism,

The Dalai Lama,

Some other little interest that kept making your little ball just moving,

Oh,

All the little balls knocking together and this works.

And then we're doing the calls online.

And of course then you have your sister on here,

Megan,

You've got Janice on here.

All of these little causes and conditions that bring you there,

You think this is all this just independent decision happening.

And all of the things that didn't happen for you to be on this call tonight,

That there wasn't a storm where you're in your area or here.

I've canceled class due to a hurricane before,

Due to no electricity,

Last year a couple times.

Right?

The fact that the internet was up for all of us,

The fact that you weren't sick this morning when you woke up,

That your partner wasn't sick,

That your dog wasn't sick,

That just before you got on this phone call you didn't get a text from a friend saying drop everything I need you right now.

So all of the things that didn't happen,

That kept nudging you forward in this illusion that you are making this decision on your own,

That you are in control and you are making all of these decisions independent of everything else.

And this is the big cosmic joke.

You're not in control.

You're not separate.

And you do not exist independently.

You do exist.

You're all real.

You're all here.

But you do not exist the way you think you exist.

And in Zen where they would say,

It's not that you are nothing.

You are no thing.

You are not a solid,

Inherently independent thing.

You are not the illusion of the separate self,

Of this independent separate solid thing.

Who you have taken yourself to be your whole life ever since the whispering started.

And this is what the Buddha talks about,

Anatta in Pali,

Anatman in Sanskrit.

No self,

No inherent separate self.

This is what we have to see.

You do not exist the way you think you exist.

And it is not enough to see what you are not.

You have to see what it is that you are.

How it is that you are arising in each moment.

What is the whole nature of reality?

That we are a part of this massive tapestry.

We are one little thread woven so tightly amongst all the other threads.

And what's happening way over on the other edge is affecting us.

It's all affecting each other and it's all these different moments coming together.

A million,

Billion,

Trillion different causes and conditions causing the arising of us in each moment.

That everything is connected.

Everything is interdependent.

We are a part of everything and everything is a part of us.

We think that we are making our own choices,

That we have our own preferences,

That we have somehow inherently developed all of these things.

It is all influenced by everything around us.

Where we grew up,

Who our parents were,

Who our friends were,

What our society and culture was like,

What we watched on TV,

What period of time we grew up.

Everything is influencing us.

That we are a part.

We are life.

Life is not happening to us.

We are life arising in each and every moment.

And we have these two models.

One,

This imaginary model where I am at the center of the universe,

Where I'm independent,

I'm separate,

I'm in control.

And out of this model,

Me as the center of the universe,

Self-centered,

Comes fear and anxiety and stress and resentment and suspicion.

Because of course I'm conscious,

And here's the irony,

I'm conscious of what everyone else is doing and how it's affecting me.

So we do know it on one level.

What are you doing over there and how is it affecting me?

But I can control that.

And I am the center of the universe so my happiness is most important.

And this model simply binds us more to being attached.

To my wants and needs,

What I need to be happy.

And we don't let go because we believe that somehow we are controlling all of this.

And even though there is no empirical evidence for a little me inside that is the center of the universe,

That is independent of everything else,

We wholeheartedly believe this.

We've just believed it our whole lives.

And yet when we look at the model of the nature of reality,

That not just spiritual traditions would say is true,

Eastern spiritual traditions,

Scientists would say is true as well.

Physicists would say as well.

Everything is interconnected.

It is all interdependent.

Everything is in relationship to one another.

And that out of this model comes genuine kindness,

Genuine forgiveness,

Genuine love,

Genuine gratitude,

Appreciation,

Compassion and empathy.

Because we see the way the world really is.

What I'm doing over here,

Even though I'm not in control because I'm being moved along by all these other forces.

But I see how that this little ping over here that hits me there,

How it affects you.

That if I smile to someone,

I do something nice for someone,

It wasn't me.

It was all of the little pings that affected me before that made that kindness go forward.

And then that kindness got carried on to the next person and the next person and the next person.

And the same way with the anger.

If someone's unkind to me and I'm having a tough day and I don't have my Dharma practice,

Let's say,

Maybe this was a long time ago.

And then that anger would just get pushed on from one person to the next to the next.

It's all interconnected.

It's all interrelated.

And when we see the way this really is that we are a process,

We are an activity arising in each and every moment affected by everything around us,

The environment,

All the other people,

The weather,

What the scorpions are doing outside tonight,

What the cockroaches are doing outside tonight,

Every single thing is impacting us either directly or indirectly.

And when you see how this all is,

How interconnected all of this is,

There is an understanding.

I'm not in control.

I'm not making these decisions.

Thought is coming in afterwards to claim it,

To pretend I'm making the decisions.

But it's when you see this,

How this is all working,

And that you see,

Why would I let go?

Because I'm not in control.

Why would I be attached when there's nothing to be attached to?

This is what we really need to see if we really want to be free,

If we really want to live more mindfully,

To live more peacefully,

To see how the world is and to see how we are.

And I know it can be a little scary because there's not a solid landing here.

And this is what scares a lot of us.

In thought,

We want a solid landing.

We're willing to say I'm not this illusory,

Separate self.

Just give me another solid,

Separate being to be.

We want to swap it out for something else solid.

That's not the way it is.

We are not a solid being.

We are as impermanent as the day.

We're as impermanent as a flower,

As a tree.

And we see that when we see the body,

The arising and passing away,

We understand that.

But we don't realize that is our true nature,

That it is impermanent,

That it is an activity,

And it is influenced by everything around us.

We are not acting independently.

We're not in control at all.

Free will is an illusion.

And I know that's a little scary as well to hear.

So we're going to this season,

Sorry,

I'm saying season because Lisa knows this season because we're starting the season down here in La Ventana.

We are going to work through this.

We are going to go through the wisdom teachings that many of us have been through before,

But we're going to do it through a little bit of a different lens.

You are different.

This one's different.

Everything's going to be taught a little bit differently to help us see how this is really happening through impermanence,

Through interdependence,

Through emptiness,

Through cause and effect karma,

Through just this understanding of what it is you really are so that you can see for yourself.

And I want to be clear,

Each of us has to see this for ourselves so that you can let go and enjoy the ride of life that you are.

Not that you are having a life,

That life is happening to you.

You are life.

And when you really see that,

And it's a little scary,

It is a little scary in the beginning,

It's unsettling.

I'm going to try and walk us through this gently.

That is my objective to do this gently for us.

But when you see it,

You let go because you realize I'm not in control.

I'm not in control.

You're not going to change dramatically.

The preferences you had before,

You're still going to have.

You're still pretty much going to be the same person on the outside.

The only difference is that on the inside,

That ghost won't be whispering anymore.

Or even if it's whispering a little bit,

You don't believe it.

There's no little me that's being created from it because you see how it's all happening.

And you just laugh.

Continuous laughter.

You see it and you just go,

This is hilarious.

How could we have missed this?

It's so obvious once you start looking at it more clearly.

So that is the objective for now that we're starting this new series,

Is to really help you to see this.

To really help us all be free.

To live life more mindfully,

More peacefully.

Not because we understand the suffering,

Not because we intellectually understand the wisdom teachings but because we understand what it is that we are.