Finding Gratitude for Every Experience of Suffering

Lotus flowers in Nepal. 

Just now, as I was feeling rather awful again, I experienced of a moment of gratitude for exactly what I was going through. With every obstacle an opportunity, there's always a reason to be grateful. In fact, we can go even further to truly appreciate the hardships in life, honoring as them as our great teachers of life.

The problem with me, like many others, is that I'm scared to suffer. As soon as I feel something that is less-than-desirable, I shrivel up a bit inside and try to cover it up with something. Anything that I can do to not have to face that feeling is done out of some idea that I need to be shielded from the harshness that life inevitably brings. I know I'm doing this because I can see myself doing it. I'm watching my reactions and finding that inside, I'm nothing but a big baby. Although I've been able to exercise some amount of discipline and self-control in my practice and my life lately, I'm still just as afraid of embracing the pain as I ever was.

I've heard it said that suffering is pain multiplied by resistance. We can try our hardest to avoid pain, but that just seems silly. Pain is going to come, we all have to die someday, and we are all subject to old-age and sickness. Resistance, on the other hand, seems to be somewhat of a choice. No, I don't believe that labeling something as a choice and walking away helps us understand how the mind works. Just because a choice is possible, doesn't mean that it's readily available to us. That all depends on past choices that we've made as well. For example, if we are raised in a violent household, and violence is all we know, it's not helpful to say that when we are met with violence, we should just choose non-violence. When we are dealing with years of conditioning, we must understand that freedom, or the ability to do otherwise, is very limited or maybe even impossible.

What it takes then is a radical willingness to change our lives, and that's where we can come in, at whichever moment we finally choose to surrender. If we keep going along with whatever is happening like there is no problem, nothing will ever really change. It's only when we're completely fed up with our lack of freedom that we have a chance at tipping the scales in our favor. You'll know when you've had enough of being led around by the conditioned mind, and are ready to step into a new world that is fresh and full of possibilities.

If you're like me, you might have come to this place but then wondered exactly what to do next.

Here are some things that I am looking to remind myself of now, because I know I haven't exactly been great at implementing them lately.

1. Break down the unpleasant experience. 

Let yourself see the combined parts of what you are feeling. Is it physical, mental, emotional, or maybe a combination? Try to separate the different elements that are at work in creating your suffering. You can try using mental labels to keep things clearly identified and distinguishable.

2. Let it be. 

Paul McCartney was right. Once to know what you are experiencing, just let it be. Just let the bare sensations be sensations, without letting your mind get wrapped up in identifying with them. Let heat be heat, let a throbbing sensation be a throbbing sensation. Let loneliness be loneliness.

3. Find gratitude for your pain. 

Be grateful for all that you are feeling, for it means that you're alive and able to experience life in all its fullness. It also means that your head isn't so far up your ass that you can't even realize what's happening. Even though you might be miserable, at least you know you are miserable. As it turns out, that is a crucial step in being able to step into something greater. Regardless of what you are experiencing, you can remind yourself of your gratitude by repeating, "I wouldn't have it any other way."

4. Surrender. 

Just let go of all your resistance. Let yourself feel everything, without covering it up, without feeling sorry for yourself. And if you do feel sorry for yourself, that's okay too. Just allow whatever it is that you are experiencing to be without trying to control anything. Anything you are feeling will leave just as it came in. Don't mistake a drawn out experience for something permanent. Surrender to the changing moment.

5. Be compassionate to yourself.

Sometimes, the best thing we can do is just wrap ourselves in a little bit of our own love and let something run its course. We shouldn't feel sorry for ourselves, but it's okay to acknowledge that what we're going through is indeed tough. This let's us feel our own support and desire to make it through to the other side.

6. Feel good about your endeavor to face suffering head-on.

Yes, you can give yourself a bit of a pat on the back, but not too much. Be careful to not overdo it, and develop some sort of pride about it. Remember, there is no one really here to be proud or to be proud of. Everything is always changing and existing due to the conditions that support it. Seeing the error in identifying with our suffering means that we also don't take credit for any sort of victory. Instead, we can gently acknowledge that we've done something good for ourselves and know that it hasn't gone unnoticed.


So, just like that, I hope to able to be able to have something a little more tangible to put into action the next time I feel that life has got me a bit down. It's nice to know that we all have this feeling, and that we aren't helpless in what we can do to deal with it. More than anything, we learn from these difficult situations, and without them, the human experience would be radically different. Let's be grateful for all that we have, including this.

A Call to Action at Wat Asokaram

Wat Asokaram. 

Not exactly built on solid ground.

                                                                            I didn't want to go anywhere. I woke up with     

 that feeling that I'd rather just stay at home than bother with packing my bag to head out to the monastery for the night. But, if I've done anything with my practice, I've developed a bit of a drive that can keep me going when I'd just rather give up. It's like that feeling that if I don't take advantage of the opportunities to practice, I'll be disappointed in myself, and that will be just another thing to bury under the layers of stored emotions and consciousness   

A monks living quarter, or kuti. 

So I pulled myself out of bed and hopped in a van to head down to the neighboring province of Samut Prakan, to visit Wat Asokaram. The temple, which I had previously visited nearly a year ago, is famous because it was founded by Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo, who was a disciple of the great Ajahn Mun. Coming from Ubon Ratchathani in NE Thailand, Ajahn Lee was trained in the strict Thai Forest Tradition. Although it's not purely a forest monastery, given it's close proximity to Bangkok and it's location in a marshland, they still follow the one meal a day rule and wear the brownish robes.

I swear, I didn't pick this room. Or did I?

That being said, the atmosphere is quite relaxed and I wasn't ever asked to go anywhere or do anything. It's interesting to be in a position like that. It stirs up all sorts of things in the mind, because here you've come all the way from your cozy little apartment, to be put into a much smaller room, given a thin mat to sleep with on the floor, and then left to do whatever. It makes you wonder, why didn't you just stay home and practice?

Security guard...

At some point, that might be a better idea.
Why spend the time and energy (and money) to go somewhere to practice when you can just practice wherever you are with whatever you have? Granted, it only took a couple hours door to door and only cost a couple dollars in bus fares, but upon arriving, you set your bag down, and then what? Isn't it the same?

As for now, I'll still choose to get out and connect with Thai Buddhism every chance I get, just to be filled up with the Dhamma, just to have the short conversations and the few words of encouragement from passerbyers. On this occasion, I was barely met with the temptation to practice laziness over meditation. I felt very peaceful in this place, like I was coming home. Although it's not the perfect monastery for me, it was nice to be given my own room and have the freedom to practice as I choose.

The main sala. 

In the main jedi, there are life-like statues of the great masters of this lineage. Seeing them in meditation posture, I felt a strong sense of my purpose in this life. When you have so many great individuals to look-up to, you feel compelled to follow in their footsteps. Especially with a message so clear, could they have been wrong? Or is it not for everyone?

In my opinion, it's obvious that it's not for everyone. So how to determine whether or not it's for you?

When I have been able to quiet the mind, I feel like I am being called into action. Have you ever had that feeling? It's the feeling that there is more to life than this game of worldly pursuits. There is a higher purpose, and that is to wake up from the dream. It's not common to walk this path, even over here where Buddhism is strong. Most people, monks included, aren't really concerned with waking up, they are just getting by.

And therein lies a great reminder. There is nothing that is supposed to be happening. We aren't supposed to wake up, it's only optional. But what I want to remind myself is that if the phone is ringing, pick it up. If you are receiving a message, as I am, that is telling you to take a closer look, that there's something to this idea of waking up, I urge you as I am urging myself to follow that lead to see where it goes.

Walking meditation. 

If the courage and the curiosity can come together to allow us to follow this path, I'm sure that the fruits will be better than our limited perspectives can even imagine. Part of that comes from this faith that I have been developing. Not a blind faith, but a trusting of sorts, that lets me take the words of wisdom as passed down by the Buddha and other enlightened teachers as being valid. It is truly a hopeless generation that can no longer accept the wisdom of its elders.

So it is to this generation that I am writing this to, not to instill some idea that age denotes wisdom, that is ridiculous. There are plenty of people who grow old and die and haven't learned a damn thing along the way. Very few are the ones who figure out what life is about, and fewer still are those who are able to put that into practice before breathing their last breath. It becomes our challenge, as the youth, to seek out those who have gone before us that really became the change they wished to see in the world, especially those whose ideas of change are aligned with our own. What are we willing to fight for? Are we willing to fight the darkest army in the history of humanity, our own inclination towards greed, hatred, and delusion?

If you are feeling like you need a little help, you aren't alone. Pull yourself off the couch, or out of bed, and connect with whatever resource is around you. If nothing else, utilize the internet as a resource, to find free information, e-books, audio tracks, and videos that are freely available to help spread the teachings that lead to liberation from identification with a false sense of self. And when you do, and you become infected with the power of truth, as seen and understood by your own ability to see and know, please, by all means, share it with anyone who is willing to listen!

What's called Sai-bot, or giving food to the monks.

Pindabat this morning with a Spanish monk.

THE MASTERS OF THE THAI FOREST TRADITION

Ajahn Sao.

Ajahn Mun. 

Ajahn Chah. 

Ajahn Lee, the founder of Wat Asokaram.

Inside the main sala. 

Walking meditation tracks.

It doesn't look real, does it?

Sunset over the bay. The monastery's property extends to the coast. 

Working Through the Pain

by master isolated images @ freedigitalphots.net

After talking with a friend tonight, who is going through a bit of a hard time, I realized just how much I've been skirting around my own problems lately. The tendency is to avoid the deep-seated issues at all costs, either by covering them up with pleasant experiences or getting distracted with different material altogether. While both of these options seem convenient and might serve to offer some temporary relief, the root of the problem remains and is waiting for the soil to ripen for it to sprout up again.

I know what I need to do, but yet I am playing the game of denial and avoidance. The last couple months have been pretty challenging for me. I've subjected myself to this ongoing experiment, determined to invite austerity and renunciation into my life, with some idea that it will bring me closer to the truth. But the truth is, it won't, at least not by itself. Yes, it has brought this truth into the limelight for me to see many times, the truth of the myriads of problems that I have yet to work through, but if I continue to avoid them, my experiments will prove to be of no service to me at all.

I remember on my first meditation retreat, the teacher talked about how if we weren't careful, it could actually make us regress in our practice. At the time, I refused to believe that all that time and effort could result in a situation where it would have been better off if I hadn't gone at all. I think I'm starting to understand what he really meant. If we grab onto pleasant experiences and push unpleasant ones away, we are just reinforcing the very reactive tendencies of the mind that we are trying to do away with in the first place. You could argue that the trying is the problem, but I'm not as interested in a philosophical inquiry into the role of effort as I am in finding tangible solutions.

On the surface, I've had quite a bit of success with my little experiments. I've managed to keep to the 90 minutes of meditation a day rule for the last 60 days, and I've also done at least 12 sun-salutations (a yoga sequence) everyday. I've chanted in the morning and evening nearly everyday, and my diet has been mostly vegan, with the exception of giving in to some ice-cream from time-to-time. So from a materialistic standpoint, I've been doing really well. Nonetheless, after one of my co-workers, who seems to be supportive of my ambition, asked me last week if I was still going strong, I admitted, "Yeah, but not on the inside."

But isn't that what really counts? 

The truth is, I'm going through the motions, but I'm still avoiding the pain. Sure, I've been working through the pain a little bit, but only because I've had to, there hasn't been any real intention or system to dealing with it. I guess what it took was a good reminder from a friend for me to see that I could be doing more to meet my pain head-on so as to uproot the core of the problem itself.

So what can I do to work through the pain?

Well, I guess it depends on what's there. You shouldn't bite off more than you can chew. If the problem is really big, don't try to tackle it all at once. You have to chip away, like a sculptor hoping to slowly reveal the inner beauty of a finished piece. And to chip away, we need to do our best to see what material is in front of us. We can invite the problem to show itself so as to be able to identify when it's at work in our lives. When we know what it is, we can at least be aware of it and have a chance to act accordingly.

What does it mean to act accordingly?

Again, it depends on what we are suffering from, but if we know that avoiding the problem is effectively multiplying it, we can start by allowing ourselves to feel whatever is there. As it arises, we can do our best to refrain from resisting it. Instead of being trapped in the mind, which is bound to be spinning out on the typical story of "poor me, I shouldn't have to suffer," we can try to stay present with the actual physical experience of suffering. What I've found in the past is that by allowing myself to suffer, the suffering in turn diminishes. Getting out of the story and into the direct experience means that we are able to break down the sensations associated with the unpleasantness and see it for what it really is, nothing more than passing phenomena.

When we see our suffering as being impermanent, we can take a step back and not take it personally. It's not really who or what we are, it's just something we are experiencing. If we take it personal, as the mind would have it, we are reinforcing its power over us. Although we aren't looking for power here, we want to be careful about letting the mind suck us into the trap of feeling sorry for ourselves.

Instead, we can practice surrender, knowingly and intentionally, and stop trying to fight the fact that suffering is a part of life.

I think what I'm learning from this, as it's coming up in this very moment, is that the surface details don't matter in the end. The only thing that matters is the extent to which we are free from the confines of our own habituated tendencies to react to incoming phenomena without even a shred of awareness or the ability to choose. I don't know about you, but I'm personally more scared of being an automated drone than I am of death itself, for it's much worse to die free than to live a prisoner of the mind.

by markuso @ freedigitalphotos.net

The thing that separates us from machines is not our ability to think, but rather our ability to feel. So when you feel that you are ready to face your pain, sit down and let yourself feel what's there. Allow yourself to become intimate with this pain, to know it fully. Know what it feels like, where it arises in the body, what triggers it, what makes it go away. Know the way it causes your mind to react. Notice as much as you can about your suffering and try to stay as objective as possible. Notice that all experiences come and go, and yet you remain, the witness to the passing moment.

Dig down deep, and then give up completely, for absolute strength is total surrender. 

Preparing to Die

This path I'm on is a hard one. It doesn't tell me to go out and enjoy life, like most new-age spiritual sayings do. It's not telling me to make the most of my short time here, so as to avoid leaving this place with any regrets. It's not telling me that love and family are the most important things. Instead, it's stripping me of all of this, back down to the place within where there is no me, and the world is nothing but an illusion. As the clock ticks closer to an inevitable death, my time here in this life can either be spent pretending that's not true, or facing reality and preparing to die. 

You might be tempted to dismiss this path based on some idea you have, and I don't blame you. If I would have known it was going to be this hard, I probably would have passed on it. But now that I'm here, now that I've walked this far (which isn't very far, considering), I feel like there is no turning back. Actually, there is, there could be, and I think about doing it all the time, but like any other investment, I want to protect my interests.

Before you dismiss it, you might want to know that along with the pain, there is this joy, and it is unbounded by the conditions of this world. What that means is that it is always there, but my access to it is often clouded over. When I can get past my own delusions, there it is, waiting for me. In those moments, I am free. 

It's the rest of the moments that are difficult.

The truth is, we all have to die. Regardless of what we believe will happen to us after death, our life as we know it will cease to be. But there are certain things that might change based on the way we see death. If we see it as final, then yeah, go for it, live it up while you can. If we see it as going on a trip, on the other hand, then we might want to start preparing now, for we can never be too sure when our ride is coming to pick us up.

What do we need to do before we leave? Are you ready, or have you hung on so tightly to everything that leaving will be like tearing a baby away from her mother? I don't know about you, but I don't want to leave this world kicking and screaming. There are many stories of Buddhist monks here in Thailand that have honorably passed with smiles on their faces and complete awareness right up until their last breath, even to the extent that they know exactly which one will be their last. For some, they are sitting upright, in a meditation posture, and their body remains in that form for a long time after death.

But what happens to our body is not important. The question is, in what state will our minds be in at the time of our departure? Many believe that this is the crucial factor in determining our next destination. If this is true, if our mental state projects us into the next life, be it earthly, celestial, or otherwise, we can see that our time here on earth would be better spent in preparing the mind for this ultimate transition. In this moment, all the memories in the world won't matter, you can't take any bags with on this trip. You can only take the state of your mind and the extent that it has been liberated from the defilements that generally cause minds to be self-serving and delusional.

What I mean by this is that it is only through wisdom that we can develop our minds by seeing the true nature of reality and acting accordingly. If we can become aware of what is happening, of the cyclical tendencies of the mind to seek out more and more in search of a false sense of happiness, we can back out of this petty game and fall back into the great abyss that is waiting for us. When we do so, we can connect with our true purpose, and bring new meaning into our lives. I don't think that the whole point of life is to prepare to die, we of course need to honor the world and the life we all share. And the way to do this is to open our hearts and offer up our services, whatever they may be, as a gesture of love and appreciation for all that is.

Where we once thought that life was about accumulating riches and surrounding ourselves with loved-ones until that dreadful day comes, we can now rest assured that when death comes to pick us up, we will be ready for our next journey. 

                                No expectations, no regrets, no resistance. 

by tongdang @ freedigitalphotos.net 

                                      When your day finally comes, may you go in peace. 

Feeding the Mind: The Dangers of Spiritual Materialism

1 of 3 photographs ever taken of Ajahn Mun.

On the way to work this morning, I was reading 'The Spiritual Autobiography of Acariya Mun," who was one of Thailand's greatest monks, and came across some words that stopped me dead in my tracks. Instead of continuing to read on, I found the highlighter tool on my tablet, highlighted the words, and proceeded to recite them over and over again until my bus journey had come to completion. The words, written by Luang Ta Maha Bua, a disciple of Ajahn Mun and highly revered monk who passed away just a couple of years ago, struck a chord in my heart that is still resonating some twelve hours later.

Before I tell you what words I found to be so powerful, I think a little bit of backstory is in order.

Thailand has a history of Dhutanga (Tudong) monks that creates a sort of platform for very intensive views on the practice of Buddhism and meditation. Dhutanga monks are those monks who live in forests, mountains, and caves, without any possessions other than a bowl for food and an umbrella, and wander around on an inward journey to find the true meaning of the Buddha's Dhamma. In the west, these sorts of views, which might be called hard-core, wouldn't be able to thrive because the history and foundation isn't there to support them. If they were in the west, practitioners would be deemed crazy and the Buddha's teachings would lose what little support they have.

The Buddha, in a way, taught something for everyone, but he reserved the real teachings on the path to liberation for his noble disciples, the monks. When he was talking to house-holders, or lay-people as they are called, he would give teachings suitable for those living in the world and dealing with worldly affairs. When he taught monks who were eager to break free from the cycle of samsara, or continued rounds of birth, old-age, sickness, death, and rebirth, he would give teachings on the correct methods to employ to do exactly that.

Since I no longer live in the west, I don't feel obliged to filter out any of the more austere teachings of the Buddha so as to customize the Dhamma to allow it to fit into my life more easily without changing things around. I don't want to point any fingers, but there is this tendency to dilute spiritual teachings until we think they are speaking to what we already are instead of looking at the reality of the work that still needs to be done. Attitudes such as "you can have your cake and eat it too" and "it's all about the balance" don't seem to come from enlightened teachers, they come from ordinary people who want to justify their own choices in life without losing the ability to see themselves as "spiritual." Just as the original proverb states, you can't eat your cake and have it, or in other words, you can't have the best of both worlds. 

The two worlds I'm referring to are the material and spiritual worlds. As it turns out, one requires an identity and the other only a way of being. In the spiritual world, there is only being without clinging. In the material world, there is only identification, craving, and attachment, and we are left always wanting more.

by digitalart @ freedigitalphotos.net

Spiritual Materialism in today's modern world is the trend of looking to benefit from the world, by accumulating worldly things such as wealth, fame or status, and possessions, all under the guise of being "spiritual." The fact that this trend uses the law of attraction to both gain our attention and then to support its worldly pursuits means that we're left unsure of what it really means to be spiritual.

Anyway, this problem isn't something that they have over here in Thailand. The Buddha's liberation teachings, although still mostly ignored by the majority of Thai Buddhists, have been preserved and respected through a lineage of enlightened masters, and the whole country seems entirely accepting of this. So even if the average person isn't on a mission to become enlightened, they still believe it's possible, and they have the utmost respect for those who choose to pursue that path. Additionally, when these enlightened masters expound the Dhamma in its truest form, the teachings are supported in a way that allows them to remain available for those who wish to put them into practice.

Probably the biggest difference is that Buddhist monks in Thailand, although supported entirely by lay-people, don't need to make a living in order to survive. All they technically need is food and water, and there is more than enough support to receive that, even to the point that it seems to come regardless of how genuine the monks' efforts are to attain enlightenment. What this means is that monks don't need to try to sell anything. They aren't looking for a way to offer up the Buddha's teachings that will enable them to make their mortgage payments and put food on the table, like many western Dhamma teachers are.

I don't mean to say that western Dhamma teachers are guilty of selling spiritual materialism, but just that westerners in general aren't ready for some of the more austere teachings that the Buddha taught, and the teachings are therefore being softened, as they should be, to meet the specifications of those whom it is being offered to. Just as the Buddha did, when offering teachings to house-holders, western Dhamma teachers are also giving teachings that are easy to swallow, that will prove to make a difference.

I just want to make a note that not all monks in Thailand have pure intentions and that there are monks who use their status and power for personal gain.

I guess I've always been a bit extreme, and I still can't decide whether that's been a good thing or bad thing for my spiritual practice. Either way, I've rejected a lot of the advice that's been offered to me about moderation and living a balanced life. Even though I can't claim to have walked away from those ideas completely, I see a path in front of me, I see what I need to do, and there isn't much room for indulgence or western concepts of moderation. So finally, I offer to you those words that said it all so clearly for me, in hopes that it may also be of service to you.

"He resists any temptation to follow his usual self-indulgent tendencies." 

- Luang Ta Maha Bua

So there you have it. It should be related that he was speaking of "the attitude of a monk who is truly committed to training himself under the guidance of a good teacher," but I believe that this is for anyone who is serious about waking up. If we want real peace, understanding, wisdom, happiness, and freedom, we need to resist the urge to feed our cravings.

If you want to know the nature of the mind, don't give it what it wants.