Transforming Problems Into Happiness: Episode 3

Welcome.

I'm Sara Sati again,

And this is episode three or session three on this book club series,

My newest book club series,

Which is using the book,

Transforming Problems into Happiness by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

You do not need the book to participate as I read from the book myself and guide us through the book using the book I have.

So just as a brief recap in our previous session,

Which I'm really excited to say can now be found on Insight Timer,

Both session one and session two.

But in this last session,

We dealt with chapters two and three in the book.

And we dealt with,

Those chapters dealt with two different topics,

Although there's some definite overlap across the book,

Dealing with the topics of training our minds to see problems as benefits.

And that was chapter two.

And then chapter three was about learning to love problems.

So I know these may sound very similar and they are,

But there are sort of like various sides of one prism.

And so the second thing that chapter three dove into was the concept of emptiness,

Which I'm actually going to explore a little bit with you in today's session.

So using this recap to explore our personal experience with these concepts that we read about,

We first reflected on our definitions of happiness,

And that was the homework from session one.

And then we practiced with viewing problems as opportunities rather than obstacles.

And we did that in just a brief guided contemplation.

This contemplation turned out to be the impetus for the homework for the week,

Which was to practice loving problems and to reflect on how this new perspective may change our relationship to our experience of problems in our lives.

So we'll touch on all of this,

But before we go further,

Before we dive in any more,

Even for logistics,

As we always do,

Let's just begin with a short motivation setting exercise.

So we'll do a little practice together.

You can adjust your posture if you need to,

Maybe finding a more meditative position.

Just find some place to be that feels comfortable for your body,

Comfortable enough to let go of your defenses.

This may mean that you stay exactly as you are,

If you feel good here,

And that's okay.

Your eyes can be open or closed.

There's really no right way to do this practice.

And just take a moment now to settle.

Sometimes that means we have to move around a little bit to get out some energy.

Just do what's necessary and allow yourself to make your way slowly to stillness and to observing the quality of your experience.

And then begin to place your attention on your breath,

If that feels safe for you.

Just simply observing your natural breath rhythm for a moment here.

And drop your attention to the inhalation and just begin to focus on the exhale.

Let the inhale come naturally without effort.

You don't have to worry too much about it right now.

And then start to emphasize the exhale a little bit more.

So perhaps letting the exhalation be a little bit longer and emptying the lungs a little bit more.

And with each out breath,

Encouraging your mind to settle more and more,

Your body to drop its defenses more and more.

Now keeping your mind focused on this out breath,

Try to bring a sense to your body and mind that all of your stress,

All of your tension and problems,

And maybe even your physical body,

Dissolve as the air completely exits your nostrils.

Just try to feel this sense of emptying out completely,

Dissolving fully.

And keeping your awareness with the exhale,

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

For just a few moments in silence.

And feeling a sense of spaciousness perhaps or openness,

Take a moment here and just reflect on your motivation for participating in this process.

Reflect on your motivation for participating in this book club.

You don't have to worry about creating a motivation.

This isn't about making something up.

There's a reason you came today.

And you're simply allowing that reason to emerge in awareness.

It's important to remember that motivations may arise easily as words in the mind,

But it's also just as normal for people to feel sensations or see images,

Colors or lights,

Or even to feel a sense of numbness.

Sometimes it isn't until you have a little distance from the practice that Sometimes it isn't until you have a little distance from the practice that motivation reveals itself.

So however this inquiry is happening for you,

Just allow and accept it as it is.

Simply asking,

What's my motivation for being here today?

And then whatever arises is okay.

And then dropping the inquiry,

Resting your mind in an open way for a few moments.

If it feels good,

You can repeat these words after me,

Setting our motivation together.

May my mind be clear enough.

May my mind be clear enough to use these teachings for the benefit of myself and others.

May all sentient beings benefit from my knowledge.

May all sentient beings benefit from my knowledge.

And may the world thrive in peace and joy.

After saying these words,

You can notice if there's any feeling in your body.

Just looking for any place in the body that's experiencing sensation.

And if you find something,

Look deeply into it.

If you don't feel anything,

It's also okay.

You can also look deeply into that.

What's it like to not feel any sensation?

Drop the contemplation.

Just listen for a moment.

Here we are together.

In a space free from problems,

This is a special space,

A unique space.

Even the worst thoughts,

The scariest emotions,

The most disgusting behavior,

The most unpleasant thoughts,

The scariest emotions,

The most disgusting behavior,

The most disgusting behaviors,

These are all welcome,

Loved,

And cared for as valuable and necessary for our lasting joy.

If it feels safe for you,

You can bring your hand to your heart or both hands to your heart.

Just listen as I say this again.

Here we are free from problems.

Even the worst thoughts,

The scariest emotions,

The most disgusting behaviors are welcome,

Loved,

And cared for.

You are perfect exactly as you are.

Everything is allowed in this space.

Maybe taking a deep breath here and letting out a sigh as you exhale.

Repeating it a few times if this feels good.

And then release your hands.

And just simply rest here without any particular point of focus.

Let things rise and fall and come and go as they wish.

If your eyes have been closed,

Open them now and maybe move around a little bit.

And let's begin today's meditation.

Maybe move around a little bit.

Let's begin today's session.

We're here again together.

The first thing I want to do,

I'll reflect on the homework from the last session.

And then I'm going to talk a little bit on the topic of emptiness.

So this is a little bit of a diversion from the text exactly,

But it's a revisit from the end of chapter three.

It's such an important topic in the Buddhist teachings that I really believe it deserves some attention before we go any further.

Maybe you're already really familiar with this concept,

Or maybe it's a sort of newer concept to you.

After discussing it,

Hopefully this will help offer some clarity or some depth.

But after a little discussion on emptiness,

Then I'll read from chapter four.

So only one chapter today.

And after that,

We'll recap it just briefly and I'll offer some homework.

If there's time,

We'll have a practice,

Another practice as well,

But we'll just kind of take it organically and see how it goes.

Hoping for a little,

At least a little bit of practice.

Okay,

So let's reflect on the homework.

The ask was for you to inquire into the idea of loving your problems.

Okay,

This is maybe a special way to view problems.

And I invited you between sessions to practice imagining that every problem you encountered was as yummy as ice cream,

Or if you're like me,

As delicious as a soy milk cappuccino.

Although due to the technology,

We can't dialogue about this,

Which is,

You know,

Its own challenge,

But it's,

I think,

Okay.

What we're going to do instead,

As we reflect on the homework,

Is we'll just take a moment in silence as I bring your mind back to the homework each session.

And this allows us to simply prime our minds for what's to come,

Bringing some context to our brains to add this new information into.

So whether you did or did not complete the homework,

I want you to just simply ask yourself now,

And you can just do this silently,

No need to close your eyes or anything.

How does or how could practicing loving problems change your experience with them?

So this is just an exploration.

There's no pressure here.

And if you did the homework,

Did you notice a shift in your emotional response to challenges when you looked at them as something you could love?

And if you didn't do the homework,

You can just simply use your imagination here.

If I looked at problems as though I loved them,

How might this shift my emotional response to them?

And then again,

Sort of reframe how does or how could recognizing problems as opportunities rather than obstacles impact your mindset and your emotions?

Maybe you don't know yet.

Maybe it's your first time joining.

We're going to dive into it more.

But as I mentioned last session,

Each session,

The homework is building on itself.

So we should begin growing in our capacity to apply these teachings in our own lives.

That's really what matters is can we apply these teachings in our own lives?

That's where the change happens.

So as we build here,

We take the past sessions homework where we worked with loving problems and we combine it with session one where we examined our understanding of happiness.

So just for a moment in silence,

Whether you've done the homework or not,

I want to give you a chance to reflect on a question.

And we're basically just asking how is lasting authentic happiness?

How is it related to the capacity to love our problems?

How is lasting authentic happiness related to the capacity to love our problems?

And just sit with that question for a moment.

Okay.

Okay,

You can drop the contemplation.

That's all for now with the homework.

If you have comments,

As I said,

Please feel free to share as you desire.

But now I want to shift gears slightly and talk a little bit about the topic of emptiness,

Which we touched on very briefly last session.

It was the end of chapter three.

It's a pretty big topic.

So I'm just going to briefly cover it here.

But because it's a main concept in all of the Buddhist teachings across all of the yanas,

And especially in the Vajrayana,

If you're really wanting to apply these teachings in your life,

Knowing and understanding and developing a relationship with the concept of emptiness as it's meant in the Buddhist teachings is really going to be important.

As a caveat here,

We do not have to be Buddhists to use the teachings of the Buddha in order to enhance our lives.

You can imagine that just like any scientific field or any field at all may offer value to our lives,

So too can these teachings.

And we don't have to become a scientist to use science,

Just like we don't have to become a nutritionist to apply healthy nutrition in our lives,

Or a fitness coach to apply fitness knowledge in our lives.

We don't have to become a Buddhist to apply Buddhism in our lives.

So putting that sort of aside,

Which can sometimes be a barrier for people,

I just want us to explore these concepts and really be thinking outside of this realm of like,

Am I becoming a Buddhist or not?

And rather be thinking,

How can I use these teachings to improve my life?

And that's where we're really going with emptiness.

So first,

Let's define the concept.

This is really,

Really crucial for our understanding,

Because at least in the English language,

Emptiness is typically used to refer to things that have nothing in them,

Like an empty water glass.

That's really how we're usually thinking about it.

And this can make understanding the concept in relationship to the Buddhist teachings a little bit challenging,

But I do want to say it's not an entirely wrong view.

So that's important to recognize.

In the context of the Buddhist teachings,

Emptiness refers to the absence of inherent existence in all phenomena,

The absence of inherent existence in all phenomena.

This means that nothing exists independently or permanently.

Everything is interdependent and subject to change.

So we can use a flower as an example,

And it just so happens that I have one here because my daughter picked me some flowers yesterday.

And if we use this as an example,

We can see that the flower itself is merely a concept.

And how do we do that?

We have to look at it in pieces.

We ask,

Okay,

Where in this flower is the flower?

And when we look closely,

We recognize that it's merely pieces.

Pieces that when combined,

Make up a flower.

So rather than a flower,

What you really have are parts.

And when these parts are organized in a certain way,

You call it a flower.

On the really superficial level,

You have the stem,

You have the petals,

You have whatever this stuff is in the middle,

Like stamen.

Maybe you have leaves,

You have pollen,

You have the color of the flower.

You can start getting deeper and you look and you say,

Okay,

There's water,

There's soil,

There's sun.

But when you ask where exactly is the flower in those pieces,

You find there's actually no flower.

And when similar parts,

And I find this to be a good way to kind of understand it,

When similar parts are organized in another way,

You may call them something else,

Like a bush or a tree or a weed.

But whatever you call it,

When you look closely,

You see that the thing itself,

The flower or what have you,

Is not only not there,

But because it's not there,

It has no lasting power.

It's temporary.

It's a temporary presentation of a group of parts that have organized themselves in a particular way.

Okay,

I feel like that's,

Oof,

That's big.

You can think on that for a long time.

And that's really what we're supposed to do.

We're supposed to be thinking on it for a long time.

So as I said,

The flower is sunlight,

Soil,

Water,

Air,

Pollen,

Leaves,

Buds,

Seeds.

But we can keep on breaking it down smaller and smaller and smaller.

Molecules,

Atoms,

Space,

And on and on it goes like that.

The truth is that if you can break a flower or anything else down smaller and smaller,

As you look for where that thing is,

In that way,

You never find the flower.

You never find the thing you're looking for.

You only find pieces.

And this is not just true for the flower.

This is true for all phenomena.

And I say true,

But what I really mean is this is the suggestion of the teaching.

So I don't want to be proselytizing here.

I'm not telling you what the truth is.

I'm inviting you to understand the teachings and then look and ask,

Is my experience corroborating this?

So when we say for all phenomena,

We include even the idea of ourself.

And this was what Rinpoche was touching on at the end of chapter three,

That ultimately to really transform our problems into joy,

We want to recognize this quality of emptiness in ourselves.

And if we can,

We find out that there's no such thing as an independently existing flower,

Just like there's no such thing as an independently existing problem.

And further,

There's no such thing as an independently existing self.

So that's heady.

But even though it's heady,

Understanding emptiness is so valuable because it helps us see that our attachments and aversions,

And this is the chapter that we're working on today,

The topic of today's chapter,

Attachment and aversion.

When we understand emptiness,

We begin to see that these things are based on misconceptions,

Confusions about the nature of reality.

That's actually really exciting news.

If all we are is confused and that's what's causing our suffering,

We just have to undo our confusion,

Which is pretty exciting because it feels possible.

So by realizing emptiness,

The idea is that we can then reduce suffering and we develop a more flexible and open mind.

And that's really important to the transformation of our problems into joy.

So what we're really getting at,

What we're getting at,

The point is interdependence.

Emptiness reveals this point.

It doesn't imply nothingness.

Instead,

It's highlighting that all things,

All phenomena,

A flower,

Ourself,

What have you,

Anything,

They arise in dependence on causes and conditions.

This interconnectedness is crucial for understanding how our actions affect ourselves and others.

I want to just sit with that.

It's crucial for understanding how what we do affects everything else.

So recognizing this interdependence,

It encourages us to act with greater compassion and wisdom.

So we know that our well-being is linked to the well-being of others.

We see that whatever we do,

Our actions are never independently existing.

And in that way,

They impact everything they come in contact with.

Like today,

I was on a run and a guy is smoking a cigarette.

He's thinking,

Okay,

This is no big deal.

It's just me smoking a cigarette.

I'm just assuming a thought process here.

I've heard it from smokers before.

I'm only hurting myself.

But I have to breathe this guy's smoke when I'm running by him.

My lungs are really open.

And that's actually worse to breathe poor quality air during that time.

You never want to exercise in a really polluted air environment because it causes more damage to you.

So even just small things like that,

We have to see that because there's this interdependence that we are really affecting one another.

And when we use the example of the flower,

We can say,

Well,

We see that the quality of the flower is a product of the quality of the pieces that make up the flower.

So things like the quality of the water and the quality of the soil.

So if we want a more high-quality flower,

We begin to care more about how we treat the water.

We begin to care more about how we treat the earth.

We start to care about the pieces that make up the flower.

And this is why emptiness and interdependence create this foundation for compassionate action.

And when we perceive these two things in the correct way,

It changes how we perceive our problems and our challenges.

We can say things like,

So my problem isn't substantial.

It's just pieces because this is the same thing for problems.

We look and all we find are pieces of the problem.

So we say,

What are these pieces?

And we can ask,

If it's true that my problem isn't in itself a thing,

It's merely pieces and we see what some of the pieces are,

We can then ask,

How do I improve quality of the pieces?

And investigating this,

We begin to see that our difficulties are not solid.

They're not concrete or unchangeable,

But rather they're the result of our mental habits and our attitudes.

And that's why practices like meditation on emptiness or lojong,

Which is what we're working with.

You have to go back to session one and two.

I won't recap it now,

But essentially just meaning mind training.

These practices help us internalize this understanding.

We're not just practicing sitting in meditation so that our seated meditation gets better.

We're actually practicing transforming our understanding of reality so that our lives get better.

Gradually shifting our mindset from one of desire and resistance to one of equanimity and compassion is the result of this work.

So in Tibetan Buddhism,

Realizing emptiness,

This is essential for attaining ultimate happiness.

And this is often referred to as enlightenment.

It frees us from the cycle of samsara,

The cycle of birth and rebirth,

This cyclical nature of reality.

And it does this by cutting through our delusions,

Cutting through our confusion.

And what the teachings are suggesting is that it's this confusion that's really like linking us to suffering.

Linking us to making problems worse than they need to be.

Emptiness is really considered the ultimate practice.

By engaging in analytical meditation,

Reflecting on the nature of self and phenomena and applying then whatever insights come from this in our daily life,

This helps us realize emptiness more and more.

And that's ultimately what we're doing in our book club.

We're really titrating things though.

And what I mean by that is we're introducing them just a little bit at a time.

And this is really important.

If you put it all together at once,

It could result in something that feels chaotic or overwhelming or explosive.

So rather than diving all at once into such a rich and challenging understanding like emptiness,

We just begin with small doses.

And we just understand a little bit and a little bit.

And ultimately that builds up and reveals what is really true about reality.

That's what we're getting at here.

What's really true about reality?

So there are a few common misunderstandings when it comes to emptiness.

And I want to just note those briefly.

One,

Emptiness is not nihilism.

It doesn't mean that nothing exists.

That's not what we're saying here.

Rather,

It means that things just don't exist in the way that we thought they did,

In the way that we typically perceive them,

As independent,

As self-existing,

And as permanent or concrete.

So this is a profound teaching,

A profound concept in the teachings.

It's not something,

You know,

Five minutes,

10 minutes of talking about is going to help us understand.

We really have to practice in our lives.

It's a profound teaching in all of Buddhism,

But especially in Tibetan Buddhism,

Which is Lama Zopa Rinpoche's background.

So by understanding and internalizing this concept,

We can transform our approach to life.

And in that way,

We reduce our suffering.

And then we increase our capacity for compassion and wisdom.

And if you go back to chapter two and you remember,

Or you go back and you re-listen,

And you remember that the idea here is that to reduce our suffering and increase our happiness,

We want to increase the qualities in our lives that lead to happiness,

Like compassion,

Gratitude,

Generosity,

Patience,

Wisdom,

Kindness.

And we want to reduce the ones that lead to suffering.

And these are things like anger,

Envy,

Greed,

These sorts of things.

So that's actually what we're talking about today in this chapter.

We're talking about anger.

And I want to get to that now.

I know this was a little divergence from the reading,

But I really believe that having this context is going to be helpful moving forward.

And whether it's this book club or another book club,

Like the book that I already know what book I'm going to do after this,

And that can be a little heady as well,

But that's really what book club is about.

It's about taking the Buddhist teachings and unpacking them and starting to understand them in a Western context,

Or I don't know if I want to use the word Western,

But in a more modern context.

And having this background on emptiness is a way that we can sort of prime our brain as we go forward.

So we're like,

Okay,

We know this is kind of ultimately where we're going.

And then we build upon that ultimate knowing.

We don't worry right now if we understand it or not.

That's not a concern.

We just put it in there.

We know it's there.

And then we let what we're learning as we're learning it,

What we're practicing as we're practicing build.

Okay.

So that's quite a big topic.

And I think I encourage you to come back to the recording and listen a few times or do some investigation on your own.

But ultimately to understand it,

You want to practice looking at things like flowers,

Like anything,

Like yourself.

But you can start with things like flowers,

Things that feel a little bit more tangible.

And you can start asking questions like,

Is this true?

Is there really no flower here?

Just look and ask,

Asking things like,

What does it mean for the flower to be empty?

Just looking and asking and observing.

Okay.

So that's as deep as I'm going to go for now to honor time.

We're going to move on to chapter four.

That's what we're reading from today.

That's the chapter on anger and desire.

But really for context,

You can think about it as a chapter on attachment and aversion.

And these are referred to as kleshas in Buddhism.

So you may have heard that term before.

And kleshas are essentially obstacles for us.

So for our ultimate happiness,

Our ultimate joy,

Enlightenment.

And two of the main ones are aversion,

Pushing things away and attachment clinging to things.

So in this chapter,

Rinpoche is really calling that anger and desire.

The other really main primary klesha is ignorance.

And when we talked about emptiness,

You can see that ignorance is really this idea that is our confusion.

So sometimes when we use the word ignorance,

It can feel almost like a little shaming or like somebody saying I'm bad in some way.

But I want to put the value judgment to the side and say,

When we're using the word ignorance in the Buddhist teachings,

What we're really talking about is just confusion.

And that's not good or bad.

It's no problem.

It's like,

How can you see reality clearly if you're confused?

If no one ever taught you to see reality clearly and then like,

Let's go further.

If someone did teach you how to see reality in a wrong way,

Then there's nothing bad about you for having that confusion.

So we can take the value out of it and just simply say,

Yeah,

I'm confused.

I don't know.

And then we look based on that confusion.

Okay.

So in this chapter,

The shortcomings of anger and desire,

We're introduced to a little bit of technique for reducing anger and desire.

And these include things like recognizing emotions as they arise and understanding their destructive effects.

And that's something that we're really gonna dive into after the reading.

And then cultivating qualities like patience and contentment.

And so let's just get into it.

Chapter four,

The shortcomings of anger and desire.

You follow desire and you are not satisfied.

Again,

You follow desire.

And again,

You are not satisfied.

Again,

You try.

And again,

You are not satisfied.

From your own experience,

You know that there's no mental peace when you do not control your mind,

When you follow anger.

There is peace,

However,

When you apply Dharma meditations and teachings in your life,

Controlling your mind by practicing patience,

Loving kindness and compassion.

It's especially important to practice patience,

Loving kindness and compassion in dangerous circumstances.

These are the ones that can cause disturbing negative thoughts to arise.

This is not easy in the beginning,

But as with any skill,

It can be developed with practice and familiarization.

The first step is to become aware when your mind is becoming disturbed,

When you are feeling threatened or angry.

As soon as anger begins to arise,

You need to recognize it.

Once you're aware of it,

You recognize that you are not alone.

Once you're aware of it,

You then consciously and systematically recollect its shortcomings.

Anger never brings the slightest benefit or happiness to you or others.

Anger brings only harm,

Making you unhappy,

Disturbed,

Even vengeful and vicious.

When you allow yourself to be controlled by anger,

That anger deeply affects your mind.

It leaves an imprint on your mind and the next time you meet similar conditions,

Anger easily arises again out of habit.

If you don't practice Mahayana thought transformation in these dangerous circumstances,

Every time you get angry,

You pave the way for more and more anger to arise in the future.

Anger obscures your mind and makes your life unhappy.

Anger can cause physical harm and even endanger your life.

When you're angry,

You are certainly unhappy and may be afraid and you may also cause fear and unhappiness in others.

Anger can make you destructive.

With anger,

You become capable of harming the possessions,

Minds,

Bodies,

And even lives of others.

While your anger is strong,

It's difficult to think of anything other than the wish to harm.

You may wish to immediately destroy the object of your anger.

And once this thought has arisen,

It takes only a moment of action to harm,

Even kill other beings.

It does not take long to inflict great harm in such a state of mind.

A mere moment is enough.

Anger causes you and others great problems every moment in which it arises in your life.

And it continues to cause harm endlessly into the future.

The state of enlightenment depends on an immense collection of virtuous activity or merit.

Anger prevents the achievement of liberation and the state of enlightened mind,

Omniscient mind,

By destroying that merit.

When the heart stops,

Life is cut off.

Like this,

Anger destroys the heart of merit and so cuts off the life of liberation.

Without the heart,

There's no life.

Without merit,

There's no happiness,

No liberation,

No peerless ultimate happiness of enlightenment.

Anger is extremely harmful.

The scriptures explain at great length how anger destroys the happiness of future lives.

But for this practice,

It's not necessary to even consider the effect on future lives.

The problems anger causes in this life are immense.

In this life alone,

Your anger continually harms you and so many beings.

The antidote to anger is patience.

Each angry thought must be countered with a patient thought.

For the angry thought itself cannot recollect the drawbacks of anger.

We can only remember the shortcomings of anger by practicing patience.

By applying the meditations and teachings of Mahayana thought transformation,

You practice patience.

When you apply them successfully,

Immediately there is tranquility,

Relaxation,

And much happiness in your life.

The pain of anger is like burning red hot coals in your heart.

Anger transforms even a beautiful person into something dark,

Ugly,

And terrifying.

As soon as you apply the teachings and practice patience,

However,

Anger stops.

And as soon as it stops,

Even your appearance suddenly changes.

You appear different and things appear different to you.

You become peaceful and happy.

Your warm-hearted,

Loving nature makes others happy as well.

As with anger,

As long as you cling to and follow desire,

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

Something is always missing.

If you examine your mind carefully in any given moment,

You'll see that something is missing.

This is true all of the time.

No matter how much you try to enjoy different places,

Living in a city or on a mountain,

Going to the beach or to a beautiful park,

No matter how much you try to enjoy food,

Clothing,

Anything that can be obtained on this earth,

There is always the feeling in your heart that something is lacking.

No matter how many friends you have or how long you enjoy their company,

There's always something missing.

All the time,

There's something missing in your heart.

You are never perfectly happy.

Even in moments of excitement,

If you carefully examine your mind,

You will discover the feeling that something is still missing and you are not perfectly content.

Watch your mind closely.

Examine it well.

Ask yourself,

Is this happiness complete or not?

Am I still looking for something more?

You will always find that there is still something missing,

That you are looking for something more.

This is why Buddha taught that no matter where you live,

It is a place of suffering.

No matter what enjoyment you have,

It is the enjoyment of suffering.

No matter what friend you are with,

You are also with suffering.

No matter what we experience,

We are experiencing suffering.

As long as you cling to and follow desire,

There can be no satisfaction.

You imagine that following desire will bring satisfaction.

That's the reason you do it.

But although the aim is to gain satisfaction because following desire is a flawed means of attaining ultimate happiness,

The result is only dissatisfaction.

This is all it can ever be.

You follow desire and you are not satisfied.

Again,

You follow desire and again,

You are not satisfied.

Again,

You try and again,

You are not satisfied.

It is like the life story of Elvis Presley.

I learned about his life when I was in Melbourne once.

While eating lunch one day,

We watched the story of Elvis on TV.

It was very interesting.

His whole life story was a very effective dharma teaching.

In both his early and later life,

He enjoyed much pleasure and excitement with fame and wealth and everything that those things bring.

Then in his final year of life,

When he sensed he was soon going to die,

He became deeply depressed.

The words of the last song he chose to sing were,

I tried and I tried,

But I can't get no satisfaction.

During his last concert,

Tears streamed from his eyes as he sang and the thousands of fans who were watching him and listening to his song also cried.

If you imagine your mind while you are following desire,

You will find that there is always something missing.

Actually,

Following desire in itself is suffering.

Following desire in itself is a problem.

Suffering is in the very nature of following desire.

No matter how much you follow desire,

You do not gain satisfaction.

You will only find dissatisfaction.

In samsara,

This dissatisfaction is the source of most suffering.

What causes problems and obstacles in life?

What causes the many internal and external obstacles to your spiritual practice?

What makes you unable to succeed in your dharma practice?

The answer is simple.

Following desire and not finding satisfaction.

So many disasters in so many people's lives come from following desire and not finding satisfaction.

In reality,

Both having the object of your desire and not having it are by nature suffering.

Having the object is suffering.

Not having it is suffering.

If you don't examine your mind carefully,

You may believe that obtaining an object of desire seems to stop a problem.

The problem of not having the particular object you want.

If you follow your desire and get that object,

Then the problem of not having that object has stopped,

But other problems start.

When the problem of not having an object of desire is stopped by obtaining the object,

We impute pleasure to the change of feeling that arises when we come into contact with the object of desire.

With continuing contact between our senses and the object,

However,

Sooner or later,

The pleasurable feeling becomes unpleasurable and is seen as an unbearable problem.

Buddhism calls impermanent pleasures the suffering of change,

While unpleasant and painful experiences are called the suffering of suffering.

Until you recognize and label the feeling as a problem,

Until you identify it as the suffering of suffering,

You impute pleasure to the experience of having sense contact with an object you have labeled desirable.

Because you have called it pleasure,

The feeling appears as pleasure,

Seeming even to exist as pleasure from its own side.

In other words,

Although the feeling is only labeled pleasure,

The pleasure appears to exist inherently.

But it is only a question of time before continuous contact between sense and object becomes unbearable.

Your mind imputes pleasure to that feeling for a while,

But eventually,

You come to recognize sustained sense contact with it as discomfort,

The obvious suffering of suffering.

It seemed like pleasure turned into suffering,

But in reality,

It was always suffering.

Whenever we encounter any object or situation,

One of three types of feelings is experienced,

All of which are suffering.

If we identify the object or situation as a problem,

We will experience a feeling of suffering.

If we identify an object or situation as desirable,

We will experience a feeling of pleasure.

But even this feeling of pleasure,

When examined fully,

Is suffering.

Finally,

If we encounter an object that is neither desirable nor undesirable,

A feeling of indifference will arise,

And this too is ultimately suffering.

Every encounter with samsara and the objects of samsara leads only to suffering.

This is because the aggregates themselves,

The mind and body,

Are contaminated by the seeds of past karma and disturbing thoughts.

As long as you're bound to samsara by past karma and disturbing thoughts,

You will experience suffering continuously.

Every feeling that arises when you meet a sense object,

Even if it superficially appears pleasurable or neutral,

Is,

In its deeper nature,

Suffering.

Following desire compounds negative karma,

Leaving an imprint in your mind that causes you to create more samsaric suffering in the future.

Then in the future,

Still under the control of past karma and delusions,

You again have to experience the pervasive suffering of samsara because of your past actions.

Because of following desire in the past,

You have to experience the suffering of suffering as well as the suffering of change,

The temporary pleasures of samsara.

This is the long-term harm of clinging to and following desire.

As long as you follow desire,

You experience suffering not only in the present,

But you also ensure that you will endlessly experience the sufferings of samsara on into the future.

It is important then to realize that even the feeling that arises when you come into contact with an object of desire,

Which you labeled pleasure,

Is only a form of suffering.

When you do not analyze the true nature of this feeling,

Your deluded,

Hallucinating mind imputes pleasure to that feeling,

Which is in reality only suffering.

Because of your delusion,

Because of your hallucination,

The suffering feeling appears to you as pleasure and you believe that it really is pleasure.

You grasp onto that and it appears to your hallucinating mind as pure,

Truly existent happiness.

In this way,

All suffering comes from your own mind.

To attain ultimate and lasting happiness,

You must cut off desire at its root.

Cutting off desire.

When you are experiencing huge mountains of problems that seem impossible to bear,

If you are somehow able to identify that you have caused these problems by clinging to and following desire,

You will stop following desire and immediately your mountain of problems will disappear.

For example,

While you are constantly thinking of how beautiful someone's body is,

You certainly cannot stop desire.

As long as you are thinking in this way,

Trying to stop attachment to cut off your desire is exhausting and useless.

In fact,

It only causes you to develop more attachment.

It's impossible to stop desire in this way.

The thought that exaggerates the beauty of a person cannot stop attachment.

The only thought that can stop this kind of attachment is thought that recognizes the nature of the body is suffering as impermanent and as an unappealing collection of flesh,

Bones,

Blood,

And so on.

You may feel I'm the only person in the world who has problems like this,

Or I have the biggest problems in the world.

This bleak,

Exaggerated view of everything is immediately stopped when you cut off desire.

Recognizing that the root of all of your problems is following desire,

You can stop following desire by relying on the remedy,

The Dharma teachings of thought transformation.

If you can apply these teachings,

Immediately you experience tranquility and great satisfaction right then,

Right in the instant you apply the teachings.

By seeing the shortcomings of desire,

You stop your problems.

You cut them off at the root.

When you can do this,

You will experience satisfaction and happiness in your daily life,

And you will experience liberation.

Cutting off desire liberates you.

In the ceremony of taking refuge in Buddha,

Dharma,

And Sangha,

The prayer of refuge in Dharma says,

I go for refuge to the supreme cessation of attachment.

The reason the cessation of attachment is particularly mentioned rather than the cessation of anger or another disturbing thought is that all sufferings are the result of desire.

If you do not renounce your desire,

Your suffering in samsara has no end.

It does not matter what others do.

If they cease following desire,

They will be liberated.

And if you stop following desire,

You will be liberated.

Just as exaggerating the beauty of something cannot stop attachment,

Similarly,

Perceiving as problems the harm you receive or the difficulties that arise will never stop suffering.

The more you see problems as problems,

The more unbearable they will become.

It is impossible to stop suffering by thinking in this way.

Identifying problems as suffering only means that you are only makes your suffering more and more unbearable.

Instead,

Leave the mind in its natural,

Undisturbed state.

Don't follow thoughts of this is a problem,

That is a problem.

Without labeling difficulties as problems,

Leave your mind in its natural state.

In this way,

You will stop seeing miserable conditions as problems.

Well,

Isn't that what we all want?

To stop seeing our problems as problems.

Look,

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

This is what we really touched on in the very first reading,

In the very first session.

Our problems are never going to go away.

If our problems are never going to go away,

What do we do?

What do we do about it?

We want our lives to be more joyful.

We want our lives to be more happy,

More kind,

More connected.

We want this for ourselves.

We want this for our children.

We want this for our families.

We want this ultimately.

But what we're finding out as we dive into these teachings is that we have been given a model of reality that actually delivers us towards suffering rather than away from it.

Nobody ever taught us to see that things that aren't obvious on the surface,

If we look underneath the surface,

Tell us something about the way reality works.

And that's something that they tell us allows us to feel free.

So what is that something?

Well,

We just went through it in our conversation about emptiness.

That something is the idea that nothing inherently exists and everything is made up of parts dependent on other causes and conditions for its final state.

And in that final state,

It is always impermanent and temporary and transitory.

So what is Rinpoche saying in this chapter?

He's saying,

First of all,

He's talking about anger.

And really he's talking about pushing things away.

Pushing things away,

Seeing things as something that needs to be pushed away is a misunderstanding because nothing lasts.

So we don't actually need to push anything away because everything has a natural exploration date.

Drawing things towards us and gripping and clinging to things is its own absolute confusion because that is inferring by our action that things have permanent and lasting power.

And he's saying,

Look,

Nothing has permanent and lasting power.

So we don't need to push anything away.

And if we see problems as problems,

They become bigger problems because the mind is ultimately responsible for our experience.

And similarly,

If we're grasping at things all the time,

Trying to hold things in our arms,

Trying to find pleasure by grabbing things and holding onto them,

All we will find is suffering because although we'll have a temporary change,

Perhaps in our attitude or our feeling,

It's just that temporary.

And our grasping and our clinging is based on our mistaken belief that things will ever be permanent.

This temporary pleasure will never last.

And anger and this pushing away of things will always create destruction.

So what do we do?

What do we do?

And this is where Rinpoche is suggesting that our first step is cultivating patience.

Patience is the antidote to anger.

So he's saying that in order to cultivate patience,

We need to use patience itself.

We need to sit in a mind that is relaxed and paused from reacting.

And we need to start contemplating all of the ways that anger or pushing things away destroys our lives.

Now,

I think the reason he uses anger is because anger is so salient and it's so intense.

But there are other more subtle things that we do that also cause problems that are just a result of pushing things away.

And those are things like pushing away our emotional states,

Trying not to look at some emotions or some thoughts or some behaviors because we don't want to see them.

That's more subtle,

But that also causes problems in our lives.

And then when he's talking about desire,

What is the antidote to desire?

It's cultivating a sense of contentment.

But ultimately,

The ultimate practice is learning to rest the mind without pushing away and without pulling in and just allowing the relaxed natural state of mind to be what we experience,

What we connect to.

And this is its own practice.

And it is not an easy,

An easy practice at all.

But the more we practice it,

The more we can reduce our unhappiness in our lives and the more we can increase our happiness.

And that is what we are looking to do.

That's why we come here together because we want to feel happy more and we want to feel bad less.

And if we really look at us feeling unhappy,

We see that our unhappiness causes everyone else's unhappiness and our happiness causes happiness.

So the conditions for the happiness of my family is my happiness.

And if I pay attention to that,

I don't have to worry about making my family happy.

That will be a natural byproduct.

So we have to turn inward.

All right.

We're already at that hour mark,

But I had said in the first session,

You were going to keep it under an hour and a half.

And I do want to just briefly take a moment for silent reflection on anger and on desire before we close with the homework.

So if you'll humor me here,

If you have some time,

Just find a position that you can reflect in a little bit of comfort without any resistance.

And we call this find some relaxation,

Just a different way to see relaxation.

Maybe you want to sit up straight or maybe it feels better for you to lie down with some support under your spine and you just have to find what's right for you.

Eyes closed or open.

It's no problem.

Just take a moment here to settle your mind.

And get out any fidgets or movements and come to stillness.

Okay.

You can bring to mind a specific experience,

But it's not necessary.

Just going back into your memory bank.

And you can bring to mind a specific experience that you can bring to your memory bank.

I want you to start thinking,

Just contemplating for a moment,

All the ways anger has been destructive in your life.

It may be your anger.

And I do want you to see that.

Think of a time,

Many times that you were angry and all that anger did was cause more problems.

You can go all the way back to childhood here,

Whatever.

Go to a place where you really look into your emotions.

Your anger has led to destruction,

More problems.

And you can also look at the anger of others and how their anger is destructive.

Maybe you find you're not a particularly angry person.

And it's true for many people.

We hold the anger in.

We don't express it.

So if you have a hard time looking at your own anger,

Look at the anger of someone else.

Just take a moment here in silence to reflect on all the ways that anger is destructive in your life.

And if it's safe to be in the body in this somatic way,

Maybe you are experiencing a physical sensation that's connected to this remembering of the destruction of anger.

If you have a tendency to push that feeling away,

I want you to see that as part of this practice.

This practice is pushing nothing away.

So if you have a physical sensation,

Rather than looking away from it,

Try to look at it.

Try to look at anything that is arising around the remembering of the destructive nature of anger in your life.

And I want to ask you a question.

Do you want anger to have this control over your happiness?

Do you want your life to be feeling this way that anger brings or not?

And then drop the contemplation.

Just rest for a moment here,

Really an open space,

Letting things come and go as they choose.

Okay,

Now let's shift and think a little bit about desire,

Wanting.

And maybe it's easier,

It is easier for me,

At least to think about discontentment.

Like where aren't you content in your life?

Maybe it's with a job,

A home,

A career,

How much you do or don't know.

Maybe it's with if you did or didn't have kids,

Or if you are or are not married,

If you do or don't own a house,

Where you live in the world.

If you look one way versus another,

If your hair is long or short,

If you're tall or short,

You know,

These kinds of things.

Just start looking,

Examining all the ways that you're not content in your life.

And as you look at these things,

As you look at the ways you're not content in your life,

I just want you to examine how this sense of discontentment actually is causing suffering.

It may be challenging to look at your own discontentment,

But we're not pushing anything away.

So try as hard as you can here to really look.

But if it's too much,

Or if you just can't find something,

You can also use the discontentment of someone that you know.

Like maybe you know somebody and they're just never happy.

It's like always complaining.

Things are just never good enough.

And just contemplate for a moment how that way of experiencing reality is causing more suffering in that person's life or your own.

It'd be hard to admit these things to ourselves that we're causing our own problems.

So if you feel it,

There's some resistance there.

That's okay.

And it's normal.

And don't worry about it.

Just observe that.

And then drop the contemplation for a moment.

Just rest here in a really natural way,

Letting experience rise and fall.

Okay,

Last one.

Let's take a deep breath here.

Last one.

Let's imagine here.

Let's just totally fabricate it.

Let's make it up.

Imagine that you never experience anger,

That you are always patient.

And let's further imagine that you are just 150% content with how things are right now.

It's just a game.

So don't worry.

However you experience it,

It's okay.

Just bringing a full imagination to mind.

Just what is life like if you never let anger control you,

If you're absolutely patient,

And if you are 150% content?

Just imagine.

And you can further push this boundary.

You can say,

Is how I'm imagining it would be true.

For example,

Maybe you imagine if you're super content with your life,

Things will be great and wonderful.

Problems will disappear.

But it could also be the case that when you imagine it,

You think to yourself,

Well,

Then I won't leave this bad relationship or change this yucky job.

And I just want to push the boundary here and say,

Is it true?

Maybe you can imagine that getting rid of anger really improves your life circumstances and eliminates your problems.

But maybe when you try to imagine it,

You think,

Well,

How will I stick up for myself against so-and-so?

I'm suggesting here that what you should do,

Regardless of what your answer is to this imagination,

Is ask,

Is my response true?

You can drop the contemplation just a short time here together.

These are big questions.

They require a lot of time with them.

Just rest for a few moments in an open,

Spacious quality,

Not pushing things away,

Not grabbing onto things,

Just letting things rest as they are.

Okay,

If your eyes were closed,

You can open them,

Move around a little bit.

This is the homework for this in between these next sessions.

First thing is I want you to continue searching for this proper definition of lasting happiness.

That's from session one.

Continue trying to see your problems as something you can love.

And now add to that,

Add to it.

So it's getting bigger,

But it doesn't actually take up any more time.

You can write these things down.

You can put them on Post-it notes around your house,

Put it on the home screen of your phone or something so that you remind yourself frequently,

Make a reminder.

Now you're going to spend this time between sessions recognizing the negative impact of anger and desire in your life.

Or if it makes more sense,

You can think of it as attachment and aversion or clinging and pushing away.

And then I want you to further analyze.

So it's two analyses here.

You're looking at like,

How are these things making my life worse?

And then the second part of that is how analyze,

Assess,

And notice when you're patient,

When you're content,

How that makes life better.

And there are moments.

There are moments in the next few days or whatever where you're going to find yourself being patient or you're going to find yourself feeling content.

They may be brief moments,

But they are going to be there.

And so lean into those,

Really investigate,

Like,

How is this sense bringing me more joy and less suffering?

And then put it to the test against an idea you had about this imagination of being free of anger and being free of desire.

So we're really starting to look at our lives off the cushion,

Out of the session.

And this is where the meditation practice becomes a life practice,

Not just a seated practice we do in a quiet room where nobody's allowed to talk to us.

Not a quiet room where nobody's allowed to interrupt us and everything better stay perfect.

Not that at all.

Like,

Put that thought away because that's not helping us.

We're taking these contemplations,

We're taking these investigations,

And we're bringing them to our actual life.

And we're starting to ask them again and again and again as experience unfolds in its organic way.

And that asking,

And then that looking and observing,

Is what is going to lead to our transformation.

Because it's not about me telling you,

It's not about Rinpoche telling you,

It's about you experiencing what is being taught,

What is being taught and talked about.

So that's the homework.

Just really looking at your definition of happiness,

Looking at loving problems,

Really loving them.

Oh no,

I spilled my coffee.

I love it.

I love it.

It's fine.

I love it.

Not just it's fine,

But I actually love it.

And then asking,

How is anger,

How is desire making my life worse?

And how does patience and contentment make my life better?

And so you can just play with those in between sessions,

And we will check in about it at the end.

There's a little bonus homework I want to offer,

Which is to spend five minutes a day,

Just five minutes in a specific place.

This is a more formal practice,

And spend that five minutes resting your mind in a very natural way,

Not pushing things away,

Not drawing things towards you,

But rather allowing the mind to be open and free.

And next session,

I'll dive into that,

I think a little bit more.

Actually,

Chapter five is a really big chapter.

So we'll just be working with chapter five next week or next session.

And I think I'm also going to spend some time with what it means to rest the mind naturally.

I think that's important concept just as emptiness is.

Of course,

As always,

I encourage you to write down these practices,

And then any observations or experiences you have,

Taking time to journal and write about our experience.

Even if we never go back and look at it again,

This is a really helpful tool in the self-transformation journey.

So I encourage you to use it.

Okay.

Well,

That's it.

We have completed session three of transforming problems into happiness.

The book that we're reading by Lama Zopa Rinpoche,

A big session today covering emptiness and covering this chapter on anger and desire,

Big topics,

Not small things.

Just as a reminder that our goal here is we're challenging our existing conceptual models of reality,

And we're offering ourselves new definitions of concepts that lead to more lasting joy and peace.

So this is a big deal.

It's no small endeavor.

You can imagine this is the ultimate goal.

This is a bigger goal than becoming a doctor or a lawyer or buying that house or getting that whatever thing is that you really want.

This is the biggest goal you could imagine.

You're transforming your mind.

So cut yourself some slack,

Be kind,

Be compassionate,

And just stay open.

May this be a benefit to you in your life.

And in that way,

May it benefit others.

Thanks for joining me today.

I really appreciate your presence.

Until next time.