In this Dharma Talk, Zen teacher Cuong Lu takes a closer look at the roots of happiness. He begins by outlining two types of happiness: happiness with a cause and happiness without a cause. Introducing the idea of the collective dimension of happiness, he asks us to remain curious about our attachment to happiness and open to the possibility that happiness may be overrated.

Cuong Lu is a Zen scholar and teacher ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh who spent sixteen years as a monk at Plum Village. A former prison chaplain, he is the author of The Buddha in Jail (2019), Wait: A Love Letter to Those in Despair (2021), and Happiness Is Overrated (2023). He is the founder of the Mind Only School in the Netherlands, where he teaches Buddhist philosophy and psychology.

Transcript
It has been edited for clarity.

Dear friends, first of all I would like to invite you to do a small practice with me: the practice of listening to the sound of the bell.

I invite the bell in your practice. Listening to the sound of the bell when you’re breathing in, you know I’m breathing in. When you are breathing out you know, I’m breathing out. You practice following your breath during the sound of the bell. You listen to the sound of the bell and practice following your breathing.

Breathing in, I know I’m breathing in. Breathing out, I know I’m breathing out. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly. Deep. Slow.

Dear friends, my name is Cuong Lu. I am a Zen teacher. I am a disciple of Thich Nhat Hanh. I’m also the author of three books. The first one is The Buddha in Jail: Restoring Lives, Finding Hope and Freedom. The second one is Wait: A Love Letter to Those in Despair. And the third one is Happiness Is Overrated: Simple Lessons on Finding Meaning in Each Moment.

I would like to share with you that the practice of breathing in and breathing out is a very powerful practice. Thanks to that practice, you can be yourself. And thanks to that practice, I can be myself. So the practice brings us to our true selves. It’s like coming home.

The practice of breathing deeply and slowly is also a very powerful practice. It helps you to be more concentrated and to be more yourself. If not for a good practice, you may lose yourself in your daily life.

Losing Yourself

You lose yourself. You can be carried away by a feeling, by an emotion. It can be an unpleasant feeling—suffering—but it can be a pleasant feeling or happiness.

You might think that a pleasant feeling is better than an unpleasant feeling. I can tell you that’s not true. It’s not true.

You can be a victim of a pleasant feeling and you can be a victim of an unpleasant feeling. And you don’t want to be a victim. You just want to be yourself. You just want to be your true self. 

The practice of breathing in and out helps you to come back to your true self.

Sometimes we are victims of the past. We become the victim of the past and we suffer because something—some feeling, some perception, some emotion—is manifesting from the past. It can be a painful memory, a painful experience from the past. And when it’s there, you lose yourself. You suffer.

But it can happen when something very pleasant is manifesting from the past. And you also become the victim of that kind of happiness. It’s not true happiness because you’re losing yourself in that feeling, in that memory, in that perception, in that emotion. If you don’t have a good practice, you can easily become a victim of the past.

You can also become a victim of something—some emotion, some feeling, some perception—manifesting in the present moment.

Your suffering may come from the past. Your suffering may come from the present moment. Or your suffering may come from an idea about the future. The future is an idea. The past is also an idea, and our present moment is very often an idea too. You easily become a victim of ideas and feelings coming from the past, the present, and the future.

Two Kinds of Happiness

Today, I would like to share with you a practice of looking deeply into two kinds of happiness.

To make it easy, I call the first kind of happiness Happiness Number One. And the second kind of happiness is Happiness Number Two.

Happiness number one is a happiness that has a cause. A cause in my life in the past, in the present, or in the future.

When we talk about causes of happiness, the cause can be sex, money, power, good food, fame, love, expectation, and understanding.

So there are many kinds of causes, and each of us is attached to a certain kind of cause. It can be money, it can be sex, it can be power. 

Right now, what is your cause of happiness? That is Happiness Number One. And that kind of cause of happiness may come from the past, present, or the future. When it’s there, you are very happy. And when it’s not, you’re not happy. You suffer. That’s why we can see that is not a solid happiness. 

I want to introduce to you the second kind of happiness. This happiness is without cause. You don’t need a cause to get in touch with this happiness. This happiness does not manifest from the past, the present, or the future. It has no cause.

When you practice the practice of breathing in and out and you come back to yourself, you’ll see it is there. When you can come back to your true self, you see it is there. It doesn’t need any cause to be there. It’s just there. “Hey, I’m here. I’m here.”

It is a kind of energy that helps you to be stable, to be joyful, to be peaceful. To be yourself. It doesn’t come from time. It is a product of timelessness. It’s very interesting. It comes from a very special place because it is not dependent on time. And it doesn’t come to you. It’s there. It’s there for you to enjoy. It’s there in you.

If you listen to this talk and you apply the teaching to practice breathing in and out, you come back to the self, and you’ll see it is there.

When you have the time, the occasion, the need to ask your happiness a question, “Where do you come from Happiness Number Two?”

Your Happiness Number Two will reply, “I come from nowhere.”

“Where will you go? When do you go?”

“I don’t go. I go to nowhere.” Meaning, “I’m always there. I’m always there with you.”

The second aspect of Happiness Number Two is you are touching your happiness. It is the kind of happiness that you cannot say, “It is my happiness.”

When you’re happy in this way, your happiness is also the happiness of your beloved ones. When you’re happy, your beloved ones are happy too.

You have to try to practice in such a way, to be able to touch this happiness, and you’ll see that you become happier, but also your children, your husband, your wife, your friends. 

This is not a happiness you can possess. You cannot say, “It’s mine. Don’t touch this; it’s mine. It’s not yours.”

So when someone is practicing coming truly, deeply to himself, and is touching Happiness Number Two, he is nourishing you too.

I think you should do this practice every day. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in deeply. Breathing out slowly. And you will see how beautiful life is.

Two Selves

I said to you there are two kinds of happiness. There are also two selves. Do you have an idea about yourself? That is not a true self.

When you practice breathing deeply, in and out, and you come back to yourself, you see this kind of self is not an idea. This kind of self is a reality. 

Looking deeply into yourself as a reality, you see you’re connected with everyone. In your self, I see your father. In your self, I see your mother. In your self, I see your ancestors.

A true self, a self that is not met from ideas, is very wonderful. You only can touch the self with solid practice. Do you have a good practice to come back to your self? 

Today Cuong Lu would like to offer you a practice so that you can come back to your true self, to your true happiness. I want to offer to you this practice from my love that you can be your self. You can be happy, and you can be connected with all your loved ones.

Good luck.

The post The Collective Dimension of Happiness appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Times of great uncertainty and disruption call for an appropriate response. An Ecosattva is a being committed to protecting and serving all, including our precious earth. We can all walk this path, responding to the cry of the earth with clarity and dedication to the interdependent wellbeing of ourselves, our communities and our planet. In this talk, we will explore how compassion and equanimity work together to keep us balanced, grounded and resourced. Without equanimity, we can engage to an extent that we burn out or get lost in the situation. And fierce compassion gives us the courage to stand up to injustice while also grounding our equanimity in the real suffering that is ever-present so that our hearts stay open and connected to the wholesome nectar of loving kindness and deep care.

Kaira Jewel Lingo is a dharma teacher who teaches in the Plum Village Zen tradition and in the Vipassana tradition. Living as an ordained nun for 15 years, she trained closely with her teacher, Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. Her teaching focuses on activists, educators, artists, youth and families, and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), and includes the interweaving of art, play, nature, ecology, and embodied mindfulness practice.

The post Taking the Ecosattva Path: Equanimity and Fierce Compassion appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In the Maranassati Sutta (Anguttara Nikaya 6.19), the Buddha emphasizes the “great fruit and benefit” of practicing mindfulness of death and offers clear guidance on how best to practice it. In this talk, Buddhist teacher and AI scientist Nikki Mirghafori discusses mindfulness of death and leads a guided meditation inspired by the Buddha’s discourse.

Dr. Nikki Mirghafori is an Artificial Intelligence scientist and an internationally known Buddhist teacher. She is a dharma teacher at the the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA and a stewarding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, where she is also on the board of directors.

The post Practicing Mindfulness of Death appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In this Dharma Talk, Tibetan Buddhist translator and meditation instructor Michael Lobsang Tenpa discusses a practice dear to his heart—cultivation of the four immeasurables: lovingkindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. Drawing on the writings of Dzogchen lineage lamas and pith instructions from contemporary Buddhist masters, Lobsang Tenpa elaborates on the effects historically associated with these meditation methods, psychological transformation, karmic causality, and the realization of the ultimate nature of our mind.

Michael Lobsang Tenpa did his BA and MA in South Asian studies, was ordained as a monastic in the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, and spent a long time living in Nepal and translating for Buddhist lamas from all the major Tibetan lineages. In 2022, he returned to lay life as a translator, meditation instructor, and teacher, focusing on ecodharma, green mindfulness, and green Buddhism. His home practice community is the Contemplative Consciousness Network (CCN) in the UK.

The post The Four Immeasurables  appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Inspired by the great Pure Land Buddhist teacher Shinran, Satya Robyn explores how embracing our limited nature as human beings can point us toward the infinite compassion of Amitabha Buddha. She invites us to recite the nembutsu, the core Pure Land practice, for a taste of Amitabha’s consolation…with a special guest appearance by her dog, Ralph!

Satya Robyn is a writer, psychotherapist, and environmental activist who finds faith in Pure Land Buddhism.

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This Dharma Talk was filmed and edited by Duncan Bridgeman.

The post The Consolation of Amitabha Buddha appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Understanding how to be Aware of Awareness enables the mind to be as spacious as the sky and thoughts to be as free as the clouds. In this Dharma Talk, Za Choeje Rinpoche introduces a profound way to open the mind and to rest in awareness, accessing more freedom.

Za Choeje Rinpoche is a recognized reincarnated Tibetan lama in the Vajrayana tradition. He is the founder of the Emaho Foundation, in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he currently resides. Za Choeje is the co-author of The Backdoor to Enlightenment: Eight Steps to Living Your Dreams and Changing Your World.

The post Being Aware of Awareness appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Led by meditation teacher Narayan Helen Liebenson, this Dharma Talk investigates how shamatha (calming the mind) and vipassana (inquiring into the true nature of phenomena) fit together. Liebenson also covers some of the methods of practice and teachings from the Anguttara Nikaya.

Narayan Helen Liebenson is a guiding teacher at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, where she has taught since 1985, and at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS). She is the author of The Magnanimous Heart: Compassion and Love, Loss and Grief, Joy and Liberation.

The post The Principles and Practices of Shamatha Vipassana appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Understanding emptiness is crucial to study and training for any dedicated Buddhist practitioner. In this talk, Adele Tomlin gives an overview of two views of emptiness, “empty-of-other” (Tib. zhentong) and “empty of self” (rangtong), with the former considered the “higher” ultimate view of reality, or the buddhanature. Tomlin outlines the key differences between the two views, developed by Tibetan Buddhist scholars and masters, and how they connect with the definitive and provisional meaning of Buddha’s teachings. She then explains the importance of understanding these two views of emptiness for meditative practice. Tomlin explains that the method (thab) of practice without the correct view is being like a bird with only one wing. One cannot really get off the ground, let alone fly.

Adele Tomlin is an independent scholar-translator, writer, and practitioner within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. She has postgraduate degrees in Tibetan Buddhism and Western Philosophy. Since 2006, she has been studying the Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy in Europe, India, and Nepal. Her publications include a study and translation of Tāranātha’s Commentary on the Heart Sūtra and The Chariot that Transports to the Four Kāyas by Bamda Gelek Gyatso. She is also the founder and director of the first female-founded dharma research and translations website, Dakini Translations and Publications.

The post A Bird With Two Wings: Flying with the Correct View of Emptiness appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The Heart Sutra, or the Heart of Wisdom Sutra, succinctly expresses the core of the teachings called ‘Wisdom’: the fundamental emptiness of all concepts, including traditional Buddhist teachings. In this Dharma Talk, Roshi Enkyo offers a contemporary perspective on the profound insights of the Heart Sutra, and how they can liberate us from narrow views of scripture, of truth, and what we call reality itself.

Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, PhD, is the abbot of the Village Zendo in lower Manhattan. A Soto Zen Priest and certified Zen Teacher, she is a lineage holder in both the Soto and Rinzai lines of Zen Buddhism through the White Plum Lineage. She currently serves as the Guiding Spiritual Teacher for the New York Center for Contemplative Care. Enkyo Roshi’s focus is on the expression of Zen through caring, service, and creative response. Her Five Expressions of Zen form the matrix of study at the Village Zendo: Meditation, Study, Communication, Action, and Caring.

The post The Heart of Wisdom appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Led by meditation teacher Thanissaro Bhikkhu, this Dharma Talk discusses how to use the Buddha’s teaching on the three fabrications (sankhara)—bodily, verbal, and mental—to break down anger and replace it with a perspective that’s more conducive to dealing skillfully with the situation that provoked the anger to begin with.

Thanissaro Bikkhu is an American Theravada Buddhist monk trained in the Thai Forest Tradition. He currently serves as abbot of the Metta Forest Monastery in San Diego County, California and is a frequent contributor to Tricycle. His latest book is Good Heart, Good Mind: The Practice of the Ten Perfections. Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s talks, writings, and translations are all freely available at his website, dhammatalks.org.

The post Skillful Approaches to Anger appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.